I would drop the "memories being altered bit" just have time move on and leave people to forget about what was before and it becomes myth and story passed down. Have a greater period of time between your cataclysm event and now. a post post apocalypse. I dunno maybe its fine but it feels like you needed an out to why players couldn't do x and went "uhh mind wiped" it makes the gods feel a very active, intrusive force, i would try and make them more passive. Unless your goal is to tell a story about (and it might be) free themselves of this mind control, matrix style because tbh, your gods sounds like the bad guys. Maybe think more about direct creation myth, not just it happened and bingo bango bongo world, but like what are oceans, mountains, continents. was there once constant dawn until some ubergod ripped open the sky with their bare hands and split it into day or night.
honestly the format opens up alot of questions why if military and war is forbidden do 90% of D&D skills exist? why did the gods forbid war but not the entireity of the monster manual? okay god you let monsters in fine, but could you just mind wipe them to not want to attack us?
"The gods guilt over what the war had cost those they created so in order to protect their corners of the world from chaos the gods had to sacrifice much of there previous existence, gone are the days they could walk among the people, they are sentinels now ethereal beings whose presence is a constant but whose actions are few. The first refugees followed the tenants as a respect of that sacrifice but as time marched on as it so often does those that knew of this sacrifice moved on to the next plane, those that spoke the words embelished and soon the struggles of the day to day broke through and the stories became just another bed time tale for children.
The cities grew strong, the fields plentiful, each area watched over by a god. at first they lived in peace and communed with eachother a land locked together by the will of the great ones, but chaos never tires. while the continents themselves were impenetrable it worked its way into the cracks between, expanding and forcing itself until it broke the bonds that held the gods together it split the world a new and that is how the continents formed. Broken was the pact of strength the gods held while in commune, now they stood alone and while most were strong enough to hold back the tides of chaos, one would fall, the youngest of the gods, the child of the (insert name for king god) and prince of the Echalon, his land was swallowed by the sea and his essence ravaged and tortured by chaos, his blood drained into the waters that surround the world and life began to grow, twisted by the darkness, scarred by the deep. The prince baptized anew in a maelstrom of hate and despair, the hollow prince of the trench, the people he watched over mutated with their protector and fell as he did to the grasp of pandemonium and madness"
So yeah different to your format above but keeps a lot of its themes and questions. i.e. why don't people travel from god city to god city - because the world was ripped apart and people are afraid of the water as they believe it to be chaos
it also sets up a potential bbeg
also you mentioned you were a new DM bare in mind starting at level one it takes like 50hrs to get to level 5 which is the “local hero” level. The whole fighting the elemental plane thing is about 6 months of weekly games away. Think less about how they kill god and more about how they get paid to eat next week
I would drop the "memories being altered bit" just have time move on and leave people to forget about what was before and it becomes myth and story passed down. Have a greater period of time between your cataclysm event and now. a post post apocalypse. I dunno maybe its fine but it feels like you needed an out to why players couldn't do x and went "uhh mind wiped" it makes the gods feel a very active, intrusive force, i would try and make them more passive. Unless your goal is to tell a story about (and it might be) free themselves of this mind control, matrix style because tbh, your gods sounds like the bad guys. Maybe think more about direct creation myth, not just it happened and bingo bango bongo world, but like what are oceans, mountains, continents. was there once constant dawn until some ubergod ripped open the sky with their bare hands and split it into day or night.
honestly the format opens up alot of questions
why if military and war is forbidden do 90% of D&D skills exist?
why did the gods forbid war but not the entireity of the monster manual?
okay god you let monsters in fine, but could you just mind wipe them to not want to attack us?
"The gods guilt over what the war had cost those they created so in order to protect their corners of the world from chaos the gods had to sacrifice much of there previous existence, gone are the days they could walk among the people, they are sentinels now ethereal beings whose presence is a constant but whose actions are few. The first refugees followed the tenants as a respect of that sacrifice but as time marched on as it so often does those that knew of this sacrifice moved on to the next plane, those that spoke the words embelished and soon the struggles of the day to day broke through and the stories became just another bed time tale for children.
The cities grew strong, the fields plentiful, each area watched over by a god. at first they lived in peace and communed with eachother a land locked together by the will of the great ones, but chaos never tires. while the continents themselves were impenetrable it worked its way into the cracks between, expanding and forcing itself until it broke the bonds that held the gods together it split the world a new and that is how the continents formed. Broken was the pact of strength the gods held while in commune, now they stood alone and while most were strong enough to hold back the tides of chaos, one would fall, the youngest of the gods, the child of the (insert name for king god) and prince of the Echalon, his land was swallowed by the sea and his essence ravaged and tortured by chaos, his blood drained into the waters that surround the world and life began to grow, twisted by the darkness, scarred by the deep. The prince baptized anew in a maelstrom of hate and despair, the hollow prince of the trench, the people he watched over mutated with their protector and fell as he did to the grasp of pandemonium and madness"
So yeah different to your format above but keeps a lot of its themes and questions.
i.e. why don't people travel from god city to god city - because the world was ripped apart and people are afraid of the water as they believe it to be chaos
it also sets up a potential bbeg
also you mentioned you were a new DM bare in mind starting at level one it takes like 50hrs to get to level 5 which is the “local hero” level. The whole fighting the elemental plane thing is about 6 months of weekly games away. Think less about how they kill god and more about how they get paid to eat next week