So, this came up in another thread regarding warlock Patrons, and I was wondering how players view very powerful beings that are not technically greater gods.
Are they (or the equivalent of) lesser gods or demi gods? Is there another grouping below demigods, or in between god and lesser gods?
For example, I always thought of Asmodeus as a Satan equivalent, which would make him a greater god, but apparently, that's not the case.
How about Cthulhu?
Now obviously unicorns and djinn aren't gods even though D&D rules allow them to be Patrons.
My question is more geared to traditional Patrons.
There's a big difference in my world between what an entity actually is, and what they and others call them. For example, Tiamat and her cult might consider herself a god, but she is truly just a really powerful fiend. There's also a classification in my world that makes things Primordials. Primordials are extremely powerful entities that may or may not be immortal, and have been around for a long time, but do not command truly divine power. Therefore, they are not true gods, but primordials.
Some of the devil princes and demon lords ARE gods. Asmodeus, Lolth, and Orcus are a few I know off the top of my head.
I am not sure of the details (as none of these details have been printed in 5e), but basically to be a god you need a certain amount of power and worshippers. Worship fuels divine power, etc.
There are multiple tiers and ratings of divinity (which works a lot like levels) based on number of worshipers and doesn't necessarily equate to battle strength depending on the god's divine portfolio. A god of battle or magic might be stronger than a god of medicine even if the god of medicine had enough worshipers to be a higher tier for example. Of course, killing a god is hard even for gods, so they rarely fight directly.
Anyway, point is, just because it is a demon, devil, dragon, or elemental doesn't mean it isn't also a god.
When a powerful being somehow obtains a domain (for example, god of darkness, god of murder, god of plushies) that is when they become a "god" instead of just a "powerful entity". In other words, "god" is a job title, an indication of a level of responsibility over one of the concepts of the universe.
As an aside, becoming a god also allows you to have clerics. So we could also say "gods have clerics, powerful entities don't."
I generally consider the "major gods" of my setting to 1) have a "domain" 2) be too powerful for a statblock to represent, and 3) have divine power outside their own domain. Such major gods might have avatars with statblocks in the CR 28-30 range, but the actual god themselves are unassailable by mortals. Of the fiends, this might be limited to Tiamat and Lolth (mainly due to their inclusion in the PH pantheons), but possibly not (see minor god below).
"minor gods" don't meet one or more (or any) of the above criteria, but do have divine power inside their own domain. This can range from "killable" creatures like the CR 26 Demogorgon, to creatures too powerful for statblocks (Asmodeus, Lolth). In general the weakest of these creatures would be the CR 23 demon lords like Juiblex, etc. One note I like is that more of the demon lords are "stat-blockable" than the archdevils, mainly because I see demon lords as comprising a larger number of weaker creatures, and the archdevils being a smaller number of more powerful creatures.
"Demigods" don't have a realm to have divine power over, but are very powerful entities that often serve other minor or major gods. Examples of these would be fiends like Moloch, or more generally non-specific creatures like Empyreans and Balors/Pit Fiends.
I'd place creatures like Cthulu into the higher end of the "minor gods" territory, unassailable; able to effect planes outside the far realm (possibly, though likely lacking direct motivation to do so), but not having a "domain". They might actually rival major gods in power, but are to far removed from mortal comprehension to typically take on the role of a god in general, except for those too insane for traditional domains and worship to matter.
In my interpretation, any of the above can have worshippers, btw, and any of the above could be patrons for warlocks, but only major god's with domains would have clerics associated with them.
Lesser deity are basically adventurers who became really powerfull people and became champions of gods. Basically people so strong that people started revering them. Most demon lords and devils are in this category. Asmodeus would be on a different scale though.
Intermediate deities are sons and daughters of the greater deities. Most of these are immortals that cannot be killed by any means. But they are severely lacking when it comes to powers. Still just fighting one of these would be suicidal to even the champions of the gods.
Greater deities... Basically have no stats. They cannot be killed have all the powers and literally just decides if you should exists or not. You can fight avatars of them... But those avatars are not even 1% of their true powers. It would take other greater gods to actually be doing something to that one.
Asmodeus would be near the intermediate level. So would be cthulu. This is why people who gives stats to archfey are frowned upon by me... Because archfey are greater gods and thus should be all powerful. Not just a cr10 creature.
Just as an exemple though...tiamat is cr30. She is intermediate. Asmodeus has no stats yet... But i think thats because hes stronger then tiamat and there is no power above cr30. So that should tell you something.
Other exemple...
Timat and bahamut are intermediate deities... Their father is a greater deity and he can literally change the entirety of your world by just thinking about it.
See the difference in power ? The steps aren't just numerous between each stage... The steps themselves are pretty huge too
Also in 1e and 2e... To become a demi god you needed to reach level 50 !!! And demi gods arent even lesser deities !!!
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AFAIK, the only difference between gods and “nearly but not quite gods” is that gods draw power from worship by mortals, whereas those other “god adjacent entities are not worshiped by mortals.
A warlock is defined by a pact with an otherworldly being. Sometimes the relationship between warlock and patron is like that of a cleric and a deity, though the beings that serve as patrons for warlocks are not gods. A warlock might lead a cult dedicated to a demon prince, an archdevil, or an utterly alien entity—beings not typically served by clerics. More often, though, the arrangement is similar to that between a master and an apprentice. The warlock learns and grows in power, at the cost of occasional services performed on the patron’s behalf.
Ironically, he's a Devil now. It explains all about him in Modenkainen's Tome of Foes. "Deus" is the Latin word for "god". I'm not at all sure what "Asmo" is. I think it means "opposite" and it would make perfect sense for Asmodeus to be the opposite of a god, but he's still worshipped as one.
Cthulhu is an "Elder" god, a being half as old as time, the Great Old One himself.
Asmodeus would be near the intermediate level. So would be cthulu.
Just got my hands on the original Deities and Demigods book. Cthulhu was labeled as a greater god at the time.
Grunk... And superman was faster, more intelligent, stronger and everything godly during his silver age. yup he was the justice league all by himself able to deal with any problems by a simple flick of his fingers. truth being... old gods... c'thulu works for them. c'thulu in the original stories is the EMISSARY to the old gods above him. so if he is a greater god... then i wonder what kind of power is above him ? that's why i'm putting him into the intermediate god. the original c'thulu, not the one from TSR.
the original was never a greater deity. he was not even lesser. he was just an emissary to the more powerful entities. the goal was to show the power level. if just an emissary can render you mad, what kind of power do the higher ops have ? and this is why you never ever saw anything else then c'thulu ! but that mythos is not d&d related, its from the original author. thing is, over the years... most d&d deities got downgraded, because in the original books, they were way too overpowered and it made deities war much less appealing considering it changed nothing in the end. this is why tiamat has stats now, back then it was just avatars, she was unkillable before that. now she has stats. though CR30, but she has stats. because tiamat is not even a deity.
though they have much powers, demon lords, archdevils, archangels... they are all not deities. the only one who could be considered like that would be asmodeus but that would be because he worked his way over thousands of years to be at that state.
so yeah i do agree... if you wanna know what they are... ask your DM. their level might change from game to game, setting to setting.
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Cthulhu is an "Elder" god, a being half as old as time, the Great Old One himself.
in the official c'thulu books, yes c'thulu is a TTRPG game too. c'thulu is not the old gods... he's not even an elder god... an elder god would be the one who dreams the universe into existence, he if he would wake up, the whole universe would become extinct, including c'thulu. c'thulu is always considered... an Emissary to the elder gods. that's the point, in c'thulu mythos... if you see c'thulu something bad will happen... if you ever get reached by any other things... its assuredly you wont survive the encounter.
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Asmodeus would be near the intermediate level. So would be cthulu.
Just got my hands on the original Deities and Demigods book. Cthulhu was labeled as a greater god at the time.
Grunk... And superman was faster, more intelligent, stronger and everything godly during his silver age. yup he was the justice league all by himself able to deal with any problems by a simple flick of his fingers. truth being... old gods... c'thulu works for them. c'thulu in the original stories is the EMISSARY to the old gods above him. so if he is a greater god... then i wonder what kind of power is above him ? that's why i'm putting him into the intermediate god. the original c'thulu, not the one from TSR.
the original was never a greater deity. he was not even lesser. he was just an emissary to the more powerful entities. the goal was to show the power level. if just an emissary can render you mad, what kind of power do the higher ops have ? and this is why you never ever saw anything else then c'thulu ! but that mythos is not d&d related, its from the original author. thing is, over the years... most d&d deities got downgraded, because in the original books, they were way too overpowered and it made deities war much less appealing considering it changed nothing in the end. this is why tiamat has stats now, back then it was just avatars, she was unkillable before that. now she has stats. though CR30, but she has stats. because tiamat is not even a deity.
though they have much powers, demon lords, archdevils, archangels... they are all not deities. the only one who could be considered like that would be asmodeus but that would be because he worked his way over thousands of years to be at that state.
so yeah i do agree... if you wanna know what they are... ask your DM. their level might change from game to game, setting to setting.
Well since this whole site is about D&D, I was basing it off of the D&D version of Cthulhu. :>)
I'm pretty sure both Asmodeus and Tiamat had stats in the original Monster manual.
Don't need to ask my DM, I was just looking for opinions. But with all the versions, and all of the lore over the years, I was expecting different perspectives.
I never understood the appeal of Superman. Unless the bad guy had kryptonite, the battle was a foregone conclusion.
I once had a copy of the AD&D Deities and Demigods, one of the first printings, which had the "Cthulhu Mythos" in it. H.P. Lovecraft had a whole pantheon, and Cthulhu was listed as being one of the "Great Old Ones". Digging around on Wikipedia I find that the Elder Gods were the enemies of the Great Old Ones, so I was indeed wrong in that respect.
As far as Patrons of the Great Old One, Cthulhu is right there on the list as "Great Cthulhu".
I'd say that the ones who rule the Fiends would be Greater Gods as well, so Asmodeus would make a great Patron of The Fiend, and sure enough, he's right there on the list.
As I recall, originally the difference between different ranks of gods had to do with the maximum level of cleric spell they could grant (greater up to 7, intermediate up to 6, lesser up to 5, demi up to 4), and things that didn't grant cleric spells, regardless of actual power, just weren't in the same category. This was largely done away with in 3e as cleric spells are no longer directly granted by gods, so the classification of a creature as a god, or particular rank of god, isn't super meaningful.
So, this came up in another thread regarding warlock Patrons, and I was wondering how players view very powerful beings that are not technically greater gods.
Are they (or the equivalent of) lesser gods or demi gods? Is there another grouping below demigods, or in between god and lesser gods?
For example, I always thought of Asmodeus as a Satan equivalent, which would make him a greater god, but apparently, that's not the case.
How about Cthulhu?
Now obviously unicorns and djinn aren't gods even though D&D rules allow them to be Patrons.
My question is more geared to traditional Patrons.
There's a big difference in my world between what an entity actually is, and what they and others call them. For example, Tiamat and her cult might consider herself a god, but she is truly just a really powerful fiend. There's also a classification in my world that makes things Primordials. Primordials are extremely powerful entities that may or may not be immortal, and have been around for a long time, but do not command truly divine power. Therefore, they are not true gods, but primordials.
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Some of the devil princes and demon lords ARE gods. Asmodeus, Lolth, and Orcus are a few I know off the top of my head.
I am not sure of the details (as none of these details have been printed in 5e), but basically to be a god you need a certain amount of power and worshippers. Worship fuels divine power, etc.
There are multiple tiers and ratings of divinity (which works a lot like levels) based on number of worshipers and doesn't necessarily equate to battle strength depending on the god's divine portfolio. A god of battle or magic might be stronger than a god of medicine even if the god of medicine had enough worshipers to be a higher tier for example. Of course, killing a god is hard even for gods, so they rarely fight directly.
Anyway, point is, just because it is a demon, devil, dragon, or elemental doesn't mean it isn't also a god.
I owned that book back in the day. I used it so much that pages fell out and the binding tore.
I wish I had been more careful, because now you can sell them on eBay for hundreds of dollars.
I think of it this way: Gods have domains.
When a powerful being somehow obtains a domain (for example, god of darkness, god of murder, god of plushies) that is when they become a "god" instead of just a "powerful entity". In other words, "god" is a job title, an indication of a level of responsibility over one of the concepts of the universe.
As an aside, becoming a god also allows you to have clerics. So we could also say "gods have clerics, powerful entities don't."
I generally consider the "major gods" of my setting to 1) have a "domain" 2) be too powerful for a statblock to represent, and 3) have divine power outside their own domain. Such major gods might have avatars with statblocks in the CR 28-30 range, but the actual god themselves are unassailable by mortals. Of the fiends, this might be limited to Tiamat and Lolth (mainly due to their inclusion in the PH pantheons), but possibly not (see minor god below).
"minor gods" don't meet one or more (or any) of the above criteria, but do have divine power inside their own domain. This can range from "killable" creatures like the CR 26 Demogorgon, to creatures too powerful for statblocks (Asmodeus, Lolth). In general the weakest of these creatures would be the CR 23 demon lords like Juiblex, etc. One note I like is that more of the demon lords are "stat-blockable" than the archdevils, mainly because I see demon lords as comprising a larger number of weaker creatures, and the archdevils being a smaller number of more powerful creatures.
"Demigods" don't have a realm to have divine power over, but are very powerful entities that often serve other minor or major gods. Examples of these would be fiends like Moloch, or more generally non-specific creatures like Empyreans and Balors/Pit Fiends.
I'd place creatures like Cthulu into the higher end of the "minor gods" territory, unassailable; able to effect planes outside the far realm (possibly, though likely lacking direct motivation to do so), but not having a "domain". They might actually rival major gods in power, but are to far removed from mortal comprehension to typically take on the role of a god in general, except for those too insane for traditional domains and worship to matter.
In my interpretation, any of the above can have worshippers, btw, and any of the above could be patrons for warlocks, but only major god's with domains would have clerics associated with them.
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Heres how it always worked from the get go...
Lesser deity are basically adventurers who became really powerfull people and became champions of gods. Basically people so strong that people started revering them. Most demon lords and devils are in this category. Asmodeus would be on a different scale though.
Intermediate deities are sons and daughters of the greater deities. Most of these are immortals that cannot be killed by any means. But they are severely lacking when it comes to powers. Still just fighting one of these would be suicidal to even the champions of the gods.
Greater deities... Basically have no stats. They cannot be killed have all the powers and literally just decides if you should exists or not. You can fight avatars of them... But those avatars are not even 1% of their true powers. It would take other greater gods to actually be doing something to that one.
Asmodeus would be near the intermediate level. So would be cthulu. This is why people who gives stats to archfey are frowned upon by me... Because archfey are greater gods and thus should be all powerful. Not just a cr10 creature.
Just as an exemple though...tiamat is cr30. She is intermediate. Asmodeus has no stats yet... But i think thats because hes stronger then tiamat and there is no power above cr30. So that should tell you something.
Other exemple...
Timat and bahamut are intermediate deities... Their father is a greater deity and he can literally change the entirety of your world by just thinking about it.
See the difference in power ? The steps aren't just numerous between each stage... The steps themselves are pretty huge too
Also in 1e and 2e... To become a demi god you needed to reach level 50 !!! And demi gods arent even lesser deities !!!
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Just got my hands on the original Deities and Demigods book. Cthulhu was labeled as a greater god at the time.
AFAIK, the only difference between gods and “nearly but not quite gods” is that gods draw power from worship by mortals, whereas those other “god adjacent entities are not worshiped by mortals.
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The bolded statement in there just confuses things so very much. Asmodeus (/ˌæzməˈdiːəs/; Ancient Greek: Ἀσμοδαῖος, Asmodaios) or Ashmedai (/ˈæʃmɪˌdaɪ/; Hebrew: אַשְמְדּאָי, ʾAšmədʾāy), also Asmodevs, Ashema Deva or Amias , is a prince of demons, or in Judeo-Islamic lore the king of the earthly spirits (shedim/jinn), mostly known from the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, in which he is the primary antagonist. In Peter Binsfeld's classification of demons, Asmodeus represents lust. The demon is also mentioned in some Talmudic legends; for instance, in the story of the construction of the Temple of Solomon.
Ironically, he's a Devil now. It explains all about him in Modenkainen's Tome of Foes. "Deus" is the Latin word for "god". I'm not at all sure what "Asmo" is. I think it means "opposite" and it would make perfect sense for Asmodeus to be the opposite of a god, but he's still worshipped as one.
Cthulhu is an "Elder" god, a being half as old as time, the Great Old One himself.
<Insert clever signature here>
Grunk...
And superman was faster, more intelligent, stronger and everything godly during his silver age. yup he was the justice league all by himself able to deal with any problems by a simple flick of his fingers. truth being... old gods... c'thulu works for them. c'thulu in the original stories is the EMISSARY to the old gods above him. so if he is a greater god... then i wonder what kind of power is above him ? that's why i'm putting him into the intermediate god. the original c'thulu, not the one from TSR.
the original was never a greater deity. he was not even lesser. he was just an emissary to the more powerful entities. the goal was to show the power level.
if just an emissary can render you mad, what kind of power do the higher ops have ? and this is why you never ever saw anything else then c'thulu ! but that mythos is not d&d related, its from the original author. thing is, over the years... most d&d deities got downgraded, because in the original books, they were way too overpowered and it made deities war much less appealing considering it changed nothing in the end. this is why tiamat has stats now, back then it was just avatars, she was unkillable before that. now she has stats. though CR30, but she has stats. because tiamat is not even a deity.
though they have much powers, demon lords, archdevils, archangels... they are all not deities. the only one who could be considered like that would be asmodeus but that would be because he worked his way over thousands of years to be at that state.
so yeah i do agree... if you wanna know what they are... ask your DM. their level might change from game to game, setting to setting.
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in the official c'thulu books, yes c'thulu is a TTRPG game too.
c'thulu is not the old gods... he's not even an elder god...
an elder god would be the one who dreams the universe into existence, he if he would wake up, the whole universe would become extinct, including c'thulu.
c'thulu is always considered... an Emissary to the elder gods.
that's the point, in c'thulu mythos... if you see c'thulu something bad will happen... if you ever get reached by any other things... its assuredly you wont survive the encounter.
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Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
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Well since this whole site is about D&D, I was basing it off of the D&D version of Cthulhu. :>)
I'm pretty sure both Asmodeus and Tiamat had stats in the original Monster manual.
Don't need to ask my DM, I was just looking for opinions. But with all the versions, and all of the lore over the years, I was expecting different perspectives.
I never understood the appeal of Superman. Unless the bad guy had kryptonite, the battle was a foregone conclusion.
I once had a copy of the AD&D Deities and Demigods, one of the first printings, which had the "Cthulhu Mythos" in it. H.P. Lovecraft had a whole pantheon, and Cthulhu was listed as being one of the "Great Old Ones". Digging around on Wikipedia I find that the Elder Gods were the enemies of the Great Old Ones, so I was indeed wrong in that respect.
As far as Patrons of the Great Old One, Cthulhu is right there on the list as "Great Cthulhu".
I'd say that the ones who rule the Fiends would be Greater Gods as well, so Asmodeus would make a great Patron of The Fiend, and sure enough, he's right there on the list.
<Insert clever signature here>
As I recall, originally the difference between different ranks of gods had to do with the maximum level of cleric spell they could grant (greater up to 7, intermediate up to 6, lesser up to 5, demi up to 4), and things that didn't grant cleric spells, regardless of actual power, just weren't in the same category. This was largely done away with in 3e as cleric spells are no longer directly granted by gods, so the classification of a creature as a god, or particular rank of god, isn't super meaningful.