This document depends on rules and principles found in d20srd.org, Animae, and the Player’s Guide to the Wilderlands. Content in this document typically requires 10 or more ranks in Knowledge (the planes) to access.

Gods and animae all benefit from suitable acts of veneration. Each time a tale is told of their exploits (true or not), each offering left in their honor, each dedication to their name, every oath sworn to them or in their name, even traditions whose meaning has long been lost are their meat and drink, creates ripples in the dreams of the world-mind. These are the building-blocks of each spirit’s power. The more the god or spirit resonates in the thoughts of the world, the more powerful the being becomes. Unfortunately for them, this effect is local. While animae are typically tied to a specific site and rarely travel more than a few miles away from it, even gods find that their power reaches only as far as their stories. Even if their portfolio is global, they have little influence in regions where they are unknown.

While animae can only affect their immediate environment, gods’ influence extends throughout the regions they are worshiped and, to a lesser extent, wherever their portfolio manifests. A god’s effective rank varies dramatically from region to region, and even varies somewhat within a given region.

Living beings can occasionally become animae (usually deluctae). As their legend grows and they attract more attention from the living, they can become quasi-deities. In time, powerful animae attract enough attention to claim a portfolio and divine realm of their own.

A god once created is almost indestructible. Upon claiming a portfolio and establishing a divine realm, a god is anchored in the cosmos, and is incredibly difficult to permanently destroy. Kill their followers, tear down their temples, and slay their outsider agents, and still they retain far more power than most other beings. Slay them a dozen times, and still they come back to exact their vengeance. The wheel of ages ultimately breaks most gods, robbing them of worshipful populations or just the will to exist.

Divine beings may serve other gods, or they may “worship” their own portfolio. Even at divine rank 0, such a being has a deep enough connection to the cosmos to channel divine invocations, though without a portfolio, it has no access to domains unless it has feats that grant extra domain access.

See the page on Divine Rank and Privilege to learn more about how gods are made and unmade.

See the page on Divine Rank Mechanics to learn about how gods accrue power and turn that into Divine Rank.

See the page on Cosmic Keys to uncover details about the special facets of reality that gods and other powerful beings can claim.

See the Divine Extensions page to learn about divine abilities to sense and act in many places at once.

Divine Metabolism

Deities, as outsiders, are made of and sustained by essence. Their divine rank is a function of the essence they receive, invest, and donate, and fluctuates across time and geography. While their rank and total reservoir of essence may ebb and flow, their essence takes other, more tangible forms that are worth mentioning.

Divine essence is the raw energy of divinity. Unlike most outsiders, deities are charged with enough cosmic energy that substantial damage can release potent bursts of stored essence. Any attack that does 5 or more points of damage sheds essence (1d6 essence per 5 points, rounded down to the nearest die). Adjacent beings may attempt to harvest the loose essence within the same round, but it devolves into ambient mana the following round.

Divinity sparks are condensed motes of divine essence. Attacks that deal more than 100 points of damage shed a divinity spark, though many of these skitter off into the Astral Plane or are only accessible at certain times of day or by entities that meet specific criteria. By taking a full-round action and spending 30 points of essence, a deity may produce a divinity spark, typically in its hand or mouth. Divinity sparks retain a strong resonance of their creator, as visible through detect magic, detect alignment and similar effects. These sparks, once captured, can be used toward the following ends:

• Absorbed into a dead body, it acts as a true resurrection spell. If the deity voluntarily produced the spark and it could normally resurrect the individual, it temporarily loses 1 effective divine rank for 1 hour per target’s character level. If it could not normally raise that individual from the dead, it suffers a decrease in divine rank for one day per target’s character level. If the spark was not voluntarily created, this use has no draining effect on the spark-producing deity.
• Wherever XP can be spent (magic item creation, spells, etc.), a divinity spark can be consumed to supply up to 1,000 XP. While the whole spark need not be spent at once, the balance of the spark’s energy can only be spent in this way (the “change” cannot be spent for any non-XP effects).
• Outsiders (including other deities) may harvest the spark, as if it were 30 points of ambient essence, destroying the special properties of the spark in the process. They may also choose to channel the spark to bond to a site, making a new 1st-rank holy site or adding +1 to the existing rating. If a deity channels a spark into its own holy site (regardless of the spark’s origin), the channeling deity cannot voluntarily produce a spark for 1 month.
• Stored and kept on-hand, the spark can add a +2 divine bonus to one ability score for any non-divinities. Once this choice is made, the spark boosts the same ability score for that individual as long as it is on-hand. If the character loses the spark, the bonus disappears immediately, returning once the spark is again on-hand.
• Meditating on a stored (and otherwise unused) divinity spark can qualify the character for the disaffected prestige class, but that individual gains no further benefit from that spark.
• Absorbed into an object, the spark can imbue the item with up to 100,000 gp of enchantments. If this includes granting the item intelligence, the alignment and motivations of the item typically resemble those of the spark’s source. Non-divine beings have no control over the effects imbued; even deities can only nudge the spark in the desired direction.
• Absorbed into a living being (not the offspring of a deity), the spark grants a permanent +2 bonus to one ability score. A second spark has no further effect, but a third spark applies the divinely infused template to the creature.
• Absorbed into a deity’s offspring, the spark grants 1d6 points of attribute boost, applied as desired. A second spark grants a similar boost, and a third spark makes it a native outsider. If it knows its personal truename, it becomes a deity of Divine Rank 0.

Godsblood is typically shed when a deity suffers significant damage, and pools in useful quantities when a deity is damaged enough to shed divinity sparks. More often, the blood forms in pools in the area of a deity’s demise (1d6 pools, 1d12+1 ounces each). It is a capricious fluid whose appearance varies for each deity, and may only be detectable under special circumstances (angles, times of day, alignments, etc.). Just touching the stuff grants access to special godsblood feats. Consuming fresh godsblood grants non-divine users the effects of heal, bull’s strength, cat’s grace, and "bear’s endurance":http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/bearsEndurance.htm at CL 20. It can be bottled, but loses much of its potency (merely functioning as a potion of cure serious wounds at CL 15). Only the first dose has full effect; each taste imposes a cumulative -2 CL to any future sampling of godsbood. Massive doses (10 or more ounces) can produce exotic and occasionally toxic effects. For divinities, each dose of godsblood imparts 30 essence. Non-divine outsiders may choose either of these options.

Godflesh can come from a deity’s severed limbs, or its corpse. It typically resembles stone or clay. Despite appearances, it is much tougher than ordinary stone, and commensurately harder to work. It is immune to stone shape and similar effects, since it is not actual stone. Crafting items from godflesh raises the creation price by 10%, but also raises the CL of the finished item by +1. Outsiders can consume unworked godflesh for 10 essence per unit.

Extra domain access

When a god reaches divine rank 1, it has enough divine essence to claim a portfolio, an intimate relationship with an aspect of creation. In so doing, it gains three domains it can offer to its clerics. Any divine being (even rank 0) can assign a feat to purchase additional domains. If a quasi-deity does so, it must be able to cast imbue with spell ability.

Granting spells

Among animae:

• At rank 4 an emmana may use imbue with spell ability once per day as an 8th-level cleric with access to the domains pertinent to its primal aura. It can only imbue an individual with one spell at a time in such a manner; the new spell will replace the old one.
• Extremely ancient garottos (8HD or more) may also cast imbue with spell ability once per day at a cleric level equal to their HD (no domain access). As per an emmana, a garotto may only imbue a single spell per individual.
• A delucta who could cast imbue with spell ability (or a similar spell) in life may still do so, even if most of their other abilities are lost in their new form. For each new generation, the delucta’s effective caster level grows by +2.

Animae may also petition gods to act on their behalf, and grant spells accordingly (or a god may do so of its own volition), especially if the anima acts according to the god’s wishes. Such arrangements can eventually lead to the god sponsoring an anima to divinity, or encourage the god to usurp the spirit’s power base for itself. Most mortals would be unable to tell the difference.

In some cases, divine beings of rank 0 can grant spells. If they have sufficient cleric levels, they may cast imbue with spell ability. If they also take the Extra Domain feat, such beings may automatically grant spells up to 3 ^rd level from the cleric list or from the domain list. If it attains a greater divine rank, it takes on a portfolio, and claims three more domains. At that point, it functions exactly as a rank 1 god with four domains.

Psionics

Those deities that have manifester levels are godminds (per Dreamscarred Press’ The Mind Divine). Regardless of their divine rank, a deity has access to one psionic node per 10 manifester levels (minimum 2). For the deity, these nodes function just like domains (as psi-like abilities, etc.). For followers, those who take the Servant of the Mind feat gain some entree into the godmind’s presence. Those followers who subsequently take the Access Psionic Node feat may access one node, and add its powers to their list. Followers who become spirituels may choose two nodes, much as a cleric. As long as the characters adhere to the godmind’s tenets, they enjoy the benefits of Servant of the Mind. If they run out of power points, they lose access to the godmind’s nodes, including the nodes’ granted powers.

The path of a godmind is more inward-facing than the standard divine path. Those with the Servant of the Mind feat can perform acts of veneration, but do not count as worshipers, servitors, or priesthood for the calculation of divine essence. For this reason more than any other, even those gods that have psionic class levels rarely bother to cultivate godmind followers, as divine magic offers them more diverse benefits.

Returning the Dead to Life

Resurrection magics (raise dead, reincarnate, etc.) work by drawing energy (and the soul) from the heart of the cosmos, which is a very demanding process, and requires the direct attention of a god. A god’s effective rank will drop by one in the region of the resurrection, for a number of days equal to the character level/ hit dice of the subject. If a god invokes a salient divine ability to raise the dead, such effects will reduce its effective local rank for hours, not days. In either case, returning the dead to life is an onerous task, and one that could hinder a god for weeks — thus the reason that gods are so stingy with resurrection magics among their followers.

Pantheons and Syncretism

Sometimes, gods band together to form pantheons, where they intermingle their assets for greater power. Well-established gods may enter a pantheon-like relationship with lesser gods, merging the cults into a new, syncretic faith. Regardless of the basis of the covenant, the mechanics are the same. The gods typically consecrate the covenant by spending essence to create shared holy ground. The holy ground can be dedicated to specific gods of the pantheon, or to all of them collectively. Priests can be dedicated to individual gods of the pantheon, or to the pantheon as a whole, allowing them to choose domains from among all the gods of the pantheon. Worshipers typically count toward all the members of the pantheon, and veneration rites may be shared by several (or all) of the gods. While servitors belong to individual gods, they may be “lent” to other gods in the pantheon. Pantheons may even engage in extensive acts of divine compensation, temporarily boosting the rank of key gods during times of crisis or spreading out the pain from particular tragedies.

The presence of shared assets, especially priesthood and holy sites, can greatly increase a god’s scope (remote sensing, etc.). Priests expose the community to multiple gods’ stories simultaneously in a coherent narrative, engaging people in the pantheon as a whole in ways that separate gods cannot. As long as the community prospers, the gods all benefit from the arrangement, even those “niche” gods that would be unpopular or uninteresting alone can find acceptance or tolerance within a pantheon. As the pantheon creates a place for many gods, so it provides a framework for many different mortals to embrace the same paradigm.

Whether a community of equals (or rivals) or a patron and his assistants, once formed a pantheon rarely stays constant. In many ways, a pantheon functions as a business enterprise, and its incorporation is entirely dependent on the relationship among its participants. If the relationship sours to the extent that a god is ostracized from the pantheon, the outcast god retains its investment in shared holy sites, and may retain a number of pantheon priests and worshipers (those who do not renounce the outcast god are still considered priests and worshipers). The pantheon is likely to quickly change key veneration rites, demand public renunciation, and possibly raze or rebuild temples to erase the influence of the outcast — until such actions are taken, the outcast continues to reap many of the benefits of the covenant.

Because of the serious investment and entanglement involved, gods do not enter into these arrangements lightly. Often, it is the priesthoods that urge the establishment of a covenant by forming a “pantheon” of their own. As they work together within a community, it becomes more likely that gods might actively cooperate within that community. If the arrangement works, it may develop into an actual pantheon covenant.

Dwarves, goblinoids, dragons, First Men, Skandiks, and Avalonians tend to worship well-developed pantheons. The ascended masters of Tula technically form a pantheon, as do many of the gods of Karak. Thoth, Athena (and Amala), Isis, Hermes, Ceres, Demeter, Artemis, and Poseidon are all ancient gods that have syncretized at various points, and maintain close relationships with at least one member of their covenant. All of these gods were once part of the pantheons of thriving civilizations, and they retain a “strength in numbers” management philosophy.