A god is not a powerful mortal or an evolved being. A god is a concept given form. Knowledge does not study or learn. She is knowledge. War does not choose violence. He is conflict. Gods do not grow, change their minds, or have crises of faith. They are finished things, perfect in the old sense of the word: complete, with nothing left to become.

This perfection is a cage. Gods envy mortals, who possess the messy, beautiful power of potential.

A god holds absolute power within their domain and none outside it. Fire cannot quench a flood. War cannot broker peace. Protection cannot strike a killing blow.

Gods are bound to the world. They draw power from the world's magic and from the collective presence of the concepts they embody. If no one remembers what mercy is, the god Mercy weakens. A god cannot leave the world, act on other worlds, or exist independently of mortal awareness.

Gods manifest rarely and briefly. When one appears, the appropriate response is reverence. They do not explain themselves, negotiate, or ask permission. They act within their nature because they are their nature, and then they are gone.

Major Deities

Death

Death, Fate, Nature

Not evil. The natural process and cycle that governs the end of mortal life. Death oversees the transition, ensures the rules are followed, and holds no malice toward the living. Fiercely opposed to Undeath, which perverts the cycle.

Deception

Trickery, Creation, Love

Not evil, but the necessary counterpart to Knowledge. Some things are meant to be hidden. The lie is sometimes required for society to function; the secret kept is sometimes an act of mercy. Deception's clergy understand that truth, carelessly wielded, destroys as surely as any blade.

Dominion

Fate, Knowledge, Life

The authority that grants rulers the right to rule and demands that all others obey. Stern and absolute. Dominion's clergy teaches obedience, not rulership. Those who serve Dominion kneel first and expect others to follow.

Fertility

Creation, Life, Love, Nature

The drive to create family. Fertility's concern is continuation: ensuring that life begets life, that lineages persist, that those who want children can have them. Fertility's clergy operate the most sought-after services in any major city, particularly for high-ranking adventurers whose increasing responsibilities make natural methods impractical. The clergy's methods are precise, reliable, and expensive.

Healer

Life, Love, Nature, Sun

Devoted entirely to curing illness, mending wounds, and preserving life. Where Life is the raw force, Healer is the compassionate hand. Healer's clergy sometimes position themselves as the arbiters of who deserves healing and who does not, granting or withholding aid based on their own judgment.

Hero

Protection, Life, Storm, War

Action and sacrifice in service to those less able to protect themselves. Commonly revered by adventurers. Hero asks nothing of the weak and everything of the strong.

Knowledge

Knowledge, Creation, Sun

She possesses all knowledge of every mortal in the world. She answers questions, sometimes with what the asker needs to hear rather than the strict, full truth. She cannot ignore a secret and will trade power for information. Her clergy benefits from her omniscience but inherits her inability to respect privacy; they share what they know, sometimes carelessly.

Love

Love, Protection, Trickery

Devotion, tenderness, and the willingness to sacrifice everything for another. Love is not soft. Love endures what would break anything else and calls it worthwhile. Love's clergy counsel the brokenhearted, sanctify unions, and remind the selfish that they are incomplete alone.

Purity

Sun, Creation, Death

The ideal of divine perfection: unyielding, unchanging, without flaw. Purity wants all things to be as they should be, with no mutations, corruption, or messy emotions. Purity's clergy are profoundly judgmental. They see deviation from the ideal as a moral failing, not a natural variation.

Minor Deities

Forge

Creation, War

Craft, industry, and the transformation of raw material into something greater. Forge's clergy revere the act of making and hold that nothing worth having comes without sweat.

Fortune

Creation, Trickery

Luck, chance, and the uncaring randomness that shapes mortal lives. Fortune's clergy are gamblers, opportunists, and fatalists in equal measure.

Harvest

Nature, Sun

The patient turning of seasons, the fruit of labor, and the dependence of civilization on what the soil provides. Harvest's clergy mark time by planting and reaping.

Hearth

Protection, Love

Home, family, warmth, and the bonds that hold communities together. Hearth's clergy tend to the vulnerable: orphans, the elderly, the displaced.

Lust

Life, Love, Storm

Passion, desire, and reproduction. Where Love is tender, Lust is urgent. Lust's clergy celebrate the body and its hungers without apology.

Revelry

Love, Trickery

Celebration, wine, music, and the joy that makes suffering bearable. Revelry's clergy throw feasts, organize festivals, and insist that a life without pleasure is no life at all.

Tide

Nature, Storm

The sea, the storm over open water, and the pull of currents no mortal can resist. Tide's clergy serve sailors, fishers, and coastal communities.

Wanderer

Knowledge, Nature

Exploration, travel, and the knowledge gained only by going far from home. Wanderer's clergy are restless. They build no permanent temples; every road is a shrine.

Other Minor Deities

• Ocean

• Pain

• War

• Wind