THE SYSTEM OF RELIGION IN ELSTREN

Elstren notably contains Gods, beings that live and die through faith and worship. Gods can be anatomized into several components, and into several life-cycle stages. First, we will discuss a God's core components:

1. BASIC OVERVIEW
2. CORE FAITH
3. SEMANTIC SOUL
4. DOMINION AND SPHERE
5. PRACTICES AND FAVOR
6. MANIFESTATION
7. AFTERLIFE

In a basic overview, Gods are entities made of faith, created by mortalkind for any number of purposes. Gods are capable of things that are impossible for even the most powerful mortals, such as viewing and understanding the Cosmic Clockwork. They provide a supernal lens through which mortalkind can further explore the universe and their own belief systems. Gods can exist in any number of forms—personifications of natural forces or concepts, heroes that lead their people toward greater good, arbiters that oversee systems of justice and cosmic judgment, or mere divine dealmakers exchanging faith for boons.

A God's "Core Faith" is the energy that it draws upon to exist. A God is afforded this faith through any number of means—all of which are covered under the blanket term of 'observance', and may be split into either Worship or Sacrifice. Observance is the practice of expending something, be it your time, spiritual or physical energy, or minor tangible goods, in the name of a chosen God. In observing a God, you empower it. Worship is technically a form of sacrifice in itself, but is distinguished in that it typically involves giving up far less than Sacrifice. Worship involves things such as prayer, rituals, ceremonies, and celebrations in the name of the chosen God. These actions may individually be small in terms of the power they contribute, but constant observance throughout a lifetime adds up quite a bit. Extreme acts of faith can provoke extreme responses; for instance, giving one's life in the name of the God's cause, or taking a severe risk with full belief that the God will help you. Some Gods may actually discourage such behavior, but others, empowered heavily by it, may reward it quite highly.

Sacrifice involves giving up something greater, and is usually done in the name of more significant and/or short-term gain. Things such as valuable items (sentimental or otherwise), large stretches of one's life, animals and even things such as the ability to cast magic may be traded away to a God. Sometimes, this is merely in the name of expressing gratitude or love for the God, but most of the time it is done in search of a greater boon or even a Miracle. What form of observance is most rewarding and most encouraged, and what forms of sacrifice may be accepted, depends on the chosen God. For instance, Gods that are primarily transactional will almost never recognize worship, and may only respond to sacrifice.

A God that does not receive sufficient faith to maintain itself steadily falls down the power scale until it 'dies', falling to Elstren and becoming an immortal being called a Fallen. A God can be killed deliberately by killing most of its followers, or can simply die naturally as it loses popularity and its followers dwindle. The number of followers that are required to begin creating a God varies wildly; sometimes as few as a hundred people can begin the process of empowering someone through faith, and sometimes it takes thousands. A lot of inscrutable Celestial rules are at play, but the most common factor is the vigor and purity of the faith used to create a God—those who seek to create a God for personal gain or for power will find it vastly more difficult than those who want an avatar of their values to guide them. The easiest and most natural way for a God to come about is through Hero Gods, who are mortals that ascend into Godhood willingly through veneration by their followers as being exemplars of their values, or through legends or personifications of forces such as personifications of nature or luck.

Core Faith does not need to be motivated by love or belief; it can be motivated by fear, desire for gain, or hatred. A God that exists because its followers love it and what it represents can be just as powerful as a God that exists to empower its followers against a hated enemy, or a God that rules its followers through fear, or a God that merely bribes its followers with boons in exchange for their faith. Ultimately, though, a God is controlled by its followers, and so more healthy connections tend to lead to more stable Gods.

A God's "Semantic Soul" is its raison d'être—the very purpose with which it was conceived and for which it continues to exist. Typically, a God must abide by its Semantic Soul, and cannot stray from this. The Semantic Soul is defined by the observers that allow the God to exist, and may be shifted by changes in beliefs or motives among that group. For instance, a God who was conceived to embody the traits of mercy and justice must always operate within the limitations of those labels, however it may change if its followers fundamental concept of justice changes. This is not frequently a problem, but certain edge cases can result in a God that wishes to but cannot defy its own Soul.

For instance, a God that has a strong will to live and who believes that its core values are causing it to lose popularity may desperately wish to stray from these values, but may find this impossible. More cunning Gods may be able to subtly work their way out of these boundaries by manipulating the beliefs of their followers in hopes of achieving a new direction. To continue the example, the aforementioned God of Justice may subtly reshape their follower's ideas of what Justice is, allowing it to self-define to some extent. This process must always be slow however, and may lead to schisms that can even further fracture and decimate religions, as followers rebel against the new definitions. In the end, a God is defined by and restrained by the majority of its faithful and what they believe it represents, and although a God can become human enough to have other desires, it is physically impossible for a God to stray significantly outside of its sphere; if it seeks to redefine itself, then it must do so through the help of its followers.

A God's "Dominion and Sphere" are two heavily interrelated concepts that define the God's influence. Dominion refers to the capacity for Gods to interfere in the lives of individuals, whereas Sphere refers to the capacity for Gods to interfere with the world at large. A God's Dominion is limited only to those who have observed them, and only in direct proportion to the amount of observance given. For instance, a God is heavily restricted from interfering with the life of a person who has no interaction with and is completely unrelated to their religion, but can go as far as killing devout followers who earn their ire. Exactly what a God can and cannot do with those that fall under its dominion is defined by the God's Semantic Soul.

Dominion is established when a mortal deliberately chooses to observe that God. If you were to say a prayer to a God once, that God may earn some degree of very limited dominion over you, both permitting it to answer your prayer or even punish you if the prayer was made in bad faith. This dominion typically wears off quickly. On the other hand, worshipping a God for a noteworthy amount of time, or engaging in certain kinds of worship that can bind you to the God, can establish lasting dominion that can be signaled by a vivid dream involving the God or its sphere. This dominion, too, can wear off, but only if you or the God deliberately break the connection. This allows them to intervene more directly in your life, although they are unlikely to do so without being asked—and even this connection does not guarantee that your prayers will always be answered. No God is powerful enough to answer every prayer. Dominion allows a God to do its work; it can provide magic, boons, support and passage into its afterlife, but also can punish you for straying from its rules. Dominion has complicated cosmic rules in play; for instance, a God who enacts a Miracle that saves an entire town from a disaster may technically be intervening on the lives of many people who do not observe it, but because most of these people would probably desire the Miracle as well, it can go through unimpeded. Technically, Dominion only protects you from an unwanted intrusion, not from desired intervention.

Sphere is what defines what a God can do when it intervenes, and what the God is supposed to represent. Some simple examples include Life or Death, Justice, War, the Harvest, any number of broad concepts. The more things that a God is supposed to be able to intervene in, the less it can do in each Sphere. A good example of how a sphere defines a God is that a God of Winter could, for instance, enact a Miracle that spares a town from a particularly harsh winter, or bless someone with a cool breeze on a hot summer day. It could not, however, choose to heal someone, or stop an Earthquake, as these things are not within its sphere. So, Dominion is who the God can affect, and Sphere is what the god can affect.

A God's "Practices and Favor" define two separate components of the religious organization that allows it to exist: What is given, and what is taken. Practices are the common methods of observance for a God; one God may prefer festivals and big celebrations, whereas others value quiet prayer in the home. Each God has a different set of practices that make up the majority of the way that a given God can exchange power with its followers. While any gesture made in the name of a God might theoretically invite its dominion, its defined practices are more likely to receive a response, and are considered more respectful and impactful.

Favor defines the ways in which a God may give its power to its people. The format a God's favor takes varies heavily between Gods. Some Gods are very active, and provide small boons to their followers in their day-to-day lives, while others may only answer more urgent prayers or may only respond to significant sacrifices. The way in which a God can dispense their favor heavily depends on their Sphere. Gods can grant visions and divine guidance, give magical powers to their devout, intervene directly on behalf of followers, or change the world around their followers so long as it does not heavily impinge on others. Favor can be divided into four categories from least to most powerful: Blessings, Boons, Wishes and Miracles.

A Blessing is a minor benefit, such as a sign or vision given to a follower, or a small shift in fate. A Boon is more noticeable, with the most common kind of Boon being magical empowerment through the God's chosen type of Divine Magic, or passage into the God's afterlife. Wishes are effectively personal Miracles; they are life-changing or life-saving events for individual people. Miracles are the most extreme and powerful displays of force by a God, often aimed at saving hundreds or even thousands of people, or things of similar scale.

A God can only provide so much Favor. They have limited power, proportional to the amount that they receive through their religion's practices. Miracles are a once-in-a-century display of power, Wishes are very rare, and Boons and Blessings tend to be rather common. The likelihood of receiving Favor usually, but not necessarily, depends on the amount of faith that has been given by those to benefit from it. Favor must follow certain rules; Gods cannot provide Favor in a way that doesn't align with their Semantic Soul, nor can they give Favor in a way that oversteps their Spheres or Dominion. Gods can be divided into two subcategories by the way in which they distribute Favor: Traditional Gods, and Transactional Gods. Traditional Gods pool the power afforded to them through faith and then use it at their discretion to provide support wherever it is needed among their followers, while Transactional Gods directly exchange Favor for faith.

A God's "Manifestation" is its consistent physical form. Not all Gods possess a distinct Manifestation; some may take different forms each time, while others have a defined form that they take on every time they descend to the mortal plane. Some Gods never manifest at all. Gods, when they manifest, are limited to a far stricter set of powers than is their usual "Cosmic" Form, referred to as their Supernality. Their strength in this form depends upon their overall power, ranging from simply dangerous mortals to mages and warriors far beyond mortal capacity. Manifested Gods are less limited by the rules of Dominion, but are also vulnerable to physical damage; even the most powerful God can be destroyed when Manifested, and there are various ways to do this.

A God who is destroyed while Manifested is banished for up to 50 years, and cannot return to the Mortal Plane within that time unless its Manifested form can be reconstructed through exhaustive and difficult rituals. Gods who are Manifested are still bound to some degree by the rules of Dominion; for instance, a God who touches down to win a battle on behalf of its followers will find that it cannot return to the mortal plane in this capacity for years afterward. In effect, the more a God interacts with non-followers in its Manifested form, the longer it must spend recuperating in Supernality. Gods are much more likely to Manifest only to interact with their faithful, in which case they are not limited in the number of times they may return to the mortal plane.

Gods may appear only to their followers; these Manifestations bypass the 'cooldown' and are called Graces.

A God's "Afterlife" is their own personal demiplane. Gods may choose between one of three options for the souls that they have Dominion over at the time of those souls' deaths: their own Afterlife, reincarnation, or oblivion. The first two are almost mutually exclusive; very few Gods can choose to do either one, most can only do one or the other. Gods that do not do either for whatever reason usually commit the souls to simple nonexistence instead, as if they'd died with no religious assignment at all. Some Gods will reincarnate all of their followers, others may choose to perpetuate a cycle in which souls can 'mature' and then be deposited into an Afterlife once they have pleased the God sufficiently, and others may simply select worthy followers to be reincarnated and cast the rest into oblivion. Distinctly, no God can ever provide immortality or second chances to their followers deliberately, except in the form of Wishes or Miracles.

Afterlives are a resting place for passed-on souls. Afterlives are infinite, designed spaces which the God's followers are usually meant to consider a paradise. However, Gods can also have punishment Afterlives, called Hells, where they may torment or simply isolate souls that they deem unworthy. Afterlives are physical spaces that can be breached into using extremely powerful Planar magic, and are always attended by some form of Afterlife Guardian, the design of which is unique to each God. Each Afterlife is personalized to the God who created it, and in these spaces, Gods are more akin to truly omnipotent Celestials than simple Gods.

While Afterlives are usually seen as paradises, they are also thought of as lacking imitations of mortal life; it is said that the dead spend much of their time in the Afterlife telling and re-telling stories of their mortal lives. This is by design—an Afterlife, however nice, is a thoroughly controlled space, as compared to the freedom and agency that all mortals are afforded in the mortal plane. Souls can be recovered from Afterlives, though this process is usually very difficult and dangerous, and cannot be aided intentionally by the God that oversees the given Afterlife.

Afterlives die when their Gods die, and so not even these spaces are eternal. Gods that die suddenly and violently will have their Afterlife 'shatter', becoming a broken, twisted visage of itself and remaining in the planar system, with most of the souls that once inhabited it winking into oblivion. Others simply decay, the souls that inhabit them steadily decaying with them.

Now, we can discuss a God's life cycle:

1. NASCENCE
2. DEMIGOD
3. ASCENSION & GODHOOD
4. ANCIENCY (if applicable)
5. DEATH/FALL
6. FALLEN

NASCENCE is the beginning stage of a God's lifecycle, although most Gods do not progress past this. Nascence is the limit after which a certain aggregation of faith begins to materially affect the world. In this stage, the effect is small, sometimes almost imperceptible, but it exists. Some Gods that are intended to form completely from nothing skip past this stage, but hero gods and other existing objects empowered through faith must first pass Nascence.

DEMIGODHOOD is the true first stage of Godhood. These beings possess power far in excess of mortal limitations, empowered very noticeably through the faith of the many who now observe them. Demigods do not yet have a Cosmic form, and have not even partially developed the powers most frequently associated with Gods, namely the ability to provide Favor or any form of Afterlife. These beings do not yet have a Semantic Soul. Some may prefer to stay in this stage.

ASCENSION & GODHOOD is the 'adulthood' of a God. A God ascends all at once, at their choice and typically during a major event, and attains Supernality as well as a Semantic Soul. While new Gods attain vast power, they also may find that they are now more faith than person—their previous human form will be sublimated however much it must to conform this new God to its Semantic Soul, and so this change is not always seamless.

ANCIENCY is a less common stage that occurs for Gods that are older than 2,000 years or so. These Gods are remarkably seasoned and well-accustomed to the puppet strings that bind them. Gods of this age will have usually completely learned how to manipulate the forces to which they are beholden to achieve maximum effect in their pursuits. No specific event transitions a God into Anciency, but rather this label exists to distinguish Gods who are likely to have reached their maximum potential; older Gods that are dying out or unpopular may not be referred to as Ancients in the same way that a very influential and old God may be. Really, this label is merely aesthetic; there is no functional difference between an Ancient and a God.

DEATH/THE FALL is the end-stage of a God's lifecycle. These two terms refer to vastly different circumstances that lead to the same thing—the end of a God's existence. 'Death' is used to refer to a God whose end came very suddenly, as may be appropriate when describing religions decimated by genocide or war, or when religions collapse suddenly for any number of other reasons. The Fall is a longer period of time in which a God precipitously loses power, merely declining in popularity as is natural for some religions. A God can recover from this state, but once a God is dead, it is extremely hard to ascend again—they will have to start the life-cycle of a God all over again.

THE FALLEN are what remains after a God's lifecycle ends; the God falls to earth as a shooting star, awakening in mortal form inside of a crater, usually in deep wilderness. The Fallen are effectively permanently-manifested versions of their previous selves, with somewhat diminished power; these beings are immortal, unique, and may last decades or centuries after the God itself burned out, living among the mortals. Gods which do not want to remain after their Fall will simply have their Souls break apart in the atmosphere, into a shimmering shower of light. Gods that die instead of simply fall tend to have very bright and dramatic meteors, usually causing loud airbursts that can shake towns and shatter windows.