Playing God
Minor Deities for GURPS
by Matt Riggsby
It is the beginning. The world is new and empty of mountains and seas and civilization. And you're about to change that.
This article presents guidelines for creating and playing minor gods in GURPS, or at least creatures so powerful that they may as well be deities. The focus of this article is relatively minor gods, like the gods of households, rivers, forests, or patron deities of individual cities, but it points the way to building gods with world-wide powers. The templates below require GURPS Powers.
What Does God Need With a Starship?
A perennial question about deities is why they want to have anything to do with mere mortals. In particular, why do they want to be worshiped? They're immortal, they usually live in some sort of paradise, and there's nothing a mortal can do which a god can't do better. Since humans usually create gods in their own image, the anthropological and psychological answer is that humans think of gods has having the same needs (and the same vanities) as themselves. Humans want to be loved and respected, the gods are natural and moral forces in human guise, therefore the gods must want to be loved and respected, too.
An answer with more gaming potential, though essentially no theological support in any major religion, is that gods draw power from worship. As god characters acquire worshipers, the GM may allow them to purchase worshipers as Ally Groups. And as the . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 7, 2008
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