Brainstorming : What are the forgotten gods ? What do they want ? What is it to worship them ?

Brainstorming : What are the forgotten gods ? What do they want ? What is it to worship them ?

Brainstorming : What are the forgotten gods ? What do they want ? What is it to worship them ?

8 thoughts on “Brainstorming : What are the forgotten gods ? What do they want ? What is it to worship them ?”

  1. We haven’t had them come up so far, but if they did I think I’d take heavy cues from Lovecraft. The leviathans sort of fill the ‘beasts in the deeps’ role, but the forgotten gods are probably largely unknowable like good ol’ Cthulhu and whatnot. You might worship a forgotten god, paying homage to its idols and whatnot… You might even get the occasional vision or boon if you’re an especially devoted follower. But the moment you open your mind fully to a forgotten god, there’s a good chance you just break.

    I’d probably make their goals be pretty far beyond mortal comprehension. They want things on the scale of centuries or more, not mere days or weeks. They’re playing a great cosmic chess game, and thinking a hundred thousand moves ahead.

    Definitely interested to see everyone else’s take on them though. My way kind of dodges your questions — I don’t have to say what they want, because your character’s feeble mortal mind wouldn’t understand anyway.

  2. I have been treating them like their own characters. I only have two involved in the game I am currently GMing and I’ve done my best to make them feel like they have their own desires, but the reasons for those desires is unknown. The Unbroken Sun, for example, I’ve made sort of like Hermaeus Mora from The Elder Scrolls videogame series. They hoard knowledge and rituals and will occasionally dole them out in exchange for bargains heavily weighted in their favor. That favor is usually obtaining a pre-cataclysm artifact or rare ritual. That kind of thing. Their acolytes do this to build up favor so that they may occasionally ask questions of The Unbroken Sun that can’t be answered by other means. They also maintain an extensive occult library with materials the the forgotten god has deemed suitable and run a network of information brokers.

    I am working on a similar kind of set up for The Guardian of the Gates, but one which is much more warlike. Their whole shtick is that The Breaching of the Gates happened under their watch (though who put them in that position is unknown) and they are determined to wreak vengeance upon all demons and ghosts. About as close to a “good god” there is in BitD, but is willing to raze entire cities to the ground if they deem the place too corrupted. Think the practice of Exterminatus from Warhammer 40,000. I haven’t fleshed out the Guardian nearly as much as The Unbroken sun because right now there hasn’t been much need to.

    I’m basically making a pantheon with a Lovecraftian vibe in that actually perceiving them will cause you to go absolutely mad and that you cannot know what their endgame is; you only know what they want right now. They communicate in ways specific to each god. The Unbroken Sun, for example, tends to control your body while you sleep to write messages. So you wake up with a message in your own hand that you don’t remember writing. That kind of thing. My players are pretty into it, but it might not work for everybody.

  3. To me the “Forgotten Gods” are not so much a group – like the Greek or Egyptian Pantheons – but are instead just individual gods that have their own interests and motives – one of my players had the Lady of Thorns, and her gig was she was all about wanting to get life to bloom again across the world BUT she also demanded literal physical sacrifice in return for nursing her followers on the literal fruits of her labors.

    When it comes to the Dimmer Sisters and their link to them, I read that is “they’re connected to A forgotten god, maybe ever more”, but NOT that the gods are a GROUP, unified in purpose and goals.

  4. I don’t have them have a unified origin. Some were gods in the mythical world that existed in the past, some are gods of said old gods, others are lovecraftian weird stuff, others still were mortals fortunate or unfortunate enought to ascend to a higher state of existence.

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