Deities

Deities or gods are higher beings that exist in the world of Pact. They gain power from worship<ref name=":0">Some think dragons are what happens when something feeds into itself.  Every dragon is different, and some are more elemental, or mostly elemental, or spirit, or deific.  Something like a lesser god that worships itself, or an elemental that takes in more than it puts out. - excerpt from Sine Die 14.3</ref><ref name=":8" /> and are generally immensely powerful.

Nature

It is said that the least of gods is similar to the greatest of spirits.<ref name=":1">The spirits collected and gathered, drawing in the emotion, feeding on it, altering themselves.
They congealed.
A greater spirit, the least of gods, the line was thin between the two.
They wore the form of a bird.
- excerpt from Interlude 11 </ref> In terms of cosmic significance, they are second only to Angels and Demons.<ref name=":2">You can bind a god, which is technically on a lower tier than an Angel/Demon. You can bind a Primeval,

again, on a lesser tier.  But gods and primevals, even if bound, are 

little more than really big, really dangerous batteries to draw on, and they're a danger every time they're tapped. Usually you're just binding

them to get them to be good and to restrain their impact on the world.

Making one a familiar (or hosting them, or forming any direct connection to them) is like having sex with a bear. You're not in a position of power and you're liable to get mauled. They don't understand your behavior and you really, really need to understand every

last detail of theirs.  When it comes to primevals there's just no 

reality where it's doable. They're a big fucking bear/wolf/bird/bramble, and they're always mad.

Angels and demons are worse on that front. They're so inevitable and permanent as forces that you might as well be trying to stop the world from turning or rotating around the sun.

In cases where gods or angels are in a place where they understand humans and they develop a rapport, there can

be interactions like hosting or familiar bonds, but this is a pretty 

one-sided relationship, forever one misunderstanding or godly whim from you being turned into a pillar of salt or having a metaphorical, nine hundred pound bear fuck buddy crawling out of the tattered skin of your one hundred and fifty pound self.

So just to outline:

Really frigging hard. Same goes for other 'high tier' Others like Primevals, Gods, and Demons. - Wildbow on Reddit </ref>

Despite their power, without connections they can fall into Limbo and become part of it<ref name=":3">In the midst of that cavern, a face stood out from the wall.  It wasn’t stone, but it looked like something close.  Bone, perhaps, or calcified flesh.
I had to wrestle with the idea that it was simultaneously further away than it looked and very, very big.  Especially for a face.
It could very well have been as large as a mountain.  The area between it and me was empty of anything, vast, a chasm as wide as the gap between countries, maybe.
It rested at an angle, leaning against a distant solid surface I couldn’t make out, surrounded by cracks that cities could have been built in.  It was cracked as well, with gaps running along its pale features, almost to the point that it looked like

it might shatter any moment.  The eyes were open, and a light radiated 

from the eyes, as intense as the sun.
The noise it was making, the size of it, I couldn’t comprehend it, not cognitively, but in my would-be heart?  I felt something swell.
Light shone from the open mouth, too, and the drone emanated from the mouth, deep enough to touch me in the core of my body.
The size of it, the sheer base… I wasn’t even sure how to phrase it.  The simpleness

of it?  No, that was wrong.  The appearance, the light, the utter 

monotone of the sound it generated, it was more like it was at the heart of simplicity, at the heart of something from which more complicated things could emerge.
A lesser god?
Forgotten, fallen through the cracks, swallowed up by this place that had existed before the Drains were Drains?
- excerpt from Null 9.5 </ref> or even fall out of reality entirely and become Lost.<ref>The reaches are realms which may have been a part of reality, a part of the abyss, or a fragment of collective unconsciousness, which has come untethered from just about everything.  Without history, human attention or human logic to help pin them down, these places and their denizens unspool.  A lesser god with no connection to reality will fall to the Abyss.  When she is entirely unrecoverable, she may find herself drifting across the Paths, where sustenance is so little and so far between that she is forced to hibernate for centuries at a time, insofar as time has any meaning in those places.  Beings such as this once-god often wake only when practitioners approach. - FINDERS, document by Wildbow.</ref> (Although a maenad implied to Blake that the gods in Limbo may simply be too lazy to leave.)<ref name=":4">“They’re endangered,” the maenad told me.  “Can’t breed, no gods old or rough-edged enough still around to make more.  Except maybe where you’re from, but any that crop up there still aren’t going to be adventurous enough to move.  Everyone knows it isn’t right to touch a giant.  Or they should know.” - excerpt from Sine Die 14.3</ref> They can lose power if their relevance to society fades, or if they spend more power than their actions recoup in worship.<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":7" />

Conjuring a god in physical form is a major task, of the sort an advanced Astrologer might build a city-sized ritual circle to achieve.<ref>Dedicating the Star - Carefully tended diagrams can be a source of power that is then used to call forth a specific being, on a date relevant to that being.  Can be a way to call forth deities in physical form, great Historics, the souls of dead loved ones (with caveats), and so on.  Essentially the result of a magic circle drawn out on a city-sized scale. - Pact Dice: Astrologers</ref>

Even injured-seeming and in the Abyss, a god's body was immensely vast - Blake speculated it's head was as big as a moon, surrounded by cracks that could contain cities.<ref name=":5">“If we send it elsewhere,” Johannes spoke, “My familiar can strike at the demon.  There are old, forgotten gods in the Abyss.  He can put this demon right in front of those gods, and they can kill it.”
His familiar.  I noticed Faysal Anwar wasn’t in the room.
“I know about the gods in the Abyss,” I said.  “I met one.”
Johannes smiled.
“It was losing,” I said.  “Slowly, but surely.”
The smile faltered.
“Gods range in power,” he said.  Picking up right where he’d left off.
“I can’t say for sure,” I said, “But the one I saw was maybe the same size as the moon.  Or his head was.  I don’t think you can pull that off, resting in the Abyss, unless you have plenty of power.”
- excerpt from Sine Die 14.9 </ref> When Rad Ray Sunshine conjured an image of two gods fighting, they appeared as figures bigger than mountains, so tall they might extend into space.<ref name=":10">A figure, taller than any mountain, loomed over them, glowing softly from cracks along its body.  Clothing was hard to distinguish from elaborate skin and beard, riddled with details.

A man with a spear, so tall he might well extend into space, reached out to wrestle with a woman, cowled.

Lucy’s body was darker than some.  Jorja’s body was bright.  So was Jessica’s.

“The divine.  Capricious.  Know what you deal with.  Unlike the karmic, they get frustrated with firm rules and exact wordings.  Bore them and even the most rule-based divinity will take action against you.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.6 </ref>

Gods, even those associated with order, tend to be capricious and uninterested in precise wording.<ref name=":10" />

Abilities

Gods are among the few beings powerful enough to empower someone to kill a dragon.<ref>“Dragons are so like they are in video games,” Evan said.
“No,” Tiff said.  “Um, in video games, a guy with a sword can kill a dragon.  Only way that happens here is if a god intervenes, or you’re drawing on some similar degree of power.”
“We’ve got an in with gods, right?
“Not unless someone wants to hike back to the house,” Peter said. - excerpt from Sine Die 14.3 </ref><ref name=":6">“There’s no polar opposite.  Most are amalgams of elemental and spirit and animal and nightmares, on top of whatever else.  You have to beat them at their own game.  You get the dragons that are all poison, to the point that one drop of venom can clear out a lake.  Then you have

to just out-poison them.  You get the dragons in some areas of
the East that are more spirit and elemental, like dragons of the 

mountains and… it’s like you have to destroy a mountain by hitting it with a bigger mountain.”
“How do you-” I started.  “Nevermind.  You’re saying the only way to kill ol’ firebreath there is hotter fire?”
“No,” she said.  Her voice dropped to be even quieter, as we approached the end of the street.  “There’s another way.  Most are violent, killing machines.  So… if you’re brave enough, you can try the conventional means.  Facing them in battle.  Eventually someone succeeds.  Usually with the backing of some major power.  Usually a god.  Which makes them rare.”
- excerpt from Sine Die 14.3 </ref>

Gods are powerful enough to shatter all the Demesnes in a building for their follower with a single blow and incapacitate those inside, infusing the whole area around them with power in the process.<ref>Mala Fide 10.6</ref><ref>“We’re crashing a party,” Jeremy said.  “Barriers or no, when you ask a god to open a door, that door gets opened.”

The direction they were traveling.  Hillsglade House. - excerpt from Mala Fide 10.5 </ref> They could easily crush a being such as Blake at a word from their follower.<ref>“Any last words?” he asked.
“Why would I need last words?” I asked.  “I’m not planning on dying anytime in the immediate future.”
“It’s a courtesy.  I only need to say a word to my deity to lay you out flat.” - excerpt from Execution 13.7 </ref>

A god might be one of the few beings that could challenge a lesser angel such as Faysal Anwar.<ref>Don’t let appearances deceive.  The angel Faysal is powerful enough that only a god or a demon might pose a challenge. - excerpt from Possession 15.2</ref> Even a lesser god of light was able to restrain and injure Ur.<ref>“Ur,” I murmured.
It was working its way into this place that lay through the cracks.  Into the Drains.  The only thing that had stopped it, cutting it off from the heart at the source of it, was the accidental uncovering of this ancient forgotten god.
[...]
I screamed guttural, as close to the same tone as the god that shone its light into this dark chamber, fighting Ur for as long as he lasted.
I worshiped that lost god for just a moment.
The light grew more intense, and Ur burned away.  Even the pieces in my arm.
- excerpt from Null 9.5 </ref> Johannes believed that there were gods in Limbo that could kill Barbatorem, although Blake disagreed.<ref name=":5" />

Origins

The first gods emerged crude and loose in form as each telling and culture that outlined them varied.<ref name=":8">The background noise of internet and online communication allows for the natural emergence of accidental rituals.  Repetition, default or common responses and collective imagination allow for a kind of false worship to take place.  Much as the first gods emerged, crude and loose in form as each telling and culture that outlined them varied, the digital avatar is a force akin to a god that arises from the spirit world, often linked to a phenomenon and then crystallized by the public consciousness.  As figures of a more spiritual and divine stripe, what one often sees is often the tip of the iceberg for a larger effect.
Lesser gods spawned by a public consciousness, Nex Machina stem from the digital, not from dreams, other worlds, or reality.
[...]
In some ways, the Nex Machina has the same vulnerabilities as a god and spirit both.  They are reliant on ‘worship’ and through no fault of their own can fade from relevance, and as a worshiped entity, the well of power they draw on works much as any prayer or divine system does, with power gained or fostered and then spent in hopes of an investment paying off.
- Beastiary - Nex Machina </ref> Blake and Faysal speculated that the gods may come from some primal font of creation, the opposite of the destruction that is the Abyss.<ref>I pulled my hands from my pockets and spread my arms.  Look at me.  Entropy wins.  I’ve been to the Drains, but I haven’t come across anything suggesting that there’s a force of creation that’s working just as hard.” “There are two possible answers,” Faysal Anwar told me.  “The first is that such a place exists, but creation spews forth, it does not take in.” “Maybe,” I said.  “Gods come from somewhere, don’t they?” “Maybe,” he echoed me. - excerpt from Mala Fide 10.5 </ref>

It has been claimed that godhood is a possibility for Heroes,<ref>“Are you gods?  Were you gods?” I asked. “We were men,” Cranaus said.  “The sorts who were brief-lived legends, to the point that godhood was a possibility.  Nothing

more.  We subsist now by a long existence of being familiars for one 

master after another.  Chronomancers like to draw the greater legends from history for such a thing.” - Malfeasance 11.3 </ref> although whether this means literal godhood or just being worshipped is unclear. The Wraith of Molly Walker claimed that "in the right time or place, an idea can become a spirit, and a spirit can become a god", and hinted that she might be evolving into one.<ref>“Sometimes, in the right time or place, an idea can become a spirit, and a spirit can become a god [...] I’m not saying I’m becoming a god.  It’s… only an idea.” - excerpt from Execution 13.2</ref>

Usage

The usual way for a Practitioner to interact with a god is to provide them with worship and obedience in exchange for occasional acts of overwhelming divine power; with the god aiming to recoup more from their worshipper than they invested.<ref>They can be used for divine power, but the Nex Machina is so mercurial and inconsistent in power level, prone to the vagaries and the rise and fall of the internet’s interest, that the act of building up the favor to spend on a greater act is often too risky. If successful, the Nex Machina may be invited to appear, swiftly enveloping an area with the power offered.  Oftentimes this is just faster than summoning, but with a steep and precarious price paid in advance (by way of the favor garnered).
- Beastiary: Nex Machina</ref><ref name=":9">“That snake was his.  You killed it.  You maimed his servant’s hand.  For all intents and purposes, there is a gun pressed to your head

as we speak.  There has been since you hurt that snake.”

[...]

“Or I crack.  I call on my god to show the way, and in the doing, I disarm myself of my primary source of power.  You hurt the snake, and that counts a great deal against you.  I could probably assume that’s enough that he’d grant me the favor, despite the disappointment in me.  But probably isn’t certainty, and   I’d normally be unwilling to

call on my god for three great acts in a single week, let alone a day.” - excerpt from Mala Fide 10.6

</ref> This is fairly inexact, with the god deciding whether they will respond and the exact manner they do so.<ref name=":9" /><ref>“I have my own responsibilities,” he said.  “When I wield power, it isn’t with lines on the floor and carefully worded contracts.  I only ask. 

I can change the wording, pick the phrasing, decide the poetry of it, 

and read old texts, from my god’s days of glory.  But when I want to practice, I only speak.  A single word will suffice.”

He wasn’t murdering me or getting us all killed while he talked, so there was that.

He continued, “My challenge is to show I’m worthy.  In the heat of the moment, I don’t need to do anything special.  Outside of those moments, I have to curry favor.  There aren’t any gauges, no measurements I can take.  I have to watch for signs and trust him to show me his pleasure or displeasure.  If I overstep, asking too much for

how little favor I have, he may punish me.  If I hold his favor but do 

not spend it, he might revoke it.”

“Easy to get wrong,” I said.

“I don’t shape how it manifests.  He does.  But when he works…”

“He can knock down all the barriers in a house that’s supposed to hold up against a pair of angry chronomancers and enchantresses.”

- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.6 </ref><ref>“You’re telling me you went after the one person in Jacob’s Bell who has the most dangerous knowledge around, the one person who can tap into

world ending forces, who’s maybe a little hard to anticipate to begin with, and you got her drunk?”

“I’ve been led to believe my god impaired her faculties,” Jeremy Meath said.  “As I said, doing what I do is far from an exact science.”

- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.6 </ref> Entertainment or struggle can be another reason to give power, for a certain sort of god,<ref>“You leave, I find her, we mutually prevent anything stupid from happening, and Sandra gets to do whatever she’s planning to do to Mags and Molly,” I said.  “You and your god win.”

“It’s not that simple.  When my god created this situation, he posed a challenge to me.  If he simply gave me what I needed, what would that be worth?  I have to work for it a little.  His era of gods are especially fond of making the little mortals dance,” Jeremy said.  “If I walk away from that challenge and fail to dance, I disappoint him.”

“Seems to me,” I said, picking my words with care, not breaking eye contact with him, “Following a god like you do is very nearly as tragic an existence as being a diabolist.”

- excerpt from Mala Fide 10.6 </ref> as could because the target offended them.<ref name=":9" />

With a positive enough relationship, a god can be used for Host Magic or as a Familiar, but due to their immense power this is a very one-sided relationship with the Practitioner at the mercy of the god.<ref name=":2" />

Gods can be bound, but this is usually done simply to compel them to stop causing problems. A bound god can be drawn on as an immense battery of power, although this is dangerous every time it's drawn on.<ref name=":2" /> Their diffuse, abstract nature makes them immune to most bindings, however.<ref>Binding: Much like a God, cannot be bound.  Can be contained, however, with attention and steps taken in advance.  Technomancers have the tools necessary to limit the reach of a Nex Machina with any presence.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina</ref><ref>Strengths: The Nex Machina is a spirit, not a physical entity, and exists as a scattered, ephemeral thing across the digital landscape.  It is an advantage to the Nex Machina that it is not a thing that many are equipped to deal with because it is new to the lists of Others, and it is too ‘big’, in a sense, to easily encircle and bind.  In this, it is similar to a great spirit or deity.
- Beastiary: Nex Machina</ref>

Types

There are various gods, belonging to different pantheons. Dionysus of the Greek Pantheon is one example of a major god, his creations and cultists active in Toronto.

Each god will have a portfolio, for example Dionysus has power over madness.<ref>The High Priest worshiped a deity that included madness in his realm of control. - excerpt from Judgement 16.5</ref>

Only the oldest or roughest gods were able to create Giants.<ref name=":4" />

Lesser Gods

Some have been noted to be lesser gods, like the god of light that remains as part of The Drains.<ref name=":3" /> A Deus ex Machina is considered a minor god.<ref>“Years ago, there was something on the horizon that clouded my Sight. It recurred as an image. A teenage boy dressed as a king, sitting in a chair with water running over him, repeating the same nonsense phrases over and over again. If I gutted a bird and pulled out its entrails for a simple fortune telling, I could find papers in the guts, with the phrases on it. It was… obnoxious. I traveled from Toronto to Winnipeg, met with other Practitioners who had run into the same problem, some of your parents, as a matter of fact. A company that managed and experimented with server architecture had rented out three floors of its building to a startup and had unwittingly played host to a group of technomancers trying to get users to engage with rituals they’d programmed. They abandoned their work, killed by Witch Hunters or run off by Others, and their work was deleted. As Raymond Sunshine would be sure to tell you, however, deleted does not mean gone. Just as you can pull something out of your trash bin on your desktop, their work was still there, gradually taking form, reaching out into the rest of the servers in the building until it could become a small god. After that, it started expanding out, until it was interfering with my Sight. [...] It had taken over the building and the running of the company that managed the servers. Within was a world of its own that would take a month to cross. I went to deal with it, and ran into someone else who was doing the same. A young lady who would be best described as being very interested in the most vast and uncontrolled parts of conventional practice,” He indicated Mrs. Durocher. “She had already contacted a colleague of hers from a previous errand, a man who was just then achieving notoriety for his first practitioner-facing website.” He indicated Raymond Sunshine. [...] Together with Mr. Bristow and Mr. Musser, we annihilated the god, shared out its power, and we drank together that night. For Mr. Sunshine, Mrs. Durocher, and myself, it sparked a close friendship that has lasted ever since. One of the things I hold most important about that experience was the epiphany I had, during that night of conversation and light drinks. It wasn’t the power that I was happiest with -and I was as power hungry as they come- but the moments I had been with other practitioners and felt purpose and felt like we were all better for those deals. Better informed, and we all know having the right information makes us strong. Dealing with other practitioners makes us safer, better equipped, stronger, and more capable of covering our weaknesses. That epiphany would eventually lead to us starting the Blue Heron Institute alongside Mr. Bristow, Mr. Musser, and others. We named it after one of the faces the god in the machine had worn.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref>

Corvidae could be compared to the least of gods,<ref name=":1" /> as could the empowered Wraith of Molly Walker<ref>Jacob’s Bell is going to become a new attraction in the Abyss, complete with a spiteful lesser

god and a perpetually tolling bell.  - excerpt from Sine Die 14.1</ref> or a Nex Machina.<ref name=":8" /> A lesser god might be on a par with a powerful Incarnation or greater Goblin; the sort of being that might create a Ritual Incarnate.<ref>That much power that fast has to come from somewhere, and then be 

given form as a ritual by someone or something.  A strong incarnation, a

lesser god, a great Goblin.  If it had appeared in the last month, I 

might think it had something to do with the current state of the Carmine

Beast.  That could be a big enough power source… perhaps.  [...] There are things that have that kind of power, like gods and strong 

incarnations, but I’m not aware of anything that strong that could have any connection to the Choir, and I’ve done some extensive searching. - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.2</ref>

A lesser god which worships itself is one of the feedback loops that could develop into a dragon.<ref name=":0" />

Notable Gods

• Dionysus
• Enyo<ref name=":7">Tromos, Steed of Enyo (T):  You may call me Tromos, we can do without

the title to hurry this along.  I was the steed of a goddess of war and ruin.  The gods I served, fought beside, and fought against have grown weaker in recent years.  While my gods withered and grew small, their worshipers few, I turned to creating dreams of utter terror, and I have survived the centuries. - excerpt fromInterlude 2.x</ref><ref>Enyo - Wikipedia</ref>

• Lesser god of light in The Drains

History

Once, particularly old or rough-edged gods created the Giants. Those gods eventually died or fell into Limbo, leaving the giants - which cannot breed - a dying race.<ref name=":4" />

The champions of gods, along with others backed by similarly-great powers, have slain most of the dragons.<ref name=":6" />

Many of the gods have grown weaker in recent years,<ref name=":7" /> presumably because society has largely stopped worshipping them.<ref name=":8" />

References

<references />