Deity (AST)

A **deity** or **god** is a natural magic user considered divine or sacred. Millennia aago they were considered unbelievably powerful. However as magical knowledge grew over the years that is no longer the case.

## Overview

Divinities are collective consciousness spirits. When you get enough people to believe in something, it can actually manifest. However while that's a requirement, it’s not a sufficient condition. We honestly don't know the exact conditions necessary to manifest a divinity, but it requires a lot of shared belief and a pretty cohesive belief at that. When that belief goes away, then the divinity loses much of its spiritual power, its divine authority if you will. This is why the old gods don't make a big fuss anymore as their divine authority is really weak now.

This is not the only way gods come to be. Some do the process in reverse. Some creatures are so impressive in their natural power they get a following, and the divine spirit joins with them later giving them the true divine authority. And of course, you have the 'gods in name only' who are strong enough to seem godly, but in truth are just powerful beings with no divine spirit giving them true divine authority.

Gods are describes as natural magic users and most spiritual creatures do tend to favor magic as their chief means of power. There is an abundance of it not tied to any other creature which competes for it, making it ideal for this purpose. However the magic humanity has seen deities perform were actually their avatars. A deities avatar is just as effected by the loss of belief as the original. It will still have any strength it was imbued directly with, but the spiritual backup as it were is essentially gone.

Gods have divine spirits backing them up, even if depowered. Demi-gods are creatures born of the avatars or meddling of the gods and don't have that divine spirit backing them up. The distinction is important. They do, however, have empowered biology. Two divine avatars mating can result in either one. Historically, such unions are actually believed in by the people rather than actually happening most of the time, so you end up with a child who is also a full god, but in truth, if there was any physical mating, it was not the real point of creation of said god, but rather just a bit of theater that gods engaged in. However, if the avatars themselves decide to just get together and are biologically capable of having kids, then you get a demi-god. That's surprisingly rare though, mostly due to biological incompatibility.

## Divine Authority

Divine authority is essentially a really potent version of spiritual power. Gods have various aspects, for example a god of the harvest. Such gods have spiritual power that allows them to change the rules of the world temporarily in regards to their aspects. It is similar to Spiritual Awakening but on a much more massive scale at least it was, not anymore. None of the current divinities have much strength anymore so while they could still put on a show, it isn't that impressive anymore. This is what limits the power of the abrahamic divinities. Deities require cohesive belief, but abrahamic religion is very fragmented. When people can't agree on the particulars and take their belief in different directions you lose that cohesion. This messes up the process.

## Notes

* There is a theory out there that someone who didn't like divinities started to sabotage the

abrahamic religions by encouraging their fragmentation.