Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;276851It's older than Neil Gaiman, and more widespread than his influence. I have to admit, it's actually one of my least favourite tropes of fantasy religions. I like the gods in my homebrew settings to be more independent of mankind and more fickle than a god who relied on its worshippers as batteries could be.

Its definitely (decades) older than Gaiman, but its not very old. Its a very post-modern concept.

Gods never die. They just put on new clothes (and sometimes do some wacky mind-melding with other gods).  Last year's pagan goddess becomes this year's catholic saint. The ancient Cthuloid sea-mother becomes the Holy Virgin.  The warrior Sun-God becomes the pacifist Son of God, and then becomes a warrior again. The Pharaohs' Sun-disk becomes the Pillar of Fire, becomes the Four-Fold Unspeakable-Name; who later becomes the long-bearded Daddy In The Sky (borrowing a little from the Thunder God who lived up in that mountain in Greece), who later becomes The Great, All Powerful, All Merciful One God, who picks up some tribal customs and becomes the God of Jihad, Burkhas and Cutting Young Girls' Naughty Bits Off.

That's another thing I hate about the way RPGs handle deities: there are "ancient" "dead" gods.  PCs with appropriate knowledge skills should realize that there's some unsettlingly familiar things about those "weird gods" that the ancient empire followed, and even some more unsettlingly radical differences.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;276851It's older than Neil Gaiman, and more widespread than his influence. I have to admit, it's actually one of my least favourite tropes of fantasy religions. I like the gods in my homebrew settings to be more independent of mankind and more fickle than a god who relied on its worshippers as batteries could be.

Its definitely (decades) older than Gaiman, but its not very old. Its a very post-modern concept.

Gods never die. They just put on new clothes (and sometimes do some wacky mind-melding with other gods). Last year's pagan goddess becomes this year's catholic saint. The ancient Cthuloid sea-mother becomes the Holy Virgin. The warrior Sun-God becomes the pacifist Son of God, and then becomes a warrior again. The Pharaohs' Sun-disk becomes the Pillar of Fire, becomes the Four-Fold Unspeakable-Name; who later becomes the long-bearded Daddy In The Sky (borrowing a little from the Thunder God who lived up in that mountain in Greece), who later becomes The Great, All Powerful, All Merciful One God, who picks up some tribal customs and becomes the God of Jihad, Burkhas and Cutting Young Girls' Naughty Bits Off.

That's another thing I hate about the way RPGs handle deities: there are "ancient" "dead" gods. PCs with appropriate knowledge skills should realize that there's some unsettlingly familiar things about those "weird gods" that the ancient empire followed, and even some more unsettlingly radical differences.

RPGPundit