Are the Gods Real?
Religion and Belief
I thought I’d revisit the topic of divine intervention. I originally shared some thoughts on the subject back in 2023. If you have particular opinions about the Q character in Star Trek, you may want to check it out.
I think calibrating the presence of the divine in fantasy worldbuilding can be a tricky thing, especially if the gods or other divine and supernatural creatures can actively intervene in the setting. It’s one thing for the main character to hope for divine assistance; it’s another to see a barrage of Olympian thunderbolts answer the call before the penultimate chapter.
No doubt, belief and faith can propel people to great endeavors or steel their will to endure and outlast tremendous hardship.
How do religion, belief, and divine beings play out in your storytelling?
Do gods actively intervene (in some form or fashion) or does the act (or journey) of believing create the stuff of heroic deeds and legends?
Are the gods real? Or, are the gods made real by human interpretation and experience?
To explain this concept a bit further, I’ll share some thoughts and pose some questions about a story I read a while back.
THE INCITING INCIDENT
A treasure hunter has infiltrated a major religious shrine and stolen a sacred object. This renowned shrine is located in a large city. Picture an ancient city of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, now without a revered religious symbol. Later in the story, it’s revealed that the object is a vessel containing the lingering power of the deity.
The treasure hunter also slew a number of adherents on his way in and out of the shrine. He does, however, have the element of surprise and escapes the city just before the watchers on the walls are fully aware of what is happening.
Not long after, three very experienced individuals pursue the robber to deliver vengeance and recover the sacred object.
Why only three pursuers?
A large city has lost perhaps its most prized possession. The response seems disproportionate to the thievery. Two related, but different, aspects are at play here:
If this object is such a big deal and only three pursue, does that in fact diminish the value of the object and the scale of the treasure hunter’s accomplishment to spirit it away?
There are more resources that this city can muster to reclaim the sacred object. If it was a remote shrine in the wilderness … and the last three survivors set off in pursuit … that contextualizes and fits perfectly with the scale of response.
Does that mean we need to follow in the footsteps of a thousand searchers? No. Worldbuilding and creating the feeling of a larger world can be done in a phrase here, a sentence or two there. How about something like … As bells clanged and the dishonor became known throughout the city, search parties spilled out of the gates in angry swarms determined to restore the relic and appease their wounded god. Oathbound to be the first to return the artifact to safety, three of the shrine’s senior guardians pushed their swift horses ahead of the blood-hungry throngs.
What do you think? In two sentences, we’ve framed the seriousness and impact of the dare devil’s theft in the context of the world — and — kept the same structure of keeping the focus on the three fastest chasers — those hottest on the heels of the treasure hunter.
As additional detail, the writer described the three pursuers as dressed in very distinct and identifiable garb who depart the city some time (not immediately) after the treasure hunter. Perhaps not the best clothing choice for inconspicuous pursuit, but sometimes circumstances pull you along before you can figure out the best attire. Nevertheless, I imagined the treasure hunter pausing briefly to rest, and in a comedic moment, watching the trackers in brightly colored garments trying to keep pace.
DIVINE INTERCESSION
Are the gods real? Or, are the gods made real by human interpretation and experience?
Let’s get back to looking at other elements of the story…
In the mayhem and chaos of the treasure hunter’s escape at the beginning of the story, the writer makes mention of the city’s priests wailing for deliverance and the fact that their prayers were unheeded by the exalted deity.
The pursuing shrine guardians eventually find the trail of the pilfering thrillseeker and believe that they are aided by their deity. The description in these passages, although in narrative form, is from the perspective of the characters.
Later, another character who worships a deity opposed to the shrine’s deity recounts the history of the clashes between the gods. Here, the narrative is written in a way that states that the stories of warring gods are true. The gods, in fact, exist, or did exist, and have powers in one plane of existence or another.
This third example is a tonal shift in how the world could or should be understood by the reader.
Adding to this tonal shift and as a deus ex machina, the sacred object awakens near the end of the story to aid the treasure hunter. The lingering essence of the deity contained within the object surges to confront a disciple of its old, celestial foe and to help save the main character.
Notably, the main character’s preferred deity does not make an appearance to rescue one of the faithful.
While there is a quickly explained, dramatic convenience to the ending of the story, I think the accompanying supernatural worldbuilding is done well within the scope of the tale. The gods are distant, mysterious. It’s the physical presence, the immediate proximity of the sacred object that decides the fate of the hero.
More broadly, in the case of the shrine’s deity, there is a tangibility to its power. It may be diminished, hidden, or not immediately accessible to the people of the world, but there are nonetheless adherents (including a priestly class) who can point to omens, portents, and experiences that make seeking this continued connection to the supernatural a worthwhile endeavor.
What are your thoughts? How do you strike the balance between divine and temporal powers — between the gods and the main characters?
This is a great topic. Developing the relationship between the divine and mortal is important in any world-building exercise. It's not uncommon that writers and GMs take a top-down approach, designing a pantheon, a creation story, and then tying mortal society to that pantheon. From a creative perspective, this can make sense as it draws on the personalities of the gods to flow down into the peoples over whom they rule. But from a purely anthropological position, mortals create pantheons, not the other way around. People, social groups create explanations for things they cannot explain—especially those things beyond the fathom of thought, such as the movement of the sun and stars across the sky, the source of the wind, or why some dark clouds produce lightning whereas others don't. A civilization's pantheon is deeply ingrained in their culture, as the gods feed the curious and plug holes in the unknown.
For years I took the top-down approach and, for this reason, my pantheons always seemed disconnected from the cultures with whom they were supposed to be associated. I also see this in many fantasy RPGs—D&D & Pathfinder are the biggest culprits—where we see a list of fairly generic deities that only really exist to fill some arbitrary alignment role. This approach, in my opinion, bears fruit devoid of any fiber or substance. Once I flipped the script and started a bottom-up approach, I found that pantheons are not only much easier to create, but they are much more contextually authentic as their purposes and their stories are an extension of the cultures they represented.
When your pantheon is part of the culture's anatomy, deciding on whether the gods are real gets easier. Moreover, it offers some flexibility like in your example. I tend to take the distant approach, where the gods don't directly intervene in the lives of mortals. At most, they play games by means of butterfly effects. But the people are invested in the divine and that investment enriches their culture. Ceremonies, rituals, festivals, art and architecture, poetry and prose, and tales of morality and struggle are forged from deeply rooted relationships between culture and divinity. Even if in your world (royal "you") the divine are fictional, I would argue that the gods are real if they affect culture.
Like everything else in worldbuilding, the builder can make anything happen. What makes the world compelling is that there is consistency and rationale for the build and actions. Great post!