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[Mckee]

As far as I'm aware, the deal with megabeasts is that they are worshipped, this doesn't make them gods, it just means that people are paying some kind of homage/tribute to them. Worship is not solely for gods and doesn't equate with belief, aside from the belief that 'if I'm nice to the dragon, hopefuly it wont eat me'.

This thread is much more about actual gods than about stuff that either tricks peasants (demons) or bullies them into worshipping it. It would certainly be interesting to see how this could be implemented. If there is a wide spectra of gods, not only is there civ based holy war, but possibly the option for supernatural conflict and various gods infighting even within a pantheon. Imagine some kind of schism, one half of a fort believe in one god, the other half a different one. Escalating tension which can be dealt with many ways (depending on bias of mayor, sherriff and majority of the fort and civ at large) could eventually lead to internal conflict between opposing groups.

[Neonivek]

Some gods were basically just huge engines of destructions. (being a god doesn't require any sort of distinct power)

Though yeah I am bogging this down too much

As far as the game is concerned a God should be any being with pure dietific power. Though I'd love to see Demon Gods eventually.

But still let me see.

Here are the traits I forsee for some gods if we are planning on making them mighty
1) No Bleed, No Pain: Gods bleed and feel pain, they are just unaffected by such
2) Tremendous damage potential: Gods should be able to take several organ destructions before going down
3) Size distinct advantage: Even a human sized god should be able to take on the power of huge creatures. To what degree depends on the god.
4) Gods don't Tire, Don't need to eat, Don't need to Sleep
5) Gods heal fast and and can regenerate limbs
6) All objects a god uses should be at minimum minor artifacts.
7) Gods have minor skills at master and their major skills at high legendary
Gods can recognise magic unaided

Those are just some of the abilities I forsee gods sharing with all other gods if we are going for this kind of build.

[SirHoneyBadger]

Their are too many different gods, with too many different characteristics, to define in the same way you'd define a species. The old testiment god rested (as did others), while other gods ate and drank--often directly drawing their very immortality from their food and drink (Freya's golden apples, for example). Still others had wounds (Odin, Tyr) that never healed. Occasionally, you will even run into idiotic, or clearly insane gods (Lovecraft came up with a host of these, and there are some mythological examples). Many gods/"godlike beings" were also monsters, of undefined and probably animal intelligence, who would have little use for skills.

For that matter, living animals were sometimes worshipped as physical gods. The Egyptians are the most obvious example, but not the only one. 

The simplest and clearest definition of a "physical god" that I can come up with, is a being that is physically immortal on the material plane (the ground our dwarfs walk on). They could still be wounded/damaged, but would not be subject to death in any permanent sense, except on their home plane, or via the act of another such immortal being. Gods in mythology are almost never killed, except by one of their own (Osiris, who still came back, more or less), or on their home turf (Ymir, in Ginungaggap, who's giant body was used to create the Earth, and who's slayers then went on to form the Norse pantheon).

Gods would have worshippers, from which they would gain both their vitality, as well as their defining characteristics.

Gods should draw this sustenance and definition from their worshippers, in the form of sacrifice. The more their worshippers are willing to sacrifice, and the greater the sacrifices, the stronger their god or gods would become. Even if belief in the god remains, without regular sacrifice, the god would eventually fade to little more than a dream.

Strong gods are the ones that inspire worship, and inspire sacrifice.

[loose nut]

I think if you're going to have an incarnate god come to visit they should be able to call upon some of the events mentioned in the Watery Diversity thread, as well as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. It shouldn't be like having a tough but basically regular hostile come knocking only to get dumped in magma.

[Neonivek]

Their are too many different gods, with too many different characteristics, to define in the same way you'd define a species. The old testiment god rested (as did others), while other gods ate and drank--often directly drawing their very immortality from their food and drink (Freya's golden apples, for example). Still others had wounds (Odin, Tyr) that never healed. Occasionally, you will even run into idiotic, or clearly insane gods (Lovecraft came up with a host of these, and there are some mythological examples). Many gods/"godlike beings" were also monsters, of undefined and probably animal intelligence, who would have little use for skills.

I am aware there are pernament injuries in mythology but it is inconsistant. However I was going more Greek then Norse and the only pernament injury I am aware of is Hephestos being tossed off a mountain as a baby.

As for Freya she is an entirely different animal all together. Same with Loki.

[NW_Kohaku]

Mmmm... Just to bring up a different perspective, keep in mind that many of the ancient Middle Eastern and even Greek deities were actually local religions.  As in, every city or tribe had its own God.  Polytheism arose because of the clash of these different cultures - as VoidPointer said, when a city-state lost a war, it was because their god had lost to the other city's god.  The people were originally monotheistic in their one local god, but as their villages grew into cities with many other people's faiths, everyone's personal gods got mixed into some giant melting pot of deity soup. 

It was actually a major problem that so many different deities overlapped - Athens's Athena was a war goddess, as was Sparta's Ares.  (Well, except for the "goddess" part.)

Shinto, the ancient native religion of Japan, practically had gods hiding behind every other rock. Literally every mountain or forest had at least one god.  There were 7 gods for rice. 

Mountain of Faith, the Touhou game I referred to a page ago, actually had half the cast made of goddesses the player slaps silly, including twin goddesses of Autumn, one for harvest, and the other for the turning color of the leaves... and they're such utter small fry deities that they're considered some of the weakest beings in Gensokyo.  (And the player character actually goes around mugging all sorts of fairies and goddesses and monsters of their faith so that she can have it for herself as a powerup!  Of course, the whole plot of Mountain of Faith is that it's basically a religious turf war.)

And hey, there's the Odd Job Gods page on TVTropes, which has this under "Real Life":

• Given the sheer size of their pantheon, it's no wonder that the ancient Egyptians had a lot of these, including:
• Nefertem, the god of perfumes and lotuses.
• Iabet, the goddess of the East.
• Hu, the god of voice of authority.
• Sopedu, the god of borders.
• Seker, the god of the necropolis of Memphis.
• Mafdet, the goddess or snakes and scorpions.
• Tayer, the goddess of weaving.
• Satet, the goddess of inundation.
• Ihy, the god of music and beer.
• Shay, the god of destiny.
• Qadesh, the goddess of ecstasy.

So, anyway, what I'm saying is that "god" can be a fairly expansive term...  I'm thinking that gods should actually be based on a system of being associated with one or more spheres, but basically just being a normal version of whatever their base creature is, unless they can draw power from their spheres. 

Spheres give power based upon the influence the sphere has in a region, as well as based upon worshipper faith, and possibly gets boosted with some kind of sacrifice or festivals. 

Of course, when you have your god literally living in the next house over, "Sacrifice" would mean brining them a barrel of their favorite drink and some masterwork prepared meals.  And really, when we talk about dwarven gods, we all know we're talking about someone who isn't just a great "drinking buddy", but someone who could drink you under the table.  Heck, a dwarven god should be able to drink demons and other supernatural beings under the table!  (I mean, dwarves drink 10.25 gallons of alcohol in a sitting, after all...)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(It's surprisingly hard to find images of God or even Thor getting drunk on Google.)

edit: ah, and spheres should be the key to deific power - gaining access to a sphere is what puts someone on the path to godhood.  You can probably steal spheres from defeated gods, or force them to share it.  Gods that share spheres split the power that the sphere gives them.  As such, while they can try to cooperatively "enlarge the pie", and make the sphere larger and more poweful, they can also try to zero-sum steal the spheres of others, or cut off access to spheres that one is sharing with other deities to increase one's godly might.

As such, godly powers are doled out in limited quantities.  Starting from nothing, you can start getting little bits of the powers that Neovonik was talking about, like regenerative powers, and/or upgrading the stuff your flesh is made out of to something harder than adamantine.  Your size can potentially increase, if you want, but it may be best to stay the same general size as your worshippers.  Gods should also probably not really need most kinds of armor or artifacts, prefering to "grow" armor that is actually just a hardened body, especially since armor is cumbersome and slows you down.  Weapons are a different matter, and most gods have some kind of special artifact weapon associated with them.  Don't forget that gods can also get nifty syndromes: one Forgotten Beast that wrecked a guy's whole fortress was a giant crab that had breath that put enemies to sleep AND on fire.

The powers should also fade as a god's power base deteriorates - reduce the influence of their spheres, and kill some of their worshippers, and they become more and more vulnerable, and you can steal some of their spheres from them.

[Neonivek]

Anyhow the question is should Gods share in abilities and attributes or should each god be built from the ground up.

Though all Loci are more accurately "Forces" and "Titans" as far as Dwarf Fortress is concerned.

From what I understand of Dwarf Fortress, Gods are beings of concepts and Forces are beings of Locations.

[Solace]

This is a pretty interesting idea. The first thing I'd have to ask, is how many spheres would there really be that can apply to an actual Dwarf Fortress game. A god who can create volcano would be pretty powerful, but so far that can't happen in DF. Nor is the weather very much implemented; and even if it was, it's irrelevant underground. I suppose you could split up similar powers; being good at combat is different from making your followers naturally good at combat which is different from abilities that directly affect combat. Growing food vs making beer vs having to eat/drink less.

As far as how multiple gods compare, I think it should be just fine to have multiple gods that do the same thing; all the more reason for conflict. You could also have gods "branch out" after becoming sufficiently good at any one sphere... either say that X followers = Y% control or mastery of a sphere, or have them gain xp when they use their sphere, like dwarves.

[Neonivek]

You don't have to do things exactly following their sphere.

A god of Volcanos may not be able to create volcanos (and personally I don't think the game would be able to handle that sort of attack)

But a god of volcanos could take on their propertise. The ability to go into a fiery rage of destruction. The strength of mountains. For example.

A god of water could have the ability to adjust their attributes according to an enemy's attack.

A god of jewels could be so stunning themselves that it is difficult to even strike them as their glimmer stuns you.

Spheres could just have a list of abilities and adjustments that a god of those appropriate spheres (and their children and servants) can draw upon.

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, the idea about spheres is that once you gain access to a sphere, you gain power from that sphere, and as such, spreading that sphere gives you more power.  If you are a god of volcanos, then you want to make as much magma be on the map as possible, because vulcanism might be what directly influences how powerful the volcano sphere is in the region.  (Volcano gods might give some sort of control over the magma flow if you beseech them, such as increasing how fast magma replinishes, or even pushing the magma to flow upward from a magma pipe, and spill out if there is an opening... But this would require an interface for directly communicating with a god that is on your side.)

Spheres, as I was talking about them, would be something that are either stealable or there for the taking, not related to "levels" in any way.  If there is no god that has a certain sphere, then maybe it could be up for grabs, if there is enough power for the sphere to be notable.  A sphere for "disease" might pop up in the middle of a town that is beset by the world's first major plague, and some poor leper might stumble on top of it, and become the new god of disease.

As for combat ability, maybe a volcano god would get the ability to have a magma-based breath attack that fires a cone of magma, or the ability to radiate heat with a massive homeotherm... although that would need an off switch, or he'd light the booze on fire every time he went for a drink.

[Neonivek]

I think of spheres as more of Affinities for Gods rather then jobs.

If a God needs to take care of all the Volcanos in the world then it sounds like its job and it may not even have a Volcano sphere.

In the case of there not being enough jobs to go around it can be delegated to Megabeasts, Servants, and other such beings.

Though it would be interesting if certain jobs had such importance that taking them automatically added a Sphere to your being and thus upgraded any being who takes it on into a god.

[NW_Kohaku]

I think of spheres as more of Affinities for Gods rather then jobs.

Well, in the Egyptian Pantheon, Ra (or Amun-Ra or Ra-Horakhty or whatever other deities he was merged with at the time) was the sun god that had to sail the sun-boat across the sky every day, only to have to travel back from west to east through the underworld each night, under attack from the demonic forces of the great serpant Apep who wanted to destroy the sun and the world with it. 

In other words, flying the sun-boat, and defending it from attack is the sun god's job and purpose for being.

So, yeah, gods who have really powerful and important spheres also have a sort of duty to make sure that the powers they control stay stable and don't destroy their world, because the world of polytheistic religions is one that is always teetering on the brink - if the sun god doesn't win his battle with the ancient evils every single time, then the world dies.  (So that's why you better sacrifice to the gods - if he doesn't keep his strength up by eating that sacred bull, or we don't sacrifice some children to give him their life force for strength, then the entire world ends!)

Of course, different deities have much less important duties than the continued existance of the universe - Dionysus just wanted to party. 

I also might be a little influenced by the D&D way of handling things, though, where if you came to have the powers of a god, generally by taking over for one that got killed off, the sphere you control doesn't really try to change to fit you - you change to fit the sphere.  (Of course, there were some notable exceptions, like Finder, who killed a god of death and decay, and tried to wiggle it into being a god of change and renewal, although there were already a couples gods of death or murder, so that there wasn't demand for his sphere/portfolio, and his portfolio was extremely weak at that point, to the point of not having any worshippers.)

[Neonivek]

Well what the game should do is draw up a bunch of roles for the gods to do and then draw up the gods.

The gods with appropriate spheres and personalities would naturally go to fulfill those roles.

Athena and Ares may have been the gods of war but they weren't required or really all that important to warfare except possibly to earn the favor of as an example. Pan is sometimes a god of nature but isn't incharge of nature (Demeter and Gaia do that).

Then not all roles are nessisarily filled by gods who are exemplars of that role.

Though it shouldn't be strict so interesting roles could exist.

[NW_Kohaku]

Actually, to the ancients, the gods of war, and their favor or indifference, would predestine the outcome of battle by fighting with the gods who favored the other side, so they were definitely seen as having an active role. 

The story of David and Goliath, in fact, demonstrates how this was seen fairly clearly - in those ancient battles, it was believed that, since the victors of battles were predetermined by the influence of the gods, and that, therefore, if your god was bigger than the other guy's god, and was actively backing you, then you would win the battle, regardless of anything else that happened.  So, rather than fight a full-blown war, the israelies and the Philistines decided to send forward champions to see whose god was the bigger god... and David won, showing that Yahweh had won whatever dice game or armwrestling match or whatever against the Phillistine god, so fate was on the Jew's side, and the Philistines left without further bloodshed. 

As for Pan, you already say that "nature" is someone else's job.  I'd say that if a sphere has more than one deity serving it, then they can generally find a way to split the duties, since it's one job that's split between multiple gods.  However, Pan is associated with nature, but isn't a "god of nature".  Wikipedia lists him as "god of shepherds and flocks, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs."  In that case, his sphere might not be "nature" at all, but instead something like "animals" (his Roman name was Faunus, which is derived into "fauna", or animal).

[Neonivek]

They influenced the outcome of war but weren't required for War.

Unlike Apollo for example who was strictly required for the sun to rise (or someone who could take his place, which apperantly is difficult even for a Demigod).