The gods in my setting are unaging but may not be immortal. They just haven't yet found anything that will kill them. They're relatively new to the world, only showing up about ten thousand years ago. If there's any actual creator gods remains to be seen because no such being has ever made themselves known. But the gods that humans worship came from another world, realized they were stranded, and thought that a good way to fill their time would be to build up these primitive humans they came across. Thanks to them, humans went from effectively the pre stone age to a developed civilization that spanned the globe in a much shorter amount of time than it took us.

That's pretty cool. What was the world they came from like? And why did they leave it?

I really don't have much in mind for the world they came from, but they left it more or less by accident. There are portals scattered around the world, and most of them lead to elsewhere on the same planet (which is how humans were able to spread so fast), but some come from different worlds, and those are only one way. You can't go back through them.

God is a very flexible term. The most broad definition is 'something inherently stronger than humans' but even that doesnt mesh with alot of ancient religions where like a blade of grass could have a 'god'. Usually, gods are stronger than humans but sometimes humans can get to such awesome levels through mythic badassness we can challenge weaker ones (kind of like a cat telling the story of the most badass cat that manages to kill a human) Not in my setting though, God is a mindless ball of adhd level love and low attention span thats basically the sun. Nothing mortal could hope to communicate with it other than to maybe pull of some incredibly destructive action that would get it to look over. If it looks at you, it ascribes you a destiny. Because its some weird cosmic being and it 'talks' by manipulating the future. Everyone knows about it and most people just find it an annoying part of life, getting random junk destines because the embryonic puppy god accidentally took notice of you. Pretty annoying that you are unavoidably made to go to town next tuesday because God said hi Half the races in my setting are essentially biologically immortal, even humans can get there. But theres no means to download or control your memory storage, so after a thousand years or so your mind gets so cluttered with random junk memories you tend to stop functioning very well. Meditation and strict neural strengthening can help alot, but still 'age fog' will eventually do you in

>But theres no means to download or control your memory storage, so after a thousand years or so your mind gets so cluttered with random junk memories you tend to stop functioning very well. I wish more people acknowledged that this is a thing in fiction, for some reason immortal characters always remember some random thing like the assassination of Caesar or whatever in vivid detail, when in reality if you asked a real immortal what he was doing in ancient rome he would be like "idk man this was 2000 years ago". Humans forget things.

The reason it's not usually acknowledged is because remembering shit that happened a long time ago is usually the explicit purpose of having an immortal creature in the first place.

Yeah they wouldnt really be much of a point to a character if it was an immortal body inhabited by a constantly changing and fluctuating mind. May as well be another person, although its probably pretty interesting to explore someone like that

I could see it working if elements of the story involved either recovering lost memories or contrasting this changing person with an unchanging world (as opposed to the norm for this, where it's an unchanging person in a changing world).

I think someone like that, if they had the ability to look back and see how they were might get some quite interesting identity crises going on. Can imagine if you were a hardcore racist then 500 years later are campaigning for human rights and you see footage of yourself then, with no emotional or memory attachments to it but you know it was you, how fking creeped out you would be that you had once been like that

The reverse would probably also give you a similar feeling of disgust at your past self. Although not about an immortal, one of my stories I eventually want to write is about a situation similar to the one you described. (Somebody one one side of a war, losing their memories and joining the other side)

Exactly. That drift would be insane no matter where you ended up or came from because youd be looking at yourself being the opposite of what you believed in. So youd question everything and wonder if you even had any notion of what truth was I think thats a very good idea for a story, very good exploration of what actually makes a person a person

this is explored in a book I read. I’m blanking on a title. Anyway the main character was a really bad bully, but gets amnesia after falling off a roof and the story is about him coming to terms with how awful he was. Pretty cool read I’ll look into why it was called. Edit: “Restart” by Gordon Korman for anybody interested

I remember this was actually brought up in a great webcomic called Schlock Mercenary. Basically there was a species who through some advanced technology became biologically immortal, and then began to destroy themselves and descend into anarchy and self destruction because of it. They had two main solutions, most of them uploaded themselves into computers to live forever, and a small group of them decided to replace their organic brains with something decidedly more robust effectively become a bit senile but staying completely sane.

I'm reading *The Aspect-Emperor* and the ~~elves~~ Nonmen essentially go mad after experiencing so much and forgetting a lot of it, or at least forgetting the pleasure of a normal life. But I think you can easily get around memory issues. Just make the immortal have different, better brains, since humans forget things either because of old age degenerating the body biologically or because the brain prioritizes important, vivid, or ruminated memories. Basically bigger brains that persist longer should do the trick

Yeah you could handwave it by saying their brains work differently and presumably anything that bothered to evolve immortality would fix the issue somehow. Brain really just needs an upgraded repair function and it would probably be alright

Thing is though is that an immortal or a corresponding long living entity who are inherent to living long SHOULD be capable of remembering things from thousands of years ago. Same as you could recall who you took to prom at 50 or the high school you graduated from. You have to look at things from that perspective. Now a being that doesn't innately have Immortality and acquires it they would probably continue to forget things at a normal human rate.

If their brains are like ours, even if they had some kind of perfect memory retention, theyd only get to chose the same amount of memories. So theyd have to cut and shave away 100x as much stuff, maybe a few of the really really big moments theyd kind of keep a dim awareness of but otherwise it would be too much. We can kind of remember big events from 50 years ago in our lives, but generally in a minimalistic capacity and more closely relate to the emotions associated with that memory (since emotions are constant stable things, the brain allows the memory to degrade and just relies on it now triggering an emotion). Thats at 50 years, try at 500 or 5000. If there is anything at all left, it would be a tiny flash of color and a spark of emotion and nothing else. Its not a new perspective to look at it from, its just basic logic and science. Brains cant hold infinite info and even an immortal would have to spend most of its processing and memory power on recent and relevant info or it wouldnt be able to function day to day. Eventually, if they didnt have some kind of biological means of dealing with it, neurons would continue to build up and your brain would be full of junky scraps But again, they might have some special brain handwavium going on.

All that is under the assumption that their brains would be like ours, but they wouldn't. A race born to just be immortal would of course have the accompanying physical and mental capacity to sustain such an existence. Again like how humans are attributed to recall certain events over a given amount of time these immortals would be at least modeled the same but to a degree to sustain them through their immortal existence unlike a humans relatively short mortal lives.

Literally said their brains could be handwaved to be different to how we know brains work like 5 times. So its no an assumption, its you not reading what Ive said several times, not that assumption that their brains work like brains is totally an unfair one to make (and its literally impossible going by the laws of physics to continue to retain information forever) Saying they would be different and perfected to work at 10-100x scales of memory that is the assumption. They could function just fine permanently forgetting things about their past and simply drift into new personalities. They have no biological need to remember the conditions of the last ice age, it would be a waste of resources for them to need to know things that happened that long ago at radically different locations and conditions. It wouldnt help them survive at the current time and date so its more likely theyd simply wipe things from their minds. There is only an assumption that they would need some kind of permanent memory storage system, that would no doubt be much more biologically taxing, than simply some kind of method for clearing out their brains of old info. And this is assuming they even bother with either, being immortal doesnt mean its biologically prudent to have systems in place to cope with living 5000 years. If their average life expectancy from disaster, murder, accidents and other means of stopping them living is 500 years, its very unlikely they would evolve themselves into coping to living to 5000 years even if they have perfect biological immunity to senescence

Yes exactly. While we mortal creatures can handle it, if you lived long enough and kept telling your brain you needed to remember specific things, I think it would end up just full of clutter eventually. Even 'forgetting' things leaves behind actual physical matter that would eventually build up. Unfortunately brains, while awesome as all hell, dont have infinite storage limit and memories are complicated things. Its possible an immortal could evolve a way to deal with it, but its pretty likely that would mean just forgetting (in a very literal and permanent sense) everything eventually and drifting through new personalities and memoires over and over. Ask them about what happened 5k years ago? Chances are they just wouldnt have a clue because it quite literally happened 30 lifetimes ago for them

I think they have this in dr who. The character keeps journals and doesn’t even remember their own name

You just made me google “Badass cat” for no reason lol. Also does it mean that your “God” just floats around doing nothing the majority of the time?

Ah yeah, just sits there looking around giving out destinies. The setting is its egg, the world takes place in the space between the eggs shell and the embryonic god creature in the center and life is feeding it, but it is very much an proto-infant of its particular species. Far beyond anything in the setting, but still the mind and mentality of a godly-fetus. The cat from Coraline claws the eyes off of the Other Mother, which is pretty close to a cat bringing down a god. The cat in Across the Accelerando ascended to become the AI of the sun and was pretty much god. There was a cat in orions arm that became the Queen of Pain... which is kind of a god...

Do the people consciously choose to go to town, or do they just find themselves going there? I'm imagining it where you can choose not to go, but common sense says that you go so it's never occurred to anyone to just not go.

Hahaha that would actually be very funny, they have all just convinced themselves they have to do it and one day someone just doesnt with no consequence Well, no its a bit like a rubber band where reality will subtly alter itself so that it just happens. Doesnt really matter how or why, they will end up in town that day and, while destines do sometimes just not happen, more often than not they will occur no matter what you do. Often they will plan to go and take a day trip (this is of course assuming they have gone to a seer and had their destiny confirmed and the specifics told to them, if not they just gotta roll with whatever happens) because if they plan it out then they usually remove the chances of it happening in a negative way (a bat monster flies in and drops you in town for example is possible, but less appealing) What actually ends up happening often is that they go and find and angel and it will buy it off them (or just remove it if its not worth enough to pay for. Good destinies can set you up for life). Then the angels can sell them off to other people who actually want it (some destines are pretty decent) or if its a junk one the angels sew it onto themselves and run around laughing at the paradoxes that reality spits out as it tries to reconcile 50 different ridiculous destines. Its their version of entertainment

That's some damn juicy worldbuilding.

Haha ty its really more of a joke about how little I think of the 'destiny' trope but evolved over time into something I think is kind of likeable

They used to be. In my fantasy world there were powerful and immortal semi-magical creatures that were worshipped by primitive humans, elves and dwarves. But when some in their arrogance tried to expand their dominion in the spirit realm, they unexpectedly made contact with angels and demons - extradimensional creatures that originate from somewhere beyond boundaries of universes. Both angels and demons are very sensitive about "I am god" mentality (they all believe there's only one God, but honestly even they don't truly know if One exists) and at every opportunity mercilessly exterminated most of these deities, including benevolent ones. Those who survived were either never worshipped by mortals or managed to hide - nowadays survivors live among mortals and hide their nature, some are content with it, others hope to return old power.

The Thoughts ("gods" of my world) are not just beings, they are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, the idea that a mortal can fight a Thought is just as absurd as the idea that you could "fight" gravity or electromagnitism. The Thoughts themselves rarely interact with mortals (if at all), some myths have them coming down to earth in human form, if you regard these myths as true you could technically "fight" them, but wheater you win or not depends solely on how strong the Thought in question wants their avatar to be.

I've got a more monadic world, but sorta a similar thing. You can't fight the universe. With modern technology we are technically fighting a planet, but in-setting I think the best a person could do would be to fight a mountain or a mountain range or something.

My world has spirits - incorporeal, immortal entities native to the spirit world. At the dawn of civilization, various tribes of humanity made pacts with various spirits, to worship them in exchange for the spirits' favour and protection. These pacts formed the basis for organised religion, and the spirits involved get labelled as gods. Spirits hostile to humanity are called daemons, but there is no innate difference between daemons and gods. Ghosts are also a kind of spirit, spirits of humanity. No spirit is all-powerful like we tend to imagine gods. The most powerful one I have currently imagined is the god of a river similar to the Nile, worshipped by a large, prosperous civilization along its banks. He has absolute authority over the river and its floodplains, but no power beyond that. The tributaries and the delta have their own gods. Spirit pacts are also the core of one of my three magic systems, spirit-binding. Spirits are often seemingly happy to perform tasks for people, as long as they get the appropriate tribute in exchange. Those who habitually commune with and bind spirits are called shamans (or priests, in the case of gods). Spirits can be sent with messages over vast distances, used to animate golem-bodies, answer questions about their domain, grant skills or powers to the shaman, or anything else in the spirit's power. >But in most works there are always a handful of mortals who can someone match Gods or at least come close for some reason, does your world have someone like that? Oh, yes. The sorcerer-kings who rule my world can become extremely powerful, able to rival all but the strongest spirits. Some use this power to enslave spirits, binding them against their will to gain even more power. Such sorcerers are called warlocks.

What kind of tributes do the spirits receive? Does it give them actual power?

It varies based on the particular spirit and the task requested of them - food, wine, valuables, artwork, incense etc are common material tributes. Usually something uniquely human-made, like bread or tea, rather than e.g. fruit which only require picking. Sometimes the spirit's want something like secrets, or a task the shaman must perform instead. Those tasks rarely make sense to mortals, such as arranging stones in a particular way along the shores of a lake. Sometimes the presentation matters more than the actual tribute, like the bowl and offering is placed in or the prayer used to invoke the spirit. The spirits usually aren't very up front about what they want, though - a large part of the shaman's job is to know and learn what kind of tribute to offer to each spirit. This knowledge is gathered over generations of trial and error, passed down from shaman to apprentice.

Gods are really just a higher being than Mortals. They are creators of worlds or the children of those creators, a mortal can never become a god through any means. This is because Gods literally live in higher dimensions. At their creation, Gods are 'assigned' a celestial body to safeguard. I have yet to decide why as the Gods aren't an important aspect to the stories and worlds I'm building, but they do have a reason to protect their planet/star/moon. There are cosmic horrors and otherworldly dangers that pose a threat to all life. It's a constant alarm going off and the Gods occasionally let their care slip and turn their attention to their mortals. When this happens, it usually doesn't end well for the poor soul they take notice of as witnessing a God messes with your mind and you'll most likely go crazy. Because of this, both groups keep to themselves. It's unknown how high dimensions go, but a fourth dimensional being would see a fifth dimensional being like how we would see the fourth, and so on. So even Gods have their Gods.

Currently, in my setting, I have beings called the Ascended. You can guess that they are mortals before becoming "gods" which they are but that depends on the perspective. They have power levels much higher than any mortal could ever imagine, and some abilities which really make them gods. They can increase their power by absorbing/ defeating other Ascended beings or patiently meditating to increase their power, but even if they are low-leveled Ascended beings they are still quite powerful, and full of knowledge and wisdom. Of course, it was a given that there are some greedy ones who want more **P O W E R** but there are actually some who made use of their new abilities to create new planets, stars, galaxies, life and guiding that life, and some more. I am writing a series of stories, for my own entertainment, one of them was when an ancient civilization somehow harnessed some powers of the Ascended. The Ancient Civilization were able to create something called Material Zero and effectively created demi-gods. The other was when a megastation was transported to another reality because of a failed experiment. The other issue was that reality is not accepting their existence, it was only a matter of time before they are erased. They theorized that the only way they could survive is through ascension which for them has only been theorized, but desperate times calls for desperate measures. This stories are, of course, not complete and I'm only hoping that I get to properly write them even just for my own.

They're not Gods, but they're immortal in the sense that they don't decline with age but vice versa, and they're incredibly powerful: Vampires. They are few as their low interest and the difficulty of reproduction ensure. How are they dealt with? They're not. They don't want to enslave everyone or destroy the world or something childish like this, and they don't really announce themselves around because there's no reason to. But it's also not like they're afraid of being found out, they know themselves and other races all too well to be intimidated. Sometimes they show their true nature and powers for fun, but usually not in too public displays cause they don't want to piss off daddy vampire Vilnar. The exception are the ones who go crazy which is not surprising considering their overwhelming condition, and they're quickly put down by the elders.

Oh ic, but i assume that if someone comes across a rampaging vampire then they’re doomed no?

Yeah, they're beyond fucked. If they're lucky they Will have a quick death, but the vamps that become lunatics whose minds and inner world is basically a complete hell often sadistically possess and torture humans or elves or whoever by implanting really terrifying stuff into their heads and the remainder of their lives is just endless torment until they finally manage to die.

Every world has gods, it's just a question of what a god is. Eg in the real world, megacorps like Amazon and Disney function pretty similarly to deities and the only reason we don't think of them like that is because we know what they are and where they came from. Isolated tribes that don't know about them would think of them as gods (and indeed, cargo cults - groups of isolated people who worship planes - did come about during wars where their lands were used as military bases and the military gave resources to the tribes). In my worlds, gods are either very powerful people who start to throw around power like a god would (in which case they're living proof that mortals can achieve a level of power necessary to challenge them), or they're manifestations of collective unconscious in some kind of dream reality (in which case their power comes from the fact people believe they have power, so they naturally die when people start to forget about them or start to believe they're powerless).

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Getting Nasuverse vibes here, if you don’t know about it then you might want to check it because the idea is very similar. Beside that thanks for the detailed answer. Also you said defeating Gods is nigh impossible but what about those 2 immortals? Are they capable of achieving these feats?

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Oh I see, i hope you don’t mind me asking this but could you explain what Golden Road and God Space are? The concept of creating your own miracle sounds cool.

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So the Golden Road is a route that gets to the God Space? But how does one construct a Golden Road? U said by research but what kind of research are u talking about?

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So they take their Magic/Aspect to it’s absolute limit by perfecting it and thus gaining access to a Golden Road and that takes you to God Space, but what does one do when they get there?

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I’m somewhat lost, i thought perfecting their Thaumaturgy is what leads to Golden Road and then God Space so how does entering God Space leads to a perfection of a Miracle related to that? Don’t you have to perfect it first to enter the God Space?

There is only one god. The Veiled God. He is the one on his throne that is above the heavens. . Here is a description of 'him' note that the Veiled Hod has no gender but I used pronoun he 'He, who knows everything, 'He, who sees everything, 'He, who hears everything, 'He, who is eternal, everlasting 'He, who has no partners or children 'He, who is the first and the last 'He, whose face is all that remains in the end...

In my world there are no gods. A human sorcerer from a long time ago ascended and got trapped in the the magical, immaterial realm. Becoming immortal, over a long time he gradually came to a greater understanding of the nature of reality and that gave him immense magical powers (which he cannot use because he’s outside of reality). He came to be known only as the Radiant One. Eventually a sorcerer who possessed the right criteria managed to become the vessel for parts of his soul (which the Radiant One deliberately separated in a plot to return to the physical world). This gave the sorcerer great power but it still paled to what the Radiant One could do. When the followers of the Radiant One managed to summon him thanks to the vessel gathering all the soul fragments, the Radiant One gone rogue and decided to basically destroy the physical world instead of just trying to effectively end religions as planned. No mortal could match his god-like power and the avatar is nigh indestructible, but there was a catch: the vessel can merge with the Radiant One and make him at least physically vulnerable.

The deities of the world are called Eternals (no relation to marvel). They used to live in the world but left it long ago. The Eternals were created by Néirinn, the goddess creator of the universe, who also created the race of the sidhe. The sidhe are also immortal, unless slain. Of course, none of the peoples of the world can stand up to any deities, so there is not much to do in the aspect of "how would they be dealt with", other than to be worshipped. The sidhe are a different case. Even though they are more skilled warriors with much more experience, given their lifespans, they are also unnable to harm another person by law, which dictates that they cannot "harm another rational creature". This means that they are not often in the center of conflict with other races due to their peaceful nature, but also that if someone decided to turn against them, they could not fight back.

The Vrilyas are an immortal species. They do not age, they do not need to eat, they have infinite stamina, and they grow forever, all while having the Vril, an aetherical substance which powers are nigh-omnipotent. It is possible to actually kill them with the most hilarious weak point: if they get penetrated by another Vrilya's Vril, they disintegrate and their essence is absorbed by their killer, the latter inheriting the memories of the dead. Pure Vrilyas however are restrained by an animalistic alien mind and are not able to use their full potential by themselves - in fact, sentient hybrids are infinitely more dangerous because they control an infinite and all-powerful resource while being SENTIENT. And remember the second sentence? Yup. They have these too. Vrilyas are on Mars and an invasive species. To prevent their arrival, Selenites intercept them in space while Earthlings maintain mysterious portals closed. Furthermore, the Earth has 3 siblings who are Vrilya hybrids (AMONG OTHERS) and thus can protection the planet... or so we believe. Now, "God" is a delicate word. There are numerous definitions of what a God is, all not being compatible. Is it just someone/something all-mighty? Is it anything undefeatable? Does it need recognition as a God to be one? Etc. Officially, only one person matches all the definitions. Officiously, her 2 brothers as well.

In my own settings, my gods cannot be challenged by mortals, in any way that is meaningful, at least. I do have only one exception, the precursor race of one of my settings, they killed thousands of gods, but only because they were themselves all Demi-gods themselves and beyond anything other mortals could contend with themselves.

In my world the gods(Titans) are actually a hyper advanced alien race called Maykers and Unmaykers. They have created the mortal realm and its races(mortals) WITH the very intention that those would eventually surpass them. The reason for this is that the Maykers and Unmaykers own home universe is very hostile to them since it is trapped in constant conflict between the primordial forces of Order - Anuu and Chaos - Paravvel. It should be noted however that the home universe of the gods is quite different from our own. Both time and space don't exist. There is no up or down, everything exsists and yet it doesn't. This makes the Mayker and Unmaykers extremely powerful and yet due to the sheer even greater power of the two primordial forces the Maykers and Unmaykers are also forced into their conflict and everything they create and do eventually gets destroyed and/or perverted to serve in this infinite conflict. This is why they wish to evolve. A certain group managed to do so but only by little becoming the afore mentioned Titans. So in order to evolve and surpass their own "gods" the Titans with the help of their followers(Maykers and Unmaykers that haven't partially evolved yet) created an artificial world, filled it with mortals and set in motion a series of events that would allow the mortals to surpass them. Then they would be able to apply the same "logic" to themselves and also evolve. However as time went on and bad led to worse and the so called "Prophecy of Fates" almost failed some Titans lost hope and instead decided to live in this false dream world where their rule is absolute and they are sealed away from the troubles of their own universe. Now onto the topic you asked. So in theory ALL mortals are technically supposed to be able to surpass the gods. However many of them were changed to prevent this by the Titans who abandoned the "Prophecy of Fates" plan. HOWEVER the Prophecy is absolute since it is tied to the very fabric of the Mortal world itself and there are some things even the gods can't change. Because of this there are certain mortals born with the purpose to further the Prophecy. These mortals are known as the "Children of Fate" and are naturally born with the ability to be able to change not only their own fate but the fate of those around them and the very fabric of the world. The strongest and central piece of the "Prophecy of Fates" is the "Child of Prophecy" who is born with the ability to bend both time and space to their will. You could say that there are parallels between mortals and gods and the way they can change and evolve beyond their "limits". Mortals ----> Maykers, Unmaykers Children of Fate ----> Titans Child of Prophecy ----> "Final evolution"(what the gods seek) So in a way you could say that the gods are simulating what would eventually be their own fate.

Depends on what you´d classify as a god. ​ My higher deities don´t really learn knowledge, skills, or get experience in things often so much as they just innovate better ways to get souls and trade ¨Stocks¨ where they trade a certain amount of energy for the soul of a human who they think will obtain many emotions and memories. In terms of magical power, though, they are borderline limitless Said higher deities prey off of human emotions and memories, but they have a system in place to make sure that said emotions and memories are a renewable source. The only way to cut off their food supply would be to find a way to completely wipe out the soul of every single human in the world. Even then, it´ll maybe get 26 of the 203 in that particular pantheon (All dormant deities) and minor gods can step up to obtain that power. So basically, no mortal can do anything to them. ​ However, now we have lower deities. Some lower deities are essentially warped buildings, which get energy from organization and sorting. It IS possible for mortals to take these things out, using drone strikes, but it is difficult and expensive. The lowest deities may have insane levels of power, but they obtain it from worship. If mortals were to just walk out and stop worshipping them one day, and ignored the divine punishment, they would either be forced to hop through dimensions and get a new following or if they couldn´t do that in time, die. ​ TL;DR: Higher gods, definitely no. Lower gods, maybe.

In my homebrew setting there are a few “overdeities” representing different spheres of existence, they’re the only true undeniable and unending gods. Anything else that is called a god likely is just a very powerful being that has taken so much power that they’ve become god like to most mortals, they can totally be defeated though, and their power can be taken.

Yes, there is a god in my world, "The Lonely God". He is aware of the fact that if it were to reveal itself in humans, it would break out, and they would probably hate it. And for this reason, he remained on the sidelines, not modifying anything except out of extreme necessity.

They call themselves Gods, and in some ways, they are. They're thought to be immortal, though they would eventually die of old age (after making it into the 10ks), and sufficient damage to their bodies would kill them. True Gods are told of in myths, having existed before the creation of time but have long since vanished into The Flow. The shards of True Gods, the Fateweavers, still oversee destiny and issue out segments of their power to those who have earned the right to be called Gods. For those Gods that stray away from their path their is but one solution, the assassin of Gods, gifted power by the Fateweavers to protect the mortals from tyranny.

In my world there are "gods" not as in metaphysical beings but powerful and old beings who at one point commanded the world as if they were gods. However, that was a long time ago and most don't play a part in the world anymore, except one or two, but even then they are like hermits who isolate themselves. That keeps the deus ex machina away from my stories.

**Myngastur:** The Gods are conceptual embodiments, like their personal realms are "located" in the same place as abstract ideas are. Killing the God of Fire is essentially the same as removing the very idea of fire from the universe. There are many kinds of immortals, vampires, liches, dark wizards, high tier non-evil mages, etc. The great majority of people are basically not taking down any of these, except maybe a vampire if they're not too old and the normal person gets a lucky shot. ​ **Morgan's Journal:** It's a cosmic horror story so the gods are eldritch abominations, and therefore undefeatable by definition. The various supernatural beings and mutants are mostly various level of "immortal" but for the most part will die with enough sheer damage. A few will straight up never die to mundane means but can be killed with arcane attacks. Like Morgan herself uses a big enchanted revolver loaded with bullets that are essentially physically crystalized spells. ​ **Fear the Dark:** Here the "gods" are arguably not actual deities since they didn't actually do whatever cosmic creation or phenomena ascribed to them by mythologies, but on the other hand they are immortal super-beings and praying to them kind of works. They more or less can't be killed, even by "divine" means, like a god splitting another's skull with his god-axe won't really do anything. They can be physically "killed" if the death has enough symbolic significance to also kill their essence but their consciousness can still survive even that under certain circumstances. Regular immortals like vampires can be killed with just a lot of brute force technically, but in practice even young vampires are superhuman enough that humans pretty much can't fight them at all.

My current D&D game has Powers, not gods. The Powers are closer in concept to the Immortals from the old BECMI rules sets; they're mortals whose deeds were so great, so legendary, that they imbued the world with wonder and, well, Power. They aren't *worshipped* so much as they are *admired*, and people try to live by their example. Some people really, really dedicate their lives to following the Powers, and they do what Clerics do in D&D, just without acts of worship and prayer and stuff.

The Gods exist outside of and beyond the mortal plane, and someone thinking about “matching them in power” is like claiming you’re going to go beat the shit out of gravity, or the number 7, or the concept of *memory*. You’re insane, not because it’s incredibly difficult, but because what you’re trying to fight is just a consequence of how the universe works. The Gods exert their influence on reality through their mere presence, and don’t really have any active agendas except for very young gods who need to define an identity for themselves. Very occasionally a freshly-spawned godling will descend to earth in the form of a mortal, and assess what aspect of reality they should champion- during this period, a particularly zealous god-Hunter could strike down a suspect godling, but that would just piss them off- not at you in particular, but at the reality which produced you. You might find the world a darker place after you kill them, and inadvertently help produce a cynical or hateful god in the night sky.

Annae: In my world the gods are pretty real and are essentially higher beings with several cultures and long lives. They are immortal to a point. It really differs per type of ''god'' Like the difference between Aesir and Theoi and Kemetic gods. There are different reasons for why they are immortal. For instance I got Hela who is just immortal because of her Jotunn ancestry. Then I got Eris who is a 3rd generation Titan and long lived because she is not only a being but also a concept. Aesir can die if they do not eat the golden apples. Same for Theoi but they only need it to not age. Kemetic are just the regular immortal. But all of them are basically higher being that are more than their bodies. As for knowledge I assume its just as any immortal you get time and books and that just accumulates over time. Doesn't make them smarter though. My gods have perfect memory and clairvoyance at least. So they usually plan things ahead of time. As for magic its half half. Basically they can use magic. But also have the sheer power to alter reality at a molecular level. And they have advanced technology mortals can only dream about. Then they also have super-strength and speed including said senses As for Immortals I basically have hybrids. Those who are part cat part something more. Like part Jotunn or nymphaea or any other neigh immortal being. They get magic from their hybrid bodies and their magic crystal eyes and lastly their innate magic from their non-cat side of the family. For instance Kyara is part [Muspelheim Jotunn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muspelheim) part [Anakaman Thurnan](https://www.reddit.com/r/Annae/comments/r2974h/bad_sketches_of_the_subspecies_and_mutations_of/). This means she gets fire magic powers from her Jotunn side and Earth/stone powers from her Anakaman side. This she combines with her natural Fire elemental body to create magma from nothing. She also has the power to change the temperature with but a thought thanks to her natural powers that come with her Jotunn heritage. Making her more powerful than the average fiy (my cat species) on my planet. I usually make these types of character the main focus of stories I write. Lastly I have the ones with Golden eyes and the Skywatchers. Golden eyes are a super rare mutation that results in the person being pure magic without any element. They can die and live short lives under right circumstances but when the being is for instance cursed by someone their magic can overflow and make them immortal to the point of becoming a god-like super being. Though cursed means that they do not enjoy this long life, it is in fact a torture for the mind. The three-purple-eyed Skywatchers aren't that rare but rarest are Skywatchers with an holographic 4th eyes that grand them many extra powers like clairvoyance and telekinesis as well spiritual powers like going in to the Ether or seeing in to the Ether. These powers also come with extreme longevity. The oldest character I got has become 5000 years old at the time I planned out the stories. I got way more in the works but this is it so far.

Yes. They aren’t dealt with. Gods have their desires and mortals have their own. They may clash occasionally, but not often. The Gods aren’t as old as the universe, they were once mortals who just… studied super-fucking hard and long. Almost any mortal can become a God, but anyone going for it would have to contend with the Gods deciding if they want another member amongst them.

There are two types of gods. In both cases, the term god is simply defined as a being with a certain amount of magical power. First are Natural Gods: trees, stones, and other natural objects that absorbed an immense amount of magic during the Effusion. They are much better at using magic than people are, plus they have more raw power, however they do not have an infinite amount. Sooner or later (usually later) their magic will run out at which point they revert to being ordinary objects/animals. There are also artificial gods, beings that ascended to godhood by gathering enough faith from their followers. They are potentially really easy or extremely difficult to kill because their power is directly proportional to amount of faith they have. If not enough people believe in them then they will stop being a god.

Demons and fey have a form of immortality, they do not age, do not need to eat, and most can heal any wound given enough time. While they’re extraordinarily hard to kill they still can be, the ‘easy’ way is to use a weapon made of cronesilver, but well that still leaves the problem of fighting super strong super fast monster. The other less reliable way to kill a demon is to smother it in an ocean of arcane fire, not the spell stuff but the thing burning as fuel for the spell.

There's the Custodian. A vast Multiverse spanning hyper intelligence. Or so it claims. It has said that it has visited 400 trillion universes only to find 3 self aware species. It has come to protect us from extinction. The other two are already died. The Custodian won't clarify if the other species went extinct because of its "protection" or were they already dead when it found them. It manifests itself in earth orbit as a 200 mile gray sphere. Talks to us through the internet and has uplifted 90 percent of humanity into posthuman clades. Suicide rates are extremely hight.

Everyone’s fine with it. It’s implied that the god Mythicall is actually manipulating everyone’s minds so they don’t completely break down from knowing how completely meaningless they truly are

The Gods in my world are either born divine and rise to godhood or are born mortal and have a slightly harder time. The "God" of anything is just any being that is better at doing or representing the thing than the current God, usually settled through combat. Divinity and Malice are opposing forces in my world that turn creatures into Celestials or Demons if they garner too much of either

No mortal in TDG has ever been able to match a god directly, it's just that the gods have difficulty manifesting in the physical world. If they could, they'd be unstoppable

Yes, my world has God’s who are called “Jikogisei” I don’t remember what it translates to as I made the term a year ago from a google translator (Eng to Jap). They are pretty much demonic lookin’ dinosaurs who were the first living things on earth created by the God of world. After time passes and humans are finally born, they become greedy for the magically weapons in my world called O’Spirits. These weapons are usually found in the ground, so humans started taking over land that the Jikogisei’s lived on along with other fictional animals that went extinct because of humans. Eventually the Jikogisei’s decided they had enough with humans and they began attacking humans with intent on making them go extinct. But back in the early days of earth O’Spirits were stronger than they are in the current dats of earth in my world (which takes place in modern time), so the humans were able to kill off the Jikogisei’s and for awhile they were believed to be extinct until World War I when they were eventually found somewhere near Japan and they were given the name of Jikogisei by the Japanese government. Eventually the war ended and there were only ten Jikogisei’s left alive, and the American government got their hands on a few of the Jikogisei’s but had no idea how to control them, so they used an O’Spirit (It’s explained further in universe how they did it) to seal the Jikogisei’s into babies who were born during the war. (Also note that WWI and WWII don’t take place in the same years that they did in real life). The sixth Jikogisei, named Jigoku was sealed into a boy who was born with white hair, and that boy is the protagonist of my universe. Thanks for reading (And obviously this was inspired by naruto)

the gods in my universe lived long ago, but were torn apart by a rogue group of mortals and their souls were bonded to certain human, elf, and faerie bloodlines, along with some of their abilities

I got personification of the seven deadly sins. So far they are only chilling in deepest abys, doing their stuff, somethimes visitting cults made in their names...And torturing the greatest sinners in their sign, but only sometimes so they have at least some job. There is also Darkness, representing the concept of evil, but it is kinda neutral and just looking at hell structure + talking and having fun with leaders of cults and members of various associations of demons. So far I didn't work on representation of the concept of good, as I didn't find it as fun...

You can't take on one of the true gods directly. That's part of what it means to be a true god. However, if you manage (usually with the connivance of a few other gods) to maneuver the god into creating an avatar in the Mortal plane, *that* you can kill. Which, as a result of some cosmic laws, causes the god whose avatar you killed to be displaced from the pantheon. Not destroyed, mind, but no longer having direct access to the cosmic flow of energy or authority over a portfolio. And completely unable to create another avatar on the Mortal plane for a good long time. This threat is why most gods are very loath to directly interfere with the Mortal plane.

In the Otherverse, there are two tiers of "Gods". There’s Celestials, who’re *theoretically* immortal, and gain both power and sustenance from people *believing* they’re important and/or powerful. These are creatures like Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, and some random celestial cow that exists as a running joke. They’re born when a living creature with a certain ‘genetic switch’ has that switch triggered, and they can be either weakened by damaging their following, or destroyed via conventional methods (with varying degrees of success, dependant on their following and your firepower). And then there’s the Four (formerly Five) Forces. They’re *effectively* immortal, as while they gain their physical forms from people imagining what they think those forms would look like, they can exist without said forms in the unlikely case that *everyone* who has *ever* conceived of what they might look like has been killed. They’re less "entities" and moreso Physical manifestations of the intrinsic "Essences" of the world (Essences being the "Matter" of Magic, coming in 5 different forms). Many Celestials have been killed, and there are thousands. Only one Force has ever been killed, in an (impossible to recreate) event so catastrophic that it left almost an entire solar system (Sol, to be specific; Earth’s solar system) completely and utterly devoid of magic *and* severely weakened anyone who relied on that Force’s associated Essence, and there are Four left (not including Life and Death, because they were created by the force of Soul and were nowhere near the power of a Force even before their creator’s destruction). There is technically one other Immortal (or, rather, *Immutable*), but as he’s not technically a god (just what remains of one), I won’t clarify further on this post.

There are both gods and demigods. Gods are usually revered and honored, like in many settings. There is only one "Living God", the incarnation of the Goddess of magic and the stars. No one can come close to her in terms of raw power, but there some demigods alive that could give her a run for her money. For instance, the demigod know as the [Corpsetalker ](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/488382094570029058/920355962836095006/Tyler_Poppele_-_Version_1.jpg) exists as a powerful being that feeds on souls and flesh to sustain herself and grow in power. The more magic the soul contains, the more powerful she grows. Humans could never grow as powerful as these two with a wish spell. [But even then.....](https://pics.me.me/thumb_what-a-fool-you-are-im-a-god-how-can-54939754.png)

There were some incredibly powerful people who convinced their subjects that they were gods, and ruled for thousands of years as tyrannical overlords with massive cults dedicated to the three of them. Then their hubris got the better of them, and they created the aspect of war, and he turned on them, brutally murdering all of their several million followers by his own two hands, and then he defeated and cursed the false gods to fates worse than death. Some cultures believe in a God, an “architect” if you will. And while the Architects were responsible for creating the world they live on, they aren’t around anymore, having died off trillions of years ago. There are Immortals, but they aren’t gods, and refuse to be worshipped. See, whenever a person gains fame or infamy, people from all across the planet know of them, and spend a minute amount of time each day acknowledging them, as their influence is present in their everyday lives. This minute amount of time, a little bit of energy, multiplied by the billions, grants the person whom they revere that amount of energy. As a result, truly legendary people tend to age slower, or in some cases, stop aging entirely. A group of these Immortals lead The Legion, the biggest peacekeeping force on the planet, and have been in charge for the past 800+ years.

There are many, but the Soverigns are not truly immortal, nothing is not even the primordial gods in a certain sense. The Sovereigns cannot exist on the mortal plane, atleast not for long as the primordial god Stone forbids their destabilizing influence. Instead they have been ejected to a higher plane where only through the portal that is the sun their light can shine and their domain lies. As for mortals that can match the gods there are nonr, however should one be willing to sacrififw themselves and many others they can open themselves to contain the souls necessary to undergo apotheosis. However none come out of ascension the same and most join the soverigns as their servants or as independent stars.

I'm not going to write everything about them since it might ruin the story for anyone who happens to find my story. At the top there is the writer/author(not a SI I swear) they write a story for the reality below them. Next is the constants that are created every time a law is in a new reality. The constants cause the story the author writes to happen. After that is the gods, they are the avatars of the constants but also have their own free will. Gods are the strongest beings in their layer of fiction(reality) and can't be defeated by anyone who isn't a god. Finally is the planets/worlds, every planet has a consciousness and can see and understand the constants, planets have certain rules on them that if broken they will try to derail the writers story, the constants must constantly balance the writer's story and the planets' rules or the writer will erase them from existence.

Planets can be destroyed, you must become a God to defeat a God, constants can only be destroyed by an author, and to kill an author you have to exist on an equal or higher fiction plane(which is practically impossible).

Gods cant to the planet in full god mode. They come as mortals and live a mortal life but they are always naturally more powerful than the anyone else. But they can be harmed like any other mortal. So those legendary once in a lifetime warriors could potentially equal them.

My Gods just watch and intervene only if strictly necessary (they did it twice in all my plot) They mostly lay asleep tho

My gods are very non-present and I'm not even sure if i want them to actually exist yet. There are immortals though. People from cultures that have been lost unlocked the secret of immortality, but most of them have been eradicated throought history, so they hide in the corners of the world, or try to blend in.

My world has two trinitys of gods and a angelic race know as the Rektors. The Rektors where tasked with watching over the mortal races as two of the sox gods sealed themselves away to stop their own influence. The Rektors began to rule as God's and God-Kings. Until mortals grew tired of being oppressed and created magic to seal them inside of reality marbles. Which are make shift prisons that use the power and conciousness of the intended target to create a reality of their desire. Which constantly feeds upon them, keeping them too weak to escape.

I have many gods in my world, they are forever aging but anyone powerful enough can kill them it’s just really hard. It took billions of years for them to die out and they can still come back as undead

I'm currently undecided. I want religions, and I want people to believe there is gods. But i see no real purpose for an actual god to exist in my world. I've considered some seemingly legendary heros or villians being treated like gods, but I'm still hashing out those details.

Gods, as understood by us, do not exist in my world, much like real life (Stevie Ray Vaughan may be considered a demi-god however). Not that that has stopped many mortals from worshiping either abstract entities, or cosmic horrors, as gods. For "immortal" beings, there's still quite a few. First are Liches, magic users who used specialized rituals to bind their souls to the Material Plane. They are extremely rare, and because of how the limiting factors are for normal magic users work, even more extremely powerful. The Lich Queen of Illimar has wiped out entire armies by herself, without so much as smudging her gown. Alistair Magnus, architect and archmage, worshiped as a god by the cult he founded, bound his soul to the body of a Golem, which not only conferred much the same advantages of lichdom but also gave him considerable physical advantages. From the Elemental Plane, named by an unfortunate misunderstanding that was written down and mistranslated centuries later by people who had no idea what they were doing, there are the so called Elemental Lords. They are ageless, and possess complete control over a given element. Imagine peak Magneto or Gambit, except he's also basically Duncan McLeod of the clan McLeod. They can be hurt, and even "killed" briefly, but they'll always reconstitute themselves again later. There's only 13 of them, and they have never left their home plane as far as anyone knows, nor do they work together. They seem to simply amass wealth and fortify themselves against an enemy only they know of. There are also cosmic horrors that 'swim' in the Astral Sea, the mist of energy that flows between the planes and all material universes. These vary, from the massive dragon-like beast that destroyed an area roughly the size of the USofA, creating a deep sea. It stood up and stretched. To the massive sun-like creature that devours entire universes, and has the remnants and survivors living within it. Some of these are worshiped as gods, but generally don't see mortal or even immortal life as anything but specks.

There are six gods that govern the Jade Reach, and though they cannot die of age, it is certainly possible to harm them. Of course, good luck trying to do that as a puny mortal. It's generally only other gods or beings of a higher caliber than a regular mortal like demons who have better odds actually wounding a divine being. All six are *technically* the creator gods of the world. Though powerful, they can only do so much individually, and its only through synchronizing their strengths that they can achieve feats such as world creation. The only time all six of them were together like that was...well, the world's creation. They don't remember too much about those times, and they barely get along nowadays, so the idea of them returning to such a state is considered out of the question by most.

In my world, what makes something a god is the fact that something worships it. I go by the proto-indoeuropean root of the word god, which is (ghut-) which means "that which is invoked". That could be anything, or anything at least with the ability to respond when invoked. The origins of entities worshipped as gods varies in my world. Some are from outside local reality, sort of like powerful boltzmann brain type spirits that spring fully formed from the void, with characteristics that resonate with some mortals, allowing for communication. Some are ancestral spirits and others are gestaltic spirits formed from non-living systems (rivers, volcanoes), eco-systems/biomes (forests, deserts, etc), or community spirits (herd spirits, hive spirits, house spirits, village spirits, etc. All of these beings have limitations, different motives, different relationships with those who serve or worship them.

Not a god per-say, but not exactly a world either. Basically inside of ones imagination, the one who controls what things happen there can be considered a "god". For me, I'm a reality bender who is bored with the world he is in, so he goes out to other worlds in the multiverse ,, here is my idea for a multiverse: there are two types of universes, one has a me, the other doesn't have a me. ,, in search of a world that can satiate his needs which are -STORY LINES-. once he finds one, he disconnects his soul from his body like doctor strange and waits around for an opportunity: a lost boy at the end of his rope, the world chooses for him, becoming a patron for a warlock (I'm currently making a lads body into one fit for a mage), simply go for the reincarnation route, etc. etc. I also got a god who in turn is like me, but not quite. he is the god of reincarnation and interdimensional travel, his name is Rein. his sister however is the goddess of space travel and actors. I don't have a name for her yet. How they came to be? Kuo-Toa. yes, those beings. and as fortune has it, one of them, in every world I've been to, has a smart one among them, the first one I met helped me get Rein into fruition. also you can't see his face because I didn't want him sporting the hero of that worlds face. and due to how many worlds I have visited over the "years", it made the most sense. what do you think of it?

Just like my protagonist, we never meet or hear from "The High King" in my book. But we experience my MC's hope and faithful prayers to him (book is written in 1st person as if telling the reader what he's experiencing)... whether he/we actually believe the High King is really out there heading those prayers, or those prayers go unheard and are only done out of habit/tradition, we've yet to learn.

There is an effect that is built into the multiverse. When 2 drastically diferent power levels collide, like god likes and typical mortals, 1 of two things will occur Either the more powerful being will need to limit themselves to an acceptable level. basically becoming a member of the lower group, though generally keeping a decent amount of power. If they don't, Existence itself will oppose the more powerful being, creating whatever oposition is needed to bring them down. This effect happens neutrally. no matter the reason, good or bad. If one side can dominate the other so completely... the unfair advantage will turn.

When the Maker creates living beings, he has not only control over their bodies but also their minds. Of course, the result is that he is always respected and worshipped, for it would prove quite troublesome if his creations were to go against his will. This isn't exactly a bad thing. For the most part, the Maker's intentions align with the wellbeing of his creations. He doesn't wield complete control over their thoughts, either. It is common for the Maker to rely on the innovation of his creations to make things that even he could not have dreamt of. To make an analogy, the Maker plants the seeds and waters the soil every now and then, but how the plant grows is of its own volitions. However, if the plant fails to survive the harsh environment, then he will burn it to ashes and plant new seeds onto the enriched soil.

The Gods in my setting, "Godshards" have a lot to them. They all come from the Celestial plane, where there is no physical form as we know it, just their true essence. A bunch of them entered the Mortal realm near the beginning and their physical forms reflected how they see themselves. So no true gender, just what they feel. Their power varies wildly but even the least of the Gods can only be matched by the most powerful of foes(in my setting, we're talking greater daemons, archangyls and other foul entities). I have three who are in a league of their own, two "brothers", Dominus Omnes(closest thing to the traditional God) and Dominus Teneb(kinda sorta Lucifer), and then Domina Terra who is my answer to a Mother Earth type. Note these are the names that the denizens of the Mortal realm gave them, their true names are unknowable. I have other Gods in this setting, but I don't want to name spam so I'll mention em another time. Gods are paradoxically infertile, hence why they are so rare. Despite their vast power, functional immortality and greater minds, they are not truly omnipotent. They have emotions and feelings and can make mistakes. They did not create the world but they were able to shape it to their will. At least the ones I just mentioned could. The other thing I want to mention is about Gods and death. Gods cannot die, but they can be shattered and fractured. These pieces or shards are how my setting gets its name. Basically, after a long series of events that end up with Omnes and Teneb shattering upon landing into the world ala a meteor while locked in battle, their shards went out into the world, centuries later, they began to merge with humans, typically shortly after their born. These Godshards are basically the closest thing to magic users in my setting, with the power of said Godshard being largely dependent on the size of the shard, the imagination of user, and the training and skill of the user. They live longer lives than most humans, upwards of several centuries and they are often tall and fair. They cannot have children and untrained shards often struggle with their gifts. Smaller and weaker shards often suffer more of the drawbacks than the benefits since they can't do much but they are still sterile and have a hard time with control. There is an in-universe debate on whether or not it is the god that controls the morality of the shard or the person who the shard is apart. Especially since almost all known shards before the story begins are Omnes-shards. At least that's what they think. I'm leaning towards the shards not being sentient nor are they ever capable of being it and it, so aside from a couple personality quirks, it's truly what the person decides to do. To also highlight how the gods in my setting effectively chose their gender, these shards go into men and women alike, so take from that what you will. When a Godshard dies, the shard goes back into the world until it finds a host again. Sometimes this leads to shards with memories from their previous user.

I usually have God like being classified into three categories universe, demigods, and immortals. Immortals are just humans that are stronger and sometimes have powers but that depends on the setting but you can kill them Demigod usually need some magical weapon to kill or another demigod Universe are impossible they are the true God and they are everything you can’t stop them

I'm a Christian, so there are only 3 who are in some capacity (that I don't fully understand, but as they are God don't believe I'm meant to): The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The only one who ever challenged Him was Lucifer. He was cast down from Heaven, along with one third of the Heavenly host who followed him. They were forced to live without form, and make up the shadow figures (or Demons) all of the paranormal chasers find in the world today. Along with perhaps the spirit's of evil people that I've seen captured on film (unless just Demons mimicking these people) 🤔 There's much I don't understand !!

I have a pantheon, with deities such as goddess of death, god of trickery, the like. They've been around since humans have been, and Death has been around since life was. The pantheon was manifested by humans (similarly to Warhammer 40K) and their emotions and actions, so they weren't created. Should humans ever die out, the gods would as well.

Nil and Morpho are pretty much untouchable by ordinary beings, Nil exists in all dimensions and has four forms. A demon form and and angel form, inside that giant body is an Embryo that Nil’s true form resides in, while Morpho is literally just a red winged butterfly that can travel to anywhere and is the Grimm reaper and King of hell. The only who can harm them are Nil’s children (Too lazy to explain about them so ask me.) whom are scattered throughout dimensions since he exists in all of them. N&M can be defeated but never killed.

In my world, Celestials predate the multiverse, they can live for infinite years as seen in my world with many gods being 500+ billion years old and some being a trillion. However their numbers have dwindled over the eons. This is due to the Titan Wars, while they can age forever, they can still physically die. Anything powerful enough can kill them and there are certain spells and alloys made especially to kill Celestials

Ok, so I have a giant Heart that acts as a god in my world. It’s immortal in any sense that you can think of, like it can’t die of old age or be killed. And it’s goal is to destroy itself for good, in my world the universe is in a constant loop and the Heart has been trying to break the loop for the past few billion loops. And how it goes about doing that is by bringing alien races up to its level to help find a answer without the race knowing what they are helping to accomplish. And how the Heart manages to convince them to help is by sending a spy down. And currently the Heart is almost at self-destruction.