Why can't Gods be High Lords?

[GeniusCodeMonkey]

What would happen if an Avatar of Lanana was selected as the next High Lord of the Living Land?

...and what are a Gods view of a Darkness Device?

[Dalhyp]

High Lords are more than gods, just ask them. (grin)

[Istrian]

That's a really deep question for a casual Thursday.

I'd say it really depends on the nature of divinity and the specific God's agenda. My understanding so far of Axioms and Possibility Energy is that both are heavily influenced by the people living in a Cosm, meaning that a Cosm can support the existence of Gods because the beings living in it want it to happen. Therefore a God would be a force of nature, rather than an actual being (even if they take physical shape).

More to the point, I think an Avatar of Lanala, being a facet of the Goddess of Life, would not be chosen by the Darkness Device because their ultimate goal is conquest and destruction. It would be like giving Pope Francis the power and influence to lead a crusade: from a DD's point of view a waste of good Possibility Energy.

The various Gods of the Nile Empire are probably too narrow-minded to be selected as well. I see them as bothering only with their specific facets and caring only about their worshippers. On the other hand, Mobius is technically a divine being, since in Egyptian mythology Pharaohs are considered divine.

Aysle's Corba'al could qualify but I'm not sure death and destruction are the same thing.

Another question to ask: do Gods actually know about Darkness Devices? After all DDs probably were created before the concept of divinity even appeared.

[Spatula]

I imagine that it would be harder for a deity to travel outside of their reality, as their existence depends on the Spirit axiom there and possibly also the presence of believers.

[Atama]

How do we know they aren’t secretly High Lords, but their cosms are “Asgard” or “Mount Olympus” or whatever...?

Or maybe they are variations of Darkness Devices themselves?

*mind asplode*

[GeniusCodeMonkey]

I imagine that it would be harder for a deity to travel outside of their reality, as their existence depends on the Spirit axiom there and possibly also the presence of believers.

Easy, send in believers to plant stelea via dim thread, once the bridge goes down the axioms will change to support the god(s). If you have some kind of mind control at the same time you could convert everyone to your religion... oh wait... hmm sounds familiar...

But in all seriousness, you would only need to send over priests before hand to convert the population and plant stelea then when the bridge goes down... oh wait ..hmm sounds familiar.

Ok, I can't think of any reason why you couldn't do this. You only need to teach the local population about your religion and part of that will happen when they transform anyway. To me it's a no brainer...

...but I think the DD wouldn't choose a God because this would require a spirit axiom of at least 24 (to have walking avatars) and would/could make the God more powerful than the DD just without the reality abilities. So it would be a dangerous proposition for the DD. That is even saying that there isn't some kind of reality warping shenanigans going on that makes the God not able to interact the DD or the DD not interact with the God.

[Gargoyle]

I sort of approach this from the viewpoint that I don't want Darkness Devices choosing gods. I feel like it's less compelling. So I rationalize that by thinking DD's need mortals to be High Lords. Gods, even gods of destruction, wouldn't have the capacity for evil that a truly corrupt mortal seeking the title of Torg can possess. Perhaps even more importantly, even if gods can have reality skill, I think I agree with the notion that their power depends on the belief of worshippers and actually traveling to other realities is not something they can do, which makes them ineffective as High Lords. They're powerful in their own realm, but not imaginative enough to be useful for conquering other cosms.

[Istrian]

On the other hand we have an actual example of a High Lord who cannot exist with its cosm's current axioms: Kranod. But it could be argued that it's the DD plotting against it.

[Matthew Surridge]

Wasn't there a mention in one of the live chats or somewhere that 'supernatural evil' creatures are defined as creatures with a link to the Nameless One? My thought was, if demons have a direct link to entropy, perhaps by extension Gods have a link to Apeiros that makes it impossible for even a god of evil to use a Darkness Device.

[QuarrelBlue]

Wasn't Avatar of Lanala a Ultra-Powered Ord?

In Gods generic, I personally support the "Force of Nature" theory. Divine beings manifest as the focus of collective faith, and considered as a part of reality "environment" rather than "Living Things" who actively push the reality to(and beyond) its limit, for the perspective of the Everlaw of Two.
(And I suppose Ultra-Ord status represents that.)
Darkness Device needs a being that can go beyond its own reality to twist, corrupt, and ultimately destroy the Reality itself, which certainly is a Reality-rated "Living Thing".