What are the gods up to these days, anyways?

[Osprey]

So my current campaign now features an epic-level Paladin of Cuiraecen, who is Stormlord of the Militant Order. The MOC has grown to become the largest temple in Anuire, and in doing so is beginning to transform into a polytheistic church that venerates all of the non-evil human deities, with Laerme, Haelyn, and Neserie being the most prominent deities after Cuiraecen.

I have run my campaign world with the assumption that the waxing and waning of mortal worship directly affects the power of the gods, and so this unexpected explosion of faith in Cuiraecen is beginning to upend the long-standing balance of power and old hierarchy in the gods' realms. Cuiraecen and Laerme are growing in divine rank, while Haelyn's power is waning (the WIT and OIT have been nearly wiped out, while the other Haelynite temples of Anuire have also begun to shrink or remained stable at best. And foreign temples of Haelyn are not generally on the rise either as more time passes since the fall of the Anuirean Empire).

Within this backdrop, it seemed appropriate to me that Haelyn and Laerme have begun to directly speak with their champions, as not only this paladin, but several clerics of both deities are also epic-level (over level 20) and in my Pathfinder game, are also Mythic champions in their own right. That is, on top of their now-powerful bloodlines (built through rulership, heroic deeds, and some bloodtheft of their enemies), these heroes of legendary stature are themselves becoming divine entities who directly champion their patron deities. Plus, communing with those deities and traveling to their planes has long been within the power of the clerics (it only takes a 9th level cleric to do this in almost every version of D&D; but once they hit 17th level and could cast Gate, travel to the gods' realms became very reliable and accurate).

So my heroes have been visiting Haelynir, spoken with their patron deities in person(!), and recently been given some epic quests to go forth to the outer planes and find two major artifacts (the Eye of the Storm and the Heart of Fire, for Cuiraecen and Laerme respectively), which they are going to use to help forge their own new gods' realm in the Shadow World as a surprise gesture to crown their upcoming wedding. (Sorry, Haelyn - a thousand years later, your little god-son is all grown up and finally moving out on his own).

Obviously, I am making up almost everything as I go, because as I researched the gods in the core material, I was rather surprised to find just how little information there is on them! There are barely any stories of their deeds, adventures, exploits, or well - anything! Just a few sentences per deity in the BoP about ways they sometimes appear to mortals. And these are often frustratingly vague. For a set of deities that seems to exist and are worshiped by (at most) a few million humans on one smallish continent, you'd think there would be more known about them, and that they'd be pretty actively involved in the lives of those worshipers. I mean, what else do they have to do?

And that brings me to the question for the rest of the BR community:
What do you imagine the gods have been up to for 1500 years?

Have they gone off to other parts of the Shadow World, or other planes of existence, to have adventures of their own?

Do they sit contemplating their navels for aeons on end?

Do they just hang out with their faithful spirits of the dead in the wonderlands they have created for them?

Do they secretly sneak around Aebrynis in various forms, observing and influencing people and events far more than anyone realizes?

What do you think the gods have been up to for all these years? What are they up to now?

[masterdaorin]

Do they secretly sneak around Aebrynis in various forms, observing and influencing people and events far more than anyone realizes?

They seem to do that regularly, relatively speaking, yes.

What do you think the gods have been up to for all these years? What are they up to now?

I think that they are most concerned with the growing threat of the Shadow World - and why it has been transformed... only since Deismaar.

Lots of naval gazing about that...

Of course, each god has their own priorities... Eloele, for example, probably doesn't care about that, and has her own agenda...