Your favorite deity from stories

[the December King]

Our D&D group has been playing for some time. Recently, five of the characters all assumed godhood during our own Time Of Troubles/gods-become-mortal/magic-messes-up type event, and the cool thing is, is that they all became Death. Or rather, they all assumed different aspects of death.

It is now called the church of the Hand, or the Five Fingers of Death in colloquial circles. Instead of fighting the previous deities, they were actually mentored to the positions, chosen for different inherent abilities that manifested through the Dark Time, that they emerged stronger for it.

The Protector was gifted with the ability to speak to the dead. The Guide was an infallible tracker who could sense life's passing. The Reaper was, in life, a vile monster that could not be killed, that sought more from existence. The Scribe, or the Lorekeeper, was able to calm the dead with music, and record their lives in prose. The Necromancer was already born of death, and sought to guide the undead back to rest... and also was an example that it is a brave sacrifice, to know too much of necrology for mortal minds.

And yes, this means that flipping the bird to someone in our game means that you hope the Reaper collects them.

 

[Legomaniac91_v1legacy]

I'll always carry a soft spot for Thor and the other Norse gods. While his mythological version could be a brutish dick, his Marvel comics version got my to start reading comics in the first place.

I also like Beerus from Dragonball. The God of Destruction for Universe 7 (the "main" Dragonball universe), his day job is to literally wipe entire planets from existence so that new planets can be created. His personality is simultaneously serious, yet petty. He can inspire fear in even the strongest warrior, but is willing to spare a planet (or destroy it) over the tiniest little thing.

One of the most terrifying deities I've seen has to be The Entity from Atop the Fourth Wall. A self described "Outer God" whose entire purpose in life is to absorb everything in the Multiverse into itself. From the largest star to the tiniest particle, nothing was spared its ravenous hunger. Who could have figured that a silly little show about reviewing bad comics could have produced such a powerful being, and come up with a clever way of stopping it?

 

[conmag9]

Technically more a Titan than a god, but since they fill a similar narrative role, I'm going with Autochthon from Exalted.

Imagine the Death Star scaled up to full planetary size, given the personality of MacGyver, then load him up with Cosmic ADHD and magical bio-tech cancer. In setting, he's one of the Primordials who fashioned the world. He invented a LOT of stuff, including the very concept of Invention! Humanity was basically a crappy copy of his own races, but he liked us anyway, since we used his three favorite tools (Faith, Dogma and Tools). The other Primordials abused him insanely, which eventually caused him to snap, team up with the rebellious gods (who were created by the Primordials to do the busy-work that kept the world running) to stop them. He created the titular Exalted, a system of infusing heroic humans with the power needed to take on the creators of the universe.

Then a bunch of things happened and he had to leave before the slowly maddened Exalted turned their oversized swords on him. So he sealed himself away behind a nigh-unbreakable seal into another dimension along with 100 million humans to help keep himself running and powered (his own world-sized, space-bending body contains resources humans can use, while their prayer and work keeps him alive). Then he took a nap to preserve power, wait out the Exalted, and let his followers do some stuff without looking over their metaphorical shoulder all the time.

As he sleeps, the aforementioned robo-cancer is spreading, infecting and "upgrading" machine spirits and his own, non-crazy Alchemical Exalts. The eight nations deal with these gremlins, void cults, corruption and the many inherent dangers of Autochthon's mechanical body and make their way in the world. It's a massive setting outside the conventional Exalted setting and I love him. It's also, weirdly, the only part of the whole setting where mortals have real power and the Exalts work for them, rather than ruling them. So that's neat.


Also, Primordials can't really operate properly outside their themes (industry, order, creativity etc in his case), so to better understand humanity, he basically performed Do-It-Yourself brain surgery on himself so he could understand us. How many fictional super beings do stuff like that?!

So yeah. Hail Autochthon!

 

[WolfThomas]

When you get into the gritty details about Lorkhan, the Talos Oversoul and Vivec/Vehk, along with CHIM in TES lore it's really neat. Becoming a god is about being the biggest bastard and then rewriting history both metaphorically and literally to pretend you weren't. It's fun.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Nyarlathotep.

...but leaving it at that is boring so I'm going with Holo from Spice & Wolf.

 

[ckriley]

You're probably going to laugh at me, but I really like Lord Beerus from Dragon Ball Super. He's the god of destruction of Universe 7 in the DB multiverse. And the thing is, I only recently got into DBS because it's on Adult Swim. Beerus' story arc with Goku had me utterly hooked. Before this, I never really paid attention to Dragon Ball. But Beerus made me a fan of it. His character was great. He's playful, polite, but can be terrifying on a whim and destroy worlds just because he doesn't like the taste of their food, or because someone didn't say hello to him properly. I like that kind of portrayal of a deity. A being that powerful wouldn't give two craps about humanity. We'd be their amusement.

In actual mythology, I'm a fan of Dionysus specifically for his portrayal in The Bacchae. What he does to Pentheus and the entire city of Thebes for repeatedly disrespecting him was just brutal.

Agave: How terrible the blows Dionysus struck against your house!
Dionysus: Yes, for I suffered terrible things at your hands, with my name not honored in Thebes.

Hell. Yes. As you can tell I'm a HUGE fan of humanity being soundly and rightfully put in our place.

 

[DanielDI]

My favorite traditional story that most people who grew up in Sunday school know is the story of Ruth and Boaz. It's just such a great story about family values and how doing the right thing pays off.
My favorite story that they don't teach you in Sunday school is 1 Samuel 18. King Saul's daughter Michal is in love with David, so Saul sees this as an opportunity to get rid of David and sets the dowry at 100 Philistine foreskins (he specifies foreskins so David can't just cheat by going out and killing 100 of his own people, since they're all circumcised), thinking David will die trying to attack them. David's like "Heck yeah, I can do better than that!" So he goes out and kills TWO hundred Philistines and brings back their whole penises instead of just the foreskin. Saul thinks he's going to have David out of the way now, but he ends up having to marry his daughter to the guy he hates and is left with nothing but a literal bag of dicks. The bible is so great you guys.

 

[the December King]

Nyarlathotep.

...but leaving it at that is boring so I'm going with Holo from Spice & Wolf.

Boring?!? I beg to differ. You should just run with your first suggestion- the crafty and sibilant Voice of Azathoth is an excellent choice!

Only one of the Elder Gods represented in Egypt, if memory serves (next to possibly the Sphinx itself, though it was more likely a Great Old One), and the only one that actively dabbled in the affairs of men.

Having said that I know nothing of Spice and Wolf, so I can't really be absolutely sure.