Enslaving the gods

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:01 pm

After an utterly bizarre dream involving Zeus, King of the gods, chained to plow on a Southern Plantation and the plantation owner simply explaining to a religiously devout foreigner that in their country men to do not serve the gods, the gods serve men, I just can't get this idea for a setting out of my head.

Essentially, it's the theme park version of mythology (ala Xena) crossed with Roots. The ancient gods were petty and cruel and plagued mankind with suffering but at some point in the past a man discovered how to turn the god's own tools against them and now normal vanilla non-superpowered humans own world-creating deities as property.

Demand would, of course, greatly outstrip the initial supply so new gods would be bred by owners looking to turn a profit in the god market.

So I'm looking for plausible ways to enslave beings so such power that don't involve giving humans superpowers and preferably don't leave humanity at their mercy in the event of an escape (I like the idea of slavecatchers hunting for fugitive gods but not the idea of escaped gods smiting everyone with their immense divine power).

Wesley Street · Post by **Wesley Street** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:06 pm

Define the limits of your gods as concisely as you can. Once a limiter for their abilities is presented, how to enslave them should be easy.

The superhero and some fantasy genre determine a god's strength by how many worshipers he has. Perhaps there are those who are tasked with uprooting and eliminating any organized religion around these gods, which keeps their power-levels manageable and their slave industry thriving.

If you view the gods as no better than men, they are men.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:11 pm

There was a story in an old Weird Tales about a civilization that trapped their gods into the warp and weft of magic carpets, and the gods powered flying carpets and shit. And one of the Fool Worth stories had city-builders that enslaved nature spirits with blood sacrifice, tying them into buildings so that they could build higher and higher without collapsing. You could have a lot of civilizations with different god-enslaving methods.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:12 pm

Do it like Djinni and rings maybe? Someone tricked an original entity into servitude, then forced him to bind the other entities. Then everyone forces existing entities to bind their offspring now.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:12 pm

There's already a setting - pretty popular around here - where ordinary (teenage) humans capture and enslave superpowerful magical beings using common technological devices, you might be able to draw some further inspiration from it.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:16 pm

I think we've even got a class for it!

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:23 pm

Well, yeah. If you're going the gods-needs-prayer thing, the best way to go is to have a ton of very minor deities who have just a sliver of godly power.

The Nightside books do this some with the Street of Gods, where all sorts of old deities hang around, sometimes because they're the only one who still believes in what they do.

So you're looking at some gods being allowed to keep a very controlled cult and worship because they're too old and respected.

And it would mean that, eventually, you could have a Razor Eddie who shows up. A sort of rogue god who does...something...and does it so spectacularly that word gets around, and thus this god's power grows, since you don't need to be worshipped, just believed in.

I'll give the full Razor Eddie backstory/info if you want it for something to think about.

angelfromanotherpin · Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:24 pm

The Long Price quartet uses something like this. The andat are powerful magical beings with pretty specific spheres of influence, and basically don't exist until given form by a human Poet, who can command the andat until the andat manages to escape somehow. Which they inherently really want to do.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:06 am

On a smaller scale, I'm imagining some sort of device for enslaving the minor household gods. Perhaps on a DC 20 religion check and say 10gp of materials one could subvert the usual rituals to pay respect and one gains an unskilled laborer for a year and a day, with the understanding that if not repeated before lapsing you'll have one pissed off free house spirit on your hands.

Possible repercussions of this, using Norse myth as a model: The ritual is actually a kickback to Frigg, goddess of the household, who decides to look the other way on the mistreatment of her Nisse/Tomte. Possessed of great strength, they make excellent plow spirits and the like. This eventually gets noticed by Thor, who in his role as god of thralls resents his stepmom's horning in on his action. Lightning rods thus see development far earlier in the West than would have happened otherwise.