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The many gods of Ohm – WC #5

In Ohm the gods are part of normal society. You do good in respecting that fact. Part five of my 2021 Worldbuilding Challenge inspired by this reddit post from a person named Faranesque:

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Sacred

If you see a god in Ohm, it’s polite to greet it with a bow. I mean, that is just common courtesy. Most people thus try to avoid them, because if you have to greet a dozen beings every time you walk across the street to your favorite seeweed backery, you get a sore neck pretty fast.

In Ohm, if nothing else, at least the gods are plentiful. Though it has to be said, they are not really the real gods. I mean they are not the ones who made everything and all and changed creation to put into it their speck of divinity, light and material.

It might be more appropriate to call them demigods but that would be rude. And even though one of the weaker ones can’t wink you out of reality with a handshake, a pissed god can still make your life miserable. Nobody wants to wake up with a minor plague in the bedroom, right?

There are several tiers of gods in Ohm. The major ones take roles of governing over entire stretches of ocean and have thousands upon thousands of obedient followers. They often take up impressive forms and colors, like big serpents, island turtles and giant glowing human spirits. You have to know, followers are power in Ohm and so the more people you gather beneath you, the more you ascend from your status of demigod to almost becoming a real one. So far at least no god every managed to become such an all powerful being, but few came close.

Next are the minor deities which often watch over a smaller stretches of village or deep trench nature and have more of a cult following. They can still melt your eyes out of your socket if you are not careful, but their reality altering powers are almost nonexistence. So at least your dead grandma is safe from being eradicated from existence.

The majority of gods in Ohm though are called Minkins. Gods that have a family or a handful of random people that sometimes think of them or give a short prayer. Most of the time they are formless or can only manifest illusory shape as their body. They are more nuisance than help and if you can avoid it you should not mingle with them. Most of them will never arise to anything. They often have a simple specialty that they focus on like making noodles cook to the right temperature or making your steps sound as if your always running on extra crunchy leaves.

In the last category are those without any followers at all. They are called godsparks and most of the time they are not even sentient. Only working on instinct they swirl and billow trough the ocean water, searching for bodies to possess or people to worship them.

The gods of Ohm can not be killed. At most they can be temporarily banished with rituals and sacred texts and maybe a couple of sacrifices. One major player can be vanquished by another just for them to float around as a godspark on the marketplace the next morning. They can still be hurt, but they just never fully leave this plane of existence.

It is unknown from where they come from. Some say they always waited beneath the ocean for some sentient species to arrive there and seeking their help and the warmth of religion. There may even be something more powerful in the deepest trenches and burrows just holding on for Ohm to sink even deeper.

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