Divinity

Divinity
Learned scholars have debated the nature of divinity for millennia without a theory that satisfies all scenarios and circumstances What follows is a summary of various theories of divinity and how they can be categorised, defined, and explained.
Gods In order to debate the mysteries of godhood, one must first understand the nature of the soul. Many have equated the soul as a mysterious and unfathomable essence that grants life and sentience to those who possess it. Most scholars theorize that a soul is unique to each person but this beggars the questions “where do souls come from”, “what makes them unique”, “what happens when a soul is cloned or destroyed”.
Recent theory is that the soul is nothing more than a spark of positive energy encapsulated within a Material Plane shell. It is certain that creatures native to the Outer Plane do not possess souls, and are slaves to the plane of their creation and or their creator. Only beings of the Material Plane are created with free will, and it is precisely that free will that makes souls so valuable to the Outer Planes.
If a soul is just a spark of positive energy, how then are some souls worth more than others. The answer lies in the experiences of each individual’s life and the choices they make. As a being grows, learns, and experiences more, it accumulates more positive energy (in game terms this is represented by Experience Points), increasing the power and value of the soul to those in the Outer Planes.
A “God” is often described as an ascended being, most scholars believe that certain individuals possess a “Divine Spark” that allows only a select few to become gods, but the sheer number of godlings and gods that have arisen and fallen makes such a requirement unlikely unless the free will of mortals is also an illusion and these individuals with a Divine Spark are predestined to godhood. Assuming that free will is real and the source of value in mortals (otherwise why do devils so value a mortal that chooses to commit evil and sell his soul in exchange for promises of power), then one can only assume that godhood is a possibility for any mortal given the right circumstances.
Ascension: Ascension is the act of becoming a true god, where the material form is shed, and the energy that is left literally ascends to the Outer Planes (according to the Immortal Rules – TSR 1017 – “When your character’s spirit left the mortal world, your character’s mind and body changed into pure Immortal power. The character’s material form was not destroyed, but merely changed, and can be created again. The character’s life force (which mortals can rarely see, even magically) can assume any form convenient to the time and place. It can even exist on two or more planes of existence at once. The character thus has no single “true” form). Generally ascension occurs when the soul leaves the Material Plane, which is most often achieved in death, but can also be achieved via enlightenment and various other magical means of transformation.
In achieving ascension, a material being sheds their form and becomes a being of energy, with no single “true” form. They can create multiple additional forms (known as avatars), but the destruction of these forms does not destroy the god, it merely expends the energy used to create the now destroyed form. In fact, destroying a god is nigh on impossible, because a being of pure energy, without form, can be in many places at the same time. Generally though, a divine being chooses to concentrate itself within its Divine Realm, surrounded by servitors and protectors, and it is only here, in the heart of a gods power, that the killing blow could theoretically be struck.
Despite the many varied and undefined means of ascension, how does a mortal being qualify to become a god. As a soul becomes more powerful, it grows in size and concentration, at some point there must be a threshold for individuals to ascend if they so desire, the desire seems to be a crucial point, because it is known that individuals such as Elminster can rival demi-gods in power but have not ascended.
Demi-God A Demi-God is a curious category in the definition of Godhood, and is most often used as a catchall term for anything that is not a True-God, when in reality it does have a very specific boundary to define it.
Those beings that reach the threshold of “Experience” necessary to ascend, but have not yet done so are those correctly classified as “Demi-Gods”. They are beings of power to rival the True-Gods, but remain trapped in a single material form. This lack of ascension may be out of fear or opportunity (how does one know when they have reached the threshold necessary to ascend and so the fear of a final death prevents that moment of ascension, others search for other means of ascension that come with lesser risks than death), but for others it is knowledge that holds them into a Demi-God status.
Becoming a True-God is not without its own trials. True-Gods require a steady stream of worship and souls to sustain them in their ascended form, and a secure base of religiously devout followers is the most reliable means of securing ones future as a True-God. Many Demi-Gods therefore, forestall their ascension while they build up their future cults and religion.
There are many examples in the realms of Demi-Gods that have not yet ascended for whatever reason. Gilgeam the Godking of Unther feared losing control and changing as a result of ascension, and so remained safe within the Imaskari Planar Barrier to prevent his ascension from ever happening (the concentration of such vast amounts of power for such a prolonged period, as well as the appeals from his worshippers ultimately drove him insane as it would any True-God inhabiting a Prime Avatar for so long). The gods Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul were once mortal, and they acquired their power through a pact with the god Jergal, such a pact gave them a huge boost in power that immediately propelled them to Demi-God status, they could have ascended immediately but instead chose to travel Faerun for a time and build up cults to sustain them when they became True-Gods. The foolish Demi-Gods gifted power by Talos are a prime example of why such beings should consider the future before blindly jumping towards ascension, such Demi-Gods wasted their power on the commands of their superior and used up their immortal power before they could establish a secure base of worshippers, once that power was gone they were unable to maintain their form and were quickly destroyed by more powerful rivals (like Talos), or quietly vanished into nothingness.
A Demi-God is for all intents and purposes a Material Plane bound being, able to travel the world and the planes, able to live, laugh, love, and slay as desired. However, a Demi-God does gain some benefits from joining the divine, firstly they are now immortal – unless slain they live forever. Also, like a True-God, it must share its True Name with those beings they wish to share energy with (worshippers provide energy in the form of belief, and gods provide spells), while such sharing would be dangerous to mortals (allowing others to exert a measure of control over those whose True Name they know), the divine are immune to the petty commands of lesser beings.
True-God A True-God is a being that has undergone ascension and become a being of pure energy. They are an entirely different form of life to Material Plane beings, and thus subject to entirely different rules and requirements.
Immortal: True-Gods are pure energy, they do not possess a body and therefore cannot age. Also because they are pure energy, they are very difficult to destroy.
Formless: Energy is not restricted to a single location or plane of existence, it can be manifested in multiple planes and in multiple locations at the same time, pushing through the Astral and Ethereal boundaries without restriction. Despite this freedom of movement, most True-Gods choose to keep their energy concentrated (donating it only when called upon by their followers) in a single location – their Divine Realm – in order to stave off the predations of the few powerful beings that can steal and destroy this energy (like other Gods and certain Planar beings).
As a being of pure energy without form, True-Gods cannot touch, taste, smell, etc, they simply lack the material organs necessary to enable those senses. They can sense energy in all its flavours and can change their own energy to vibrate and thus create heat, light, and sound. It is in this way that True-Gods can communicate with their divine servitors, but such vibrations are incomprehensible to mortals (and also lethally dangerous, vibrating the molecules of their material form until it discorporates), thus any that claim to have communicated directly with a True-God are most probably incorrect in their assertions, it is more likely they have communicated with a servitor or through the use of magic.
This formless state of energy is the most often chosen form of a True-God for many reasons (protection, stability, efficiency, etc). However, newly ascended beings sometimes feel the yearnings of a material life and form and choose to invest all their energy into an Avatar form. Such a form is dangerous, because destruction of this single “Prime” Avatar could well result in the destruction of the True-God, and foolish because it abandons all the benefits and protections offered by being a True-God. Nonetheless the younger gods regularly adopt this “Prime” Avatar form to indulge their desires in physical form (TSR 1017 Immortals Rules page 27).
The drawbacks to a Prime Avatar are that such a form is subject to all the limitations of a material form, the main one being that such a form is not designed to deal with the conduits formed by sharing a True-Name. When their True-Name is invoked the god in Prime Avatar form can hear the invocation like an intrusion in their mind which when repeated again and again over a prolonged period of time will almost certainly lead to mental instability.
The likes of Cyric, Midnight, and Kelemvor have most recently adopted Prime Avatar forms as they struggled to adapt following their unexpected ascension to True-Godhood. Cyric used his Prime Avatar form to journey to Toril and indulge in murder and intrigue against his former allies (even slaying Adon, the high priest of Midnight). The established True-Gods often overlook the indulgences of the newly ascended as its a struggle they all went through, but those that refuse to follow the Balance will find the other gods of Realmspace working against them.
Divine Realm: A Divine Realm is expensive to create and maintain, but despite this most True-Gods choose to do so as soon as possible, if they cannot create their own, they quickly ally themselves with a greater power and claim a portion of their ally’s realm to defend and maintain.
A Divine Realm must exist on the Outer Planes, and can exist on any plane. However, each plane has its own “alignment” (a preference for a mixture of fundamentals of the universe such as law, good, evil, chaos, fire, earth, air, water, life, death, etc) that infuses the plane itself. A True-God must choose wisely where it houses its Divine Realm to ensure it does not find itself regularly fighting against the Planar inhabitants that resist its presence.
This resistance is known as Planar Bias (TSR 1017 Immortals Rules page 9) and it increases the cost (in Experience Points) of all miracles, all Avatars, and even the creation and maintenance of the Divine Realms itself. Those True-Gods that must share with allied powers are often forced to compromise in the form of a Planar Bias. The Material Plane has no Planar Bias, so Demi-Gods present there are never affected (nor are those visiting True-Gods in Prime Avatar form).
Avatars: A True-God may choose to create many multiple forms, each containing part of its energy. These forms are known as Avatars, and they are an extension of the god itself directly controlled by it.
A True-God begins with a single Avatar form that represents itself in life. As it progresses it can create other forms of Avatar, although each new form is costly to create. Most often a god will create a new form that appeals most to current worshippers or new worshippers the god wishes to attract (forms they will find most impressive), especially if the form represents a rival or fallen god whose worshippers the current god wishes to steal.
Manifesting an Avatar is done at the request of worshippers (as written in the Tablets of Fate), such an act is expensive to do, and more expensive to maintain the longer the Avatar persists. As a result only the more powerful True-Gods can manifest more than one deity at a time.
Aspects: A True-God can create an Aspect (see Archetypes for more details), which is an independent being that has many of the physical and personality traits of the deity, by sharing energy with other mortals. It is unusual for a god to create powerful aspects, because such beings would inevitably become rivals with the parent deity for the attention of worshippers (maybe even ascending and supplanting the parent deity).
There are many instances of deities sharing a small portion of energy with a mortal to create a powerful servant that is more likely to serve the same goals as the parent deity. The most well known of a deific Aspect is the Chosen of Mystra, who are all imbued with a portion of Mystra’s power, less well known are those believed to be children of a deity such as the bhaalspawn or Iyachtu Xvim the Godson. All could be considered Aspects because of the presence of divine energy within them that grants them greater power than other mortals and aligns their goals with the parent deity.
True Names: In order to Ascend, a being must know its True-Name (some theorise that they actually acquire a True Name through whatever process they go through to learn it). A True-Name is a unique moniker in the entire Multiverse and cosmos (no two beings in existence can share the same True-Name), and is used to create a direct conduit to the being whose True-Name is known.
Those who are powerful enough, and know the True-Name of an individual, may exert control over that being, compelling them to action (or inaction), using the threat of pain and destruction. The conduit formed by invoking a True-Name, allows a magic user to cast certain spells at the named target regardless of distance or Planar barrier. As True-Gods and Demi-Gods are incredibly powerful beings, they have little to worry about with regards to sharing their True-Name with mortals.
A True-Name allows a True-God (and Demi-God) to form a pact with worshippers. Whenever the worshipper invokes the True-Name of the god, they provide a small tithe of energy (in the form of Experience Points) to the named god. In return the named god may also provide the knowledge of, and the energy to power spells that invoker of the name can cast at a later date. By having a stable base of thousands of worshippers, invoking the name of the deity several times a day (and encouraging lay worshippers to do the same), a god can accrue potentially tens of thousands of Experience Points each day. Most priests will rarely cast more than one or two spells in their day to day activities, and so the returns greatly outweigh the cost for a god.
As a god increases in power it gains more True-Names (TSR 1017 Immortals Rules page 3). Why a being would require more than one True-Name is a mystery, but sages believe that each True-Name acquired provides a deeper connection to the True-God, and allows the invoker of the name to exert greater control and power over the god. As a result, the gods heavily guard access to all but their first True-Name, thus preventing rival gods and beings such as Asmodeus from acquiring the means to control and perhaps destroy a god. It has been mused that lesser powered gods should be more uncommon as the gods of greater power should be using their True-Names (at least the first one shared with worshippers) to control and slay them, but most lesser gods are allied with greater gods forming, pacts that seemingly protect them from the depredations of their more powerful rivals.
Alias: Gods are known by many names to mortals, and these are the True-Names identified above, for some reason gods deem it necessary to create a True-Name that is phonetically similar (although never identical) to that of an existing or vanished god. This could be an act of respectful imitation, but more likely it is done to steal worship intended for another deity, a simple mispronunciation could lead to intended power being directed towards an entirely different god.
Structured religions rarely have this problem, because a strict hierarchy of elders ensures correct religious practices are followed across a large geographic region (although heresies and infiltrations do occur and can even cause schisms in a religion that leads to large changes in religious practices), however, smaller cults are highly vulnerable to differences in doctrine and practice and so unscrupulous gods can more easily take advantage of younger and disorganised religions.
Power: There are varying levels of True-Gods, defined as Lesser, Intermediate, and Greater, which are separated by the only visible indicator a True-God can demonstrate – the manifestation of multiple Avatars at the same time. Avatars being one of the most expensive abilities of True-Godhood, the more powerful a True-God is, the more Avatars it can manifest at the same time. By definition a Lesser God can manifest 2 Avatars at the same time, an Intermediate God can manifest 5 Avatars at the same time, a Greater God can manifest 10 Avatars at the same time. This separation is more a sliding scale than a clearly defined boundary and so some Lesser God’s can manifest 3 or 4 Avatars, while some Intermediate Gods can manifest 8 or 9, and some Greater Gods can manifest many more than 10 Avatars.
While the number of Avatars is a good external measure of the power of a True-God, in game terms that power is still better measured by the experiences a god has had (represented by Experience Points). This experience translates into more energy available to power the miracles gods perform, and all the worship and soul energy a god receives goes on to increase Experience Points of a god.
As a god performs miracles, sends Avatars, creates and maintains a Divine Realm, and even powers spells of individual worshippers, the Experience Point of a god decreases. If the Experience Point value of a god ever reaches 0 then the True-God ceases to be (TSR 1017 Immortal Rules page 3). However, most True-Gods choose to enter a perpetual slumber by forming a cocoon around their remaining energy and casting themselves adrift in the Astral Plane in the hopes that they can one day be awakened by their remaining worshippers.
Miracles: Beings bound to the Material Plane may learn magic and cast spells, utilising the vitality of their body and the energy inherent in components of power to fuel the magic. A god has no body and so cannot use the life force of it to fuel a spell, instead it must sacrifice the energy that all gods are made of in order to power these “miracles”.
Miracles are much like spells that mortals can use, with the exception that gods are able to manifest their effects virtually anywhere in the Multiverse merely by moving a portion of their energy to the desired point and casting a spell through it. Gods are also able to manifest a much larger range of custom made effects as they can devote limitless time and energy to create new magic which they can then use for themselves or share with their most devout followers.
Souls: The ultimate form of currency on the Outer Planes is a soul, the more powerful the soul the greater the value. A True-God acquires souls by convincing mortal worshippers that an ideal afterlife awaits them following their death. Once the soul departs its material body, it is drawn into the Ethereal Plane and then “follows the light” to whichever Plane or Divine Realm best represents their personality and life choices. Thanks to the machinations of Myrkul, Soul Wells quickly funnel nearby departing souls to the Divine Realm of Kelemvor (formerly Cyric, and before him Myrkul) where they can be judged and divided among the Faerunian Pantheon.
The True-Gods send out their servitors to gather any souls willing to come with them to a promised afterlife in their Divine Realm. Once entrapped safely within the Divine Realm the God transforms them into “Petitioners” and succours them with delusions of paradise while leaching the power of that soul away until it is completely drained and destroyed. The soul’s power is used to pay for whatever miracles and maintenance the god cannot afford through his daily influx of worship, and also to increase the power of the god itself. This leaching is done slowly so as not to draw attention to it, lest the gods incur the anger of the souls themselves and risk uprisings within their own Divine Realm.
Overgod The existence of an Overgod is much debated among scholars across the Multiverse. On Toril the events of the Time of Troubles have lent credence to the argument that an Overgod does indeed exist. In the 1358 Year of Dalereckoning, all the gods were supposedly forced to assume a single mortal form bound to the Material Plane, losing all the benefits that True-Godhood provides. Many argue that only an Overgod could enforce such a punishment upon True-Gods, and at the end of the Time of Troubles much of the population of Waterdeep claim to have heard Ao speak. Some scholars point out that many beings claimed to be one of the gods or a vessel to a deity when in reality they were exploiting the chaos of the times to further their own ambitions.
One thing is clear, if Ao does exist, he does not operate within the normal rules that bind other True-Gods. Ao requires no worship or belief of any kind in order to exist, he is at best apathetic to any mortals that claim to be devout worshippers, and the many calamities that have befallen the supposed clergy of Ao lead some to believe that Ao is subtly working against those worshippers to discourage such practices.
The truth of the matter is that Ao does exist, but not in the manner that many might understand. Humans their beliefs and their worship created the gods, the beliefs and worship of the gods have led to the creation of an Overgod. However, Ao the Overgod is not a separate being from the gods, he is a multipartite being made up of the combined powers and personality of all the gods. Ao needs no worship, he exists as long as their is one god in Realmspace, if only one god existed then this overgod would be identical to that one god, if multiple gods exist then the overgod represents the combination of all those gods. Ao does not name himself, he is one and many, a being defined by the Balance of the many competing desires and knowledge of multiple gods, indeed the True-Gods themselves often refer to maintaining the Balance without knowing what it truly means.
The Tablets of Fate: While a True-God is safest, and most often confined within their Divine Realm, they can send the energy that makes up their new form to anywhere in the Multiverse or the Planar Cosmology. Why then are the spheres of the Material Plane not full of the miracles of the gods, playing out their endless drama to acquire more worship and souls to become more than gods.
The answer is Mutual Assured Destruction, when multiple sufficiently powerful super beings become involved in a confined region or area of limited resources, it will inevitably lead to conflict. When such super beings enter into conflict it will always result in disastrously poor outcomes for lesser beings who are caught in the cross-fire. These lesser beings are the same ones the Gods are trying to acquire the worship and souls of, therefore they cannot risk getting involved in the Material Plane lest they destroy the very things they wish to acquire.
This is a lesson the gods learned to their detriment many millennia ago. In the distant past the Gods warred with Primordials for sovereignty over the Material Plane. The Dawn War resulted in the imprisonment of the Primordials, but did not end the war forever, eventually the Primordials escaped and hostilities resumed much later during the time of the Creator Races. Again the Gods and Primordials fought for control of the Material Plane, Avatars were marshalled and the Creator Races marched for and against the likes of Io and Omu, the destruction was so vast that Abeir-Toril was nearly destroyed, the world was twinned and separated, and Toril suffered an ice age that nearly destroyed the lesser races.
Following that devastating conflict, the gods entered into a compact, never to threaten the Material Plane with their unrestrained power again. The Tablets of Fate were created, with the roles and restrictions clearly defined for the True-Gods, and signed by every True-God at the time and since.
The tablets were created using the petrified scales of Asgoroth, otherwise known as Io, but thanks to the pronunciation of draconic letters in the ancient celestial tongue the name Io has been rendered as Ao. Over the millennia (for even the Gods forget with time), the belief of the Gods themselves has given rise to the creation of a new type of being, an Overgod, referred to as Ao.
The Tablets themselves are nothing more than a symbolic agreement between the gods not to directly interfere with the lives of mortals on the Material Plane. All activities and communication must be indirect, and so performed via proxies (some gods have discovered they can venture to the Plane of Dreams and communicate with mortals while they dream, which does not explicitly break the rules on the Tablets of Fate). As time has passed the Tablets of Fate have gained legendary status amongst the Gods and the younger deities believe they are actually bound by the agreement, but as was recently discovered during the Time of Troubles, the only thing keeping the gods from destroying each other is the fact that they will destroy everything else as well, it seems some lessons need to be relearned.
Primordials The separation between gods and primordials is not well understood in modern Faerun, it is known however that in the beginning the gods and primordials warred for control of Abeir-Toril in a conflict known as the Dawn War. The end result of this Dawn War was that Abeir-Toril was separated into two worlds, Abeir and Toril. Abeir was gifted to the primordials, while Toril was gifted to the gods, keeping them forever apart.
The gods are ascended beings of immense power (whether acquired or congenital power), it is entirely possible that the Dawn War was a battle between two groups of primordials, one that wanted to ascend the material form, and another that chose to remain material bound. It is known that in Abeir the primordials reign supreme and there are no gods, although whether this is by the order of the primordials or a quirk of Abeir itself is unknown.
What is certain is that a number of gods in modern Toril are referred to as primordial, and there are still primordials remaining in Toril bound within great magical prisons. Why then were these primordials not sent to Abeir and what is a primordial.
A primordial is quite simply, one of the first beings of Abeir-Toril, a being born out of the elemental chaos that formed every sphere in the Multiverse. Infused with raw power beyond mortal reckoning, they can rival even the most powerful of greater gods, yet they remain in a single material bound form, and more crucially many have chosen not to share their power with others by beginning the tentative steps to ascension.
Formed from the power of creation itself, it is no surprise that the Primordials are credited with creating Abeir-Toril and the living beings upon it.
Immortal: Primordials are immortal, and unless slain they will last for all eternity, never ageing, becoming sick, or frail, and at no risk of losing power in maintaining other forms or manifesting miracles.
Form: A primordial has a single form that they were “born” with when the emerged from the elemental chaos that also created Abeir-Toril. These forms are usually colossal in size, and possessing many unusual and powerful abilities. Despite this power they otherwise obey the rules of all Material Plane bound creatures, if their form is slain they are destroyed and their soul migrates to the Ethereal Plane and then the Outer Planes (unless they ascend).
Divine Realm: Primordials do not have a Divine Realm, they are bound to the Material Plane and subject to all the rules inherent with a material bound existence. They cannot be banished, or barred from a particular plane, they cannot freely travel between the Outer Planes and must use magic to do so.
Shards: Primordials do not create Avatars, they have a single Material Plane bound form, and cannot separate themselves into multiple beings like a god. They can however create a “shard” which looks like a simpler, smaller version of themselves that acts like an automaton (a golem) under supreme command of the primordial. These shards are most often created and used by the imprisoned primordials (such shards are often able to slip through gaps in the magical bindings) and occasionally given commands to serve others (or pretend to serve others) while watching and waiting for a means to help free their supreme master.
The primordial Telos is one such primordial who has created many shards (known as shadesteel golems) and lent them to various evil organisations that dominate the land of Vaasa.
Sages posit that some primordials are better than others at creating life and are able to create complex beings imbued with intelligence and sentience and independence. Others argue that it is the Elder Gods that created the mortal beings that today are known as dwarves, dragons, humans, etc.
Archetypes There exists another layer of existence beyond that of deities. In the distant past when the Multiverse was whole (the Universe) during a time when the First World existed, the gods of the day strove for power as they do now. That universe was ended when the forces of Entropy summoned the Vortex that consumed everything, causing the First World to shatter and start again as the Multiverse, each sphere a pale imitation of the original.
The mortals, gods, and primordials of the First World were largely all consumed by the Vortex, but a few beings found a way to survive, including a group known as the Elder Gods. These beings were infused with the energy of the First World and today exist beyond the petty machinations of mortals and deities. They have near limitless power that allows them to achieve beyond the limits of a deity, and yet they require no worship to survive, are as immortal as the planes themselves, and seek to spread version of themselves throughout the Multiverse – they are the true multi-spheric powers. As the Multiverse aged, other deities have discovered the secret of the Elder Gods and elevated themselves to Archetype status.
Examples of Archetypes include Bahamut, Tiamat, Demogorgon, Primus, Annam, Moradin, Gruumsh, Ahriman, Jazirian, Orcus, etc.
Immortal: A god is pure energy, fuelled by the belief of mortals and residing on the Outer Planes where their energy form is most stable. An Archetype is infused with the stuff of the Planes themselves. The Elder Gods originally came from the First World, surviving its destruction in various ways, and taking the limitless energy from the First World and its cosmology into themselves. Newer Archetypes have bound themselves to a particular plane (like the Lords of the Nine or the Demonlords of the Abyss) and are likewise imbued with the power of the planes.
As a result of this limitless supply of power, an archetype is immortal, furthermore the almost impossible destruction of an Archetype does not necessarily destroy it as the Elder Gods almost always reform from an Aspect, the newer Archetypes may also reform from Aspects or in some cases are replaced by others who better represent the plane they are bound to.
Form: A god and an archetype can both be thought as pure energy which is most stable on the Outer Planes. Deities, while powerful, are vulnerable while in physical form (known as a Prime Avatar for deities), and have the additional problem of being unable to fully process all the demands of their worshippers in a limited physical form. Archetypes do not require worship from mortals to sustain themselves (and so consequently have fewer worshippers), they also have no vulnerability to being permanently destroyed while in physical form as long as an Aspect of theirs exists anywhere in the Multiverse (and all Archetypes keep multiple Aspects). As a result, Archetypes are often found in their favoured plane (or the plane they are bound to) in physical form, entertaining themselves and aiding their deity allies
Divine Realm: Archetypes do not have a Divine Realm per-se. Those newer Archetypes bound to a single plane could be considered the ruler of that plane in its entirety (there is usually only one Archetype bound to a single plane) as they are the embodiment of all that the plane represents, they almost always reside within that plane, nurturing and protecting it while it sustains them forever. The Elder Gods are sustained by the energy of the First World and so have no such restrictions or ties to any particular plane and are able to freely roam the Multiverse cosmology.
Archetypes rarely, if ever, descend to the Material Plane, preferring to create or send Aspects in their stead.
Aspects: Archetypes have no need of Avatars, because they do not require the belief of worshippers in order to sustain their powers and existence. They do however have Aspects, which they use to spread knowledge of their existence across the Multiverse for reasons unknown, and to act as a backup in case they are ever slain.
An Aspect is another being (usually a mortal) that is imbued with the energy of the Archetype via some sort of pact or agreement (it is rare that an Aspect is created unwillingly because of their independent nature and personalities). Each Aspect is a merging of the original being and the personality and appearance of the Archetype, the original being is no more and exists now only as a hybrid of the Archetype. Despite the change, the Aspect is completely independent of the Archetype, it is in no way controlled by the Archetype, and can take whatever actions it desires, even those contrary to the wishes of the Archetype.
While gods most often choose to create weak Aspects that serve them in some capacity (whether knowingly or not), Archetypes do not need to worry about creating a rival for their position (even a greater god is no match for an Archetype) and so can create an Aspect that rivals Demigods in power (or more if desired). It would appear that many Archetypes feel a need to seed the different spheres of the Multiverse with Aspects of themselves so that each has a god representing themselves.
The most common examples of Aspects in the Multiverse are those of Bahamut and Tiamat, which exist in multiple forms in multiples spheres, all slightly different, and yet all representing the exemplars of good and evil dragonkind, for example Bahamut has had Aspects in Xymor, Marduk, Bahmat, and Paladine, Tiamat has had Aspects in Nagamat, Tiamaat, Tiamat, and Takhisis. These Aspects have existed millennia apart, some have overlapped in time, and some have even ascended to True Gods.
Avatars: Archetypes can create Avatars and can do everything a god can do. It is however rare for an Archetype to send an Avatar to the Material Plane unless they have a vested in events on the Material Plane. For example, Moradin sometimes sends Avatars to protect dwarves on various spheres in the Material Plane.
The Dawn War The Dawn War predates the Multiverse and has its origins in the beginnings of the First World, when the Primordials and Estelar warred for control of the fledgling Prime Material Plane. The Primordials were the first to create life, in the form of shards that resembled and served themselves. The Estelar refined these creations, making sentient and independent beings who began to worship their creators, creating the first divine beings and causing warfare between Primordials and Estelar (who were now rapidly ascending to godhood.
The First World was ravaged by the Dawn War across the millennia with events such as Miska’s invasion of the planes, Io’s cleaving into Bahamut and Tiamat. The Dawn War was thought ended when the Primordials were imprisoned within the Elemental Chaos. However, when the forces of Entropy unleashed the Vortex, creation and the First World were unmade as the Vortex dragged everything back into the Elemental Chaos. In its place arose a new cosmology and Material Plane filled with smaller spheres that each emulated the Prime Material Plane of the First World in some way. Within this new Material Plane the Primordials were released or created anew and so the Dawn War started all over again with new and old players.
The Primordials again created planets and simple life, beginning the Blue Age of Abeir-Toril, and again there were those who sought to give these creations sentience and independence so that they could become gods. The Multiverse sought to emulate the First World, but this time the gods of the Material Plane called upon beings from another dimension, known as the Elder Gods. These Elder Gods were those beings that survived the destruction of the First World through various means (at least one servant of Entropy hid inside a black diamond of the purest quality).
Repeatedly the Primordials were defeated and many of them were imprisoned in various methods, including the imprisonment of Asgoroth the World Eater by Dendar the Night Serpent, by wrapping his coils around the sun, which unfortunately hid its light from Abeir-Toril and plunged it into the Shadow Epoch. Each time a number of them escaped imprisonment and the Dawn War continued.
The Shadow Epoch ended when a new sun was created in the form of a crystal moon known as Zotha. This event heralded the Days of Thunder and resulted in an explosion of sentient life on Toril. These mortals ultimately released a number of Primordials from their imprisonment and brought about the final phase of the Dawn War in Abeir-Toril’s Sphere. As Primordials fought the gods and their mortal servants, the Batrachi released Asgoroth from his prison and demanded he destroy the Primordials, in response he hurled the ice moon Zotha and nearly destroyed the entire planet. It was only saved when Ao the Hidden One split Abeir-Toril into two worlds (separated by the dimension of time and a fraction of a second) and moved the majority of the free Primordials to the world of Abeir (the still imprisoned Primordials remained so, and other Primordials were now the allies of the gods they once fought against).
Today the Dawn War appears to be over, but occasionally a Primordial is released from his imprisonment and seeks to free his allies.
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