| Ok I'm going to show my inner geek but...
In DnD when you killed an actual God his essence was just dispersed. If you've ever read the avatar series, the essence was what invaded the bodies of mortals, and then molded the body into whatever shape it wanted. Unless you destroyed the essence itself in it's entirety, killing the "shell" of the essence did nothing save to disperse that god's essence until such a time that it manifested again.
At the end of one of the books in the series, Mystra is totally destroyed and her essence is beyond the grasp of even the God of Gods, but Bane and Myrkul when they were destroyed simply had their essence dispersed, and as punishment Ao did not reincorporate their essences into a new form.
Someone above had it right; whether in a book, a game or a movie, the god itself is the "concept" and it will take whatever form it wants, you can't ever kill it. An avatar is just a piece of the essence, and is never the god but is a more vulnerable form. AoW was a much easier adversary than Rallos Zek himself, even those RZ was simply just a manifestation of the physical embodiment of a god.
So, avatars = small, vulnerable versions of the gods, the Named Gods = manifestations of that circle of power. The "powerline" and the concept will always exist, it is merely a matter of giving them forms and such. It is why the mantle of one god can be transfered onto another. The form is expendable; but the whole issue with killing gods is that you were arrogant enough to think you could ever kill a "concept".
Losing faction when you attack a god is cool though. My only problem with PoP in EQ was that in order to go through the chain I always had to kill my own god. Killing Innoruuk was no big deal, because he was the physical embodiment of hate and if you enjoy RP you could basically work around it like he would reward you for your arrogance and your hatred, and if you succeeded, your power.
However, when I went there with my enchanter (She worshipped mithaniel marr, no I don't know why) I always thought it was pretty ridiculous that now only did I have to kill him but that he was scowling at me. :P |