Musing: Gods

Since this version of Deminar is much the same version of Deminar we wrote a while ago, just advanced (both in timeline and depth), the same ideals we had for deities are going to carry forward from the previous edition.
Yes, the setting has gods, we're not trying to break the mold so much and say, "people worship stuff, but there might not actually be gods, man we're deep!" There is indeed a pantheon out there that watches over Deminar, provides clerics with spells, and sits around waiting for the souls of the faithful to come to their planes in death.
However, there isn't a lot of gods, not like Forgotten Realms where every race and culture has their own pantheon (last I checked, I believe FR has 13,571 official gods, all with stats so you can kill them to fulfill some ego filled power trip), but a more respectable number of gods watching over what goes on among the floating islands. Of course, if you went about asking the various species and cultures and islands about the gods they worship and compile a list of everyone's responses, you'd find out hundreds of gods are being worshiped on a daily basis.
How is that possible? Well, remember that many of these islands have not had contact with one another in generations and even among species that intermingle with one another (and the vast majority don't), each species has its own culture and beliefs. What this boils down to is that different groups are worshiping the same gods under different aliases. A God of War may be worshiped under one name by the goblins, but something entirely different by humans and something entirely different by another clan of goblins on another island. Some might worship the valor and chivalrous aspects of war as one deity and the vicious conquering bloodthirsty aspect as another, even though its the same being. Religious wars are fought over the exact same god, hundreds have died that way, yet, the gods don't go about correcting everyone about it.
Why? Well, a few reasons, first, they've taken a more passive approach to Deminar, they don't go traipsing about in person on the islands (FR, looking at you kid!), and they're not big into the divine intervention all the time. They made a pact with one another not to get involved personally due to events in the long past that I may get around to discussing at some point. Second, a religious war fought between two sides of the same god sends all the faithful to the same god, and for the gods, the more souls you get to go to your domain, the better, though you also need to be careful to keep worshipers alive as well, again, for reasons best left for another post.
The gods are very standoffish in a lot of things, they do provide power to their clerics in return for said clerics spreading the word about them and gaining more worshipers, advertising is important down on the islands, but the gods are actually currently more concerned with what's going on within their own domains.

Also, our gods will never have stats, you can't kill them like you can a monster, by reducing their hp to 0, but you can get rid of them. Also, everyone has the potential to become a god, everyone, and this was long before 4th Edition came up with that Epic Destiny.

There really needs to be a second post about how the gods and afterlife work, I'll have to remember that!