Welcome Snails today, we will be discussing gods! Their life cycle and role in the ecosystem.
Gods are the producers within the Divine Cycle. They take mortal thoughts and turn it into soul. Soul empowers the environment with life, allowing for population growth and massive amount of bio-diversity.
(Soul is a source of energy. Every creature is born with a little. It grows over time and is coloured by ones individualism. The more you have the healthier you are and the further you can push your biological limits)
**Life Cycle**
Gods unlike Titans and Devils are all related species that follow a three stage life cycle. Seed, Bud, and Bloom. I'll be using a thunder god as an example.
Seed: In this stage, the god is small, nearly microscopic, and they travel around using low-level telepathy to find a source of consistent thoughts. Once they do, they'll take root nearby. For example, a seed could find a group of mortals questing about how storms work. It is a perfect place for a god to develop.
Bud: This is the stage the God starts to grow, developing attractive features to draw attention to itself. Using mortals ideas to fit what they already believe. The god can only keep this form stable for a small amount of time. For example, our thunder god taking on a more humanoid form and growing branches with flowers resembling drums on its back. Appearing when storms around to grow attention to itself.
Bloom: A God is bloomed once it is producing enough soul to keep its form and share it with the environments. This is also when they start developing more specific magical abilities. Our thunder god is now always around and can summon thunder on its own.
Now, there are some strange alternatives to this life cycle. When a God is a Seed, it can infect a Mortal or Titan. These are considered 'Chosen' beings that are already getting worship but aren't feeding off of it. The seed will infect them and slowly change into a god. Once a Chosen God fully blooms, it is no longer any different from any other god. Seeds do this as an easy way to speed up development, but it can be very risky if the chosen dies, the god dies.
There are also legend gods. Gods that take on the appearance of a mortal that is still greatly remembered long after they've passed. Becoming the idealized version of that mortal, there is much debate about whether or not they are the mortal they once were or simply a liar.
**Feeding**
Gods like to specialize in worship and ideals. They like being known because then the thoughts are more directed towards them. Things that increase worship like preying, ceremonies, churches, statues, rituals, tradition, and more all help a god grow. The more you think about your god, the stronger they'll be, the stronger the environment will be, and the stronger you'll be.
Gods can be killed if they lose worship. They'll start to rot, making them desperate for thoughts, to the point they'll willingly torture and kill or turn people insane, just to feed. These are called cursed gods.
**Family**
Gods do mate, but rarely with each other unless they're pantheon Gods. Pantheon gods live in closer groups, which usually starts with one god that, instead of dealing with random gods popping up they cultivate seeds to make gods better suit their environment. This god is considered the parent. Gods will consider themselves siblings if they grow up with each other. Being more similar to plants than animals gods do mate with family members to make seeds.
A fully bloomed god can use it's power to mate with non gods, this creates demi-gods. Beings with a lot of soul, but aren't producers like their godly parent. Demi-gods can be very dangerous to the environment, but are great hosts for seeds. Demi-gods are very rare.
**Domain**
Gods tend to be keystone deities meaning the environment is dependent on them for stability, these are called domains.
Gods don't like other gods eating from their food sources so this will lead them into getting into conflict. Our thunder god running into a lightning god, they can either fuse a mutual agreement to become one god or battle either between themselves or with their worshipers. With the stronger god simply consuming the weaker one.
**Afterlife**
Now, finally, the afterlife. Some gods promise an afterlife for the mortals that worship them. It's said that when you pass on, the god will take your entire mind and store it in a metaphysical world to exist in. You can never tell if a god is being truthful about their afterlives, since my mind just moves on to my next life, not even I can confirm if they're real or not.
Thank you for listening Snails if you have any questions, now is the time to ask them!