Roleplay / Apotheosis Quest

From the death of a god many smaller hopeful deities are born, you are one of them. Will you achieve apotheosis or fade, forgotten to history?

—Introduction summary of Apotheosis

Apotheosis - A Deity Quest is a Forum Quest created by the author nwish425 that follows the scarecrow turned god in the Empire of Salum, Samhain, who has to gather and protect his followers to gain power. Meanwhile, other newly created gods come to existence that he must either ally with or fight against.

As a Quest, players vote on Samhain's actions and development as a god in between updates written by the author.

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Apotheosis provides examples of:

• Abstract Apotheosis: According to Word of God, any god that becomes an Overdeity not only no longer requires worship to sustain themselves, but they become the very concept of what they were a god of.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: The Marquess talks in this manner.
• Admiring the Abomination: When Samhain encounters some of Baetyl's mutants, he can't help but admire how scary they look and the artistry involved in them despite how repulsed he is by the Mad God.
• Audience Participation: More than a few elements of the story were initially player content that the author approved and made canon. This includes some of the other gods featured in the quest.
• Angelic Abomination: Sort of. Word of God states that the Nightmares of Samhain's realm are basically his equivalent of angels. Since they are embodiments of certain phobias, they are often terrifying in appearance — often being Humanoid Abominations or Animalistic Abominations.
• Beary Friendly: Callisto is parenthood goddess that takes the form of a bear and typically comforts kids and protects them.
• Body Horror: What Baetyl inflicts on his followers, which usually drives them mad.
• Creepy Crows: Being a scarecrow, crows are associated with Samhain and has them as one of his subdomains, and he usually uses them as spies or messengers in the mortal realm.
  • One of Samhain first Greater Nightmares is the Crow Father — an embodiment of the Fear of Birds that very much has the appearance of an Animalistic Abomination crow.
• Creepy Good: Samhain is a god of fear, but he is a generally pretty benevolent god and rewards bravery and more often than not usually scares threats to his followers away rather than kill them.
  • This also applies to Samhain's Nightmare servants, who are biologically made to be scary and feed off terror but are also generally nice when not trying to be scarier.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Again, Samhain is a god of fear but he is pretty nice for the most part.
• Deity of Human Origin: A few gods were humans becoming gods.
• Demon Slaying: Because demons are Always Chaotic Evil and them being able to cross over into the mortal realm would be disastrous, nations have Inquisitions which investigate possible demonic activity and try to put a stop to cultists. The Inquisition in the Empire of Salum is said to have lowered their standards since the current emperor came to power. That is because the Inquistion has been infiltrated by demons.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Averted with Captain Manann, who as a god of vengeance typically targets those who have murder others at sea and is directly worshipped by Revenants, who are furious at how they died and want vengeance.
• Dream Land: The Realm of Dreams is a a section of a larger realm called the Collective Unconscious, created by the Overdeity of Sleep as his realm. In it Nightmares and Dreams are living beings that populate it, interacting with mortals when they sleep.
• Dream Weaver: Callisto has this power is that she is a goddess of dreams.
  • Nightmare Weaver: Samhain has this as a part of his powers as a god of fear.
• Eldritch Abomination: Baetyl is essentially this. Makes sense since he was created by a player as a reference to The Colour Out of Space.
• Emotion Eater: Nightmares and Dream Spirits require feeding off the emotions they cause in others. Nightmares feed off fear, while Dream Spirits feed off positive emotions.
• Expy: A few here and there.
  • An affable Intrepid Merchant running a shop in a carriage in a nightmarish rural area that names himself a noble title? The Marquess sounds an a lot like The Duke, don't it?
    • According to the Marquess' original writer, his mosquito aspects of his appearance and his noble attire was inspired by the Crimson Court and Slender Man's appearance in Kingdom Death.
  • Baetyl is outright stated to be one of The Colour Out of Space.
• Faceless Goons: As befitting of the group called the Faceless, its members' faces are all covered by an ornate mask.
• Food God: Samhain is a god of the harvest in addition to being a god of fear. According to Word of God, he is the only deity to specifically have harvest as a primary domain.
• Forced Transformation:
  • After Samhain deals with a mad wizard that attacks his followers' village, he punishes the wizard by turning him into a scarecrow and propping him up in his family's field for a thousand years, where he is still very much conscious and aware of everything going on around him with no way to interact with the world.
  • Samhain does this again to a goblin after getting tired of said goblin interfering with his attempt to make Ruk the leader of the Red Club Tribe.
  • Happens again when a pair of demon possessed Inquisitors attack Jack village. The wizard scarecrow comes to life to battle one of them demons, eventually turning them into a scarecrow with a curse that will never end.
• Ghost Ship: Captain Manann and his crew use the heavily damaged and ghostly ship, Maelstrom.
• Gods Need Prayer Badly: Unless you're an overdeity, any deities that exist in this world need worship in order to not fade away.
• Green Thumb: Being a god of the harvest, Samhain has this as part of his powerset.
• Hive Mind: The god who's controlling the Faceless seems to be functioning this way as it takes over each person its subjects put a mask on to become a part of it.
• Living Dinosaurs: They exist in this setting and are very much alive. They live in the jungle of the western continent and are the reason people stay out of the deeper parts.
• Living Toys: Callisto was a teddy bear that was given life and divinity. As such, she has Toys as one of her subdomains and even has animated toys as her servants.
• Lord of the Ocean: One of Captain Manann's domains is the sea, making him a sea god.
• Mad Artist: One of Baetyl's subdomains is Art, and he is actually quite insane and using his worshipers as canvases for him to work on. He is worshiped by Mad Artists as a result of this subdomain.
• Mad God: Baetyl has Madness as one of his subdomains and is actually insane himself.
• Make Them Rot: Decay is one of Samhain's subdomains, presumably linked to his harvest domain.
• Magic Meteor: Baetyl is a meteorite that was turned into a god, making it this.
• Mama Bear: Callisto, both figuratively and literally as she is a parenthood goddess who takes the form of a bear and is rather protective of children.
• Meaningful Name: Pretty much all the gods have these, with their names being taken from various mythologies and folklores. The few exceptions to this naming convention still have names that are fitting.
  • The War God whose death spawned not only Samhain but many other gods featured in this quest is named none other than Ares.
• Old Beggar Test: The Old Beggar asks people for food or coin and rewards those who help and punishes those who refuse or mock him.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. We got a goddess named Sophia, and a human character that was a major part of story for another god's story named Sophie.
• Our Demons Are Different: Demons were the first creations of what would become the Overdiety of Evil within his realm of Hell, as this implies these things are basically forms of unapologetic evil given corporeal form. The strongest among them were known as Demon Lords, acting with the full authority of their creator and ruling over other demons, even claiming ownership to portions of Hell itself. Rules were placed on them by the Overdeity of Good, ensuring that that demons could never escape from Hell in mass, however a loop placed by the Overdeity of Evil ensures that if a single Demon Lord were to conquer all seventy-two realms of Hell then that restriction will be lifted.
• Our Dragons Are Different: Dragons are the oldest species within the setting, and are Made of Magic. They can live up to ten-thousand years, becoming Stronger with Age. zBeing made of pure magic, they are easily the most powerful magic users in existence, but because of their sheer power they don't really see a need to hone their power. They also build up hoards within their lairs, which can be gold and treasure though a dragon's hoard can be anything they deem valuable. Dragons can also vary wildly in appearance and ability, with the surrounding environment and ambient magic while still an egg having the most effect, with some dragons being quite bizarre.
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves were originally the servants of the Goddess of Nature, but once she became an Overdeity they eventually became a normalized race on in the world. They are isolationists that broke off a part of their continent off to create a forest island that they live on.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins are the result of magic accidents and generally live as primitive hunter-gatherer tribes. In addition, due to their origins they are particularly sensitive to magic. Most people tend to think of goblins as being Always Chaotic Evil.
• Our Gods Are Different: Gods for their part come about when motes of divinity attached themselves to people, animals, and objects. Gods usually need worship in order to maintain their existence to empower themselves, but they can also kill another god to absorb there power to strengthen themselves. As every god wants to become an Overdeity, they'll eventually have to kill other gods least they want to remain basically a demigod with only a few villages of worshipers.
• Our Orcs Are Different: Orc were human being that were experimented on by Elves before they realized humans were people, then were enslaved. Orcs eventually managed to escape slavery, forming clans that use the names of those who helped them in someway as clan names. Orcs are maritime culture, which travel in flotillas or become pirates.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires are a very rare form of undead that come about when certain magical rituals have Gone Horribly Wrong or Gone Horribly Right — usually from necromancy or trying to extend one's own lifespan. They possess innate magic, making them the sorcerers of the undead, and have all the time in the world to practice it. They can't create more vampires without engaging in the same ritual that turned them, but they still need blood.
• Plot-Triggering Death: The War God Ares failed bid to become a Overdeity before the start of the quest resulted in him being killed by an Overdeity he managed to contact. Because none of his divine energy was taken upon his death, motes of his divinity attached to various objects, animals, and people, causing Samhain and other gods to come into being.
• Revenant Zombie: Captain Manann's crew is made up of revenants who died at sea and now seek vengeance on their killers. Manann himself used to be a revenant until he became a god.
• Scary Scarecrows: Samhain, duh.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: Samhain, of course, being a god of fear.
• Tom the Dark Lord: While a majority of Samhain's Nightmares have Names to Run Away from Really Fast, there are a few Nightmares that are named... Sam, Wendy, Annise, and Justus.