Ask Lemmy

Oublievish, god of the forgotten

We cast him into darkness so deep that the light could not reach him, and he ceased to be. From him, we stole the ability to forget. And then we used that ability to erase our memory of our crime. Now, no one knows he even existed.

Then you will like American Gods (the novel or TV shows).

Gods can be killed once their worshippers abandon them. Without anyone to worship them, they will be weakened to the point of non-existent.

I'm entertained by the idea of a divine plane working on Mega Man rules, where after you kill a boss you get its weapon for yourself.

We killed Yaweh, gained a deeper understanding of the abyss, and unleashed fundamentalism.

Terry Pratchet wrote in Good Omens that the apocalypse horsemen Pestilence was slain by the advent of penicillin.

From my own head:

Mercury was killed to bring about the Internet.

Athena was not killed, but severely weakened to domesticate the herd animals.

We sacrificed Fenris for lap dogs.

I love this thread and will be working some of this into my next RPG storyline.

Zeus has to be a toaster in the bathtub kinda death

Until Dionysus died, we only had super strong wine that was only tasty if sweetened with lead.

After killing him, we were awarded with moonshine, whiskey, and vodka. But it also unleashed all the STDs known to man, straight out of Pandora's disease-ridden box.

Neptune: caught in a trawler net. His absence has gifted us ocean stock depletion and worldwide famine, but also an incredibly detailed understanding of ocean currents.

The first microscope was, in fact, Asclepius's stolen staff. That lead to germ theory.

In the early 20th century, we finally mined deep enough to collapse the underworld on Hades and found Uranium.

A DARPA radio transmitter fried Hermes in flight and brought us the internet.

One of the V2 rockets landed on Selene, who was visiting Earth, and opened up the way to travel to the moon.

I like the Discworld approach, as people stop truly believing in a god they will weaken until they fade away.
This could be either just not believing, or believing more in the system than the God itself.
Small gods is a good read and introduces the concept well.

There's a myth that when the Spanish arrived in the Philippines, the precolonial supreme god Bathala went into hiding with the help of the Goddess of Lost Things, and has seemingly stayed lost

Bast is still alive.

Here's one for ya: Hermes killed Thoth and got the knowledge of alchemy from him, resulting in the syncretic creation of Hermes Trismegistus and the hermetic tradition. Then later we killed Hermes and got the scientific method.

The old Mesopotamian gods were each patrons of a city, and their importance waxed and waned with the strength of that city. Babylon was, for centuries, the single largest city on all Earth. It was the pinnacle of human society's work, the centre of learning and culture nearly unparalled by all it surveyed. With this strength, so too did Marduk supplant Enlil and become known as the foremost amongst the Annunaki.

Marduk was said to be a temperamental god, quick to anger but willing to forgive. When King Sennacherib brought the might of the Assyrian empire down upon Babylon and pillaged the city, the wrath of Marduk soon found him: his son Arda-Mulissu murdered him. Sennacherib had not, however, acted out of simple hate or bloodlust; he was avenging another son of his. Marduk therefore did not curse all of Assyria nor all of Sennacherib's plans, as Sennacherib's chosen heir Esarhaddon - Arda-Mulissu's younger brother - prevailed in the conflict for the throne. Esarhaddon arranged for enormous restoration works to Babylon and its neighbours, an effort to make right the destruction wrought by his father, and even returned the stolen statue of Marduk. His reign would go on to be incredibly successful, and he even ensured a peaceful succession of his sons to both Assyria and Babylon despite the tumultuous nature of his accession. Marduk's wrath was great, but so was his capacity for mercy.

The end would come at the hands of an outsider. Babylon declined, but did not die, as Persia rose to dominance. Marduk remained respected and his rituals were observed, but the new imperial masters took their toll. Marduk was not dead, but he and his city were now shells of their former selves. It is perhaps ironic, then, then Marduk would share his fate with that empire. A conqueror from a backwater across the narrow strait to the west arrived, a young man by the name of Alexander whose armies fought with the all the might of Marduk himself when he struck down Tiamat. Alexander's march took him from Greece to Persia to the distant banks of the Indus, stopped at last only by the revolt of his own soldiers.

It wasn't long before Marduk's wrath found Alexander. The young conqueror was warned by Marduk's people that for him to march west, into the setting sun, would be the death of him. Even now, Marduk offered advice to his foe. They were right, and Alexander lay dead in Babylon at only 32 years old.

At last, though, Marduk could not forgive. His people had been crushed; his prophecy had been ignored; there was no heir of Alexander to heal the wounds. It was at this moment, stripped of his mercy and left only with wrath, that Marduk was no longer Marduk, and so he too died.

Babylon survived Marduk, but it would never again be the colossus that it once was. It would fade over time, its bricks stripped away to build new cities, until it was forgotten.

Marduk's death left us all a legacy that matched his temperament. Soon, humans identified and began to produce potassium nitrate, or nitre. This remarkable mineral is both life-bringing and life-ending, as it is a foundational component of fertilisers and gunpowder. Thus, even with his death, Marduk brought both wrath and mercy.

To be less flowery for a moment:

• The thing about patron gods is, in broad terms, thought to be true about the Mesopotamian gods. Marduk was basically a nobody until Babylon's rise to prominence, after which he replaced other gods in extremely important mythical roles due to Babylon's influence
• The stuff about Sennacherib destroying Babylon, his son murdering him, his two sons fighting over he throne, and the winning younger son rebuilding Babylon all happened. Babylonians at the time are said to have considered Sennacherib's fate a form of divine retribution
• There is some dispute over the character of Marduk, but we know of prayers praising both his fury and his mercy so I'm going with it
• The earliest mention of nitre that I know of is from 3rd century CE India, but the work in question really was (coincidentally) started roughly when Alexander the Great died. The finished work is a compilation of many other texts, and I do not know if the one mentioning nitre is one of the early ones

[off topic?]

Check out the graphic novel series "The Wicked And The Divine."

Every year, a dozen young people reincarnate as various gods. They have incredible powers, but know that they will all soon die.

https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/the-wicked-the-divine

I have this mental fanfiction that every god has a way to be killed, and when you kill them you can get things from them.

I'll encourage you to investigate the AD&D-D&D 5th Ed. material concerning the Forgotten Realm setting's Gods, all the way up to Ao. Murdering them imbues their killer with their 'portfolio', specific deity controlled influence over Harvest, War, Music, Healing, etc. See also, the entire plot concerning 'The Time of Troubles' most notably seen in Baldur's Gate (1998).

Ben Franklin using a kite and a key to slay Zeus and to steal electricity from him.

Well you better hope Michael Faraday didn't get any bonuses from St. Peter or else we'll be guessing what super powers he'll get from you!

The abrahamic god was turned on by its angels. Its only refuge was in the underworld, ruled by their banished son, Morning Star.

The underworld denizens, heartbroken at being abandoned and forgotten in their time of need and their prayers unanswered, began to overwhelm and consume the being that once believed it was all-powerful and the one true 'God'.

God is dead. Of his pity for man hath god died. So be thee warned against pity. From where thence there yet cometh unto men a heavy cloud. Verily i understand the weather signs.

But attend also to this word. All great love is above all its pity. For it seeketh to create what is loved.

Myself do I offer unto my love and my neighbor as myself. Such is the language of all creators.

All creators however are hard. Thus spoke Zarathustra.

Artemis: Goddess of the hunt, wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and archery. We got the ability to hunt and have had massive extinctions ever since.