Worldbuilding & Gods

I told someone I had this idea for a while yesterday, so here it is:

 

Suppose that there is a kind of "energy" (I don't have a name for it), in my mind sort of a vague mix between gaseous and liquid although it doesn't really matter, because it doesn't stay in this "pure" form very easily or long anyway. There is a limited, constant quantity of the stuff. People (and probably animals as well) can instincively sense the stuff.

 

This "energy" is capable of giving one supernatural/magic ability, the more you have the more powerful you become. At some threshold with enough of it to your name you become immortal (immovable object kind of thing) and at this point you become known as a god or whatever the preferred name for it would be. Every known deity in history has been someone amassing enough of the stuff. Should you lose any you lose powers proportionally, so your status as god isn't permanent.

 

These powers are practically magic and numerous, eventually being able to will matter (non-"energy" related) in and out of existence or whatever. Although at some point flight and levitation will be pretty trivial as well as ones senses enhancing with the amount you have, one never gains the ability to be on more than one place at a time. Same goes for telepathy or knowledge of things not in your vicinity.

 

"Energy" in its pure form doesn't give powers. For that, you need to imbue it into an object of some kind. The two processes happen simultaneously, and you can't use an already existing object for this purpose. It doesn't really matter what you make. It can be making jewelry, wood carving, metalwork, anything. You can weave the "energy" into a fabric, and even buildings can function for housing "energy" if you have but enough of it. The latter will require a stockpile of harvested(more on that later) or sacrifice material to be consumed during construction, since there's no way to keep pure "energy" for more than a couple dozen seconds.

 

"Energy" is linked to a person. You have to make the first pieces (or pieces) yourself but once you have a little others can start imbuing items in your stead. It is somewhat common for people to have some personal effect that grants them some strength or minor magic

 

Sufficiently powerful people can lend people they select some of their powers provided the person in question has an imbued object with them. These powers can be greater than the energy in that object would grant by themselves.

 

Breaking an item containing "energy" will cause it so seep out, ready to be used in another craft. Power can be stolen from people in this way. This doesn't require burning or anything of the like; Smashing the object with a hammer, or delivering major damage in some other way. A statue could simply be toppled, for example. If the freed energy isn't used, it will sink into the ground, where it is either absorbed by newly growing plants or if nothing grows there, eventually it will seep into rocks to form sort of a magic ore. Imbued objects may have been buried and/or forgotten, although not in large quantities at one spot. Larger quantities would be picked up by passing people's senses, and would likely get dug up and reused.

 

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Besides being a basis for the existence of magic, the above is intended for stories about competing gods. Mind that the stuff below (and possibly even the above) might not be (able to be) entirely separated from the European-based fantasy notions that are ubiquitous in the genre.

 

I've not written or thought of any actual story involving the above, but I think it allows for more interesting gods and more interesting religious strife should one choose to. Most important to me, it requires the gods in question to be based on what at one point was a regular person in that world. Any power struggle between gods is largely dependent on interpersonal conflicts and greed, rather than vague notions or absolute values. Of course, being [whatever species] they might still base their decisions on those. Gods will likely be organizing groups of people into some kind of religions, even if just to safeguard all the stuff that give them their power.

 

I don't think I quite had a point to end on, and this stuff can probably go on for a while yet.