Gods and their servants

Here's how Gods work in the open table game I run for my students. Also, a God Soother class and three Cultists (Sun, Life and Death, and Moon). This is somewhat inspired by my previous religion post, but it is tailored more to this world.

Gods:

• Gods govern domains of the physical world: the larger their domains, the bigger their power.
• Domains are not so much aspects of human life, as they are places, conditions or things in the world. 'A river', 'anything the moonlight touches', and 'decaying matter' are all examples of domains.
• Gods are beings of order: they want the world to be more of the same, specifically more like them. Therefore: all Gods strive to increase their domains until they assimilate the world.

And their servants:

• Common folk try to appease the gods they deal with to prevent disaster and destruction and secure harvests and health. They respect the gods in the way one respects a physically stronger bully: more fear than reverence.
• God Soothers try to calm gods angered by the actions of people that are either foreign to the local ways, or think such custom doesn't apply to them. They respect the gods like a climber respects the mountain: a mixture of awe and rivalry.
• Cultists devote themselves to a singular god, believing them to be of an exceptional status. They respect their god the way football hooligans respect their club: with militant, self-destructive zeal.

God Soother

Paradoxically, the gods’ desires threaten humanity's very existence, but without them the world would be equally inhospitable. Survival demands we keep them at ease without furthering their goals.

Gear: Staff, sacrificial goat, knife, sack of coal
Duty: Settle disputes between gods and mortals when instructed to do so by the order.
Stipulation: Do not serve the interest of one god above all others, lest they become too powerful.
Rituals: To join the Soother’s Guild one must go through one of the following rituals. Exceptionally successful Soothers are allowed to join the Guild multiple times, participating in rituals they have yet to partake in with each rejoining.

• Divine Sense: Participants have to host a feast for various minor gods, tending to each of their needs without offending any of them.
  
  From now on you can sense in the domains of which gods you are, if these gods are at ease, and what sorts of things might upset them.
  However, the gods are also aware of your presence within their domain. If you do something that will upset a god it is immediately noticed and results in you becoming the target of their fury.
  
  
• Cleansing Rebirth: Participants dance in black, yellow and red dress, each embodying different chaotic blemishes: Curses, Disease and Disfigurement. When they reverse the dance, they take off their coloured garbs.
  
  From now on you can shed your tainted body and emerge from it without any blemish, your new body having regained any lost limbs, healed all wounds, and reverted all mutations.
  However, your new body looks and functions as if it is 5 years younger than before, causing you to lose physical prowess and skills gained in the last 5 years. This process doesn’t actually extend your natural lifespan.
  
  
• Personal God: Each participant traces back their lineage as far as they can, holding memorial services for each of their ancestors.
  
  From now on you are watched over by the ancestral god of your family house. In exchange for ritual sacrifices it will keep you safe from harm and disease. The greater the sacrifices, the better they are able to protect you.
  However, your ancestral god scrutinises your behaviour constantly. Any action deemed to be disgraceful of the family name will cause them to disown you. Actions considered directly harmful to the family might even incite their fury.
  
  
• Imposed Servitude: Participants attempt to outdo each other in subservience to a superior guild member, attempting to make them feel as uncomfortable as possible.
  
  From now on you can force a binding contract upon a god in which you pledge to fulfil one request for them. They will determine the task and in exchange you can ask them for a blessing which affects you while you are within their domain.
  However, to strangers you seem like a spineless bootlicker, making it hard to earn their respect.

Apostle of the Last Day

Praised be the god of beaming vigour. Fiery eye who sees all and allows all to see. Burn the weak so that the deserving might join you in your brilliance.

Gear: Fireproof clothing, mirror, obsidian knife, aloe creme.
Duty: Devote your life to bringing about the last day, when the sun will never set and the strong will prosper.
Stipulation: While the sun is up you are not allowed to rest.
Rituals: When you pledge yourself to increasing the domain of the Sun, you undergo one of the following rituals. The most devout are allowed to join rituals they have not yet undergone.

• Burning Body: Participants purge their bodies and then partake of a meal of coal, lamp oil and black powder. Afterwards they walk into a piece of the Divine Flame.
  
  From now on your body is made of flames and can only be hurt by that which would hurt fire. These flames are dense enough to interact with physical objects.
  However, you are as hot and bright as fire, making you a hazard to your surroundings and unable to hide in the dark.
  
  
• Solar Guidance: Participants climb to the highest point in the surrounding area and stare into the sun from dawn to dusk, never blinking.
  
  From now on you can always see as if the sun is out, irregardless of your location or the time of day.
  However, anything that would be invisible in the sunlight is invisible to you, irregardless of the actual lighting conditions.
  
  
• Light Eater: Participants fast in total darkness for up to a week. When they emerge they feast upon a meal of food projected with a magic lantern.
  
  From now on you can sustain yourself on nothing but sunlight. An hour in full sunlight equals a regular meal.
  However, you can no longer stomach regular food. Attempting to eat it will cause you to become violently sick.
  
  
• Inexhaustible Activity: Each participant rolls a boulder twice their weight up a steep slope from dusk till dawn for about a week, restarting every time they reach the top.
  
  From now on you do not grow tired performing physical activities as long as you are touched by sunlight. Only when pushing yourself physically beyond your normal limits will you become winded under the sun.
  However, once the sun is down the fatigue catches up with you, causing you to experience the cumulative cost of your physical exertions all at once.

Apostle of Putrid Rebirth

I cannot die, for there is no I, there is only us. Our minds, illusions causing needless divide, our bodies, food for bodies to come. Only in decay do we reach divine unity.

Gear: Bottle of strong liquor, wide hat, psychedelic mushrooms, wheel of cheese.  
Duty: Dedicate your life to bring about the putrid rebirth of the world, when life and death are meaningless divisions.
Stipulation: Never partake of fresh food or drink, only consume what is rotten or fermented.
Rituals: When you pledge yourself to increasing the domain of the Rot, you undergo one of the following rituals. The most devout are allowed to join rituals they have not yet undergone.

• Decaying Touch: Each participant is baptised in a bath of putrid filth they collected themselves and emerge in the image of the Holy Rotness.
  
  From now on any organic material you touch starts to decay. Pushing your finger through a wooden wall would take a couple of minutes, a structural beam about an hour.
  However, you cannot control this ability, meaning you rot through things even if you’d rather not and you cause horrible wounds to people you touch.
  
  
• Contagious Mind: Participants partake of part of a part of the Holy Rotness themself while sharing their innermost secrets among each other.
  
  From now on you can infect a creature with spores from the Rot God over the course of a week. As it perceives though and directs you, so you perceive through and direct the disciples you create this way.
  However, the more creatures you infect, the more you lose your sense of self, making you more careless when faced with potential harm.
  
  
• Toxic Fruit: Participants prepare by abstaining from cleanliness for a month. They then huff from the Receptacle of Fungal Delights to sow their now fertile fields.
  
  From now on mushrooms grow on your body. Whenever you are hit, they shoot out a cloud of toxic spores. You can harvest these mushrooms, which are poisonous to eat. The more you harvest, the smaller the toxic spore cloud.
  However, strangers are disgusted by your existence, making it difficult to get them to approach you.
  
  
• Beyond Life and Death: Participants enter a mass grave where they are buried alive for a week in compost made by the Holy Rotness themself.
  
  From now on you are in a state between life and death as your body feeds on its own decomposition. As you are no longer alive you are almost impossible to kill, nor does your body age.
  However, as you are in a constant state of decay, your body is weak and easily broken or torn apart.
  

Apostle of the True Moon

The false moons taunt us, as their endless growth and demise marks the passage of time. Only with the rise of the True Moon, will time be arrested, banished by Her eternal beauty.

Gear:  Hooded cloak, sickle, silver horn, lunar calendar
Duty: Dedicate your life to bring about the rise of the True Moon, when time will stop and with it suffering.
Stipulation: Never celebrate the passage of time.
Rituals: When you pledge yourself to increasing the domain of the Moon, you undergo one of the following rituals. The most devout are allowed to join rituals they have not yet undergone.

• Picky Reflection: Participants enter through the Hall of Lights in turn and deride each profane source of light until it refuses to associate with them.
  
  From now on you are only visible in the light of a moon. False moons only show you as a glimmer shade, your true self is only visible under the True Moon.
  However, your limited visibility only extends to your own body and anything within it. Your clothing as well as anything you carry and the effects you have on the physical world are all visible.
  
  
• Water Worship: Each participant has to seek out a small body of water and try to woo it with sheer charisma and without speaking the language of water.
  
  From now on water longs for you like it longs for the moon. Unless you command it to do otherwise, open bodies of water will lean towards you, allowing you to walk on its surfaces as it tenses up underneath your touch.
  However, your prolonged presence can cause rivers to divert, dams to crack and groundwater to well up if you don’t remember to command it to do otherwise.
  
  
• Moon Disease: A bowl of molten silver is basked in moonlight during the full moon. At the cusp of dawn participants use the molten silver to wash their eyes.
  
  From now on those who look directly into your eyes become more and more impressionable the longer they maintain eye contact.
  However, once the effect wears off, they’ll feel great animosity towards you and will work towards your ruin.
  
  
• Lunar Body: Participant enters a pond of silvery, lukewarm water. They emerge a week later, unaware of the amount of time that has passed.
  
  From now on you can choose to stop time from affecting your body for a duration chosen beforehand. While this lasts you cannot be affected by anything, making you an immovable and indestructible object. 
  However, while time stands still you are unaware of what happens, meaning that you cannot choose to extend or cut short your moment outside of time.