Divine Rampancy

Divine Rampancy:

Rampancy, or Divine Madness, is the largest fear for deities and creatures touched by divinity - the complete loss of their mental control and agency. Rampancy is a state of being akin to insanity that takes hold when deities go through intensely stressful, dramatic, or destructive acts that cause their state of being to fluctuate.

Rampancy can best be described as an overload in godly power from the weight of their own divinity - which collapses in on itself: resulting in their logic (or madness, in some cases) becoming corrupted and wreaking utter devastation upon themselves and whatsoever may be in their sights.

Deities abhor this state of being, as they no longer have control of whatever they do - and almost all entities pride themselves in their ability to calculate or plan ideas centuries in the making - instead giving into any actions they may think of at a moment's notice, which can spell utter chaos for beings with near limitless power.

EXAMPLE OF DIVINE RAMPANCY:

A storm god - who would typically plan out rainfall, storms, and hurricanes to take place over the course of several centuries - going rampant would see themselves suddenly (and unknowingly) walking amongst the material plane in their godly form, but also summoning every maelstrom at once in one region, resulting in supernatural levels of destruction - or instead deciding to throw away their responsibilities, thus, bringing extreme drought to a region.

A situation like this would undoubtedly bring the intervention of other storm gods to subdue the rampant deity on the material plane - resulting in what could be total devastation of a region or even world.

Running from Madness: Most deities strictly follow divine doctrine and rules in order to avoid becoming rampant, as there is no cure for rampancy - for no magic, treatment, or balm exists that can allow rampancy to be reduced in any way - save for indulging in the maddening throes of rampancy itself and allowing it to take it's course.

In instances where rampancy cannot be avoided, deities will often seclude themselves upon magically dead worlds, isolated planes, or voids in reality to avoid wreaking widespread havoc.

In the rare cases where deities lose control amongst the masses, it is the moral and divine obligation of several other deities of similar portfolios to intervene wherever the deity may be rampant to either subdue or lure them away from areas where harm can take place - this is a dangerous task, as rampant deities are several times stronger than their typical godly brethren for the duration of their madness, which can last anywhere from a week ... to several years.

In cases like these, where the rampancy lasts centuries, the gods who intervene should be considered "Beyond Ruling" - meaning they cannot attend to their divine responsibilities, and a temporary replacement must take their place; ideally, a creation of their own design (such as an Archangel or similar high authority creation), a demigod or recently ascended being will be sought out to ascend to their place for the duration. The intervening deities still receive worship and power as normal, as does the Rampant god.

Halting the Rampant:

As stated before, many deities retreat to areas devoid of magic and creatures to avoid disrupting the natural order, but doing so is not always feasible for a god. In some cases, intervening deities will subdue and imprison the god until the end of their rampancy - this is difficult, and dangerous, as it has no guarantee that it'll hold them for long. Imprisoning a god is not completely unheard of, though, and many myths and legends tell of deities or forces of nature that have been locked away to protect the worlds they reside upon. These stories almost always have deities who have gone rampant.

Despite the immense capabilities of gods, and the existence of high magic, there is only one way to end rampancy before the full duration: kill the rampant god in the astral plane - from which the possibility of resurrection is still possible (as per the resurrection instructions from the Divine Ranks section). Many early quasi-deities have met their demise in this way: unable to be resurrected by worship due to a lack of followers(one way to for a deities to be resurrected is by the faith of there worshipers. ) ... only to go rampant and die amidst their eternally sleeping astral brethren. Due to the overflowing, fluctuating energy of divine power as a deity goes rampant.

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Many early quasi-deities have met their demise in this way: unable to be resurrected by worship due to a lack of followers(one way to for a deities to be resurrected is by the faith of there worshipers. )

if you would like to know more comment>> (more) in the comments and i will go in depth of why worship can resurrect gods.

just co