Nanodeities

 

A small god by Richard Tingley

Have you seen my Twitter bot, @deitygalaxy?

When the nose of Iohraï-ses, god of turtles in the hamlet of Nether Opthowichmoor-by-the-Water, grows significantly more turtle-like, it is usually a sign that they are feeling perceptive.

Iohraï-ses is needy. Reply to him please? #Iohraïses #turtles

— All the Deities (@deitygalaxy) January 27, 2022

 Deity Galaxy, AKA All The Deities, invents new gods, goddesses and goddexxes. Tiny, eeny-weeny deities. Deities so small that they may not even have any followers. Deities who are desperate for somebody to notice them, accept them, worship them. The idea was inspired, in part, by the Terry Pratchett book Small Gods, in which the Great God Om finds himself without any divine powers, due to a distinct lack of anyone who is the slightest bit interested in him any more.

I'm happy to announce that I am planning to publish a book based upon Deity Galaxy, called nanodeities. Nanodeities will contain a collection of small gods, all of them generated at random by the bot. For each there will be a portrait by Richard Tingley, a descriptive backstory written by me, and a set of stats, should you want to include this deity in your D&D or OSR game.

I do not expect this to be published until at least the second half of this year, as I've plenty of other projects on the go, but in the meantime I have been improving and adding new "stories" to the bot. I first wrote it 4 years ago, and ever since then it's generated quite a few tweets which... well, they don't quite sit right. It still does, but far far fewer of them. I've also made big improvements to what happens when you tweet or reply to @deitygalaxy. Some folks seem to have had hours of fun having extended "conversations" with the bot, and being instructed to abase themselves by carrying out increasingly bizarre acts.

Give it a try for yourself: visit @deitygalaxy and send it a tweet.