Apotheosis

In Quelmar, apotheosis describes a set of natural laws and powers that dictate the ascension (or descention) of holy powers such as Gods

Becoming a God

The first step to apotheosis is to have believers. A believer is a Soul who truly believes that the wanna-be god is something to be reckoned with. That they have something special, unique, or powerful enough that the realm should bow to their mere presence. These are "True Believers" who often times will take actions of their own "in the name" of their god.

Examples

D'Kacilius Venrai was a True Believer of Silent, as was Delphi, and together the two of them imbued Silent with a permanent pool of divine power that was used on the battlefield to empower their followers.

Losing Holy Status

Likewise, a god could lose power by having few-to-no believers in the world. If a god runs out of believers entirely, they are often relegated to being a Lost God. Lost Gods can still regain their power, but only under the rarest of circumstances, in which others begin to have faith in them again despite them believed to have been gone or fictional.

However, another way to have a god lose their status is to slowly convince the followers of that god to worship something that ISN'T their god, even if they don't realize it.

Examples

The herald of Tiamat Skelya was able to take down the Dragon Slaying god Kragnux (Deity) simply by convincing almost all of his followers (except a devoted few at The Heritage) that Kragnux was a human, and not a dragonborn. By worshiping this "false idol" that took the name of Kragnux, the church was slowly corrupted into worshipping the wrong power, and as a result, Kragnux himself lost most of his divine abilities. This would slowly be reversed under the tutelage of Pope Zarachiel.