Divine essence

Armor of the god Gorum, shattered after his death. A warshard is embedded in the ground next to him.

See also: Immortal ichor

A deity is fundamentally composed of a poorly understood energy sometimes referred to as their divine essence. The death of a deity can result in that divine essence being lost, uncontrollably distributed, or contained, and the nature of these outcomes is also poorly understood.

Divine essence features prominently in the history of divinity on Golarion, through events such as Earthfall and the deaths of Acavna, Aroden, and Gorum, among other lesser divinities related to that planet's inhabitants.

Ambithas

The gate archon Ambithas stood watch over an elf gate in the Crown of the World for decades during the Age of Darkness, prior to the elves' return to Golarion from Castrovel.

Ambithas' proximity over his long vigil imbued the gate with his divine essence, and the returning elves who passed through the gate in turn gained divine abilities that were also passed down through several generations of descendants due to their exposure to this essence.

Dahak

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A manifestation of Dahak infused the elf gate hub demiplane of Alseta's Landing with the draconic deity's divine essence, which in turn created five connected realms.

Gorum

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The death of Gorum resulted in the Godsrain, a pan-Universal event in which the divine essence of Gorum mingled with his blood and shards of his armor to rain down upon the planets containing his worshippers, including Golarion. This rain imbued creatures on these worlds with various effects, such as divine and mythical powers and a thirst for conflict.

Orc pantheon

Legends of the origins of orc deities on Golarion tell that the mortals Lanishra and Verex abducted a deity of the halflings and extracted their divine essence to become gods themselves. Upon learning of this, more orcs rushed to the surface to abduct, kill, and consume the divine essences of halfling deities.

This legend also suggests a rationale for the small number of halfling deities known on Golarion, and the origin of the Crucible as a means of new orc deities arising when a mortal's soul challenges and defeats an orc deity in combat.

Owbs

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In 4716 AR, Professor Inphira Kramolag of Conference Z—a clandestine research group of the Aspis Consortium—attempted to distill divine essence from captive owbs.

Torag

After the dwarven deity Torag exiled Droskar from Heaven, he imprisoned his former divine servitors who betrayed him in order to follow Droskar by binding them to stones within caverns near Azurestone, Galt. These servitors' divine essence has since slowly bled out into the surrounding stones and manifested as veins of precious gemstones and metals.

The Wanderer

The ancient spirit guide known as Fox, the Immortal Trickster, and the Wanderer—among many other names—has slowly become less powerful over time. Theories suggest he has weakened by sharing his divine essence with mortals, or by losing some to the beings who have killed him several times over the ages.

Zagresh

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After the mortal soul of Grask Uldeth assassinated the orc deity Zagresh, the remnants of Zagresh's divine essence retreated to his worshippers within Golarion's Death Tower. The tower's high priest Ungukk Fleshdredge hurriedly bound the divine essence to the Carcass Man, an existing construct of dead flesh, to preserve it.

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Zon-Kuthon

As the wayward deity Dou-Bral wandered into the Beyond Beyond, an unknown lost deific entity overwhelmed him with its divine power and filled Dou-Bral like a vessel until he broke apart. This new entity returned to the Great Beyond as Zon-Kuthon.

In magic

Divine magic is empowered by fragments of divine essence. Powerful spellcasters of divine magic can disperse this fragment into the air around them to sanitize it of airborne diseases and poisons.

In mortals

Some exemplars gain their powers from exposure to divine essence.

The Ouat dwarves of Tar Kuata work to realize their belief that divine essence is a component of all creatures and can be awakened to empower themselves.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.