Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-11555902-20140109165305/@comment-5974425-20140109203210

I'd like to add to Vivid's definition of a god by saying their ideals aren't just part of their title, their ideals are part of them. Jas is the god representing time because she is time in a sense. She is eternal and has the power to create and destroy, just like time itself. The same goes for all the other gods, each one has aspects about them that make them into their ideal.

That is also why such a cataclysmic ripple effect happened when Guthix died. He represented balance and part of the Anima Mundi, and upon his death there was a loss of balance, and the world itself started to break down in the form of the divine rifts. The Anima Mundi itself cried in pain and suffering, though it didn't dissapear because of Seren and the fact that while the gods in essence are part of their ideal, their ideal may be able to exist without the presence of a god.

The gods aren't only beings of power, but they literally are also Chaos, Order, Balance, Time and so on. I think the Tier system works in the respect of that too. The gods that are closest to representing their ideal are higher tier, while the others are of lesser tiers. The elder gods were more like their ideals than any of the other gods, so therefore they are higher tiers.