"Divine Descent!!!" Though it was an extremely powerful divine spell, it was rarely used in practice. Even though virtually every true god's church possessed this spell, it had not been used often throughout the continent's history.
After all, summoning a god—even merely summoning a god's will—came at a tremendous cost. First, the summoner himself would have to endure the cruelest punishment in the world. This punishment was not inflicted by the gods, yet it was brought about by them.
What exactly were gods?
There were many answers to that question, and different people understood it differently.
But one point was universal across the entire cosmos: gods existed on a level far above mortals. They transcended certain limits of mortal life!
And the essence of Divine Descent was for the summoner to place a god's power and will inside his own body.
The current Material Plane was not particularly hospitable toward gods, so gods themselves could not descend. If gods wished to manifest their divine presence on the Material Plane, there were only three methods. The first was through divine oracles or miracles.
This generally required a temple with sufficient divine power reserves, as well as a priest capable of communicating with the god. This method was not difficult, though it did consume the god's own divine power. Thus, while divine oracles and miracles were not common across the continent, nearly every church experienced one from time to time.
The second method was the descent of will. Remember, it was the descent of will alone. This was not particularly difficult either, and did not even require a temple with stores of divine power. It merely consumed the god's divine power. For example, in Athkatla, Tyr, the god of justice, had once descended through his will.
However, compared to the first method,