I've taken a while to ruminate all of your feedback, BBeast. It's much appreciated.

[quote=@BBeast]
I like the idea of Ages. The time window in Mk2 was a jury-rigged solution which was tacked on, although it has stopped people from getting too carried away and running off centuries ahead of everyone else. Implementing it from the start and giving it more mechanical and narrative weight should make it work better.

As for how it should work with technology, I have some thoughts. Ages describe what the general state of the world is, including the general level of technology which is widely available. However, we must consider how to determine what the next Age will be. The Ages should be able to be driven by player choices as with every other aspect of world-building in Divinus. Thus I propose this: Gods can spend Might to develop and share technologies (and social constructs) which are one step more advanced than the current Age...[/quote]

This initially sounds good, but I can foresee issues with defining the "steps" as you call them. Sure, it's easy to see that working iron is more than one step ahead of a Stone Age, but what are the intermediaries? Just bronzeworking? Why shouldn't copperworking come before even that? And why is alchemy inherently something more advanced? This all gets even more confusing when we try to restrict magic and social constructs by defining them by this arbitrary notion of "steps". Where would democracy fit in since it was a thing in Greece for a while but then it essentially disappeared for another 1000+ years? 

Additionally, this system very likely guarantees that the progression and development of Galbar would go almost identically to Earth's. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, I'm partial to leaving open the chance of something more unusual coming to pass due to IC events.

So whereas I originally envisioned these Ages as being characterized predominantly by theme and timescale (Age of Creation, Age of Monsters, Age of Conquest, etc.), you seem to be pushing more toward categorizing them by technological/magical development (essentially 'power level') and I don't see much advantage to doing so. Envisioning the various steps seems like a lot complication for questionable benefit. Now that I think about it, it'd also make it really hard to work out how we could have a Dark Age or something of the sort, and a period of collapse and regression does sound interesting to me.

[quote]...A new god/demigod introduced part way through the RP would not have a Sphere to call their own. A demigod would have the creative powers of a god, but not necessarily at the same strength, and they would not gain the benefits of Spheres or the ability to freely travel between Spheres. The mark of ascension to full godhood would be creating or binding to a Sphere. But they can only do this if the Architect of the Spheres, or maybe some of the existing gods, grant them this privilege. The demigod must prove themselves down on Galbar. On the meta level, if the player shows that they can play nice, we let their character ascend (picking either a suitable god or the Architect to sponsor them in-character). We could make the standard probationary period about one Turn- too long and they might get bored; too short and the character's entrance would be jarring (one Turn is just a suggestion and could need tweaking. Maybe two could be better. It depends on how the RP paces). The player may elect to stay a demigod for longer if they wish, but the option for them to ascend would be there. The process of appeasing potential divine sponsors (and gaining favours from demigods) would also add an interesting layer to the pantheon politics.[/quote]

I like this quite a bit. As far as adopting Portfolios, I'll have to fine-tune the numbers but I'm mostly of the opinion that a limited MP should prevent them from being snatched up too quickly. Though superseding Domains with the new concept of Spheres might make it easy for some to grab up a diverse range of Portfolios and leave us with most of the interesting ones quickly gone, I think that the idea of Clusters might discourage that. Also, I'm considering adding a mechanic that allows gods to fight over Portfolios and potentially steal them. Greek mythology in particular is fraught with examples of gods that usurped the powers of others.

[quote]
As for hot-spots, I believe these will develop naturally so we have no reason to codify such a concept.
[/quote]

Yeah you're probably right.