Divine Pact

The Divine Pact was a treaty between the gods that brought the Second Holy War to an end. As part of it the gods agreed that they would stay away from mortals and the material plane, and limit the gods influence over the mortals to clerics.

History

Long ago there was a war between the gods (mostly of lawful vs chaotic gods) that spilled over onto the material plane, first through champions and cults and later through the gods manifesting to actually fight each other. Many mortals on the material plane, upon seeing the destruction that the gods had caused, rebelled against all the gods in an effort to get them to leave.

Depending on who's telling the story either the gods were surprised to find that the mortals actually were beginning to push them back and retreated, or the gods in their infinite wisdom saw they were hurting those they wanted to help and agreed to a truce long enough to move elsewhere to fight. Regardless, the gods left the material plane and the god of order put into place a barrier, the Divine Pact, which prevents the gods from returning to the material place and forbids gods to directly influence the lives of mortals, only doling out power to chosen clerics.