View Full Version : Shadow World and the Faiths
kgauck
04-04-2004, 07:00 AM
There, I think, three faiths that have a special interest in the
encroachment of the SW: Nesirie, Avani, and Ruornil. But when designing
powers, spells, or strategies, I see it this way: Nesirie is the strong on
defence, and has little attack, Avani has a strong attack, but is weak on
defence, Ruornil has a stong attack and defence.
Its also possible that Kriesha would have spells or abilities that would
help controlling or aiding the encroachment, depending on cosmological
factors.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
Raesene Andu
04-04-2004, 08:48 AM
I would have thought Eloele as well, as her dominion is night and shadow. She would have perhaps as much of an interest in the encrouchment of the SW as Ruornil, although she may not actively work to prevent it.
irdeggman
04-05-2004, 09:42 AM
Eloele might actually work towards the spread of the shadow world - that chaos thing of hers. Regardless, IMO, she would have a vested interest in the encroachment of the shadow world. She is actually the one god who has been hinted at as having 'interfered' with the humans directly.
I don't know if I would have Nesirie focused towards stopping the encroachment of the shadow world, well not as actively as say Ruornil. She is more focused on the seas and grieving, IMO.
Cuircean might take up the cause if seen from a preventing the encroachment of those who would enslave others. Again it all depends on how the political theology is handled.
kgauck
04-05-2004, 11:10 AM
Eloéle may well have SW affinities, probably more so than Kriesha. Whether
her priests just manipulate its powers of shadow, seeming, and chaos, or
whether they encourage the encroachment probably depdens on campaign
cosmology, but she definitly deserves to be on the list. This creates some
interesting scenarios with Rournil, so I would tend to say that manipulation
is the way to go unless Ruornil and Eloéle have had a falling out.
Nesirie`s connection to the SW is largely through her role in grief and
death. Scenes of great tradegy are said to weaken the barrier of the Sw
from this world, and of course there is the issue of the dead becoming
animated by SW energies. In general, Nesirie`s priestesses are going to
protect the rest of us from this by spells and rituals that prevent the SW
from expoiting these situations. The dead should rest in peace, not wander.
Our grief should not cause us to draw the attention of malevolent SW beings.
That`s why I would describe her priests as strong in protection from SW, but
weak in offense. They ward a graveyard, solemnize a battlefield, and so
forth.
If we take a guide from those faiths that have a power of undead, we can
construct three catagories in this regard.
No Interest in SW
Erik, Cuiraécen, Sera, Belinik
Those who combat SW
Haelyn, Nesirie, Rournil, Avani, Laerme
Those who embrace SW power
Kriesha, Eloéle
Now, command, turning or no power over undead is only an aproximation of SW
interest, since the SW and undead are not entirely overlapping. Its an
imperfect proxy. I think Erik and Belinik tend to take more notice of the
SW, in their own way, than Sera and Cuiraécen do. I think Haelyn has no
specific interest in the SW, but is concerned with protecting his realm as a
good lordly steward, and when the threat comes from the SW, he is willing
and able to meet it, but otherwise has other fish to fry. Laerme is
interested because he parents are, tough her core areas of concern are
largely temporal (love and art).
Since Nesirie can turn undead, since she is the protector of the dead (or at
least their resting places), and strives to prevent grief from being
manipulated by the Shadow, say as Sidhe grief was prior to Diesmaar, she is
a protector from SW encroachment.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
Fearless_Leader
04-05-2004, 06:55 PM
Originally posted by irdeggman@Apr 5 2004, 01:42 AM
I don't know if I would have Nesirie focused towards stopping the encroachment of the shadow world, well not as actively as say Ruornil. She is more focused on the seas and grieving, IMO.
As the goddess of grief, Nesirie is gradually gaining a new portfolio over offering solace and protection for the dead, this includes preventing the dead from falling victim to the Shadow World. Give it another few centuries and she'll be the goddess of death.
Raesene Andu
04-06-2004, 03:09 AM
I'd probably say that Ruornil is the only one who really tries to fight the encroucment of the SW in Aebrynis and his priests are the only ones who actively work against this. Haelyn, Nesirie, Avani, and to a lesser extent Laerme's priest may have some power to fight the shadow, but I doubt either the gods, or their priests actively seek out instances of SW activity. After all, aren't Haelyn's priests able to summond undead? At least they were able to cast Undead Legion under 2E...
With regard to Kriesha and Belinik, I doubt either has a lot to do with the Shadow World, never shown much interest in it as far as I can tell.
Eloele is an interesting case. I have always ran her as a possible replacement for Azrai (as her portfolio seems to overlap with his old one in some places). So she actually became an opponent of Azrai's return and fought against agents of Azrai because his return would weaken her overall strength and she would loose followers and power if he returned from the dead. So if you equate the SW with Azrai (which I have always done, as the cold rider is Azrai after all) then rather than welcoming the SW, Eloele would help Ruornil to fight against its encrouchment, but just for entirely different reasons.
kgauck
04-06-2004, 10:40 AM
While I do regard Ruornil as the number one faith to fight the Shadow World,
mostly because they are alert to it and seek out the challenge. What to do
with the other faiths depends on what you are doing with the SW. If the
encroachment of the Shadow is important to a campaign, I think all of the
gods will tend to take more notice, at least among Haelyn, Nesirie, Rournil,
Avani, Laerme, Erik, Kriesha, Eloéle (everyone except Cuiraécen, Sera,
Belinik). If the SW is not central to the campiagn, Ruornil may well be the
only faith to take an interest anyway.
In the second rank though, I clearly see Avani shining light into the
Shadow. "She is the light-bringer, the giver of life." She is the opposite
of the SW. So, my take here is that while Avini`s agents might not seek out
encroachment, when confronted by it the attack it vigorously. I also think
that the Basarji Five Oaths is not just a Ruornil thing (its not law in
Medoere), its a combination of Avani and Ruornil`s teachings.
Haelyn shouldn`t be summoning undead, but clearly Haelyn`s priests do
communicate with the dead. The Chinese believed that as someone got older,
they got wiser, why should that stop just because they died? So
communicating with the ancestors for guidance was common. Are Haelynites
Confucists in occidental garb? Maybe, maybe not, but let`s look at the
Quest spells, the one listed for Haelyn grants communication with an advisor
who is a dead champion of Haelyn. I think because of the way necromantic
spells are organized as a sphere when we allow Haelyn to cure blindness,
cast restoration, raise dead, and resurrection, we are granting him a
necromantic sphere. Its also the case that the PHB list of necromantic
priest spells, were mostly a power to restore life, not create or summon
undead. Haelyn has the the ability to restore life as well as communicate
with the dead to solve crimes or seek wisdom. Halyn`s priests probably
confine the conflict with the SW to imminant threats to those protected by
nobless oblige.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
irdeggman
04-06-2004, 11:57 AM
Kenneth, I think your focus on defending against SW encroachment is strongly tied into the memories of what happened at Deismaar. While the present deities may (or may not except for Ruornil) have an active interest in the SW they will perceive any encroachment as a return of Azrai and will unite in their defense against him (except for maybe Belnik and Kreisha, but even then I see a neutrality there since they too remember the devastation of Deismaar and really wouldn't want to see their new power bases weakened)
kgauck
04-06-2004, 01:20 PM
Actually, it has nothing to do with Azrai. Personally, I think he`s gone.
I associate the SW much more strongly with undead, fey, spitits, and really
anything other-worldly. The materials I am looking at are things like a
random event where zombies menace a town, where an infant is replaced by a
changeling, or a local sorcerer has made a pact with a SW being for power.
Actually, since I hold that gods are immortal, what the other gods did was
to get Azrai in a headlock and the old gods have determined to hold him a
permenant prisoner, but it takes all of their time holding him down, so to
speak, so they passed on their portfolios so that someone would be able to
attend to the physical world while they continued their eternal grapple.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
irdeggman
04-06-2004, 02:47 PM
Originally posted by kgauck@Apr 6 2004, 08:20 AM
Actually, since I hold that gods are immortal, what the other gods did was
to get Azrai in a headlock and the old gods have determined to hold him a
permenant prisoner, but it takes all of their time holding him down, so to
speak, so they passed on their portfolios so that someone would be able to
attend to the physical world while they continued their eternal grapple.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
Interesting premise and explains a lot of the reasons for your opinions/take on certain things. It is always a matter of perspective. ;)
Now, per your premise of the gods being immortal - they didn't spill their blood and create scions then. I would assume you take the spilling the blood as more symbolic and that they actually gave up some of their divine essence in order to imbue scions with the things that made them scions.
kgauck
04-06-2004, 04:00 PM
----- Original Message -----
From: "irdeggman" <brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 9:47 AM
> Now, per your premise of the gods being immortal - they didn`t spill
their blood and create scions then.
The Greeks belived ichor flowed in the veins of the gods, not blood. I
follow that thinking myself. What seperates scions is that their blood has
a touch of ichor in it. Did the gods get hurt and bleed? Sure, but this
could not kill them, any more than Uranos killed his children by eating them
or was himself killed by being cleaved by Zeus. So I think the gods
certainly did bleed on their followers. Whether that by itself could have
made them scions I don`t need to decide. I do think they made a concious
choice to change the nature of the world by having scions. Because to
prevent the forces of evil from rising again, it wasn`t sufficient to
elevelate their champions to divinity, they needed divinity on Cerilia to
combat evil as well. This is one of the reasons that the new gods could
afford to take a more hands off role in Cerilia, because the old gods
already had representatives there.
Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com
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