New Gods for Aduria

[Raesene Andu]

As promised here is some information on the new gods (human and non-human) from the Adurian expansion. Missing is Azrai, who is still worshipped in Aduira. More on him later. Comments and suggestions encouraged.


Nesteia (greater god)

Goddess of Life

Aliases: None
Symbol: Golden Ankh
Alignment: N
Portfolio: Birth, Reincarnation, Renewal
Domains: Renewal, Healing, Water, Sun.
Allies: Aebrynis
Foes: None

Nesteia (Nest-e-AH) is the wife of Aebrynis, the god of death, and the mother of all the human gods. Neither parent has anything to do with their children though, and do not attempt to control their activities. Unlike the other gods, the two ancient powers have little to do with their worshippers, and perform no miracles to convert the unbelievers. Rather they are concerned with the running to the world for all creatures, intelligent or otherwise. Nesteia is the goddess of life, it is by her will that all living things are born, survive and flourish. Her followers in Nehalim call on her often, praying for healthy children, good crops and other everyday concerns. Nesteia’s priests are granted spells, but scholars are uncertain if the goddess or one of her children grants their prayers.


Aebrynis (greater god)

God of Death

Aliases: None
Symbol: A Crown
Alignment: N
Portfolio: Death and Decay
Domains: Death, Earth, Air, Decay
Allies: Nesteia
Foes: None

Aebrynis is the second of the ancient gods who the Neha believe created the world and eventually life. He is the husband of Nesteia and father of the modern gods. Aebrynis is the god of death, responsible for all deaths and the decay of living things. He is worshipped in Neha primarily during funerals and expensive ceremonies are conducted to ensure that a king or other important figure rests comfortably in the afterlife. Priests of Aebrynis are also particularly potent when turning or destroying undead, as the restless dead are said to be a particular affront to the god of death.

Ba’est (lesser god)


The Huntress, Parton of the cats.

Aliases: None
Symbol: An Emerald
Alignment: CG
Portfolio: Cats, hunters, jungles, scouts, Asla and Wermics.
Domains: Animal, Claw, Plant, Strength, Travel
Allies: None
Foes: Belinik

Ba’est is the worshipped by both the Asla and their ancient enemies of the plains, the M’Botan (Wermic) tribes. She can be a harsh and dangerous foe to those who threaten her worshippers, notable the human god Belinik who has recently gained a following with both the Asla and M’Botan, but is kind and loving to her followers. Among the Asla, she is worshipped widely as the goddess of the hunt, and prayers are said to her before a hunter sets out into the jungle. The M’Botan worship her similarly, although they hunt the antelope and other creatures of the plains. Ba’est also has a small following among some of the humans along the borders of the Asla jungles, as prayers to her are rumoured ward off the gaze of the dangerous predators of the jungle, most notable the great cats. Her priests often fill the rolls of shamans, healers and witch doctors and are usually, but not always female. Emeralds are said to be especially blessed, and if found are claimed by Ba’est’s priests for use in holy symbols.


Morkrasarak (intermediate god)

The Sorcerer, Parton of reptiles.

Aliases: None
Symbol: Reptilian Eye
Alignment: CE
Portfolio: Magic, Destruction, Reptiles, Ssarak
Domains: Scale, Fang, Magic, Destruction.
Allies: None
Foes: Ruornil

Morkrasarak is an ancient dragon sorcerer who is said to have risen to godhood over the fallen bodies of his kin to become the god of reptiles, worshipped by his ancient creations and other reptilian races, although hated and feared by the surviving dragons. He is said to have been a mighty beast, the most powerful dragon ever seen, jet black in colour with piercing eyes and a command of magic that has yet to be bested. According to Ssarak legend, their god was victorious in an ancient war between the three most powerful dragon’s of the time, and claimed the prize of godhood, although other legends say that Morkrasarak was a vile tyrant who was destroyed by an alliance of other dragons, and destroyed. However, few can argue that Morkrasarak exists now, for his priests form a major part of the Ssarak society, and command considerable divine magic in addition to their other powers. Some human also worship him, especially sorcerers for he is also known as the patron of destructive magic, although this has earned him some enmity from Ruornil, the human god of magic.

[Satanta]

what about some gods who are also succesors to the human gods and might be unheard of in cerilia.
And maybe a religion based on beliefs similar to the elves, that the gods and everything is part of a much larger force .

What races are these gods.

[marcum uth mather]

How would the New Gods be taken in Adura? would a follower of Haelyn have power there or would his spells fade?

[Raesene Andu]

The new gods would be in addition to the standard BR gods, so they would be taken the same as the normal gods.

[Ariadne]

Are these gods known in Cerilia? If yes, are these only found in ancient books (like in a mage libery) or can they be found everywere? Do they have clerics or churches in Cerilia?

[Raesene Andu]

I imagine that any history who has studied history before Diesmaar would know of the Adurian gods, but they are not commonly worshipped (or even known) in Cerilia.

[blitzmacher]

My only conflict that I have with your Adurian gods is that the human tribes were pursued north into cerilia by the minions of Azrai. There can be other gods but I would figure the majority of them would have worshiped Azrai, since it would have taken a great deal of peoples to chase that many large tribes out of Aduria.

[Raesene Andu]

During the period when Azrai's minions ruled the continent, almost all of the human population worhiped him (at least in public). The worship of the other gods stopped, but was renewed later after Azrai was killed and his followers defeated.

Two of the new deities I have listed there are only worshipped by small races of non-humans, they never gave up their worship of their gods and were never conquered by Azrai's legions, although the Ssarak did join willingly later.

[marcum uth mather]

So how is the stats for Azrai coming? Will all the gods be in 3ed?

[Snowman 67]

So is it up to the DM to determine if Morkrasarak exists or not?,, or is it just supposed to be left alone as a myth or somthing?

[ConjurerDragon]

Hello!
And don´t forget the other precious metal: Viikmer! What about this?
bye
Michael
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Snowman 67 wrote:

>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
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>
> Snowman 67 wrote:
> So is it up to the DM to determine if Morkrasarak exists or not?,, or is it just supposed to be left alone as a myth or somthing?
>
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[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Snowman 67" <brnetboard@TUARHIEVEL.ORG>
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:27 PM


> So is it up to the DM to determine if Morkrasarak exists or not?
> ,, or is it just supposed to be left alone as a myth or somthing?

A lot of stuff works this way in BR. This allows the DM maximum flexibility
in designing his world.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Caledor]

I used these gods in a campaign but the pc's were like what the hell happend to takhisis and paledine and zaboim. I was like geeze tough crowd its just a new campain in the birthright setting. they were like oh

[marcum uth mather]

I was just wondering if any work is being done on adura for the new BR book. how do youfeel about interloper gods, like the norse pantheon

[Keovar]

Originally posted by Caledor


I used these gods in a campaign but the pc's were like what the hell happend to takhisis and paledine and zaboim. I was like geeze tough crowd its just a new campain in the birthright setting. they were like oh

Let me guess, your group used to get together to play while skipping English class? :)

[Raheer]

In relation to the comment about the possibility that the new gods don't really exist, but are worshipped anyway, or something to that effect, I am reminded about the claim in the Forgotten Realms Source Book, Third Edition. In the Realms, the gods get heavily involved in mortal politics and lives, and, the book claims, this leads to the possibility of such strange creatures as athiests and agnostics existing to be very low. And as we all know, the Birthright gods get even MORE involved with their worshippers than the Realms gods! So, taken to a logical extention, the chance of people worshiping a god who can't help his followers, (because he doesn't exist) to be VERY unlikely.

[Birthright-L]

On Sun, 1 Dec 2002, Raheer wrote:

> In the Realms, the gods get heavily involved in mortal politics and
> lives, and, the book claims, this leads to the possibility of such
> strange creatures as athiests and agnostics existing to be very low.

Except there are just so many powerful creatures of so wide a range in FR,
and so many humans have so recently killed gods and assumed their
portfolios that it is clear gods in FR are nothing more than humans with
lots of XP, to be engaged with in economic exchange -- prayers for
miracles, on a very quid pro quo basis -- until some other powerful being
wanders by, knocks off another god and someone else with a different
personality takes over a similar job.

> And as we all know, the Birthright gods get even MORE involved with
> their worshippers than the Realms gods!

What makes you think this? The impression I got from the BR materials was
that the new gods were vastly less interventionist than the D&D standard;
indeed, that basically the only thing they did was grant spells, which to
me is a very tenuous proof in D&D seeing that wizards, magicians and elves
cast spells without them just fine.

As far as I can tell, the BR gods actually don`t do anything, so it is
perfectly consistent with the FRCS logic for them not to be worshipped.

> So, taken to a logical extention, the chance of people worshiping a
> god who can`t help his followers, (because he doesn`t exist) to be
> VERY unlikely.

This argument works only if some of the gods help out and some of them
don`t. If none of them do anything useful, there is no competitor to
demonstrate real value in switching religions. In fact, this is what RW
atheists say: as far as we can tell, no gods seem to have done anything,
so they probably don`t exist, yet most people believe in them anyway; our
conclusion is that people have some sort of emotional need to invent
things that don`t exist.

On the other hand, even if the gods are there and do help out, I think it
would take a rather different form than the ideas of "worship" held by
modern monotheistic religions. Instead, I suspect they would have a much
more ancient-Roman interaction with their deities, in which prayers are
explicitly contractual arrangements, such as "O Juno, if you abandon your
city of Veii so that we may defeat it, you may come with us to be
worshipped at Rome where we will build you a bigger temple and provide
more lavish sacrifices than your current worshippers ever could." One
thing this might look like in BR is, "O Avani, if you will not show us
your face long enough to stop the flooding that is ravaging our lands, we
will find a different god to worship who _can_ fix the problem."


Ryan Caveney

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[kgauck]

In Hesiod`s five ages of man, we see two generations of the same family of
gods acting very differently. Prometheus makes man during the reign of
Chronos, who takes no notice of man. This is the Golden Age. When Zeus
deposes his father, Chronos (this by the way is the iconography of baby new
year and father time) Zeus takes notice of the people Prometheus has
created, but they take no notice of him. Zeus demands worship and they are
relucant. Other divine actions change the nature of creation (Hades steals
Persephone, creating winter, &c) and we now have the Silver Age. A
combination of human indifference to the divine and Prometheus attempting to
trick Zeus into providing meat and fire to men results in the sending of
Pandora and her famed box. We`re now in the Bronze Age. With all the ills
of the box, Zeus is totally disgusted and destroys the world, leaving just
Deculion and Pyrrha to survive a flood. The next age, the Heroic Age, sees
worship of the gods, as well as heavy intervention of the gods, who visit
earth to advise heros, give them gifts, and mate with humans. The next Age,
the Iron Age, still saw worship of the gods, and they spoke to humans, but
not directly, only through intermediaries like the Pythia at Delphi and
through oracles. The order of the world was divine and policed by the gods,
but they didn`t directly come down and deal with things themselves anymore.

From the human point of view, pre-Deismaar was a heroic age of divine
internevntion and divine worship. Now humans live in an iron age of remove
divinities. The elves might be said to parallel the gold-silver-bronze
cycle of non-worship and decline.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Raheer]

The comment has been made that the 'new' gods presented for Aduria would be 'hands-off' deities because the other gods active at this time are. But remember, these gods are actually leftovers from the preDeismaar period who stayed out of that conflict. The Deismaar era gods were ridiculously involved with their worshippers. Witness Deismaar itself, if nothing else!

Also, it is stated that the worship of Azrai overwhelmed the worship of all other deities in Aduria prior to Deismaar. How, if they offered nothing more than that which was provided by the gods of the new order (spells and turning ability) would people have resurrected the worship of the old gods? It would be much easier to turn to the worship of the new order than to recover the old texts and research the old methods of worship, and by our nature, humans are a race predisposed to take the easy route when it is available.

[Keovar]

In BR, as well as most other D&D campaign worlds, the deities answer to many names. If a current Basarji prays to Basaia, then Avani answers that prayer on behalf of her former patron. It's even possible that certain demons, devils, and even entities such as the Cold Rider have no ability to grant spells themselves, but gods that approve of their goals, such as Belinik and Kriesha, do it for them. Any number of "false" faiths could still have spellcasting clerics in such a situation.

The new gods are alot less involved than the old ones, because they don't want to spark a new god-war. Even enemies like Haelyn and Belinik can agree on a non-interference treaty like this because they originally came from a mortal perspective and are in that way closer to their worshippers than Andurias and Azrai ever could be. They are literally "fathers" and "mothers" to their people, and as such are not aloof to the passing of even a few like Greco-Roman gods were. To them, each person is as special as Perseus or Heracles was to Zeus, and they don't want another cataclysm wiping thousands of their children out. Furthermore, they know for a fact that even gods can die, so direct fighting amongst themselves is even more abhorrent.

[ryancaveney]

On Mon, 2 Dec 2002, Raheer wrote:

> But remember, these gods are actually leftovers from the preDeismaar
> period who stayed out of that conflict. The Deismaar era gods were
> ridiculously involved with their worshippers. Witness Deismaar
> itself, if nothing else!

Then why would their reaction to Deismaar not be, "See, we were right to
have stayed out of the whole business! To get too involved courts our own
destruction, so the most sensible plan is to be just as hands-off as these
new gods have wisely decided to be."

> How, if they offered nothing more than that which was provided by the
> gods of the new order (spells and turning ability) would people have
> resurrected the worship of the old gods?

Perhaps because when Azrai was defeated, he went from offering more to
offering even less, and the people who didn`t go to Deismaar never heard
about the existence of the new gods. ISTR the people of Djapar don`t
believe Basaia died at Deismaar, and consider heretics any visiting
Khinasi merchants who dare express that opinion publicly, for example by
referring to Avani as the goddess of the sun.

> and by our nature, humans are a race predisposed to take the easy
> route when it is available.

Quite; all of nature is like that. Since I think it would be easier to
research the old ways than the new ones -- the old ones probably never
completely died out, but more became seen as subservient to Azrai; whereas
missionaries of the new ones might not have reached Aduria, or not been
believed if they did -- I am inclined to think the old religions survived.

IMC I have a completely different interpretation of Deismaar and the gods,
but I have tried not to let that get involved here.


Ryan Caveney

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