Divine Elemental Planar Links.

[kgauck]

Anduiras reflects the air aspect for the same reason that Zeus (and his
other Indo-European) forms does. The sky is the arena where other dieties
operate. The moon, the sun, the clouds, and the lightning all operate
within the sphere of the sky. If Anduiras/Haelyn is the king of the gods,
it can be seen by the fact that the other gods operate in the domain he
controls.

As for summoning, you could have scions of Anduiras control air elemental
forces, (as a sky phenomena) or you could have him able to attempt to
control (as a cleric) elemental creatures with the exception of the negative
plane.

Many (if not most) religions have different understandings of the top of the
earth and the below the surface of the earth. The same could be applied to
such elemental spheres. Reynir may have command over the surface of the
earth, where the living things are, and where earth joins sky with its rain
and sun. Wealth gods, like Pluto/Hades as well as the dwarven Dumathoin
have under-the-earth control where the precious metals and gems are. Stone
creatures in this case, might be better named ore creatures, and metal
creatures might be obviously copper, silver, gold, platinum, or even metals
from which the craftsmen work.

I also agree that the Azrai = Negative and Vorynn = Positive is a pretty
obvious source of elemental control. I`d be inclined to make both positive
and negavive creatures more magical than other planes, or than they might
appear in the texts of other settings.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[geeman]

At 10:48 AM 3/28/2003 -0600, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

>Anduiras reflects the air aspect for the same reason that Zeus (and his
>other Indo-European) forms does. The sky is the arena where other dieties
>operate. The moon, the sun, the clouds, and the lightning all operate
>within the sphere of the sky. If Anduiras/Haelyn is the king of the gods,
>it can be seen by the fact that the other gods operate in the domain he
>controls.

Haelyn is described as the ruler of the gods in the RB, but that text is in
many ways Anuire-centric. The BoP goes into much greater detail regarding
how each of the gods is viewed culturally, and that text describes Haelyn
as "the principle deity of the Anuirean pantheon, and serves as the paragon
of a king. He is worshipped as the lord of courage and chivalry by noble
warriors in other regions of Cerilia." That indicates (as does the type of
temple holdings) that in other regions Haelyn is not seen as the king of
gods. The BoP further exemplifies this in the text regarding Erik which
says of the two primary Rjurik temples that "both believe in the supremacy
of Erik in the pantheon of the Rjurik." Sera is also described as "the
principal deity of the Brecht pantheon" and that "Avani is the principal
goddess of the Khinasi pantheon." Though the Masatians are mostly
destroyed as a people, Masela was likely primary to her "favored" people,
and Vorynn considered the most significant god by the Vos until Azrai
corrupted them.

In fact, aside from the sunburst on his coat of arms there`s very little
about Haelyn himself that is associated with the sky or air. He`s rumored
to have taken a bird form or of having caused a banner to fly against the
wind, but that`s not a lot. War, Law, Rulership are his primary
spheres. Strangely, his priesthood is given access to the air elemental
sphere, and the Elemental Control blood ability available to Anduiras`
derivation would provides a connection with that element, but there`s not
much to indicate that he controls the air himself. Avani and Rournil are
probably more closely associated with the sky and air.

It is, as Ryan pointed out, possible that the air aspect of Haelyn`s
worship is vestigial from Anduiras` portfolio. That`s pretty speculative,
of course, but it would seem to make sense, particularly in regard to the
Elemental Control blood ability since that comes direction from the worship
of the old god.

I`m starting to think that Vorynn`s bloodline might be better linked to the
plane of air and Anduiras to positive energy.

Gary

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[Trevyr]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birthright Roleplaying Game Discussion
> [mailto:BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On Behalf Of Ryan B. Caveney

> OTOH, I`ve got to say -- maybe it`s only Erik who`s so focused on trees,
> and Reynir was more focused on just the dirt. Similarly, maybe it`s only
> Haelyn who`s so keen on noble war and leadership; perhaps the original
> Anduiras was just your standard generic sky god, so air would indeed be
> more appropriate than it would if trying to assign elements to the living
> gods. Actually, I think you`ve made up my mind for me: the old gods were
> very primal forces, not much tied to everyday life, so they should have
> pure elemental associations. The newer, once-human gods are the first
> ones who should have philosophical aspects to their portfolios. E.g.,
> Haelyn = law & justice and Cuiraecen = battle, but Anduiras = Air/Storm;
> Avani = Reason and Laerme = Passion, but Basaia = Fire; Kriesha = Cruelty
> and Belinik = Terror, but Azrai = Entropy (in the thermodynamic sense).

Ah, you beat me to it, I was about to argue essentially the same thing.

I think that Anduiras was much more a sky/weather god, which became
associated with kingship and nobility among the Andu, and when one of those
Andu arose to replace Anduiras, he was really more concerned with the
concept of nobility and justice. Thus the weather and sky part was
marginalized until Cuiraecen took over that portfolio. I suspect that you
could do the same thing with all the `child gods` that arose in the
centuries after Deismaar, that they`re taking up abandoned portfolios. As
you point out above, Basaia could have been a fire goddess, but Avani
abandoned the burning, passionate part of that in favor of light and reason,
and Laerme took up that portfolio. I suspect that Vorynn was a
Night/sleep/Dreams god, and that Ruornil focussed on the dreams/divination
angle, and became associated with the moon as a counter to the Shadow, which
abandoned the Night part of the portfolio for Eloele to pick up.

Brenna is the difficult one to fit into this picture. I can`t quite make out
what a "primordial motion" portfolio would be, other than chaos which is
generally thought to be Azrai`s domain. If we go with the money angle, we
have Brenna becoming an earth goddess (gold, gems and other things you dig
out of the ground), of which we already have too many. Her animal affinity
is with the cat-that-is-not-a-lion, which is not terribly helpful, either.

Mark V.

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Mark VanderMeulen wrote:

> Ah, you beat me to it, I was about to argue essentially the same thing.

=)

> I think that Anduiras was much more a sky/weather god, which became
> associated with kingship and nobility among the Andu, and when one of
> those Andu arose to replace Anduiras, he was really more concerned
> with the concept of nobility and justice.

This to me is the crux of the whole thing: the old gods were never human,
but the new gods used to be normal humans themselves. Therefore there
ought to be a really big difference between pre-Deismaar gods and
post-Deismaar ones on anything related to a specifically *human* (ignoring
other sentients for the moment; sorry, Peter) experience as opposed to the
world at large. If the old gods created the world, then they were equally
associated with all parts of it; since the new gods were all formed from
the same, very specific tiny part of the world (humans), they ought to
reflect that specific focus in some very fundamental ways. The easiest
way I can see to do this is to say that the old gods` portfolios are
primarily natural/physical and only secondarily philosophical/ideological,
while the reverse is true for the new gods. When the new gods arose, they
were still thinking like the humans they so recently were, with very human
motives and perceptions. The old gods had nothing like that. What Haelyn
and Avani and Kriesha and the rest became gods of, IMO, is basically
whatever they were thinking about and inspired by when they died; which is
largely the stuff they were most famous for doing and caring about when
they were alive.

> Thus the weather and sky part was marginalized until Cuiraecen took
> over that portfolio. I suspect that you could do the same thing with
> all the `child gods` that arose in the centuries after Deismaar, that
> they`re taking up abandoned portfolios. As you point out above, Basaia
> could have been a fire goddess, but Avani abandoned the burning,
> passionate part of that in favor of light and reason, and Laerme took
> up that portfolio. I suspect that Vorynn was a Night/sleep/Dreams god,
> and that Ruornil focussed on the dreams/divination angle, and became
> associated with the moon as a counter to the Shadow, which abandoned
> the Night part of the portfolio for Eloele to pick up.

This is a really fascinating interpretation. Extremely well done! This
makes vast amounts of sense. It gives a logically compelling explanation
for the particular combinations of "child" gods which arose naturally to
fill the gaps left in the old elemental portfolios by the transition to
philosophical ones. The question now becomes, does it predict any
additional child gods which ought to come into being, based on any
remaining elemental ideas which are not well represented? It has
sometimes been remarked that Cerilia doesn`t really have a God of the Dead
the way most pantheons do; I would say that the Cold Rider could be seen
as precisely the figure who arose to take up that portion of Azrai`s mantle.

> Brenna is the difficult one to fit into this picture. I can`t quite
> make out what a "primordial motion" portfolio would be, other than
> chaos which is generally thought to be Azrai`s domain.

Yes, exactly. She`s always caused me by far the most confusion -- but
whenever I do manage to come up with an idea about her, it strikes me as
the coolest thought I`ve ever had about the Cerilian gods. =)

As a justification for the idea of primordial motion, I offer this: her
darkness and shadow associations can`t be the key to understanding her,
because Azrai has evil, death and secrets, Vorynn has the moon, and both
of them have magic; there`s just nowhere left to put her in the
traditional mythological associations of the night. IMO, the key to
understanding her is in the description of the Resistance blood ability:
"in the old myths, no one could lay a hand on Brenna unless she permitted
it." Brenna can dodge/evade anything and everything, even the other
elemental gods, so her essence must be movement itself. This also
explains her bloodline`s astonishingly powerful Travel ability, and even
to some extent shadow: no one can grab a shadow.

To me, in a sense, "primordial motion" is *time*. Time gods are usually
presented as being eternally unchanging, but that`s really the *opposite*
of time: unless something is changing, you can`t tell that time exists!
The very idea of change is what happens when you compare the same thing at
different times. In this sense, Brenna/Motion/Time is the world, she is
life itself: the four standard elements provide the raw material, Vorynn
gives the spark of life and Azrai embodies death and decay -- but without
Brenna/Motion/Time, all the other six would just sit there and not do
anything, because the very concept of doing involves changing things over
the passage of time. The existence of the Prime Material world requires
not only Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Energy and Entropy, but also Time/Motion
which allows these things to interact. Life/Nature needs them all.

She started out on the periphery of my thoughts about the nature of
deities in Cerilia, but she has become the center: the others are all
nouns -- only Brenna is a verb. Brenna is how the others happen.
Motion is tricky: it is *in* everything, but it is *of* nothing; or maybe
it`s the other way around. =) I can`t think of any RW mythologies that
had a god or goddess exactly like this, but I have come to believe that
all of them should -- perhaps this just means it is dangerous to let
physicists do theology. ;)

Of course, it seems that Brenna is also sort of the Trickster. Now, the
parallel is not exact because she`s split half the Raven/Loki/etc. job
with Azrai -- she does all the good randomness, and he does all the bad;
and this is then precisely where Sera acquires Luck for her portfolio. In
the old days, when something randomly good happened, it was because Brenna
beat Azrai; when something randomly bad happened, it was because Azrai
beat Brenna. This is why they both have a shadow association: things
which hide in the shadows are partially hidden and thus not predictable,
and tend to be revealed suddenly and unexpectedly as you move your torch.
Shadows surprise you when you stumble over what they hide; good surprises
are called Brenna, and bad surprises are called Azrai.

There`s another way to see the shadow angle, which is based on what
happens in the standard D&D cosmology when you try to assign a plane to
the idea of motion: you get Astral or Ethereal. Those are the planes one
goes to in order to get to any of the other planes -- and there`s really
nothing in either of them except for things in transit between other
planes, or things trying to hide. Shadow then arises because neither of
those planes is well-lit, both hide things, and the Ethereal is full of
shifting, shadowy forms. Also, within Cerilia, going through the Shadow
World is the big gambler`s means of secret, rapid travel. Shadows also
connect with the myth precis in Resistance: even on a bright, sunny day
where you can see clearly inside all shadows and fear of Azrai is nowhere
around, it remains physically impossible to grab a shadow.

> If we go with the money angle, we have Brenna becoming an earth
> goddess (gold, gems and other things you dig out of the ground), of
> which we already have too many.

And Earth is physically/mythologically the opposite of motion. I still
think money is entirely tangential: traveling between distant lands makes
you notice that things which are rare in one place are common in another,
and vice versa; trading what you have a lot of with you for what you don`t
have until you go there is a perfectly human interpretation of motion.
Therefore Sera is Commerce because commerce is what happens when humans
Move, and Sera is the successor of Brenna who was Motion. A parallel from
the most lovingly detailed mythology of any RPG, namely Glorantha: Orlanth
(the Storm) is considered to rule the Motion rune, as Air is the element
with which motion is usually most associated; but the god of Travel is
Issaries, whose portfolio also includes Trade and Diplomacy, because
talking and trading is just what happens whenever humans go anywhere.
Back to Cerilia: good luck also results in increased wealth, and shadows
also hide riches at times, so the associations already established above
continue to operate here also.

> Her animal affinity is with the cat-that-is-not-a-lion, which is not
> terribly helpful, either.

There`s something of a Bast/Freya/Inanna thing going on, I suppose...
which makes me realize that the most glaring omission from the old gods`
list is a fertility goddess. Earth`s Reynir is a male, and so is his
successor Erik. Who`s the Great Mother? Avani is Erik`s mate, so perhaps
Basaia goes with Reynir; but I like that pairing (earth + fire = drought)
a lot less than Masela (earth + water = mud & clay -> life & agriculture).
Brenna seems at first like a really big stretch, but if no one else fits,
it becomes perhaps another way to imagine her as Life: life is what you
get when you mix everything up and set it in motion.


Ryan Caveney

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[kgauck]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan B. Caveney" <ryanb@CYBERCOM.NET>
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2003 5:56 PM

> Of course, it seems that Brenna is also sort of the Trickster.

Maybe Brenna once had the plane of seeming, now collapsed into the SW.

Kenneth Gauck
kgauck@mchsi.com

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[Trevyr]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birthright Roleplaying Game Discussion
> [mailto:BIRTHRIGHT-L@ORACLE.WIZARDS.COM]On Behalf Of Ryan B. Caveney

> She started out on the periphery of my thoughts about the nature of
> deities in Cerilia, but she has become the center: the others are all
> nouns -- only Brenna is a verb. Brenna is how the others happen.
> Motion is tricky: it is *in* everything, but it is *of* nothing; or maybe
> it`s the other way around. =) I can`t think of any RW mythologies that
> had a god or goddess exactly like this, but I have come to believe that
> all of them should -- perhaps this just means it is dangerous to let
> physicists do theology. ;)

It makes sense. It is reasonable. But that`s entirely the reason that I have
problems with it. It requires a certain philosophical sophistication that
seems to make it unlikely that it was the SOURCE of the goddess in the minds
of primitive tribesmen. I would prefer something that made sense emotionally
as an object of worship, rather than something that made sense logically. I
can see why Anduiras was developed as an air god: giant storm clouds
towering miles over a sweeping plain, that`s powerful. The revelation of the
future through dreams and the patterns of the stars, that`s powerful. But I
can`t associate `pure` motion with anything equally powerful on an emotional
level. All the things that occur--rivers, winds, fire--are already
associated somewhere else.

I suppose part of the difference is that I am imagining that the gods
arose--at least in part--due to the imposition of human mind/belief on a
world where such things leave an impression which is rapidly filled with
spirit--i.e. the Shadow World/material world duality. While you are positing
that the gods existed prior to their human worshippers, and may well have
had a hand in their creation. I prefer to have humans create the gods, in
part because it helps explain why they did what they did at Deismaar. If
they were capable of creating races, when it was clear that Azrai was going
to prevail they should have just bugged out and said, "well, I can always
create a different race for myself over HERE." Impoverished flight is
usually considered a superior option to death. However, if the gods didn`t
have that option, if their contuniance was entirely dependant upon the
survival of their people, then flight is not an option.

> Of course, it seems that Brenna is also sort of the Trickster. Now, the
> parallel is not exact because she`s split half the Raven/Loki/etc. job
> with Azrai -- she does all the good randomness, and he does all the bad;
> and this is then precisely where Sera acquires Luck for her portfolio. In
> the old days, when something randomly good happened, it was because Brenna
> beat Azrai; when something randomly bad happened, it was because Azrai
> beat Brenna. This is why they both have a shadow association: things
> which hide in the shadows are partially hidden and thus not predictable,
> and tend to be revealed suddenly and unexpectedly as you move your torch.
> Shadows surprise you when you stumble over what they hide; good surprises
> are called Brenna, and bad surprises are called Azrai.

OK, now this makes more sense to me. A trickster goddess. Maybe I can work
with that. If we posit that the Brecht came originally from a mountainous
region, which I think makes sense, then perhaps Brenna is the one who
determines whether the falling rock hits you in the head, or next to you on
the path. Oh, oh! An earthquaker! One who is not earth, but causes the
movement of the earth. That could be extrapolated with time and
sophistication into a goddess of time and primordial motion. Cool. It might
even make sense, if the Brechts and the Rjuven were ancestrally related or
at least adjacent, for the Brechts to differentiate their earthshaker god
from the Rjuven`s earth god by making Earthshaker a female.

> And Earth is physically/mythologically the opposite of motion. I still
> think money is entirely tangential: traveling between distant lands makes
> you notice that things which are rare in one place are common in another,
> and vice versa; trading what you have a lot of with you for what you don`t
> have until you go there is a perfectly human interpretation of motion.
> Therefore Sera is Commerce because commerce is what happens when humans
> Move, and Sera is the successor of Brenna who was Motion. A parallel from
> the most lovingly detailed mythology of any RPG, namely Glorantha: Orlanth
> (the Storm) is considered to rule the Motion rune, as Air is the element
> with which motion is usually most associated; but the god of Travel is
> Issaries, whose portfolio also includes Trade and Diplomacy, because
> talking and trading is just what happens whenever humans go anywhere.
> Back to Cerilia: good luck also results in increased wealth, and shadows
> also hide riches at times, so the associations already established above
> continue to operate here also.

I completely see your point, and I really like it. I think it makes absolute
sense for Brenna. I just don`t see it as basal. I think she had to go
through a more primitive state first, but I completely agree that this is
the point she (or her people`s understanding of her) came to at the time of
Desimaar.

> > Her animal affinity is with the cat-that-is-not-a-lion, which is not
> > terribly helpful, either.
>
> There`s something of a Bast/Freya/Inanna thing going on, I suppose...
> which makes me realize that the most glaring omission from the old gods`
> list is a fertility goddess. Earth`s Reynir is a male, and so is his
> successor Erik. Who`s the Great Mother? Avani is Erik`s mate, so perhaps
> Basaia goes with Reynir; but I like that pairing (earth + fire = drought)
> a lot less than Masela (earth + water = mud & clay -> life & agriculture).
> Brenna seems at first like a really big stretch, but if no one else fits,
> it becomes perhaps another way to imagine her as Life: life is what you
> get when you mix everything up and set it in motion.

Well, I think it`s a mistake to think of the gods as a pantheon from the
beginning. I think what we have here is a series of tribal MONOTHEISMS which
became associated because of a common history--that of conflict with Azrai.
Thus, EACH god/goddess would have had to be a god of death/fertility/coming
of age, etc for their people. You can only subdivide the important godly
"services" when there are more than one available.

I find that one of the more attractive features of the BR pantheon is the
reversal of gender roles in the heavens. Where most games have an earth
goddess, Cerilia has an earth god. Where the moon is usually female, on
Cerilia he`s a male. Where the sun is usually a male, on Cerilia she`s a
female. Where the trickster is usually a male, on Cerilia she`s a female.

Mark V.

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Gary wrote:

> Now that`s interesting. I`ve always assumed that the new gods took on
> identical (or nearly so) portfolios and aspects to the ones they
> supplanted, but there`s really no reason to make that assumption.

And I think the world is made more interesting if I don`t, and I am keen
on anything which makes it more interesting for me to play with. =)

> In the case of Azrai`s successors the portfolios they adopted are
> quite different from the way he is described. That would indicate that
> the process of apotheosis did not make the new gods carbon copies of
> the old ones.

Yes, this is certainly part of my thinking. Another important concern for
me is what nonhumans think of their bloodlines and how they got them -- it
is far easier for me to work elves, dwarves, goblins and so on into the
system if I regard the "elder gods" (no Cthulhu connections intended) as
less personal, more natural forces with as direct and simple an elemental
association as I can construct. In those forces the elves could believe,
without leading naturally to veneration of the long-dead humans whose
foolish and egotistical descendants claim have become new gods. To those
generic and unconscious forces, far more easily than highly structured and
specific cultural concepts like "lawful justice", I can assign alternate
names among dwarves, gnolls, orogs, etc. to the dieties and specific
cultural concepts of their own ancient (and still current, IMO) pantheons.

> mostly having to do with the way Azrai`s bloodline is corrupting in
> such an unpredictable way, while most of the "good" derivations remain
> more true to form

I would have rather said that`s Azrai`s bloodline corrupts in a highly
predictable way. All the awnsheghlien turn into things that physically,
almost literally, represent their psychologies. When Azrai`s blood gets
involved, you really can judge a book by its cover! Azrai himself may be
famous as the prince of lies, but his blood makes the awnsheghlien tell
truths about themselves they often would rather not admit. Every awnshegh
is a living caricature of its mortal deeds and goals, distilled to the
essence of its personality.

> I don`t think I`d extend the thinking so far as to make the new gods
> very different from the old ones, but some shifts here in there in
> emphasis,

I see one major shift in emphasis: from things of the natural world to
things of human culture; this leads me to all the rest. Sometimes it`s a
big change (air to justice), and sometimes it`s a small one (violence to
cruelty), but it`s all about going from literal objects to ideas with only
metaphorical associations with the previous elemental pantheon.

> not to mention the seemingly broader scope of the new gods`
> duties--some of them seem to have more areas that they cover than is
> typical for D&D deities

I think this is just reasonable deflation (in the economic sense).
FR has 57 billion gods for things as specific as Accidentally Cutting
Your Knee on Your Teeth While Playing Volleyball Outside in July; the
relatively much smaller number of Cerilian deities strikes me as a
conscious design decision to go the other way, and I welcome it.

But really, given that there are more new gods than old ones, and that
profiles seem to have been more subdivided than invented anew -- both
Haelyn and Cuiraecen come from Anduiras, and both Avani and Laerme come
from Basaia -- it seems to me that the newer generation of gods has
considerably smaller portfolios than the older. Consider that Masela in
some sense was god of everything that could be construed as having a
metaphorical association with the water, but Nesirie`s portfolio of just
the one emotion of grief is vastly more tightly constrained.

> Still, I think I`d like to keep the Reynir --> Wood link since it
> seems to work so nicely. I might use something like the above,
> however, to rationalize Brenna --> Earth.

Please don`t make Brenna Earth. Air, Water and Fire all have motion
connotations, but Earth has none. Well, except for earthquakes, but I
think we should attempt to avoid going there.

> one of the enhancements for that blood ability is that one can spend a
> BP to gain the ability to summon elementals from planes "adjacent" to
> ones that the scion`s derivation gives him access to.

I rather like this. Certainly Anduiras getting lightning as well as air
is a good thing, but smoke and cold seem a bit off, somehow; I`m not sure
yet. Anyway, all of the "good guys" should be leery of going "down" --
the negative quasiplanes (vacuum, dust and suchlike) are adjacent to
Azrai`s corruption, so perhaps excessive contact with them risks tainting
your blood to his dark derivation!


Ryan Caveney

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Mark VanderMeulen wrote:

> It makes sense. It is reasonable. But that`s entirely the reason
> that I have problems with it.

What a fascinating objection! Thank you, I think. =)

> It requires a certain philosophical sophistication that seems to make
> it unlikely that it was the SOURCE of the goddess in the minds of
> primitive tribesmen.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

> I would prefer something that made sense emotionally as an object of
> worship, rather than something that made sense logically.

Huh. OK, I suppose I could see that.

> I suppose part of the difference is that I am imagining that the gods
> arose--at least in part--due to the imposition of human mind/belief on a
> world where such things leave an impression which is rapidly filled with
> spirit--i.e. the Shadow World/material world duality.

This is where I see the newer gods coming in, and where in some sense
Deismaar is mythically necessary as the transformative event to move the
gods from the old ways of thinking and being to the new ways. Water and
earth and air and such existed long before there were humans to worship
them; but it took a sentient mind to make the metaphorical leap that
associates the thing "light" with the idea "enlightenment".

> While you are positing that the gods existed prior to their human
> worshippers, and may well have had a hand in their creation.
> I prefer to have humans create the gods,

OK, in part I agree completely with you and in part I think the opposite.
I am in general very sympathetic to (indeed, enthusiastic about) the idea
that gods are created by human belief; but there is a bit more to it than
that, since the primal forces which shaped the universe at least existed
before there was sentient life, whether or not they created it as such.
I personally find the idea that elves with the power to rule domains
ultimately got their bloodlines from human belief in strange supernatural
beings to be really icky; and indeed I believe bloodlines must have
existed long before Deismaar, since there were massive, powerful empires
long before it, which in BR terms could only have been ruled if RP could
be collected. But even ignoring that, there is a way, I think, to satisfy
both of us here. Let us say there always were seven primal forces of
nature, but only human belief and worship gave them texture and
consciousness. This can help explain the strange hodgepodge of Brenna`s
associations -- there was always an entity out there which corresponded to
the sophisticated concept of time and primordial motion, but human worship
of tricksterness and luck and earthquakes and such were the first things
which "stuck" to it (and made _it_ into _her_) rather than to the other
six entities of more obvious contexts. In all cases, the personalities of
the entities were formed by the thoughts of their worshippers; but the
fundamental concepts existed long before, and form the foundation atop
which all the human ideas are layered. Is that an acceptable compromise?

> in part because it helps explain why they did what they did at
> Deismaar. If they were capable of creating races, when it was clear
> that Azrai was going to prevail they should have just bugged out

I see it another way -- they were always fighting Azrai, and they created
races as part of the battle, to help them fight him. There was always
going to be a climactic confrontation, and they figured the one that
happened was actually their best chance of victory. If they had "bugged
out" and left him in command of all of his races (orogs and gnolls and
goblins and such) with time to consilidate his power, then they`d never be
able to beat him. They would always be opponents, and they could not let
up on the pressure or they would surely lose. Better to gamble on victory
now than seek short-term safety at the price of certain defeat in the end.

Yes, this conflicts with my suggestion above about how the beliefs of
humans imparted intentionality to the gods, so I am trying to have it both
ways. I`m being confusing here because I`ve actually got at least three
totally separate cosmologies wheeling in my mind with the same seven
labels reused for completely different kinds of things, and I`ve been
trying to talk about them all at once. I`m doing this in an attempt to
minimize the biggest differences between the way I most prefer to see
Cerilia and what the consensus of the list (or at least the original
rules) seems to be. I want to keep some confusion in order not to chase
away people who don`t agree with some of my wilder theories, because what
I`ve been saying about Brenna is independent of them. While it is
possible to to just say "I have an answer to all the objections you`ve
proposed; take whichever subset you like best," and to go into my variant
world histories in full detail would take us very far afield, let me
summarize the other parts of my Cerilian theology by saying that I find it
useful to view the primordial force = source of the bloodline, the
evolution of human religious belief over time, and the creators of the
human races who led them into battle at Deismaar as really three separate
sets of things, though ones with natural associations across the sets.

> "well, I can always create a different race for myself over HERE."
> Impoverished flight is usually considered a superior option to death.

Sure -- but maybe they thought they could win! They almost did, after
all; Deismaar was basically a tie. Actually, given how powerful Azrai had
been before it, and how much stronger he seemed about to become, maybe the
sacrifice the other six gods made was worth it -- maybe they really did
win. Azrai was prevented from dominating everything, which was exactly
the primary objective of the other six.

> if the gods didn`t have that option, if their continuance was entirely
> dependant upon the survival of their people, then flight is not an option.

True; but IMO that`s not the only reason they might have decided to fight.
And since they had hand-picked successors ready to assume their jobs and
protect their people, maybe they decided self-sacrifice was the best plan,
to ensure that Azrai would no longer be the main danger.

> perhaps Brenna is the one who determines whether the falling rock hits
> you in the head, or next to you on the path.

I like this image! =)

> Oh, oh! An earthquaker! One who is not earth, but causes the
> movement of the earth.

Yes, that`s the only way movement ever gets associated with earth (well,
that and mudslides and sinkholes, but all are natural disasters).

> That could be extrapolated with time and sophistication into a goddess
> of time and primordial motion. Cool. It might even make sense,

*grin* Exactly! Or, as I suggested above, there always was an entity of
time and primordial motion, which eventually became a goddess when humans
started to worship (or at least propitiate) whatever it was that caused
earthquakes and luck and commerce. That worship energy (which someone on
this list -- Morg? -- recently called "faith juice") went out into the
cosmos, and found its way to the most appropriate entity: primordial time.
As it fed upon this continuing stream of energy, it gradually acquired the
suite of personality characteristics the humans worshiping it thought it
should have. Once they had fed it enough for it to acquire
self-awareness, it became interested in its food source and began to act
in such a way as to ensure and increase the food supply. This leads to
another theory of why Deismaar was fought: maybe the entities didn`t need
to, but their humans wanted them to, because their humans feared Azrai.

> if the Brechts and the Rjuven were ancestrally related or at least
> adjacent, for the Brechts to differentiate their earthshaker god from
> the Rjuven`s earth god by making Earthshaker a female.

Yes, this makes sense. It may also be tied into both the current
neighborliness of the two peoples, and the deep theological/philosophical
division between the extremely urban and urbane Brecht and the extremely
rural and rustic Rjurik. They are the proverbial two sides of the same
coin: connected, but still opposites.

> I completely see your point, and I really like it. I think it makes
> absolute sense for Brenna.

Thank you.

> I just don`t see it as basal. I think she had to go through a more
> primitive state first, but I completely agree that this is the point
> she (or her people`s understanding of her) came to at the time of
> Desimaar.

I`ve now explained why I think time and primordial motion can actually be
viewed as a more primitive state. As to the people`s understanding, I
disagree -- this level of sophistication was probably never achieved by
any except the most esoteric religious philosophers. It is probably today
maintained only by certain priests of Avani whose committment to knowledge
is expressed by specialization in the history of religion, some of the
earliest and nearly forgotten texts of Sera`s faith, and perhaps some of
the older and more experienced wizards who have attempted to explore the
"physics" of the bloodlines. The common folk probably always thought of
Brenna as basically just a mixture of how Sera and Eloele are seen now; at
least they almost surely have that limited an understanding 1500 years later.

> Well, I think it`s a mistake to think of the gods as a pantheon from
> the beginning. I think what we have here is a series of tribal
> MONOTHEISMS which became associated because of a common history--that
> of conflict with Azrai. Thus, EACH god/goddess would have had to be a
> god of death/fertility/coming of age, etc for their people. You can
> only subdivide the important godly "services" when there are more than
> one available.

Yes, this is of course completely true, and I think I have made this very
argument myself on more than one occasion. Thank you for reminding me;
I`ll stop complaining about "missing" gods now.

> I find that one of the more attractive features of the BR pantheon is
> the reversal of gender roles in the heavens.

There is something to this. The religious system of Cerilia is clearly
far more consciously planned than most pantheons, and it does indeed have
some very pleasantly refreshing touches.

> Where the sun is usually a male, on Cerilia she`s a female.

This the Japanese have -- Amaterasu-o-mi-kami is the sun: she is the queen
of all the forces of nature, and the chief diety of the Shinto pantheon.
But yes, it is quite rare, and the moon and earth as men I think is even
rarer; is all three gender-reversals at once perhaps unique?


Ryan Caveney

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[ryancaveney]

On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Kenneth Gauck wrote:

> Maybe Brenna once had the plane of seeming, now collapsed into the SW.

What exactly do you mean by "the plane of seeming"?
It sounds intriguing, but I don`t quite get it yet.


Ryan Caveney

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[Shade]

At 10:06 AM 3/28/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>On Fri, 28 Mar 2003, Shade wrote:
>
>> I think I read something about this elsewhere. A netbook, perhaps.
>> According to what I read, Azrai was affiliated with the Negative
>> Energy Plane, Brenna with the Ethereal, and Vorynn with the Positive.
>
>I don`t know if you read about it elsewhere also, but I know you`ve read
>it right here -- I`ve been suggesting this connection for years. Most
>recently, I mentioned it only twelve days ago. =)

That must have been it, then. :)

That said, I agree with Michael. There`s no need for it. We don`t want the
bloodlines to be different flavors of the same thing. Giving every
bloodline an associated element would be making them generic.

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