Gods of Aebrynis

[Green Knight]

I'm thinking about maybe adding 2 or 3 three "creator god" who reputedly were responsible for the creation of the world. These are über-deities that aren't really worshipped as gods.

I do seem to remember that you had a similar idea? Didn't I read somewhere that one of the "new" gods you came up with for Empires of Blood was called Aebrynis and was literally the earth itself?

B

[Osprey]

If there is a single earth god Aebrynis, I'd elect to give it a feminine gender, more like an Earth Mother that births creation. Being the folklore buff that I am. :P

[Green Knight]

The Earth mother Aebrynis and the Sky Father.....sibling gods who consorted to create heaven and earth. And perhaps a third sibling that got angry at having been left out and created the deep dark underworld of Aebrynis.

Something like that perhaps...

B

[Raesene Andu]

Originally posted by Green Knight@Jan 12 2005, 10:41 PM
I do seem to remember that you had a similar idea? Didn't I read somewhere that one of the "new" gods you came up with for Empires of Blood was called Aebrynis and was literally the earth itself?

Yes I did. The information can be found at http://www.birthright.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=87

[Green Knight]

Ok,

We now have a couple/trio of creator gods, and a period where spirits small and large roam freely i the world. Then the world is divided into two part, the real world and the spirit world, and most of the spirits can no longer interact so directly with the mundane races.

Now enter the first real gods. Maybe they are just powerful spirits that find that worship gives them a specail kind of power/purpose or maybe they are just new entities altogether. Perhaps the split between worlds somehow made tis new type of being possible...

I'm thinking there were a great variety of gods at first, most local god and gods with small potfolios. As time went by, 7 major gods emerged to stand above the rest. They became universally known throughout the world, unlike their lesser brethren (except in areas where other, special pantheons held sway, like the Kami of BOA).

Then came Deismaar, and the destruction of the old gods and the rise of the new gods.

B

[Osprey]

I'm thinking there were a great variety of gods at first, most local god and gods with small potfolios. As time went by, 7 major gods emerged to stand above the rest. They became universally known throughout the world, unlike their lesser brethren (except in areas where other, special pantheons held sway, like the Kami of BOA).

Why would they? I'm not at all convinced the Cerilian 7 are or should be universal gods that can fit any culture with a little tweaking.

My advice to you is to follow a pattern similar to most world design schemes: create the peoples and cultures of the world first, then decide what deities they worship. Making the Cerilian deities apply to nearly all cultures seems like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. No offense, but it seems a bit...lazy? The Cerilian deities were custom-designed for the Cerilian humans, even to the extent of each one having a patron tribe/race! How exactly would they be appropriate for a race far across the ocean that never even had any contact with Cerilia?!

I think the Cerilian deities should hold sway in Cerilia, and maybe have some worshippers in Aduria - and that's about it. Perhaps you're afraid they won't seem as powerful as you have always conceived them to be? Well, maybe that is the big-picture reality - maybe the Cerilian gods are small fish in a big ocean, at least from the cosmological viewpoint. What's wrong with that? When designing Aebrynis as a whole, I think it's important to let go of the bias that Cerilia and Deismar should be the center of the world. Most every culture believes that they are at or near the center of the world, and usually have elaborate religions, mythologies, and other cultural mechanisms to reinforce that belief. It is the signature of ambitious men throughout history.

I think that given the nature of Aebrynis and the Shadow World, it might be quite reasonable to assume that ALL deities in Aebrynis have rather local powers, relative to their worshippers and portfolios.

Now: Basaia would likely have had more worshippers back home, so a version of Avani might still be worshipped by the Bayyids (if you use that idea). But otherwise...these are very Western-type deities, wouldn't you say? Hardly easy to fit into a fantasy version of China or India or southeast Asia...totally different cultures, totally different worldviews, totally different cosmologies.

The only constant I would keep in deities is the things that tend to be universal IRL: an Earth Mother and Sky Father progenitor pair seems OK. I also think that Azrai should be the 3rd ancient deity - this would handily account for his immense power relative to the others. Chaos and Darkness are 2 of the most primal portfolio elements, highly appropriate for an elder deity...

The Shadow World splits...this is also a good universal theme. It is a common them to most animistic practices IRL, very appropriate here too.

How are the other gods made? Mmm, this is where things get fuzzy for me. I wouldn't be too hasty in deciding all the particulars here - there may be some good ideas out there concerning the genesis of the Cerilian deities. I like the idea of animism evolving into polytheism, where certain spirits gain power and worship and are raised to the level of gods. I just think each culture or race that evolves seperately would develop seperate pantheons and patron deities - otherwise we're taking earth-based cultures and trying to erase a massive, entangled chunk of their cultural evolution (their religion) and replace it with a clumsy substitute (Cerilian deities). Some isolated cultures never "evolve" into polytheism at all, and remain animistic, which is also cool setting materials (ex., Native Americans and most other people who maintained a tribal way of life).

Examples of other pantheons that are worth keeping in some form:
- The Celestial Beauracracy of imperial China, a rich assortment of deities and spirits all fitting neatly into a perfectly-ordered hierarchy.
- The Hindu pantheon, also highly stratified in a mirror of the caste system. These include deities like Vishnu, Shiba, Bali, etc.
- The Egyptian pantheon might fit in nicely somewhere in eastern Djapar.
- The Aztec deities would do nicely somewhere in Aduria or Thaele.

In other words, I think the Cerilian deities are fine as replacements for the European mythologies (Norse and Greco-Roman seem to be the 2 "displaced" pantheons that could have fit in Cerilia but were supplanted by original ones), but don't do so well replacing the deities of more diverse cultures.

[geeman]

At 06:33 PM 1/13/2005 +0100, Osprey wrote:



>I think the Cerilian deities are fine as replacements for the European

>mythologies (Norse and Greco-Roman seem to be the 2 "displaced" pantheons

>that could have fit in Cerilia but were supplanted by original ones), but

>don`t do so well replacing the deities of more diverse cultures.



The Cerilian gods don`t require a whole lot of revision in order to employ

them in an OA version of the BR setting. The gods are as written are

geared towards redefinition since they are already applied to five

different human cultures, two of which have Asian/Eastern themes. Since

those human cultures are all immigrants, and arrived upon Cerilia from

locations that were pretty far flung and apparently already worshipped

their respective patrons for some time, it seems logical that at least the

gods known to the Vos and the Khinasi/Basarji would be known in their

original continents. The migration of humanity to Cerilia was relatively

fast, so the diffusion of the gods from one place to another can happen

quite quickly.



The Cerilian gods are generic enough to apply to any setting. Any pantheon

can do with a sky god, a goddess of the night, a god who tosses lightning

bolts. The Chinese god Lei Gong is very much like the Norse god Thor who

is, in turn, very similar to Cuiracaen, and the three can be easily

interpreted as being one aspect of the other as portrayed in different

cultures. The same could be said for just about any of the other Cerilian

gods.



The only one that was a bit of a problem with I did a BR-OA campaign was

Kriesha, and that`s because her portfolio (unlike the other gods) is

relatively narrow. If one emphasizes her witchy aspect even she works just

fine.



Gary

[ConjurerDragon]

Osprey schrieb:



>This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.

> You can view the entire thread at:

> http://www.birthright.net/forums/ind...ST&f=21&t=2923

>

> Osprey wrote:

>Examples of other pantheons that are worth keeping in some form:

>- The Celestial Beauracracy of imperial China, a rich assortment of deities and spirits all fitting neatly into a perfectly-ordered hierarchy.

>- The Hindu pantheon, also highly stratified in a mirror of the caste system. These include deities like Vishnu, Shiba, Bali, etc.

>

Mmmh, not rather Kali than Bali?

bye

Michael

[ConjurerDragon]

Gary schrieb:



> ...

> The only one that was a bit of a problem with I did a BR-OA campaign was

> Kriesha, and that`s because her portfolio (unlike the other gods) is

> relatively narrow. If one emphasizes her witchy aspect even she works

> just

> fine.



To me she appears like Hel or Hekate ;-)

bye

Michael

[geeman]

At 09:12 PM 1/13/2005 +0100, Michael wrote:



>>The only one that was a bit of a problem with I did a BR-OA campaign was

>>Kriesha, and that`s because her portfolio (unlike the other gods) is

>>relatively narrow. If one emphasizes her witchy aspect even she works

>>just fine.

>

>To me she appears like Hel or Hekate ;-)



Those work. One could also go with a bit of a perverse nature-goddess

thing as well since she is the patron of monsters. In many ways she

inherited the more degenerate aspect of Azrai`s portfolio.



Gary