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  1. #91
    Senior Member ShadowMoon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gwrthefyr View Post
    But that was well over a millenium ago, that's well, well out of living memory for any human.
    I am sure there are tomes, scriptures etc. that describes Godswar and/or deal with powers beyond the veil, at least vaguely.

    Anyway I fail to see Your point about Outsiders present at Godswar and human memory. Care to explain what You were referring to?
    Last edited by ShadowMoon; 06-08-2007 at 02:31 PM.
    "If the wizards and students who lived here centuries ago had practiced control - in their spellcasting and in their dealings with the politics of the empire - you would be studying in a tall tower made by the best dwarf stone masons, not in an old military barracks."
    Applied Thaumaturgy Lector of the Royal College of Sorcery to new generation of students.

  2. #92
    Quote Originally Posted by ShadowMoon View Post
    I am sure there are tomes, scriptures etc. that describes Godswar and/or deal with powers beyond the veil, at least vaguely.

    Anyway I fail to see Your point about Outsiders present at Godswar and human memory. Care to explain what You were referring to?
    Hmmm... reading two threads at the same time, not realizing I was at the first page of one, I thought you were using godswar as an example of a proof of the existence of the gods (when you might have put it as a counterpoint to some weird idea of divine supremacy; I should probably just steer clear of religious discussions in Birthright - I'm still annoyed that they couldn't seem to bother making a sensible pantheon instead of a bunch of pseudo-mystery cults with monotheist trappings)

    As for human memory, before the arrival of printing, it is as much if not more important than tomes; they would be constantly rewritten, and could often end up deformed in the process, there could also be attempts to retcon old myths to fit new religions (something we find in nearly all the Irish and British corpus, except maybe for a few key documents).
    Last edited by Gwrthefyr; 06-08-2007 at 03:17 PM.

  3. #93
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    You tease us with such intriging hints. Why do you suggest the BR faiths are pseudo-mystery cults? What about them strikes you as monotheist trappings? And, what would a sensible pantheon look like? Do tell.

  4. #94

    I should just learn to shut up and not to think out loud*

    I've been trying for a time to rework the Cerilian pantheon into something actually pantheistic (I'm nowhere close to finish; that was part of a small overhaul I was trying to do to also add some linguistic diversity, establish demographics and political situation for various periods etc., and it's actually quite hard to do when I'm unable to concentrate on things and have been trying at the same time to work out some Enlightenment/Industrial setting using Fuzion with just enough fantasy for the effects to be somewhat controllable, and, well, school ).

    My snide comment about mystery cults comes from the various orders (paladins of Nesirie, Haelyn, Cuiraecen, Ela's "amazons", the situation with Ruornil, hints about monasteries/priories/abbacies; these initiatic groups outside the priesthood struck me as mystery elements partly to give them a more medieval feel) and the organization of the various temples as seemingly envisioned at first, with spellcasting priests being expected as speciality priests. The other snide comment about monotheistic trappings also comes from that, IIRC, there was a comment somewhere about temple levels being indicative of worship; I may have taken this a little too literally.


    By sensible pantheon, I meant a pantheon were not every god seems to be in charge of the deceased (a psychopomp in the lot of them could be interesting), at least; I actually liked the idea of the Shadow World as some kind of Otherworld without having to tie in the Planescape cosmology (or at least, tie it in blatantly); with the illusions, the deceased souls could either keep on going, force themselves through remorseful nightmares or manage an afterlife of delights (Tartarus, Elisyum and the Asphodels all in one). The feeling of ostracism towards the "evil gods" also feels somewhat wrong (but I'm going with a mix of my impressions from the roman, celtic and hindu models, which might need further education): a lot of the gallic linguistic corpus is made of curses (as in, the magical oath sort, not swear words); room for religious interpretation (but this would be partialy ethnic; again, in real word examples, Saturn was a more benevolent figure than Chronos). Most of the modifications I thought of would probably be outside the scope of a conversion project, though.

    And it's incredibly ranty so I'd better stop there until I get my hands back on my notebook.

    *and I seem to feel a slight amount of sarcasm, but that must be my imagination
    Last edited by Gwrthefyr; 06-08-2007 at 05:06 PM.

  5. #95
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    Quote Originally Posted by kgauck View Post
    What about them strikes you as monotheist trappings?
    One of the things we've often discussed before is the idea that before Deismaar, each of the six tribes practiced a separate monotheism: Anduiras was the one and only, do-everything god of the Anuireans, Basaia was the one and only, do-everything goddess of the Basarji, Vorynn was the one and only, do-everything god of the Vos, and so on. Only in more recent times (shortly before Deismaar) did pluralistic worship of each other's gods arise out of increased cultural contact and support during the war against Azrai. I'm not sure I like it best, but it does have some things in its favor.


    Ryan

  6. #96
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gwrthefyr View Post
    But that was well over a millenium ago, that's well, well out of living memory for any human.
    Ah, but well within living memory for the Sidhelien! This is one of the reasons I have decided in my own vision of Cerilia that there are no gods to worship: the elves were there, so they know there aren't gods. =)


    Ryan

  7. #97
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    In Greek myth, the first humans didn't worship the gods either. They were created in the second divine age, when Chronos and the titans ran about, and when Zeus took over, demanded the worship of the men, and when they refused, he inundated the world. This ended the silver age of men.

    Other interesting parallels with the sidhe, the men in both the golden and silver ages were ever-young. The golden aged men interacted with the gods and died peacefully when their time was up. The silver aged men were young for a long time, but didn't live as long, and didn't enjoy their youth as much as the golden oldies. They aged rapidly before death.

    I have long equated Cerilia before the comming of men as the golden age of Hesiod, for the elves, and the post Shadow War age as a silver age.

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