Hallelujah (Deification Reboot) (Mature) (OOC)

[Azlan]

I would like to say something profound and insightful, but in this area I am wholly unqualified.  So please forgive the uninformed questions.

How are all of you considering cosmology?  I ask this because I have always thought an entity that governs a particular area is shaped by the thoughts and minds of those that call to it.  So the existence of a Machine god, or something that takes the form like that of Seraph, would require the bulk of its 'worshipers' to imagine its form to be so.

I suppose that would assume an entity is shaped based on only those in existence at any one given point in time... I suppose if you consider the whole of its followers over all of existence and time...


What are the governing laws of existence and the fundamentals of the universe?  Does everything have spirits... possess some type of mana or energy of the universe... or are they governed by chemical reactions and the interactions therein?


Edit (as to not double post):
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Name: Myl'Naia (pronounced min naya)

Titles: The Morning Lady, Little Star, The Risen Light, Radiant Lady, Element of Peace, Unity of Harmony, and a host of other ancient names from before this existence (the older star calls her Mina).

Spheres of Influence: Life, which holds the following specific areas - The Spark of Life, Renewal, and Natural Order; Peace and Light.  While she is not The goddess of the Sun in its right, she is considered a Sun Goddess.  Mistakenly associated with the Creation of the Universe by mortals, she is quick to correct any who would laud her as such lest IT notice and come to confront such a pretender.

Family: She is the Sister of the greater sun Val'Narya, is kin to the old Sun from before the Destruction, as well as all Stars.  She is a child of the Infinity of Space that Preceded the Existence of the Ordered Universe (aka That Which Came Before, Chaos, Xaos), the Impetus of Creation, and the Creation itself (the Universe, aka Eos, Iinoa, and a host of other names).  However, they are a silly bunch and not much fun to be around (Silly as in scorch and eat all life, drive mortals completely insane by just looking at them, general "fun at parties" kind of things.)

Goal: Nurture life and restore or replace what was lost.  To Guard the atropal entities and the husks of the lost deities that could not return.  Broker peace and prevent such destruction as was visited upon this world from ever happening again.  Create happiness, Friendship, foster her sister's office of Love through the Light of Truth and Serenity of Peace.

Mythic Origins/History: In times most ancient, just before the formation of what is now known to be the universe, a mass of universal energy and chaos had collected and formed a massive solar body.  This primal force with no name could not contain an existence without form or purpose and needed to direct all the power within itself.  It split into two parts, a greater and a lesser.  From this, and at the moment of the Universe's creation, a large star came into being from the greater and a smaller star was born from the lesser.  This smaller celestial orbited the larger, forming a binary.  The spirits of these celestials watched in wonder as the universe unfolded, adding a bit of themselves to all that came about.

Unattached to any one formation, the two drifted and experienced many different universal happenings.  They watched the birth of stars, the formation of planets, the dark depression that causes a sun to collapse into itself forming an inescapable zone of nothing, and even the wars of celestials.  The pair wandered, lonely and longing for something more.  They had almost given up any hope and slipped into depression themselves until they came upon a small hyper little sprite of a pulsar.  The erratic little thing managed to nearly drive them both insane until it let slip the circumstances of a significant destruction and the location of the dead world and its star.  It was close by and the pair drifted over to examine it.  Taking it upon themselves to right this sad tragedy, they breathed life into the dead world and those husks that had not drifted beyond the threshold.  During this process, a bridge was created to channel, house and facilitate the life which was once again brought forth.  A celestial being formed within this potential space, becoming both an entity of its own and the little star herself.  A duality of existence, greater than any one part of itself alone, but inextricably tied to the planets of this system and its life forms.

She was not of this domain during the reign of the Bronze King, but she learned much of what happened from the husk of the dead sun.  In order to facilitate a balanced existence, she chooses to take a middle stance and try to remain neutral, but her nature is towards life and creation.  To her own ends, mostly curiosity, she walks the strange, entropic plane where all the dead shells of gods that once were drift.  She listens to the wisps of dreams, nightmares, and embers of what could have been, or came to pass, to learn their stories.  One part of her is always with the husk of the dead Sun, drifting through the fugue plane of its unlife, sifting through the knowledges scattered in the embers, and whispering soothing words to its dead soul.   


Culture of Worshipers: Those that worship Myl'Naia are warm, friendly, hospitable, generous and naturally aligned.  They are not naïve or generous to the point of martyring themselves for others, but they value all life and will not willingly kill a mortal.  The only exception is in the defense of others who cannot defend themselves, and other planar non-mortal beings (such as elementals, demons, etc.).  

Her worshipers live among all the peoples and cultures of the lands.  Her temples are scattered across continents, empires, and many different land areas.  They range from Hanging Garden (The Great Celestial Gardens in a prosperous Desert River Valley City) style temples to plain rock carved way shrines in remote mountain passes.  Some old Sun god temples have been converted to her worship, but she does not encourage building upon the bones of the dead.

Currently her priests are in the process of organizing a central High Temple and creating a bureaucracy and hierarchy for their organization.  Morning Swords, an order dedicated to protecting her temple grounds, are also in the process of sorting out their order and developing what could be a long standing martial tradition.  

Her more numerous Shamans and Atavists have little organization save their own tribal and traditional ways.  They base their ways on word of mouth and apprentice based training.

Among the many essences that Myl'Naia nurtured, there are two specific groups of creatures that have spawned directly or have been created by her own conscious will.

The first are the Star Archon Phoenixes which range between planets and high in the skies of the inhabited world of mortals.  These are spawned from her first uses of life giving power.  They are a celestial phoenix and are her 'Angels' for the lack of a better term.  They are much like Amber's Phoenix A, but have a second form close in size between the Gryphon C and B that is of a fiery bird of prey.

The second she created from whisps of dead mortals not yet cooled.  These are the Sohei Kitsune, a semi-nomadic, mystical, and courageous people (magical foxes) that act as caretakers of wild areas, much like fantasy and mystical versions of the druid, ranger, and 'cleric'.  They tend to be thought of as legends or myths because they can shapechange and blend into societies of man.  Older and more powerful members of the species display their 'mystical prowess' in the form of multiple tails.


Biosphere Contributions: She is one of those that gave light, life and warmth back to the shell of a dead world.  Through her, the balance of life and nature play their course and she supports the cycles of life, death and rebirth.  She provides the Light (controlling both Suns' luminosity) necessary for for food, warmth, and life to flourish.  How all things interact in the world and beyond with one another is also due to her designs in accordance with Natural Order.


Edit2 - There are others before me, so I will make room and await an opening if it becomes necessary.


Edit3 - Added the races to OOC, as it would be neigh impossible to hide whole races of creatures from gods as pointed out by Meany .


Edit4 - Corrected relation error to Sister and added the primary star's name.


Edit5 - Revised Family to reflect a clarification regarding chaos and the universe, so as not to confuse her origins with that of Aellor's office.   

[Chairtastic]

Azlan, to answer your questions.  First, it's actually the reverse.  The god manifests as it chooses, and instructs the followers in its likeness, if they cannot simply see.  Factions that worship shoot-offs of the main god, or aspects, are usually just that god experimenting with it's followers, see what they are in the market for.

Anything sentient has a soul, anything alive, but nonsentient has a protosoul.  A protosoul is a collection of energy and instincts derived from generations of survival.  Left to their own devices, the species would develop full sentience, and souls after a point of evolution.  Plants are very slow in this regard, but they are more plentiful than animals because of it.  It can be either mana, or biochemical reactions.  It depends on the subject in question, and how much influence the Divine has had on it.  Usually, there is a positive relation between the influence of a god in a lifeform, and the amount of mana it uses to sustain itself.

Also, accepted.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

There are two problems here; the first is that you need to get up to a certain level of technology already - you can't easily hop straight from wooden tools to iron ones... not easily. Just look at any scifi situation where any primitive race is 'uplifted' by a well-meaning, technologically-superior faction. They barely know what to do with everything and it all goes pearshaped. Given the Antikythera Mechanism and other designs, I imagine societies would have to be similar to Ancient Greece or the Roman Empire.

While I agree with the first statement, I don't see how it leads to us needing to have a society similar to ancient Greece.  There were stone age civilizations, we've dug up cities that display no evidence of any sort of metal tools  such as Catalhuyuk some of the oldest settlements in Egypt, or the Aztecs. All of them, I might add, were able to leave marks on the environment, build the proverbial "great works".

I think playing a stone age-society would be interesting, we could have a *very* hardscrabble existence, one where people really *need* their gods for day to day survival. Now, I'm not saying that I don't want technological advancement to occur, but I do want there to be some kind of rule system in place, so we know what we can do and can't do. And I'm not crazy about "skipping ahead"; I would like to see a steady progression from A to B to C to D, to have progress that's founded upon our actions.

[Arcalane]

They seemed like a decent enough example. Having not previously heard of that settlement, I couldn't exactly cite it as an example.

Settlements and wonders of the world and great works are fine and all, but when it comes to the finer points of advancement, well... I think a quote sums it up better than I can, even if that quote happens to come from a fictional character.

Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken.

Chairman Sheng-ji Yang
"Looking God in the Eye"

I guess 'skip' wasn't quite the right word. More of a temporary increase at the rate of which technology is developed up to a certain point, beyond which the sentients have to take Seraph's lessons and innovate for themselves. The trick is determining exactly what that point is, and then getting there.

As for starting tech; if I wanted to play Civ starting at the Ancient Era, I'd play Civ starting at the Ancient Era.

[justacritic]

So currently we have nine gods and goddesses confirmed and are waiting for the tenth
However I have a few questions.
Has the Cosmology been settled yet?
Meany did you receive a PM I sent you referring to a subplot I wanted to pursue?
Thanks can't wait for the game to start 

[Chairtastic]

Attention: List of default Godly powers.  These are powers and abilities all gods have, regardless of sphere or league of power.

• The power to be in more than one place at one time.  This means, with the proper allotment of attention, you could fill in all the seats in four movie theaters, and be aware of the goings on in them in real time, as an example.
• The power to deliver dreams unto mortals.
• The power to grant fractions of your power, or brief instances of insight into your knowledge of the universe, or lesser topics.
• The power to Create, provided you have the energy to make it atom by atom.
• The power to Change, provided you have the knowledge and energy to complete the transformation successfully.
• The power to Destroy, provided you have the energy needed to will the target into nonbeing.
• The power to manipulate energy directly.
• The power to know when your name is mentioned, regardless of context or location.
• The power to create a region of space where you and other deities may communicate directly.
• The power to manifest a physical avatar of any shape or size.
• The power to alter your appearance.
• Immortality-in the sense of you do not age, and cannot be killed except by another deity or a weapon specifically designed to kill immortals.
• The power to deny your sphere of influence from taking part in the world at your leisure.  The Sun can choose to not shine, if she wishes.
• The power to share your insight into Creation, Change, and Destruction with a mortal, and thus drag them up to godhood.

If anyone has suggestions of something to add to the default powers list, please say so, and I will consider it.

[Tezkat]

Name: Tezkatl

Titles: The One Eyed God, Skyfather, Skydancer, Soultaker, Soulbearer, Watcher, Guardian of the Fallen Sun, Keeper of Time, Great Mirror, Dark Sun, Celestial Cat

Family: Consort of the Fallen Sun. Father of Time. Brother of Earth.

Spheres of Influence: Sky/Heavens, Night, Borders, Reflections, Dance, Souls


Mythology:

Destruction ended the First Age. Life fled from the world. The Fallen Sun was but a Scar across the face of the Sky. Naught remained but the broken Dreams of Gods and Men. Tezkatl, who was Lord of Dreams, sundered his realm and scattered all the Dreams to the winds. And the Lands of Earth and Sea and Sky reached out to catch them. And wherever a Dream came to rest, a seed was planted. And so they slept, awaiting the return of Life.

So it was that two Travellers came upon them. "Rejoice," they said, "for we bring you gifts of Light and Life!" And behold Twin Suns rose and brought forth a New Dawn.

Tezkatl wove of his own flesh a Celestial Mirror and became the Sky, such that the will of the Gods be reflected upon the world. And he said unto the Travellers, "Come. I will you teach you the Dance of Time." And he showed them the steps he had once danced with the Fallen Sun. Each day, the Twin Suns danced across the Sky and poured Light and Life into the lands. Each night, he watched over the world while they slept. Thus did Time return to the world.

With Time came the winds of Change. Nestled between the Pillars of Order and the endless Seas of Chaos, the world reflected both. And wherever Light touched a Dream did the seeds of Creation awaken and grow, each taking shape according to the laws of their nature, the vastness of possibility, and the providence of the Gods.

Since the Dawn of the First Age, the First Men stood sentinel over the world as Stars in the Sky. Tezkatl said unto them, "You who were First to serve me in the Land of Dreams shall return to the World and serve me again. For the World did become a Dream. And the Dreams hath become the World."

So the First Stars fell from the Sky. Tezkatl made for them forms according to his own likeness. And to these Cats who were Born of Sky, he taught counts and shapes for reading the Sky and keeping Time. And he granted unto them all the Lands of Sky.

Then Tezkatl went to the Underworld and gathered the Souls of Men. And he delivered them unto the other Gods such that each might craft a race of Men in their own image.

At the end of the first month, Tezkatl rested.


Biosphere Contributions:

Since breaking up the Land of Dreams to rebuild the world, Mortal souls no longer have a place to visit when they sleep. Thus sleep is normally dreamless. Gods may still send dreams, which effectively become a conduit to communicate with mortals, providing information, inspiration, instructions, and so on while they sleep. This is the preferred medium for interaction with followers. A god manifesting personally on the mortal realm is a Big Deal.

When Tezkatl and his brother remade the land, they crafted stones out of not only Earth but Sky as well. These skystones range in size from mere stepping stones to islands the size of a city and are collectively known as the Lands of Sky (or simply Skylands). Their positions are mostly fixed geographically. (Although they pay little heed to gravity, they're as difficult to move as regular mountains.)

Shards are living crystal formations that can grow and branch into tall faceted trees. Like normal plants, most feed on air and light. They are commonly found on or near the Skylands, and many also feature properties similar to skystones, allowing them to grow into fantastic, gravity defying shapes.

Nightflowers include a variety of plants that bloom at night and phosphoresce in moonlight. Some have interesting medicinal and/or poisonous properties.

Skyborn are intelligent winged felines with a pantherlike appearance. They are facultative bipeds, and all four paws are prehensile. (Their Earthborn cousins also have six limbs, but lack wings and look more like lynxes.) They are strong, agile flyers and usually make their home in the Skylands. Although mortal, they do not die of old age and continue to grow throughout their lives; those who tire of the mortal realm simply Cross on their own. They are hypercarnivorous, but notably also feed on gemstones and the crystalline "fruit" of shards. Such mineral supplements contribute to the razor sharpness of their claws and fangs and some interesting fur properties. They are primarily nocturnal.

Drakes are the non-sentient relatives of the Skyborn. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but most follow the same general bauplan (two forelimbs, two wings, two hindlimbs). Drakes fill many of the ecological niches normally taken by birds. A small handful (usually the largest specimens) have been granted intelligence and Souls and are considered full Skyborn by their feline brethren.


Culture of Worshippers:

All Skyborn worship Tezkatl.

True priests, known as Seers, will scar one eye in a ritual known as the Reflection of Sight. In return for their sacrifice, they gain the ability to See the facets of the Celestial Mirror that surround their world and separate it from the planes of Order, Chaos, and Spirit. And, if needed, Cross these boundaries into realms beyond.

Mirrors and other reflective surfaces are considered holy items used for Seeing and communing with their deity.

Earthbound mortals usually pay homage to Tezkatl when they have weather-related requests. As the Soulbearer, he figures prominently in ceremonies related to death, and to a lesser extent childbirth.


Skyborn culture revolves mainly around prowess in hunting, navigation, and dance. As natural apex predators, they are fearless hunters. Time is spent either hunting or in artistic/philosophical pursuits. They possess fairly advanced knowledge of mathematics and geometry, applied mainly to astronomy, timekeeping, navigation, and architecture. Although natural stonecarvers, they have little use for tools, using their skills instead to beautify their environments. They've been known to raise impressive megaliths as temples to the Sky. The Cats are usually vain and enjoy decorating themselves and their homes with gemstones or hunting trophies.

They do not domesticate food, but some do keep pets. It's not uncommon for Cats to adopt a family of earthbound mortals. These are among the few non-Skyborn mortals who choose Tezkatl as their patron.

They do not have any particular qualms about eating intelligent life. Indeed, they consider it disrespectful to waste a body once the Soul has been taken beyond. They deal with uneaten remains according to the nature of the dead. Those Born of Earth are buried and returned to the Earth. Those Born of Sky are cremated and returned to the Sky.


The Moon, properly known as the Eye of Tezkatl (sometimes Eye of the Night, Nightsun, or simply the Eye), changes appearance in phase with the Twin Suns, performing a complete cycle with them once per month. The night of the new moon, known as the Night of the Dark Sun or the Night of the Sleeping God, is a holy time of rest, celebration, and thanksgiving.

[Chairtastic]

Accepted, and cap is filled.

IC shall be up once I get time to put together a really decent Intro post to set up the scenery.

[Zen]

If anyone has suggestions of something to add to the default powers list, please say so, and I will consider it.

Gods should not have the power to create their own realms? How about a race to serve them? Like angels, djinns, efreets, asuras and devas. I know that an army of extra-planar beings can be difficult the control, but it would be very interesting to see it in action.

[Arcalane]

• The power to Create, provided you have the energy to make it atom by atom.

I believe the creation of life and realms would also fall under the "simple" power to Create. Also see everyone's Biosphere Contributions field.

[Azlan]

• The power to Create, provided you have the energy to make it atom by atom.

I believe the creation of life and realms would also fall under the "simple" power to Create. Also see everyone's Biosphere Contributions field.

That would be how I interpreted that as well.  Gods should have an ambiguous categorization of powers for the 'level' of deity our characters are to be.  Subordinate and lesser gods, our lackeys so to speak, may need a more defined list of powers.

[Chairtastic]

That's just a list of the power anything designated a God can have.  To be classified a God, one must have each and every one of those powers, it is the bare minimum.

[Inumo]

So, we gonna get started any time soon?

[Arcalane]

I keep pinging Meany but he keeps coming up with excuses.

[justacritic]

Like he can't think of an introduction awesome enough?

[Chairtastic]

Well, there's that, but also because I had several writing-heavy assignments in my college courses.  Writing has begun.

[Azlan]

Funny, I noticed a few descriptions mention the "Sun", have relationships with the Primary, or an IC post or two that just mentions the Sun (singular) rise.  I appear to have signed up, with the exception of the moon thing, to play Princess Luna... forgotten and unloved  .

On a serious note, Meany...

The Sun peeked over the horizon.  It was that magical moment of day, when The Sun was rising, just as The Moon was setting.   

It should be Suns.

[Chairtastic]

True.   I'll fix.

[Azlan]

You must forgive Naia, she is trying her best to be the kind of goddess that is expected of her.

Meany, I was wondering if Val'Narya would embody Balance, or if not, who does?

[AmberCross]

Theoretically, Aellor embodies balance, albeit an unstable one. This is order/chaos specific but does peter out into other things as well. Which isn't to say he's the ONLY embodyment of balance, just that he is one. There could easily be others and Narya could be another.

On a side note, when Myl'Naia said she was daughter of chaos... do you mean my god? Cause he IS (among other things) a god of the cosmos and could very well have fathered (or mothered, whatever) several stars without recalling due to his fractured nature.

Also to make things clear, since I thought Naia was paying attention to out of tavern events, I had Aellor intercept the Turin trying to talk with her. Since they're gods, they can easily all talk at once without issue, but the point here is that Aellor is paying attention to that 'region' locale and thus would have heard her comment about being chaos' daughter. So whether it was meant that way or not, he is going to assume he or some other part of him at some point caused her creation.

[Azlan]

Well she is not a daughter of any god or goddess.  What she means specifically are Pure Forces... She came from what existed before the creation of reality, the Force of Chaos, and what came about because of creation, The Universe.  Myl'Naia is a Primal goddess yes, but her origins are a bit different than local gods.  Her parents are the electricity, not the electricians.

Sorry if this is just being confusing.  Both Naia and I missed Aellor's comment, which is actually fine, because she would have missed it right now. 
I'm just sorry I missed it.

[AmberCross]

Ah, in that case the three 'pure forces' in this setting are Creation, Destruction, and Change. Aellor is also directly descended from Change which would make them siblings I guess. And if it's not clear, there are two kinds of local gods; primal gods like Aellor and Tezkatl, and social gods like Jerrel, Torin, and all the others. The social gods generally came about because of people, or as you said "children of the electricians". Primal gods on the other hand are generally from mixes of the first three forces at the most only a few steps removed. They exist irregardless of the people and are like the "children of the electricity". Social gods tend to understand people better that primal gods do. As an example, while Aellor loves the culture of people and has several that he really likes, he doesn't really understand their moral code, emotions, drives, etc all that well. (Just as an indication of why everyone didn't go with the primal gods who one would think are more powerful.)

This is my understanding of the situation which admittedly might be a bit mixed up with Deification mythology. But Meany hasn't said any differently so it's my current operating assumption.

[Azlan]

Indeed, I am partially aware of the original mythology.  I would argue that the universe itself could justifiably be considered a living thing and something had to exist prior to reality.  However this can easily be retconned for Naia to be Creation and Destruction, but I had hoped to build anew rather than on the bones of others' work.

I sleep now, is late in California.

[AmberCross]

Heh, maybe I'm just tired but I'm losing track of what we're talking about ^.^;

It still sounds like (as it did before) Naia is a direct result of one or more of the three primal forces at most one step removed. I'm not sure what would need to be retconned, aside from perhaps the 'chaos' thing which you meant to be 'change' and Aellor took the wrong way.

[Chairtastic]

The Three Forces themselves are the force of balance.  There is no creation, change, or destruction without influence of the others.  When the King dragged down a fair share of Destruction, it was like a water molecule.  One large bit of Destroy, with two smaller bits of Change and Creation, the latter two he couldn't actively access.  They maintain balance by always being up in each other's business, making sure the universe keeps on chugging. 

[justacritic]

So Creation would be from nothing to something
Change would be something to something else
Destruction would be something to nothing almost
But what about nothing to nothing or something staying the same thing as it is would that be something like stagnation?

[Chairtastic]

Destruction is something to nothing.  Nothing to nothing is still nothing.  Stagnation is an absence of all three.

[Chairtastic]

Double post!  It burns my retinas!

GM post is being made right now.  If any of you have something to say to each other before it's up, hurry and post.  Also, for people who use llearch's IRC, we have a channel for our game, to chat and stuff without infringing on other chats.  Just pop into llearch's irc server and join #aaoyumei.  Enjoy!

[justacritic]

This is getting interesting, what with the hands of the three powers seeming to move in the world now

[Arcalane]

And this is why I told Emeisha to investigate.