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Gaming W/Jemal: Planar Quest! (Closed)
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<blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 6038885" data-attributes="member: 4936"><p>In theory, gods have a wide latitude over their earthly area of authority...so mortals can and do pray to the gods of the field for rich harvests, to gods of weather for rain, to gods of fertility for strong and healthy children, and so on.</p><p></p><p>The degree to which those prayers are answered is, as in real life, debtable. This is because in practice, the gods' actions are constrained by other gods, and the Byzantine agreements and various opposing and mutual interests that bind them. You might pray to a god for rain, but that god might be causing a drought as part of a contractual agreement to a desert god...in return for which the rain god gets something else. The mortal has no idea of all this...he just knows it's not raining.</p><p></p><p>Of course, if the mortal can get the god's attention somehow, and make a good case, and perhaps placate the desert god enough to release the rain god from the contract...then rain could come!</p><p></p><p>So there can be interactions. It's just not a normal state of affairs. It's a little like praying for a driver's license renewal, or a tax refund check. You'll get what you want eventually, but there are gears and circuits whirring that control it all that you'll never see unless you make extraordinary effort to penetrate the system.</p><p></p><p>As for the relationship between the Eternal Empire, and their quirky notion of a celestial monarcy/bureaucracy...the earthly Emperor claims a mandate from heaven, of course. It's not a hereditary position. When an Emperor falls, there are a series of divine tests to determine which candidate has the favor of the gods and of the Celestial Emperor.</p><p></p><p>In theory, anyone can be a candidate. In practice, only those who have great education (which requires money and/or political clout) will ever get past the first round of tests, which are designed to weed out spurious claims. Various other challenges sneakily test a candidate's political aplomb, statesmanship and knowledge of law and philosophy...all the while cloaked in trappings of ritual and appeals to divine guidence.</p><p></p><p>In the end though, it's pretty well known that the final decision is made by a circle of high priests. They lack direct power over government and state, but by virtue of their capacity to select Emperors, they have tremendous influence. They are pantheist priests, beholden to no one god, except the Celestial Emperor himself. </p><p></p><p>By virtue of access to powerful magic and the resources of the entire nation, the Emperor tends to live a long, long time. </p><p></p><p>----</p><p></p><p>I see the Eternal Empire as being very human-centric, by the by. The Conclave, which is the advisory body to the Emperor, and is where most of the actual work of governance takes place, has a handful of nonhuman delegates to speak for their people...but they're too few to be easily heard. Most nonhumans either integrate into human society (halflings and 'halfbloods'), or keep to isolated enclaves of their own (gnomes, dwarves, elves).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shayuri, post: 6038885, member: 4936"] In theory, gods have a wide latitude over their earthly area of authority...so mortals can and do pray to the gods of the field for rich harvests, to gods of weather for rain, to gods of fertility for strong and healthy children, and so on. The degree to which those prayers are answered is, as in real life, debtable. This is because in practice, the gods' actions are constrained by other gods, and the Byzantine agreements and various opposing and mutual interests that bind them. You might pray to a god for rain, but that god might be causing a drought as part of a contractual agreement to a desert god...in return for which the rain god gets something else. The mortal has no idea of all this...he just knows it's not raining. Of course, if the mortal can get the god's attention somehow, and make a good case, and perhaps placate the desert god enough to release the rain god from the contract...then rain could come! So there can be interactions. It's just not a normal state of affairs. It's a little like praying for a driver's license renewal, or a tax refund check. You'll get what you want eventually, but there are gears and circuits whirring that control it all that you'll never see unless you make extraordinary effort to penetrate the system. As for the relationship between the Eternal Empire, and their quirky notion of a celestial monarcy/bureaucracy...the earthly Emperor claims a mandate from heaven, of course. It's not a hereditary position. When an Emperor falls, there are a series of divine tests to determine which candidate has the favor of the gods and of the Celestial Emperor. In theory, anyone can be a candidate. In practice, only those who have great education (which requires money and/or political clout) will ever get past the first round of tests, which are designed to weed out spurious claims. Various other challenges sneakily test a candidate's political aplomb, statesmanship and knowledge of law and philosophy...all the while cloaked in trappings of ritual and appeals to divine guidence. In the end though, it's pretty well known that the final decision is made by a circle of high priests. They lack direct power over government and state, but by virtue of their capacity to select Emperors, they have tremendous influence. They are pantheist priests, beholden to no one god, except the Celestial Emperor himself. By virtue of access to powerful magic and the resources of the entire nation, the Emperor tends to live a long, long time. ---- I see the Eternal Empire as being very human-centric, by the by. The Conclave, which is the advisory body to the Emperor, and is where most of the actual work of governance takes place, has a handful of nonhuman delegates to speak for their people...but they're too few to be easily heard. Most nonhumans either integrate into human society (halflings and 'halfbloods'), or keep to isolated enclaves of their own (gnomes, dwarves, elves). [/QUOTE]
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