On the Origin of the Divinities

[Hobbit4Hire$]

The orthodox accepted view is an unknown and now departed creator created the multiverse and at the pinnacle of that creation created two things - The Tree of Life which gives the universe it's organizing principles and The Cascade which waters the tree and powers the universe. The pollen of the tree created the spirits and fairies throughout the multiverse wherever it fell - the small gods - but the fruit of the tree ripened and produced the true divinities. Each of the seven fruit on the tree produced one of the great families of gods - though the last two fruits were damaged in the first god's war and there is said also to be an eighth fruit on the tree which has never ripened.

There are heretical explanations of various sorts by people who don't accept this version of the story, but contrary explanations like the gods are created by belief has major holes most notably that fairies and giants accept the above story and some of them have been around long enough to remember the events.

What's generally agreed by everyone though is that though the gods are incredibly mighty, they aren't mighty enough to have created the multiverse.

That is very poetic. In your world, are the Tree of Life and the Cascade physical locations that Player-Characters can visit? Or, are they more like metaphysical principles?

 

[Hobbit4Hire$]

I haven't played runequest or elder scrolls, but otherwise that's pretty much the gist of it.

I like doing it this way because that race of immortals are still there, ruled by the gods who are the greatest of their race. There are other immortals who have also ascended to a form not quite at the power level of the gods, channelling the power of the elemental planes in an effort to cast down their brothers and sisters and size power for themselves. They became the Titans and were the progenitors of the giants.

I've basically taken many of the myths around gods vs giants in our real world and then threw my own spin on them. I like having this immortal race of celestials who aren't all on the side of good, or at least don't agree on who should be in charge.

Interesting. Just a question. Do you have an idea of where the celestials came from? Are they, like, sentient solar flares or something like that, that evolved in space? Or, have you kept their origin still a mystery?

 

[Celebrim]

That is very poetic. In your world, are the Tree of Life and the Cascade physical locations that Player-Characters can visit? Or, are they more like metaphysical principles?

It's a fantasy. Metaphysical principles have tangible form.

So yes, you could visit The Cascade although it's too big to comprehend, and you can definitely visit the Tree of Life as an actual place, although again, too big/complicated to comprehend and the place where the tree of life is most visible as a tree is under heavy guard - a whole cloud of Planetars and Solars to stop you from trespassing. Both are visible within the Astral Plane if you have the skill to see them. What a person sees on the Astral Plane is a function of their mental complexity. Within the last campaign I ran, two of the characters - a fairy and a shaman - where taken to the Astral Plane by a spirit guide (actually, The Prince of Cats) who showed them how the BBEG was trying to manipulate The Cascade with the machine he was making ("The Golden Orb") - the Astral equivalent of trying to steer a lightning bolt by putting up a sufficiently tall lightning rod. But what they saw represents just a fraction of what the cascade really is.

Technically both the tree and the cascade are everywhere all at once.

 

[cbwjm]

Interesting. Just a question. Do you have an idea of where the celestials came from? Are they, like, sentient solar flares or something like that, that evolved in space? Or, have you kept their origin still a mystery?

Their origin is still a mystery to me, all that's known is that celestials and fiends are some of the oldest creatures in reality. Elementals are just as old, the prime material world formed at some unknown later date completely unnoticed by the upper and lower planes as they were caught up in their, at the time, eternal war.

 

[Hobbit4Hire$]

It's a fantasy. Metaphysical principles have tangible form.

So yes, you could visit The Cascade although it's too big to comprehend, and you can definitely visit the Tree of Life as an actual place, although again, too big/complicated to comprehend and the place where the tree of life is most visible as a tree is under heavy guard - a whole cloud of Planetars and Solars to stop you from trespassing. Both are visible within the Astral Plane if you have the skill to see them. What a person sees on the Astral Plane is a function of their mental complexity. Within the last campaign I ran, two of the characters - a fairy and a shaman - where taken to the Astral Plane by a spirit guide (actually, The Prince of Cats) who showed them how the BBEG was trying to manipulate The Cascade with the machine he was making ("The Golden Orb") - the Astral equivalent of trying to steer a lightning bolt by putting up a sufficiently tall lightning rod. But what they saw represents just a fraction of what the cascade really is.

Technically both the tree and the cascade are everywhere all at once.

That is an interesting take on the fantasy genre. Thanks for the reply. Hope it works out well for you.

 

[Hobbit4Hire$]

Their origin is still a mystery to me, all that's known is that celestials and fiends are some of the oldest creatures in reality. Elementals are just as old, the prime material world formed at some unknown later date completely unnoticed by the upper and lower planes as they were caught up in their, at the time, eternal war.

From what I gather, the upper planes and its celestial inhabitants, the lower planes and their fiend inhabitants, and the elemental planes with their elemental inhabitants, all pre-existed the material plane. Interesting. Thanks for the insight.

 

[Celebrim]

From what I gather, the upper planes and its celestial inhabitants, the lower planes and their fiend inhabitants, and the elemental planes with their elemental inhabitants, all pre-existed the material plane. Interesting. Thanks for the insight.

In my own game, there reverse is true. The inner planes preexisted the outer planes. Indeed, while they are called planes, the outer planes aren't really planes but dominions - places carved out of the astral plane by the gods after they departed the material plane. The inner planes including the elemental planes, the ethereal, and the astral were all in existence before the gods. The inhabitants of the outer planes are mostly creations of the gods - for the most part, the greater servitors. The two exceptions are the Modrons, who claim to have come into existence when the world was made, and the Slaad whom no one is quite sure where they came from (Ygorl knows and perhaps some of the other Slaad lords and possibly Primus of the Modron, but they have their own reasons for not telling anyone). Other than the Modron, the immortal fairy races are the oldest races in the multiverse - which is why the formal mode of address to a fairy is "Eldest and Youngest". The fey trace their existence to the pollen that fell and still falls from the flowers of the tree of life. The animals and plants (and the drakes and the magical beasts) trace their existence to the animating principle of life which radiates from the tree, and they are represented collectively by the spirits of the fauna and flora. The lords of the fey that were sprung from the elemental planes became the genie.

Sometime after this the gods came into existence. They settled the jewel of creation and started having families, with each other and with the genie. The offspring of the gods and genie became the giants, and with each other the lesser gods and titans. As new fruit on the tree ripened, new gods joined the scene. At some point, a dispute rose up amongst them over who was greatest and who should rule. In the aftermath of this dispute, the spiritual sun of Uman, self-proclaimed "Lord of Creation", by the name of Usurl usurped his father's claim to the throne by committing the first murder and proclaimed himself Death - the new Lord of Creation. This act led the first God's War, which resulted in the shattering of the material plane and the permanent death of many of the gods. The gods would eventually declare a truce and one of the terms of the truce is that they would depart from the material plane before it was completely destroyed, so they each took up abodes in the Astral Plane and built dominions there. Those dominions are what morals call "The Outer Planes", but they are really demi-dimensions. That these dominions are built more or less adjacent to each other is what causes mortals to imagine them as a "Great Wheel", but this is just in reality an example of mortals 2D thinking.

One of the other terms of the treaty is that the gods would collectively create a new lesser servitor race modelled after the fey that would be tasked with repairing the material plane. But the treaty negotiations almost broke down over what form this servitor race would take, as each of the major families of deities insisted on a design that reflected in miniature their own traits. It was eventually decided that six designs would be submitted, on the condition that each design be such that it was given the dignity and right to choose to worship and serve whomever it liked. To make sure these new beings would never represent a threat, they were made mortal like the animals and given only weak and seemingly minor gifts. Indeed, the surviving children of Uman, still in grief and wounded by the great losses of their family in the war they had started, paid hardly any attention to the problem at all and made a wholly generic design seemingly without gift at all. These independent beings became collectively known as "The Free Peoples" - although in practice that term is often extended to philosophically include the fey that were the inspiration for the concept.

But, and this might not be immediately obvious unless you think about it, something went very wrong. The recognition that something is very wrong with that orthodox account is the basis of for most of the cosmic mystery of the setting as well as the various heresies that crop up. There are things even the gods don't understand and there are things that they do understand that they do not talk about.

One big difference between this setting and the default D&D setting is at his zero infinities in it. None of the planes are infinitely large. There are not an infinite number of dimensions. There is no infinite time or space in it. Things are enormously big - I often compare the size of the Astral Plane to the size of the real solar system in that if you moved at mere walking speed it would take you hundreds of thousands of years to traverse it - but nothing is infinitely big. There are countable numbers of everything.

 

[Hobbit4Hire$]

In my own game, there reverse is true. The inner planes preexisted the outer planes. Indeed, while they are called planes, the outer planes aren't really planes but dominions - places carved out of the astral plane by the gods after they departed the material plane. The inner planes including the elemental planes, the ethereal, and the astral were all in existence before the gods. The inhabitants of the outer planes are mostly creations of the gods - for the most part, the greater servitors. The two exceptions are the Modrons, who claim to have come into existence when the world was made, and the Slaad whom no one is quite sure where they came from (Ygorl knows and perhaps some of the other Slaad lords and possibly Primus of the Modron, but they have their own reasons for not telling anyone). Other than the Modron, the immortal fairy races are the oldest races in the multiverse - which is why the formal mode of address to a fairy is "Eldest and Youngest". The fey trace their existence to the pollen that fell and still falls from the flowers of the tree of life. The animals and plants (and the drakes and the magical beasts) trace their existence to the animating principle of life which radiates from the tree, and they are represented collectively by the spirits of the fauna and flora. The lords of the fey that were sprung from the elemental planes became the genie.

Sometime after this the gods came into existence. They settled the jewel of creation and started having families, with each other and with the genie. The offspring of the gods and genie became the giants, and with each other the lesser gods and titans. As new fruit on the tree ripened, new gods joined the scene. At some point, a dispute rose up amongst them over who was greatest and who should rule. In the aftermath of this dispute, the spiritual sun of Uman, self-proclaimed "Lord of Creation", by the name of Usurl usurped his father's claim to the throne by committing the first murder and proclaimed himself Death - the new Lord of Creation. This act led the first God's War, which resulted in the shattering of the material plane and the permanent death of many of the gods. The gods would eventually declare a truce and one of the terms of the truce is that they would depart from the material plane before it was completely destroyed, so they each took up abodes in the Astral Plane and built dominions there. Those dominions are what morals call "The Outer Planes", but they are really demi-dimensions. That these dominions are built more or less adjacent to each other is what causes mortals to imagine them as a "Great Wheel", but this is just in reality an example of mortals 2D thinking.

One of the other terms of the treaty is that the gods would collectively create a new lesser servitor race modelled after the fey that would be tasked with repairing the material plane. But the treaty negotiations almost broke down over what form this servitor race would take, as each of the major families of deities insisted on a design that reflected in miniature their own traits. It was eventually decided that six designs would be submitted, on the condition that each design be such that it was given the dignity and right to choose to worship and serve whomever it liked. To make sure these new beings would never represent a threat, they were made mortal like the animals and given only weak and seemingly minor gifts. Indeed, the surviving children of Uman, still in grief and wounded by the great losses of their family in the war they had started, paid hardly any attention to the problem at all and made a wholly generic design seemingly without gift at all. These independent beings became collectively known as "The Free Peoples" - although in practice that term is often extended to philosophically include the fey that were the inspiration for the concept.

But, and this might not be immediately obvious unless you think about it, something went very wrong. The recognition that something is very wrong with that orthodox account is the basis of for most of the cosmic mystery of the setting as well as the various heresies that crop up. There are things even the gods don't understand and there are things that they do understand that they do not talk about.

One big difference between this setting and the default D&D setting is at his zero infinities in it. None of the planes are infinitely large. There are not an infinite number of dimensions. There is no infinite time or space in it. Things are enormously big - I often compare the size of the Astral Plane to the size of the real solar system in that if you moved at mere walking speed it would take you hundreds of thousands of years to traverse it - but nothing is infinitely big. There are countable numbers of everything.

Wow. You have a very detailed cosmogony set up. I think it's very inspirational. If I may say so, I see some similarities appearing here to Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, and John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos, and other works of fiction like Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles. Not that that is a bad thing. I enjoyed both series quite a bit.

To me, the "Cascade" to resembles the Zelazny's Abyss and Wright's Unknown, in that it is this singularity from which all the raw stuff of creation emerges, to be shaped by the later appearing life-forms into the organized universe. The great tree is kind of like the pillar of Ma'at from Rick Riordan, or the Pattern from Roger Zelazny, the emergence of an enduring order out of infinite potentiality.

 

[Celebrim]

Wow. You have a very detailed cosmogony set up. I think it's very inspirational. If I may say so, I see some similarities appearing here to Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles, and John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos, and other works of fiction like Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles. Not that that is a bad thing. I enjoyed both series quite a bit.

To me, the "Cascade" to resembles the Zelazny's Abyss and Wright's Unknown, in that it is this singularity from which all the raw stuff of creation emerges, to be shaped by the later appearing life-forms into the organized universe. The great tree is kind of like the pillar of Ma'at from Rick Riordan, or the Pattern from Roger Zelazny, the emergence of an enduring order out of infinite potentiality.

I don't by any means claim the mythology is original. It definitely is influenced by Tolkien and shares with Tolkien influences from Norse (and Greek) cosmology, as well as influences from Zelazny and Moorcock who also influences Gygax's "Great Wheel" cosmology. It however predates the work of John C. Wright, and any similarities are similarities of shared influences and personal beliefs.

The emergence of the cosmology was ultimately "How do a alter the Great Wheel cosmology to make it more coherent and explanatory?" For example, I wanted an explanation for why everything that existed came into existence and I wanted to remove the infinities from the game because they had bizarre consequences. Gygax had wanted to explain the kitchen sink whereas I had wanted to take the stuff in the sink out and put it neatly on shelves. The cosmology first began to be built on in the late 1980s and the details were "finalized" in the early 2000's. The mythology/cosmology of Eberron seems to have come from a similar set of questions, just with different answers.

If I made a mistake I regret it was keeping the strict division between the human and non-human deities that I took from Gygax and which I had greatly enlarged on early in detailing the setting (the humans as you might note got their own original pantheon). When I read Green Ronin's "The Book of the Righteous" I immediately regretted having made the distinctions so sharp, but by that time the distinctions were so heavily imbedded in the setting that I couldn't do away with them without starting over. I have since then spent most of the revisions creating intermarriages and relationships between the divine families to reflect the sort of complex mess of family politics that is my real desire for the mythology. But at some point I really need to finalize everything. Part of the fact that I haven't is because I early decided to have a setting with "a thousand gods" so that I could always introduce new gods to the kitchen sink. Indeed, one of the things I enjoy about the setting is practically every group I play has a player introduce at least one new god or cult to the setting that fits but which I hadn't paid attention to up to that point.

 

[GuardianLurker]

I've always split the deities into a number of categories. The two big questions are "Is there such a thing as actual divinity in the game world?", and "How much does worship empower a being in the game world?"

For the first question, consider - is there a distinction between an archdevil/archdemon and a deity from the same plane? Is it merely a difference in power? Or is it intrinsic in nature? Can a archdevil be more powerful than a deity?

Conventionally, the answers are yes, no, yes, and yes (at least for the demi-, minor, and lesser deities).

For the second question - reflect on demon/devil worshipers, and those of established churches of the deities. Do the demons derive any direct benefit themselves? Or is the benefit merely denying and corrupting their opponent's worshippers? If they do derive direct benefits, how much does that empower them?

Then there are the interactions between the two - Is the divine spark needed to gain any benefit from worship? Does its lack merely place a limit on how much benefit can be gained? Is worship alone sufficient for divinity?

Convention is considerably less clear on the last several questions.

Once you've answered those questions, probably as part of the actual process, deity origins should just pop right out.