(Proposal) Deities: Créan and Z'iu
So, I'm reading this about a positive, creating god and a negative, destroying god, and I think about this thread, and I'm wondering, there has to be some sort of creation myth about how EnWorld got the "extra" towers in the far north and far south. Not to mention the "streams" connecting the material plane to the energy plane...I wonder if it might not be some secret teaching of some cult or religion that Crean and Z'iu were somehow responsible for that.
GnomeWorks
Adventurer
Keep in mind that the deity Antonidas the Drevin has a description of the how the world was created; for the moment, that creation mythos stands as the only one (that I'm aware of, at least), but I see no issue with multiple conflicting creation mythoi.
In my own campaign setting, there are several different creation mythoi, all of which pretty much conflict; no one is really sure how the world got there, though priests are all pretty convinced that their particular faith's method is how things went. I see no problem with having conflicting mythoi in LEW; in fact, if anything, I feel that it would further give the setting a feeling of uncertainty: sure, the world is here, and there is probably a way that it was created, but we have several possibilities, so which one is right? With multiple, you can't ever really be sure.
I would agree that deities that don't really have followers would fall into the "overdeity" category. I don't see an issue with having deities of that classification in LEW, and I don't see a direct effect on the setting as a whole; the effects of these deities is more wide-reaching, yes, but is also more subtle. However, introducing overdeities brings the gap in deities to the forefront (a ton of lesser deities, some intermediate, one if any greater, and a few demigods); the majority of the deities being "lesser deities" would have to somehow be explained.
Overall, I really like the idea of the opposing forces in the world be "creation and destruction" as opposed to "good and evil" or even "law and chaos." However, their alignment should be worked out (El Jefe had many good points on what their alignments *could* be); I personally have no preference, so long as it ends up being clear what their alignments are.
Their relationships with the existing deities should also be pointed out; they may be distant, yes, but I'm sure that some of the deities have had at least indirect interaction with them, and are probably aware of them. Even a "this deity has no interaction with this overdeity" would work, but some idea of their interaction would be good.
In my own campaign setting, there are several different creation mythoi, all of which pretty much conflict; no one is really sure how the world got there, though priests are all pretty convinced that their particular faith's method is how things went. I see no problem with having conflicting mythoi in LEW; in fact, if anything, I feel that it would further give the setting a feeling of uncertainty: sure, the world is here, and there is probably a way that it was created, but we have several possibilities, so which one is right? With multiple, you can't ever really be sure.
I would agree that deities that don't really have followers would fall into the "overdeity" category. I don't see an issue with having deities of that classification in LEW, and I don't see a direct effect on the setting as a whole; the effects of these deities is more wide-reaching, yes, but is also more subtle. However, introducing overdeities brings the gap in deities to the forefront (a ton of lesser deities, some intermediate, one if any greater, and a few demigods); the majority of the deities being "lesser deities" would have to somehow be explained.
Overall, I really like the idea of the opposing forces in the world be "creation and destruction" as opposed to "good and evil" or even "law and chaos." However, their alignment should be worked out (El Jefe had many good points on what their alignments *could* be); I personally have no preference, so long as it ends up being clear what their alignments are.
Their relationships with the existing deities should also be pointed out; they may be distant, yes, but I'm sure that some of the deities have had at least indirect interaction with them, and are probably aware of them. Even a "this deity has no interaction with this overdeity" would work, but some idea of their interaction would be good.
I hate to butt in, but doesn't anyone think that we've been having too many neutral beyond Good and Evil gods on the net lately? Whatever happened to the old moral story telling types? Back in MY DAY, we didn't have no "Beyond Good and Evil," we had Good and Evil and WE LIKED IT!*Old man rant over*
Bront
The man with the probe
You missed Halor and Gundar, who were approved a while ago. Each has a creation mythos, which is related to the other, but it depends on who you ask as to which version you get, and how it favors their god.GnomeWorks said:
Gundar seems to be a bit overlapping with Créan, but Créan seems to have an awfly large range to cover (Lots of aspects). I think Z'iu has a similar problem of having a lot of aspects.
If you refine Créan and Z'iu's influence a bit, that might help. I also don't see any information on clerics for the dieties, like favored weapons, and domains. If you tighten them up a bit so they don't overlap so much with other dieties (There are other destruction dieties out there too), I like their flavor.
However, it's also been discussed if we need more dieties, and which ones we need. I think it was pointed out that we're missing some good gods from the pantheon, as well as some lawful evil gods. I think that's in the Gundar and Halor thread.
Edit: I noticed they don't have worshipers. Not to sound too harsh, but do we need to flesh them out then?
I suspect this got lost in the Crash of '06 as well. Oddly, in the thread listing, the last post was supposedly at 12/27/05 at 2:11 pm, but if you go over the threads below, you'll see that the last update was on 11/12/05. I don't know what that means, but suspect there may have been some discussion about this thread in '06 that got deleted.
Should we resurrect this thread, also?
Should we resurrect this thread, also?
Rae ArdGaoth
Explorer
I completely forgot about this. But I still like the idea. Does anybody remember where the discussion went?
Bront
The man with the probe
My comments here still stand. Given they have no worshipers, I would think their myths would eventualy die out to more prevelent gods who are worshiped. I don't think they add much to the game and the pantheon as is then.Bront said:
In particular, the deities don't even want worshipers, or others to know about them. So realy, what's the point?
Rae ArdGaoth
Explorer
I really just like the idea of the major conflicting forces in the world being creation and destruction, rather than good and evil. It's a twist on the classic dichotomy. And that's why they have no worshipers: they're not really gods, per se. They're the core forces of existence. The Maker and the Destroyer. Maybe it's too late in the evolution of the world to apply this kind of elementary idea. Actually, yeah, I really think it is. We've developed the pantheon a lot since this was first proposed, and I'm not sure it would add much to the setting this late in the game.
Ah well. Maybe some other campaign.
Ah well. Maybe some other campaign.
