I think that sounds like a very "hard" set of deities who quite likely to be quite judge-y and unpleasant and unforgiving of weakness or humanity. There's no love, compassion, empathy, humility, courage, sacrifice and the like, and "Prosperity" is just downright suspect, given the history of religions and the concept of prosperity (right up to the modern day, even!). These seem like deities for a settler-colonial society who believes they're inherently better than everyone else. Real "wild west" vibes. I also question how pleasant an afterlife crafted by those five individuals is actually going to be for a lot of people.
That said, I'm guessing that's entirely intentional given the "Sunset Riders" title of the setting, so I'd say you've nailed it if that's intention!
I think that sounds like a very "hard" set of deities who quite likely to be quite judge-y and unpleasant and unforgiving of weakness or humanity. There's no love, compassion, empathy, humility, courage, sacrifice and the like, and "Prosperity" is just downright suspect, given the history of religions and the concept of prosperity (right up to the modern day, even!). These seem like deities for a settler-colonial society who believes they're inherently better than everyone else. Real "wild west" vibes.
That said, I'm guessing that's entirely intentional given the "Sunset Riders" title of the setting, so I'd say you've nailed it if that's intention!
Not quite so much as you'd think on the hardness/judginess side of things.
Aside from Truth, each of the gods and their virtue has the possibility of 'falling', as Glory did. Justice can become cruel and violent. Prosperity can be greedy. Even Liberty can become detached from their fellows and Unity can become Tyranny. Only Truth remains consistent, because truth just is. The impact of the truth may be varied, but the truth is constant.
Glory saw herself as the one taking all the risks, as the only one capable of doing what had to be done, of being the one righteous leader of all against the darkness... and fell to Narcissism. A cautionary tale for the other five, and Truth is there to help keep them on the straight and narrow.
That said, it is a Wild West setting, but not a Colonial one, just a settler one. With the immigrants joining the native societies, and of course bringing their own cultures with them, rather than seeking to conquer or colonize.
As far as Prosperity being suspect: In this case it's less "Personal Wealth" and more "Abundance for All". At least until it turns into Greed.
Love, compassion, empathy, humility, courage, and sacrifice may not have deities dedicated to them in the setting, but aspects of each are found in the deities of the setting. Prosperity and Unity both rely on Compassion and Empathy. Justice requires Mercy. Courage and Sacrifice are both a part of Glory's better nature that she's strayed away from...
I personally feel that there should have been an option in act II to do a deal with Orpheus instead of the Emperor. I also feel that the elements of the Emperor are weak.
The Emperor... yeah. I love what they were trying to do with him, but they messed up in some pretty important ways. I know this is a spoiler thread, but I'm wrapping the rest of this post in spoiler tags anyway because it's extra spoilery.
The Emperor was skillfully written as a super-unreliable narrator*. Whenever you get an opportunity to fact-check him, the result is almost always "The Emperor was lying." It's not just his initial pretense of being your guardian figure; he lies to you again and again and again, always with the aim of manipulating and controlling you. There's a book in the githyanki creche which says, in essence, "Ignore everything a mind flayer says, only pay attention to what it does," and IMO that is a direct warning to the player on how to interpret the Emperor. The slow revelation of layer after layer of deceit is brilliantly done.
But unless you're deeply invested in Lae'zel, there's no payoff to figuring this out! If you play along, accept the Emperor's lies, trust him at every step, and finally give him the Netherstones, he... does exactly what he said he was going to do. He uses the stones, fights the brain, wins, and kills it when you say it needs to die. Then he levitates off into the sunset.
Contrast Raphael: If you cut a deal with Raphael, he too keeps his end of the bargain, and you triumph. But then you get a cutscene at the end where Raphael gloats about how the archdevils are falling before his newfound might, and he's already making plans to conquer the rest of the planes, yours included. That's a much better way to handle this kind of thing.
Then there are more general story concerns. First, there's the scene where the Emperor's true nature is revealed. He's in desperate straits and says "Trust me, I'm the guardian in your head, kill these githyanki and save my life." At this point, you are given two options: You can trust the FREAKIN' MIND FLAYER and kill a bunch of strangers to save his skinny purple butt. Or you can refuse to help him, whereupon the game ends and you get assimilated. So you have to choose door #1, but it felt wildly out of character, for Lae'zel especially. It would be much easier to swallow if you defended the guardian and then discovered what your guardian really was.
Second, the ending left and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The initial confrontation with the brain feels like the worst kind of railroading: You go into a fight where the outcome is predetermined, none of your actions matters, and no matter what you do, you lose and have to be rescued by the DMPC. And then your final mission is "Escort this mind flayer, who used to be (Balduran/Orpheus/Karlach/you), to the elder brain so they can do the real work of defeating it, because you, puny non-illithid, are incapable of overcoming such an entity." That's just a terrible way to end any game. The protagonist should be the one front and center in the final battle, and they should not have to turn into a mind flayer to do it.
I wouldn't mind if it was just the Emperor claiming that only a mind flayer can beat the brain. The Emperor is very clear that he thinks mind flayers are superior beings. But if you reject the Emperor and free Orpheus, and Orpheus goes "Dang, guess I have to be a mind flayer now, kill me as soon as we're done here," it's like... WTF? We went through all this to free Orpheus from captivity, and his response is to turn ghaik and go on a suicide run? Suddenly it feels like the game itself is taking the Emperor's position: Mind flayers are just better than you, so either become one or accept your role as spear carrier to one.
Ugh. It's a pity because so much of the writing is so damn good, and the depth of the plot is stunning. And it wouldn't take much to improve the ending -- just getting rid of the bit where Orpheus turns into a mind flayer would help a lot. As is, though, I always delay going into the endgame sequence because it feels so demotivating.
*Yes, yes, I know, that's not the technical definition of "unreliable narrator," he's not actually narrating the story. But he is the one presenting you with a lot of key information throughout the game, and much of it has to be taken on faith. Unreliable expositor?
But that is it itself a hard and arrogant idea, no? Because humans and human-like being are subjective beings, ruled by perceptions, and how does the Truth in this hard sense relate to that? The idea that there's only one truth is itself a very settler-colonial-type idea - that doesn't make it unusable or whatever, but it makes it very different for example, from Honesty. Honesty is a virtue of striving to ideal - to be truthful to yourself and others, to never bear false witness, to express what you think is actually true, in your eyes and so on. It doesn't require perfection and it's not a "hard" thing because it's an ideal not an absolute.
But Truth as you express it (and apparently as I correctly intuited) is a hard-edged absolute. A binary. Either something is true or it is not. A human could never judge that, as human is a filthy subjective little being full of perceptions and feelings ("What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."). But a god could, and it could offer judgement or guidance on what the truth was. Even that though is going to be difficult, because the reality is that "truth" tends to be extremely complex and nuanced and it's unlikely a religion requiring worship is going to be friendly to that idea.
I also think it's a misfit with the other deities, as evidenced by it not having the possibility of failing. I feel like you should reconsider this element - perhaps change it to Honesty, which could fall into Cruelty. YMMV and it's your setting of course.
That's an interesting take - and calling Prosperity makes sense because it can fall - otherwise I'd have thought rephrasing to Abundance would have made sense, but if it can fall into Greed, Prosperity is perfect.
Love, compassion, empathy, humility, courage, and sacrifice may not have deities dedicated to them in the setting, but aspects of each are found in the deities of the setting. Prosperity and Unity both rely on Compassion and Empathy. Justice requires Mercy. Courage and Sacrifice are both a part of Glory's better nature that she's strayed away from...
A people are defined by their values. Any society which puts Justice as separate from Truth (!!!) and also makes primary virtues of Liberty and Unity (!!!), but which doesn't make Compassion or Love or the like into equal virtues or gods, but just as lesser functional parts of those is telling you something big and important about itself. About what it actually cares about. I suspect a society with those values would be extremely effective and efficient as a society, but also probably prone to grinding people up and spitting them out, especially anyone who didn't "fit in". Every society has its downsides - any one that pretends it doesn't is just hiding something.
The Emperor... yeah. I love what they were trying to do with him, but they messed up in some pretty important ways. I know this is a spoiler thread, but I'm wrapping the rest of this post in spoiler tags anyway because it's extra spoilery.
The Emperor was skillfully written as a super-unreliable narrator*. Whenever you get an opportunity to fact-check him, the result is almost always "The Emperor was lying." It's not just his initial pretense of being your guardian figure; he lies to you again and again and again, always with the aim of manipulating and controlling you. There's a book in the githyanki creche which says, in essence, "Ignore everything a mind flayer says, only pay attention to what it does," and IMO that is a direct warning to the player on how to interpret the Emperor. The slow revelation of layer after layer of deceit is brilliantly done.
But unless you're deeply invested in Lae'zel, there's no payoff to figuring this out! If you play along, accept the Emperor's lies, trust him at every step, and finally give him the Netherstones, he... does exactly what he said he was going to do. He uses the stones, fights the brain, wins, and kills it when you say it needs to die. Then he levitates off into the sunset.
Contrast Raphael: If you cut a deal with Raphael, he too keeps his end of the bargain, and you triumph. But then you get a cutscene at the end where Raphael gloats about how the archdevils are falling before his newfound might, and he's already making plans to conquer the rest of the planes, yours included. That's a much better way to handle this kind of thing.
Then there are more general story concerns. First, there's the scene where the Emperor's true nature is revealed. He's in desperate straits and says "Trust me, I'm the guardian in your head, kill these githyanki and save my life." At this point, you are given two options: You can trust the FREAKIN' MIND FLAYER and kill a bunch of strangers to save his skinny purple butt. Or you can refuse to help him, whereupon the game ends and you get assimilated. So you have to choose door #1, but it felt wildly out of character, for Lae'zel especially. It would be much easier to swallow if you defended the guardian and then discovered what your guardian really was.
Second, the ending left and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The initial confrontation with the brain feels like the worst kind of railroading: You go into a fight where the outcome is predetermined, none of your actions matters, and no matter what you do, you lose and have to be rescued by the DMPC. And then your final mission is "Escort this mind flayer, who used to be (Balduran/Orpheus/Karlach/you), to the elder brain so they can do the real work of defeating it, because you, puny non-illithid, are incapable of overcoming such an entity." That's just a terrible way to end any game. The protagonist should be the one front and center in the final battle, and they should not have to turn into a mind flayer to do it.
I wouldn't mind if it was just the Emperor claiming that only a mind flayer can beat the brain. The Emperor is very clear that he thinks mind flayers are superior beings. But if you reject the Emperor and free Orpheus, and Orpheus goes "Dang, guess I have to be a mind flayer now, kill me as soon as we're done here," it's like... WTF? We went through all this to free Orpheus from captivity, and his response is to turn ghaik and go on a suicide run? Suddenly it feels like the game itself is taking the Emperor's position: Mind flayers are just better than you, so either become one or accept your role as spear carrier to one.
Ugh. It's a pity because so much of the writing is so damn good, and the depth of the plot is stunning. And it wouldn't take much to improve the ending -- just getting rid of the bit where Orpheus turns into a mind flayer would help a lot. As is, though, I always delay going into the endgame sequence because it feels so off.
*Yes, yes, I know, that's not the technical definition of "unreliable narrator," he's not actually narrating the story. But he is the one presenting you with a lot of key information throughout the game, and much of it has to be taken on faith. Unreliable expositor?
I'll throw a couple things into a spoiler just for you, even though this is a spoiler thread:
1) If you start turning away from the Emperor in your dreams after the Githyanki situation, after he tells you about Stelmane, confronting him about controlling you, he'll show you the TRUTH of what happened to Stelmane during their alliance... She was his puppet. Practically mindwiped in his presence, staring off with a half-smile of psionically-enforced compliance. It's the same scene you see where he's leaning over the table and someone comes in while they're talking and Stelmane has a glass of wine, you're just seeing the -full- picture.
He gloats that at least with you he's being kind enough to manipulate you, rather than giving you absolutely no choice or free will in the situation.
2) Orpheus has to either get his brain eaten or become a Mind Flayer so that Lae'zel has a martyr to fulfill the role of in the Astral Plane 'cause it's the only way her "Good" ending makes any sense. And if you're playing a Githyanki, you can go with her.
But that is it itself a hard and arrogant idea, no? Because humans and human-like being are subjective beings, ruled by perceptions, and how does the Truth in this hard sense relate to that? The idea that there's only one truth is itself a very settler-colonial-type idea - that doesn't make it unusable or whatever, but it makes it very different for example, from Honesty. Honesty is a virtue of striving to ideal - to be truthful to yourself and others, to never bear false witness, to express what you think is actually true, in your eyes and so on. It doesn't require perfection and it's not a "hard" thing because it's an ideal not an absolute.
Each of the Virtues is the manifestation of that virtue. Justice -is- Justice. In the sense of right and wrong, crime and punishment, protecting people, etc. Now Justice -can- fall by not holding to Mercy and Proportionality... because Justice is a balancing act. Same as each of the other virtues. Except Truth.
Because regardless of two people's subjective perceptions, the truth remains. She does promote Honesty, but she can't "Fall" to lies. Because lies aren't truths. They're not an aspect of truth. They're antithetical to what truth is.
But Truth as you express it (and apparently as I correctly intuited) is a hard-edged absolute. A binary. Either something is true or it is not. A human could never judge that, as human is a filthy subjective little being full of perceptions and feelings ("What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets."). But a god could, and it could offer judgement or guidance on what the truth was. Even that though is going to be difficult, because the reality is that "truth" tends to be extremely complex and nuanced and it's unlikely a religion requiring worship is going to be friendly to that idea.
I also think it's a misfit with the other deities, as evidenced by it not having the possibility of failing. I feel like you should reconsider this element - perhaps change it to Honesty, which could fall into Cruelty. YMMV and it's your setting of course.
In truth (hah!) the religion will preach honesty in service to Truth. That it is her virtue and the way to uphold her ideals. But she definitely -is- an outlier.
And the reason is this:
Truth coming out of her well to shame mankind.
@Tonguez made the -excellent- suggestion of using Lady Liberty as a divine entity with an order of Paladins in her service. And that permutated into thinking of Lady Justice with her scales, Truth coming from her well, Liberty with her torch, and Fortune with her Cornucopia of coins...
Though I changed Fortune to Prosperity and the Coins to Food.
But Truth being the central pillar of the pantheon, the one who tries to hold things together and keep the others from falling by reminding them of the truth of who they are and what their goals are... It was powerful enough that I wanted her.
That's an interesting take - and calling Prosperity makes sense because it can fall - otherwise I'd have thought rephrasing to Abundance would have made sense, but if it can fall into Greed, Prosperity is perfect.
A people are defined by their values. Any society which puts Justice as separate from Truth (!!!) and also makes primary virtues of Liberty and Unity (!!!), but which doesn't make Compassion or Love or the like into equal virtues or gods, but just as lesser functional parts of those is telling you something big and important about itself. About what it actually cares about. I suspect a society with those values would be extremely effective and efficient as a society, but also probably prone to grinding people up and spitting them out, especially anyone who didn't "fit in". Every society has its downsides - any one that pretends it doesn't is just hiding something.
Oh.... no. The society didn't put Justice separate from Truth. The society didn't manifest the gods in this setting. These just -are- the gods of the reality. They're the ones who created the world and all the people in it. Who made the first soul and gave it to a mortal.
That said: Yeah. There's a LOT of truth to people being ground up in this society and spat out. Both by the gods -literally- using your soul until there's practically nothing left before they put you back into the world to reincarnate, and in the sense of capitalism and imperialism (both of which exist in the setting) being entirely capable of taking your soul, bit by bit, day by day, until there's literally nothing left and you become a soulless person just going through the motions.
Because being soulless doesn't kill you. It just makes you numb and indifferent. But that's a WHOLE other mechanical aspect of the setting.
The Emperor... yeah. I love what they were trying to do with him, but they messed up in some pretty important ways. I know this is a spoiler thread, but I'm wrapping the rest of this post in spoiler tags anyway because it's extra spoilery.
The Emperor was skillfully written as a super-unreliable narrator*. Whenever you get an opportunity to fact-check him, the result is almost always "The Emperor was lying." It's not just his initial pretense of being your guardian figure; he lies to you again and again and again, always with the aim of manipulating and controlling you. There's a book in the githyanki creche which says, in essence, "Ignore everything a mind flayer says, only pay attention to what it does," and IMO that is a direct warning to the player on how to interpret the Emperor. The slow revelation of layer after layer of deceit is brilliantly done.
But unless you're deeply invested in Lae'zel, there's no payoff to figuring this out! If you play along, accept the Emperor's lies, trust him at every step, and finally give him the Netherstones, he... does exactly what he said he was going to do. He uses the stones, fights the brain, wins, and kills it when you say it needs to die. Then he levitates off into the sunset.
Contrast Raphael: If you cut a deal with Raphael, he too keeps his end of the bargain, and you triumph. But then you get a cutscene at the end where Raphael gloats about how the archdevils are falling before his newfound might, and he's already making plans to conquer the rest of the planes, yours included. That's a much better way to handle this kind of thing.
Then there are more general story concerns. First, there's the scene where the Emperor's true nature is revealed. He's in desperate straits and says "Trust me, I'm the guardian in your head, kill these githyanki and save my life." At this point, you are given two options: You can trust the FREAKIN' MIND FLAYER and kill a bunch of strangers to save his skinny purple butt. Or you can refuse to help him, whereupon the game ends and you get assimilated. So you have to choose door #1, but it felt wildly out of character, for Lae'zel especially. It would be much easier to swallow if you defended the guardian and then discovered what your guardian really was.
Second, the ending left and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The initial confrontation with the brain feels like the worst kind of railroading: You go into a fight where the outcome is predetermined, none of your actions matters, and no matter what you do, you lose and have to be rescued by the DMPC. And then your final mission is "Escort this mind flayer, who used to be (Balduran/Orpheus/Karlach/you), to the elder brain so they can do the real work of defeating it, because you, puny non-illithid, are incapable of overcoming such an entity." That's just a terrible way to end any game. The protagonist should be the one front and center in the final battle, and they should not have to turn into a mind flayer to do it.
I wouldn't mind if it was just the Emperor claiming that only a mind flayer can beat the brain. The Emperor is very clear that he thinks mind flayers are superior beings. But if you reject the Emperor and free Orpheus, and Orpheus goes "Dang, guess I have to be a mind flayer now, kill me as soon as we're done here," it's like... WTF? We went through all this to free Orpheus from captivity, and his response is to turn ghaik and go on a suicide run? Suddenly it feels like the game itself is taking the Emperor's position: Mind flayers are just better than you, so either become one or accept your role as spear carrier to one.
Ugh. It's a pity because so much of the writing is so damn good, and the depth of the plot is stunning. And it wouldn't take much to improve the ending -- just getting rid of the bit where Orpheus turns into a mind flayer would help a lot. As is, though, I always delay going into the endgame sequence because it feels so demotivating.
*Yes, yes, I know, that's not the technical definition of "unreliable narrator," he's not actually narrating the story. But he is the one presenting you with a lot of key information throughout the game, and much of it has to be taken on faith. Unreliable expositor?
I think Ruin Explorer's critique is evidence that you did a good job of making Wild West American Fantasy, @Steampunkette, because Ruin is describing is a world primarily colored by American culture. The idea of people being chewed up and spit out, a huge focus on productivity and efficiency, truth and justice being two seperate things -- these things add a grim color that is necessary for a wild west setting to have.
