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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Particle_Man" data-source="post: 2192664" data-attributes="member: 892">Ok, here are some rough notes, plus some more thoughts.  I am too tired to go through it all right now.Divine magic sources: One God (Priest/Crusader/Hermit/White Knight) – various interpretations, all granted magic, Old Faith (Druid/Minstrel/Blue Knight) – tied to ley lines and henges. (and for ladies of the lake and blue knights, large fresh bodies of water)Arcane magic sources: Ley Lines.  (All)Hedge Mages tend to go for Old Faith and not One God.Minstrels, Druids, Ladies of the Lake, Blue Knights: Old Faith.Priests, Hermits, Crusaders, Saints, White Knights: One God (Aristocrats for “nobles” not of One God -  note multiple interpretations!).Note: Old Gods tried and failed to have similar system with Olympus/Hades, which now are Heaven/Hell.  Part of Albion’s magic was to see if “non-noble” parts of souls could become more useful on Earth than in Hades.  Some gods disagreed and sent Hercules.  The internal dissention among Old Gods (and believers) allowed the One God to gain power.  Albion was originally an Old God, but his own sundering denied him his divine powers (his ignoble part was hugely powerful, though).  Ignoble Albion wanted to rule over the earth, and get rid of all divine powers that might oppose him.  He failed, but caused a lot of damage.If belief is tied to God-power, then Old Faith gods can retain “spell granting” power at the cost of their own “personalities” – they actually “become” the land, the ley lines, [sometimes] the henges, the lakes and pools, etc.  The last two holdouts are Oberon/Titania, but they see the writing on the wall too.  The hope was that the situation might change in the future, allowing them to reform.  Later, arcane magic-users learn how to exploit these “magic items” in part.  The One God is supplied with enough worshippers to retain a personality, and maintain a Heaven and Hell, but will not interfere directly, but only through mortal agents (their spells being granted, and used to contact Him, etc.) (but sometimes the demons/devils “cheat”, if they can) – One God sees this, as all suffering, as a “test of faith” (only way to bring up Nobility, which is worth the risk of disillusioning people (losing believers or having their Nobility reduced).  Note: The rise of the One God allows Him to change the past, so that the Adam/Eve story, giants as children of fallen angels, etc., start to become “more real” as part of the history.  Eventually, this will cause Albion’s remaining toxic magic to fail, and the ley lines to lose their power, as the Pagan Gods will not only not exist (except as magic items) they will never have existed (even as magic items).  And with that, Arcane magic will also fail.  But then, the One God will have no need to grant divine agency to mortals (an extension of the Non-Interference idea), and we will be in modern times.  Strict controls will be set up on Hell to remove chance of “cheating” devils/demons, and god will use Believers’ souls to maintain power against all comers.  Actually, part of changing past requires One God to stop actively interfering, even at the cost of would-be believers that want tangible miracles.  One God is gambling that remaining believers (as well as souls of believers) will maintain power even without spells.  In fact, when God feels secure enough, he will end Hell with Apocalypse and use believers in heaven as permanent mana battery to maintain permanent existence, with no possible rivals (remaining folk on Earth after Apocalypse will be rationalists with no supernatural beliefs, and thus no threat to him).Now, what happens to souls?  First, a stasis period of “long enough” beforehand, to allow for any reincarnations/resurrections etc.  This varies, but only from the point of view of living mortals – takes no time from the point of view of the dead.  Note: sometimes instead of a stasis period you get ghosts, who need something done before they can go on to the next step.  Anyhow, either way the next step varies depending on what you believe: A) Believers in One God.  Their souls are usually split in two.  A % of their souls = to their nobility go to heaven, and remainder goes to hell OR becomes evil undead (a la spawn now – the secret of making non-spawned corporeal (which was almost exclusively elf, dwarf or primitive humans) or incorporeal undead (dread wraiths were giants that had displeased Albion) has been lost/destroyed when Albion was killed).  A character with 100% nobility does not have his soul split in two, and so cannot become undead (except maybe Ghost, see above).  Mortals never see souls in heaven again (except perhaps in the occasional dream) (part of non-interference pact).  Souls in hell become demons/devils etc., after being tortured and mutated for a while.  Demons/Devils that are killed simply die (exception, summoned one’s aren’t really here, so don’t die but reform in Hell).  (Note: some demons/devils were not souls, but were retroactively created as fallen angels to be first torturers).  Fallen Angels are the % parts of first Angels that were not pure enough, before God perfected the “non-interference” rule to prevent corruption.  B) Believers in Old Faith – become part of the ley-lines/natural world (keeping the magic going, the One God’s retroactive influence at bay, etc.).  Their nobility indicates how many years their personality forms a functional part, however small, of the place (in effect, the non-noble part becomes non-personality immediately).  After that they are simply part of the “magic item”.  Exception: if they became non-ghost undead we have the % split were the noble part is in stasis but the ignoble part is the undead thing and the whole soul can’t move on until undead thing is destroyed C) Non-Believers.  Eventual Dissolution = Nothingness.  (with same caveat on undead deal as above) Most intelligent monsters go this route.  Noted exception: Fey Creatures (including goblins, dwarves, and elves) that do not believe in One God do option B, whether they are believers or not.  Fey go through stasis period, but never become ghosts.  This explains why druids like reincarnation: high percentage chance of getting a fey, which is eventual good news (but One God believers rarely consent to be reincarnated).  Reincarnation table: 1-27 Goblin/28-51 Dwarf/52-75 Elf/76-99 Human/00 Other (Dm’s Choice – usually a fey, but possibly a giant).  Intelligent magical items don’t exist.  A Familiar, Animal Companion, or Knight’s Warhorse loses its abilities and intelligence, but regains them if the person bonded with them is brought back to life.  A familiar will not bond with another Hedge Mage.  Another can use a Knight’s Warhorse.  If the Warhorse is bonded with someone else with the Knight’s Warhorse ability, and the original Knight is brought back to life, the horse gets the better of the two scores and will choose the rider it had bonded with for the most levels (the earlier rider taking precedence in case of a tie).Next question: Why Hell?  Why not Nothingness here too?  Torturing of evil part provides some power to One God, but not as nearly as much as good part does (thus One God wants believers to be as good as possible).  Demons/devils take on jobs as torturers to continue the process.  The longer one is tortured, the less “juice” One God gets per day of torture of that soul %.  Diminishing returns (and attrition of “cheating” demons/devils who don’t do their jobs and try to cause trouble on Earth) eventually makes it more profitable to turn longest suffering tortured into torturers themselves.Why do nasty monsters overrun England and surrounding areas specifically?  I’d say it is residue of old rites of Albion = toxic waste of Albion w/o his waste management.What about one who believes in One God and Old Faith?  Sorry.  Either you are an official believer of the One God (baptized/converted/the works) or you are not.Why do higher social classes (lineages) start with more nobility?  One God’s subtle interference (exception to “non-interference”.  Role-model idea of encouraging others to be nobler).Otherworld contains everything that is not Prime Material Plane.  All spells that involves other planes involve some part of Otherworld.  Otherworld includes Fairyland, Avalon, Heaven and Hell, but Heaven is barred to mortals.Ok, so part of history is the goblins siding with the giants in the undead project, and dwarves and elves (and other fey) being created to try to stop it, with middling success.  Eventually, with the giants in disarray, the elves and dwarves are meant to return to fairyland, but some stay behind (and get corrupted) and a few always leave/get kicked out of fairyland to see England (and may get corrupted).  Elves later on were first to discover how to use ley lines for a new purpose, and so invented Arcane Magic.  Prolonged exposure made elves weaker, but better at arcane magic.  Originally, they were as much fighters as dwarves.Possible paradox: mortal travels to hell, sees (part of) soul of X there, goes back home, tries to resurrect X.  What happens?  Solution: no paradox, as tortured souls are mutated and not recognizable, nor in their tortured states are they able to recognize those from former life.  Thus mortal might see a tortured soul, but won’t know who it was, and so won’t know who to resurrect.  If he resurrects anyone, that one was not in hell, but in “stasis”.  Resurrection/True Resurrection does work on ghosts that were “laid to rest” (the ghost goes back into “Stasis”) and on other destroyed undead.  While “evil” part is in undead, “good” part remains in stasis.  So if undead destroyed, parts reform and whole soul remains in stasis, and so can be affected by resurrection/true resurrection, but not raise dead (too damaged from one sundering already).Thus, for what it is worth, Ghosts have same nobility as living creature it was, but other undead always have permanent nobility of 0, as do demons/devils etc. (ignoble parts of souls get set to 0, noble parts of souls get set to 100, upon split in Believers). Earth vs. Otherworld (Heaven (former Elysium), Hell (former Hades), Limbo (good parts of souls of category B or C that are split wait here), Fairyland (shrinking slightly), Avalon (the wandering Isle)).</blockquote>

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