Atanatotatos
First Post
In 4e's flavor Bahamut is generally revered. Anyway I don't know if a god of good, honor, and ...uh...fighting evil dragons is the most appropriate to take as a base point in an imperial oriental setting...
[D&D4E] Path of Enlightenment [OOC]
- Thread starter Voda Vosa
- Start date
covaithe
Explorer
I spent a little time this morning looking at the Wikipedia entry for chinese mythology. It's long and confusing, which is not surprising for a country with that much history, that has gone through a number of very different dominant religions throughout its history.
My impression is that they seem to be very polytheistic, with heaven being a celestial court ruled over by the Jade Emperor, who is wise and good and remote and possibly a dragon sometimes. There are many, many minor deities, for rain and snow and lovers and funny-shaped rocks and so forth. These often squabble and reproduce in surprising ways. Former emperors or empresses who are particularly revered often seem to find a place in the pantheon, which sort of ties into the whole Confucian thing that the emperor is halfway to being a deity already.
Anyway, I think strict monotheism would be wrong, but a heaven full of obscure deities ruled by one uber-god makes sense.
My impression is that they seem to be very polytheistic, with heaven being a celestial court ruled over by the Jade Emperor, who is wise and good and remote and possibly a dragon sometimes. There are many, many minor deities, for rain and snow and lovers and funny-shaped rocks and so forth. These often squabble and reproduce in surprising ways. Former emperors or empresses who are particularly revered often seem to find a place in the pantheon, which sort of ties into the whole Confucian thing that the emperor is halfway to being a deity already.
Anyway, I think strict monotheism would be wrong, but a heaven full of obscure deities ruled by one uber-god makes sense.
Walking Dad
First Post
The Celestial Court of The 10,000 Immortals?
And substituting fighting evil dragons to demons would be no large change.
And substituting fighting evil dragons to demons would be no large change.
Voda Vosa
First Post
Yes I have read about some celestial bureaucracy. It might be a polytheistic pantheon, but it works differently, not anything similar to the DnD pantheon, or Greek pantheon; it's more like the Egyptian mythology, but still different.
It's a huge discussion topic and I think your oppinions are quite instructive.
Keep them coming.
It's a huge discussion topic and I think your oppinions are quite instructive.
Keep them coming.
Nightbreeze
First Post
If that means that we will be coerced into fighting evil dragons and demons, I am against it 
.
Voda, it seems that your thoughts are flying in a different direction: what do you exactly mean, so we can adjust the aim?
.Voda, it seems that your thoughts are flying in a different direction: what do you exactly mean, so we can adjust the aim?
Voda Vosa
First Post
Well it took me some time.
Here is, graphically wat I think it should be the "cosmic organization"
As you can see there's a big red thing in the center, this could be the creator, builder of the universe and of this world. He has created everything. But the creator has no time to watch over his creations, he is constantly creating other worlds. For this matters he created five orange squares, er I mean, five gods
.
(numbers are just representative to the drawing, just because it fitted in the image, they can be, and will surely be a lot more gods.) This five gods rule over the great aspects of the world; There could be social or human aspects, such as war, love, justice, honor, prosperity; and there could be natural aspects of the world: the elements, related with natural catastrophes or beneficial weathers; and the living beings (a god of plants, a god of animals -you wish this guy on your side if you are running a farm for example)
But each of these aspects is too big for a god to manage. He/she has to decide, to take the decisions that could change the world! They have no time for a peasant asking for some rains for his tomatoes. Thats why they have created a celestial bureaucracy. Basically it's an organization of spirits of different ranks that attend to the particularities of the god's aspect of the world, this system allows many lesser deities (high rank spirits) specialized in different matters. Keeping the example from above, there could be a spirit of cows, which the farmer should pray more often than the spirit of frogs; although both of those spirits belong to the celestial bureaucracy of the god of animals.
I hope that I've explained my mind well enough, it's kinda hard to write all this in English for me.
Well this is a point of view, a broad point of view, it can be changed, there are thousands of things to add, modify etc, or we can through it to the recycle bin
Here is, graphically wat I think it should be the "cosmic organization"
As you can see there's a big red thing in the center, this could be the creator, builder of the universe and of this world. He has created everything. But the creator has no time to watch over his creations, he is constantly creating other worlds. For this matters he created five orange squares, er I mean, five gods
. (numbers are just representative to the drawing, just because it fitted in the image, they can be, and will surely be a lot more gods.) This five gods rule over the great aspects of the world; There could be social or human aspects, such as war, love, justice, honor, prosperity; and there could be natural aspects of the world: the elements, related with natural catastrophes or beneficial weathers; and the living beings (a god of plants, a god of animals -you wish this guy on your side if you are running a farm for example)
But each of these aspects is too big for a god to manage. He/she has to decide, to take the decisions that could change the world! They have no time for a peasant asking for some rains for his tomatoes. Thats why they have created a celestial bureaucracy. Basically it's an organization of spirits of different ranks that attend to the particularities of the god's aspect of the world, this system allows many lesser deities (high rank spirits) specialized in different matters. Keeping the example from above, there could be a spirit of cows, which the farmer should pray more often than the spirit of frogs; although both of those spirits belong to the celestial bureaucracy of the god of animals.
I hope that I've explained my mind well enough, it's kinda hard to write all this in English for me.
Well this is a point of view, a broad point of view, it can be changed, there are thousands of things to add, modify etc, or we can through it to the recycle bin
Voda Vosa
First Post
I'll reopen the recruitment to fill the slot of Nightbreeze.
If someone wants to take his place until (or if) he comes back, that'll be cool.
If you feel like making another character, well, that's ok too! I can work it out story-wise.
For further information about Nightbreeze characters, in the first post of this thread it's a description of this campaing, and the links to the RG and the IC threads.
Let me know about your interests.
PS: Atanotatos, I noticed that you didn't choose any utility power in your character sheet.
If someone wants to take his place until (or if) he comes back, that'll be cool.
If you feel like making another character, well, that's ok too! I can work it out story-wise.
For further information about Nightbreeze characters, in the first post of this thread it's a description of this campaing, and the links to the RG and the IC threads.
Let me know about your interests.
PS: Atanotatos, I noticed that you didn't choose any utility power in your character sheet.
Keia
I aim to misbehave
Hey there !
I've been looking for a 4e game so I would like to give this a try. Been playing face to face and dming it for a couple of months, but I find that I always learn more when I'm playing the system in pbp as well.
I'll look through the ooc ic and rg in the morning . . . gotta catch some zzz's
Keia
I've been looking for a 4e game so I would like to give this a try. Been playing face to face and dming it for a couple of months, but I find that I always learn more when I'm playing the system in pbp as well.
I'll look through the ooc ic and rg in the morning . . . gotta catch some zzz's
Keia
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