Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mesh Hong" data-source="post: 5238914" data-attributes="member: 73463">I think the problem here is that you are trying to apply modern scientific reasoning from the real world to a pseudo-medieval fantasy setting in an imagined world. Really in my opinion the burden of proof and the threshold of acceptance of fact are significantly different in a world where practically anything is possible with magic, and when someone goes missing in the woods it is actually possible that a beast from a different plane of existence actually ate them. The basic setting assumes a world where magic and gods exist. These are leant facts for civilised society. Gods are both the ideals to strive for and a threat to discourage antisocial behaviour. This of course is exactly what the concept of gods is like in the real world but without all the uncertainty of faith and burden of proof. Essentially Joe peasant is told Erathis exists and from birth Erathis’s teachings are woven completely into Joe peasants day to day life. I am simplifying this here but Joe peasant is primed and taught to accept this as fact as everything in his life reinforces the prescribed view. It is possible that Joe peasant at some point will wonder if all the teachings are correct, and if he does a cleric could “prove” Erathis’s existence in many ways. Usually though these would boil down to “I am a vessel of Erathis’s power, see how I heal you (or perform any other divine powered action) by channelling her wisdom and love of the community”. The above is not fact (or proof) though it is merely reinforcement of fact through pronounced action or in other words “I say that a god gives me this power, everything you know about the world makes this completely plausible”. I am not sure if this is in line with this thread or not but here is another god related thought I posted a while back that didn’t seem to spark anyones interest, maybe it will here: The problem (?) with divinity in D&D is that it isn’t really about faith at all, it is more about affinity.  In D&D you know the gods exist, you can even go and visit them in their ‘heaven’ if you like. So it’s not really faith at all, you don’t have a choice about whether you believe that the Raven Queen is the god of death or not, she is, and she is literally in the shadowfell sorting souls. The question is whether you think you have a special connection to a gods motivations and domains and whether you identify with a god enough to invest enough commitment to become its willing ally. This commitment manifests in the ability to activate attuned magical items, or assume certain paragon paths and epic destinies. As I have said before in a world where the gods are very real and active it is highly probable that most people will honour a pantheon of gods. However it would probably be usual that individuals would hold one god in higher esteem than the others, and that one god would be an icon of their own core beliefs and help define them. An interesting thing that to my knowledge is never really discussed in the books is what do the gods do with the souls they collect? We know: - The Raven Queen is responsible for collecting them and sending them on.- Devils and Demons use them as a source of power, or manifest them as slaves.- Tiamat collects them and stores them as a writhing pit of maggots which is her most prized possession.- A select few souls live on in astral domains as a gift from the appropriate gods. But that’s it really. What really happens? In my opinion the gods aren’t really that different to demons and devils, put bluntly they harvest souls as a power source to maintain their domains and power their abilities. It is the hidden truth behind the curtain of dogma and propaganda, and the reason behind their reliance (and the importance of) the middle world.</blockquote>

Verification