On Thu, 12 Dec 2002, Peter Lubke wrote:
> After all, we have human gods getting destroyed at Deismaar, yet their
> essence is distributed among all the beings of Cerilia somewhat
> indiscriminately – even the “god-less” elves. And even among those
> races with their own gods or pantheon of gods.
Yeah, this is weird. It strikes me as very wrong. IMO, each race ought
to have its own name for the derivations – for example, the goblins and
dwarves should have their own complete pantheons and say theirs come from
their race`s gods, who as Gary suggests may actually be the same
transcendental beings, just seen in different ways in different cultures.
I think the goblins, gnolls and orogs ought to view all non-Azrai
derivations as coming not from the power of his enemies, but rather from
his divine servants who are falsely left out of the stories the foolish
humans tell each other. Dwarves might call them by the names of rocks and
minerals (Iron, Gold, Granite, Coal, etc.; I have not worked out a
conversion table for this) and elves by the elements (some are easy,
like Masela = Water and Reynir = Earth).
Ideally, Deismaar should have included all those others as well
perhaps, and an each to his own with “new” gods inheriting all
previous mantles etc. But of course we`d still have a problem with
> those pesky elves.
Much of the alternate backstory and metaphysics I have created for my
interpretation of Cerilia has come from trying to explain this fact.
What we know about BR history from the rulebook I basically lump in with
the stuff in the Atlas and just say it comes from the overwhelmingly
humanocentric viewpoint of Chancellor Dosiere, who is not really reporting
history when he talks about Deismaar, but instead just giving one highly
mythologized version out of many. Since the Sidhelien are the only race
which has many (or any) members who are old enough to remember Deismaar,
it is my personal opinion that what they have to say about it ought to be
the most correct.
IMC, bloodlines existed before Deismaar, at least among the elves and
dragons. The elves call them by their elemental associations: Air, Water,
Fire, Earth, Light (aka Energy or Magic, for “Vorynn” and the Positive
Material Plane), Darkness (aka Entropy, for “Azrai” and the Negative
Material Plane), and Motion (for “Brenna” and the Ethereal and Astral
Planes). The very oldest elves with bloodlines actually are elementals,
some of whom have been wearing humanoid bodies so long they have basically
forgotten they havent always had them and dont strictly need them.
I agree with irdeggman that the Sidhelien, with their ability to move
easily over any terrain without leaving any trace (which, among other
things, implies that while running through brambles in the rain they never
tear their clothes or get mud on their shoes), innate magic powers,
agelessness etc. really seem more like spirits than living beings, and the
older and more powerful among them I treat exactly that way.
> On the other hand, theres no reason why elves cant have gods. Even
> if there are no elf priests with priestly powers equivalent to other
> races - there could still be priests (just not a priest class) - or
> the priest class might not be available to PCs. It`s possible that elf
gods are rarely worshiped and/or never intervene or grant spells etc.
IMC it is the reverse – many elves do have priestly powers (such as
healing and turning/destroying undead) because they are physical
manifestations of the power of nature itself. (As Ive said before, their basic rulebook description leads me to believe they derive their sustenance directly from mebhaighl.) They need no gods, and in fact know for a fact that none of things the other races worship actually exist as such: IMC, the seven famous beings who fought and died at Deismaar were extremely powerful dragons, who had presented themselves to humans, goblins, etc. as gods in order to gain followers to help them fight the last major draconic civil war, in which nearly all of them died. Then the priests who had learned from those dragons how to use the magic of the land needed some way to hang on to the social and political power they derived from administering the heirarchy the dragons had created to rule over their new minions, (or had been successfully brainwashed into thinking their patrons really were divine, and needed some way to explain to themselves why they still had their powers, as they had bought the lie that "Azrai" et al. provided the power, instead of just the skill to use power that was just lying around) so they invented the story that some of the famous humans who had led the human armies of the various dragon factions had not died horribly, but instead ascended to godhood. Purely fictitious, but very useful for maintaining their priests positions at
the top of the social pecking order and the peace of mind of the true
believers. They went on teaching their rituals of magic use just the way
they had been taught by the dragons – there are now and never were any
gods to grant spells; instead there are just a variety of different
rituals for controlling mebhaighl. Magicians and priests can do different
subsets of the whole thing with somewhat different methods, but only
elves, the surviving dragons and blooded wizards can actually do it all,
or really do any of it “right”.
At the end of the day - we have a land that is “divinely charged” with
the essence of human gods. It comes as no surprise that to tap this
reservoir of energy, a spark of the same essence is required within
the being attempting the controlling.
IMO, the power was always in the land, and in different amounts in people.
Stories of gods IMC are just fanciful attempts to explain a kind of
physical truth that most non-elves still just don`t understand.
> And lastly - is all blood somewhat similar? Could the essence be
> linked somehow to the oxygen-linking/carrying qualities of blood?
“Midichlorians” does sound a lot like “mitochondria”, doesn`t it? =)
Ryan Caveney
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