On Wed, 12 Nov 1997, Bryon Switala wrote:
> What about the Serpent? He/It is not a divine being, yet there is a church
> set up to worship him and the pathos of gods that have been created. Scoin
> Worship could work, but you would have to have a totally closed society that
> could or would not be effected by outside influance.
>
> Also don’t the humanoids in the Maze worship the Minator?
No, the halflings who live in the Maze follow a local druid, who appears
to worship nature spirits rather than the god Erik.
As for the Serpent, he’s always seemed to me to be a “special case.” And
the Hand of Azrai specifically says that they worship Azrai, rather than
worshiping the Gorgon. I would be very hesitant to allow earth-bound
scions to be able to hand out clerical spells. I would say that they need
to have a BL strength of at least 100, maybe 150 before they reach this
level of god-power. And even then, I think that they are not actually
generating the power themselves, but rather channelling it from anther
source to their worshipers.
How can this be? Many of you are familiar with Forgotten Realms, where
the bodies of the dead gods can be found lying out somewhere in the
etheric plane. Well, Azrai is kind of like that. Only Azrai is an UNDEAD
god.
You see, instead of ending up in the etheric when he died, Azrai made sure
that his body ended up in the Shadow World, which obeys completely
different sets of rules.
Actually, I believe that Azrai currently exists somewhere caught in stasis
between dead and undead, so his body, while still a font of godly power,
is no longer directly controlled by his “mind” or “consciousness.” His
consciousness, however, is still alive, and roams the Shadow World as the
Cold Rider, in search of a way to complete his transformation into an
undead god. The Cold Rider is therefore able to tap into and use some of
the power of his god-body, but not very much of it. There’s plenty left
over in that reservoir, and those that have a very powerful bloodline of
Azrai can figure out how to tap into it as well.
That being said, I DON’T think that the remains of the other gods ended up
in the Shadow World. If they are anywhere, they probably ended up on the
etheric as well, or in their own little “heaven” realms. I think it more
likely that they completely disassociated their substances in the process
of destroying Azrai, and so their bodies simply don’t exist any more.
Therefore, a similar “reservoir” does not exist for scions of other
derivations to siphon from and start their own little cults. Or it could
only be done via special dispensation from the current god, and I see no
reason why one of the gods would do such a thing.
So, the Hand of Azrai probably gets their spells from the Cold Rider (if
my ideas are at all valid, only further word from Ed et al. will let us
know for sure). Whether the Gorgon knows and/or cares about all of this is
another question. He may not have particuarly cared for Kriesha and
Belenik when they were humans, and sees no reason to worship them now. He
may be fairly happy to have Azrai back, unless of course he has become
completely monomaniacal and wants to become a god himself (not too
unlikely, I suppose).
So, why do Kriesha and Belinik put up with all of this? Partly, I think,
because they have no choice. Azrai was greedy; all the way up til the last
possible moment, he still thought that he could win, and even when he
realized that he was being defeated, he still chose to keep much of his
power to himself–less of his power was handed down to his inheritors than
to the other new gods. Therefore, in order to have as much power as the
other new gods, Belinik and Kriesha must tap into the power reservoir of
Azrai’s undead body as well. They can’t destroy it, or they loose a good
chunk of their power, and so they preserve it, but all the while trying to
prevent Azrai’s reawakening, because if he DOES complete the task of
becoming undead, he may very well want his Blood back, and resubsume it
from them.
How’s that for strange bedfellows? Paladins of Haelyn and Avani working
together with priests of Belinik to prevent the Second Comming of Azrai.
Sound like a campaign, anyone?
Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu
