Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
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Post by Raezenoth on May 15, 2015 2:13:31 GMT
Hm. Thank you, Amira, that is enlightening.
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Turquoise
Poster
Posts: 19
World: Uplides
Pronoun: She
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Post by Turquoise on May 15, 2015 2:14:45 GMT
Juat a mere mortal here, but some of my best friends are technically deities, so I might be able to shed some light on how they work in my corner of the multiverse. (Okay, I admittedly have a very small sample size for this, but at least one of the gods I'm acquainted with knows what he's talking about. ... I think.) As far as I understand it, being a god in the worlds that I've heard about is kinda a Big Deal. You 1) have a metric crapton of followers (unless you're dying or dead), 2) are immortal, 3) probably rule over either a whole plane or a major slice of one, 4) have authority over some fundamental facets of existence (like death, war, order, magic, etc) and 5) have whoopass cosmic powers that you're expected to exercise some restraint over because Cosmic Balance and Maintaining the Multiverse and all that. The causal relationship between those five factors is reeeeeally unclear. I've heard of people spending several lifetimes (not all of them their own) debating it. Regardless, they're all kinda interconnected to each other and if you lose one you're likely to lose the others. Collectively, we call the combination of power and identity that makes a deity a deity a "divine mantle". Without a mantle, a deity is just another mortal, and if (as happens occasionally) a mortal somehow attains a mantle, the consequences can be plane-shaking. Has a mortal ever gotten a mantle in your world before? It has almost happened here and I'm glad I wasn't there to see it.
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Mira
Poster
Posts: 26
World: Sanctum
Pronoun: She
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Post by Mira on May 15, 2015 2:15:22 GMT
Hm. Thank you, Amira, that is enlightening. No problem - happy to help! So how do gods work in your world?
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the keeper
Poster
Posts: 97
World: the kept
Pronoun: she
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Post by the keeper on May 15, 2015 2:15:39 GMT
It is easy for me to tell a mind from a non-mind.
With practice I have also learned to distinguish kinds of matter from one another, such as rock from air and tin from iron, but it is more difficult.
It is easy for me to tell matter that is part of a mind's body from matter that is not part of a mind's body.
I always perceive the location in space and time and universe of things I am looking at, but I cannot tell which universes are associated with which forum accounts easily with the information I have. Except for yours. Your universe is very different from most others I have perceived, so it is easy to tell apart.
I can create rules that govern the behaviour of matter in my domain; for example, half of my domain is air and half is rock and I created rules to prevent them from being distorted in untidy ways by gravity. This was difficult. The rules need to be designed very carefully and they only understand very simple things: location, direction, mass, physical structure. If I wanted to create a rule that altered the behaviour of all things that were rock, I would need to define "rock" strictly in terms of the structure and behaviour of matter and energy. The rules also understand what is and is not a mind, and can receive input from the decisions of minds, but not in a way that allows them to understand "rock".
I can create matter in whatever configuration I please, and cause it to vanish again. This is very easy. Specifying the configurations is harder, but I can copy from what I perceive in universes.
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Mira
Poster
Posts: 26
World: Sanctum
Pronoun: She
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Post by Mira on May 15, 2015 2:20:35 GMT
Turquoise: Well, not in MY world precisely. Sanctum has a blanket ban on anything that uses divine power for just that reason. However, I HAVE heard of it happening in worlds that are linked to mine, and evidently it almost always goes hand-in-hand with a cataclysm or near-cataclysm that threatens whole planes. Transference of mantles is NOT something you want to mess around with if you value the continuation of life.
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Turquoise
Poster
Posts: 19
World: Uplides
Pronoun: She
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Post by Turquoise on May 15, 2015 2:27:33 GMT
Mira: That would seem like an issue my Government won't take lightly. I don't think my world could handle such a catastrophic event, especially if someone else caused it. I will send a notice to my Government so they can make sure that doesn't happen.
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Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
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Post by Raezenoth on May 15, 2015 2:30:19 GMT
No problem - happy to help! So how do gods work in your world? There are many of us. Every god has a domain that reflects what type of god they are and what they value. I am a god of freedom, but also challenges and fairness. My domain is not the easiest place to live, but it will never be cruel or impossible to survive. A god's domain grows with mortal thoughts and offerings, and we provide shelter, blessings, and protection to those in our realm. A god may have acolytes, mortals whom we trust that we bestow all of our blessings and our favor upon. Along with the blessings, an acolyte has a divine gift, which varies by god.
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Post by Mother Starlight on May 15, 2015 2:54:52 GMT
Can you create rules that operate on information of the kind that you perceive? For example, could you create a rule that would inform you of the number of minds in a given world, without you having to count them yourself?
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the keeper
Poster
Posts: 97
World: the kept
Pronoun: she
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Post by the keeper on May 15, 2015 2:57:01 GMT
It's possible that I could do that. I am not sure. I have not tried.
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Post by Andrew on May 15, 2015 4:02:54 GMT
Mira, if part of divinity is identity, does this mean you ask deities to give up who they are in order to enter your world, or am I misreading that?
Raezenoth, you say you are a god of freedom and of desert winds (and various other things which mostly seem related to one or the other). Do most gods in your world have multiple things they rule over? Do you control all desert winds in your world? Also, do you get to choose your blessings and acolyte gift (or any other part of your domain), or do they come pre-assigned somehow?
Raezenoth and the keeper, if you were to divide things by material composition, how would you work with, for example, a pencil? At least for me, pencils are made of graphite, wood, metal, rubber, and paint. What world something comes from and whether it is a mind, part of a mind’s body, or neither seem to be the only truly unambiguous classifications the keeper has available.
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Mira
Poster
Posts: 26
World: Sanctum
Pronoun: She
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Post by Mira on May 15, 2015 4:18:18 GMT
Andrew: Sorta, yeah. Here's an analogy to help explain the principle: say a warrior king wanted to enter a community of egalitarian pacifists. He wouldn't just have to lay down his weapons and armor at the gate, but also his very position and identity as a king. He would have to say "Outside, I am a great king, but in your community, I am nothing more or less than any of you." It is much the same way with Sanctum and deities: they have to, however temporarily, give up their identity as a being of divine power to enter. As you might expect, we don't get many deific visitors - the ones who do come are often weary of the great weight of a divine mantle and seek to alleviate it for a time.
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Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
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Post by Raezenoth on May 15, 2015 11:46:16 GMT
Raezenoth, you say you are a god of freedom and of desert winds (and various other things which mostly seem related to one or the other). Do most gods in your world have multiple things they rule over? Do you control all desert winds in your world? Also, do you get to choose your blessings and acolyte gift (or any other part of your domain), or do they come pre-assigned somehow? Raezenoth and the keeper, if you were to divide things by material composition, how would you work with, for example, a pencil? At least for me, pencils are made of graphite, wood, metal, rubber, and paint. What world something comes from and whether it is a mind, part of a mind’s body, or neither seem to be the only truly unambiguous classifications the keeper has available. Most gods have more complexity and depth than a puddle. I am no exception, but there are gods that are. I do not control all desert winds in the world, only in my domain. I chose my blessings and acolyte gift. It depends very highly on the type of pencil; there are many things that you would call a pencil, but are vastly different. The materials you have named sound like they are appropriate, however. But not all pencils would be made of graphite, wood, metal, rubber, and paint. Some might not have paint. Some might not have metal. Some might be missing their eraser. Some might have never had it. This is why I believe it is appropriate to sort by material, rather than function, at least at first.
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Post by Andrew on May 15, 2015 15:01:05 GMT
I did not mean to insult you with my question. My world does not have gods, and our myths of gods often give them each one specific area instead of multiple unrelated areas. I had not assumed that having a simple responsibility like just desert winds would imply being shallow; are those two related for your type of god?
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Raezenoth
Poster
Posts: 79
World: Arabek
Pronoun: He
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Post by Raezenoth on May 15, 2015 15:16:49 GMT
I am neither insulted nor offended. If I were either, you would know.
I'm not sure what you mean by your question. Please elaborate.
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Post by Andrew on May 15, 2015 16:06:30 GMT
I asked if it was common for your type of god to have more than one independent-seeming responsibility, such as desert winds (a natural phenomenon inherent in the existence of a desert and atmosphere) and freedom (a concept which requires intelligent beings to exist before it even begins to make sense). You said that most gods had more complexity and depth than a puddle; to me, it seems like a person’s complexity and depth is mostly independent of their powerset. I wanted to know if this is the same in your world, or if having more responsibilities as a god is somehow related to having more of a personality.
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