Relating to religion
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Hmmm, I've had an interesting idea for a bit of religious conflict with in the setting. Actually, it still leaves a lot of stuff open, but that is how it should be at this point. Perhaps I will start there. Andy 12:26, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
In my wizard family piece I just put up I seem to have kicked off the geography of the planet with the suggestion that there is one massive (I was thinking the size of Europe and Asia) continent in the southern hemisphere. If we want to put our history anywhere I think we may need to start thinking about either geography, or possibly the creation of the world. Hmm, are we going to have a long pre-history to this planet or is creationism actually going to be science fact on this world?
Intelligent Design as science fact. Now that is fantasy!--Alex 11:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
As for evolution/creationalism, that relates to an idea I had for religious conflict. My idea was that dieties can be split into two broad gods - ancient and new. The ancient gods relate to all the usual things that are found within apantheon, such as the sun, moon and so on. The younger gods appeared recently, and rule over modern phenomenon, such as the internet, or large scale urbanisation.
The conflict comes about because the old gods have always had a creationalist theory associated with them. Trouble is, the scientific evidence doesn't back them up. Now, no-one can deny that the gods exist when they commune with their priests regularly and perform miracles on a regular basis... but what if they have been lying? And why?
The new gods only fuel the fires, simply by existing. If gods can be born from nothing, who says it hasn't happened before? Well, the old gods say it, and they have always support mortals with their power. Evolution and the new gods are both heresy.
Any of that interesting? Andy 12:39, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
Just a thought but could this be where the Fourth World bit comes from. The priests of the old gods answer to the dinosaurs/evolution/signs of civilisation predating the supposed first kingdoms is that this is in fact the fourth time the gods have created the world and they did so using bits of the old worlds. So the dinosaurs were actually part of the first world, until it just got blown up and some bits of rock containing fossils got re-used when the gods made this one...--Alex 11:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
- Sure, thats one possibility that makes good sense. A possible back track that could remove the conflict - if thats what we wqnt - is that the new gods are children of the old. I'm pretty neutral on the exact wherefores of all this at the moment, as long as I can slip my new gods into it somewhere! I'm determined to have /God, the lord of the internet who talks to his followers over msn! I'll think some more, then see what I can come up with. Andy 15:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
- I think that a fun conflict could be between the king of the old gods and the president of the new gods who is the god of democracy. And there should be two gods of the internet; one a noble educator who uses the web to bring elightenment to the world and another who is a seedy purveyor of filth...--Alex 17:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. One idea might be that there are four 'generations' of gods (either literal generations or just groups that came into existence at the same time). The first are the real primitive forces, that rarely speak with their followers; an earth mother, a sky father and so on. The second would be a classical pantheon. The third could be a series of monotheistic gods, or a set of gods of steam or something weird, maybe even the Cthulhuesque pantheon of our world. The fourth would be the gods of the modern age. Some priests would say that each was the 'children' of a particular phase of the world, and that the modern gods are the gods of the Fourth World.--Alex 18:04, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I was going to have one god do both aspects of the internet, creating a rather unpredictable god capable of either extreme. Seeing as the internet is the product of logical code that has resulted in a large amount of anarchy, I wanted him to have links to both law and chaos. Not so much in the old "I will keep the balance between them way" but more of "I don't think there is any difference between them" way.
Actually, I could see the first generation as being more Cthulian, seeing as they are the furthest removed from humanity, with the other generations becoming progressivly easy to understand. A god who's sphere of influence is the unimaginable vastness of space would be a little hard to communicate with if you are an infinitesimally small human. Andy 12:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the first would be the Earth and Sky brigade, simply because they are needed to build the planet in the first place. The Cthulhu types are more a second wave, latching on to an existing world. I believe Lovecraft doesn't have them creating the world, just invading in the millenia before humanity. They should be the second generation. The third generation would be a classical pantheon, with the original first generation changing to become more like their 'grandchildren' and acting as a king and queen over them (in a Zeus and Gaea/Odin and Frigga type of way (and yes I know Gaea was Zeus' mother, not his wife, but she was the Greek Mother Earth type)), and with the fourth generation being the gods of the modern age.
Anyone else scared by how easily we latch on to the idea of a Lovecraftian pantheon in our world? Apparently Craig was already planning to introduce a similar theme when I spoke to him recently...--Alex 18:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I doubt anyone will be very surprised that I was thinking of ways to latch Lovecraftian beings onto the setting...
Anyway, as I can agree with both view-points I think a little of column A and a little of column B is in order. The Earth and Sky brigade did indeed build the First World and were the first pantheon that humanoid life had contact with.
All was going fine with this world right up to the point when strange alien gods (which appeared to be far older then the Earth and Sky brigade) turned up and decided to make themselves comfortable. Unfortunately for everyone else the Elder Gods idea of comfort didn't quite match theirs, and life on the First World came to an end.
Ever since then the younger gods have been creating worlds and the elder gods have been moving in...
In this version of events we have the Lovecraftian types as the older pantheon, but the Earth and Sky brigade as the creater types. So which one should be refered to as the "First Pantheon" can remain a matter of debate.
--Craig 19:54, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I kind of like Craig's little story there. A couple of questions that would still need answering though...
- One. Are we going to say that the Lovecraftians literally destroyed the world three times? Or are we going to treat them as a kind of extinction event that wipes out 90% of life, but leaves the physical structure intact to be repopulated by the nicer gods again? I would favour the latter myself. Kind of fits in with an idea I was playing with adding.
- Two. We seem to have moved a little away from some of Andy's initial ideas. By throwing in Lovecraftians and talking about multiple worlds we seem to be devising a cosmology that takes place over millions of years (as it takes that long for life to evolve up again). Perhaps we could say the older gods have always been telling the truth about how long it took them to create the world but couched it in so much metaphor (so the primitive cultures could comprehend it) that some fundamentalists misinterpret it as saying it all took place in a short span of time. (For example, our Sky Father god gives a metaphor about how if he made the world in a single day then intelligent life would only have started around late evening time. Fundamentalist comes along, doesn't see metaphor and says Sky Father made the world in a day, and made intelligent life around 11 o'clock on that day.) The gods only make things worse by giving both moderates and fundamentalists powers; after all, as far as they're concerned they're both loyal servants.
- Three. Are the Lovecraftians common knowledge? Are they considered real or just some crazy fantasy? Are there Special Inquisitions secretly working for the churches, waiting for any sign of their activities? Do heavy metal bands go around wearing Lovecraftian symbols for their shock value?
More ideas when I think of them.--Alex 11:42, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, when I said the alien gods were the first generation, I was thinking that they would represent things that came before the Fourth World. Thats why I gave the example I did. Logically, space has to come before that which fills it, so I was thinking about a god that represent space - as in a huge, perhaps infinite, void. I was thinking we would govern time as well, although that could be someone else. In short, he embodies the unimaginable principal of infinity.
I was thinking of calling them the Demon Gods, a name that arose because people find them frightening. I was also thinking that they weren't hostile towards mortals just largely indifferent, or even unaware. The lord of infinity might have trouble noticing thing that last less than a million years. By his standards, the idea of living creatures is still a bit of a fad!
Another Demon God I was thinking about would rule over fire on the solar scale. It is he that created all the matter and energy in the universe.
I actually like the idea that it was the normal gods who destroyed the world, great flood style. Too imperfect and full of sin perhaps. Better yet, what if it was a counter attack? If new gods can appear, perhaps they can disappear if you destroy what they are associated with. If the lord of the internet lives as only as long as the net exists, than the storm god can kill him by flooding the world. That way he kills a rival - along with the human race, but hey ho, there you go.
Of course a good god might think twice about doing such a thing - but not all gods are good! It would add a certain edge to the campaign if certain factions think that the old gods are going to unleash their rage upon the world again soon.
Anyway, these are all just ideas. We can take them or throw them in the bin as we see fit!
Anyway, regardless of which way we decide to take this, I'd like to see if we can come up with some gods that look realistic. A lot of fantasy worlds have pantheons full of gods that rule over just one aspect, but in real polythesitic religions, this is rarely the case. They all have multiple aspects that all link together, at least in the eyes of their worshipers. Dionysis was associated with grapes, wine, drunkeness and wild behaviour.
So if we were thinking of a sun god, lets call him Aurum (Latin for gold by the way), he might have a list of associations that go like this the sun, which leads to agriculture, agriculture is (or was) the basis for a healthy economy and populance, which leads to an association with gold and with good rulership. So Aurum would rule over the sun, plant crops, wealth and kingship. As such he would be considered to be king of the old gods, and his symbol might appear of coins and gold bullion as proof of purity.
I'm quite fond af Aurum, so I'd like to use him, even if he does conflict with one of my ideas for a solar god. Unless Aurum just rules of the star associated with the Fourth World. Andy 15:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Most pantheons start with two main figures; a male god that rules the sky and a female figure that rules the earth. Aurum seems to fit the Sky Father role, even with the adoption of kingship that many of them take on. Throw in an Earth Mother goddess (Matra? From maternal?) and we have a creative partnership. From the earth we get plants, from plants we get herbivores and from herbivores we get our first hunters who become the first warriors. So earth, plants, hunting and war. Yep, I'm willing to go with this multiple attribute approach. --Alex 16:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I've thought of another twist. When fantasy world designers are creating pantheons they often end up creating loads of gods with similar portfolios but with contrasting alignments. For example, your western lands bump into an Aztec-esque land. Both lands have sun gods, but the benevolent sun god from the west can't be the same god the sun worshipping Aztec-likes are sacraficing babies to, can it?
Well, maybe.
If you take the idea that some of the older, more primal gods are less concerned with how they're worshipped than with the fact they are worshipped then the two sun gods from the example could be the same guy, with the priests being the ones concocting the commandments and coming up with two completely opposed cults. This could be why your god of the internet smiles upon both its benevolent and its ugly sides; it doesn't matter what they download as long as they do download...--Alex 18:40, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
That's an idea. Unfortunartely, our thoughts on this point do seem to have bifuricated quite a lot, as we have about a million ideas and still on resolution on how to proceed.
The idea of some sort of wierd, Cthonians gods seems popular, so we should think about working something like that in some how. Several real world mythologies have the gods beening opposed by someone (Norse springs to mind) and these Cthulians fit the bill. How about saying that they are not really gods - just very powerfull. Most polytheisistic religions don't consider their gods to be omnipotent, so having something that can oppose them isn't so strange.
I still think they should come first - being ancient is one of the requirements for a lovecraftian monster! Perhaps the gods created the world, but the cthonians existed before, living in whatever medium there was.
A second idea might be that the cthonians created worlds 1 - 3, and possibly destroyed them as well.
A third idea, and one I like best, is that the cthonians cannot enter or effect the gods world, unless invited to do so by mortal worshippers. Yes, the Cthonians are there to bring about armagedon, but only when the mortals say so. That makes them dangerous and insiduous - both lesser than the gods (They cannot do whatever they want.) and greater (They can unmake everything.).
As for the idea of new gods, if we go with the cthonians then we don't really "need" there to be any conflict between them and the older gods. Lets just have them as the children of the older gods and on passable terms with them.
Anyway, lets try to reach somesort of resolution. Andy 09:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
OK. History of the World - Take 9...
Gods create sun, worlds, asteroid belts and so on. Decide to kick start life on the fourth world out from the sun. Their aim is to end up with believers whose souls will pass on to their outer plane and become eternal soldiers in their war against the Great Old Ones. A soul is a natural part of evolution and cannot be created in the outer planes, only in the Prime Plane, which is why they have to create the world here. It takes billions of years to get right, but when you are immortal you have the time...
Unfortunately the great amount of interdimensional passage alerts the Great Old Ones to what is happening and they bring about a mass extinction event that kills off vast numbers of reptiles (which was as far as it had got), but which gives other life forms a chance to rise.
The Great Old Ones manage two more mass extinction events (the second one crippling the nascent intelligent dragon civilisation leaving only their savage unintelligent ancestors, and the last one ending the first sentient humanoid civilisations and bringing about the extinction of the dwarves and the elves) before the current civilisation rises.
What do the Great Old Ones do it for? They want to close down the 'soldier farms' of the gods, and do so by destroying and eating the planets. To get there they must manifest on this plane, and to do so they need a massive amount of death at one time. A mass death would send billions of souls travelling from this plane to the next and the Great Old Ones can use this to jump the other way to the Prime Plane. With the gods guarding the inter-planar entrances to the world though, they can only influence it when invited from the world itself. Hence they attract cultists who can breach the walls of the world for them and hear their plans, follow their orders and try to bring about the end of the world.
The gods who created the world are for the most part more concerned with their inter-planar war with the Great Old Ones than with the petty interests of mortals and leave the running of their churches to the priests (which explains why believers in the same god can have such differing opinions on how he should be worshipped). Some of the children of those gods who have taken an interest in the mortals are more concerned with them, but have less influence in how the gods behave. There is a generational conflict between old and new gods but it is more concerned with how they use mortals, than whether the other should exist or not. And for both generations the war against the Great Old Ones is key, and therefore both generations do what they can to gain followers.
How do people feel about that?--Alex 11:34, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
One point about this set up is that it does make the gods and cthonians seem rather similar. It would give a rather dark feel to the game, knowing that both sides are going to manipulate and control you unto death and beyond.
How about giving the cthonians there own worlds/planes and their own followers as well? Well, if the gods have there own little soldier factories, why not the great tenticled ones as well? In What about other planes? Sandy said he liked the idea of some country being at war with Hell. Just replace Hell with cthuluville and suddenly it fits in with what we have been talking about here. Andy 15:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I was trying to write this from an omniscient third person perspective. According to the faithful on the Fourth World the gods would be seen as benevolent, as a force that provides healing, created this world for them to live in, and they would blame all that is ill with the world on the devilish forces that oppose the gods. In fact they view them much in the same way that they do on any other fantasy world. Only those who have adopted an attitude of 'well I believe in the gods, but I'm not going to worship them' will have anything like the cynical attitude I hinted at above. In fact most of the faithful see their afterlife in the way the Vikings viewed Valhalla. After death we fight, then feast, then fight again, for all eternity.
But as for a hellish planet, with a blood red sun, crumbling city-states in constant warfare, fighting both to honour their particular Old One and to prevent him bringing his wrath down on their lands, where life is plentiful, cheap and barbaric... Yes, I think that sounds like fun.--Alex 16:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Ahem, I mean that sounds like fun as an idea for a game. Not that I would find it fun to live there...--Alex 16:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
That all sounds pretty good, but I've just thought of something else I'm afraid - Reserection. It's a pretty standard part of D&D, but the only source of it is divine magic, and as far as I can see there is no reason that the gods would be keen on it. Besides from the fact that it steels abother soul warrior from their war, it also potentially bad public relations. Although a soul may show up in the after life ready and willing to do their bit, but sooner or later the smarter ones are going to realise that they are being used. And if one of them gets back to the living world to spread the word...
Of course, they may only allow happy souls back to say nice things, but it would just be a lot simpler and more profitable to let none of them back. All mortals die sooner or later, so why worry about it?
This may also relate back to Geoffs idea for undead as a major race that he put up on Which races. What if these undead have crossed over, seen the truth, and escaped? The gods may look at them as a threat... or they may not, depending upon whether or not a soul has any choice about serving them. If they don't, then they wont give a f*** about what the mortals think, as long as they keep breeding and dying. However, if there is some element of choice in all this, then the mortal belive becomes important. This option would seem to suit our needs more.
As a side point, how do druids fit into this, seeing as they generally worship nature itself rather than a specific god. I can see a few options.
- First off, they don't fit. We simply drop them from the game world completely. Perhaps the gods destroyed them as potential rivals for the mortal flock.
- They get their powers from the gods, the same as clerics, they just don't know it. It this case, they souls of dead druids get caught up in the same vicious game as all the rest.
- Actually, despite what they say, the gods didn't create the world, they just moved in later to make us of its inhabitants against the cthulians. 'The nature force' worshiped by druids created everything. It's powerful, not sentient in the same way as the gods.
I like the last idea best. Druids are unlikely to be a popular faith, more of a fringe group who know a little more about the truth than the other mortals. However, even they don't really understand why the undead support them.
Actually, your vision of the other world/planet is a little different from mine. I wasn't thinking of something that civilised. Seeing as they serve some great, inhuman entity, I was thinking the inhabitants wouold be rather alien as well. More like something you might wind up fighting in Doom, or Resident Evil. Lots of big claws, a tendancy towards tenticles and extremely ugly, but unlikely to build cities! Something like that would serve their masters on amore instinctive level.
Anyway, what do people think? Andy 18:26, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, the undead here to save all of humanity from the evil uncaring parasitic gods. That's a new twist on the priest hood, but I have had my suspision all along. I would have to rethink my concept a bit, but I could work on it.--Geoff 16:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok, to expand upon what I said a little more...
The druids nature force, the God Head, created the universe as a self contained article. There is no afterlife, but rather a life-death-rebirth cycle around which the souls of the living move, immortal even if their biological forms aren't.
Then the gods come along. Perhaps they came from outside, or maybe the God Head created them too at some point. Either way, it occures to them that they could become more powerful by breaking the cycle and stealing souls from the loop. They assume roles within the pantheon and persuade people to worship them. When a soul arrives in the afterlife it is absorbed/utilised by the god.
In the long term, this processes is deprimental to the universe, slowly draiing its ability to sustain life. Like any living creature under attack, the God Head reacts, creating the cthulians, almost like an immune response.
I like this idea because its a bit of a switch hitter. The gods who look all holier than thou are just a bunch of thieves, and the evil, demonic seeming cthulians are actually here to save the universe.
That doesn't nesseserily make them nice. Mother nature might have created flowers and bunny rabbits, but she also invented maggots and parasitic castration. They do their job with a terrible lack of mercy. If destroying all life on the Fourth World stems the infection, then so be it. Andy 12:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Hmm.
We seem to be veering wildly away from what I had imagined. I had the gods down as a good thing. Not concerned with mortal affairs, but a necessary counter to the Cthulhuians. Kind of they are so far above the mortals that the majority of them can only relate to mortals on a species level. The Cthulhuians on the other hand are unrepentant evil and are not anyone's kind of heroes, not even anti-heroes. My view of them was...
- The gods want humanity (and hobgoblinity and golemity, etc...) to survive. They have little concern with individual beings.
- The Cthulhuians want to destroy humanity (and hobgoblinity, etc...) and eat their souls. They are concerned with those few who would worship them, in an attempt to dupe them with power so they can open up the way for the Cthulhuians to drop by for a visit and an afternon apocalypse.
As you can see, these are completely antagonistic views.
(If you can track down the JLA: Rock of Ages comics collection there's a bit in there which kinda relates to this. There's a sequence where some of the superheroes who have godlike powers when compared to normal humans get dragged to a place where ultra-powered beings are garrisoned on a fortress planet to hold back armageddon-type war machines. The super heroes realise that no matter how powerful they seem to normal people this battle is being fought on a scale they just can't comprehend and they just have to get back down to a level they can cope with. The gods/old ones war would be that kind of 'beyond our ken' conflict.)
In this kind of set up you have -
- The Faithful - siding with the gods against the darkness.
- The Pariahs - siding with the great old ones in exchange for power and a promise not to have their soul eaten.
- The Undecided - who just aren't faithful enough in this life to join the gods and so are reincarnated to have another go.
- The Undead - siding with no one, they would be individualists who refuse to take sides and return to the planet to take up a new un-life.
Which leaves us with druids. My idea would be to break the religion link with druids. I would have them be a natural mutation on the Fourth World, unconected with any god. They are just people who for some reason can tap ito the planet's morphogenetic field and connet to every other kind of creature or plant in the biosphere. In ancient times the first few people to manifest these abilities thought they were some kind of gift from the gods and started their own kind of nature religion. But over the last few hundred years more and more people have manifested such powers wihout being part of the cult and even in some cases being opposed to it. So the modern druid could be either a member of the druidic 'faith' or just a person who cares about nature and suddenly finds that nature cares back. They would either join the Faithful or the Undecided as described above.
I also think we need to start bolting this subject down. To be honest, a lot of this stuff just isn't going to be relevant to the kind of adventures I'd want to run in this world and I'd prefer to move on to the history and politics stuff which would.--Alex 15:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah yes, one other idea. I think that the number of gods who can relate to the mortals are those who have 'adapted' with them, and who are patrons of some part of the modern world, even if they started out as gods of something else. So in other words, we only have to bother with gods who are 'modern' gods. I'll set up a page to deal with this a bit more.--Alex 15:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Having druids as a genetic trait does tie in with having arcane magic as genetic as well, but I'd rather not have both arcane and divine magic as inherited traits. True, its only one type of divine magic, but I'd rather have all types potentially available to everyone. It helps to distinguish it from the arcane variety. Besides, the druid class has a number of strictures associated with it that are because of their believes. If its just a genetic trait why do these exist? Sure, some people might still believe in them, but there is just as many that want. If a rat can live in a metal sewer pipe, then why should all druids be uncomfortable with steel and concrete?
An easier answer might be to make druids more sharmanic and say they worship a whole host of lesser spirits, demigods and other entities which collectively grant them their powers. These smaller entities aren't invovled in any great cosmic battle for the most part, and so neither are the druids.
Goeff verbally expressed a desire for the gods to be good, so that's the way we will go. We just need to find a way to make them look less like a bunch of heartless parasites.
We could resolve the reserection issue and give the gods a bit of pr by saying that they allow, even facilitiate, reserection despite the fact that it doesn't do them any good because they respect the mortals free will.
If the mortals are given a choice, then this effects any afterlife myths. Most real myths involve some sort of divine judgement followed by reward or punishment. How about if in this world that isn't the case. Instead they get to make a choice. Help to fight the cthulians or not. Those who say yes joins the gods armies. Those who don't... perhaps they go somewhere else, a sort of purgatory. It would be run by the spirits without any aid or interference from the gods.
In this senario the gods need their clerics to persuade people to do the right thing when the time comes. It gives a slight twist to normal ideas about morality, seeing as there is no divine judgement involved. A murderer can still join the gods, as long as they make the selfless choice at the end. It would be a rather old stly view of things - cowardice is a worse crime then homocide.
That is the sort of view that has been held for centuries, but doesn't gell well with more modern views on morality. Today, many people look more kindly upon pacificism - but that doesn't help the gods. Of course, the good ones may respect that choice, even if the others are a bit more scathing. Andy 11:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. I think it was my use of the word mutation at one point which probably threw you. I wasn't intending to say that druids were genetically different. Just that there would be a weird field, connecting all living things on the planet, and that it sometimes connects to those who have strong feelings about the natural world. To give an example, if such an effect were to exist in our world then some of those weirdoes who call themselves druids would probably be tapped by that power, but so would David Attenborough and Jacques Cousteau. The religious and the environmentalists, just as I was saying would be the case on the Fourth World.
The divine choice idea sounds good though. I'm happy enough with the basics, though I'd prefer those who choose not to join as having their souls wiped clean, and then reincarnated into new bodies to have another go. That would probably suit the gods better, rather than 'wasting' souls. That would explain the popularity of the undead idea that Geoff has been writing about. Those people who don't wish to lose their memories can retain them after death by joining the undead, though the priests would hate it as a cowardly deriliction of duty...
Of course I'm sure that the gods could find something for less violently inclined people to do as well...
"Hello, I'm from Valhalla, catering division. You don't want to know how long it takes to prepare the food for ten thousand hungry vikings..."--Alex 11:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd rather souls were not reincarnateed. If the gods are really a good thing, they have to show some respect for the mortal's decision. Otherwise what they are saying is "Serve me now, or have your personality erases and end up serving me later anyway." While that is a choice, it not a meaningful one. Basically, they are still enslaving people, they are just being more subtle about it so that they get the best sort of slave - namely one who doesn't know they are a slave.
Being prepared to do things that aren't in your own best interests is part of the nature of goodness, so I'd rather the gods let the spirits of the unwilling go, even if that does mean 'wasting' a soul.
AS for the druids, I still like my idea of them serving a near mindless godhead that created the universe and perhaps the gods/cuthulians. Its not that disimilar to your weird field, its just rather than being created by the plants and animals, it created them. Either way, it doesn't really mater that much. Andy 15:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Of course in both cases we could have both options. In the case of reincarnation that could be an allowed option, but only if the soul chooses it. Going to purgatory is an option, but only if they choose it. An absolute oblivion and non-existance should be an option, if the person so desires. And serving either the gods or cthulians in their great war is an option, if the person chooses it. The afterlife could be full of options.
In terms of druids, I like the idea that the religious druids believe your version, with a universal godhead (and which makes them unbearably smug around priests). While the non-religious druids believe it to be a creation of the biosphere as in my version. Neither side can agree, but both are able to achieve the same effects. The religious druids say the non-religious are part of their order, even if they won't admit it. The non-religious say the religious group are making things up about a perfectly natural phenomena. The gods and the godhead (if it exists) are saying nothing.--Alex 17:18, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
That will do. Andy 16:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I got a bit of an idea for a creation story for our world. ok 1st there were only the vast cthulians waring amungst them selves in a vast void that they could bend and shape as there will dectated. this state of afairs had always been until one day a servant of the cthulians managed to slip the bonds of it masters and stowl there power of creation. This as you can imagin pissed the cthulians off. So to protect its self it wraped its self in its stolen power creating a planit populated with many forms of life. The cthulians still very pist at this up start tried to distroy this up start 3 times they attact this god word scaring it of all life yet still the god planit would not die after the 3rd attack not only did give birth to life upon it serfice it also shaped it own mind into many god to care and protect it from the cthulians.
O.k. so we are now in the 4th age hence 4th world. and the god planit is the near mind les but potent power that druid chanel. will the other god where born of the god mind to protect life and fight against the cthulians--Geoff 00:20, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes something along this may work out. By the way, we need a proper name for these cuthulians/great old ones. I suggest we avoid anything too explicitly Lovecraftian. I refered to them as Demon Gods before, and I quite like the name. Andy 09:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
