Talk:The Fourth World Theology Page
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Here is a list of some of my ideas for gods of the Fourth World. As I said on the Religion Discussion page I think the only gods who would have serious worshippers would be those who had managed to retain a little sense of what mortal life was like, and had therefore adapted their portfoli to include modern aspects of life. It ties in with Andy's idea to have gods with more than one area of interest and a platform with a slightly broader base than in some other worlds.
I haven't come up with names for any of these yet, just an idea of some of their titles and interests throughout the ages.
- The Spider, trickster god, prince of stories, wise fool, travelling god, lord of languages, god of the internet (or the Divine Web as it is sometimes known)
(An Anansi type figure, both intelligent and foolish, dignified and scatalogical, cheerful and with a will of iron behind the happy facade.)
- The Hawk, the flying god, lord of the hunt, patron of pilots, explorers and warriors
(A warlike god who is the patron of fighter pilots, but also watches over astronauts and planar explorers who travel out in peace.)
- Lord of Death, guardian of the portal to the realm beyond, swift passing, healing hand, god of healers, patron of hospitals
(I like the idea of a god who watches over both life and death, whose priests often have to make the decision as to whether the badly injured can be saved or whether a swift end is more of a blessing.)
- Patron of Artists, dancing god, creation's hand, prince of destruction, lord of war, sword god, king of the atomic flame
(Dipping into Hindu ideas about creation being intrinsically tied to destruction, I like the idea of a god who links positive aspects like dancing and art with terifying ones like atomic weaponry.)
- God of Music, the soul's rhythm, patron of philosphers, seeker of truth, expanding mind, god of mind-expanding drugs
(John Lennon deified. 'Nuff said, and I defy anyone to want him removed...)
Seeing as these are still just ideas, I've moved them to the talk page.
I'm not really opposed to any of these ideas in general. Your spider tends to step on the ground of the internet god I was thinking of, but its not a huge issue. I'm even prepared to put up with your god of hippy crack heads, as long as the references to john lennon aren't too obvious! Andy 10:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Well I put the spider in as we had always talked about an internet god but not really defined him. I like trickster gods and felt what you had described (with a free-wheeling attitude to what he allows on the internet) would suit a trickster and the spider/world-wide web connection seemed to much fun to ignore so I thought mixing the two ideas together would work.
Oh and the music god would be a god of tuning out in exotic mountain monastery retreats, not a god of burnt-out crack houses. A very Buddhist peacefulness type of god. Peace out man!--Alex 11:00, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I do quite like the idea of him as a spider - and definitly a "him" too, there are way too many female spider gods already.
I had more thought of him as a god which stretched across both law and chaos. Enshrined within the internet which is defined by immutable computer code but produces anarchy. I was also thinking of giving him several names, including /God (or .God perhaps.) and the Fractal Dude (Refering to the mathematical study of chaos patterns and shapes that have none-whole number of dimensions).
This duality of opposed aspects is similar to your creation/destruction god. However, rather than striving to "maintain the balance", the Fractal Dude states that law and chaos are each products of the other, so the balance cannot be brocken anyway. Andy 15:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually there's a lot of duality in my gods. Death and life. Peaceful exploration and war. Creation and destruction. But in most cases I kinda see them as necessarily related. Only by willing to die can you truly appreciate life. Only by destroying what is already there can you clear the way for creating something new. There may be more of this as I come up with more ideas.--Alex 17:28, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
