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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:37 am 
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Lorebane wrote:
One of the gods of the Elorri goes missing, and the other is blamed (it didn't seem like she had been harmed at all when she was eventually found), and then they couldn't beat him in their war of aggression, so they ate the gods of their new allies and then told the people who had been helping them in this war to gtfo, because they were going to give their capitol city to their own followers.


Replace Elorii with Pantheon of Man (it was a human goddess). To piece this story together properly will take a while, as there are several different versions spread across several books... and one important paragraph hidden in the Blessed Lands book.

The short summary of the war in heaven is:
1. The "Other" preached to the Pantheon of Man.
2. The 'gentlest goddess' listened and was eaten/absorbed/went missing.
3. Illiir was convinced that the Pantheon wasn't strong enough to defeat the Other and another god convinced him to have the Elemental Lords absorbed. Speculation is that this was Belisarda in disguise pursuing her own agenda (note that the Elemental Lords were not 'deities' as such).
4. After a period of time, a female goddess arrives and convinces Illiir that he is their long-lost sister (which was supposedly forgotten) and has been revealed as Yig in disguise...
5. A more recent speculation is that Belisarda is also Yig in disguise... (liable to get you burned as a heretic by the Elorii).
6. There have been some book and in-game adventure references that Onara may be stuck in a time loop, as the Pantheon with human followers arrived through a Portal in the distant past and the Pantheon with human follows leave through a Portal in the distant future. Yig's holy symbol is the endless serpent swallowing itself...

Note also that there are some direct contradictions, depending upon the source of information used (and this is deliberate from Henry).

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:46 am 

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Hadn't Belisarda become pretty soundly an Elorri deity by that point? I know she wasn't one of the Elemental Lords, but didn't they worship her alongside them? This is also the first I've heard of a theory that it was Belisarda suggesting the gods eat the elemental lords - I've always read that it was Anshar's idea.

My understanding had also been that the consumption of the "forgotten, gentlest member of the pantheon" was fairly apocryphal. I figured maybe the Pantheon of Man added that bit in to further justify their pursuit of the Other.


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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 8:51 am 
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Lorebane wrote:
My understanding had also been that the consumption of the "forgotten, gentlest member of the pantheon" was fairly apocryphal. I figured maybe the Pantheon of Man added that bit in to further justify their pursuit of the Other.


8-) Lots of reading, you have, padawan.

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 9:24 am 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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Location: Michigan
Lorebane wrote:
Hadn't Belisarda become pretty soundly an Elorri deity by that point? I know she wasn't one of the Elemental Lords, but didn't they worship her alongside them? This is also the first I've heard of a theory that it was Belisarda suggesting the gods eat the elemental lords - I've always read that it was Anshar's idea.

My understanding had also been that the consumption of the "forgotten, gentlest member of the pantheon" was fairly apocryphal. I figured maybe the Pantheon of Man added that bit in to further justify their pursuit of the Other.


You will find that many people come and post their thoughts, not necessarily facts. I'm not sure why some people might thing there is time in between the betrayal of the elemental lords and the arrival of Yig/Anshar, but some people question Belisarda because she went from being one of 5 Elorii Gods to the ONLY Elorii god. That's a win for her, right?

There is a lot of thinking about many of the human gods being gods of other beings as well. So many people see Belisdarda or Kassegore in any hint in the PoM.

The consumption of the gentlest does appear to have happened, from different sources, but real details are still very rare, so it is healthy to be skeptical. Keep in mind, Belisarda hasn't really been seen since her time with "The Other," so her status is a little questionable. Maybe she was consumed and "The Other" is just pretending she is still around...

As for the Gods being dicks - yes, yes they can be. Remember, the gods aren't good or evil in Arcanis, though the aspects of the gods that certain people might worship can be. But what does appear to be true is that the Gods have a purpose or a plan, and they will do whatever they feel they need to do to accomplish it. It makes understanding how one is judged by the gods almost impossible since the gods don't appear to care about good or evil. It appears they care about how well you support their plan, but since we don't know their plan, its a bit like trying to be the fastest runner in a dark room full of walls...

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 9:44 am 
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To echo too toodeeps thoughts, remember all is not as it seems in Arcanis, and everything is a moral grey area. What we know of the world has been manipulated by those who have written the histories, so all we have is bias and misdirection.

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 10:55 am 

Joined: Fri Sep 27, 2013 11:41 am
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Lorebane wrote:
To me it smacks heavily of revisionist history written by the victors, and I catch shades of this in the Codex Arcanis's section on the Coryani Empire. I'm not saying that the Sorcerer-King sounds like a nice guy, but he did have an agreement with the Coryani that the Imperial family seemed happy to abide by, but when a harvester asked for the royal children (in accordance with their agreement), the Empresses decided the best thing to do would be to kill what was essentially an Ymadnragore diplomat and then was like "Yo, people of the empire, I know I've been letting these guys take your children from you, but I don't want to give them mine, so I need you to fight a war against them now."

I'm sure that this is not remotely close to what the creators had planned, but hey, it's going to be a home game, so I had been thinking about doing something where the party discovers that the Other was the first human or something like that, and that the gods are simply powerful beings, akin to the Elemental Lords, and that rather than some sort of cosmic imperative to honor the gods, it was always just a "because we're the toughest and we say so" arrangement. The Other, being the first to realize this, learned to siphon small portions of their divine power to become immortal, with the intent on sharing this power with the rest of humankind so their destiny could be more self-determined. Thoughts?


The first rule of Arcanis history: you know nothing of Arcanis history. When you find out a nearly tangible fact about Arcanis history...you are wrong. You are absolutely correct about the revisionist history. But it is revisionist history based on revisionist history that was drawn from word-of-mouth sources and myths/legends. To me, that is one of the great parts about Arcanis. It is so steeped in various lore/perspectives that the good guy/bad guy right /wrong issues get very convoluted and muddled along the way.

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 11:37 am 

Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:46 pm
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Lorebane wrote:
Thank you so much! You guys have been incredibly helpful. I'm pouring over the Blessed Lands book now, and will probably try to run a campaign there - this is easily one of the coolest campaigns I've ever come across. I kind of wish there was a living campaign group here in Tianjin, because I'm getting oodles of character ideas as I read through this stuff, and even though it was just the one, that BI I played in was ludicrously awesome.


While there may not be a group in Tianjin with you, there is a section of the forums for LA Campaigns: Online Play. While most of the players I'm familiar with are in time zones across the U.S., there are players in Australia that are much closer to your timezone and may be able to help arrange a game.

As another alternative, there is regular play by post of the mods on Myth Weavers. Mods take roughly 3 months to get through and there's usually only 1 or 2 running at a time. Depending on interest and willingness to get another game going, you could go that route as well.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul


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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:48 pm 

Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 4:12 pm
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toodeep wrote:
The consumption of the gentlest does appear to have happened, from different sources, but real details are still very rare, so it is healthy to be skeptical. Keep in mind, Belisarda hasn't really been seen since her time with "The Other," so her status is a little questionable. Maybe she was consumed and "The Other" is just pretending she is still around...


I think it's clear she is still alive but she may be a captive or something. To me, the key is that her divine casters can still use cants whereas the elemental lords divine casters stopped being able to use cants when they were eaten.

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 12:52 pm 
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In D&D this logic works, but not in ARG. A can't does not require the existence of a God, just faith in them to cast.

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 Post subject: Re: Can you help me understand the setting better?
PostPosted: Wed Jun 22, 2016 1:04 pm 

Joined: Thu Nov 07, 2013 9:37 pm
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Location: Michigan
Nierite wrote:
In D&D this logic works, but not in ARG. A can't does not require the existence of a God, just faith in them to cast.


Than what did the elorii lose in relation to their elemental gods when they were consumed? Did they never grant spells? They clearly are said to have formerly had priests, and stopped after they were consumed. Won't there still be priests if they could still get spells?

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