Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tom_kalbfus Jun 26, 2008 15:02:12	If anyone wants to contribute to this work, I'd appreciate the help. This is an alternate history Earth with Magic and Monsters set in the present time, I am employing our calendar set in the present year 2008 AD, although this calendar does not apply since this history diverges from our own in the year 323 BC with the Alexandrian Empire taking the place of the Romans as the great civilization leading to the Dark Ages in Europe. The Alexandrian Empire lasted 600 years from 323 BC to about 300 AD with a catastrophic decline and an age of exploration beginning in what we would call 1900 AD. There is no Christianity, Judiasm, or Islam in this world, instead we have the Legend And Lore faiths outlined in the first edition AD&D work of that name. Here is the outline, for all those who wish to contribute, you can fill in your ideas in the appropriate places. Arcane Earth - D&D 4E Setting Introduction: This is a D&D setting which employs all the deities from the Legends and Lore book. I'm using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Legends and Lore book as my source so the list of major deities are these: I. Gods and Goddesses American Indian Mythos: Raven, Coyote, Hastseltsi, Hastsezini, Heng, Hotoru, Shakak, Snake-Man, Tobadzistsini Babylonian Mythos: Anu, Anshar, Dahak, Druaga, Girru, Ishtar, Marduk, Nergal, Ramman, Celtic Mythos: Dagda, Arawn, Brigit, Diancecht, Dunatis, Goibhnie, Lugh, Manannan Mac Lir, Morrigan, Nuada, Oghma, Silvanus Central American Mythos: Quetzalcoatl, Camaxtu, Camazotz, Chalchiuhtlicue, Huhueteotl, Huitzilopochtli, Itzamna, Mictlantecuhtli, Tezcatlipoca, Tlaloc, Tlazolteotl, Xochipilli Chinese Mythos: Shang-Ti, Chao Kung Ming, Chih-Chiang Fyu-Ya, Chih Sung-Tzu, Chung Kuel, Fei Lien & Feng Po, Huan-Ti, Kuan Yin, Lei Kung, Lu Yueh, Ma Yuan, No Cha, Shan Hai Ching, Tou Mu, Wen Chung, Yen-Wang-Yeh Egyptian Mythos: Ra, Anhur, Anubis, Apep, Apshai, Bast, Bes, Geb, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, Osiris, Ptah, Seker, Set, Shu, Tefnut, Thoth Finnish Mythos: Ahto, Hsisi, Ilmatar, Kiputytto, Loviatar, Mielikki, Surma, Tuonetar Tuoni, Ukko, Untamo Greek Mythos: Gaia, Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Atlas, Cerberus, Coeus, Crus, Demeter, Dionysus, Epimetheus, Hades, Hecate, Hephaestus, Hera, Heracles, Hermes, Kronos, Nike, Oceanus, Pan, Poseidon, Prometheus, Tyche Indian Mythos: Indra, Agni, Kali, Kartitkeya, Lakshmi Marut, Ratri, Rudra, Surya, Tvashtri, Ushas, Varuna, Vishnu, Goruda, Yama Japanese Mythos: Amaterasu Omikami, Ama-Tsu-Mara, Ebisu, Hachiman, Kishjoten, Oh-kuni-nushi, Raiden, Susanowo, Tsukiyomi Norse Mythos: Odin, Aegir, Balder, Bragi, Forseti, Frey, Freya, Frigga, Garm, Heidall, Hel, Idun, Loki, Magni, Modi, Norns, Sif, Surtur, Thor, Thrym, Tyr, Uller, Vidar Sumerian Mythos: Enlil, Enki, Inanna, Ki, Nanna-sin, Nin-hursag, Utu II. Areas of the World in need of detail - A. Europe ---- 1. Scandinavia ---- 2. Western Europe ---- 3. Southern Europe ---- 4. Eastern Europe - B. Asia ---- 1. Siberia ---- 2. Central Asia ------- a. Near East ------- b. Asia Minor ---- 3. India ---- 4. East Asia - C. Africa ---- 1. North Africa (Sahara) ---- 2. Sub-Saharan Africa - D. North America ---- 1. Eastern North America ---- 2. Southern North America ---- 3. Midwestern North America ---- 4. South West (Sonoran Desert) ---- 5. Western North America (Pacific Coast, Rocky Mountains) - E. Central America ---- 1. Mexico ---- 2. Southern Central America - F. South America ---- 1. Amazon Rainforest and river basin ---- 2. Andean range and Pacific Coast ---- 3. Southern *****ula - G. Australia ---- 1. Great Barrier Reef ---- 2. Coastal lands ---- 3. Interior - H. Antartica - I. Atlantic Ocean ---- 1. Iceland ---- 2. Greenland ---- 3. Carribean - J. Pacific Ocean ---- 1. Hawaiian Islands ---- 2. South Pacific Island Chains - K. Indian Ocean ---- 1. Madagascar ---- 2. Other Islands ---- 3. Indonesia - L. Arctic Ocean - M. Antarctic Sea
#2 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jun 26, 2008 16:12:16	You should not ignore those ancient monotheistic religions which existed at your point of divergence: Judaism (in Judea), Zoroastrianism (in Persia), Buddhism (in northern India & Nepal).
#3 strayth Jun 26, 2008 16:38:44	Also Zoroastrianism relates to Christianity (and proto-) somewhere along the line so make sure to keep them separate or intentionally merged.
#4 pigknight Jun 26, 2008 17:04:45	No Tiamat? I though Tiamat was an important diety.
#5 tom_kalbfus Jun 27, 2008 11:04:41	You should not ignore those ancient monotheistic religions which existed at your point of divergence: Judaism (in Judea), Zoroastrianism (in Persia), Buddhism (in northern India & Nepal). Perhaps Judaism and Zoroastrianism exist, real religions always muddy the waters, so my rationalization is this. The pagan dieties you see on the list were created by magic directed by people's beliefs and superstitions over time, around the year 323 BC there was a sudden and mysterious influx of magic into the world for some reason that no one can currently account. It was this influx of magic that caused this world's history, otherwise identical to our own before 323 BC, to bring the Gods into being. My definition of "gods" for the purpose of this setting is somewhat different from the modern definition of what a god is supposed to be. The gods in this world are powerful beings of limited but not cosmological or infinite scope. In other words the believers with the influx of magic created these "gods" which they in turn believed created the world. These beliefs had a subtle and gradual effect on the shaping and the manifestation of this magic influx. Over the course of 100 years various beings woke up with powers and the belief that they were these deities that the believers who created them imagined them to be. These gods have false memories of creating the world according to their mythologies, they are more powerful than ordinary mortals, they are magical creatures although some of them resemble humans in physical form, but they are limited in the scope of their powers because the believer's beliefs and their ability to shape the magical influx was also limited in scope. Certain deities, such as Athena due to her wisdom portfolio realize that they are not in fact the genuine article, others such as Ares and Aphrodite firmly believe what those who created them believe about them. Athena, because her worshippers created her that way, is very curious about the true origin of the world, and has been investigating the sudden magical influx and her own and the gods origins without coming to any firm conclusions beyond the fact that human beliefs and the magical influx created the gods and not the other way around. Most of the other gods dismiss her conclusions, but she is firm in them after having arrived at them through rigorous logical deductions and investigations. The most powerful Pantheon is the Greek Pantheon due to the widespread influence of the Alexandrian Empire, they conquered most of the known world (Europe, Asia, and Africa) and spread the greek pantheon and much of the belief system to all these areas, but people continued to believe in their old religions as well so gods of other pantheons have a more local and limited scope. During the 1700 years of dark ages, the gods were fairly busy created monsters and other races besides humans. (Humans having evolved naturally from apes from defore the historical divergence and magical influx) Thus records of the Alexandrian Empire indicate the existance of magic but no monsters, the monsters came after the fall of the Empire. Humans, contrary to most fantasy conventions are therefore the "elder race" in this world. Elves have long lives for example, and during the 1700 years of dark ages, they had plenty of time to live them, they set up their own kingdoms in the wake of the Alexandrian Empire's decline. One prolific creator of races and monsters is the Earth goddess Gaea, her powers are global in scope as her power center is the Earth itself. In her wanderings, she discovered the fossils of dinosaurs and verious extinct animals in the rock strata and was thus inspired to create a "Lost World" in South America, there is a wall in what is Panama in our world, to keep these creatures from migrating North, a native American civilization maintains the wall and makes sacrifices to the various creatures that live beyond it accordingly. Some gods have multiple identities, and example would be Aphrodite, she is also know by various cultures under different names: Arthurian: Lady of the Lake, Babylonian: Ishtar (Love and War), Egyptian: Isis (Fertility and Magic), Finnish: Ilmatar (goddess of mothers), Norse: Freya (goddess of love and fertility), Sumerian: Inanna (war goddess/goddess of love). An aspect of the Arthurian legend is created here on the British Islands, the usual characters King Arthur, Sir Galahad, Merlin, and Sir Launcelot are created here and currently exist - they are a more recent creation, their history follows a similar path to the Knight of the round Table, but the culture is not Christian, it is more naturalistic. One of the entities, known as the Lady of the Lake is actually an avatar of Aphrodite, although none of the locals knows this, she has a crush of King Arthur and has accordingly arranged things between her son Launcelot du Lake (her son) and Gweneviere (Arthur's wife). Launcelot is a character similar in concept to Hercules in that he is half human/half god but a mortal nevertheless, his father was a lover in one of Aphrodite's previous trysts with mortals. Ares of course gets quite jealous as Aphrodite's nominal "boyfriend", so Aphrodite does her best to keep these affairs with mortals a secret. The "Lady of the Lake" is just another one of her many disguises. Ares is himself non-aligned, he just loves warfare, likes causing it, but doesn't really care who wins, if one side makes a favorable offering to him before battle, he may favor that side. Ares is basically an amoral inward looking deity, whose effect and portfolio simply happens to be destructive to human lives, but he has no evil agenda other than causing wars - primarily for his own entertainment - as his believers have so created him that way. A truly evil one is Lucifer - formerly a deity known as the "lightbringer", he once was (according to the mythology) the god of the morning star that presaged the dawn, he later supported a rebellion against the gods and sided with the Titans, and was cast down from heaven into this world's version of the Nine Hells and is henceforth the "Lord of the Devils", his purpose is imical to most humans, he feels humans have had their "day in the sun", and that its time for a change, and so he plots to bring them down. Aphrodite as assumed Lucifer's former portfolio, and she occupies the planet Venus besides, as such Lucifer really hates the goddess Aphrodite for ursurping his realm in the sky. (The planet Venus is by the way a cloud covered planet of tropical rainforests, swamps and dinosaurs - she didn't like the hellish way Lucifer kept the place and so has changed it accordingly - taking a page from Gaia's play book.) Various portals (including one in the center of Stonehenge) will take mortals to the place where a similar circle of stones exists to take one back. Ares has his own realm on Mars, and according to his nature it is a very warlike place, just the way he likes it. Getting back to the subject of monotheistic religions, the beliefs of those followers tries to direct the magic to create a cosmological all powerful being, yet they lack the infinite power to do this and their energies are diffused outwards towards the whole universe and therefore has no apparent effect. The pagan dieties are limited in scope and so beliefs and magical energies are focused into discrete beings, that are powerful but nevertheless limited in scope.
#6 tom_kalbfus Jun 27, 2008 11:20:37	No Tiamat? I though Tiamat was an important diety. Io has not yet been split in this world. Dragons vary in their outlook: metallics are more thoughtful and have a greater empathy for what they consider to be lesser beings than themselves and are thus thought of by most beings as good. Chromatic Dragons have a less-developed sense of empathy, they view humans or other creatures as potential sources of food or at best slaves or pets, thus most view the Chromatic Dragons as "evil" but it is more accurate to call them greedy, self-centered, and at times hungry. There is no divine agenda, Io is the proud creator of dragons and considers them all to be her children, but is otherwise non-aligned. Metallics simply have a more advanced moral compass, and tend to view humans and other races more are beings like themselves and tend to have more empathy for them, not as equals of course, but they are less likely to eat them than chromatics. Metallics usually restrict themselves to hunting "dumb animals" for food.
#7 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jun 27, 2008 15:13:26	Two things: 1. Tiamat (also called Ghanna or Omoroca) is an ancient babylonian Goddess and not the evil part of an dragon god. If you really want use Earth and its cultures and religions, you should use them correctly. 2. Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism are old religions. Judaism was founded around 1100 BC and became a monotheistic religion during the babylonian exile (598-515), but Judaism was a religion which was only open to Israelites. Zoroastrianism was founded somewhen between 1800 and 600 BC and was the major religion in ancient Persia. Many of its ideas influenced the development of Judaism. But Zoroastrianism was not always monotheistic. Buddhism was founded in 528 BC (or 378 BC as modern historian believe) in northern India and became very soon a very powerfull religion in eastern Asia. You see that those three religions existed before the year 323 BC and that two of them were very dominant at that time, but none of them replaced the older polytheistic religions (Babylonian Polytheism, Hinduism).
#8 pigknight Jun 28, 2008 19:11:06	^ What he said.
#9 julescarv Jun 28, 2008 20:22:32	My thought is that maybe the decline of the Macedonian Empire could be linked to the rise of magic. The introduction of magic into the world would have a catastrophic impact on civilization. An unprepared society could be devestated by warlocks, monsters, etc. An idea: since the Macedonian Empire stuck together after Alexander's death and wasn't fragmented into the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, etc, satrapies, maybe it was strong enough to conquer the Mauryan Empire. With the Mauryan Empire gone before Ashoka's reign, Ashoka the Great never founded the society of the Nine Unknown Men. In our world, an occultist somewhere -- uh, say, Zosimos of Panopolis -- came close to releasing the forces of magic into the world, but fortunately operatives of the Nine Unknown Men were able to stop him. In this alternative world, there are no Nine Unknown Men, so the occultist releases forces far beyond his control, making the dreams and nightmares of humanity a reality.
#10 tom_kalbfus Jul 01, 2008 10:18:58	Two things: 1. Tiamat (also called Ghanna or Omoroca) is an ancient babylonian Goddess and not the evil part of an dragon god. If you really want use Earth and its cultures and religions, you should use them correctly. I was having second thoughts on that anyway. If we have Tiamat, the ancient babylonian goddess, lets throw in Bahamut as well. I don't know if Tiamat as originally conceived by the Babylonians was a dragon god, but if not, perhaps that developed later. There is another reason as well, D&D compatibility. I want to throw in the D&D Pantheon as well, some of these may be alias for the historical gods. Bane might be an aspect of Ares for instance, the people who worship Bane might not know it, but they could be worshipping Ares. Asmodeus and Lucifer could be one and he same being, Bahamut could be Athena, strange as it is to say, and Ioun might be Apollo. Where would the D&D Pantheon be focused? I have a very good idea about that as well, the map of the Nehtir Vale in the D&D Guide is actually in the Mississippi River basin, Fallcrest would be in the approximate site of Saint Paul, Minnesota in our world, Lake Nen as depicted in the map actually corresponds to Lake Superior in our world, and the Nentir river is actually the Mississippi River. The capital city of the Empire of Nerath is actually on the site of New Orleans, way to the south where the mouth of the Nentir/Mississippi river empties into the Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi river and its tributaries actually defines the maximum extent of the old Nerath Empire, Fallcrest was one of the furthest outposts of that Empire before the decline. The capital city on the site of New Orleans was established originally by the Greek Alexandrian Empire, late in that Empire's history (around 300 AD), and with the fall of that Empire, the colony was cut off, for most of that city's history it traded with indian tribes, and fended off orc raiders and such and then in this period of darkness, and Empire grew, the native Americans surrounding the city grew civilized with trade, much of the Greek culture was imprinted on them, and they made up new names for the Gods of the Greek pantheon as well as inventing gods of their own, they basically mixed and intermingled with the isolated Greek Alexandrian colonists, and they had children and their population grew, settling towns and cities up the Mississippi, the Missouri, and Ohio rivers (although they gave them different names). The Indians beyond the borders of the Empire retained their traditional ways and do so to this day. Knowledge of the New World was lost to the old, 1700 years of darkness (about 1200 years before the rise of the Nerath Empire). As far as the Nerathians were concerned the colony was established by someplace far away, and that is about the extent of the current knowledge of their origins and their mythical motherland. Remember the Empire only grew after 1200 years of fighting off the darkness from their city-state at the mouth of the Mississippi. Around 1900 AD in our dating system, the Nerath Empire fell in the Bloodspear War, the Orcs being the chaotic bunch they are then fought over the plunder and spoils of the sacked cities and the various orc tribes once united in their opposition to the Nerath Empire no longer were, this gave the various human settlements a chance to fend off the orc raiding parties for the next 100 years. Up until the current campaign year of 2008 AD. The area map surrounding Fallcrest isn't 100% accurate, the edges of the map represent the extent of the "know world" to the locals living in these villages and settlements. The Dawnforge mountains for instance is where approximately Lake Michigan should be, it could be a fiction by the cartiographers who drew the map being too lazy or too afraid to go their themselves, so those mountains could be their version of "Here be Dragons!" 2. Judaism, Zoroastrianism and Buddhism are old religions. Judaism was founded around 1100 BC and became a monotheistic religion during the babylonian exile (598-515), but Judaism was a religion which was only open to Israelites. And as such keeps them as a minority status and not a major factor in the World I'm depicting here. When such a small number of people believe in such a cosmological universal deity, this defocuses the power of their beliefs over the ebb and flow of the magic that entered their world, consequently their priests and rabbis can't cast any spells or miracles. The Greeks on the otherhand believed in limited finite dieties in their own image, they weren't so exclusive in their religion and so it grew as the Alexandrian Empire grew. The Olympian dieties grew quite powerful as a result, and some of them found that by assuming different guises under different religions they could grow even further. Aphrodite is not a warlike diety, but because the idea of a fertility/love diety reoccurs in so many pantheons, she as assumed the guise of each one of them before a seperate deity of that same portfolio could develop, hence she is also Freya from the Norse Pantheon, and she became Istar for the Babylonians after aquiring some martial skills to become also a war deity. The main danger in dealing with Aphrodite is if that deity likes you, Ares may become jealous. (usually this manifests itself in a greater number of bandit encounters) Ares is the god of war, but he is also the god of **** pillage and plunder and encourages this whenever he can, in the Mississipi river basin he becomes "Bane". Aphrodite once had a fling with Ares (she fools around alot with both mortals and gods), ever since Ares/Bane tends to get jealous of Aphrodite's latest paramour, typically if he is a mortal he is a king of some sort, and then a war ensues. The bloodspears were in part directed by Ares/Bane when Aphrodite fell in love with the Emperor of Nerath, and Ares/Bane of course got his revenge. Zoroastrianism was founded somewhen between 1800 and 600 BC and was the major religion in ancient Persia. Many of its ideas influenced the development of Judaism. But Zoroastrianism was not always monotheistic. Buddhism was founded in 528 BC (or 378 BC as modern historian believe) in northern India and became very soon a very powerfull religion in eastern Asia. You see that those three religions existed before the year 323 BC and that two of them were very dominant at that time, but none of them replaced the older polytheistic religions (Babylonian Polytheism, Hinduism). Universal cosmological gods did not manifest themselves with the influx in magic, people still believe in them, but their don't depend on Clerics performing miracles as the basis of those faiths, that's how I deal with that. The gods as the Greeks call them are basically powerful magical creatures as far as the monotheistic religions are concerned, but there is an overarching god above them that works in mysterious ways and whose presence is not as obvious as Athena manifesting herself or fighting other gods. Monotheists tend to interpret the pagan deities as more powerful versions of demons, devils, and angels as far as their concerned.
#11 tom_kalbfus Jul 01, 2008 10:30:40	My thought is that maybe the decline of the Macedonian Empire could be linked to the rise of magic. The introduction of magic into the world would have a catastrophic impact on civilization. An unprepared society could be devestated by warlocks, monsters, etc. An idea: since the Macedonian Empire stuck together after Alexander's death and wasn't fragmented into the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, etc, satrapies, maybe it was strong enough to conquer the Mauryan Empire. With the Mauryan Empire gone before Ashoka's reign, Ashoka the Great never founded the society of the Nine Unknown Men. In our world, an occultist somewhere -- uh, say, Zosimos of Panopolis -- came close to releasing the forces of magic into the world, but fortunately operatives of the Nine Unknown Men were able to stop him. In this alternative world, there are no Nine Unknown Men, so the occultist releases forces far beyond his control, making the dreams and nightmares of humanity a reality. That is a great idea! In my version, the influx of magic actually prolonged the Alexandrian Empire by allowing Alexander himself to live longer, in our timeline he actually died of an illness after conquering India, somebody with a cure disease miracle might have cured his illness and allowed him to live to about 70, this extra time allowed him to consolidate his conquests, and the various greek philosophers that accompanied him, Plato for instance, dabbled in magic and conducted magical research and produced a number of spells that were used by wizards from that point on.
#12 tom_kalbfus Jul 01, 2008 16:37:47	I am toying with including a Modern Enclave in Southern California, I'm not sure what exactly just yet. I have written a thread called Modern Equipment in D&D 4e in the D&D Fundamentals, Equipment and Magic Items section. One of the things about modern firearms is that they target a character's Reflex score not his AC because medeaval armor is ineffective against high velocity rounds, the magic equipment bonuses do count however for the purpose of deflecting such rounds. I'm not sure what other people thing about this. One of the ideas to this parallel world is that it is the flipside of a d20 Modern Urban Arcana campaign - just as some fantasy creatures and characters end up in the Modern World, some Modern characters end up in the D&D 4e world. The idea is that there is a weakspot seperating this D&D world from the Modern World (in which the year is also 2008), this weakspot is activated by radiowaves of a certain intensity and wavelength, when these conditions are met the gate opens up. Someone has discovered the secret while fiddling with his ham radio set in 1946 and has accidentally opened up a gate in his basement, this gate allows two-way traffic between the Modern World and Arcane Earth, and so far the user of this gate has kept its existance a secret and has shared it only with his close circle of friends and associates, as well as those involuntary travelers who he has forced through the gate upon the discovery of his secret. What the guy is really after is the unexploited gold and mineral veins whose locations are known and that have already been exploited on the Modern side of the gate. It is basically a mining operation with a comunity on the arcane side that mines out the minerals and grows its own food. The community is small all told, it depends on the gate for the importation of all technological goods. Some Indian Tribes have been shoved aside by these operation, some of the magic-using members of those tribes have caused some trouble with these operations. The area under effect of these operations is small and a kingdom in effect has been carved out on the west coast with all the modern comforts of home, the influence of magic is much stronger on this side of the gate, some of the dieties I talked about earlier have taken notice and have made their displeasure known, while some others such as the goddess Aphrodite have taken a liking to this kingdom's current ruler, her avatar in this appearance has taken on the likeness of Marilyn Monroe, perhaps because of all the 1950s reruns and movies that are broadcast on the local area's television network. The God Ares has yet to find out about this - but that is only a matter of time.
#13 Book5 Jul 01, 2008 17:22:43	wow - extahamity confusicated ... neat though. The Judaism bits - that you seem interested in removing ... Their concept of "God" is singular and universal - specifically described as grander than a single human being is capable of comprehending. Thusly - when this "event" that allowed the religions of the world to manifest their beliefs of their gods into physical incarnations ... they would have been left behind. In such a case (everyone else's dieties are like ... over there) the jewish religion would have most likely vanished. No one is going to believe in a faith that can't even get their own gods attention - nor even begin to describe "it/him" Soooo there is no christianity, or islam for that matter - and that makes about 2000 and 8 years of history+ (ano ... domine? ) that is entirely rewritten (Buddhism would still be around cause all them buddah are as made up as Athena). Yet nonetheless (magic working and powers and all that disregarded) we still have ham radios. The magnitude of rewriting that amount of history is boggling ... any history majors in the hizzy? anyway - my two bits - sounds interesting. Particularly the twist of having the characters created as modern and then sent back to a midevil era. ooohhh The idea occurs to me that as a marketable concept having a campaign setting specifically revolving around characters from our (hey looky Jesus) world finding a portal to this world you described but put the date like ... 500 AD (equivalent) in that you wouldn't have to make up nearly as much history. What you could do is have the portal take the people to Gaul (proto france) during the reign of Arthur! As far as Arthur sans Christian influence - thats easy just check out the Welsh stuff about him on the wiki (Google Arthur Wiki and it should come up rapidly - theres lots of stuff - wuzzisname Galfradian or somesuch took old welsh legends about a 5/6th century king (apparently a big ol hoary badass that handed everybody their ass back in the day) and attributed Christian stuff - all the grail nonsense later. So thats easy, and a great staging point for people that you would never actually meet ... Take a person from this world that you know and understand (plus firearms!) into a world of history that isn't quite what you might think it is! Hehe - with a bit of work you could make a really squeaky keen campaign book out of that ... hmmm. Yeah. I can see it - all romance paintings on the cover and everything. Good luck - I imagine if you keep it up I'll check it out again ..ummm.... Tom! Yes happy hunting Tom!
#14 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jul 02, 2008 6:30:06	... anyway - my two bits - sounds interesting. Particularly the twist of having the characters created as modern and then sent back to a midevil era. ... I've got a similiar idea, but not withmodern characters thrown back into an alternate and amgical earth, but with todays earth suddenly transformed into a medieval one.
#15 art_tillary Jul 02, 2008 6:55:36	Someone has discovered the secret while fiddling with his ham radio set in 1946 and has accidentally opened up a gate in his basement, this gate allows two-way traffic between the Modern World and Arcane Earth, and so far the user of this gate has kept its existance a secret and has shared it only with his close circle of friends and associates, as well as those involuntary travelers who he has forced through the gate upon the discovery of his secret. Ah, SM Stirling's Conquestor.
#16 strayth Jul 02, 2008 9:12:40	And as such keeps them as a minority status and not a major factor in the World I'm depicting here. When such a small number of people believe in such a cosmological universal deity, this defocuses the power of their beliefs over the ebb and flow of the magic that entered their world, . Actually, that era of Judaism lists a number of demons that were (not coincidentally) named after Babylonian lords. D&D actually shares some of those names for lords of Hell. I'm debating of whether or not to bring up Jewish Sorcery here- I don't want to make it sound like some anti-Semitic propaganda. Around the early Roman Republic, Judaism was regarded more like our version of a sorcerer's cabal (from Kabbalah even), and it wasn't uncommon to see anti-Jewish sentiment rooted in their "Magic arts" (golems, transmutation, glib tongues). So if you're hesitant to make a monotheistic system (which you shouldn't be; again there were other deific beings and aspects of spiritual ascension, even if not personified), you could go the route of making them arcane users. They were often scholars and practitioners of medicine. Some Roman emperors would later have a Jewish Cook, a comparatively prestigious career. Any "real world" setting that ignores Judaism (or Christianity if the time permits) is ignoring an incredibly powerful, pervasive and influential religion of history. If you'd rather just not discuss it in the thread, I understand. If the mods or anyone who is offended would prefer us to nix this specific part of the discussion, let me know. Again I'd rather not suggest validity or merits of any religions, just provide an objective resource by which someone might include these in gamer / setting terms.
#17 tom_kalbfus Jul 02, 2008 13:21:22	Ah, SM Stirling's Conquestor. Indeed! Except that the world of Conquestador was non-magical, it was just medeaval. John Rolfe and his New Viginia crew could just push and shove as much as he liked and there was very little the native inhabitants could do about it, especially when the New Virginians brought in all those "White Man's" Diseases that killed most of the Native Americans and caused the others that survive to flee the "plague-ridden invaders" from another dimension. With Arcane Earth, the situation is not as bad. The Indians or Native Americans if you prefer were already exposed to "White Man's" Diseases when the Greek Alexandrians arrived in the Mississippi Valley around 300 AD, those Greeks brought their own horses with them and some of them got loose and the Indian Tribes took possession of them. Down the center of the continent there is a quasi-European culture with all the medeaval/feudal trappings with mixed race white/Indians, more indian than European to tell you truthfully since only a limited number of Greek citizens were able to make it over to the Colony in what is New Orleans before their Empire collapsed. I'm assuming something like a Teleport Circle was used to bring the bulk of the Alexandrians over here, their ships were still very primitive at this time, with the collapse of the Empire the teleport circle became non-functional and the Greek/Alexandrian colonists were stranded. As a consequence, they had to trade with the Indian tribes to survive, no more settlers came over from Europe so the indians weren't overwhelmed by their numbers, but they did adopt many of the conventions of European culture, metalurgy and so forth. Beyond the borders of this North American civilization there were still traditional barbarian tribes of humans, orcs, and wild elves in the forests. The indians did not die off in this magical world when the moderns came, they were already exposed to european diseases and had developed immunities to them. The invaders, because that's what they were simply pushed aside native tribes with their superior firepower. The characters running this colony in California are less sympathetic than the ones in conquestador, basically think of the King as a Modern crime boss running a mining operation and sending the ore to the modern world for sale. Alot of the settlers, miners and farmers were kidnapped and kicked over to the Arcane side to be the work force for the mining or to supply the food for the miners. Plenty of vehicles and modern mining equipment were sent over as well as guns to keep a lid on this operation and to quell any rebellions and unrest. There is a total of 150,000 moderns living in the Southern California region, a PC character could be one of them, and perhaps make an escape into the wilderness to the east or the north. Magic is a weapon that the modern's don't have, perhaps if used in the right war it could negate the advantage the "crime boss" of his goons have with modern weapons.
#18 tom_kalbfus Jul 02, 2008 13:33:07	Actually, that era of Judaism lists a number of demons that were (not coincidentally) named after Babylonian lords. D&D actually shares some of those names for lords of Hell. I'm debating of whether or not to bring up Jewish Sorcery here- I don't want to make it sound like some anti-Semitic propaganda. Around the early Roman Republic, Judaism was regarded more like our version of a sorcerer's cabal (from Kabbalah even), and it wasn't uncommon to see anti-Jewish sentiment rooted in their "Magic arts" (golems, transmutation, glib tongues). So if you're hesitant to make a monotheistic system (which you shouldn't be; again there were other deific beings and aspects of spiritual ascension, even if not personified), you could go the route of making them arcane users. They were often scholars and practitioners of medicine. Some Roman emperors would later have a Jewish Cook, a comparatively prestigious career. Any "real world" setting that ignores Judaism (or Christianity if the time permits) is ignoring an incredibly powerful, pervasive and influential religion of history. If you'd rather just not discuss it in the thread, I understand. If the mods or anyone who is offended would prefer us to nix this specific part of the discussion, let me know. Again I'd rather not suggest validity or merits of any religions, just provide an objective resource by which someone might include these in gamer / setting terms. The problem with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam in fact is that all three religions assume a universal diety, and that diety and their beliefs are usually exclusive to all others. Basically those three religions say the pagan dieties are fake gods. Logically I don't see how you can fit these religions together in a single world assuming these beliefs are real. If God created the Universe then what about the Greek gods, each religions has its own creation myth and world view. With pagan religions you can always add more gods, with Judaism, God is the one and only true god and everyone else's god is a fake, perhaps that is why the Romans didn't get along too well with them. Christians were in part fed to the lions because they criticised the roman religion and called it a fraud, thus offending many pagan Romans. My point is these "Gods" aren't really Gods by our modern definition, they have nothing to say about morality or how one should live their lives, each Greek diety looks out for his or her own interest, they have powers according to myth and a smart person wouldn't offend them, but just having powers and a portfolio over part of nature doesn't make them any more likely to be right about something than any other mortal. Christianity is a "God is always right" religion, God can never be wrong because he is God and it is always the mortal humans that are in error when they come in conflict with God; the Greek Hellenistic religion is not like that, in that religion heros challenge the gods all the time, some of those gods are evil and some aren't, they hero is not automatically assumed to be wrong in challenging the gods. Hercules did that alot when he was mortal. Monothesitic religions are always waving a finger in front of people's faces and lecturing them about morality, which makes it awkward to use as a D&D religion.
#19 tom_kalbfus Jul 02, 2008 13:37:54	wow - extahamity confusicated ... neat though. The Judaism bits - that you seem interested in removing ... Their concept of "God" is singular and universal - specifically described as grander than a single human being is capable of comprehending. Thusly - when this "event" that allowed the religions of the world to manifest their beliefs of their gods into physical incarnations ... they would have been left behind. In such a case (everyone else's dieties are like ... over there) the jewish religion would have most likely vanished. No one is going to believe in a faith that can't even get their own gods attention - nor even begin to describe "it/him" Soooo there is no christianity, or islam for that matter - and that makes about 2000 and 8 years of history+ (ano ... domine? ) that is entirely rewritten (Buddhism would still be around cause all them buddah are as made up as Athena). Yet nonetheless (magic working and powers and all that disregarded) we still have ham radios. The magnitude of rewriting that amount of history is boggling ... any history majors in the hizzy? ... The idea is simply that by making it an alternate history campaign, I don't have to do that much historical research, and leaving most of the alternate history a bit vague and unmentions gives alot of flexibility to the DM to make up history as he goes along. If their is a dungeon somewhere, he can make up the history of that dungeon and why it is there on the fly, and since their is very little history to contradict, it fits quite nicely in most cases.
#20 julescarv Jul 02, 2008 17:48:04	Monothesitic religions are always waving a finger in front of people's faces and lecturing them about morality, which makes it awkward to use as a D&D religion. What? D&D religions are often morality-obsessed. D&D worlds tend to be far more morality-driven than the real world. Certainly some components of the Abrahamic faiths make them awkward for use as a D&D religion (as do some components of many real-life religions, including polytheistic ones), but how does an obsession with morality make them awkward?
#21 tom_kalbfus Jul 03, 2008 11:28:05	What? D&D religions are often morality-obsessed. D&D worlds tend to be far more morality-driven than the real world. Certainly some components of the Abrahamic faiths make them awkward for use as a D&D religion (as do some components of many real-life religions, including polytheistic ones), but how does an obsession with morality make them awkward? Do you as DM want to roleplay an all-knowing, all-seeing, omnescent God, creator of the Universe? Do you want to roleplay a thundering voice from the sky, or a burning bush or such characters as Moses? If all the other deities manifest themselves as physical beings and routinely take part in world events, do you really want the Lord God Almighty parting the Red Sea in your campaign? In Christian theology their is the Lord God above all, then their are his host of angels, then their are the prophets and saints, then mortal man, then there is purgatory, and below that is Hell ruled by Satan and his demons tormenting the damned souls for eternity. Would you really want to turn this into a D&D world? Should player character be allowed to venture into the Christian Hell? Also what about the modern interlopers of southern California, a good many of those are Christians, do the priests and clerics suddenly find they can cast miracles for no other reason than they have crossed the gate into Arcane Earth? With an all powerful cosmological deity such as the Judeo-Christian God, one is inclined as a DM to make him as aloof as possible, if God actually communicated with his worshippers in an unambiguous way, this would change the world quite significantly, and what about those other pagan dieties, what is their relationship to this overarching God? In the world I'm discussing here, if Apollo shows up, he does so unambigiously, if Ares does some mischief then he does so, there is nothing very mysterious about him when he acts, it is more like Greek Mythology such as what occured in the Illiad and the Odyssey rather than historical Greece where they merely just believed in such beings but never saw them. There are amazons, cyclopses, pegasi, unicorns, dragons, you name it, these fantastic creatures show up in daily life in this world, the site of a centaur trotting through town is not really all that remarkable in this world. The Clerics know that their gods are out their because they grant them miracles, not much needs to be taken on faith alone, people worship their gods in return for some divine favor, it is a simple transaction usually. In Arcane Earth there are Christians (thanks to the sudden appearance of the Moderns of Southern California in 1946) there are Jews, Zorastrians, and Buddists. Muslims haven't happened, their may be a few among the imported Californians, but certainly not many, that crew was self-selecting and most of those people they selected who arrived voluntarily tended to be white and Christian or Jewish. The Muslims that got tossed into Arcane Earth tended to be people who stumbled onto the secret of the gate and were then shoved through so they wouldn't tell anyone else on the Modern side of the gate. There are a few black people from the Modern World as well, more involuntary immigrants. The person who started this cross-gate mining venture was a racist or a segregationist, he fought alot of Japanese in World War II, and he'd seem quite enough of them as far as he was concerned, so he established his own little society based on his precepts of how a modern society should be run according to them, and he doesn't want the US Government muscling in on his operation, he gave enough for the United States during World War II, and so now he wants his own country, the boss as he is know by most of the 150,000 inhabitants of Southern California is 83 years old. In the 1950s "the Boss" started a relationship with a person whom he thought at the time was Marilyn Monroe, it lasted well into the 1960s after the real Marilyn comitted suicide by drug overdose in her hotel room, by that time he fathered a son and a daughter by this woman whom it turned out was really an avatar of the goddess Aphrodite, she was very curious about this new colony of interlopers on this world and developed a romantic relationship with its ruler. After the real Marilyn's death, the two broke things off, but before they left "the Boss" struck up a bargain with her, in return for establishing a shrine to her in his basement, Aphrodite cast a permanent Anti-Magic Shell around the area surrounding the gate so no wizard would go blasting their way into the compound, take over the gate and then cross over and spill the beans with the Modern World and bring the US Government down on his head, the site is well guarded by the Boss's henchmen and their machineguns - no one goes through the Gate without the Boss's permission. The Son and Daughter of the Boss have had in turn three children of their own, one is a princess of remarkable beauty that "the Boss" often dotes on. Elsewhere in the continent of North America, the Indians East of the Mississipi were transformed into Elves and Eldarin by the Goddess Artemitis around the year 200 BC shortly after she woke up and the wild magic was much in flux. Pretty much everything from Nova Scotia to Florida is a great sylvan forest covering the Eastern seaboard. Tribes such as the Iraquois, the Mohawks, Algonquins, and the Cherokees are now tribes of elves, they keep up their verious naturalistic traditions and worship their gods much as they always have before, but they now work metal, though they don't use much of it for armor, they craft many magic items in their nomadic long-lived existance. The Dwarves live in their strongholds in the Rockies, the modern Californians often trade with them as they are such good miners, and the dwarves will part with some of their gold for some adequate compensation, no modern weapons though, the Boss prefers to keep those under tight lock and key, it the only advantage he has besides control over the gate between the worlds. The Californians import most of the technological goods and manufacture very little of it themselves, most of their activities are retricted to mining and farming, everything else comes through the gate, although their is a small oil refinery at Long Beach, the gasoline supplies and gas stations onluy allow for vehicles to travel about 150 miles outside the border's of the colony's territory. Aerial transport is by C130 transport and helicopters, and their fighter planes are vintage World War II. Movement rates of those vehicle and of flying creatures are of the Vehicle scale, (In other words they use 50-foot squares instead of 5-foot squares for resolving movement and combat). This modern society is mostly contained to the West of the Rocky Mountains, those people outside their terrotiry don't see much of them except for the occasional Modern escape fleeing from the restrictions of the Boss's "Perfect Society", Much of it has the flavor of the 1950s America but with a more Authoritarian bent, women tend to be homemakers and housewives for the most part, people who can't accept their role in society sometime flee to the East and to the wilderness beyond the Rocky Mountains if they are desperate to get away.
#22 doomsought Jul 03, 2008 19:17:27	The problem with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam in fact is that all three religions assume a universal diety, and that diety and their beliefs are usually exclusive to all others. Basically those three religions say the pagan dieties are fake gods. Logically I don't see how you can fit these religions together in a single world assuming these beliefs are real. If God created the Universe then what about the Greek gods, each religions has its own creation myth and world view. With pagan religions you can always add more gods, with Judaism, God is the one and only true god and everyone else's god is a fake, perhaps that is why the Romans didn't get along too well with them. Christians were in part fed to the lions because they criticised the roman religion and called it a fraud, thus offending many pagan Romans. My point is these "Gods" aren't really Gods by our modern definition, they have nothing to say about morality or how one should live their lives, each Greek diety looks out for his or her own interest, they have powers according to myth and a smart person wouldn't offend them, but just having powers and a portfolio over part of nature doesn't make them any more likely to be right about something than any other mortal. Christianity is a "God is always right" religion, God can never be wrong because he is God and it is always the mortal humans that are in error when they come in conflict with God; the Greek Hellenistic religion is not like that, in that religion heros challenge the gods all the time, some of those gods are evil and some aren't, they hero is not automatically assumed to be wrong in challenging the gods. Hercules did that alot when he was mortal. Monothesitic religions are always waving a finger in front of people's faces and lecturing them about morality, which makes it awkward to use as a D&D religion. They would rationalize the other deities as demons or devils and constant attacks on outside clerics would cause them to be unwelcome in trade, except for one very valuable trade good (Golemns? Magical fuel?) So they would eventually end up like modern Islam, terrorist bombing/fireballs at infidel temples and lots of Guerrilla warfare. They would hold on to the heavily fortified promised land at all costs and few if any would ever leave it. (maybe a few arcane casters and trades men) YHW would be profiled as a god of knowledge and creation. If you are really uncomfortable with it you could split his powers into a few Archangels.
#23 art_tillary Jul 03, 2008 23:40:26	They would rationalize the other deities as demons or devils and constant attacks on outside clerics would cause them to be unwelcome in trade, except for one very valuable trade good (Golemns? Magical fuel?) So they would eventually end up like modern Islam, terrorist bombing/fireballs at infidel temples and lots of Guerrilla warfare. They would hold on to the heavily fortified promised land at all costs and few if any would ever leave it. (maybe a few arcane casters and trades men) YHW would be profiled as a god of knowledge and creation. If you are really uncomfortable with it you could split his powers into a few Archangels. Only problem is that your proposal is contray to the historical facts. The Israelites / Jews didn't attack the believers or priests of other gods. There were plenty of worshippers of other gods present thru out both the Biblical era and later. The attacks on occupiers of the land were related to the occupiers forbidding the practice of their religion. Overall, I'm not sure I buy the idea that Ha'Shem wouldn't have also been formed. Although I'll have to leave that to DM fiat. I'll grant though that any god that can be easily proven will attract followers from the gods that can't be proven. There would be no atheists in a D&D fantasy world.
#24 art_tillary Jul 03, 2008 23:51:18	The problem with Judaism, Christianity, or Islam in fact is that all three religions assume a universal diety, and that diety and their beliefs are usually exclusive to all others. Basically those three religions say the pagan dieties are fake gods. Logically I don't see how you can fit these religions together in a single world assuming these beliefs are real. If God created the Universe then what about the Greek gods, each religions has its own creation myth and world view. With pagan religions you can always add more gods, with Judaism, God is the one and only true god and everyone else's god is a fake, perhaps that is why the Romans didn't get along too well with them. Christians were in part fed to the lions because they criticised the roman religion and called it a fraud, thus offending many pagan Romans. (snip) Ah, you still have a problem with who created the world, and how. The Greeks had one story. The Egyptions had a very different tale that can't be reconciled with the Greek one. Ditto for almost everyother culture on Earth.
#25 julescarv Jul 04, 2008 2:05:06	If this is a world in which clergy of Huitzilopochtli cut out people's hearts, Odinists hang people in sacrifices, and Celtic druids burn people in wicker men, I don't see why the Abrahamic monotheists are going to be particularly despised. That is, unless you're interpretting the monotheistic faiths at their most vicious and intolerant, and/or sweep most of the potentially contentious aspects of other faiths under the rug. Still, you could just say that there are no Abrahamic monotheists for whatever reason you'd like. Maybe it's just too implausible with all of these other gods, or maybe Abraham himself just never happened to be.
#26 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jul 04, 2008 2:34:21	Ah, you still have a problem with who created the world, and how. The Greeks had one story. The Egyptions had a very different tale that can't be reconciled with the Greek one. Ditto for almost everyother culture on Earth. But the greek believed that there is only one pantheon, and all other people worship the same gods just with different names. For them Zeus, Jupiter Set and Ba'al is one and the same deity. The jews however believed that every god has his own chosen people and that he does not allow conversions. An israelite priest worshipping Ba'al for example would be powerless for he is not a member of El's chosen. The same applies to a egyptian priest of YHWH.
#27 doomsought Jul 04, 2008 16:23:38	Only problem is that your proposal is contray to the historical facts. The Israelites / Jews didn't attack the believers or priests of other gods. There were plenty of worshippers of other gods present thru out both the Biblical era and later. The attacks on occupiers of the land were related to the occupiers forbidding the practice of their religion. Overall, I'm not sure I buy the idea that Ha'Shem wouldn't have also been formed. Although I'll have to leave that to DM fiat. I'll grant though that any god that can be easily proven will attract followers from the gods that can't be proven. There would be no atheists in a D&D fantasy world. No, you misunderstand, I was talking about the incarnations of the deities. And it is said that there are demons present at offering to Idols so I'd think it would be the resounding opinion. The Hebrew would at least be heavily intolerant of practicing of other faiths in their territory. This could come to some strained diplomatic relations and at least a few wars. Foreign clerics would be limited to a few trading cities and find incentive to pass threw quickly.
#28 art_tillary Jul 04, 2008 23:58:59	No, you misunderstand, I was talking about the incarnations of the deities. And it is said that there are demons present at offering to Idols so I'd think it would be the resounding opinion. The Hebrew would at least be heavily intolerant of practicing of other faiths in their territory. This could come to some strained diplomatic relations and at least a few wars. Foreign clerics would be limited to a few trading cities and find incentive to pass threw quickly. Uh, now you have lost me, especially with your first paragraph. Like I said, your second paragraph is contrary to historical fact. The worship of other gods wasn't a problem within ancient Israel. What non-Israelites worshipped wasn't an issue. The Israelites considered the other gods as either false gods or the gods (who were lessor than Ha'Shem) and acceptable for worship by non-Israelites. The only problems arose when the Israelites started to follow the other gods. I don't see any wars arising out of this issue.
#29 tom_kalbfus Jul 05, 2008 9:21:16	Ah, you still have a problem with who created the world, and how. The Greeks had one story. The Egyptions had a very different tale that can't be reconciled with the Greek one. Ditto for almost everyother culture on Earth. The World wasn't created by any deity or groups of dieties, unlike most fantasy world, the world existed prior to the existance of any of the gods. What happened is that the world was just like our world, but then a magical influx caused a historical timeline split. The initial surge of magic was very maliable to thought and belief and the belief systems of the world organized the patterns of magic and thus the Gods were created. Once the gods came into existance, the flow of magic currents was stabilized as the dieties assumed control over the various magic flows associated with their portfolios. What was responsible for the magical influx is another matter, there may have been a deity responsible for that, the identity of that diety is unknown, The Israelites assume it was their God that was responsible, because according to their belief system, he is the creator of the Universe and so he would be responsible for that as well. The "Gods" are simply a higher creature than man, much like angels. I'll have to amend this somewhat, the Jews did in fact create angels, the Arch Angel Gabriel was created, has wings and he flies around and has some powers, some other angels as well, there is an outer plane called Heaven as well, but to these Hebrew Angels, God is just as mysterious to them as he is to other mortals. The Angels receive no directives from God. An Arch-Angel is the equivalent to a pagan diety, and Gabriel basically runs the place called "Heaven" and he is in charge of the lesser angels of his dominion, but as far as Gabriel knows, God himself has never spoken to him, so Gabriel mostly just follows his own moral compass and does what he thinks is right according to his best judgement, he assumes that God does not interfere in the World's affairs because he values free will, that of the angels, devils, demons, and pagan dieties as well as that of mortals, but as to what his purpose in all of this is, even the Arch Angel Gabriel cannot say.
#30 tom_kalbfus Jul 05, 2008 9:32:20	But the greek believed that there is only one pantheon, and all other people worship the same gods just with different names. For them Zeus, Jupiter Set and Ba'al is one and the same deity. The jews however believed that every god has his own chosen people and that he does not allow conversions. An israelite priest worshipping Ba'al for example would be powerless for he is not a member of El's chosen. The same applies to a egyptian priest of YHWH. One has to differentiate between the various belief systems and what actually exists. Sure it is possible to have many different incompatible belief systems in the world existing side by side, but what I'm talking about is the divine realities that exist as a result of those beliefs and their effect on the magical currents entering the world. Certain belief systems may be mutually exclusive, but the gods themselves once created must deal with rival deities from belief systems that are incompatible with a belief in their existance. Much of the Greek belief system is subsumed here, in that the Greek dieties take on the identities of other dieties to increase their power. In some cases a religion has unique dieties that have no equivalent in the Greek pantheon, thus new dieties are created. The Arch-angel Gabriel is technically a diety under this system although he officially denies it and says "there is no god but God himself." Lucifer is Gabriel's opposite number, he is a rebel ex-arch-angel who was condemned to rule in Hell, and as such he is perfectly happy to call himself a God, his identity is somewhat confused between being an ex-greek god and that of a fallen arch-angel of god, even Lucifer is not entirely sure what he is, but he doesn't really care nor does he worry about it much, he's focused mainly on aquiring power for himself and engineering the downfall of mankind.
#31 tom_kalbfus Jul 05, 2008 9:37:19	No, you misunderstand, I was talking about the incarnations of the deities. And it is said that there are demons present at offering to Idols so I'd think it would be the resounding opinion. The Hebrew would at least be heavily intolerant of practicing of other faiths in their territory. This could come to some strained diplomatic relations and at least a few wars. Foreign clerics would be limited to a few trading cities and find incentive to pass threw quickly. Conflicts between the leaders of the various religions is one thing, conflict between the actual deities created by those belief systems is something else. For existance the Arch-angel Gabriel believes those other pagan dieties are "false gods", he doesn't deny their existance or that they have actual powers, but he does deny that they are gods. Gabriel is however willing to work with someone like Athena, he doesn't believe Athena is an actual goddess, but when they have similar goals, the two are quite willing to work together to achieve certain ends.
#32 art_tillary Jul 05, 2008 10:05:04	The World wasn't created by any deity or groups of dieties, unlike most fantasy world, the world existed prior to the existance of any of the gods. What happened is that the world was just like our world, but then a magical influx caused a historical timeline split. The initial surge of magic was very maliable to thought and belief and the belief systems of the world organized the patterns of magic and thus the Gods were created. Once the gods came into existance, the flow of magic currents was stabilized as the dieties assumed control over the various magic flows associated with their portfolios. What was responsible for the magical influx is another matter, there may have been a deity responsible for that, the identity of that diety is unknown, The Israelites assume it was their God that was responsible, because according to their belief system, he is the creator of the Universe and so he would be responsible for that as well. The "Gods" are simply a higher creature than man, much like angels. I'll have to amend this somewhat, the Jews did in fact create angels, the Arch Angel Gabriel was created, has wings and he flies around and has some powers, some other angels as well, there is an outer plane called Heaven as well, but to these Hebrew Angels, God is just as mysterious to them as he is to other mortals. The Angels receive no directives from God. (snip) I realize that the world was created first, then the gods. I was pointing out the contradiction that 1) Ha'Shem was not created because the Israelites thought he created the world, and yet 2) all the other gods in the world (Greek, Egyptian, Norse, etc) did form even though each of the thousands of pantheons all had different creation myths. I'm glad you changed your mind, and that the Israelites got something so as to maintain internal logic. Now, you could then say that over a couple of centuries that Ha'Shem / Gabrial ceased to exist. Rational could be that the relatively small number of Israelites, compared the number of Greeks (including worshippers of non-Greeks gods that were synchronized with a Greek god) lead to loss of magical power. Less magical power, more people assimilate to the Greeks. Only problem with that is you end up with many fewer pantheons world wide. You get likely one pantheon that runs from India to Ireland based upon the root Indo-European system. You'd get one probably in Central America, and a couple in South America and in sub-Sahara Africa. Basically as the number of active worshippers goes down towards zero, the gods can die.
#33 doomsought Jul 06, 2008 16:21:01	Basically as the number of active worshippers goes down towards zero, the gods can die. I remember a book like this, I think it was called " a logical magician" or something to the like. He killed the BBEG (a deity) by taking a picture of him and having it put in the paper to look like a prank. Pretty funny book.
#34 tom_kalbfus Jul 07, 2008 10:04:12	I realize that the world was created first, then the gods. I was pointing out the contradiction that 1) Ha'Shem was not created because the Israelites thought he created the world, and yet 2) all the other gods in the world (Greek, Egyptian, Norse, etc) did form even though each of the thousands of pantheons all had different creation myths. I'm glad you changed your mind, and that the Israelites got something so as to maintain internal logic. Now, you could then say that over a couple of centuries that Ha'Shem / Gabrial ceased to exist. Rational could be that the relatively small number of Israelites, compared the number of Greeks (including worshippers of non-Greeks gods that were synchronized with a Greek god) lead to loss of magical power. Less magical power, more people assimilate to the Greeks. Only problem with that is you end up with many fewer pantheons world wide. You get likely one pantheon that runs from India to Ireland based upon the root Indo-European system. You'd get one probably in Central America, and a couple in South America and in sub-Sahara Africa. Basically as the number of active worshippers goes down towards zero, the gods can die. Lets just say that the actual existance of God is up in the air, the Jews have faith that he exists, but the problem is that the Hebrew God is a Universal being of infinite power, that makes it hard to the Hebrew to actually create him through the power of their faith, either he already exists or he does not. While the Greeks believed in finite dieties, the Jews believed in the creator of the Universe, and the Universe is very very Big. In a sense all the "Gods" I talk about here are frauds, the Greeks had a concept of who and what the Goddess Athena was, and that concept was manifested by the flow of magic, and since Athena was a limited diety in Greek minds, she was easy to create, an all-powerful infinite god is impossible for any group of finite beings to create, but there are finite beings in Hebrew mythology that can be created by this process, the Arch-Angel Ha'Shem / Gabriel, the being that was created by this process is intelligent, and he probably wonders somethings whether he is the genuine article or a counterfeit produced by people's beliefs, but he was created with a faith in God, and he believes himself to be God's servant, whether that is the truth or not. There is the fact of the sudden magical influx which may have created him, this of course dovetails with his belief in God in that he believes his God is behind the magical influx, though he doesn't know the reason why or God's motivation for doing thus, but he figures an infinite mind is ultimately unknowable, and his mind and powers are finite as tremendous as they might be, so he figures he'll do his best with whatever God gave him. I think Gabriel might consider Athena a sort of friend, maybe an angel with delusions perhaps, but of the Greek Pantheon, she seems to him to be the most level-headed and reasonable of the bunch. Athena, the goddess of wisdom, often wonders about her own existance, she wasn't created with a belief that she was some greater deity's servant, but she does wonder what did cause the magical influx that was responsible for her creation as well as that of the other gods and goddesses, she entertains the notion that their may be a greater deity involved, but she has no faith in that notion unlike her friend Gabriel. When Athena was first created, she used to hate the god Ares, but over time she has come to realize that the God of War might just be insane. Ares doesn't seem to have any goal beyond contributing and causing as many wars as he can, he doesn't seem to care who actually wins, he just finds the spectacle of so many humans and intelligent beings slaughtering each other to be entertaining, this makes no sense to Athena who believes that lethal force and violence must be directed by a purpose. Athena considers Aphrodite to be a sort of nymphomaniac among goddesses, being the goddess of love - (the physical kind mostly), she will literally sleep with anyone whom she considers handsome or powerful. If there is a powerful ruler somewhere that makes waves in history, if he is young and handsome, he may get a visit from Aphrodite, Aphrodite has long slept with most of the handsome male gods, and has mostly grown bored with them. Aphrodite doesn't seem to have any purpose to her lovemaking, she just wants to have fun, and she will fool around with both evil and good men alike. Aphrodite is basically a nonaligned deity, Athena doesn't understand her as she shuns the kind of stuff she is into. Athena is friends with Hephestius, the god of volcanoes and metalsmithing, she feels sorry for the guy because his wife - Aphrodite is always cheating on him. Hephestius takes a rather stoic attitude towards this and focuses on his work instead. Athena and Hephestius often work together since she is the "Ivory Tower" mindset while he builds things and is more practical-minded, the two often complement each other. Apollo is in love with Athena, he has slept with Aphrodite on occasion, but he considers her an "empty-headed bimbo", although fun and pleasurable to keep company with, Apollo finds Aphrodite to be a shallow character and much prefers to go after Athena, who he considers more his type. Athena however will have none of that, she is more of the Platonic mindset and considers physical pleasures to be distractions from her reasoning capability and towards her philosophical duties. Zeus has been dethroned somewhat, he is still the god of the atmosphere and weather, but he finds that the other gods rarely ever listen to what he says or tells them to do. He knows that according to the mythology, he's supposed to be the one in charge, but each of the gods seems somewhat crazy and tend to go on their own divergent paths - perhaps this is due to the success of the Greek Pantheon and the lack of challenges that it now faces, this could change in an instant, but 2000+ years of placidity have taken their toll and given these gods little reason to rally around their leader, these days they mostly pursue their own agenda and agree on very little among themselves. The only one that stays loyal to Zeus is Hermes, he delivers his messages, but also conducts a little bit of larceny on the side, he has found his relationship with Zeus to be quite profitable. Hera is not on speaking terms with Zeus due to his many infidelities, and she sleeps in a seperate bedroom. Poseidon has his own world under the ocean, and spends most of his time beneath the waves and brewing up storms whenever he's angry.
#35 tom_kalbfus Jul 07, 2008 10:26:03	As far as the political situation, I think I'll have the Kingdom of Israel still exist as of 2008 AD in this world. It was incorporated into the Alexandrian Empire for a time as a province. The Jewish rebellions and the Romans crushing and dispersal of the Jews didn't happen in this world. The Alexandrian Empire fell at around 300 AD, and Israel became a kingdom once again, the faith of its people holding them together as a point of light in a gathering darkness. Israel has had a long sucession of Kings and multiple dynasties, it is pretty much a medeaval kingdom now. The power behind the throne is of course the Priests, who take on the role of the Nobility. The priests rely upon the King for leadership, while the King relies upon the priests to confer legitimacy on his rule. The priesthood is a rather fracticious lot, and they have ended and begun quite a number of Hebrew dynasties in the Kingdom's 3,000 year history. Great Britian is ruled by this World's version of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. Much of continental Europe is a bunch of petty feudal estates and a wilderness of beasts and monsters. Few nations exist besides those I mentioned. There is a kingdom of drow some where underground, mostly city-states in vast caverns connected by tunnels. Dragons rule the Carpathian Mountains, and Giants live in Scandinavia. The Interior of Eurasia has hordes of barbarians not too dissimular to Gengis Khan, although none has proves as sucessful as that historical leader, their are not that many prosperous cities to plunder and pillage, so they fight with each other and with orcs and other non-human monsters over whatever scraps their are to fight over. If any of you have any of their own ideas about this, I'd like to hear them.
#36 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jul 07, 2008 10:48:46	Just a word about deities: There would be no problems if you use the greek polytheism. For the ancient greek every foreign (or barbarian) deity matched one of their own, only based on gender and portfolio.
#37 tcrowemagnon Jul 07, 2008 16:02:03	Just a quick question and some ideas about the (demi)gods - If the gods are extant in the physical world why are they not directly ruling more of it? From the descriptions in other posts it seems as though the average god would easily posess the capability to rule with ease. Instead of the Selucid breakup of the Alexandrian empire, I can imagine it splitting into a number of provinces ruled by members of the pantheon. Since the gods are relatively immortal(?), this would imply that you would have fairly constant political regimes which might or might not be ideal for the game world. It seems the gods would have a pretty strong vested interest in directly ruling the world, given that they understand their power depends on the number of believers they have and what is thought about them. If this scenario is not desirable, then I can think of a couple of ways around permanent god-king regimes. First, develop the extra-planar world more deeply, giving the gods more important things to focus on. Perhaps the influx of magic came from this world's initial opening to a larger planar community. For reasons unknown to mortals these other planes could be of greater importance to the gods, or they could be staking out fiefdoms in these planes and taking select followers from the physical world to populate them. My second idea would be to make the gods avatar fully mortal. They have all the capability of the written deity but are fully mortally vulnerable. After a period of time, the magical forces that are the substance of the god rematerialize in the form of a new avatar, according to whatever creation myth is appropriate to the god. This mortality would make the deity more circumspect about taking a lead role in political affairs and they would prefer to influence events rather than direct them.
#38 doomsought Jul 07, 2008 19:32:15	For the most case, the gods would be ignorant of their nature, too arrogant (or inbred, thanks Greece) to consider it. Those who are aware would bring forth stable (or depending on sanity unstable) areas; "points of light" anybody? Athena, would be one, one of the angels possibly, an Egyptian pharaoh, a Japanese empower. The latter to because the rulers become deified, so one is likely to get a clue, as quick as they would go.
#39 tcrowemagnon Jul 07, 2008 23:04:46	Well it's the Greek thing that sparked my thought in the first place. Since most Greek city states claimed a specific god as its patron there is quite a precedent to assume that greek style gods would commonly seek physical dominion unless another plot element specifically discourages this. I would not expect a transcendental buddha avatar or a shinto avatar to be as focused on worldly affairs. Anyway, one possible idea would be that the dark age was largely caused by too many of these godlike beings taking power and fomenting war to expand their follower base. Many of the first wave of deities to materialize perished or were diminished greatly as the mortals of the world rebelled at the suffering they caused, or through elimination by subtler rivals. This caused the gods to tacitly agree to take a more indirect approach to influencing the mortal world, and now they operate under a powerful mask of secrecy and guile, evocative of the masquerade in Vampire. This would open up the majority of the world to mortal dynasties while retaining the ability of some standout rogue gods to maintain physical states in interesting places.
#40 tom_kalbfus Jul 08, 2008 9:41:33	I was thinking along similar lines, when I was considering a current Kingdom of Israel, the current ruler is King Phineas IV, son of King Solomon III. Poor King Phineas, bastard child of King Solomon discovers at his father's funeral that his mother was none other than the pagan goddess Aphrodite, after that same goddess visited his father's funeral and attended her son's coronation, she met with King Phineas privately while pretending to be one of his slave girls to get close. Just imagine this young-seeming 18-year old "pleasure slave" telling King Phineas that she was his mother, the next thing she told him was to keep this knowledge a secret, the first reason for doing so is the Jewish high priests - the pharasees would attempt to dethrone him if the secret got out that he was descended from a pagan goddess, the second reason is that Ares would then seek vengence against him in a fit of jealousy and start a war. King Phineas is an observant Jew, not a perfect one, but he takes his faith seriously. Interesting dilemma isn't it? Aphrodite sleeps around and in the past couple of millenia has produced thousands of children. Being a half-god doesn't automatically provide godlike powers, though certain traits to show up, King Phineas was quite the ladies man, even taking into account the fact that he was a prince and is now a King. Why don't the Gods directly rule nations of the World? One reason is that to do so would alienate the worshippers in those dominions of a God not directly under that God's control. Aphrodite, in the above example, does not want to rule a country, she prefers to rule men's hearts and passions instead, mostly she is out to have fun and has no other goals beyond that, but the other reason is that she has many worshippers in many different countries and in the spaces between those countries where no civilization has control. If Aphrodite were to take over the rule of any country directly, those outside that country's territory would form their own fertility goddess, and she would then find a rival for her sphere of power - this would represent a loss of power for her as some of that power from here sphere would go to another diety instead. Aphrodite prefers to rule over her particular sphere of influence rather than over a particular country, she does look out for her children whenever she can however. There are many gods, one of the causes of the Godswar was a result of the infiltration of divine powers into the government of the Alexandrian Empire, the resulting conflict destroyed that power. Another problem is that after a time, the Emperors of the Alexandrian Empire began to insist on being worshipped as a God themselves in the manner of Roman Emperors of our history, over a period of time, this had influence over the magical influx and began achieving results for these Emperors, the gods grew jealous of these fledgling god-emperors, Aphrodite stayed neutral in this conflict because some of her bloodline was in these emperors, as she slept with various emperors on numerous occasions, the result was a number of Emperors that were half-gods and three-quarters gods from the union of mortal and the divine. The God Ares was of course jealous, but in the course of time he forgave her after raging for a bit, the destruction of the Alexandrian Empire was actually a boon for him as it resulted in a number of destructive wars that he found quite entertaining. The result being is that Ares is often a "champion of the underdog" whenever various Empires became too successful in ruling over a large fraction of the Earth and enforcing a "boring peace" for him. Ares has since been trying to keep the chaos going ever since, since this has produced numerous small wars to keep him entertained, not that he doesn't like the large wars, but these often result in a winner who then imposes his peace over the territory he's conquered, Ares doesn't like this. Ares also wouldn't want to rule a country. Ares especially doesn't want to impose peace and order, being a ruler means enforcing the law, and it is through the imposition of law that a ruler realizes his power, but Ares derives his power through chaos and warfare, this is a definite conflict of interest for him, he likes people to be free to savage and attack each other, and he favors bandits and brigands over the leaders of large armies. Lucifer and Ares are also opposed to one another on many occasions, Lucifer wants to destroy mankind - while Ares views them as his favorite "playthings", he is not so crazy that he doesn't realize that their is a fine balance here. People keep having children so they can raise the next generation's warriors to plunder and pillage and privide Ares with countless years of additional entertainment. If Lucifer gets his way, Ares realizes that his game is over.
#41 tom_kalbfus Jul 10, 2008 9:47:45	Greek and Roman Counterparts Greek Name --------- Roman Name ------------ Description Zeus ---------------- Jupiter ----------------- King of Gods Hera ---------------- Juno -------------------- Goddess of Marriage Poseidon ------------ Neptune ---------------- God of the Sea Saturn -------------- Cronus ------------------ Youngest son of Uranus, Father of Zeus Aphrodite ------------ Venus ------------------ Goddess of Love Hades --------------- Pluto ------------------- God of Underworld Hephaistos ----------- Vulcan ----------------- God of the Forge Demeter ------------- Ceres ------------------- Goddess of the Harvest Apollo --------------- Apollo ------------------- God of Music and Medicine Athena -------------- Minerva ----------------- Goddess of Wisdom Ares ----------------- Mars ------------------- God of war Hermes -------------- Mercury ---------------- Messenger of the Gods Dionysus ------------- Bacchus --------------- God of Wine Persephone (Per-seph-oh-nee) Proserpine ------ Goddess of the Underworld Eros ----------------- Cupid ------------------ God of Love Gaia ----------------- Gaea ------------------- Goddess of Earth Norse Deities Deity ----------------- Greek Alias ------------- Description King Odin ------------- Zeus ------------------- King of the Gods Loki ------------------ None ------------------- The Trickster Thor ----------------- Heracles (Hercules) ------ God of Strength Freyr ----------------- Eros -------------------- God of Fertility Tyr ------------------- None ------------------- God of Bravery Freya ----------------- Aphrodite --------------- Goddess of Love Frigg ------------------ Hera ------------------- Odin's Wife Hel -------------------- Persephone ------------ Goddess of the Dead Important Persons of King Arthur's Britain Person ------------------ Greek Alias -------------- Description Arthur -------------------------------------------- King of Britain Merlin --------------------------------------------- Court Wizard Lancelot of the Lake ------------------------------- Knight Galahad ------------------------------------------- Lancelots Son and Knight Gawain ------------------------------------------- Arthur's nephew Mordred ------------------------------------------ Son of Arthur and Morgan le Fay Uther Pendragon ---------------------------------- Arthur's Father Guinevere ----------------------------------------- Arthur's Wife and Queen of Britian Morgan le Fay ------------------------------------- Arthur's Half-Sister and a Succubus and Witch (Warlock) Elaine --------------------------------------------- Seduced Lancelot and mother of Galahad Igraine -------------------------------------------- Mother of Arthur The Lady of the Lake --------- Artemis ------------- Foster mother of Lancelot Aphrodite ------------------------------------------ Actual Mother of Lancelot, Father is perhaps Uther Pendragon
#42 art_tillary Jul 10, 2008 11:06:35	Greek and Roman Counterparts Greek Name --------- Roman Name ------------ Description Zeus ---------------- Jupiter ----------------- King of Gods Will you be posting the Hindu, Chinese, Egyptian and various Mesepotaimian pantheons also?
#43 Barbarossa_Rotbart Jul 10, 2008 11:31:29	The only thing you've got right is the table with the greek gods and their roman counterparts. The Interpreatatio Romana and the Interpretatio Graecacould be a very good help: Deity.....................Greek Counterpart........Roman Counterpart Ra (egyptian)..........Apollon.......................Apollo Ishtar (babylonian)...Aphrodite...................Venus Esus (celtic)............Hermes......................Merkur Teutates (celtic).......Ares..........................Mars Taranis (celtic)........Zeus..........................Jupiter Thor (nordic)...........Zeus...........................Jupiter Odin (nordic)...........Hermes.......................Mercury Tyr (nordic).............Ares...........................Mars Amun (egyptian).......Zeus Osiris (egyptian).......Dionysos Thot (egyptian).........Hermes Melkart (phoenician)..Heracles See also this.
#44 tom_kalbfus Jul 10, 2008 13:40:30	Will you be posting the Hindu, Chinese, Egyptian and various Mesepotaimian pantheons also? I can see some parallels with Babylonian/Sumerian. I'll have to look more closely at the Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian Mythos. The Egyptian Gods are rather strange looking with their animal heads and all. From the Indian mythos come Tiamat. I'll do an equivalency with the D&D mythos when I have time.