Arafelis/OnGods

There seems to be some confusion on how there can be a god for *everything,* from The God of Flames and All Fire all the way down to The God Of That Nasty Cold Jamie Had Last Week. So, in my infinite wisdom, I have deigned to tell you what you think.

Er, what I think.

Anyway.

The essence of a god(dess, if they have genders) is based not only on how pervasive they are but how much worship they recieve. So a god of a natural function, like The God of Wind-Slammed Doors, is in many cases 'smaller' than, say, The God of Public Libraries- simply because people pay more attention to public libraries than doors that accidentally slam shut in the wind. Conversely, a god of something like Trees That Fall In The Forest When No One Is Around To Hear recieves paradoxically more power- because people spend a relatively great amount of time in contemplation and discussion about this particular god.

First rule: Gods of Essence less than 1 do not exist. That's not to say there's a lower bound on god-hood so much as that if literally nobody ever thinks about it, it isn't there; and for things that people only contemplate in passing, the god may come into existance only to 'starve' to death quickly without any kind of veneration or support.

Second Rule: People do not make gods. Confused? Ok, it's like this; when you think about something, there has to be a god of that thing, usually, in order to make it 'work'. So Fate has decreed the existance of that god- the poor bugger exists at least long enough to permit you to contemplate it. This is both easier and harder in Creation than elsewhere, because while gods can't just be popping in and out of existance willy-nilly in semi-static reality, 'nearby' gods are responsible for taking over the thing's properties.

Third Rule: Gods are not required for existance. Yes, I know I'm contradicting myself again- only I'm not (again). A thing can exist as part of reality without any sort of supervision, but it won't be properly 'real.' That is, without a god of a thing, it has no seperation from that which surrounds it- the god of the thing demarcates its boundries. The god is responsible for making sure that the object it represents operates in the manner described by Fate. In the case of things that are well-understood by the inhabitants of Creation, this isn't as necessary as it is for unusual things, which is why the more 'special' something is, the more often it has its own seperate god.

In a totally static reality, there would not need to be any gods, because the properties of everything would be set down by fate and maintained by virtue of lack of change... in other words, gods exist because of the Wyld and because of other gods. This is why the corruption of the Heavenly Bureaucracy doesn't simply make everything stop working- they aren't as necessary as they'd like everyone to believe, except in conjunction with one another, the shadowlands, Malfeas, and the Wyld. If everything would convieniently play by Fate's rules, the gods could quite handily be written out of existance.

Arafelis

Comments

I disagree with you on a couple points. One, every thing does have its own god, from a city to a sword to a wooden cup. How special the object is and how much attention it gets has a lot to do with whether it's an intelligent, active god. For example, the gods of disease that Sidereal Medicine Charms (forget which one off the top of my head) can kill. Odds are that they're not intelligent enough to have a conversation with, but every instance of every disease has its own specific "smallest god." Second, gods don't need worship to survive. While they grow more powerful when worshipped, smallest gods and other super-low-ranking deities do not depend on it for existence. Take the wooden cup god -- no one worships it, and odds are no one will ever give it a second thought, but it exists nonetheless. Gods are not only required to force things into fate, since every inanimate object has a god. They are the objects themselves, as well as the rules they play by -- which means I'm against your third rule outright, at least as far as canon is concerned. Well thought-out, though ~ WaiyaddoNoDan

Well- yes, every 'thing' has a god, but what a 'thing' is is a little hazy. For instance, a wooden cup has a god, but does its handle? What if you break the cup? If the answer is no, the handle does not have a seperate god, then you're forced to ask where the line is drawn... for instance, why is there a god of a city if there are gods of individual buildings?

If you say yes, the handle DOES have a god, is there a god of half the handle? What about a god of half of half of the handle? And so on and so forth. A god represents a 'thing', but not a physical 'thing' so much as an apprehended 'thing'- the cup, ideally. Either you have a literally infinite number of gods, which is unworkable and confusing- how can something be a Least God if there are gods smaller than it?- a strictly limited number of gods (which is probably just as confusing since new areas of being do come and go), or some compromise. I'm explaining the compromise that would allow Exalted to exist rationally.

You also seem to be confusing what I'm saying regarding worship-as-contemplation with worship-as-prayer. Which is my own fault, I suppose. That is, I'm saying a god recieves some spiritual sustanence by simply being regarded- belief, conception, whatever you want to call it. If you don't have a 'thing,' you don't have a god- and a thing is whatever you can percieve or think about. So conversely... if a thing is percieved or thought about, there is a god responsible for it. If a thing isn't percieved or thought about, there doesn't need to be a god, and Fate probably doesn't bother keeping them around... it just lets them starve to death. - $.02 &Arafelis

No offense, or anything. I just don't understand the problem this system is intended to rectify, mainly. Why is the idea that everything has a god any more of a problem than something like an Exalt lifting up a yeddim, or turning a desert into a land of plenty? I do not even comprehend how the idea of everything having its own god impacts the game at all.

The question about buildings having their own gods and a city having a god too seems pretty simple to answer. The structure gods operate in is a bureaucracy, and that is how bureaucracy functions. The gods of each building submit reports to a god who is above them, and then there is a god who takes the reports from all of the gods who take reports from who watch over all of the individual building gods, and so on and so forth.

I think Ahalt is a good example of that kind of thing. He began as the kind of pissant god your system would deny existance. That is . . . Ahlat, back before the Primordial War, started off as a god of the mating contests of bull black Northern walruses. Who regards that? Are we to think the animals perceiving their own mating contests sprung Ahlat into existence?

How does this all reconcile with the fact that it is Primordials who made the world? This system places, as I understand it, a heavy emphasis on how often and how much mortals interact with something. Maybe I am confused at what the term 'Least God' entails (I only looked in the GoD and Sidereals lexicons), but I understood it to be simply a synonym for little god, not a term to denote a being that is actually least among all things considered a god.

I am also curious as to why an infinite amount of gods is unworkable or confusing. The Primordials made the world of Exalted. Maybe I am just too much a layman, but it seems like the Primordials were supposed to be terribly alien, incomprehensible (even the most logical one, Autochton, is logical to the point of alienating human comprehension), and not logical in any sense a human could be logical. Given how Creationism has been discredited in our world, I would think that that would be more of an issue. It is completely irrational that entities could exist that could simply create a world. And what makes it an issue, that in their act of creation, the Primordials allowed for an infinite number of gods?

I am also confused by what you mean when you say your system "would allow Exalted to exist rationally." This system does very little to make the game rational. It does nothing to measure stunts, the Wyld, or any number of irrational things that exist in the game. I suspect I am grossly missing the point. Is it really just something as simple as, "some people cannot come to terms with the existence of an infinite number of gods in the world of Exalted, and I have come up with something to help them with that problem?" ~ Andrew02

Pretty much, to be honest. The actual number of gods in Exalted is, "There is one where the Storyteller needs there to be one." This system is intended to serve as an explination for why, for instance, a player deals with the Least God of their daiklaive when they want to repair it, rather than the Least God of the Second Damn Crack My Daiklaive Has Suffered This Week, You Bastard. It also allows for gods to have individual motivations and aspirations; if a new god existed for everything, then gods couldn't really hope to increase their own dominion; they'd simply all be equals.

As for the mating contests of walrii... These are only significant in Exalted insofar as someone actually gives a damn- for instance, some hunter at the dawn of the world going, "Hey, when I kill a walrus, there are still more next season. What gives?", and Fate going, "Hmm. Walrii mate. Check." And the hunter sees the walrii mating and goes, "Well, that's boring." and Fate, or the Wyld, or whatnot goes, "...Fine, we'll have them fight over it." Or maybe the walrii saw mating, and It Was Good (tm), and started squabbling over it and Fate responded, "The walrii are dueling again. We need someone to report to us about this." In other words- yeah, Ahlat exists because Something Happened and because Somebody Cared. I don't know whether or not the intelligence of the perciever matters.

I've got no freaking clue what the Primordials did, or why they needed lesser gods. They were bored, whatever. They *embody* the natural principles of the world; the Beauracracy might've evolved so that they could have servants attending to their inflated bulks while they played their games. As stated in my previous reply, gods are only really necessary if there is some way for a thing to not act like its supposed to- which can only happen if there are other gods... or the unfinished raw potential of the Wyld, which is what the Primordials shaped the world out of in the first place.

A god exists because a thing exists, because it has properties which are managed in regards to other things. Since things can be divided indefinitely, the number of gods that can be assigned to a thing is likewise indefinite- but conceptually, it's hard to work with. We don't *need* all those gods. Why have a God Of The Teacup Handle when a god for the whole teacup works just as well? Unless somebody actually *cares* about the teacup handle seperate from the whole thing- in which case, Poof, Fate has decreed there exists a god for this particular teacup's handle, because it will be needed as the lynchpin in a treaty between the Realm and The Great Teas of The Spaces Beyond Juice. I'm actually not sure if I'm making any sense at all whatsoever at this point, so I'll just wait and see how this is responded to before trying to clarify myself. - Arafelis

The problem of an infinite number of gods can even be lessened if you consider them to have aspects, like the 3rd and 2nd circle demons are aspects of the Yozis. The handle of the cup is an aspect of the cup itself, a component, and is represented by its own least god... which is an avatar of the god of the cup. Though, as far as I'm concerned (and would use in my games), I prefer the thought of separate cups. The universe is run by the Celestial Bureaucracy, and the Loom of Fate is a physical object managed by the pattern spiders (and occasionally Maidens). There are a number of ways the breaking of the cup can be resolves. One is that the god is broken into smaller pieces, one of which is contained in each shard. Another is that the god is destroyed with the cup; it has lost its cup-ness. If the cup is repaired, it will have a new god. For example, Deheleshen was razed in the Contagion, and Lookshy built on its foundations, and Lookshy had its own city god, though Deheleshen's still lived. Taking that as a precedent, a least god might survive the destruction of its physical representation only if it has enough Essence - that is, worship, or power. If the cup is a holy relic, the god may survive, and engineer events so that the cup is restored to its glory. ~ WaiyaddoNoDan

See, this is why I don't drink tea. What do you mean when you say you "prefer the thought of seperate cups?"

If there were already seperate gods for the Bowl Of The Cup and the Handle Of The Cup, then what is the significance of a God Of The Cup being broken into two pieces?

Also, if the cup is broken, how do you handle of the God of The Break In The Cup, the God of The Moment The Cup Was Broken, and The God Of When The Cup Was Whole? These are all 'things'- ideas that can be grasped just as easily as the idea of the cup itself, or failing that, at least as easily as the idea of, say, "love" or "forgetfulness." - Arafelis complicates.

My understanding of it is like this. Gods represents concepts and relationships, while elementals represent 'stuff'. If you want to posit tiny atom elementals, that works(This means there arn't technically and infinte number of gods, but it's still so huge you need to quote Douglas Adams). Besides all the concepts, there is also a God for Every combination of stuff. This means most gods have LOTS of reports. I.e there is a massive overlapping hierarchy. I think of Essence as a measure of a gods ability to do anything other than manage their domain(Basicly, below essence one you have to follow the laws of realty as set by the pattern spiders. This applies to mortals and spirits equally). Below Essence one, they can't do anything else really. (This is a common feature with Primordial design, low Essence stuff acts pretty instinctivly. Dragon Kings have a similar problem.) Gods belows Essence one arn't capable of well, being talked to or manifesting, or well doing anything other than managing their little part of reality.

Remember that everything is a bueracracy and a hierarchy. So there is a God of the Cup, who has subordiantes that manage the bowl and the handle,and every possible subset of the cup, etc. Basicly, you always deal with the most important God apropraite to what your doing. So if your using the Cup, that invovles the god of the Cup. If your focusing on the handle the God of the Cup has to grit it's teeth and pass you off to his subordinate who manages the handle. If you break the cup, the bueracracy of the cup effectivly splits itself into two(slighly smaller) bueracracies. Repairing the cup repairs the bueracracy(so the little handle God must report to the Cup god, but not the God of broken Handles). If for some reason the Cup become important, say it became the Holy Grail, the God of the Cup(now, the God of the Holy Grail) could gain enough

To put it another way, you can think of most things two ways. If you repair the crack in your daiklaive you can think of it as the God of My Daiklaive doing a hostile takeover of the God of the Crack in My Daiklave. Or you could think of if as you removing the God of the Crack in My Daiklave's domain, so it becomes unemployed, but is hired by the God of My Daiklave to manage that part of the Daiklave again. It works out the same either way.

This is actually functionally compatible with what you said, there just isn't a cannonical term for these little managment entities. I usually call them gods, due to the (remote)possible that they get promoted in some manner. Also, while these tiny entities exists, the fact that no-one things of them means they don't matter most of the time. Anyway, that's my thoughts, and neat page. -FlowsLikeBits

Ok, you caught me- I've been referring to elementals as gods also. The generic term 'spirit' would probably be better. I've thought about some of these things before, and I'll summarize:

There are no 'atoms' in Exalted, not even in the original Greek sense of the word (a smallest piece, a fundamental building block of which nothing can be smaller). The closest approximation is Essence, with one mote being the smallest measurable value. However, it's clear that the 'idea' of half-motes exist (ie, in a charm where one mote buys two dice). Still, it's reasonable to say a thing that has less than one mote of essence in Exalted does not exist for all intents and purposes- which is why I draw my lower limit where I did. Anything with an Essence score of less than one is basically an inanimate object, storing its essence in its elemental structure, and while I agree that this could be used to represent elementals or gods with 'fixed' roles, I do not see how such an entity could function as part of a bureaucracy.

And when you say, 'every possible subset of the cup' I think you perhaps don't recognize the implications of that statement; there are a literally infinite number of subsets in any given range of reals. Saying "Every subset of the range 1 to 2" means 1.1, 1.01, 1.001, and so on forever- and that's just one of the infinite infinities in the set. This mathematical headache is why I have limited the existance of gods abstractly to 'the minimum number who have been fated to exist.'

However! I do agree that your explination 'works' just as well as mine. and that they are not fundamentally oppositional. It has the same basic purpose; it structures the gods into a manageable and relatively consistant system, which is handy given that the gods are, after all, one of the primary enforcers of semi-static reality. -Arafelis enjoys constructive debate almost as much as trolling.

Just wanted to say thanks to Arafelis for explaining things to me in a polite fashion. I cannot really express in a sincere way how relieved and grateful I am you did not respond in an antagonistic way. Thank you. ~Andrew02

That is very gracious of you! I'd like to thank all the little people who made this possible, and the little people who made them possible, and... &Arafelis

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