Hong/GamesOfDivinity

I hate the "crackhead" interpretation of the GoD often seen online, so I made up my own take on the matter.

Games of Divinity

It's sometimes assumed by inhabitants of Yu-Shan and Creation that the Games of Divinity are an addiction of the gods, and symptomatic of the decay that has afflicted the world in the Second Age. This is both true and false.

The Games of Divinity are the means by which the gods keep reality — and in particular, Yu-Shan — coherent, against the constant onslaught of Chaos. The Games did not always take up so much of the gods' time. The presence of humankind in Creation also serves as a buffer against Chaos, but in the First Age, they were the lesser part of the world's defenses against entropy. A mortal could only contribute so much to keep Chaos at bay; far more important was the presence of hundreds of high-Essence Solar and Lunar Exalted. A single Essence 6 Solar could be the equivalent of millions of mortals, in terms of the potency of his beliefs in bolstering the ramparts of Creation.

All this changed with the Usurpation, when the Bronze Faction engineered the deaths of the Solars and most of their Lunar mates. It was not immediately apparent that this was so, but over the years, it slowly became clear that the Games were becoming more difficult, and the time required to complete one's moves greater than ever. The situation became pressing enough that the Incarna were eventually forced to draft several ranks of the Celestial Bureaucracy to assist them in playing the Games — ranks that had never been intended to take part, and to whom the Games have indeed been an addictive experience. Moreover, the removal of large parts of the Bureaucracy to take part in the Games has had a devastating effect on Yu-Shan. It has turned Heavenly society upside down, and led to the rampant corruption that plagues the Bureaucracy today. The Games are thus indeed a cause of the decline of Yu-Shan, but not quite in the fashion that might be expected.

Questions and Answers

Q. Why didn't the Sidereals foresee that this would happen?

A. Because it involves creatures outside Fate. Or because their curse kept them from figuring it out. Or both. Or maybe they did, but didn't think it would be this bad. Or maybe there's some other factor that remains unspecified. Pick the answer that suits you best.

Q. Now that the Solars are back, what happens to the Games?

A. Good question. Some Solars are back, but a lot of their shards have been corrupted. This might mean that nothing can ever be quite the same as it was in the First Age; or it might not. Assuming the Solars are able to restore things to how they were, the gods might be willing to stop playing of their own accord; or they might not. Assuming the gods are willing to stop playing, Yu-Shan is still a big place and it might be a long time before things are working properly again; or it might not. There is thus plenty of scope for individual STs to set the parameters to their liking.

Notes

This is originally from one of my rants on the GoD on RPGnet. It's not entirely consistent with the backstory given in the book of that name, but I'm not too worried about that. It also posits that the "strength of belief" mentioned in the core book as keeping Chaos out is correlated with how much mojo (Essence) an individual has, but that doesn't seem unreasonable in the Exalted context.

Comments

You ask the question "Why didn't the Gold faction forsee this?". I postulate that perhaps the Gold faction did forsee this - or at least something like it. The trick is that no one thought it would be this bad. After all, there are still thousands of Dragon Blooded, and the Sidereals and Lunars still provide high-Essence bastions of belief as well. And since the Siddie's job is to keep things running, well, they'll obviously do well enough, right? Things like the in-fighting of the Shogunate (where entire belief systems of nations were put at odds) as well as the great contagion have really reduced the 'fixing' power of creation's belief.

Just a thought, or a possible solution, because I felt like interjecting. - GregLink

Yeah, that could work too. Those were just some possibilities that came to mind as I was writing it. - Hong

As a fyi, it's the BRONZE faction that what killed them solars, it's the GOLD faction what wants the Solars back. ~ haku

I hate it when that happens. - Hong

What does this contradict by the way,(other than the vague stuff in GoD that the games arn't necessary for creation? In nifty way, this kinda explains the 'UCS turning back to his Chosen' stuff in the Core book(Now that they have returned, he doesn't have to play as much). Heck, you could even extened to say the Primordial war was partly because, well, the way they played, reality was wacky. (Given the way the demons are, I can see this). I was never really bothered by the "crack" angle, but this cool. -FlowsLikeBits

Re the contradictions: it's more of a subtext thing. The GoD book implies that the Games are an idle pleasure, unrelated to more fundamental stuff like keeping Creation going. The Primordials created the Gods so they would be free to play the Games; the Gods offed the Primordials so they too could play the Games. I don't really care for that, so I tried to give the Games a more profound purpose while at the same time remaining as true to the written text as possible. - Hong

Actually, you yourself stumbled upon a rather interesting "design problem" in your statement. You point out that the Gods offed the P's, so that the Gods could play the games. You know, the games that essentially control, defend, and expand Creation. To me, it seems that while the Gods were built with a fail-safe "You can't attack the primordials" clause, their primary design goal was still "You make Creation go, and you make it go well". Sadly, from the moment the Gods were created, it was an extension of this design goal that they eventually want to take over the games. Gods like the UCS aren't really necessary for the smooth operation of Creation. In fact, I'd say that both he and Luna aren't necessary for Creation to run at all, as theoretically the loom and the umpteen lesser gods out there really handle all the stuff going on. What purpose does the UCS serve, then? Why build a God of Perfect Infallibility, and a God of Ever-Changing Ooomph (Luna), if they're not really necessary? Perhaps because Autocthon saw at the start that if the purpose of his God-Forging project was to take over the administration of Creation, that some Gods would eventually need to be able to play the games, and play them well. Other Primordials might not have even realized that the UCS and Luna didn't have 'real' jobs per se, and were really just biding time until their lack of anything better to do with their awesimitude led them to take over the games. So yeah - in short, there's a chance that the Gods were designed (either intentionally or not) with the goal and or ability to play the games somehow wired in. After all, if you design a perfect android to help do your job, how long is it until that android takes over your job for less cost and effort, allowing you to retire? Is it the android's fault when you find out you didn't want to retire after all, and that your work is slightly addictive? - GregLink

... Pretty nifty theory, all this said. I can only imagine the sheet Chaos the Great Contagion brought to the Games too :P - Tiffa