crystal

[arcaneadvisor]

FORM: Sending crystal
SENDER: Morrigan
RECIPIENT: All
WHAT: Let's talk about what god is aka so you found a troubling thing and need to address that one day
WHEN: Post-tourney
WHERE: Kirkwall/Kirkwall-adjacent
NOTES: If you want to push Morrigan on certain things you can certainly try but her finding Geldauran's Claim isn't public knowledge yet given the possibility for it to be highly inflammatory, especially with the rifter status and the Dalish in positions of power in the Inquisition

What do you believe gods are Inquisition? Do you indeed believe that there are gods? The Chantry that likes to press and to meddle might not be for all but there are many of those who will still have the name of the Maker upon their lips in a time of strife. The Dalish have the Creators. The Avvar have beliefs about spirits and gods, and the Chasind have gods of a fashion, men and women beloved of them.

Rifters need not be shy in answering, I ask about...what a god is. What it might be. If it is a thing indeed. Something far beyond the comprehension of any mortal being, shifting even beyond the Veil or Fade that we might never know what it truly is, or if it might something else. Something closer to flesh and blood fashioned long ago. Shaped in the way the world is shaped.

[That phrase turned over and over: There is only the subject and the object, the actor and the acted upon.]

Perhaps… [and well she might as well voice a possibility when they're in Kirkwall where the Veil was stretched so thin long ago] once 'twas possible to raise those of ambition and power as high as the magisters of old Tevinter, to leave terror and awe in their wake depending on the mood, the whim, the offering.

[Eventually...well eventually there will be a report, but until she can trust how to write it, can know what the reception might be when it dares to leave the small group that know even the truth of what lies deep in the Tirashan, she can't bring her hand to write it.]

Comments

[periastron]

"What do you believe gods are?"

( Alex exhales, laughing quietly. She's lying in her floating gondola, crystal propped up on one of the seats, while she just lets it bop as though it were on the water. Who needs a hammock when you have a floating fucking gondola? Dickheads, is who.

Anyway, none of that's relevant, just know that she's embracing the pensive aesthetic as she looks at the sky. )

That's a bloody question and a half, ain't it? A lot of wars get fought over just that kinda concept. What's a god, what's a prophet, what's real and not real and holy or corrupt? Are there gods, or is there just one true God? Can there be one true God and other gods concurrently?

How philosophical can we go and get? Or are you wanting stuff what's more concrete?

[arcaneadvisor]

Any of it. [A pause, a rifter with an accent Morrigan recalls from how much it stands out amidst the rest of them so she considers her next words with more care.]

There is the Maker is what the Chantry worship, what much of Thedas worships, and he is a deity; if you wish to call him a god then you would not be alone for the Dalish refused to worship a human 'god'. His human bride, Andraste, was and is his prophet. There was a schism long ago between the Chantry in much of Thedas and that found in Tevinter. The Dalish also have their Creators, the Avvar and other such peoples their spirits who are akin to gods [easily listed, her readings have taken this path in months though hopefully she lays it out well though with none of the reverence a scholar would but if this discussion is to go the way it might, Morrigan can lay the groundwork for Alexandra since she doesn't know what her learnings of Thedas have taught her] and there were Exalted Marches in the past which are religious wars.

[Crusades but Bioware have you considered why the word crusade is even used no you haven't come meet me in the pit.]

There are the Old Gods, if they are gods. Dragons that the magisters of Tevinter worshipped long ago now corrupted into Archdemons that bring Blights upon the world when the Darkspawn find them in the Deep Roads, however this takes you, I am interested to know what people consider a god to be. If it can be a physical being, if it must belong to something untouchable by mortal hands or if it can be both.

If war, perhaps, can be viewed as sacrifice.

[Coughs at the Tirashan.]

[periastron]

I... I'm underqualified to talk about this. ( She speaks very slowly, cautiously, trying to muddle this out as she speaks. )

I think most people are, but they don't always want to admit it. My yiayia and baba, they grew up in different faiths that as... that as far as I've always understood it worshipped the same god, but looked at that god in different ways, and saw the role of different figures within that faith in different ways, too. There's a man who is debated as being the son of God or a prophet, and I've always struggled trying to work out which way was right. I thought it was... I mean, I thought it was kind of beautiful, actually, that they had what could have been a huge barrier between them, because of how important their faith was to both of them, but they loved each other so much anyway. I think— for me, anyway— I think the god that they and me worship matters because of love. And I can't talk for the gods here, but for me, the gods that matter, and my God, they can't matter without love. There's a whole lot of other things, but love, that's above all else.

Religion is complicated. Faith is complicated. I'm— we're all just trying to figure it out. I think people can seem godlike, and they can be tied in with gods, but I don't know that I could call them a god. That's a lot. But maybe that's where some of the debate in my world comes from, too, and that guy a lot of people think is a prophet, I do think of as the son of God. So, I mean... what do I know, yeah?

[crowncitizen]

It's odd here. All your gods are based on faith and stories. You've got no way of knowing they're real. The gods back home? They're real beings. I've seen them up close - a little too up close once or twice. Normally they keep to themselves, but some... well, extreme circumstances back home brought them out of hiding.

[arcaneadvisor]

Have you heard any tales of the Avvar or Chasind, the people who descended from the Alamarri but did not leave their practices behind? [Which is more idle curiosity on Morrigan's part than anything else it might be, to see what others have learnt, what circulates about but still worthwhile in all of this.]

Real might depend on what makes a thing real - does belief, what one does for their faith, their gods, does that make them less real? [And this is-- well for Morrigan this is new ground so she isn't combative where she might have been before or otherwise. Someone willing to consider before she makes a judgement.] What circumstances brought them out? There are and were the Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium that cause Blights, those are real enough too but there are none who worship.

[That anyone knows of, and who counts Darkspawn following blindly.]

[crowncitizen]

I've heard of those guys, but no, none of their stories. Don't think I've even met an Avvar or Chasind.

[They don't seem too drawn to the Inquisition.]

But you can't prove they're real. It's all just stories and legends and ideas. Not that I judge anyone for their beliefs! It's just way different than what I'm used to. [At her question, though, he grimaces.] That's... a really long story. It's got a prophecy, a war, and a lot of bad stuff happening.

[provenforce]

There were more religions than I could name where I come from. But one thing that was real, and it's real here too, is the Force. It's in all things, shaping them, bringing them into balance, helping us do things we don't think we're able to do.

I don't believe in any god, there were religions based around actual living people in recent history, treating greedy cowards like gods. But I believe in the Force.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Well that second part has Morrigan sitting forward and taking a much more definite notice but in this instance perhaps more than any other she cannot allow herself to grasp for the gleaming thing that interests her most. She has to know more.

This will come to light one day, and to have many more opinions is best.]

And how does the Force do that? Are you able to tell me? Is it akin to give and take? [The last is with some measure of hesitance, as if unsure she's speaking in the correct terms though she doesn't wish to say too much about the truth here of what she's asking.]

So where you came from there were those who raised people up in such a fashion. But recently. Do you know much about them?

[provenforce]

It's hard to explain. It just exists, and moves around us. Some times less subtly than others, and there are those who can tap into the Force, use it to help them. Some people use it to hurt others.

[ She's a little hesitant to go into either one, since both types of people are currently here in Thedas. The other question is a little easier to answer. ]

I know what I've heard. There was a Hutt called Niima that built up the outpost that I grew up near. She was a criminal overlord, bought and sold people and it eventually caught up with her. After she died a group of people that saw her as a god supposedly built up a sacred village around her skull. I've never been there, but then I wouldn't be invited to a place like that.

[castintoflames]

The only one who might be considered in that light on Arda is Eru Ilúvatar. He is the creator of my world; all began with Him and all will end with Him. The Valar serve beneath him and the Maiar beneath them. Then come the Elves; we are the children of Eru directly - like the Valar - but our power is less than the Maiar.

(He has a complex relationship with...all of them, truly. Maedhros runs his fingers over his right arm, eyes unfocused.)

I have seen the Valar with my own eyes. I cannot say my belief in them is religion. They exist as I do.

[arcaneadvisor]

[What a fortunate thing for that exchange of letters between herself and Thranduil so very long ago that Morrigan will just excuse herself to collect from a chest before returning. (Of course she keeps notes, but in this she would prefer Thranduil's hand.)]

Ilúvatar of the Great Music [softer, a little absent to familiarise herself with the concept again--] yes, I have discussed this long ago with another. There were fourteen, meant to be fifteen, with one who turned from the path the rest followed if I understand correctly?

What I wonder is, if you do not call it religion, is the nature of your belief in them changed by your knowledge of what they are? You are aware of what you are. You have seen them, you know them. Yet does that change what belief is to you that they are made of something rather than the Maker who is something unknowable to those of Thedas for he is not made of flesh or another substance, but rather is.

[elegiaque]

( gwenaëlle thinks about not saying anything— )

I don't.

( believe in gods. believe that gods are anything. )

[arcaneadvisor]

Part of me is unsurprised. [And then, in the spirit of sharing--]

I believe. Not in the Chantry but with all I have seen, there is something that I believe in. Might I ask why?

[Not everyone believes, or life changes faith (and certainly after everything Gwenaëlle has been through more than enough to challenge the lot of the faithful) but how rare it is to know someone from Thedas who doesn't have it lurking in the background, somewhere, even in the darker corners of their hearts.]

[thunderproof]

I can't speak to Thedas' gods, except to say that the Maker seems either impossibly ridiculous or ridiculously cruel, by my plane's standards, ❰ and she has some ideas about the creators, but she's not going to voice those here, ❱ but in Toril the gods... are.

That's unhelpful... In Toril, gods aren't unknowable beings beyond mortal ken — well, maybe they are that second part, but they are demonstrably real. I've spoken to two, myself. They have power beyond anything a mortal may accomplish, and sometimes they simply are and sometimes they clawed their way to their power with sacrifice and blood, but there is none of this... questioning, like there is here.

a few months from now this is going to be in the elven artifacts' lap so enjoy one day adalia

[arcaneadvisor]

Much of what was written of the Maker comes from the Chant, I have little love of it or either. [Belief of a thing existing, faith, those can be separate from love of a thing and live about the Chasind and that strikes a deeper chrod.]

Again the question comes of reality that I wonder: what makes a thing real. Is it to touch it with the hands, to smell the salt of the skin, to hear breath rattle in the lungs? Or is it what one makes of it? [Or both. Both could be good but unhelpful when that would be the middle ground and when there were bodies, when there was blood in the air in the air with screaming (if that detail can be kept to leadership so much the better) then what good is the middle ground? When the ears are pointed. When home is the forest and the tattoos are blood writing.] Was the sacrifice and blood given freely, demanded, taken, or some combination?

[Does it matter? (Yes.) There's always sacrifice. The roads of Thedas churn wetly, blackly beneath them all wet with the blood of those who built them, bones and old beneath their feet.]

Thedas has wrestled with the face of itself for Ages. The Chantry split between Tevinter and all the rest. Elsewhere there are those who call spirits gods. People cannot fully decide the nature of the prophet Andraste. The Qun threatens and causes more to question their faith. There were Exalted Marches past and one against elves who would not follow a human god. Is that what you mean by questioning here?

[tactical_alert]

It seems to me that there are a great many Rifters whose gods are as real as you and I. In that case, can they still be gods? Is godhood merely power beyond our ken? Is godhood something unknowable and effervescent about a being?

Andrastians, of course, know of the Maker, and apart from 'let all the world sing the Chant', some may even claim to know the will of the Maker, such as the Divine--but only blessed Andraste herself knows the Maker. To know something beyond the realm of the physical, the mortal--does that make the Maker a god?

I could play the petulant child and suggest a god is what a religion teaches you a god is. That there is only the Maker and all other gods are false and heretical. That if these beings do or did exist, it is not as a god, but as something...else. Demi-god?

But in truth? In truth, I have had little cause to think on it. But allow me to speculate. I believe what makes a being a god is something akin to an observer. Something far beyond any reach of any man or beast that watches and waits. Perhaps, on occasion, intervenes in a miracle. But mostly awaits the faithful in whatever lies beyond, whatever becomes of spirit and of soul. Because then, what is a soul? How do you define what it is inside of us that makes us us, each unique and irreplaceable?

Maybe what a god is is something that cannot be defined.

[arcaneadvisor]

Part of that is what I wonder at, what faith is to a person, what makes something real to them. The Avvar believe in spirits as their gods, and spirits are a thing they can see better than you will ever see the Maker or Andraste, yet they still believe. [Is it faith if you have proof of existence? Morrigan with questions she never thought she'd be asking yet here she is because she went in search of her mother only to find a fragment that troubles her heart.] What if godhood can be what the Tevinters made of it. Bend down on your knee, glut it with blood and sacrifice. They had dragons once.

[They have Blights now, Archdemons and she has seen one, witnessed all the foulness pouring off it as acrid smoke and magic, the holes in it, the rot.]

How can you know they do not know the will of your Maker? [Leliana. Leliana who saw further than anyone, whose thoughts were and are at times near an anti-thesis of the Chantry rhetoric that the loss rises up in Morrigan unexpectedly, catches in her throat enough to damn near choke her.]

The Dalish would tell you that their Creators existed, and of course you should know history well enough to know the Exalted March against them. All that I have seen in my travel and studies has lead me to believe that there were indeed Creators, though what they were-- well, the Dalish would not want me to speculate. [Almost coy. Almost. If it weren't for the words of this Geldauran.] I wonder though, what then of gods that become forgotten.

Action would define us. What one does. Does not do. The will to do a thing. A thing the Chantry has stripped from mages often enough in the past, oddly by separating them from the Fade. Where we go in dreaming. [She pauses, long enough to be pointed and dramatic as is her fashion.] And in death.

[swordproof]

[ It takes Six a little bit to reply, but when she does - ]

I've spoken to Sarenrae. She has guided me, more than once. She is a friend, an ally, a patron and more, in a realm we cannot touch.

[ And, clearly, Six adores her. ]

[arcaneadvisor]

Who is Sarenrae? [A scratch of quill on paper, clearly writing that down.]

You believe in her, in her existence. [A quiet confirmation, Morrigan's heard that tone from those who truly believe before, not the bluster of someone repeating lines drilled into them but those who live with their faith, content, solid in it.] There are few I can imagine who could boast such things of anything in Thedas held aloft for worship, perhaps maybe the Avvar though I know little of their spiritual practices though I am uncertain what you mean by patron. For a god or deity, it could not be as an artist has one with a noble.

[Could it? She's never heard such but when most of the faithful are Templars and the Chantry...]

[coiledscales]

Gods are both very real and incredibly powerful, often beyond the reach of mortals to truly slay. They can be harmed, though, and exceptional mortals can even cast them down and take their place, should they have ambition and the power to so so. Such an undertaking is incredibly risky, of course, not to mention high suicidal I'd one overeatimates their own abilities.

They also tend to dwell in their own realms, reaching into the material plane only seldomly or through mortal agents. When they do make themselves known, however, they are to be feared and respected, if only because they wield vast power. They can, however, grant great power and gifts to those in their favor and often do - especially when they wish to advance their own agenda.

[arcaneadvisor]

Harmed how? [That-- that catches her attention, catches in her throat and she considers what to say next for a long moment but if there are those who care to argue, they're free to do so.] The Creators the Dalish believe in were betrayed by Fen'Harel and sealed away beyond their reach, not a death [well, wait until you meet your mother again Morrigan and reconsider that one] but still a great act when one considers that they are. The Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium can be slain but this is when they are Archdemons at the head of a Blight. Those fit your conditions far better, I believe.

[After being witness and party to the last one.]

Material plane-- Does this differ to the Fade and the waking world? Do all gods possess a place entirely of their own? They are certainly active then in that situation compared to here in getting that which they desire, is there a price for the mortal in that situation? Or if they were to act for one god against another?

[Since this is only making her think of the rest of the codex, the rest of what this Geldauran had been speaking of.]

[hello_there]

Personally, I do not follow any particular faith. Though I suppose it is not impossible for a god or gods to exist. But I've never seen any particular evidence of such, myself. Only those with great power, and long lives, or else particularly fervent followers.

There is, of course, The Force, but I would not confuse it with anything so individual as a deity. That would imply... individuality, like a person. Someone, instead of something, rather.

[arcaneadvisor]

You do not consider any of those to be evidence? What would be evidence to your eyes? Is it not enough that they believe? Perhaps all a god is is those who call them that to make them so, those with the will, all that that imbues them with.

[Morrigan wouldn't be able to say for certain but that gets closer to the argument of the text: that will is exert, that some lead, others follow, and that is the way of it.]

Another one speaking of this Force. [More absent, keeping track of the threads for later, for what she'll need to know after.] The thing that young woman spoke of.

[late to this so sorry!]

[extraverse]

I heard Prompto explain a bit to you about the gods of Eos - that they are physical beings who reside with us in the world. I admit it took some time to be used to the idea of a distant god based on faith and story when I arrived.

I am not sure how much help my perspective would be because of that.

[arcaneadvisor]

Was the idea difficult because of the physical god residing alongside you, or is the notion itself challenging? Or are you unable to separate such an idea that there would not ever be a physical god therefore you cannot imagine believing when there is nothing you can perceive yourself to believe in?

[She might as well know how he's approaching this before going further.]