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

[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.

[tactical_alert]

What the Tevinters make of godhood is a mockery, and their Old Gods are a literal Blight upon this world.

[But there is a pause, a huff of thoughtful air. He may be vehement in his opinion of Tevinters in several ways, but he has to not fly off the handle about it blindly as he had done with Bronach.]

...Faith and belief are very much tied to what we are taught. [He questions the Chantry and even interpretations of the Chant. But he has rarely questioned his own personal devotion to the Maker.] You grow up with a set of beliefs instilled in you, taught and read to you as a child, and you don't ask questions. It simply what is. But there is more than words on a page or stories passed down. [History is constantly edited and rewritten. The Chant has, certainly.] That which we call gods are because we are told they are gods. Someone decided that, whether the gods themselves or a mortal describing them.

Presume that all gods in all faiths are all real, all existing at the same time. Would they not, like people, be petty and squabble over their subjects? Desire to be heard and recognized and worshiped more than another? Or would their wills and desires thus be strange and unknowable for the mere fact that they are gods who choose or do not choose to contact their lessers? Are those that claim to know the Maker's will truly hearing Him in their mind and soul? Or are they simply crazy? Or are they hiding behind religion to justify whatever decisions they make? You don't know. You can't know.

Maybe it's a quality of being a god that there is something completely and utterly unknowable. You could know a person to their very core if you reached deep enough. Mayhaps a god is different in that way.

[Normally he'd feel shy, apologize, back off. Presume he's ranting. But Morrigan has invited discussion, and surely nothing he could say sounds any crazier than a Rifter saying that their gods are physically real and walk among them.]

[arcaneadvisor]

Yet I have seen one, bloated, corrupt, grown fat upon so much blood and worship. That does not make them less real. They who raised them up were the people who sank Arlathan and plundered the Golden City, so it goes, what if it all lies in the will of a thing. So many are eager to look to another thing to guide them. Look at the Chantry. The Chantry is a mockery, 'tis a useless mess that thinks far too highly of itself for all that it wrote much after all who were part of the making of the faith were dead and gone. Convenient that way. How many would look to any mage and see an abomination, is it so very different? That power, that leashed will within flesh that so few possess, coiled and waiting...

[There's the matter, she thinks belatedly, of what the Tevinter Magisters might have learnt from the elves. Did they learn godhood too?]

Do you know much of the tales of the Creators who you must know existed long before Andraste ever had any visions? Elgar'nan once threw the sun down from the sky in their tales, only to relent when Mythal intervened, and all because the sun was jealous of how Elgar'nan favoured the earth, and so burnt the trees to naught but ash. The Chasind meanwhile believe that the seasons are female warriors, to show renewal and death, and winter is particularly brutal; have you heard of their practices of killing those who flee battle? [Why bring any of this up? Well how better to show that there were always faiths and beliefs long before that Maker that live and breathe even to this very day, one that Morrigan has studied, another that Morrigan grew up so close to though with a more tangled relationship with given what they call her mother.] Are those that do a terrible thing using the Chant to justify themselves, I have seen far more evidence of that, more likely somewhere one of those same pious women harping on about who can know the will of the Maker wrote that 'tis bathing the world in blood in his name that shall bring him back sooner than singing the drudgery of the Chant, then the Chantry split.

[Is she baiting you, dear Seeker? Up to you to decide on that one but Morrigan doesn't sound hostile, more probing, more in search of honesty from the people she asks questions of here and now.]

Perhaps however a perhaps celebrates their god is how they are contacted. They do something, they do ten things, a hundred. The thing that gives them what they wish is what works. When they fail to do it, then it does not. A better outcome than silence.

[Funny that Dumat was the Old God of Silence. That they're fighting Corypheus. She was down there in his prison long ago. And the Maker with all that long insufferable silence that inspires such venting of the spleen and handwringing…]

[tactical_alert]

[He bites his tongue, swallows the questions and the tales and the musings and lets them settle uneasy in the gut. A goal of his, within diplomacy, is to garner more support from the Chantry. What's left of its splintered remains until they finally get off their arses and elect a new Divine. So he's careful with words of criticism lest he put his position in danger.

What is a Seeker, so closely a hand of the Divine, if one vocally questions that which one works so hard to protect? But then, what is a Seeker with the Nevarran Accords null and void? What is a Seeker with questions and ideas long held private about the Chantry if the Chantry itself has lost its way?]

There are certain views. [He starts carefully. Does not rise to the bait, if it is bait, and doesn't snap to the Chantry's defense.] Viewpoints that suggest there is truth in all faiths. And viewpoints that suggest there is truth in none of them. Perhaps it is less that any specific figures exist, hm? That godhood is only that which we name the otherwise unnameable. Spiritualism, let's call it. Forces that so move the world, or specific areas of the world, or even specific creatures or people. Not a being in a sense, but just a force to which we feel more comfort in giving a tangible name to so we don't hide under our beds each night in awe and terror. Viewpoints, in this instance, that suggest that what people of all faiths worship might in fact all be the same thing with different stories attached.

[That might be more caged, neutral, even defensive from what she was looking for, in his care. But it's a fair idea to bring up.]

Although, on the topic of action... Yes, surely that's an idea most of us are familiar with, an act, a repeated act or a great act, and you are blessed, you are contacted. Prayer, as a most basic yet pertinent example. But if we say that doing a thing grants them, or does not, something they want...in a way, a god is then just a middleman. Doing something and getting what you hope for is what each of us do, all of the time, without any input from forces beyond. And yet none of us would claim godhood for it.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Not a coward at any rate. The Chantry takes so long to do things since everything it does is done bent over backwards in service to itself, tying itself in knots to suit the Chant the way it must be so nothing comes out looking untoward in the end. It's how it looks to Morrigan, ever the outsider who watched it. Watched from the meddling in village affairs to that of state; the Inquisition exists because of the Divine.

Conveniently dead. The Inquisition might cease to exist when the next one is finally wrestled into the vestements.]

Seeker, those heretics aren't packed off with tongues in boxes bound for Tevinter? [Such stories she's heard, of course, even worse than those of heathens in swamps and mires dancing to their nameless animal gods with jawbones about their necks beneath the light of the moon under the boughs.] Do they say what is unnameable beyond forces or spirits? Though spirits, given they were his First Children, capable of so much yet not enough in their telling. Powerful magic might even have been enough to those who had it not, or little enough. What happens with those who hold those views within the Chantry that goes against much of what they hold to that all that we have ever done is construct a thing, each people shaping it as their lives dictated back in those days?

[For that would explain the Avvar and Chasind, the Dalish, the Andrastians. It might do well to explain the Qun, the Old Gods. Build god with as many faces as required for all the parts of your life.

Morrigan's quiet. It isn't what she expect from the faithful but in no part of any of this has she heard from a Dalish, most affected by what will come to light, though in the end, if they've failed to speak, they'll have failed to speak and will have to live with the truth of what was written and seen and discussed. This is how life is, has always been, will continue to be.]

Then what lies on the other end of it if god is in the middle? [After all she could talk about the casting of a spell and what lies in the midst there but honestly she has the feeling that would muddy the waters, hence the reluctance to do so when she almost does, sticking instead to the task.] There are some who clearly did, once.

[tactical_alert]

[The wry smile can practically be heard in his voice.] One does learn to hold one's tongue in their mouths lest it fall into a box. [No, heretics tend to get far worse, for a given definition of heresy, for a given definition of worse.] Although I would suggest that people with those views, if felt strongly enough rather than a curiosity, would not be within the Chantry. Would they not seek another faith, a new religious establishment?

Or form a cult. Or what the Chantry would label a cult. Those tend to flare up brightly but snuff out quickly. There are those who would sing the Chant out of tune with the broader teachings of the establishment. Does that make their interpretation wrong? [But interrogating the text is frowned upon. Whole sections, slashed from the whole because they did not suit the Chantry that most are blind and ignorant to ever having existed. How can it be of the Chant and yet be wrong?]

Perhaps...perhaps there's another angle to this. We bring about our own changes with our own power. But something grants miracles. That isn't us. That can't be us. But miracles are only that because they are convenient and inexplicable, and we call it god, in whatever name that god takes. Let us say for a moment that we do have the power within each of us to call upon something that seems greater than ourselves. That that which we call a miracle is not so inexplicable, that there is no middleman, that we are able to tap into something...

[He makes a quiet, frustrated noise. He still speaks in vague words when what Morrigan seeks is definition and certainty.] Something. Something I do not seem to have a word for. But then the idea stands. If we are to assume we make our own power, then...are the gods as we know them just people who ascended to a point only the rarest few do? But then, you don't hear of new gods. When's the last time you heard of anything that hasn't already existed since before the Ages were named?

[arcaneadvisor]

There are a great many who might do well to learn that lesson, the drivel or tedium that falls out of their mouths so frequently. [Or the blatant idiocy that has her wondering how many blows to the head they might have taken in their life.] Does the Chantry not require those to make sure it does not become a bloated creature gorging on its own indulgence, rotting in its gilded vestments in the Grand Cathedral? They would label them heretics as surely as they did the Inquisition. For they are the true faith, they who know all. Who wrote so much after some fools carried a mad woman's bones up a mountain.

Serault still has the Cult of the Masked Andraste, I was there not so very long ago and it thrives for all the good it does the reputation of that sad strange place. [Not that Serault's misfortunes can be blamed on a huntress cult with wooden statues in forest shrines but it hardly does them favours.] What of those who turn the Chant to suit their whim, there are so very many of them I have met.

[Justinia certainly didn't mind playing the Game with Celene, Morrigan was there to see how all of that went and that was the Most Beloved Divine (TM).]

Spirits perhaps. [Quiet. Not to stop from offending him but more as a reminder of what exists. What existed before them. What listens.] Spirits watch. Listen. Take interest. Many a healer with the desire or knack for it has done things with their spirits that would be impossible otherwise, why not spirits who move beyond us; I know not what my mother is but if you have heard the tale of Flemeth, you will know that there were spirits involved. The true tale, mind, not what mothers tell to have the unruly child behave. If we who are able to dream, to reach the Fade can call to spirits without knowing, or to demons, who can say for the miracle, it could well be they who reach to us.

[Honestly it makes more sense than a god at times, she who grew up so close to the Chasind with their practices.] Somniari were more numerous once, bloodlines of old Tevinter again, able to shape the Fade more powerfully than any others. So little is left of the ancient elves yet they had wonders scarcely able to be understood, I could imagine a world where they were elevated. You have not read what I have read. Been where I have been. Some things have no names left to them.

[tactical_alert]

Faiths have been based on much less than the bones of someone with a following. [It's not angry, but more forceful. This conversation is not an indulgence, a way in a sense to make sense of that which lies beyond, the questions they both seem to have. But it is his faith, or the basis thereof, that she mocks. Hard to take so much of it without some defense.

Even if she's right.

What isn't offensive is the talk of spirits. Because they do exist. Even if he had somehow doubted that, the incident at Skyhold would have put that to rest. Hope and Despair chatting over his soul. Like old friends. And beyond that, he'd been in the Fade as few had before their wayward group.]

Spirits as the middle, between gods and mortals. Or spirits as gods to mortals, not unlike the Avvar faith. Spirits who can assist those who call to them in ways beyond any mere person, any natural mage. Spirits perhaps those that help the somniari, the elves of old. The Chant says that spirits are the Maker's first children. But even if that is not so, they still come from somewhere. The question then becomes, did something else, more mysterious and more powerful, create them--or were they always? Creating themselves, in some strange mirror of us. Such a fascination with us.

We'll never know, perhaps, who or what made the Fade. Perhaps it was us. Mortals so long ago there is no memory that can reach them, with knowledge and skills long forgotten. It might have always been, as the world beneath our feet has always been.

[Something about what she says, though. What she has read. Where she has been. He hasn't actually asked. Because this could be a thought exercise, and yet...]

Why are you so curious?

[arcaneadvisor]

Sisters in villages pay coin for bones of spurious origin. Knights will be sent out to die in the quest for ashes that might heal the sick. Who is to say then that a dragon is not Andraste risen again? [The Fifth Blight was not always an entirely harrowing time, but she lifts these three because this is what happens, this is what the world is as she has seen it: chasing at loose ends to have something, and if by that logic she might exist, then why not a dragon?

There is Morrigan's own mother who lives and lives again.

Who is the dragon. (The shape of the divine, no less.) Easier to say for her when she lived it herself, when she saw Haven as it was, blood-soaked, wretched, children with their dark rhymes, daggers above the scholar in a corrupted Chantry. (Justinia as much a madwoman for having the Conclave there, and she wonders why she never thought to ask Leliana more about the whole business.)]

Spirits are the same to the Chasind, more with animalistic or the seasons personified but given the splitting off from the Alamarri, well, we know the history. [And ah, the Seeker who knows more than a Templar would. Who has done his reading. Who has learnt his lessons.] Somniari whispering in the ears, sowing enough discord perhaps, or bending those to their will as needed; could you imagine, Seeker? To be faced by one with such might? If you possessed but a shadow or nothing at all compared to their power? What do you think you would feel like in the face of that? Small, one imagines. Unworthy, perhaps? Or as a Seeker it may be impossible, I know there are Templars who would find themselves incapable of seeing themselves as anything but superior to all once in their charge even now. Magic comes from the Fade so if you believe in the Maker, then the Maker did indeed make them.

Or... [And this is where she must pause, must lean close with that coy smile on her face] it comes from the elves. They had Uthenera after all. They were first. They had great skills and power beyond comprehension. Some part of me does wonder if they were the very first to possess that power in those days for I have seen what they have left behind, what they constructed that goes beyond what any mage is capable of now.

[And if ancient elves have created such things...well, they have created them. They have created them without being taught for they required no teacher but themselves, time, effort, failure. She is alarmed and intrigued in equal measure.]

I have spent near a year in the attempt to find my mother, a woman the Dalish name Asha'bellanar, the Chasind Mother of Vengeance. 'Tis a quest that has sent me places I thought not to return nor venture to, yet I have gone to find things...I am uncertain what to make of. They leave even a Witch of the Wilds with questions.

[tactical_alert]

...You take a certain joy in twisting expectations and threatening to shake the very roots of what people think they know from the ground. [Not admonition. He's impressed. But then, such is something a Witch of the Wilds would do.

Hard to comment on the whole 'my mother is an immortal dragon elven god' thing, though, if he's honest. Because how do you argue against that?

Her thoughts and musings are challenging, and while he has traveled far and wide, they have been for less than religious reasons, no out of finding artifacts, not searching for a strange family member. He hasn't sought out the obscure places she must have, places that would not be on any map or mentioned in any history book (none approved by the Chantry, at any rate). He feels the urge to go rooting around in less than approved books.

His faith, though, however twisted the words may have become, gives him comfort. As any faith should. Instead of picking apart her theories, he instead ventures thus:]

I'll not suggest that there are questions that cannot be answered. I do suggest there may be some that one would be better of not knowing the answers to. I don't know where this one lies, but...if you do find an answer, one that satisfies you. What a god is. What would you even do with that information?