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

[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.

[arcaneadvisor]

There are those who call me Chasind.

[Which is part of all of this: what makes a thing what it is, is it what the world calls it, what it is, or something else.]

Is faith or belief alone not enough? Must a person be able to reach out to touch it with the hands? Andraste lived, she was a woman of flesh and blood once, and whether or not the Maker spoke to her, she did live. There is a faith that raise her up with statues of her, sword in hand near everywhere one looks in their Chantries. The Dalish wear their Vallaslin to whichever of the Creators they have chosen, a symbol to Mythal, or Elgar'nan, Falon'din, whomever is a great enough part of their life, and through the great things the ancient elves did, the sinking of Arlathan-- they walked once. They walked this world, and left wonders we can merely guess at. How small a thing to reduce it to. To but stories. [Mankind crushes that which it does not understand indeed, she thinks, wonders if she might still pester Coupe even if this doesn't fall under her remit these days. It's good to keep the minds of old Templars ticking along.] Prophecies and war, is this not all that we are living in now? An age of change and upheaval, that is the Dragon Age.

[crowncitizen]

I'm not knocking anyone who has faith. Like I said, it's just strange to me. Our gods live in the world with us, and you could see them with your own eyes. Having these gods who are... distant and possibly not real just sounds bizarre. [He feels like she's putting words in his mouth and adding meaning to them he never intended, but he'll try and make himself clearer.] I don't know much about the Dalish Creators, but the Maker just outright sounds like a jerk who threw a temper tantrum because things didn't turn out the way he wanted.

[arcaneadvisor]

If faith is what builds a god then they could be more real for all that drives them then those who might see them. It takes a particular sort to carry their faith with them through the loss of not one but two homes, through the Dread Wolf's trickery to believe even now. For the Andrastians to believe as the Maker turns his back and to keep singing with no sign. [No part of Morrigan is saying that it makes sense, that she supports it but there it is: that they do it, that it persists, that there is nothing to say that a single thing but they themselves or whoever happens to be nearby so much as hears them or takes heed.] Who or what is to say that that is what makes them bigger, powerful, more real. That the life breathed into them by those who believe without proof, who have made something of them is any less than those who can see them with their own two eyes? They do not have to believe with nothing where you come from.

[crowncitizen]

[Okay, he has to admit, she makes some good points. It takes a certain kind of fortitude to keep believing and hoping, even when there's little evidence supporting it, outside of stories and legends. Really, back home they were all banking on a prophecy, though the chain of events leading up to it made it hard to believe anything else.]

Yeah, that's true. Sometimes, though, I wonder if they know what they're asking for. Like, the Andrastians want the Maker to return, right? But what if that's not a good thing? Gods aren't... always very kind. I've seen that firsthand. Sometimes it's better if they just stay away.

[arcaneadvisor]

[Honestly that cuts to part of why Morrigan herself is reluctant to hand in what she should have with what she recovered from the Tirashan: if the elves there are sacrificing and working in the name in some forgotten being that isn't a god, then what could that mean? Another thing to throw at the Inquisition at this time?

Even Morrigan isn't so great a fan of chaos.]

I would be the last soul one would accuse of being a Chantry scholar but I believe they wish for him to return the world to its former glory. It might do them well to recall that there was a world that existed long before humans set foot on Thedas. Former glory has ever had a dangerous ring to it when one looks to our enemy.

[crowncitizen]

And former glory might not be what they picture it to be, either. [He wonders what their definition of said glory is. Given the Chantry's views on so many things - magic, spirits, elves, and so on - he's not sure that's the best kind of glory to be striven for.] Like - yeah, what you said. Corypheus has his own idea of "former glory". Everyone has their own idea of it. Who's to say what the Maker's might be? What if his idea is "well this was all a wash so let's start over to where there's nothing and start over"?

[Fun and by now obvious fact: Prompto doesn't have a super high opinion of gods.]

[arcaneadvisor]

Corypheus would remember Tevinter in the days where the worship of the Old Gods still ran strong. I have ventured down to his prison in the mountains to where the Altar of Dumat was, and in those days there would have been slaves; elves do not have easy lives now, 'twould be far worse for what he imagines. [Truthfully, former glory is the least of it with Corypheus after all he's done thus far but for so many of them it would be a grim reality to greet if he managed it.]

That does suppose the Maker has the power to do it, if he exists at all and is not a figment dreamt up by a madwoman. Andraste who might have been but a mage only with tales coming after. The Maker did not rid himself of his first creations that disappointed him, nor did he do much no matter what has come since the Magisters set foot in the Golden City. Perhaps they shall be disappointed and he shall simply not care.

[Of all the options, it'd be that one in her book. The Great Dispassionate Shrug did the Maker grant unto the holy, and lo did they drown in their tears ad nauseam.]