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

[castintoflames]

(It doesn't shock him that another has spoken of them. For the Elves of Arda, the Valar are everywhere; in the air they breathe, part of the earth beneath their feet, in the waters of the Sea...)

The fifteenth does not deserve the title. (His voice is cold with personal - quite bitter - anger.)

You speak of faith rather than possessing tangible evidence. (He is calmer now, thoughtful.) There were many times my faith would have been questioned if I had not known the Valar for myself. But since I had seen them and knew their might, I had no question as to their presence.

Faith is...beautiful and rare. I will not question another's faith unless it interferes with their good sense. Men of Arda, for example, must understand that there are greater beings than they in motion on Arda. I think that requires strength to believe and not see.

[arcaneadvisor]

The foe. Though is the Foe simply one reviled or one cut from the tale, prowling the margins until such times as the rest are gone. [Worship of the Forgotten Ones exists now in the deepest heart of the forest, dark as heart's blood. Why not the same for the Foe.]

Thedas has been through much, evidence is thin on the ground; arguments over bones and ash [ash Morrigan herself perhaps bore witness to though if Oghren was to believed with the talk of lyrium (if more on that comes to life, if one considers the rifters, the plague--)] Many have no evidence for faith, they have not known the Maker or Andraste, the Creators, whatever it is they pray to. But yet they pray. They make their offerings however bloody they are. [Haven where the Conclave was and the altar of dried blood, how different was that from what was found in the Tirashan?] You witnessed beings made tall and full of something deemed worthy of worship, what is to say that long ago 'twas not the way, and that there are those who seek it again.

Faith accounts for ugliness all too often. Sweeping over the lands to make all the world according to its image, look to the Chantry. When one does not see, one does not have to see all that comes after.

[castintoflames]

He is imprisoned until the end of time. Then, and only then, will he be given his freedom to watch the world he so desired crumble. It is said that his brother, King Manwë, will battle him on that day and our King will be triumphant. (He speaks as if he looks forward to all of it. On that day, he will watch with his kin as Morgoth is beaten into the dust.)

Evidence is not necessary if a heart is open and a faith is strong. (Now he gives a soft sigh.) To seek a powerful being - to desire to see them standing before you - there is naught wrong with that. However, sometimes, when they are found, they do not give the answers you want. When their answer is silence to your pain, there is a reason for that, too, and you must carry on.

(Maedhros has not encountered truly dangerous religion yet - except for those who follow Morgoth or Sauron.)

We are given a heart and a mind for a reason. It is my belief that if you spend the majority of your life abiding by good sense, you will do well by your conscience and your religion. I question any religion that requires its followers to behave cruelly or erratically. Blood sacrifices too make little sense to me. If a godly being is so mighty, the blood spilt means nothing to them.

[arcaneadvisor]

Who did the writing of this battle? Could it not be that a hand writes it so that there will be a triumph so that the people await it, only to find that in the end some slinking malice is the one to win the day? [These elves of Arda, so resolute about what will be. Admirable sometimes but how little room for the liminal space so sorely needed when dealing in where the borders are less distinct.

Corypheus, after all, was thought imprisoned, Morrigan might say having even been down there in the dark and a filth it took days to scrub from her skin long after it had gone from under her nails, off her boots, the smell aired from her robes. Corypheus who sends his forces against them now as the sky has split itself asunder.]

You sound half a Chantry Mother. [For the first part. What a sight that would be, she'll tell Thranduil over wine one day when life is less pressing for all.] Most here are well-used to there being naught there when they ask for something. The Maker turned his back, Andraste is dead and at his side, dwarves worship the Stone, the Creators are shut away beyond the reach of any, and perhaps 'tis only those who worship spirits that might see one when they ask though when it comes to the Chasind the idea is...looser than with the Avvar. As I understand it. [Start getting into spirits and Chasind beliefs and everything starts to become something far more conceptual on the whole.] The silence here is for the actions of men long dead who spread the first Blight upon Thedas, and all that came after since they were the first Darkspawn. Silence until the whole world sings the Chant. Is that a good reason for silence?

[A semi-genuine question, Morrigan doesn't care for Chantry rhetoric but she does wonder at how others interpret it.]

What of blood in battle? Is there such a difference? Blood is blood, the Veil is weakened by death in all places here and there have been Exalted Marches in the name of the Chantry many a-time.