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

[hello_there]

Of course it matters. Whether or not you follow any particular god or gods, you seem to be carrying a fairly broad definition of what makes one. I don't hold that other people's beliefs must define my own-- Andraste was undoubtedly a charismatic and much-beloved leader. Her faith, and the faith of those like her, is a powerful thing, no can deny that... but that doesn't mean it's based on truth. Nor does it mean that I have to agree with any of it.

Of the Tevinter traditions, I know only a little, and most of that highly skewed by its sources. One can hardly expect accurate information from an enemy, hm?

[Though at the last, he snorts. Like the 'absent Circles,' was it? Well.]

No. The Force is not an organization, like the Circles, or a... school of thought. You seem curious.

[arcaneadvisor]

I was raised apart from all others, 'twas my mother and I, all that she told me, forays into a more civilised world and what I might glean of the Chasind who call my mother the Mother of Vengeace. [There's a subtle weight to the title to make certain that it is indeed a title; they were never her friends, she was never made welcome but never put out. Hard to put out the daughter of the one you learnt from, who took the menfolk and might take more should you risk stoking her ire.] And if the truth is that the gods are all but a thing any fashioned long ago, those willing or searching or easily lured into belief by the powerful, the hungry, the influential? Certainly those have all existed, less of the latter, more of the former.

[Somniari, if she needs to explain those. A void in a person, reaching out. History that repeats with mages letting the Circles leash them, learning nothing from the elves before them.]

I wish to understand the answers I am given, you spoke of the Force as did she, and as her student. The only things such as that with any teaching are those of mages. My mother taught me outside the Circles though as an apostate, 'tis rare. I only wonder how much the Force shapes your opinions of these matters. If there is room for the Force and any faith, or only the Force. Has anything since coming to Thedas changed those beliefs or are you resolute?

[She's simply curious, after all this is Thedas trying to decide on what the face of itself will be for the first time in a long time, faiths being changed or challenged are hardly the most drastic notions now.]

[hello_there]

[Obi-Wan listens, thoughtfully. What would it take to convince him of someone's godhood? More than just power, or longevity, or revere, this much he's said. More is the operative term, really.]

The Force. It's an energy field created by all living things, everywhere, everywhen. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together. Many have interpreted that as a holy power, and others as something to be reviled, but it's only... life. All life. [He clears his throat slightly, as if emerging from some reverie] It's what gives a Jedi their power. But Jedi aren't the only one sensitive to it, as you may imagine. A bit like the Fade, I suppose, in that even if you can't see it, or touch it, it's still there.

[Obi-Wan thinks a moment.]

I'm sure there's room for nearly any Faith in the Force. After all, I'm only one man, with one perspective, and it has ever been the policy of the Jedi that one's own religious beliefs are private, and not to be dictated to the individual by the Jedi as a collective. Within reason.

[arcaneadvisor]

Not a shield or barrier, one imagines. [For a mage however, that's what comes to mind first, easiest, magic that can rush forth to cover as many as fit with it with a spell when needed, or summoned at will.] Magic too is seen through the eyes of the Chantry as something of the Maker or to serve man, when magic is only what it is, able to be used, interacted with by some, drawn from the Fade. Only the Veil separates it from us. The Veil being not physical, a vibration. Able to be torn, stretched thin. I can see where some similarities of opinion overlap, misconceptions too, no doubt.

[Again, more to be added to the notes as she goes, a quiet scratching in the background before she pauses, repeats those last two words with interest.]

Within reason?