3363 The Goddess Falahn
Reader “OldSkoolGeek” has asked me: “So will you give us a full listing of the nascent pantheon and their domains?”
So here’s the list:
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Early(ish) in the 3rd Age (The Age of the Elves) the first “Council of Elves” or “Council of 10” was formed. In it the King assigned ‘provinces’ to the 9 Ministers.
1: I’Aran: The One, or The King. Leader of the Council of Ten. Became the King of the Gods in later times. He’s largely only lip-serviced now and remembered as Legend.
2: Sith’mel: Minister of Love. She is the ancestor of the High Elves. She too is more remembered than worshipped, and she is a symbol of acceptance and unification to the High Elves.
3: Maenas: Mister of Art (visual arts that is, like painting and sculpture). He is the ancestor of the Grey Elves. Most of the Elves have forgotten him but the Grey Elves still pray to him.
4: M’Arion: Minister of Music (and by extension, Song). Became the first Muse. She shrugged off the burden of goddessness early on and prefers to travel about creating and listening to music. She is left off of most lists as she never really became a ‘proper formal goddess’ with shrines and icons. Some use different spellings or assume she’s a totally different and forgotten person.
5: Nen: Minister of Water (and later, Storms). He is the ancestor of the Aquatic Elves. He is worshipped exclusively by them in huge underwater shrines.
6: Lolth: Minister of Power. The definition of this is sketchy. I’Aran trusted her with such things as warmth, light, kinetics and things that make other things move. But Lolth quickly learned to joys of being able to control and dominate. She is the ancestor of the Drow. She is reviled by most gods and remembered in legend as a figure of evil. Only the Drow actively worship her.
7: Scorpii: Minister of Entropy. Like his sister, Lolth, Scorpii deliberately misinterpreted his province. He was entrusted with such things as rest, the end of life, death and the afterlife. But he ran with death, dying and developed the first poisons, which he was later worshipped for. The God of Poison and disease. He was the ancestor of the Scorpii who are now believed to be extinct. Pretty much only the Drow and possibly any surviving pockets of Scorpii even remember him.
8: Rodyn: Minister of Peace. Originally given the province of peaceful resolution of conflict, she discovered that she enjoyed war a lot more. She and her two siblings Lolth and Scorpii stirred up a lot of crap among the Elves and were later exiled. In exile they started battling amongst themselves, frequently nearly wiping eachother’s followers out. She is the ancestor of the Dark Elves. Like Scorpii, she isn’t even remembered by non-Dark Elves other than the Drow and the Scorpii. Her worship had always been thin and in later times her ‘province’ was spread to other gods worshipped by other groups.
9: Cuil’man: Minister of Life (life energy, spirits). He took to the plants and enjoyed living wild among the trees. From him are descended forest folk (Fauns, Dryads, etc) and the Wood Elves. Some accounts pair him up with M’Arion from whom are supposedly descended the fae (Pixies, sprites, and fairies). But there are gaps in the legends as many have forgotten that M’Arion was even part of that group or is that old. And of course, M’Arion ain’t tellin’. Nobody’s sure if the forest or fae folk worship Cuil’man or not. But occasionally a very powerful Centaur or Hybsil or Faun will appear in their times of need and historians postulate that he’s still out there in the woods.
10: Aiwenor: Minister of Air & Sky. Nobody really understands this particular province. Why is she in charge of “up?” As it happens, she is possibly one of the most powerful of the gods of this pantheon, with influence over the wind, the rain, erosion, oxygen…. and is often in mythology either paired up with or in conflict with Nen. She’s also the ancestor of the Winged Elves who live up in the mountains (and yes, you’ve never seen them before!). So much overlap is there between Aiwenor and Nen, that most Elves -apart from the Winged and Aquatic Elves- believe that he’s probably the same person and the actual number of the Council of 10 is 9.
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Keep in mind that some of this information changed while I was writing it.
-Rich “BK” Morris
Without understanding the limitation of our own ego, we forget that our dreams will fall with the pedestal they’re built upon.
Nicely put.
Very nice world-building!
All the myriad fictional philosophies and religions build around the "balance of Good and Evil" have always struck me as ludicrous. No real person would ever believe in them; they exist by author fiat for the convenience of the story or the game setting.
Falahn’s balance of order and chaos, on the other hand, doesn’t rupture my suspension of disbelief. It’s something that a cerebrally-inclined deity and their followers could actually build a philosophy around. In-world, it definitely carries the danger of degrading into malignant dualism…but then, that is exactly what this story arc is about.
Thank you!
Yeah, Evil and Good are moral choices, so fantasy ideologies that believe in Balance between Good and Evil are kinda stupid… sorta like saying "you can’t be too nice to others, you have to hurt them to balance it! what would happen if everybody were always nice and caring to each other? eh? the world would be destroyed!", which is, well, stupid…
Order and Chaos are more related to the universe and nature itself, so yes, I cans see how an unbalance between them could become dangerous. I can see a religion or philosophy being created about preserving balance between Order and Chaos…
Exactly. "Strive to maintain the balance of Good and Evil" makes sense only when "Good" and "Evil" are bloodless abstract terms. Fill in examples of what the words mean, and suddenly no one would advocate working to preserve the balance of those who abuse their loved ones and those who cherish them, or the balance of those who commit genocide and those who stand in its way.
It’s sometimes argued that "too much Good" can lead to stagnation and decay, and in fictional worlds, this is cited as the cause for the downfall of some lost golden age. But inevitably this turns out to mean that one narrow definition of "Good" became the only acceptable one, and used as a hammer to oppress dissent. In other words, the problem was people doing evil, not "too much good".
On the other hand, you CAN sanely advocate a balance of tradition and innovation, or a balance of adventure and stability, or a balance of the cerebral and the practical. In other words, the balance of two different forms of good. And these examples fit nicely alongside, or within, Falahn’s balance of order and chaos.
We can see dangers of both too much chaos (anarchy) and too much order (dictatorship) in politics as well. Yes, the balance should be between order and chaos – and if you look behind anyone telling you that chaos is evil, you can see dictatorship in making.
The trick with Good and Evil is different: they are relative. There will always be Good and Evil, because there will always be someone more nice and someone less nice. Lot of historical figures were very good in their times, but they look pretty evil now. The saying "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" now speaks about too harsh punishment, but when it first appeared, it was about LIMITING the punishment.
I would say that I can believe that "the balance between good and evil" could be a tenet of an *evil* religion to justify their cruelty. I agree that it certainly shouldn't be given any validity by good people though.
Rich, I am so loving this history and philosophy
Thank you so much for all the work and attention to fitting aspects in a way that makes sense and is beautiful in its design <3
Thank you very much.
Becoming a god against your will sounds freaky.
I remember a terry pratchet book where a woman was very displeased at being forced by her country’s belief into replacing their defunct god, it seemed wildly unpleasant
The Duchess, in "Monstrous Regiment". Good book.
It’s not unlike what happens to rock stars and other celebrities. One moment you’re just gigging in a club, and the next you’re *adored*, by a staggering, uncountable number of people. And that idolatry comes with expectations, even demands…
As we’ve seen, not everybody survives that.
t!
When it comes to fame and fortune, I’ll just take the fortune, thank you very much.
Yeah, and when a ‘role model’ proves they are just as fallible as anyone else, they get vilified
They didn’t *ask* to be a role model, and those who do, shouldn’t be one
Probably could have said that better, hope you all could understand anyway
I think my coffee wore off:
t!: "One moment you’re just gigging in a club"
I read it as: "One moment you’re just giggling in a club"
That’s just egocentrism, my dear.
t!
You are not alone, I read it that way at first as well. 🙂
Yep add me to the giggling club. We are obviously just naturally happy people 🙂
Well, now *I’m* giggling, too!
t!
Sometimes even just the /word/ ‘giggling’ is contagious even when the word ISN’T ‘giggling’.
‘Yawning’ tends to have a similar effect on people 😛
I didn’t but I was giggling as I read your post. 🙂
Yes. But I’m not surprised resistance was futile.
Eris and Aneris in one person, if you want to riff off of Discordian mythology. And it is a core tenet that Malaclypse the Younger believed in, that to be creative you needed a mix of chaos and order. Which makes me wonder if magic is fnord given order and chaos, unlike in our world where magic is the amazing sense of wonder we get from science?
Holy cow, and wholly Chao indeed.
You did not say this. You were never here. And no fnord one read it, because it wasn’t here. Buy GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. Fnord.
Won’t help you in the upcoming GURPS Illuminati University campaign, I’m afraid. Unless you are a freshthing majoring in Worldbuilding.
Ah, good old IOU, where I became a Zen Bachelor (I didn’t feel like getting my master’s degree). I lost my heart there, but the replacement is almost as good.
Ah, Discordianism… I always loved the five elements, Sweet, Orange, Pungent, Prickle, and Boom!
I like this, chaos and order may not need each other in any kind of balance to exist but the natural world sure as hell does. I like having enough chaos for species to evolve but not so much that our bodies can’t hold together.
So will you give us a full listing of the nascent pantheon and their domains?
I suppose I could. Once this information gets out, of course, you guys are able to call me out on mistakes or alterations I make later.
I would never do that! Staying in the good graces of the King is paramount to keeping my relationship with Fang happy. That and my squid cheese scones…
Pointing out errors and mistakes are meant to *help* you, not *attack* you
Every artist makes mistakes, the great ones acknowledge when they do and fix them (if they can)
Yes. That’s what every artist loves is to hand out reference sheets side by side with their work so people can be helpful by pointing out how their work has changed or strayed from the original material.
Shit. I just poked the wasp nest, didn’t I?
Umm, no, artists change (improve) their style as they progress, specially if they have been going for a while
Was talking about *actual* mistakes, like forgetting to put glasses on a character, or getting the colour of their underwear wrong, or make tyops
This isn’t about typos and miscolours, this is about sharing out my notes so people can compare what I end up using or not using.
1: You ever try to DM a classic D&D game but at least one of the players has memorized the Monster Manual and lets you know every time you’ve fudge a Hit Die or ignored a weakness and gives you and the other players a lecture on what the monster is, what it does and where it came from and all its variations in different campaign worlds? I hate that.
2:You ever go camping and have a mosquito in the tent which buzzes around your ears from time to time? And you’ve shoed it out once but at some point it found hole in the lining and managed to get back in. And you just don’t feel like chasing the little fucker around to shoe it out again but when it buzzes your ear you can’t help but take a swat at it even though you know it won’t do anything?
I hate those little bastards too.
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That being said, I’m not suggesting that any of you readers would deign to do such a irritating thing because I’ve shared out some notes. And so, because you asked so nicely, and because you showing an interest in my work is far greater a gift to me than the satisfaction I get in keeping massive world secrets (of which I’ve got many!) I’m going to give you the list of the original 10 Elven Ministers and what their provinces were in the 1st Great Elven Council.
Thanks, boss. ?
You have a very rich and fascinating backstory for your world. Have you ever considered a Kickstarter to create a D&D compatible campaign book or the like? I would back the ever-loving shit out of that.
Sorry, misunderstood what you were saying, and was attempting to assure you that your longtime readers aren’t out to attack
The best way to present such a pantheon is "in-universe", so that any faults in continuity can be blamed on an Unreliable Narrator.
Which Lady Marion is doing now.
Um.
Thank you! Always looking for worldbuilding info like this. Even if most of those seem pretty forgotten …
I’m not going to try to explain or rationalize any of this history. Just going to enjoy the storytelling. Please continue.
So did all the gods used to be elves? Or just the original batch? If any mortal who becomes worshipped enough can attain that power, seems likely that other races would eventually earn it, too.
Also, I’m amused that the YAFGC brand of elves doesn’t much have the "arrogant, self-absorbed ego" that often paints elves in other fantasy settings. Which is ironic, considering some of them became literal gods. X)
I’m guessing it’s an "any entity who receives enough devotion" thing, although the fact that Falahn’s appearance became more human over time does suggest the possibility that even gods like Gruumsh, Kila, or Vachiritei’s distractible human-appearing patron might trace their descent to that original generation of ascended elves. Still, I would wager that a lot of them are newer to the game.
At least some new gods were born just as gods, since that seems to be how Ranna and Ctheir got here.
Well, yeah, I figure other entities could become gods. Elves just have the advantage of the longer lifespan to achieve that in. Most humans, and other shorter lived races, even with a devoted following, would have a hard time building enough belief to achieve immortality in one lifespan. Not impossible, just a lot less likely.
OH S$%#! JONE!
… didn’t she killed most of her followers? Not good way to build lot of belief … although, it seems she DID got something from that.
I think most YAFGC elves are much like kids who don’t really feel the effects of time, so their attitude is one of eternal teenage procrastination, since they don’t feel like they are growing older. In many other universes, the elves are already in the Eternal Sulk mode, in a snit because they just realised a century or two ago that the world moved on without them.
Lady Marion seems to be one of the few to actually remember that far back, which is mind boggling. Two MILLION years, remember. The whole of written history on that planet is less than a thousandth of that. These First Ones lived so long that to them, things must have always been that way.
Rich, if you are reading along, just realise how much room you just gave yourself to remember things that happened and disappeared so long ago there wouldn’t even be geological traces, as very few things get to become part of the fossil record. It is a rich (hah!) world you have here, as even the "gods" can only remember so much.
I love the bewildered, crosseyed elf in panel 3. While the older elves look on with worry, saying "This is just a phase the kids are going through, right?"
Poor things probably aren’t wired to start feeling even vaguely confident in their understanding of ANYTHING until after a few tens of thousands of years’ more experience — and then they meet humans who radiate rock-solid confidence in EVERYTHING, after being in the world only a few decades. No wonder it threw them for a loop!
Ranna turns over a new leaf and becomes a good guy, the spell goes off trapping her in a pocket dimension forever, she is unable to release the gods she consumed so they are dead forever, the world falls to ruin as the balance is disturbed by the absence of chaos, rocks fall everyone dies.
Nah, Fang will become the new god of chaos!
as soon as Ranna is sealed away Fang immediately starts speaking in complete sentences and reveals that he’s a professor of nuclear and astrophysics.
Rich, is the nascent goddess in the first panel Aiwenor? From the visual, I had assumed her domains were water and storms, but from the cheat sheet you gave us, it seems that portfolio belongs to Nen, a male. But you do also mention that there was significant blurring of lines between Nen and Aiwenor.
Keep in mind a few little things.
1: The image is generated from Lady Marion’s 2 million year old memories and so might be a bit… imperfect.
2: The list is compiled from tons of painstaking research by Trevor and Leland and some old chronicles from the Elvish tomes of learning.
3: The image doesn’t necessarily correspond to the order in which Marion listed off the provinces.
Awesome, I like the pantheon! I recently made one myself for a game world that was more of a back story with a friend of mine in a planescape type of setting. Thank you for sharing.
As far as your earlier comment, at least as far as magic goes I always thought magic should be mystical. Whenever someone has "figured out" magic there should always be something else that smacks them upside the head. My main issue with midichlorians.
Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science (Agatha Heterodyne). Nothing really bad about it, but yeah, the wonder sort of disappears … note that my main issue with midichlorians is that apparently noone ever believed in them. With the exception of that one blood test, they don’t BEHAVE like they would have scientific explanations of the Force.
Drow are the obsidian-skinned elves, scorpii look pretty much like regular elves, but what are dark elves? (I assumed that the bald elves were native from the invading Dungeon Keeper dimension and did not have any kind of YAFGC-land origin).
Yes, was wondering the difference between Drow and dark-elves as well
I think the dark elves are the bald Dungeon Keeper elves. Native to the YAFGC universe (in this continuity), but rare these days, and pretty obscure until they showed up with the Keeper’s entourage.
So if I get this right, Fahlahn, who wasn’t one of the original 10 ministers, spontaneously became the 11th god when humans began adoring her.
I don’t think she was the only one. Marion mentioned that many philosophers who weren’t on the original council became revered among their fellow elves for their knowledge and wisdom, Falahn among them. I imagine a number of these later ascended to godhood…Falahn once more among them.
If that is the case, then the roster Rich posted above is a list of the original Council of 10, but not a complete list of the gods of the Third Age.
Yes, that is just a list of the Original Ten
Yup. The list actually is the original Elven Council of 10. A little governmental group, all of whom eventually became gods (or muses), but there’s a few hints that this isn’t ALL the gods. Falahn’s story, as mucat pointed out, says she also became one of the revered teachers who the Humans elevated to godlike status. And that same panel indicates that there were more.
Marion of Heatherdale also says that she was the /first/ muse, indicating that there were others.
Love the irony that Lolth started out as a god of light. But now I have to wonder about something. It’s been pretty heavily implied that it was the beliefs of mortals that cause Ch’thier to become "Good" and Ranna "Evil". Did the same happen to Lolth, Scorpii, and Rodyn? Or did they guide their followers to see them that way? Do they even know how it started? It’s a god level question of nature vs nurture.
Or chicken vs. egg.
The answer to the question, "Did Lolth influence her followers toward narcissism and cruelty, or did her followers influence Lolth?" might be "Yes."
Now I’m wondering what the origin of some of the other gods is. Like Abynn, about whom we know very little except that he caused a whole lot of trouble.
I do wonder about these "younger generations of elves". Take modern elves, are they still immortal? Or has a million years of interbreeding with humans bred that trait out of them? Like, half-elves are presumably not immortal, even if their elf parent is. Would their line ever regain immortality no matter how many "true" immortal elves they crossed with? Is any elf with even a single human ancestor mortal, no matter how many generations ago?