Exchange of Realities

First part here. Second part here. Third part here.  Conclusion below.

Shalla reached out for the dagger, then drew her hand back. “What’s the dagger for?”

“It’ll help you see what you need to. Wouldn’t do us any good if all you could see was the monster and not what to do about it, right?”

“I guess….”

“What’s wrong?”

What wasn’t wrong? Every child knew that falling asleep around strangers was a bad idea, particularly this close to dark, and there were four granny-tales in Shalla’s village alone about accepting knives from strange men. But then again, they were walking towards the village even knowing that the things were too big for them, and the dwarf hadn’t just said “I’m being chased by something that’s going to eat me, so keep running.” Clearly, expecting these people to understand what was wrong with this picture would be a bad idea. Besides, what a story this would make!

Smiling but acutely aware of how tight her shoulders were, Shalla nodded and took the hilt of the dagger in both hands. “It’ll be safe?”

“It’ll be safe,” the two agreed as the wizard let go of the dagger.

Shalla nodded, tucked the dagger into her sash, and darted off the trail.

“What do you think you’re doing, lass?” the dwarf asked, beginning to run behind her.

“Hiding!” Ooze-brain. “There’s a hollow pepper near here. You don’t expect me to just fall asleep out in the open, do you? Everyone knows you can’t play hide and seek when all you’ve got are six-inch trees!”

At least they didn’t find anything else to complain about. Shalla reached the tree, pulled herself up into the branches, located the top of the hollow and lowered herself in. It would be hard to get out, but at least it would be just as hard to come in after her.

It was only as she dozed off, the dagger clutched in both hands, that Shalla realized that she hadn’t been told what she was looking for.

The leaves were in shadow, the sky was cloudy, and the world was gray; the only spot of true color was the handle of the dagger Shalla held. She chimney-climbed her way out of the tree, and retraced her steps back through the forest, towards the place where she had originally seen the gray woman.

She was particularly alert as she crept through the forest, both to her surroundings and to how she moved. All the woods-lore talked about how important hearing was; unable to hear another’s approach, or even to tell how much noise she was making, she was particularly vulnerable, and she knew that the ghost-woman could see her in this form. What else might be able to? Could she herself be heard? It was best to take the extra precautions—belt and suspenders, as Old John would have said. At least these visions didn’t seem to care if it was day or night; the rapidly growing shadows only served as cover, and didn’t seem to keep her from seeing where she was going.

Twice she stopped, ducking into the bushes as something went by. One time it was minor, just a fox darting by as fast as its legs could take it in the direction opposite hers. Needless to say, it didn’t notice her. The second time, though, the something felt much more—wrong. At first glance it was only a hound, but there was almost true color to it, even in her shaded world—almost green, to boot—and while it didn’t seem to actually notice her, it did pause a moment and sniff the air. But it moved on, and Shalla moved on, and soon enough she came to the rift.

There was no shadow about the rift; everything about it was color. Green in the sky and violet on the ground—if such were ground and sky at all—peeked through a rent in the world, and the air around it was distorted as if by heat. The portals edges flapped, almost liquid, like fat from a

What am I supposed to do here? Shalla wondered. She crept closer, always on the alert for the gray woman.

Closer… closer. The edges were still flopping; a rather distracting sight, honestly. Shalla found herself wishing she could just pinch them shut.

Could she?

Still silent. Of course it was silent. No sign of anything approaching. Nothing to do but try. Would they go straight together? Probably not. Old Lucetta’s clay wouldn’t just pinch together, after all. But…. strike and slip, maybe. Was it moist enough? Trying to start it would tell her if she could fix this.

She raised the dagger and brought it up to one of the flapping edges, then sliced at it. It cut a thin line through it.

It worked?

She set to work as quickly as she could, scoring both sides with the blade of the dagger. The lower portions were easy; the harder ones she had a harder time reaching. It ended up requiring climbing up the edge of the rent in the world so she could reach, and that took all her attention.

A moment of shadow, a feeling like being brushed against, was the only warning she had when the woman returned. She looked over her shoulder—the woman right next to her, but also running up to her, moving forward—

Forward towards the gate….

And Shalla did as the leaves of autumn did when buffeted by an early winter wind, and pulled herself upward. With a rush of chill air, the woman hurtled past her into the hole. Shalla’s hands at the top of the rift pulled the sides together, and they merged with a satisfying wet-clay splortch—the one sound she had heard since her dream began. And she slid down the rift, bringing the sides together all the way, until they closed, and it was only gray and shadows again.

And she woke up before she hit the ground, and climbed out of the tree.

In front of her stretched the mangled, burned body of the hound-thing; nearby, the dwarf was cleaning blood from his axe. The wizard was looking irritated, the trees nearby were singed, and the air smelled like the Smiths’ attic had the winter the bats took up residence.

“I fixed it. You’re coming back to explain this to my mother. You owe me.”

And without another word, still holding the dagger, Shalla began to walk home.

The holidays may be good for post ideas, but they’re not so good for gaming, so I don’t have a session highlight to amuse you with.

I do, however, have a request from last week.

TheZomb mentioned wanting to see “A god of prophecy who only makes sense if you’re high on something.” I had a character I thought qualified, but going back over the original page I linked, I realized that I’m not doing too good a job of showing this fact. So today, I’m going to give you the best of Lysha, God of Prophecy.

Most of these occurred in the same conversation. One of my PCs, Geri, had had a dream about a sword. Since he served as translator for Lysha, it wouldn’t be too hard to arrange a conversation, so he decided he’d ask his boss what the dream meant. Of course, he’d forgotten about the fact that asking something incapable of giving a straight answer to clarify something isn’t always the best way of ensuring that it makes more sense….

“If there are yet smaller channels, and still water in the stream, then allow it still to flow.” This was in response to Geri having not given Lysha enough detail to make an answer; it was trying to get him to go on. When Geri guessed that Lysha was trying to tell him to see if he could sleep to the end of the dream, the response he got was “Waiting for the rain will help as well, but letting what has fallen flow, when it follows the close channels rather than hiding all the stream…”

The tough part, though—and this one took me something like ten minutes to draft—was the question Lysha needed to have answered about the weapon in question before it could respond; it had its suspicions, but really didn’t want to have come to the right conclusion. Geri had told it that the sword was black and gold, but not how the sword was black and gold. Quoth Lysha: “Two cities lie where different strands come together. In Nexus there is braiding, and weaving, such that endings cannot be seen and differences are lost; in Harborhead, those few that twine are cut away, and strands that cross do not even touch. Which lies at our fingertips today?”

Then try reassuring someone for not getting what that means… he didn’t actually get what it meant until afterward, but I did manage to get him to describe the sword well enough that Lysha could figure it out, which is what prompted the description of Lysha-in-a-panic found in the post linked above (fortunately, that manages to transcend communication). The reassurance itself, though, came out to “When the air has been filled with mosquitoes and the ground with mud, it is easy to overlook the hummingbirds nearby.”

The fun part about Lysha’s dialogue? It may not be able to give a straight answer, but it can definitely poke fun at people in the process. Hence, in response to being asked if it had any more prophecies after asking the question it had first introduced itself to the group to ask (the “Where is your shadow?” mentioned in the prior post) and answering a few others to boot, it responded “The field looks like little to the man on the road, but he whose shovel breaks the earth finds much to be desired.”

Of course, you know you’re in trouble when it takes “Even were it to weave itself around itself so much as to be a riddle, that strand is not for me to release” just to get “I can’t say” across. Or, in explaining its unique little speech impediment, to summarize it as “Were I to take the shortest path, the end would not find me.”

So there you have it. Lysha, God of Prophecy, and quite possibly one of the setting’s hardest individuals to write dialogue for. Could you understand it, if you didn’t already know?

If there’s one thing that really helps a storyteller, it’s understanding and using the irrationality of human nature. You’d be amazed by the lengths people will go when they think it’s in their best interests, and very few things demonstrate it near as well as the good old American tradition of Black Friday.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with our quaint little traditions (or those who had the brains to stay home today), Black Friday is the biggest shopping day in the country. For the week before the event, stores send out massive, brightly colored advertisements for sales the likes of which rarely occur and early morning deals. Possibly in response to the tryptophan consumption of the night before (makes it that much more difficult for the poor saps to get up in time, right?), these sales are often “early bird”, opening their doors long before the crack of dawn. Moreover, this practice being country-wide and the time being late autumn, many of the places in which this event occurs are beset by rain and high wind at best.

Inclement weather conditions. Early hours for drowsy people. Potentially large amounts of competition. As far as I’m concerned, you’d have to be insane to even consider it.

And yet people line up around these places hours in advance of the store opening for half a chance at the deals thus advertised, enough so that the crowd issue becomes just as major as any of the other factors. In utter defiance of common sense. All for the sake of saving a little money.

Why do they do it? The obvious reason would be the deals; they are pretty spectacular, after all. Particularly since these are rare deals, not something you see every day. But there’s also the issue of pride—people braving Black Friday just because they can. Even I’ve done Black Friday and felt proud of it; sure, it was after ten by the time I got out there (what a wimp, right?), but the crowds were still there, and it still felt like a threat.

Now consider the average protagonist, whether main character of a story or PC in a tabletop RPG. She’s a cut above those around her, generally able to withstand a lot of what life can throw at her.

Might the Black Friday principle not apply to her? Might she still be willing to go that extra mile for a chance at something she doesn’t get to try for every day, partly because it is such a fleeting chance and partly because it’s there?

Of course, it’s not necessarily going to be deals. Perhaps instead it’s a chance to learn a new skill. Or a way to make the upcoming fight against the main antagonist easier, or bypass a major obstacle, or cut a little time off of a long journey. Whatever it is, it’s worth it, but probably only just; it’s how rare the opportunity is, and the challenges associated with it, that are going to attract the characters to the situation.

So what can Black Friday do for you?

The Generic Villain, realizing that stealing Thanksgiving as a whole is overall counterintuitive, decides to settle for commandeering today’s post.

Now ends the harvest season, and the minions begin to respond—to squabble over the furnace, forge and kitchen jobs, to grumble about endless clouds that are gray and not black, and to grumble their way into winter. How to deal with this? Look across the worlds. So I’m importing Thanksgiving—performing very small-scale, rather polite raids on the local villages for the food, setting the minions to the cooking and the decorations, and taking the time to reflect on what I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful for my sugar glider companion, Lilith. She’s everything a Hand of Darkness could want: good eyes, good ears, able to turn an enemy alchemist’s room full of notes into bedding in a minute flat (we’re still working on stealing the really important pages), and cute enough to stun at least half of every protagonist party. And has this endearing habit of curling around my neck and tickling my nose with her tail on cold nights. What’s not to like?

I’m thankful for the cheerful shouts of my minions as the flesh of the opposition is ground under their blades. Even when they’re just pulping fruit for the cranberry-orange relish.

And thankful for my minions themselves. Aside from the usual seasonal issues, morale has been high, particularly after the creation of an elite numbered division (thank you to TheZomb for that!) and the Nudelia Incident.

I’m thankful for lieutenants with clear heads who know how to follow orders from me and give orders to the minions. And even more thankful that only one of them has decided to try to take my place. And yet more thankful that he didn’t succeed.

I’m thankful for my fortress—for dragon-proof balconies with heavy armaments, for thistles in the lawn and brambles under the windows, for the little four-loaf-cleaver-stopping doorways, for the clouds overhead that tint themselves reddish brown at night.

I’m thankful for my colleagues, or at least those who are left.

And I’m thankful for all the bright young future Hands of Darkness who read my advice and learn from it. Confusion to our enemies!

One of the people she’s thankful for? Or just want to know why a sugar glider? You can look back at the old lessons here.

Image found at http://njhurst.com/programming/cross-stitch/

An excellent way to introduce diversity of character types into a religion is to consider what they’re doing there. They’re not all coming for the same reason, after all—and while not all reasons are created equal, most of them can at least do something for your story.

Of course, there are the truly devout; aren’t there always? Their faith and dedication are strong, their knowledge sure—you couldn’t keep them from showing up or doing their parts for anything. If the god they follow is an active sort (and sometimes even if not!), they might have some sort of divine power, or at least something they consider to be divine power—but not always, and the ones who don’t have such power will probably still see their god’s work in the world around them. (In my opinion, the ones without it are more interesting.)

Some people are questioning. If the god is pretty inactive, “does he exist?” is a common question. If he’s more active, the question might be more along the lines of “Would something that enormous really have an interest in me?” or “Does he really do what they all say he does?” Or it might be a question about the world, or about human nature, or magic, or much of anything. Either way, they’ve got something they want to know, and they’re pretty sure the answer lies within the religion. Whether it actually does is another matter.

Others might be there for the group feeling. For some religions, this comes from post-ceremonial socializing and munching. In others, it’s tasks that everyone gets together on that fit with the overall goals of the church/unit/insert collective noun here. It’s helped by the fact that everyone has the religion in common, one way or another, and is further enhanced by use of religion-as-family rhetoric and behavior.

There’s also the connection angle: people who, despite possibly having other feelings on the matter, go to (if not through) the ceremonies or participate in the individual prayers because that’s what their family/spouse/friend/mentor/hero does. These people raise a lot of interesting questions—why are they following their [insert noun] here? Why wouldn’t they be, and why does this reason not keep them away? What would they rather be doing, and why aren’t they doing it?

Then there are the ones who are there to do something for their images. In politics, this is usually an attempt to appear devout and admirable, though it can often be an attempt to separate oneself from the convenient scapegoat or common enemy of the week. For rebellious younger children, it’s often portrayed as getting into something as far from the parents’ wishes as possible. An outsider may show up to services in order to integrate herself with and ingratiate herself to the community. Of course, we don’t all have to stick to the obvious ones, now, do we?

What about coming in to study the religion? There are a lot of things people can learn from being present that just talking to people or reading books isn’t going to tell them. Of course, they won’t tell anyone that’s what they’re doing.

There are others; these are the most obvious. What do you think? Workable?

(This post, yet again, for RPG Blog Carnival.)

I’d been planning this topic for a while, but seeing this post by A Butterfly Dreaming pretty much demanded that I write it now. And by now, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what it’s for.

So we have religious sects: subgroups set apart by a focus, difference in tradition, or other tenet that in some way separates them from the rest of their religion. They might be created for a specific purpose, or may just be a product of religious divergent evolution.

So how does one go about creating sects?

As in the Butterfly’s example, sects might crop up because their members are focused on a particular emphasis of their god. His three emphasize the sanctity of the grave, the memorial of the dead, and death in combat. Worshipers of a god of knowledge might have sects emphasizing the search for new lore, the education of those who don’t yet know, or the concealment of secrets—and just imagine the potential arguments!

Similarly, there’s division by ideas and the resulting practices. Most holy scriptures don’t cover all eventualities; instead, they leave room for disagreement, and those disagreements can run deep. Worshipers of a death god may split based on whether they consider resurrection or zombification more against their religious tenets, or what they consider to be the appropriate circumstances to meddle with someone’s time to die.

If people worship pantheons as a group, then the sects might be groups that focus on worshiping one god specifically.  Similarly, if a god has different faces, then those who worship one face over the others would be different sects, and the ones who don’t play favorites a sect of their own.

The difference could just be how they go about worship, or what sorts of acts are required to show devotion–think about the sources of divergence from yesterday.  There are a lot of possible differentiating factors, and none that are “the only way to go.”

Though the potential for intra-religion conflict inherent in the nature of sects is interesting, it isn’t the only thing that can come about from their existence. Sects can color people’s view of a god and the corresponding religion, for good or for ill. And this gets even more interesting when they’re a point of conflict between religions. Imagine how a redemption-centered priest of the sun god would react to a priest of a god of leadership who favors draconian rules and harsh punishments. Now imagine that same redeemer-priest meeting with a priest of the same god—only this one’s sect is more in favor of leadership by understanding those below them. Makes a bit of a difference, doesn’t it?

In addition to their other dramatic benefits, sects are an excellent way of reminding the audience that a religion isn’t just a monolithic group. (One needs to avoid the trap of sects working in lockstep; yes, they should all agree on the idea that unifies the sect, but really, there’s a lot of room for variation still.

So, flavor up your religions. There’s no reason not to!

Ideas change as they travel, morphing to fit their cultures, their regions and their eras. Would the images of gods be any different? I doubt it.

There’s a lot about a god’s image that can change over time and space. Name, for instance, particularly if a language shift is involved. Peripheral associations as well: while you’ll probably never see a sun god credited with dominion over the nighttime, or any similar changes in central concept, it’s certainly not unheard of for one group to associate their sun god with gold, another with plants, and a third with metal and mirrors. Another is ritual—everything from little details like whether the ceremonies are conducted with or without music to big issues like what sorts of sacrifices are acceptable and which offenses truly merit a death sentence.

I won’t ask what point of divergence two such groups would have to reach to be practicing two different religions. It’s a touchy, complicated subject, no two people will give you the same answer, and if we start debating it, next thing we know we’ll be up to our ears in real-world examples and no closer to an answer. Let’s leave that definition in the haze where it belongs.

What is more interesting is the question of how different another group’s practices must be for one or more people to not accept them as their religion. Just because two people worship gods that are as far as anyone can tell the same entity doesn’t mean that each will accept the other; just look at all the issues that the religions of the Book have. If anything, it seems to me that people who worship the same god and refuse to agree on specifics are even more dangerous to each other than ones who worship different gods. (Unless, of course, their gods are scripturally opposed, at which point the safest place to be is Somewhere Else, but I digress.)

But when divine intervention is not happening, worshiping the same god as someone else means a lot less than it could. If Manar worships a sun god through song and is devoted to the idea of redemption, and Ran worships a god of the sun by frying infidels with a sized-up analogue to a magnifying glass, are they really going to hate each other less because as far as anyone can tell they follow the same god? And while that’s a pretty extreme example, lesser divisions like what exactly the rank of a certain prophet is, what is or is not considered forgivable or who is or isn’t welcome at the ceremonies, or even little things like the exact details behind how marriage works can lead to deep and bitter divides.

Sure, in real life these divisions seem like they really shouldn’t be. But if they exist here, they’re fair game for our worlds as well, and isn’t a morally gray conflict with these sorts of nuances more interesting than yet another epic battle between good and evil? I certainly think so.

Yet again for RPG Blog Carnival. Ending before the carnival does?  Hard to say.

Even in the real world, no religion operates in a vacuum. And this goes double in the often polytheistic worlds of today’s fantasy. So what happens when two religions meet?

They might just fight. There are a lot of reasons to fight in general—land, resources and authority can be reason enough, but then when the scriptures get involved, so might the weapons. A fight over religion is particularly likely if one side’s faith has one of the following features: a tendency to convert people with steel as well as words, evidence in Holy Writ that those they are running into are in some way antithetical to their religion, or a general inability to tolerate followers of other gods.

They might coexist. How that plays out depends in large part on the tolerance build into the scriptures—you’re going to have a lot more luck keeping the adherents of two faiths from sniping at each other if they see the adherents of other religions as “Like us, but different” than as being wrong, inferior, or anything of the sort. Coexistence might not necessarily mean peace, and there are likely to be small cultural exchanges—either stealing each other’s holidays or improving their own, for instance. The less they agree on coexisting, the more likely there are to be little clashes; while they may not be overt for fear of destabilizing the area, there might still be a lot of proselytizing, regular impassioned debates in public forums, and the occasional hothead trying to start a crusade. Isn’t conflict interesting?

And then there are the ones who hit it off from the start, for any of a number of reasons. Maybe the gods made their will known, and their will was “Get along” (or at least, the heads of both sides think that’s what happened). Perhaps the gods in question just sound like they’d get along, or there’s a way in which their scriptures mesh. It could just be that a lot of the people get along, and there are far too many reasons not to engage in sectarian rivalry or all-out conflict. But whatever happened, there is accord, and the religions are moving closer together, possibly even merging. This is when the religious scholars get inventive, you see. Someone may find an interpretation of one of the old stories that strongly implies that one god is an aspect of another, that God A joined Pantheon B for Reason C, that the two gods are truly the same and it’s just a linguistic difference, that Z and Q are not the same god but have found union with each other even as their people…. You get the idea, I’m sure. It might even result in complete hybridization, until after a while it’s hard to tell that the faiths were ever separate.

And don’t forget that no religion is a monolithic entity. Just because the majority of one group decides that their gods are long-lost brothers doesn’t mean that there isn’t a fringe group getting ready to spark a holy war, or vice versa.

Sure, one doesn’t have to leave it to the people. The gods could meet, hash it out and issue instructions, or all out manifest in front of both sides to make their will as regards the two groups known. Yes, it could be resolved by divine intervention. But where’s the fun in that? There are far more stories in an uninterrupted clash of cultures.

(Again for RPG Blog Carnival)

Remember how I suggested a couple articles ago that the mind of a god whose domain underwent a drastic change might snap? I got to play with that today.

Three gods breathing for a city underground, faced with a threat beyond their means. Three with a dictum of “never again”, but how to give their words the strength? One looking outside to heroes of old? One looking inside, to protect those she serves by sending them away. One in the middle, trapped between the answers.

And then came the one called Forged in Malice, and the problem fell to her to deal with. And then she turned her eyes upon the city.

The first looked to hail the hero she had sought, but her savior was not there for praise, only burial. The second exhorted her flock to flee, as she always had. The third again was paralyzed between choices he had never dreamed would be.

When Forged in Malice left, she left only shells. Corpses without blood, without mark or sign. A city without people. Gods without their minds.

The first one, by her hope betrayed, tells all who come, “Away! Away!” For seeing the light in the darkness, she rejects all light; she will keep her city of corpses safe.

The second’s blame turns inward; she leaves damp footprints among her lost followers, and tears of dust streak the tiles behind her. “There are no gods here,” she wails. “If there had been gods here, they would have intervened. Something would have been different. There are no gods here.”

And the third? Who could he blame for this? What could he have chosen to do? How can the problem be solved now? Nor mortal mind nor godly thought was meant to take this indecision. It is better, then, to forget. He plays with a music box in the city center, and waves to the nice people who prayed to him and gave him this gift. Their prayers still echo with the music in his ears; there is nothing lost. Only life as he knows it.

And racked by sobs or shouting a warning, above the lost, below the mountain, still the city breathes.

A religion needs people more than it needs a god.

Consider the importance to many of today’s religions of names. Most of them have at least a few big ones: major prophets, people who were said to have entered into covenants with their creators, people who set forth systems of ideas, ones who did things so utterly impressive that those around them felt they had to be divine. But at the base of every religion, whether they are remembered or not, are people, and these people can leave an indelible mark on how the religion works, spreads, and shapes itself.

Just as a religion can’t begin without people, it can’t carry on without them. Religion is belief, first and foremost; when there are none left to believe, the religion is no more. Similarly, the kind of people a religion appeals to will determine how it spreads and where it flourishes. Scholars are likely to disdain a religion that disdains book-learning, but favor one that advocates the spread of knowledge, for instance. The poor may prefer to believe in a god who values people by what they do, but higher classes will likely prefer a god who values people by what they were born into. Therefore, a religion’s spread will be determined by its traits, particularly those that appeal to the kinds of people in a given area.

There might even be adaptation to account for these differences. Varying treatments of the same god could result in different levels of success among different people—you might not be able to convince a farming community to pray to a war god for chances to earn renown in battle, but those same people may fervently pray to the same god to keep his glorious wars somewhere else. Or they might reinterpret the god’s domain so that they can entreat him for things more on their level. “Make our blades sharp, steel our hearts for the fight ahead, let our enemies fall in swarms—bless us your servants as we make war upon the locusts!” So in different regions with different populations, the religion may itself emphasize different aspects, adapting to the people it seeks to serve.

Speaking of carrying on, what about the effects of the prohibitions and exhortations of a religion? Some of these are common sense—for instance, a religion that requires complete celibacy from every worshiper will have a very hard time swelling the ranks in more ways than one. (On the other hand, you’d have the opposite effect with a religion that puts a lot of weight on extremely regular fertility rituals.) And lauding those who fight and die for the faith will, logically enough, result in a lot of fighting and deaths; useful if you need to defend it anyway, but counterproductive in peacetime. But consider other factors. How persistently the faithful are supposed to proselytize, for instance, can have interesting effects: too strong and you scare your potential converts away, too light and nobody figures out you’re recruiting. Or, for that matter, difficulty of being inducted into the faith or getting to learn the “true mysteries”; making it a challenge can make it seem more like a badge of honor and therefore worth it, but too much difficulty might scare off anyone short of the fanatical.

But in all these circumstances, it is people who are making the difference; without them, would there even be a religion to write about?

(More RPG Blog Carnival, of course!)