I realize that my text snippet doesn't include a value for how likely Art & Vandalism are to be Friends (if they don't happen to be Precluded or identical), but you get the idea.
If graffiti were a thing, more likely than you think.
That's the beauty of having the friend/enemyship of various sphere pairs saved in an Init file: If you think something should be changed, just change it, you don't need to convince anyone. You could even fine-tune the specs to promote
tailor-made pantheons in this way: If you want to re-create Westeros's Faith of the Seven, you can do that. If you want to re-create Christianity's "mono"theism of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, Satan, and Mary, you can do that too.
Hadn't considered ascensions/deifications, but since demigods were brought up, does anyone think "gods knocking up a (creature/person)" would or could become a thing? It might tie in to the half-breeds thread from way back. Could also lead to some hilarity, too; maybe a sea god impregnates a snail, leading to an immortal snail who is demigod of inbound tides or something.
Gods wouldn't have the least bit of interest in nonsentient beings, as only intelligent creatures can worship. It would be like a human trying to love a rhododendron; it cannot love back. Now, snail
men might be a possibility, but even then the god must consider if the potential return (increased spiritual energy from the snailmen's worship because "He has chosen one of US!", and the chance that a demigod child might grow to become an
ally of its divine parent) is worth the risk (spiritual energy expended on "exalting" the chosen mate, and losing a sphere to any demigod child).
Friendship between gods could probably be handled like friendship between mortals; even if gods are not given full blown personalities, their domains suggest certain personality traits and personal values.
I'm going to ignore personality for now (if Toady wants to implement a divine version of that, let him) and let the spheres themselves define relationships. In my snippet from a hypothetical Init file, I gave each sphere relationship two numbers: One defining the odds of those 2 spheres coexisting, and one defining the odds that both spheres would be assigned to the same deity. There should also have been a
third number, defining the
desire felt for Sphere B by a god who already has Sphere A. This desire would do two things:
1) Gods could trade spheres. There would be greater demand for high, Parent-level spheres (big, important stuff like Nature, Fortresses, and Death) than for Child-level spheres (little things like Song, Wind, and Nightmares), but a god would be willing to trade a Parent sphere that he didn't care about for a Child sphere that he desired greatly. This would have the effect of related spheres pooling together (a god with Sun would try to collect Day, Light, and Sky, etc.), so the Pantheon Weirdness modifier should be able to mitigate, or even reverse, this trend. This sphere-trading would mostly happen soon after worldgen, and thus would likely affect Fort mode very little--a god
could be added or subtracted during the fort's lifetime, causing some sphere reshuffling as the pantheon adjusts, but that's only natural.
b) Gods who are
opposed (according to each civ's randomly-generated Preclude list) at Parent levels but also possess Child spheres that are mutual
allies, that provoke desire, would feel enmity toward each other: A god of Fire & Rumors would see the god of Water & Fame as a rival, and seek to take the sphere of Fame from him--and vice versa. Conversely, gods whose
highest-level spheres desired each other would likely be friends, whether their lower-tier spheres got along or not. A god of Pregnancy & Music could be buddies with a god of Family and Silence just fine. Gods whose highest-level spheres are mutually attracted could get married,
even if those same spheres were Precluded from each other, thus allowing for real yin/yang bombs.
Spheres should probably have 2 or more Parent spheres, whenever possible, as that would make child gods much more satisfyingly appropriate: If the gods of Death and the Past were to marry, it would be very handy if the sphere of Tombs existed, and was rightly coded to be subordinate to both the Past and Death spheres, so a new demigod born of their union could have a portfolio very fitting to his parents.
In addition to potentially being killed, gods could starve to death: Suppose that the god of the Past, having given up the sphere of Tombs to his child, has only the spheres of History and Memory to accessorize his main sphere. One of his High Priests ascends to demigod status and is awarded the History sphere, and then the god of Wisdom and Scholarship steals the Memory sphere. Our god of the Past is left with nothing but . . . the Past, and what is there for the Past to
do? And who's going to worship a god who does nothing? He must either wither & die from lack of spiritual energy (his remaining sphere might be inherited by his child), steal a sphere from somebody else (unlikely, if he's weak), or emigrate to some
other pantheon, there to supplant or (more likely) merge with
their deity of the Past.
It may strike you as odd, or even wrong, that the pantheons of different civilizations could interact directly, even when the civilizations himself had no idea of each other's existence. The Aztec & Assyrian gods never met, did they? But
those gods were invented by humans--the
DF gods were created as brethren by Armok himself, and very likely knew each other quite well. So I picture Godland as a scattered group of Godville hamlets where, occasionally, the more aggressive gods could venture from one village to another, steal a sphere, or rape, abduct, or even
kill another god. Also to be considered is a civilization's extinction: When their last stronghold falls, currently
all of their gods seem to just vanish into the aether. Why die, when for the cost of a sphere or two, you could buy your way into a new home? This is also a good way to introduce religious schisms & converts: I have to say, if I were a dwarf and had to choose between a foreign god of fortresses named "Castle Bastionshields the Defended Barricade", and my own familiar god of fortresses named "Glove", I know which one
*I* would rather worship. Then again, if Castle's last Mountainhome fell to invaders, and Glove's cities are still doing just fine, that
would reflect on their relative competence as a god of fortresses, and should be taken into account by worshipers thinking of converting.
Complexity and realism! Hot diggety!
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Topic: More depictions of gods (Read 23211 times)