Their lifestyle is spent in slavish devotion to the nature spirit, and as such, it's possible to create an "unnatural nature" that their nature spirit wouldn't be able to inhabit if it were covered with a powerful enough sphere of a different sort.
Point well-taken. I hadn't thought of a metaphysical Nature being literally crowded out by metaphysical Dwarfiness.
"Alright, I have heard the call! Today is the day that these demonic invasions end, and the world is sav- OH MY GOD, IS THAT A FLOWER?!"
*snip*
Come, give in to your ADHD! It's more fun than trying to accomplish stuff. Search your feelings, you know it to be true!
My Aspergian nature demands that I achieve things of lasting impact. My soul starts to itch after about an hour of not-questing.
Well, what I'm generally saying is that this game is one that is largely physical in nature. It doesn't really have overarching themes of Good Vs. Evil, where only a pure spirit can overcome the power of evil, it's a place where dirty, violent, greedy people who are better prepared and trained beat the crap out of other dirty, violent, greedy people who were reckless and overconfident.
If there's a "Source of Evil" in the world, it has to be combatable, and combatable in the manner suited to the game - I.E. you have to be able to kill the source of evil in the world by obsidian casting it... And then maybe making a really nice "Heart Of Evil Cabinet" artifact that has images of itself striking a menacing pose on it.
Starting to hit on something very interesting (and close to my heart, as it relates to my minor) here, which I'll get into shortly.
If you look at the way that the Spheres were devised for creating deities in DF, you'll see they mainly follow the models of the older versions of the Greek Pantheon, Egyptian Pantheon, or the Norse Pantheon. It's hard to look at the likes of Zeus, who might as well have been the God of Rape, and view him through the same lens through which we see the Abrahamic God, who is supposed to be the pinnacle of all that is Just and Holy. The Greek Pantheon largely revolved around Might Makes Right... and that's pretty much how DF plays out, as well.
So yeah, maybe we should stop calling it "Hell", and start calling it "Tartarus".
Oh, I
love talking about this stuff. It's part of why I'm minoring in theology. Allow me to expand upon this, as a good dose of polytheism is exactly what Dwarf Fortress needs.[1]
You're quite correct, to start with. Polytheistic gods are very different from the Abrahamic God, or really any monotheistic (or henotheistic, but for purposes of this discussion the distinction is trivial) god. Polytheistic gods are not immaterial. They are bound up with the physical, even though they dwell in spiritual realms. When a priest of Baal sacrificed a bull, the idea was that the meat would literally pass upward to Baal and supply him with stock for his larder. When the city of a local god was conquered, that god was conquered (by the god or gods of the conquering city).[2] The gods were even physically manifest in the form of idols, which were literally treated as if they
were the god (as, in a very real sense, they were, in fact, the god). One of the kings of Babylon (Xerxes, I think, but don't quote me on that), for example, took all the idols of all the gods of the lesser cities he had conquered and took them to Babylon to help protect it, and this angered the other cities because they would be denied their gods' protection!
This physicality defines the relationships of polytheistic gods to each other and to mortals. In one of Baal's sagas, he defeats Sea, the godly embodiment of the ocean, and makes him his vassal. Sea had no active cult, because Baal wanted Sea to be weak, and sacrifices to Sea would give him supplies, wealth, servants, etc. Similarly, Baal is in the habit of throwing lavish parties to keep the other gods in line and keep himself popular, lest they overthrow him. The gods need worshipers to give them sacrifices, and thus strength and power, and in turn the gods are willing to do favors for those who are willing to sacrifice to them, and make examples of those who do not (“Eh, nice fields you got there. It'd be a shame if Valiant Baal were to, oh I dunno, not rain on 'em this year, huh?”). In this way, the gods' relationship to mortals was half quid pro quo, half extortion racket.
The example of Sea also illustrates something important. In addition to whatever gods are actively worshiped at any given time, polytheistic systems also have gods (usually weak, old ones) who personify the forces of nature (in Greek mythology, the Titans were mostly or entirely examples of these). The “spheres” are not merely things to be associated with, but sometimes living things in their own right.[3] This in itself has potential, in that if a sphere grows too strong in a place, the gods might get annoyed (as they hate, indeed fear, competition from lesser spirits).
This system, as Kohaku mentioned, also basically does away with the idea of any universal morality, as there is no Supreme Being who is the author of right and wrong. Morality becomes “Do as I say, not as I do, or I'll destroy you in the most inventively evil way I can dream up.”[4] This links strongly back to the “protection racket” thing. The gods don't necessarily want to teach you a lesson, they just want revenge for your pissing them off.
And yeah, Tartarus. It's a place where the gods put inconvenient immortals. Not much else to say there.
I can't wait to obsidian-cast a god. And this largely does away with real vs. fake gods: If all the miracles you want is "your enemies are crispy now", a dragon is a perfectly serviceable god.
[1]: Please note that my expertise on this subject is strongest with respect to ancient Near Eastern polytheism; to whit, the pantheon of Baal, Asherah, Moth (or Mot), and so on. This is not a large problem, as the Greek system definitely, and other systems probably, work in the same manner. In fact, Baal can easily be identified with Zeus via the known sagas about him (his area of power, sacred mountain, and rivals largely match those of Zeus).
[2]: Consider Isaiah 36, wherein an Assyrian polytheist argues that Israel will be destroyed because Assyria's god is mightier than the god of the Israelites. His argument is not that said god does not exist, but that he will be conquered like all the other gods.
[3]: This isn't terribly relevant, but I find it difficult to pass up an opportunity to point out that Genesis 1 is not an argument against evolution so much as a refutation of these ideas. The sea isn't some other god that God is in charge of. The sea, in fact, has no spiritual force. It's simply something God made. It's
stuff and nothing more, and God is outside and above it, so feel free to toy around with it. Poseidon isn't going to smite you for exploring the Marianas Trench.
[4]: And yes, this is bloody well different from how it works in a monotheistic system, just to head off any snide remarks. It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand, so I won't post it here, but I will explain to anyone who asks via PM.
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Topic: *spoilers*Making the HFS more deadly (Read 8413 times)