The Foundation

[axlerowes]

This a topic thread meant to explore Bumblor's world The Foundation.

According to Bumblor
"Foundation is an unstable plane created as a sanctuary for a powerful, ancient psion. The instability of Foundation's construction causes the world to reach out across the multiverse and juxtapose large sections of itself with equal portions of other worlds."

First Question Relates to
"Bumblor
2013-04-01 11:21 AM
And I subscribe to the concept that belief creates reality in fantasy settings so The Devourer is an actual god in Foundation because he's worshiped by his followers and intensely feared by those that live in his domain"

If I were get a enough people to worship a fictional being in this world, could their worship then cause that fictional being to come into existence?

[Bumblor]

In Foundation it would, and has on a few occasions. A member of a faerie court found a group of goblins that had broken from their cultural norms, they were peaceful and hard working and wanted only to live and thrive. The Fae called Ceesil (See-zil) the Deceptive played a trick on the unsuspecting goblins; he appeared as a burning bush and told them of the great sacrifice of The Martyr, how he laid down his life to forgive and erase their sins and the sins of goblins everywhere. He told of the peace and joy that awaited those who followed this Martyr. Thinking himself the height of cleverness Ceesil commanded the horde to build a great temple in the Martyrs name and he gave them specific instructions as to its design and size. They were given just six months to complete the task. Ceesil spread the word throughout the faerie court, seelie and unseelie alike, and when the temple was finished Ceesil gathered the most prestigious names of the court to witness his grand jest. The goblins were gathered at the tall, wooden temple in the middle of a clear cut forest, but not the mere five hundred that had received Ceesil's message. An army, ten thousand strong, kneeled and bowed in ranks around the temple steps. At their center stood a lone figure. He looked like a goblin but at the same time different. He was taller, with smoother skin, and more handsome features. His white robe was a gleaming white, though the hem and his calves and bare feet were spattered with mud and coated in dust as if from long travel afoot. Around his head was a glowing, golden halo and his face bore an expression of such serenity, love, and power that some of Ceesil's troupe were brought to tears. The assembled mass of worshippers chanted in soft, quiet voices repeating one word over and over "Father!" and thus, the Goblin Orthodox Church was born

[axlerowes]

Thus because the sprite described a good and kind god and that is what the worshippers envisioned  a good and kind god appear.   

Thus here is my question, what does the Devour's true nature or aspect matter?  If I were to convince all his worshippers, that he was kind and forgiving, would the force of that worship make him kind and forgiving?  If the Devourer had encountered a large farming community of quaker types instead of a raiding party of viking type would his religion be different?  If the worshippers create the god do they also change the god over time?

[Bumblor]

absolutely, even to the point of creating a whole new god that splits off from the original. A real world example, is the Jesus of a loving, caring, intelligent christian the same god as the Jesus of, say, a member of the westboro baptist church or the ku klux klan?

Another Foundation example is the Dragon God, the largest and most powerful dragon is the god because of awe, fear, and worship by lesser dragons. This means the mantel gets passed occasionally but there's always someone one top

Because I keep forgetting to do it, I'm attaching the Foundation map

[axlerowes]

nice map,

[Bumblor]

sorry, I've been really busy this week.

A deity already in existence could be shaped by the worship he, she, or it received but would still have a core personality. If enough people decided that the Devourer was a cuddly god of puppies then he would be changed by that belief, but how far can you bend something before it breaks? Scourge of the Puppy-Bringer!

A deity created from pure belief like the Goblin Martyr is shaped by that belief from inception. But does that make them more mutable when the base of their belief changes? What if a group of savage goblins found the faith but twisted it to justify wholesale slaughter?

[Bumblor]

Still out there?

[axlerowes]

I am around what is going on?

[Bumblor]

Good gods, I just can't seem to be on the computer recently. Being an adult really sucks sometimes.

The other really odd aspect of Foundation's cosmology is the shape of the plane. It's basically a pocket dimension made by folding together corners of the elemental planes. The world itself, the actual continent, is flat and sort of wedged into the walls of reality. The original creator made the world as a private haven, it was little more than ground upon which to sit, a tree for leaning against, and a moon to tell the passing of the days. The creator slept for eons, the world changed around him. The tree grew massive, and bore an odd fruit; dryad-like elves. These creatures The Alvoh'an (Al-vo-ann) made a society for themselves, centered around the worship of this great tree. When an alvoh'an died its soul went into the tree, causing light to fall on Foundation for the first time. With each soul the tree grew taller and taller until it finally grew so large that it broke through the world, shifting seas and throwing up mountains. The tree begged its people to cut it down, fearing that it would eventually destroy the world entirely

The shape of the plane has always been hard for me to describe, imagine a bicycle inner tube with a coin stuck in the middle. The top of the coin is the surface of the world and gravity flows around the tube in one direction. The tree glowed with the souls it absorbed from its leaves and its roots, so when the tree was destroyed the roots continued to glow, becoming the worlds sun.

[axlerowes]

Does the plane have a constant aspect independent of the population perception of the plane?  Same question for your godsent guy, does have a real aspect or once he got elevated to god did he cease to be "him" and become the people's perception of him? You say they have their core personality, but why, what are the forces at work here?

[Bumblor]

Belief makes reality but reality also makes reality, not everything is imagined into being. The plane had a shape before people and continues to after, plus very few people in Foundation think much about cosmology. It's a closed system.

The Devourer was a god already when he was juxtaposed into Foundation, I've never really given it a whole lot of thought but I suppose the reavers would have just made him more viking-ey, more interested in conquest when before he was out for revenge. The various aspects of the two war gods would have made him very aggressive in a lot of ways, the insanity brought on by captivity, torment, and all that would have made him unstable, then gaining a bunch of marauding viking types as worshipers would have been the icing on the cake. A crazy, violent, might-makes-right god.

[axlerowes]

so you are making a distinction between the real and the imagined (those things created by an thought).  So there is true reality, does the foundation actually have a true reality. If every thinking being left the foundation and nobody knew about it would it still exist?

What is a God?

Is the this a topic you broach with your players?

[Bumblor]

There is reality, real physical or quasiphysical (in the case of elemental planes and such like) people places and things but belief can create reality. If enough people believe in something it comes into being, to one degree or another. Something imagined isn't real until it reaches some tipping point; belief is like one of those Japanese water clocks where water pours into the tube until the tube tips over and dumps out. Before it reaches that tipping point belief and imagination are purely insubstantial things. 

Foundation was created by a powerful being from physical things, he took corners of various planes of existence and just sort of origami-ed them into a closed world that's part of those various planes but also cut off from them. It has a physical form, it exists not because of belief but because it was created, however enough belief would change it, or destroy it depending on what was believed.

A god is simply a being imagined into being or raised from a mortal that absorbs belief and turns it into divine power. The form and attitude of this being is subject to the nature of its worship but a fluffy bunny god of rainbows and healing is going to break before he changes when pressure is applied that would drastically and fundamentally alter him, fluffy bunny god of human sacrifice and couch rape for instance.

I haven't discussed much of this with my players, it's only really important from an overworld viewpoint. Thank you, by the way, for making me really think about these metaphysics. I've never really given it this much deep thought before. cheers

[Darkstand]

This subject touches on some ideas that have been played with both in popular media (Planescape and The Malazan Book of the Fallen, to mention a few) and in a few RPG's I have played. I will offer up some of the ideas we decided on, and you can use them or not. These suggestions are in no way canon.

On the subject of Gods:
A God can either be created from nothing more than belief, or it can be 'elevated' from mortal status if enough people believe in its godhood.
If the belief in a god changes, then, over time, its aspect will change. This can effect a divine 'drift' in domain, often both due to and causing changing social mores.
A God who was created is more susceptible to these changes than one who was elevated, as such a 'real existence' gives them somewhat of a anchor.
A god who's followers desert him will lose his divine power, over time. If he was created by belief this will ultimately be fatal to the god, whereas one who was 'real' before divinity can lose divinity and remain alive and existent (though much less powerful)

Its important to note that there is a inertia to reality responding to belief, and  a delay in its effects. If all of a gods followers died overnight, the god would have some time to restore the faith before fading away altogether - the more powerful the god and the faith, the longer he or she has.

Whether existence is tied to perception is a matter of some debate, but it is impossible to prove short of killing everyone off and seeing if reality still exists (which the vast majority of people by far are not willing to try, unsurprisingly).

Some of this seems to vary from what you have established, in particular it seems implied by your statements that the origin of a god matters less in this setting, and there is no difference between them. Food for thought.