When I first started reading the lore to figure this place out, one of the first things I read were the gods and sometimes their gnosis. I think you can learn a lot about the general feel of the game based on its cosmological structure, but I'm also a nerd like that who would have taken a degree in religious studies just for fun... I'll read tomes about Gnosticism, Haitian Vodoun, Feri Tradition just because it tickles me. So while I'm not an expert, I'm not without some education in the matter. Couple that with Baptist pre-school and Catholic high school and I can usually hold my own in a conversation.
I don't want to talk about the Nazi Pope, though.
Anyway,
this is not a criticism, but one of the first things I noticed was the occasional lack of coherence. This is natural when you have six writers building a world together. They're all going to have slightly different ideas of how things are, and even the best rapport isn't seamless. So okay, there's a little in the way of Greek drama with Ivak's story. Right, and...
Sama'el was my first character. His
opening thread was a flashback about the decimation of his pavilion and his trail of tears into slavery, and he was calling out
de profundis to all the gods he knew to be kind to his people. I think I was trying to figure out how they all fit into his worldview with that post, too. None of them answered overtly -- often the answer to prayers is "no" -- and he was a slave for eight years before he escaped. His faith probably wavered in those years, but I skipped over to his escape, wherein he met his ancestor, Kasb'el Sunsinger, aka Caelum. So of course, he assumed Syna sent him help. Kasb'el taught him the old hymns to Syna and now he sings her into the sky in the morning and to her rest at night. He probably misses it once in a while due to circumstances, but most of the time... he's on it. And now he has Inavalti. He was struck down by a fever and Kasb'el recognized it as a trial sent by Syna, the which he passed. The gift is often not as helpful as his Webbing, but he considers it no less a gift. He's proud that she marked his face. He sees his Fire mastery as a gift from Syna, sunfire rather than a gift from Ivak. He still honors Ivak in rituals involving reimancy, but honors Syna more highly. Ever since his return to the Drykas people and his initiation into Webbing, he has become ever more aware of the interconnectedness between people and things, and so his understanding of magic and everything is becoming ever more holistic. I hesitate to call him superstitious, but rather he sees more now. Whether he understands it is another matter entirely.
He also considers Dohaina, his strider, a gift from Zulrav since she came to him out of the teeth of a Cyphrus storm. She might be his mother reincarnated...
That's another thing: reincarnation. It's an accepted thing in Mizahar, save for those races with special permissions, such as the Myrians joining Myri's ninja army in the Ukalas, or the ethaefal previously ascending, or the Drykas being caught in their own Web to remain within Cyphrus. It's one thing to believe in reincarnation as do, say, the Hindus. It's quiet another to
know something. Faith gets funny when there isn't a leap of, well, faith. Did you see
Constantine? He knew that heaven and hell existed, but that wasn't enough to save him. He had to believe in the resurrection of the Christ and that it was his doorway to salvation. Can a population still facing dangers all round afford to be laissez-faire about their lives because they know they will just be reborn? I haven't seen anyone say "There is no death" and jump into Mt. Skyinarta.
Hadrian, on the other hand, is too smart by half. He is more gnostic than Sama'el, believing that there is something beyond the gods, some True Source or another, and maybe a demiurge that actually created the world. I don't know that he would use that vocabulary to describe it, but he doesn't quite know how to articulate what he believes anyway. It's all concept now. That's also why I'll say OOCly he wants to be a god, but ICly he doesn't know. He knows he wants to
know as much as he can, to understand as a god understands, but that's tantamount to becoming one, really. So he's the one who suspects reality, such as the
Ideas, even if he can't really know. And while he doesn't know about the "levels" of gods, he knows that the ones with the most crazy conceptual demesnes are Fate and Time, and that they are the most removed from humanity, while the Seasons and others live among them. So his brain categorizes and forms hierarchies.
So he went in a direction I didn't originally intend. Auristics was so difficult for him at first, but he practiced it so often that now he is a Master. Couple that with Master-level Observation and this guy notices
everything. If you mention it in a post, I will assume he can notice it, because Master-Master. I don't mean to overpower people, but that's what his sheet says. But understanding what he sees is another matter entirely.
To my mind, the gnosis he has makes sense. Eyris' was the first he earned, though it has been sealed from his memory and the wild
djed will reveal it to him. Lykata is a lot like psychometry, which is a sensing thing. It's observational on another level, which is in line with what his desire for more information, more input. Through a series of quests in Alvadas, he got Ionu's attention, learning hypnotism and being granted Illusions. He has taken this as a lesson that reality is not what it seems, and perhaps trusting his senses isn't always the best course. But what else does he have? There is a problem with which he wrestles.
So, in a sense, Hadrian is like Constantine. He doesn't have faith in the gods because he
knows they exist. I'm still not sure whether he's good or evil, or just mad. I mean, I know he's a nutter, but... time will tell, I suppose.
Anyway, Ifran thinks he's descended from gods, and all Eypharians are, but just a river god whose river is gone, so they should really get over themselves. He sees the gods as beings more powerful than him, not necessarily beings with any sort of moral authority over him. Mihai is a Kelvic, so he's like herp-derp-derp about the gods. He loves Myri, but actually dislikes the god of cats despite the fact that he's a
tiger Kelvic because he draws Myri's attention away from him and all he wants to do is win her favor and attention all the time.
Gracen is interesting because he has gnosis from Sivah (once I get that squared away), but it's sealed and has been for a dozen years and at this point he seems himself as irredeemable even though his revenge quest is an attempt to unseal his gnosis and find favor with the god again. He's probably a good candidate for the Ruvna, really. He stepped away from his god and is definitely walking the path of the Dark Side. I can't really say much more about him because I'm still figuring him out.
And I'm petering out...
But OOCly, I personally give characters leeway to worship as they see fit, but if they want to get gnosis, they have to understand the lore writer's understanding of the god because they give the initial permissions. Because people worship their gods differently, even within the same denomination or sect, tradition or discipline.
I might add more later, but this is enough for now.
I recently told Legion and Colombina that "Hadrian needs Jesus."