One Sun, Many Sungods?

[assault]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

The way I want it to be like is: PCs are quite likely to be related to one or more of the local nymphs/goddesses, or perhaps merely a dead hero. As a result, they can potentially receive aid and/or counsel from their relatives. It's part of how PCs work - they don't throw fireballs, they just have the phone number of a goddess.

 

"Pantheons" don't really exist. Each community is likely to revere a few deities, but may acknowledge some more. They may share some with their neighbours, but they may also disagree with them on their precise attributes and relationships. A very large and cosmopolitan community might have foreigners living within it, practicing their own weird cults.

 

Individual families will have their own ancestral/household deities as well. Obviously PCs will tend to come from families with particularly powerful protective spirits, but this may not always be the case. A peasant can, in fact, become a king. Implicitly, that means that they have gained divine favour.

 

All of this, of course, will be overlaid with various more elaborate social and theological structures. I'll probably put republics (oligarchies), feudalism and monotheism on top of the basic clan/tribe structure, putting a lot of the basic religious structure into the category of folklore.

 

But that still doesn't deal with the multiple deity/single role problem. Because the ghodz are real and active in the setting, and there are real active presences in the inner sanctums of the temples. It's just a shame that the more powerful ghodz are starting to expand their authority at the expense of the weaker ones...

[csyphrett]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

In my opinion, the easiest way is to say each god is the same with different names like the traveler in black.

 

The next easiest is to have multiple pantheons like some of the earlier posters have stated. Each god is responsible for something, but go about it their own way.

 

The next easiest is multiple pantheons that can only operate where their believers are as an artificial limit on how much interference they can do.

 

Whatever set up is for your country will determine how your gods are perceived.

CES

[Lucius]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

To expand on my earlier post (I apologize for being so opaque, by the way)

 

 

In The World They Call Real, it is possible for a scientist to design and conduct an experiment proving that light is a wave.

 

In The World They Call Real, it is possible for a scientist to design and conduct an experiment proving that light is a particle.

 

Both experiments will be rigorous and repeatable, getting the same valid results every time. Evidence of photons won't turn up when the hypothesis of light as a wave is being tested, nor will evidence of electromagnetic waves turn up when the hypothesis of light as a particle is being tested.

 

 

Similarly,

 

It is possible to create and experience a ritual evoking the Sun as the God Apollo.

 

It is possible to create and experience a ritual evoking the Sun as the Goddess Amaterasu.

 

Both deities are just as real as a sunburn and as true as photosynthesis, but don't expect Apollo to show up in Amaterasu's temple, or vice versa.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders when Lucius will start talking about Bast and Schrodinger

[assault]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

I'm beginning to think that my visualisation of the Sun Boat/Chariot/Beetle is what is at fault.

 

What might be happening is more like a Sun Ship/Wagon/Beetle with a large and elaborate Howdah. Basically, a big mobile temple with lots of images/idols that do the "driving".

 

The latter sentence reflects another concept I've been playing around with: the degree of individual personality involved varies. Generally speaking, when the Sun Ghod is being the Sun, they don't exhibit much personality. When they are doing personal manifestations, they do.

 

That's why you don't speak to the driver when you hitch a ride on the Sun Chariot. You might force a personal appearance, and have to get out and walk. In the middle of the sky. Right next to the Sun, when you are no longer protected from its heat...

[pinecone]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

I'm beginning to think that my visualisation of the Sun Boat/Chariot/Beetle is what is at fault.

 

What might be happening is more like a Sun Ship/Wagon/Beetle with a large and elaborate Howdah. Basically, a big mobile temple with lots of images/idols that do the "driving".

 

The latter sentence reflects another concept I've been playing around with: the degree of individual personality involved varies. Generally speaking, when the Sun Ghod is being the Sun, they don't exhibit much personality. When they are doing personal manifestations, they do.

 

That's why you don't speak to the driver when you hitch a ride on the Sun Chariot. You might force a personal appearance, and have to get out and walk. In the middle of the sky. Right next to the Sun, when you are no longer protected from its heat...

 

 

Sounds like a good way to go...Me? I'd let the Gawds do as they may...."I grew up in Thrace, Helios always flys in a straight like from East to West....here in Russia the sun flys all over the place! It drives me mad!" "Well the solar Twins are still young lads, they fight over who's driving, and love to race around....don't worry Tengri will get them sorted eventually" "But...but"

[Tom Carman]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

Check out Aaron Allston's novel Sidhe Devil for an interesting take on the gods. The gods are a fundamental force but also take on different personas in different regions. The more personified the god you are appealing to, the more likely you are to get results but also the less absolute power that god wields. Conversely, you can get a bigger effect if you appeal to a more "generic" god, but it's much harder to pull it off. The book's villains, the "Reinies", were custom-designing a sun-god persona to fit their prejudices and ideology: hatred of the "impure" darker races.

[Old Man]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

It also occurs to me that, this being fantasy, you could simply have multiple suns.

[assault]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

It also occurs to me that' date=' this being fantasy, you could simply have multiple suns.[/quote']

 

This is true, of course.

 

I'm not quite sure it fits my world though, which is one where a sufficiently powerful wizard can hitch a lift on the sun and travel through the underworld to see the sights.

 

At least one shipload of mortals has made it through the underworld too. (I've been doing a bit of myth writing.)

 

It is possible that there might really only be one pantheon, with different members being worshipped in different places. That would allow for certain common cults, such as that of the sun, as well as distinctive local ones.

 

Obviously some bright spark would then try to convert one of the more influential common cults into a monotheism. The sun is a likely candidate.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: One Sun, Many Sungods?

 

I generally take the Eberron tack for it, which is 'You call your god (X), we call our god (Y), but they're both really the same god', if I even bother with multiple (or even singular) pantheons.