Cyclone

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

<Snipped quote by Cyclone>

Ok, so you can make a sphere without regards to whether it's celestial or chthonic? In the last post, you mentioned wanting a strong thematic difference, so I kinda assumed picking Celestial or Chthonic was not trivial.

@Double Capybara

Every Sphere would have to be either Chthonian or Celestial, but just by virtue of being one or the other wouldn't mean that its magic must adhere to some general set of rules. The only difference that the choice between Celestial/Chthonic would make is the potential connection.

As a practical example, you say that as far as souls go, a Celestial Sphere would be like a Valhalla/Heaven and the Chthonian ones more like Hades or Hell. The point I was trying to raise is that it's detrimental to mandate this sort of thing. If somebody wants to have an evil vulture god that swoops down to steal souls and bring them to some torture pit on the moon, I say go for it.

Definitely, I think an example model will do wonders.

I'll consult with BBeast and Mutton and make the example model once we've ironed out all the intricacies, then.

I think the main source of confusion on my part is the difference between the proposal and the linked Celestial Spheres.

In aristotelian, it kinda goes like this

[The sky (sphere of air]
[Galbar]
[The earth (sphere of earth)]

From what I understood of the proposal, it is not a layered cake deal, it is more like

(Sphere of air)
↓
↓
[Galbar - including the sky, which is the influence of the sphere of air, and the earth, which is the influence of the sphere of earth]
↑
↑
(Sphere of earth)

Which I would say is a more Dungeons and Dragons Planes thing? But then wouldn't that not be physical but instead purely magical?

I don't understand the symbology behind the distinction you're trying to make.

@Crispy Octopus

Let me start by ensuring we're on the same page about the Lower/Upper model.

Under the Upper/Lower model there can still be a layered hierarchy in that some Spheres are more distant than others. For instance, Mars is more distant than the Moon. However, a god of sufficient power (or portal/gateway/Bifrost) could theoretically go from Galbar to Mars without stopping at the moon, because there's enough empty space to go around the moon if needed. The same principle would potentially apply for Chthonian Spheres; the mountain god's cave realm might only exist beneath the mountains and continents, so one could potentially link an even deeper Sphere to Galbar without going through his caves.

However, it'd be impossible to link from Mars straight to the cave dude's system without going through Galbar, because that's going straight from an Upper Sphere to a Lower one. This may seem rather arbitrary if you think of portals as more like magical wormholes rather than rainbow bridges or bottomless pits that link two places, but this rule creates some meaningful distinction between the Upper/Lower Spheres and so I'm reluctant to dismiss it.

Normally, like BB said, this would eliminate the point of a strict hierarchy, however my alternative is to make it possible for gods and any sufficiently power entities to traverse from one sphere to another that borders it without using might.

I've been running off the assumption this would eventually become possible as gods obtain abilities, artifacts, and/or portfolios that make such travel feasible.

Why don't we have it that Spheres are not static?

Well, I don't have terribly strong feelings, but I'm somewhat against the shuffling of Spheres being a regular phenomenon because:
a) The current lore is that the Spheres already exist (they were designed and carved out by the Architect) and are just empty, awaiting their new tenants. This implies somewhat that they have fixed locations.
b) The reshuffling of Celestial Spheres might not be that impactful because it'd just represent some planets/moons/celestial bodies moving closer or farther from Galbar, but the reshuffling of Chthonian realms would probably involve some sort of cataclysmic upheaval on Galbar's surface, because despite being somewhat magical, all of these Spheres still have physical locations that they occupy according to the current system.
c) It'll be annoying to keep track of an ever-changing hierarchy. What if someone wants to move their Sphere to be the closest Lower one to Galbar, but the current owner of the closest Sphere is opposed to that for some reason? IMO it's best to just sort these things out OOC before the RP starts.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

@BBeast

I think a big theme in your post, and one that I think is misguided, is to see the difference between upper and lower as a physical difference. It is a thematic difference, and I think treating each sphere as a formless blob with no content is detrimental.

Take magic.

Celestial magical sphere: Linked to stars and the sky, maybe be related to the movement of the stars, the time of the day, definitely related to the "star" that is how Galbarian mortals see the sphere.

Chthonic magical sphere: Related to earth, likely more telluric in nature, if a mage in the former case would raise his hand to reach for the magical realm, this one needs to connect with that which is bellow, walking bare-feet, channeling magic through the body, whatever.

Take soul

Celestial soul sphere: Probably Heaven or Valhalla like, angels and Valkyries, sky burials and funeral pyres

Chthonic soul sphere: Hades for example, boatman and reapers, crypts and graves.

There is a big change, and that goes beyond portals and physical place.

@Double Capybara

Since one appeal is that everyone can design their own Sphere to be the source of its own 'magic' and have its own effect, I think forcing sweeping things like this to be the case would be detrimental even if they help unify the Upper/Lower Spheres thematically.

One thing I expected in the docs, but couldn't really find, is a model of what you are thinking. With examples, models, something like a few example spheres and how they interact. It clearly isn't the Aristotlean model what we are doing here, there is a weird mix of Aristotles like layer spheres and orb spheres, and each time these things are discussed, I go out of it knowing less and less, with mixed messages like "There are no exceptions except the exceptions"

It is better to have a complex system that deals with its issues than a nebulous unclear system. I think if you want a strong thematic difference between Celestial and Chthonic, you need to at least state that and what you overall view on what is Upper and what is lower. Once the themes are put on the table, we can discuss them properly.

I'm interpreting this as you saying that examples are warranted, yes? I intend to add quite a bit to the Doc today and could give 5 or 6 such examples.

Speaking of which, I still think land gods are a problem, from what I see, the Chthonic realm is way too limited, and throwing trees to the sky because of canopies is... eh. I don't know crap about the nordic myths since I found them boring, but in terms of Aedra/Deadra, all Aedra would be Celestial, and... most of the Deadra as well, since they are outer gods, Azura, Clavicus, Hircine, Vaermina.

It also makes the metaphysical maps of the world weird, with the realm of rives, trees and the fairyland all side by the side with sun, with the stars. It makes sense in a world like Tamriel where all worlds are outer worlds, but is this what we are going for here? Weren't we going with Aristotlean layers, with a realm of wind, a realm of fire?

See, what you say about trees is due to one very poor example that I gave. The example in question was a forest god's Sphere perhaps being the upper canopy of some jungles, but back a page or two age when we chose to go with option B we more or less killed the idea of ta forest god having a Sphere like that. It's just too accessible, too tangible, too real. As the Spheres are partially metaphysical and magical places, that's why I think BBeast gave really good examples with the sky god's Sphere being the upper sky but great storms making it hard for just anything to fly up, and the dirt god having a Sphere that's underground but can only be reached by digging a long, long ways beneath some sacred hills.

To clarify, in keeping with the theme of Spheres being very magical places that are hard for mortals to access, I don't want someone to just claim "deserts on Galbar's surface" or "the rivers on Galbar" as their Sphere. Something more along the lines of the desert god having the sun (or perhaps some fiery subterranean realm) as his Sphere and then connecting it into the depths of deserts through some sort of portal is more of what we're going for. Instead of just claiming rivers as his Sphere, a river god could do something like claim the subterranean depths where all springs draw their water from.

Do you think that I addressed your confusions/objections adequately, Capy?

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Happy New Year, fellas!

@BBeast we don't deserve you, but we sure do need you.

In my mind I've been imagining things by your Galbaric Middle model for much of this time, but our talk the other day about option B does lend me to favor the Upper/Lower model by forcing any of the 'Galbar-parallel' Spheres to choose to be nominally Upper or Lower. Before the distinction would have been rather arbitrary, but it is made more impactful and significant by your proposed Upper/Lower model in that it restricts direct connections.

The disadvantage of the Galbaric Middle is that it introduces significantly more complexity to an already potentially confusing system. Having a divide between the Upper/Lower gods along the lines of the Aesir and Vanir, Aedra/Daedra, or any other example was a topic I found intriguing and was a primary reason behind me conceptualizing the distinction. Where would the middle gods under Galbaric Middle fit into this? Would they be neutral and of neither side? That might make the whole thing less thematic, but then again, I expect that some gods won't really see the universe in such a divisive way and won't care so much about exactly where any other given god lives so much as what said other god does.

IC the reason to justify not adhering to the strict hierarchy model is to simply say that even though the Spheres like do fall into some rough hierarchy based upon height relative to Galbar, there's enough empty space between them to enable a direct physical length (or even a magical gateway) to bypass any intermediary Spheres and link straight to Galbar. As a practical example, if we divided the solar system into Spheres then the moon would definitely be encompassed within a Sphere below that of the much more distant planets like Mars. However, there's enough empty space in the Cosmos to bypass the moon and travel straight to Jupiter without landing on any celestial bodies along the way. OOC, the reasons for not adhering to the strict hierarchy were covered pretty well by BBeast. I don't think it's a feasible system even if it makes a lot of sense thematically.

I favor Upper/Lower over Unrestricted Connections because I don't see a reason to throw the categorizations out altogether, and with unrestricted connections I think the universe would ironically feel a lot more disjointed and less connected. Even if it wasn't more nebulous in practice, it'd feel that way; I imagine it would seem like we have Galbar plus a bunch of random pocket universes, separate planes similar to the current private planes of Mk. 2.

Re: Portals, I find no disagreement in any of what you said, and I do like the idea of imposing some sort of difficulty condition along the lines of examples.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

On the Google doc we're ironing out MP costs, and the topic of temporary portals came up--or rather, the topic of just banning them altogether. I'm of the opinion that temporary portals (as in, spend 1MP for a one-time, one way ticket to somewhere else) are something that we're better off without, as they defeat the purpose of us making travel difficult and that they're a lot less interesting than spending your MP to make a cool steed/ship/chariot or a permanent portal like the Bifrost.

Any strong opinions?

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

<Snipped quote by Double Capybara>

No, I don't think option B implied doing away with non-euclidean spheres. Option B only mandated them being hard to access and being classified as celestial or cthonic.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Cyclone, I might be confused.

@Muttonhawk

Nope, you're right. I don't think anyone took issues with the parallel Spheres existing, provided the Spheres were actually elusive fairylands and not just "the canopy of the forests" or "the earth 20 yards down, just a bit below bedrock and the city sewage systems".

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Alright. That's 2/3 GMs for B, so we're going with that unless BBeast comes in a few hours, disagrees wholeheartedly, and writes a really convincing post on why he feels that way.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

<Snipped quote by The WIP sphere rules in the doc>

Is there a reason why a more earthly sphere cannot take the above caveat and just pick whether it's more celestial or cthonic?

@Muttonhawk

Nope. I don't really see this as an issue of classification so much as accessibility, though. Option C simply changes the classification around so that we can give some in-universe justifcation for easily accessible Spheres, like the dirt god living just under a hill where you could dig. Or the forest god's Sphere being forest.

This issue is really distilled down to the previously posed question of whether we'll tolerate gods essentially picking Galbar as their Sphere and dwelling down there, because the dirt and forest are effectively the same thing as Galbar. My leaning is no; I support option B and I find myself more inclined to agree with Octopus on most of what he's said about this.

For some it might be a challenge to think of some sort of Celestial or Chthonian Sphere (or some weird parallel realm, as you suggest) that makes sense for their character, but with a little bit of creativity I think it's possible to come up with something that's fitting, interesting, and not in conflict with the stated rules concerning Spheres.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

I'm going to defer deciding upon this for a little while so that @Muttonhawk and @BBeast can give their input on the matter.

On a side note, now also seems like a good time to announce that those two have agreed to help me out by being Co-GMs. I'm very grateful to have them!

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

@Cyclone

Mmm. To an extent I also think a forest God doesn't *need* a sphere in direct contact with the world. After all when the rp starts there *will be no forests* so if a God later evolves into a forest or nature God but still has their sphere in the celestial realm or the underworld that makes sense.

These are God's and their spheres are their private abodes, if they choose to focus on Galbar rather than their spheres and become gods with a deep connection to the physical world I imagine they might develop a magical connection with Galbar.

So maybe in a deep forest a portal to the forest gods sphere is formed or something.

There's no need for God's to be directly linked to Galbar after all.

If... That makes sense.

@Crispy Octopus

It's what I'd originally envisioned, although some will probably feel frustrated if they have to make their god start as something significantly different from what they actually want to do. But for the sake of consistency this approach makes sense.

I'm having a hard time making a decisive decision here because no matter what choice is made, I'm sure somebody will be unhappy. There's basically three options that I see:
A) Allow some gods to have "middle" spheres that are much more accessible,
B) Stick to our guns on Spheres being hard for mortals to access. Wannabe Forest God has to pick either a Celestial of a Chthonian Sphere and do something with it
C) Fudge the categories a bit and have 'upper Chthonian gods' and 'lower Celestial gods' as Capy suggested a bit farther up.

Option A seems like a slippery slope.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

Ninja'd by Capy's post here.

<Snipped quote by Crispy Octopus>

I'd say that is relevant to the distance between the spheres. In Aristotlean's stuff, everything below the moon (air and fire) are more reachable than everything up in the stars. Perhaps dividing it in four areas overall, with an upper celestial (stars and sun and stuff) lower celestial (wind and thunder and maybe the moon and stuff) upper chthonic (forests and rivers and shadows and stuff) and lower chthonic (underworld and magma and Cthulhu and stuff), indicating closeness to Galbar and ease of mortal access, could work?

@Double Capybara

Four divisions is probably too much. This makes me awfully tempted to follow the original suggestion of having 'lower', 'upper', and 'middle' gods. Rewording the OP could make it so that these 'middle' Spheres like the bottom of the ocean and the upper parts of the sky are indeed much easier to reach than the ones like the underworld or moon. In these cases, the barriers would be more physical than magical.

Does this seem like a good solution?