Thursday, February 26, 2009

On the Nature of the Gods of Athanor

It may be a matter of my own personal beliefs or my view of how Burroughs, Howard, Lovecraft and others have depicted pulpish fantasy, but I don't want a world where the gods are living, tangible things. At least, not the kind of gods that clerics would follow. Instead, I leave the presence of the Lords of Law and Chaos as mysteries. Are they real or imagined? Where to clerics get their powers? Will the gods intervene for me? The answer is a big fat patch of silence. We do't even know if there are gods out there.

Now, there will be things worshiped as gods. Barbarians in the wastes may worship the great dinousaurs as embodied nature spirits. Mutants in the ruins in Zamora may worship a great Spider God, which is actually a huge, semi-sentient spider. A cult in the sewers may worship the Mother Of All, which is acually a huge pit of grey ooze. But these aren't real gods, just powerful beings which are being worshiped by the superstitious or gullible.

The real faces of the gods — if there are any gods — remain entirely inscrutible.

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