I'd like to throw in a few ideas on the Elder Races' otherworlds.
Chris Lemens:
>First off, there are (at least) three types of trees in an Aldryami Forest:
>just plain trees, trees with their own spirits, and trees with their own
>gods. However, the elf religion allows elves to participate in spirit
>practice with both animist and divine trees without the misapplied worship
>penalty. For humans, this would not normally be possible. However, things
>are different for the Elder Races. The Uz and Aldryami otherworlds "are
>part of the Underworld." (His words.) The Underworld need not
>differentiate between things as being animist, divine, or sorcerous in
>nature.
There's something about the Underworld in Hero Wars (Otherworld Magic -> Divine World -> Underworld). Paraphrasing to English:
"Some believe that the creatures of the Underworld don't just come from the theists' dark places, but that the infernal creatures of the sorcerous and spirit worlds are there too. (...) Frx, Kyger Litor is the goddess of the Underwold and gets sacrifices from a few worshippers who get feats. For Uz shamans, she's also Uz Great Ancestress (protector of the spirits). She's also the Creator who made the Laws of Uz sorcery."
It's obvious in Uz case. Uz Otherworld -is- the Underworld. The entities that live there can be divine or spirit in roolz terms, but in Uz terms they're just Uz gods - the Gods and Spirits (and Essence) of Darkness. No misapplied worship penalty because Uz know how to approach them: they know them, intimately. Yet if Uz tried to worship a non-Darkness deity, maybe i'd give a penalty, even if Uz previously worshipped a theistic entity of Uz religion.
Chris Lemens, replying to Peter Mercalfe:
>>I think Aldrya lives in this world and that the Aldryami otherworld
>>is the world of the Taker. Things that live here appear dead there
>>and vice versa.
>
>Yes, except that their positions switch partway through the year. The
>spirits of the dryads, brown elves, runners, and pixies follow hers to the
>Underworld. The green and yellow defend their lifeless Forests. When she
>and the Taker switch places again, the green and yellow elves dance her
>Awakening Dance through their Forests. The Awakening Dance is the basis of
>the heroquest that Aldryami can perform to awaken plants' spirits (e.g. to
>form a great tree, a dryad, or a runner).
Beautiful.
I don't clearly see how the Forest can be "part of the Underworld", unless there's more to it than the land of the dead. Probably it's rather the place that "need not differentiate between things as being animist, divine, or sorcerous in nature" - including the Aldryami Forest and the Underworld where Aldrya goes in winter.
Thus Aldrya is the goddess of the Song "and gets sacrifices from a few worshippers who get feats. For the Aldryami shamans, she's also the Great Ancestress of the Aldryami (protector of the spirits)." Some of her children (trees) are mundane, others are spirit, others are divine, because all of those entities have their place in the Song. (Outside the Song, i'd give a misapplied worship penalty (same as Uz).)
>I wonder if Elves & Trolls suffer an Alien World penalty if they stray from
>the Underworld to the Godworld.
Peter Metcalfe:
>I think they do _if_ they are attuned to the animist path.
I'd add that they'd suffer a penalty in those parts of the Otherworld where the Song fades out, and if they can't hear it, then it's Alien World.
Peter Metcalfe
>If you prefer a cosmological argument, then I hazard the Song does
>not contain sorcery because that is the ethos of the Mostali (cue:
>the Grower/Maker duality).
Good point.
The two other great Elder Races' Otherworlds, namely the World Machine and the Deep, seem to be different.
The World Machine isn't part of the Underworld: the Underwold is part of the World Machine. Say it's just the part of the Machine which is below. The Machine happens to be all-sorcerous, so there's no problem.
"The Deep Is All." The Deep is probably part of the Underworld, at least in the same respect as the elves' mythic forests. Its denizens are Shapeshifters, who can probably take a shape which has affinities, or a shape which can cast sorcery spells, etc. Usually they'll take the shape that most suits their current foes or allies (ex: theist in a Well-of-Wisdom HQ). Drospoly, Varchulanga and other Deep Deities can change shape as well. As you get closer to the Inner World the worlds separate because of the movement (Daliath/ Framanthe /Sramak), and merge together in the mundane aspect. So there are mundane waters, divine waters, spirit waters and certainly sorcerous waters as well. They all continually move and are churned by Magasta (merely a god, but not the least).
All of this isn't possible for humans, because the Underworld is no man's land, as Chris Lemens said. Their own otherworlds are bound to a particular worldview (though some strange humans, namely the Stygians, seem to mix several worldviews but can't switch paths during their lifes like the Elder Races). On the Otherhand, humans are perfectly at ease in the Inner World. Uz and Merfolk go second best. The Gods of Darkness rule the Inner World half the time, and the Sea Gods rule the sea (I suggest it's possible for Merfolk to go on land but they need an ability 'Crawl on land' or 'Do a headstand'). Aldryami and Mostali are usually confined to their forests/tunnels.
Jerome
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