Why no priests of other deities, such as Rymgand, Abydon or Hylea?

[injurai]

 

Abydon is basically Prometheus, but his designed intent by the Engwithans was to protect progress. So it's not clear if he aids humans out of goodness, or duty.

 

Humans evolved to procreate like any other organism, doesn't mean they don't genuinely fall in love with the people they're doing that sort of thing with. Just because he was designed to want to protect people doesn't mean it's no longer moral for him to do so. I'm not sure it's a meaningful distinction at all.

 

I'm not sure if talking about wants and morals is necessarily the right framework. Maybe it is, it's not clear. The gods seem to have free-will and some interaction between each-other. They seem to be essentially powerful soul constructs that live in the same spiritual plane as everything else, but can bind to vessel or aspect. They certainly seem limited in their reach, disposition, function. They may do some things out of their own sense of morals, wanting to see their morals reflected in the world. But the god's actions and roles are ever shrouded by the fact they were purpose built.

[The Sharmat]

Is there a meaningful difference between being purpose built with forethought vs. crafted by a statistical process?

[injurai]

There are meaningful differences between things that came to be via the same process. I am namely quite different from you and we from a clam. I suppose some around here might believe they were created in the image of God with a purpose, but to take the world of Eora where before the gods the landscape was presumably strictly naturalist. I do think a being shaped with specific a priori duties and limits by proxy of unique reach in ability is quite different from a being whose inner daemons have been refined to necessitate the instinct to live but make no refinements on higher-order behavior that could take up one's remaining free time.

 

What do the gods do all day if not carry out their duty and play out pre-defined drama envisaged by the Engwithans? If not meant as tools or guiding forcing, then how have they come to be as they are? It would seem to me that if the gods possess free will as an artifact of being created from souls, then that will is left as a form of intelligence to figure out and act out the pre-determined will that they have been given.

Edited April 3, 2018 by injurai

[CottonWolf]

It was my understanding that Woedica was in someways the higher-order god, or at least was so to start. Perhaps that doesn't translate to oldest though. I can see how Ondra might be given an anthropic lore that tells of the creation of the seas, even when that is not the actual case. Berath does in many ways seem to almost pre-date all else, but that may largely be an anthropological artifact as well.

 

I could be that Berath, Rymrgand etc. were gods that were previously believed in before their creation and the Engwithian's decided to instantiate them, while Skaen, Abydon, Woedica and the "newer" aspects of the pantheon were created whole cloth by the Engwithians at the time of the creation of the gods.

[The Sharmat]

 

What do the gods do all day if not carry out their duty and play out pre-defined drama envisaged by the Engwithans?

I hope we'll find out.

[JerekKruger]

I've tended to view entropy not as a destructive force, but as a renewing one. Caldara de Berranzi says:

 

"Oh yes. Entropy. Rymrgand's work. We know little of why or how. We lose pieces of ourselves when we die and pick up pieces of others when we are born again, but less than what we lost."

 

Which supports the idea that some of what is lost from a soul via entropy is added to other souls. That souls diminish over time might be explained by a need (or desire) to create completely new souls.

 

Given the harm that being reborn can have (see awakenings and the quest Into the White Void) it's not clear that this is a cruel act.

 

Of course I could be completely wrong and entropy might literally destroy souls completely.

 

Either way, I take the view that if Rymrgand was designed, programmed if you will, to be the god who governs entropy then, even if entropy is a bad thing I don't view him as being cruel any more than I view a bomb as being cruel. His creators on the other hand...

 

I could be that Berath, Rymrgand etc. were gods that were previously believed in before their creation and the Engwithian's decided to instantiate them, while Skaen, Abydon, Woedica and the "newer" aspects of the pantheon were created whole cloth by the Engwithians at the time of the creation of the gods.

 

I like that idea.

[injurai]

 

It was my understanding that Woedica was in someways the higher-order god, or at least was so to start. Perhaps that doesn't translate to oldest though. I can see how Ondra might be given an anthropic lore that tells of the creation of the seas, even when that is not the actual case. Berath does in many ways seem to almost pre-date all else, but that may largely be an anthropological artifact as well.

 

I could be that Berath, Rymrgand etc. were gods that were previously believed in before their creation and the Engwithian's decided to instantiate them, while Skaen, Abydon, Woedica and the "newer" aspects of the pantheon were created whole cloth by the Engwithians at the time of the creation of the gods.

 

 

Whether the case or not, I really like the thought of this.

[JerekKruger]

Whether the case or not, I really like the thought of this.

 

It's a really nice idea. I can just imagine the ancient Engwithan animancers, having just made their old gods real, deciding to carry on and make more gods.

[neotemplar]

I think to judge this Rym-guy is to take a certain view on entropy itself.

 

Entropy can be seen both negatively, as universal energy degrading, ware-off of universe potential and dumb loss of energy, but also in a positive way as a sacrifice one makes to make things react with each other, change and produce something new.

 

So the god of entropy can be seen not as a cruel deity, who wants everything to degrade and all reactions to stop, but more as a tax collector, who makes sure that any deed comes with certain price and sacrifice.

 

The god who won't allow to get anything for free, is he cruel or is he fair, that's the question.

I mean, sometimes I feel bad for getting older, and feel it is not fair, but I may also see this process as a fair price for living a life, for allowing my experiences to happen. Is it a cruel or a fair price is one of the everlasting questions of philosophy. 

[illathid]

Won't lie, Abydon is my favorite of the PoE gods. Would absolutely love to play as a priest of him at some point.

[Enoch]

 

It was my understanding that Woedica was in someways the higher-order god, or at least was so to start. Perhaps that doesn't translate to oldest though. I can see how Ondra might be given an anthropic lore that tells of the creation of the seas, even when that is not the actual case. Berath does in many ways seem to almost pre-date all else, but that may largely be an anthropological artifact as well.

 

I could be that Berath, Rymrgand etc. were gods that were previously believed in before their creation and the Engwithian's decided to instantiate them, while Skaen, Abydon, Woedica and the "newer" aspects of the pantheon were created whole cloth by the Engwithians at the time of the creation of the gods.

 

Getting into wacky pet theories here, but maybe the Engwithans weren't the only ones who figured out how to manufacture divinity-- the tale as told by Thaos and the ruins in the Eastern Reach probably isn't the whole story.  Maybe the Engwithan animancers found diminished husks of ancient gods, topped them up with some fresh souls, then set about making some more?  (Admittedly, cycles of ancient technology and ruin is a bit of a cliche.)  Perhaps there was an Engwithan-Huana arms race in godmaking, in which Woedica was supposed to be a crowning achievement, before the rest of the gods united to overthrow her.

[rjshae]

It's also worth noting that the original guidebook implies that Berath, Rymrgand and, I seem to remember, Ondra are in some sense older gods. So it's not clear that the same rules regarding causation/description of the natural order apply to them, as apply to, say, Woedica.

 

If there is a heirarchy or wider set of deities "available" in the Eora universe, it could be that Engwithan deities who die off or fade away may end up supplanted by older gods who assume their guise as a convenience. Those older gods may have a different agenda though, and could be much more powerful and difficult to depose.

[The Sharmat]

I've tended to view entropy not as a destructive force, but as a renewing one. Caldara de Berranzi says:

 

"Oh yes. Entropy. Rymrgand's work. We know little of why or how. We lose pieces of ourselves when we die and pick up pieces of others when we are born again, but less than what we lost."

 

Which supports the idea that some of what is lost from a soul via entropy is added to other souls. That souls diminish over time might be explained by a need (or desire) to create completely new souls.

 

Given the harm that being reborn can have (see awakenings and the quest Into the White Void) it's not clear that this is a cruel act.

 

Of course I could be completely wrong and entropy might literally destroy souls completely.

You're right and wrong. It does exactly what you say, fracturing larger souls to create new ones. But it also eventually fractures them enough that they're no longer viable, leading first to serious abnormalities that cause insanity and other side effects, and eventually just reducing them to ambient bits of essence that are no longer viable to be reincarnated and end up fuel for Wizard and Chanter fireworks.

 

Of course like Neotemplar says this is a really fantasy view of entropy the way its presented. In reality the universe as we know it only works because of entropy. A universe without it is utterly unimaginable and would certainly contain nothing like biological life, planets, stars, and all that good stuff. Rymrgand's portfolio is focused on being a God of decay and death, which is ultimately what entropy leads to, but before that, entropy does literally everything else in existence.

[JerekKruger]

You're right and wrong. It does exactly what you say, fracturing larger souls to create new ones. But it also eventually fractures them enough that they're no longer viable, leading first to serious abnormalities that cause insanity and other side effects, and eventually just reducing them to ambient bits of essence that are no longer viable to be reincarnated and end up fuel for Wizard and Chanter fireworks.

 

Do we know that for certain? I looked around for any official sources but couldn't find much.

 

If so it seems a bit silly. Either that's an absolute tonne of unused souls floating about, or Eora's heading for a population crash and/or a hollowborn crisis it can't fix by turning off Engwithan machines.

[injurai]

Given that spirits and entropy seem to pre-exist Rymrgand, I think Rymrgand should be seen more as a mechanism to guide and manipulate how this inevitable process reaches it's finality. That is, Rymrgand plays a role in the journey towards entropy. Mostly seeming to speed it up or to bring finality to souls that manage to suffer from an unnaturally slow decay. In this way Rymrgand may be seen as compassionate towards adrift souls. Maybe Engwithans did this out of compassion or of their own fear of the inevitable. In other ways, Rymrgand seems like a siege weapon to be unleashed on one's foes.

 

Which brings me to my next question about him. Is there a cost to his ushering in of entropy? Surely as a construct of souls, he himself defies his role. Was his destruction meant to afford a lease on life or other's for the Engwithans in some sort of equivalent exchange?

 

Also while fun to speculate, I'm sure half of what we're speculating about is unintended consequences of the canon's metaphysics.

[The Sharmat]

 

You're right and wrong. It does exactly what you say, fracturing larger souls to create new ones. But it also eventually fractures them enough that they're no longer viable, leading first to serious abnormalities that cause insanity and other side effects, and eventually just reducing them to ambient bits of essence that are no longer viable to be reincarnated and end up fuel for Wizard and Chanter fireworks.

 

Do we know that for certain? I looked around for any official sources but couldn't find much.

 

If so it seems a bit silly. Either that's an absolute tonne of unused souls floating about, or Eora's heading for a population crash and/or a hollowborn crisis it can't fix by turning off Engwithan machines.

 

It's what Caldara and other animancers seem to believe is the case, yes. Thaos too, who is probably far more well versed in animancy than any of them. And yes, eventually it will probably lead to a natural occurrence of hollowborn. But the whole process seems very, very slow. It may even take geological time.

 

Silly and wasteful, yes. But you might as well ask why in our own universe the very physical processes that give rise to our existence will inevitably result in a uniform wasteland of individual particles randomly teleporting infinitesimally small distances spaced out every few meters.

[The Sharmat]

Given that spirits and entropy seem to pre-exist Rymrgand, I think Rymrgand should be seen more as a mechanism to guide and manipulate how this inevitable process reaches it's finality. That is, Rymrgand plays a role in the journey towards entropy. Mostly seeming to speed it up or to bring finality to souls that manage to suffer from an unnaturally slow decay. In this way Rymrgand may be seen as compassionate towards adrift souls. Maybe Engwithans did this out of compassion or of their own fear of the inevitable. In other ways, Rymrgand seems like a siege weapon to be unleashed on one's foes.

 

Which brings me to my next question about him. Is there a cost to his ushering in of entropy? Surely as a construct of souls, he himself defies his role. Was his destruction meant to afford a lease on life or other's for the Engwithans in some sort of equivalent exchange?

 

Also while fun to speculate, I'm sure half of what we're speculating about is unintended consequences of the canon's metaphysics.

Sawyer claims to have thought long and hard over the actual metaphysics of the setting in ways that are not revealed to the player and may never be fully revealed. The questions raised at the end of Pillars 1 as to what the gods actually spend their time doing besides getting worshiped and screwing with each other are currently unanswered, though. Or how and why the Engwithans chose to make any specific god or assign their attributes.

 

Rymrgand's existence goes against entropy only if viewed as part of a closed system where Rymrgand and a finite subset of particles around him are all that exist. He does not however live in a closed system, so presumably much like real biological life, this is only a temporary local reversal that in the great scheme of things actually increases entropy due to the waste heat its processes generate that will never be recovered. Just replace electrons and protons with whatever an individual particle of essence is and energy with whatever the soul's equivalent is.

[injurai]

Strictly Rymrgand himself, by existing, is an obstruction of entropy, which must be justified to hasten the rate of entropy beyond himself. There is no need for the system to be closed for this to be true, quite the opposite. I've once heard proposed that life exists because it drives entropy, which may be true in some circumstances. Typically however life defies entropy, and Rymrgand is a form of life. The sun is constantly decaying, we just happen to be down stream. Life happens to capture some of that energy and trap it temporarily in a complex system. Only when that system overflows does the flow of energy continues downstream, but sustains a relatively constant amount of enthalpy. So the net effect is that order is built up by the energy that passes through and is slowed for the period until an equilibrium is met, which will then be paid back as the system fails. Of course this aspect of a temporary reversal of entropy is the thrust of my point, and it's in fact paid by the release of energy expended that traps energy in ordered form. A local decrease in entropy is not necessarily being caused by a hastening of entropy universally. Either the world is really deterministic, in which case it always had to be, or probabilistic in which case order may sometimes occur instead. For whatever reason some systems will capture all the energy that they can manage. Life will die when it's conditions fade, black holes while incredibly entropic in their own right will defy the truest finality of entropy long after black holes have been torn so far apart from each other that the causally non-existent to each other.

[JerekKruger]

It's what Caldara and other animancers seem to believe is the case, yes. Thaos too, who is probably far more well versed in animancy than any of them. And yes, eventually it will probably lead to a natural occurrence of hollowborn. But the whole process seems very, very slow. It may even take geological time.

Caldera doesn't say what happens to fragments of souls that are lost, does Thaos explicitly say they can never be reincorporated into new souls?

 

Silly and wasteful, yes. But you might as well ask why in our own universe the very physical processes that give rise to our existence will inevitably result in a uniform wasteland of individual particles randomly teleporting infinitesimally small distances spaced out every few meters.

My criticism is that the time scale appears such that it would cause a noticeable decline in population already. It seems to be heading towards soul heat death much more quickly than our universe is heading for its own heat death.

 

If there were an external source of souls entering the supply, like Earth had an external source of energy, that would make it more reasonable to me. Perhaps there is.

[The Sharmat]

 

It's what Caldara and other animancers seem to believe is the case, yes. Thaos too, who is probably far more well versed in animancy than any of them. And yes, eventually it will probably lead to a natural occurrence of hollowborn. But the whole process seems very, very slow. It may even take geological time.

Caldera doesn't say what happens to fragments of souls that are lost, does Thaos explicitly say they can never be reincorporated into new souls

 

It's more from supplementary material like the bestiary, the guide, and various Q&As. But yes Thaos mentions how without the Gods all you have is a wheel endlessly spinning, eventually grinding every soul into dust. He seems to think it's inevitable and empty, and the fiction of the Gods he created is necessary to give people some semblance of a meaningful life while they can get it.

[CottonWolf]

 

It's what Caldara and other animancers seem to believe is the case, yes. Thaos too, who is probably far more well versed in animancy than any of them. And yes, eventually it will probably lead to a natural occurrence of hollowborn. But the whole process seems very, very slow. It may even take geological time.

Caldera doesn't say what happens to fragments of souls that are lost, does Thaos explicitly say they can never be reincorporated into new souls?

 

At some point presumably they enter the White Void and are sealed from the cycle permanently?

[JerekKruger]

I'll have to pay more careful attention to him in my next play through. I checked the guide and there wasn't really anything about it that I could see.

[Boeroer]

Maybe those are the soul fragments that fly all around and are used by wizards and chanters.

[JerekKruger]

Maybe those are the soul fragments that fly all around and are used by wizards and chanters.

 

I think they are yes, at least that's how I understood what Josh said.

[Karkarov]

As discussion of the metaphysical aspects of the game is there are two things to consider. 

 

1: We don't actually know how it works.  We are only presented with in game knowledge, and the in game animancers who are honest will tell you their sciences conclusions are just a best guess, not hard facts.  So by definition, we don't have enough data.

 

2: The only people in game who arguably may have enough data are not only not sharing, but for the most part are actually quite unfriendly to the watcher.  Master of the Deep, Thaos, the gods in general, etc.  However, their actions can be examined.....

 

Thaos is clearly wreaking holy hell on the newborn souls in the Dyrwood, he hasn't been doing it for a day or two either.  He has been at it a decade plus by the time you arrive I believe.  That's thousands, if not tens of thousands of souls.  His machines are either trapping, our outright destroying these souls too.  So he clearly did not plan to put those souls back in "the system".  Yet doesn't seem concerned about the long term well being of the world, in fact, he thinks what he is doing is best for the world long term.  So clearly he is not worried about any kind of "soul heat death".

 

The Master Below actually wants to swap to a mortal form so it can go travel about a bit before it dies a natural death.  IE: The Master is clearly not concerned about whether or not it dies, and or, will be reincarnated.  It wants to hit the reset button and fully expects to come back in some form for another round eventually.

 

Meanwhile the gods are cryptic and don't really tell you much in reality, but there is one thing you learn, the world and it's metaphysical soul science existed before they did.  So regardless of whatever it is Rymrgand might be doing, the system works with or without him, and for all his driving entropy, there are other gods who drive the opposite such as Hylea.  The gods are at their core about the creation of a world governing system meant to keep things on an even keel, so by definition, Rymrgand is not really doing anything "destructive" in the big picture.

So yeah, we don't know how it works, but we do know that the people who might understand the system aren't worried about "soul heat death" or anything like it.  So we don't really have anything to worry about in modern Eora times.

Edited April 6, 2018 by Karkarov