Priests of the Elemental Lords

Meh, all good. I was mostly throwing it out there to see where other people took this

From Arcanis cosmology, Belisarda is the living avatar of the world of Arcanis, and is considered a Goddess–a ‘young’ one, but still a Godess–in her own right. The Elemental Lords were simply Elemental beings of Divine (or near Divine, depending on the source) power that were summoned from another plane onto that of Arcanis by the Ssethrics. While the story of the ‘capture’ of Belisarda by the mortal Ssethrics is unclear–with at least two different versions–the story about how the Mages of Yasshremore summoned the Elemental Lords is fairly consistent by my reading. If the Ssethrics were able to summon GODS, and that those gods were willing to deal with such ‘minor’ beings as the Ssethrics (on the grand scheme of things) to get those who worship them as gods, to me that smacks that they are NOT gods, but simply powerful beings who WANT to be gods.

I have three brief thoughts in support of the Elemental Lords being sufficiently “god like” to grant cants:

1) when it came time to fight with them, Illiir sent 4 members of the Pantheon and not a flock of valinor … and though the PoM went 4 for 4 none of the fights was described as easy.
2) the elemental lords were worshipped at multiple (essentially standardized) temples and not a bunch of ad hoc shrines.
3) the elemental lords supposedly got a power bump by commingling their essence in some way with Belisarda (and may have received another bump by being worshipped by 10 million elorii).

There was an old theory (perhaps confirmed out of character) that a characteristic of a true God in Arcanis was having no alignment. Now putting aside that alignment is gone mechanically I think the idea could still hold true.

Take the Varn. From what’s known about them they are varying facets and flavors of Evil. Rampaging Evil, Indifferent Evil, Rapacious Evil, Corrupting Evil etc. And they’re not Gods. They’re hyper-powerful extra-planar quasi-deities. They hope to become Gods, but we also hope to stop them!

The Pantheon of Man are Gods with, as Eric has put it, the capital G. And they possess the required facets of behavior. Kind of a tautology put like that, but true all the same. The Myrantian Pantheon makes for some interesting possible exceptions as it’s many-splendored horrors haven’t ever (that I know of) exhibited any Good facets and the Myrantians themselves mostly either wish the attentions of them upon their enemies, or hope to supplicate them and/or avoid notice. There is the Hero-God Shu, who I’ve never heard of acting, but supposedly he’s a Good guy.

Now I think there’s some interplay between how a God acts and the expectations of their followers, but there’s no real proof for that.

As for the Elemental Lords the questions endure, and the answers remain distant.

Golo: as has been said, hard information about Belisarda is in short supply, but here’s what I know/believe:
-Belisarda is the incarnated life force of the world.* Several of her priesthood’s spell corroborate this by failing to function if the caster isn’t on Arcanis and by directly appealing to Her to manipulate a quality of the planet.

-Belisarda’s dedicated priesthood are the Ardahiri -the Lifewardens. They were formerly Ardakene only, though that tradition gradually changed. The Ardahiri have a surprisingly good track record for the promotion of tolerance and diplomacy, and are almost always the voice of patience and reason.

-Prior to being imprisoned by S’koreth the great Sstheric Wizard Belisarda was apparently wandering mad and grief-stricken for the loss of someone -I know of no clues as yet as to who or what. When she was located she was rapidly and randomly polymorphing through the forms of elements (but not Elementals) such as pools of magma, trees, a small lake complete with fish, birds, and wailing in great distress.

-Belisarda’s capture was a major Charlie-Foxtrot. Once engaged she tore through a legendary lineup of heroes like they were toilet wet paper, variously pulping, incinerating and exploding them. S’koreth himself nearly perished when she began ripping the oxygen right out of his lungs.
Besides making me chuckle the point of this example is that She has/had very direct, powerful connections to the usual four Elemental sources.

-The Elorii might not be the only known faith of Belisarda. A Gar (formerly Goblins) tribe was found far and deep in the Corlathian mountains who worshipped a powerful Life God and who pre-dated the arrival of the PoM. It’s also possible She’s popular on other hemispheres of planet; for all the carnage and drama we’re only adventuring on one continent. If we had one-hundred-million-dollars laying around we’d have a terrific MMO setting waiting to happen.

-Belisarda has no Valinor. Duh, right? But also no other equivalents. So if witness some kind of act or manifestation at one of Her holy places there might be a hidden priest around…or you’re seeing a personal divine act. Place nice in Mom’s house.

-Belisarda is one of only three deities credited with an action of raw Creation. Herself, Kassegore, and Yig. Notably the Pantheon of Man doesn’t take credit for the creation of humans, and humans were (though I could be mixing up the dates) once encountered by the ancient Sstherics during the nadir of their empire.

-There was a document in the last campaign (I want to say errata to the original Codex Arcanis) that cited Belisarda as having the alignment Neutral Good. This caused quite the stir at the time, but was eventually disavowed and forgotten.

-Lastly, the Skinless Schism. The Volurii, the Malfean Elorii of the Fellglade who elected to remain on the borders of the great southern swamp and wage an eternal war on the remains of the Sstheric empire, were met one day by a powerful spirit that claimed to be Belisarda. She said she’d escaped death at the hands of the PoM, but had been skinned alive while making her way^ back to her children. She said she’d gone to the other two nations first, but that they’d rejected her with repulsion and disgust. She won the trust of the Volurii (how is a serious question without an answer) and entreated them to start bringing her skin so she could be healed and walk among them, Her True Children, again.
They complied enthusiastically, and during the Second Battle of Semar she nearly manifested physically when the Malfean forces seized control of a mass sacrificial ritual a Sstheric army was using to call Haullis the Varn God of Slaughter into Arcanis.
Yeah, a true “bring me my brown pants!” Arcanis moment.
Gratefully, both armies failed.
The current state of politics between Malfea and the other Eloran nations remains unknown. They were previously distantly allied, though the Malfeans would show no mercy to other Elorii who they believed were associating at all with Humans.

*Yes, this does raise interesting questions about divine boundaries. Where does Yarris start and Belisarda end? Or Saluwe`? If Belisarda can cause natural disasters, can the Gods of the Pantheon intervene?

I once asked Henry what the Sun was called before the PoM arrived. He replied, “the Sun.” I feel as though my questions is unanswered, but it does raise another interesting question: how much of a divine presence is invasive? Is Illir a shroud that interposes himself between the natural Sun of Arcanis’s known solar system, or do they harmonize together into once concept? If there were Sun worshippers did Illir get them automatically when He happened?

^This memory is rather imperfect as to whether she was skinned by the PoM, or by Infernals/Other Things in the spaces inbetween.

I don’t think Henry misled or didn’t answer at all. Illiir is not the burning star of the Arcanis solar system, but he is the God associated with light, so the sun is worshipped as an aspect of Illiir. I’m personally on the side of Illiir being the Light of Truth, banishing the dark, illusions, etc than light itself, but that is a dogma argument.

…snip…Is a given sphere alone in space? It’s pretty well accepted that to each setting (Arcanis, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, homebrew) goes it’s own plane, but rarely does that idea seem to extend out in the galaxy. Does every plane also have Space? Were the Celestial Giants more thematically akin to Aliens than Giants? Could you escape Arcanis into the skies and fly to elsewhere*? Would the Gods come with? Would Belisarda? …snip

The onion model of the universe set out by the great sage Nerius posits layers of creation. In the center/first layer a raw cosmic energy that pulses; second layer out the elemental planes (fire, earth etc) which is where elementals and the the elorii Elemental Lords come from; third layer is the mortal realm which contains Arcanis; the fourth layer out are Celestial realms that are either the worlds of Infernals or of beneficent beings; finally a tattered 5th layer is full of what I’ll call “elder/tentacled horrors.” There are tiny “bubbles” in each layer and these are different worlds.

So yes, at least in theory you can fly out of Arcanis and if you have air food and water you can travel somewhere else … though if you can make it in a human lifespan is an open question. Most people hop from world to world by the network of Gates. This is how the First Imperium spread to different worlds. In the last campaign players traveled to different mortal worlds at least twice. Once in the module Drinking Deeply from the Chalice of Midnight and again in one of the modules linked to that weird dimensional fortress out in the desert…I’ve forgotten the name of it but James Zweirs wrote it.

It is a question of interest to me if the Celestial Giants originate from the beneficent worlds on the 4th layer, or the “wilds” of the 3rd layer. Regardless it is clear to me that they have their own ways of world hoping.

If you go to a world with no sun then, yes it appears you have passed beyond the influence of Illiir. Still Cants work fine in most cases (because you are manipulating cosmic legos) … exceptions such as certain spells of Belisarda are noted.