Rathe:About
From Rathe
I suppose in all the work that has been put into the Rathe Campaign, not much has been said about the origins of what now exists.
About 6 years ago, or so, I began the outline of what was to evolve throughout the years. It’s been quite a while since then, I really can’t recall the precursor to the precursor of Rathe.
Perhaps the most distinctive things about Rathe have come about on two levels – the crafting of the Pantheon, and the Geography of the World.
I can recall way back when I first began to name the basic Deities and stat out their profiles, partially based upon the religious culture of the Proto-Indo-Europeans (which was the basis for many religions down the line, such as the Greek and Roman Pantheons). Well, it was during this time I had a massive list of attributes that could be ascribed to various deities. At this point in time, I actually had an entirely different pantheon, at least upon a fundamental level. Originally, theology was divided along moral lines, with one Supreme Being of devoute good and another off-cast evil (this was the original form of the meteor; the evil itself was contained within the 3rd Moon and sent upon the material plane). The deities were therefore split along three lines, those good, those evil, and those neither.
Well, I suppose that it was during this time I truly was trying to apply logic to the alignment system (yeah, that proved to be futile) but it was a result of these attempts that the 27 deity Pantheon of Rathe was to be born. You see, originally I can to the conclusion that the alignment system was simply too flawed to take so many factors into account (a conclusion I still have to this day, but I put up with the alignments as best as I can =P). Anyhow, I broke the alignments down into various subcategories, and based upon a rubric of good and evil (morals) and lawful and unlawful (ethics?), or societal and individualistic. Bah, anyhow, that didn’t work out, but what I did have was a pantheon that had some dynamics between each other. And this was before I decided on Avatars.
What happened next was interesting – I always wanted a Pantheon that was somewhat enclosed, but I could not figure out how to handle the problem of so many intelligent races. After all, what in the world does one do when they realize that there are other creatures as intelligent as you, with their own gods? That just does not lend itself well to a unified pantheon. What happened next was an evolving process. The gods began like any other D&D pantheon, being able to be contacted directly, being worshiped by people just like any other deity, but something still bugged me, and probably will for some time. What I saw was the question, why would more than one race worship the same deity? There have been many solutions in the past, but I have never really gotten over the sort of identity shattering effect I’d suffer if I found myself in my own campaign world. The idea of elves, dwarves, or heck, any other race than human simply fits no where in my process of experiencing the world (yeah, yeah, I’m small minded about aliens).
Just imagine the religious implications that’d have if we found out we weren’t alone (don’t worry, I don’t think that I know enough to give any really solid rant on this issue, so I’ll skip it). Anyhow, the question became how does one keep the Pantheon to a reasonable size if EACH culture had their own religion??? I sort of ignored this question until a year or so ago. At that time, I finally began outlining the idea of Avatars of the Deities – the notion that perhaps the one cannot truly begrudge the Gods, simply because each of them are Divine! Think about it – the idea that if these beings are truly the one and only creators of the world, that each of them are in some respects like a Roman or Greek God – you can’t go around cursing them all day, or crusading against one of them! Well, we couldn’t have that now could we? What’s the fun in playing a Paladin if you don’t have some evil religion to wipe out?
Thus was born the Avatar system of today. The Avatars became a personification of the Deities, which were already personifications of the cosmos created around them/they created. What the Avatars became were like Saints to me; that they were those worthy enough to the Deities to be raised to godlike levels of power. So what happened was this: imagine a world where the Saints in catholic tradition (and please don’t get too mad at me here, this is a liberal application of anything found in Catholicism) were actually able to influence everyday life in a real and solid manner. What if we had physical PROOF that the Saints were still able to affect every day life, that magic was real, and miracles happened, not just every once in a while, but nearly every day it could be possible? What if people walk around every day invoking the power of those they worship, and priests could at a moments notice heal you of a broken leg, or remove one of any disease? That notion is so … optimistic.
Anyhow, the Deities to me became more like the question of does something more out there exist? What if we could really feel the presence of Saints every day, and saw proof of their existence? At the same time, what if despite that evidence that something more exists, what if that could never prove the existence of what it actually is? Well, the Avatars became a mechanism for the Deities to exist in the world, yet remain almost intangible and imaginary. It would be easy to say that the Deities don’t exist, except that the Avatars serve them, so they must exist … right? The Avatars became a mechanism for the many intelligent races to have their own pantheons entirely, but tie the world together under one penumbra.
Well, I’m out of time, and out of breath, so till next time, I’m out.
