Talk:GM Religion Vomit

When do we get the second issue? Oooh I can barely contain my excitement! -Slitherrr

Heh. Since this was written in like 2008, I'd guess in the middle of the second Palin administration. --absalom 17:15, 28 April 2010 (EDT)

Looks like I ought to update my vanity page a bit more with the rescue of Marrwyn. Did we actually play that in game? It seems vaguely familiar, but I was pretty high that decade so I can't be sure. --Msallen

Yeah, that actually happened. I'm surprised I remember it as well as I do - that was the infamous "Twelve Cider" game, where I called you the next morning to ask what happened.

FWIW, the campaign(s) ended after the separation of the party. Team Sayid made it through the Moon Bracers and the beginnings of his rise among the Bedouin. Team Sterros got as far as the Naga Hunt, the finding of the Egg, and the beginnings of their relationship with Antioch. (Before he went all black-veiny) --absalom 10:29, 29 April 2010 (EDT)

Talk about the blind leading the blind. Yeah, I remember most of that. With Sayid I was alternating between attacking the Peteran army and assassinating generals, and then diving into caves to fight dark elves. I don't remember that much about the Sterros side... I thought we only did a few games with them. Are you sure you aren't confusing them with the non-canonical PCs? --Msallen

PS. Man I loved Sayid. No matter how much of a dick Germain may be, he'll never reach the level of self-important crazy that Sayid did. He was glorious.

We spent more time on the Petaran side of things at the end, but I know that the played-story got at least as far as Mythrian finding the Egg and the group coming to the attention of Antioch, but not to the point that they were in the Sorcerer-King's inner circle, or even his outer one.

Sayid was only great because he had Sterros as a foil, and Alexandria there to balance the two. -gm

No way!!! Sayid had such wonderful qualities: reckless, entitled, immoral, conniving, aggressive, theatrical, shameless, and so much more. I don't think I'll ever play a character as fun as he was. --Msallen

He sounds like some of my students. --absalom 12:05, 29 April 2010 (EDT)

Who am I kidding. He sounds like almost all of my students. But, honestly, I think without Sterros being such a humorless, glum, grim, and legalist figure, Sayid would not have worked nearly so well, even after the groups split up. But, I know we went back and forth between the two groups at least a little, because I was conscientious about not wanting one team to outpace the other team in terms of levels or chronology. --absalom 12:05, 29 April 2010 (EDT)

Sure, having a foil made him *better*, but even on his own he was fabulous. I am sure we did some of the other side, and I remember the bit about the egg. In the game didn't that happen in ravenloft or something? My memory from back then is sooo foggy. --Msallen

Dragon omelette? -Slitherrr

That was MY plan at least! --Msallen

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I asked this question in Kib Absold's talk, but that wasn't really the place for it, so I'm cross-posting it here:

...[I]s there room for an Underworld concept in Alexandrian theology, or is it never mentioned on purpose? Does Alexandrian even do the righteous justice in the afterlife thing? Perhaps they play it a bit more like the Greeks, where everyone pretty much goes to the same place and is assigned a more-or-less arbitrary activity that's sometimes a punishment and sometimes not? Or is it something completely different? -Slitherrr

More the Greek than the Zoroastrian. Not much time is actually spent on discussions of the afterlife because of the impenetrability of the veil. Ancient visions of the afterlife all come from stories of heros traveling there. That'd be a very difficult feat to accomplish in a realm that has little if any rezzing, and where even communication to and from the Material Plane is difficult and possibly dangerous. The general Theology is that there IS an afterlife, and Alexandria is in charge of it. It's probably pretty nice, or at least comfortable or just kind of chill.

Sort of a stoic heaven, maybe? Do your time on earth, serve righteously as a force against decay and chaos, get to live forever. --absalom 16:38, 30 April 2010 (EDT)

And the consequences for not doing that, or doing the opposite? -Slitherrr

No hard and fast theology on that, but the broad strokes is "something bad." Some people argue that you get sent wherever the servitors go - oblivion, maybe, or the kingdom of shadow. Others assume some individual, specially tailored eternal punishment is crafted. Mostly, a hard tack is not taken. It may sound counter-intuitive, especially since the entire society is centered around a Medieval Church-like structure. But, although the structures are virtually identical, the beliefs behind those structures are wildly different. The church is not a vehicle for individual salvation, but rather for collective protection.

Ultimately, the responsibility to fight against disorder and maintain order is not individual one, and so ideas of individual rewards and punishments are not nearly as important when life is no longer seen as essentially a test for the afterlife. Take the example of an ancient Roman Consul who gives a sacred oath. He does not follow through on that oath because he feels individual supernatural reprisal for breaking it, but because he believes that breaking it will bring doom on his entire people. Now, even if that individual Consul becomes an oath-breaker, punitive action in the afterlife is unnecessary: the whole of society, necessarily, turns against him because even if he does not believe his actions bring ruination, the rest of society does and ostracizes him accordingly. In either case, personal belief or societal pressure forces people to tow the party line. Consequences, then, are worldly, not otherworldly.

Largely, though, death and what comes after is considered a Big Mystery, in large parts. This is probably not terribly satisfying, but really, the entire of the Canon - and thus Orthodoxy itself - is based around events and people involved in saving the world, not about Salvation. Since the dead cannot be raised or contacted, and travel between the planes is dangerous an difficult, it's all a big question mark. Unlike the Catholic Church of our world, it doesn't bother Alexandrians to have such huge gaps in their theology - theirs is a primarily a secular religion, if anything, interested in maintaining earthly order. --absalom 14:08, 3 May 2010 (EDT)