The Gods and that pesky Balance

[LoA]

This is for a cosmology i'm coming up with for my current attempt at "Americans get thrown into somewhat generic fantasy/dnd universe" setting in the vain of 1632 by Eric Flint. This time around though, I've decided to make them go through something of an Apocalypse Lite. It's not as bad as Fallout (which I finished before reworking this setting for the record), but it's not ideal either. Industrialization has taken place, and the Americans were able to expand outwards to a fair degree, but much technology had to be retrograded to be able to act as a viable component in the future infrastructure. Railroads have been established, cities have been built, but it's going to take time to reach the status that they came from in that far off earth.

The status of everything is that things are getting better, but it has taken time for the Americans to begin adjusting to the new world they've magically found themselves in that fateful day twenty years ago. But strangely enough, the Americans have been advancing in certain areas very quickly, more recently over the past few years a new form of nuclear power has been taking off and finding itself becoming more commonplace. A strange element unique to this world that scientists have dubbed "Deusium" is an atomic element unique to nuclear physics. It's not as potent as uranium, but it is less toxic. Basically it's just powerful enough to act as a viable energy source, but it's not as environmentally toxic, or dangerous to humans.

These advancements in science did not come from the ingenuity of man, they came from divine intervention.

Gods are very real in this world, and they all represent some overarching aspect of existence. The Gods of Morality, The Truth God, and the Lying God both represent two distinct conflicts of sentience. The Gods of Structure (Law and Anarchy), represent order. And this goes on, and on. Many of these gods are siblings, and most of them don't get along. Surprisingly enough the Gods of Life and Death get along very well, and understand perfectly why they need each other. One sibling set are the Gods of Reality, and they consist of Three people, the God of Magic, the God of nature, and the Goddess of Science. To put it bluntly, the Draconic Era was an age of epic magic that has not been replicated, and this gave the God of Magic a huge boost in power, and he has held on to that power for a long time, while the God of Nature has always had influence as people love to live and worship natural forces. It's worth noting that power comes from people believing and using the thing that gods are manifestations of. The Goddess of Science had very little influence. Oh sure she had some influence, as people always used mathematics, and engineering to build things, but they never believed in that innate thing in those concepts that gave her vitality, those being the study and use of natural forces to accomplish tasks, and so the Goddess never had the same level of influence as her brothers.

Which brings us to the balance. The Balance is this innate force in the cosmos that keeps all of the Gods in check. Basically this is the thing that makes every single plan of complete domination by one particularly domineering and ambitious god fail. Many have tried to dominate the cosmos, and each one inevitably falls to the Balance. They can't help it, as each time their plans inevitably wind up falling apart as soon as they come close to their goals of dominion. It's difficult to quantify, but it is real. The God of Lies tries to take over the cosmos, eventually all of his armies turn on each other, and eventually the forces of evil wipe each other out. This is a very real thing, and it seems to be that the Americans are the universe trying to balance out the power that the gods of nature and magic have over the cosmos. And frankly the Goddess of Science couldn't be happier, and she's doing everything in her power to make sure that Science stays a thing in this universe.

Basically I'm trying to set up a cosmology where the Gods are playing big epic games of chess for control over the world. Now the Goddess of Science has a real chance to cement her place and she's going to do so.

One Idea i had was that there are two types of races. Ones created by the dragons in that far off age, or some that were created by the gods. Humans are Maleable, and so the Gods like to take some groups of humans and turn them into new races that embody their aspect. The dwarves were created by the God of Desire, and a nature loving race was created by the God of nature, etc, etc. Now it's the Goddess of Science's turn to make her own race, and I'm trying to figure out what a science race looks like. And i'm not going with gnomes on that one. Gnomes will probably be the nature race if anything.

Wow that was dense.

[sparkletwist]

A strange element unique to this world that scientists have dubbed "Deusium" is an atomic element unique to nuclear physics. It's not as potent as uranium, but it is less toxic. Basically it's just powerful enough to act as a viable energy source, but it's not as environmentally toxic, or dangerous to humans.

You should probably just make something up without really trying to connect to anything in reality, because this doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

To put it bluntly, the Draconic Era was an age of epic magic that has not been replicated, and this gave the God of Magic a huge boost in power, and he has held on to that power for a long time, while the God of Nature has always had influence as people love to live and worship natural forces. It's worth noting that power comes from people believing and using the thing that gods are manifestations of. The Goddess of Science had very little influence. Oh sure she had some influence, as people always used mathematics, and engineering to build things, but they never believed in that innate thing in those concepts that gave her vitality, those being the study and use of natural forces to accomplish tasks, and so the Goddess never had the same level of influence as her brothers.

Given that science is, as you yourself even point out, the study of natural forces, it makes it hard for me to separate the purview of the God of Nature and the Goddess of Science. At what point does something that exists in nature stop belonging to the God of Nature and start belonging to the Goddess of Science? When people start understanding it? And to what degree is that understanding necessary? In real world technological development, lot of practical achievements came about before anyone had any idea how they worked. People smelted iron long before they really understood the processes involved, animal breeding was a thing long before anyone understood evolution or DNA, anyone who drank coffee or tea ended up boiling water before they drank it because it was safer but they didn't know why, and so on. So my question is to what extent does someone have to understand what they're doing for it to be "Science" as opposed to "Nature"?

Throw in magic and it gets even more confusing, especially since you're using D&D as a model. Double-especially if you're using Eberron as inspiration. D&D, and especially Eberron, take a rather "scientific" view of magic. Arcane magic, in particular, is meticulously researched, studied, and cataloged in books by very smart people, and, when they want to use it, it essentially works as designed more or less 100% of the time. Even divine magic is still pretty logical and consistent. This makes it start to seem a lot like technology, especially when it goes beyond wizards and is forged into various magical contraptions that take the place of technological development, like Eberron. So, in this universe, magic seems more like an accepted natural phenomenon rather than anything else. It can blow apart the 'mundane' laws of physics, but, then again, that just basically makes it this world's quantum theory, with the difference it happens on a scale that humans can see.  As such, my question is pretty much the same, at what point (and why) does the Goddess of Science start taking precedence over this field, too?

[LoA]

Okay, fair enough on the Deusium. It's more like a really potent energy source like coal or oil, so it helps fuel minor machinery. Still there are coal deposits being mined, and a Dam being constructed.

Let me fix a mistake I made about explaining my cosmology.

I wanted to create a cosmology where there was Machiavellianism and in-fighting, but there were checks and balances on a cosmic level to make sure that no God or Goddess could ever take down another God permanently. You can't kill a God, but you can depower him, and many Gods try to make people stop believing in another God. More often than not, Gods form alliances together (most of the time not permanent), and thus there is always this epic cycle that goes round and round.

Maybe the Gods of Nature is a bad term. There were two things that went into my mind as i thought this through. Either I can have a few true Gods with thousands of Potential sub Deities that exist but have no influence over the cosmos, with some Sub-Deities vying for Godhood, Or I could have a few gods overarching everything. The former seemed rather intimidating to me, but looking at your critique your probably right.

When I say God of Nature what I probably mean to say is God of the Wild. Druids, rangers, etc, etc. Maybe a better term for my science Goddess is Goddess of Mechanisms. She gains power from people building and having faith in machinery rather than magic. Magic could be the science of Planar interactions, while she has dominion over mechanical devices. She's always had a little bit of power from people building clocks and trusting them to tell time accurately, but the Americans faith in their machines and science has given her a huge power boost, and she could very well achieve Godhood. However the God of Magic probably doesn't like this.

Not all the Gods have Clerics, and the Clock Lady as she's been known in the past, doesn't like people worshipping her, rather she prefers people becoming engineers, or mechanics, etc, etc. Her purposes are best served when people build more machines in factories, than when worshiping in a temple.

[sparkletwist]

When I say God of Nature what I probably mean to say is God of the Wild. Druids, rangers, etc, etc. Maybe a better term for my science Goddess is Goddess of Mechanisms. She gains power from people building and having faith in machinery rather than magic. Magic could be the science of Planar interactions, while she has dominion over mechanical devices.

This makes a little more sense, although I'm not sure at what point a magical device also becomes a mechanical device. As I mentioned before, Wizards require superior intelligence to cast spells and they collect spell knowledge, and they can also build magic items. This all makes D&D-style magic start to seem quite a bit like its own basis for technology, and separate categories of "magic" and "science" seem strained. For example, does a +1 sword count as a "mechanical device"? It has no moving parts, so maybe not, but on the other hand a magical trap probably would have moving parts, so does this count? Also, in the real world very sophisticated technology like smartphones also has no moving parts, so moving parts might not really be the line, either. It's just a muddy division that you have right now.

Personally, I'd do away with the distinction, and have 'orderly magic' be in the same realm as mundane technology, more like how it works in Eberron, or the Technocracy from WoD. As for the gods themselves, I'd suggest making them a trinity where they traditionally each had an equal division over certain aspects of reality, but the rise of technology, industrialized magic, Deusium, and whatnot is making one of the members of the trinity too powerful, throwing off the balance; that, too, is a bit like (some parts of) WoD with its cosmology based around the Wyld, Weaver, and Wrym, which itself is based the Indian Trimurti-- a Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer-- this is an idea that I also made use of in Asura. You might also want to look at the Greek concept of the Horae which is similar but different.

[LoA]

Here is what I have.

The Gods of the Heart: Harnus, the Honest One, devoted to the concept of being true and loyal to the things that are most important in ones life, and Morgoth, the split tongued, devoted to convincing one to take selfish actions that would harm those around him. They are constantly in power struggles, but only Morgoth tries to take over the universe from time to time. Harnus is handcuffed to truth, and therefore must accept the fact that the balance exists, and will only cause him to fail if he tries to throw down Morgoth, but Morgoth himself is so consumed by lying that he has deceived himself, and so continues to try to thwart everyone.

The Gods of Life: The Goddess Marien who gives all things born life, and the God Temn lord of death who meets all of us at the moment of death, unlike the gods of the Heart, these two get along very well, understanding why they need each other, and why the cycle of life must be the way it is.

The Gods of Matter: (still struggling with this one)

WIP

[Ghostman]

Have you considered the possibility that the total of divine power in the universe could be a constant -- a kind of "conservation of divinity" as a cosmic law? That would make the waxing and waning of power among gods a zero sum game, where a given deity can only strengthen or weaken relative to it's peers. It would also affect the relationship between deities and mortals, such that the gods won't actually need the latter's belief but rather they'll want it to get ahead of their rivals in the divine game. Instead of belief being analogous to food/sustenance, it'd be analogous to votes/popularity.

Morgoth

Isn't it really weird to borrow a name from the Silmarillion when you've got people from the real world brought over to this setting? I mean, there more likely than not were some Tolkien fans among the transported population, who would recognize the name and go "Wait, that Morgoth!?" :huh:

[LoA]

Have you considered the possibility that the total of divine power in the universe could be a constant -- a kind of "conservation of divinity" as a cosmic law? That would make the waxing and waning of power among gods a zero sum game, where a given deity can only strengthen or weaken relative to it's peers. It would also affect the relationship between deities and mortals, such that the gods won't actually need the latter's belief but rather they'll want it to get ahead of their rivals in the divine game. Instead of belief being analogous to food/sustenance, it'd be analogous to votes/popularity.

Morgoth

Isn't it really weird to borrow a name from the Silmarillion when you've got people from the real world brought over to this setting? I mean, there more likely than not were some Tolkien fans among the transported population, who would recognize the name and go "Wait, that Morgoth!?" :huh:

Funny thing is, I am not a Hardcore Tolkien Fan and haven't read the Silmarillion. Maybe that was subconcious from something I heard online? Thank you for catching that, I will change henceforth. How about Moriantis?

The main question I had when I started making this setting was "what would happen if there was a USA in a DnD/fantasy setting? And there were three things that came to my mind as things that would make for engaging meta. #1: what does Civil rights look like in a world populated by several races? #2: How do science and magic interact with eachother? and #3: What do freedom of worship laws look like, in a world where worshipping evil gods could potentially destroy the world?

So that's the primary thing I'm trying to figure out, what kind of gods should I have? Should they be like normal dnd gods, or should there be a slightly different forethought in play with this world?

New Thoughts

So I think I finally figured it out. Magic in this universe is the science of extraplanar activity. The planes are like that of Eberron where they are spinning around the material plane like moons, and the closer a plane is to the material plane, the stronger the influence, again like Eberron, only this time there are most certainly gods in charge of these planes. Arcane magic is about utilizing materials that have natural connections to the planes. Divine magic is about making connections to the Gods themselves, and hence where clerics and paladins get there powers from.

The real question is, how does science play into all of this? Well magic is the science of extraplanar matters, and science deals with natural orders in the material plane. Magic is more powerful in some ways, but science is more efficient and accessible.