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Originally posted by KanzenAU

I was thinking about shifting Loviatar over to the Talfir to be with Mielikki, so maybe Kiputytto was a deity of the Talfir too. I was also thinking about moving Silvanus from Talfir to Jhaamdath to spread the forest-deity love a bit. I guess maybe for how Loviatar worship got to Dambrath, we could say that it was brought by Illuskan-Rus who had interacted with Talfir, ended up in Shandaular near their destination of Rashemen, and been drawn down through the portal to Dambrath with the others. A tad more convoluted, but Dambrath's a special case.

Edit: Having Kiputytto in Talfir and Talona in Jhaamdath is also a nice setup for them clashing over Asram.

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

Cool! Bhaelros is said to be Talos in the OGB, Empires if the Sands, and F&A at least - is this not 100%?

Edit:
Cegilune also isn't active in the Realms by the "Monster Deities" bit of Faiths and Pantheons; Selune would be a good fit for the Talfir though.

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

Elemental Powers:
Akadi, Kossuth, Istishia, Grumbar: primordial gods that were present in the creation of the planets. These gods generally don't take a huge interest in mortal affairs however, and they may not even have a presence in most pantheons.

The Gods of Fury:
Talos, Auril, Malar, and Umberlee: present since the War of Light and Darkness as some of the fell gods created. Worship is generally by geographical area (the influence of the natural forces each god represents).<snip>

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Originally posted by Markustay

I haven't had much time the past few days, so I fell behind with keeping up with this thread. As I am just now reading through pg.2, something jumped right out at me, and I have Kanzen to thank for this because I don't think anyone has every tried to categorize 'The Gods' in this manner before -

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

Elemental Powers:
Akadi, Kossuth, Istishia, Grumbar: primordial gods that were present in the creation of the planets. These gods generally don't take a huge interest in mortal affairs however, and they may not even have a presence in most pantheons.

The Gods of Fury:
Talos, Auril, Malar, and Umberlee: present since the War of Light and Darkness as some of the fell gods created. Worship is generally by geographical area (the influence of the natural forces each god represents).<snip>

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Quite awhile ago I noticed we had a god in the Hordelands named Teylas, who is presumably Akadi. However, not only does the name sound like 'Talos', but the deity is also male, and acts VERY much like Talos (you'd have to read the Hordselords novel to understand). I always thought this was odd, if not an actual mistake. However, when 4e came around - and supposedly 'Elemental Powers' (primordials) couldn't have worshipers - I struck upon the idea of 'profit sharing' among gods. In other words, Akadi really can't be bothered with worship (if she can even technically get any benefit from it), so she 'contracts' with Talos - a god of storms and one who's portfolios compliment her own - to take over the day-to-day activities of running her church, and they'd 'split the profits' (the energy acquired from having Faithful). Now, although I've mentioned this theory quite a few times, I've never garnered a whole lot of support for it (which I think is odd, since the only other solution to the 4e conundrum is to just say 'the canon isn't accurate'). However, with your two sub-lists being one right above the other, I noticed something - BOTH have four powers.

And I see another water deity - Umberlee - on the second list.

Could the four 'Gods of Fury' actually either BE deific aspects of the elemental powers, OR (and I think this one makes more sense), they have some sort of relationship with those powers (almost like 'Chosen', except this is more like Uber-Chosen - actually full-fledged gods acting as Saints/Exarchs to the elemental powers).

So we'd have...

1. Talos works for Akadi (Teylas)
2. Umberlee works for Istishia
3. Malar works for Grumbar ('Earth' = 'nature' kind of thing)
4. Auril works for Kossuth.

Okay, I know what you're thinking - #3 is a bit of a stretch... and IT IS. But #4 looks flat-out WRONG... or is it? What is 'cold'? Cold isn't really an energy at all (which is why I think its one thing D&D got wrong from the very beginning). All cold is an absence of heat- its actually the same power, just reversed. Fire & Ice are really just two sides to the same coin.

So maybe Auril absorbs all the heat out of the lands under her sway, and gives that power to her patron, who is the god of heat in its rawest form - Fire. Or, she usurped her portfolio from the fallen Ulutiu, and Ulutiu had some sort of deal going with Kossuth. but she reneges on the agreement and so thats why Kossuth has had to become personally involved in running his church (he probably merged one of his avatars with a mortal, creating one of those 'greater manifestations' like we had down in the Old Empires).

On the other hand, I think Akadi, Kossuth, Istishia, and Grumbar are really just the local (Realmspace) names for the powers Misha, Kakatal, Strasha, and Grome (although, conversely, the latter could just be the local names from worlds where the Melinibonean Mythos holds sway). These powers could have even more ancient, primal names, and those beings create individual 'Ubertars' of themselves for each crystal sphere (but in FR, a bunch of weirdness happened, so they had to go to a pocket-plane world... and maybe left behind some subordinates {The Gods of Fury} to hold the fort down until such a time when they could come back).

For that last part to be true, it would mean WE (us fans here in the RW) never actually got to play with the elemental Gods before 4e - they were trapped in Abeir along with the other primordials, and that goes against canon... maybe. Problem here is that we got another set of canon that supports that (the 4e stuff). Because of their more 'primal' nature, Ao may have had to make certain allowances, and even though the gods themselves were tapped in Abeir, they would still have to be allowed limited interaction because of their nature (which may have been done through the Gods of Fury, as I've said, or not).

Even with all that taken into account (and its the only way I can see to make all the canon work together), I'd still want to do a special backstory for Kossuth, since he seems to actually have some history in The Realms. Unless, of course, we just say that wasn't really Kossuth at all - it was really Imix who the Thayans summoned (unbeknowst to them - Kossuth couldn't answer the summons). Or some other Arcomental, even (one we haven't heard of, that posed as Kossuth for a time... but Imix works best, especially considering all that happened).

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

Some interesting ideas floating around here.

I'm out the door, but just quickly, I think we established in the primordials thread of a month or so back that the elemental gods could always answer prayers and grant spells, including in 4e.

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Originally posted by sleyvas

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

Some interesting ideas floating around here.

I'm out the door, but just quickly, I think we established in the primordials thread of a month or so back that the elemental gods could always answer prayers and grant spells, including in 4e.

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Yep, but the mechanics of it was what Markustay was questioning. Basically, the priests might not realize it, but perhaps they needed a deity to act as an intermediary, and in return said deity got to siphon some of the faith energy.

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Like all the elemental lords, Istishia is relatively unfeeling toward his followers on Abeir-Toril. His reactions are utterly unpredictable and thus, in an odd way, predictable in their unpredictability. The reasoning behind Istishia's actions is incomprehensible to most of Faerun's inhabitants, including his worshipers. The alien and uncaring stance of Istishia and the other elemental lords has led to the mistaken impression in the Realms that they are only lesser powers and their followers merely oddball cultists. During the Time of Troubles, Istishia was not spotted in the Realms.

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

I like what Wooly has said here - I don't think whether or not primordials can grant spells is the core issue differentiating them from gods. Edit: though I do think primordials are more than more powerful elementals - core 4e had them arising from the Inner Planes the same time the gods arose in the Outer Planes.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

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Originally posted by KanzenAU

I like what Wooly has said here - I don't think whether or not primordials can grant spells is the core issue differentiating them from gods. Edit: though I do think primordials are more than more powerful elementals - core 4e had them arising from the Inner Planes the same time the gods arose in the Outer Planes.

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The problem -- and why I spun it the way I did -- is Maegera. Maegera is a primordial, but at the same time, is clearly not a deity. Maegera is way more than just a regular elemental, though.

Hence, my spin that primordials are something akin to, but more powerful than elementals, while not necessarily being divine.

If we didn't have the whole "primordials are different" thing to contend with, an argument could be made that Maegera was the proxy (in Planescape terms) of some fire power.

And really, even if the primordials did arise at the same time as the deities in the Outer Planes, I don't think it invalidates the rest of my musings.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

And here's something else I've tossed out before -- barghests often come to the Prime as weaker entities, spend some time eating Primes, and then get strong enough to go back. Maybe those elementals that are summoned by magic are coming voluntarily, because time spent in the Prime either makes them more powerful or equates to a higher rank back home. This benefit applies to both regular elementals and those bound into the shells that become golems. (What made me think of this was a discussion on whether summoning elementals was a form of slavery or not. I came up with that spin to basically dodge the moral implications)

Maybe the spell-granting primordials realize something the non-spell-granting ones don't: there is power in harnessing mortal belief. And that's why they do it.

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Originally posted by Markustay

I would love to, but WotC took down their forums, and thats where some of the designers were answering questions about 4e when it was released. They're trying to 'erase' our recollections of 4e, but unfortunately for them, I have a near-perfect memory when it comes to these sorts of things.

The whole point of the 4e lore about the primordials was that they were different from the gods, and they went to Abeir and couldn't grant spells (because there is no divine magic in Abeir). Now, we can - in hindsight - say that it was the 'nature of Abeir', and NOT the primordials themselves, that kept that from happening, but thats not what they intended. Since I can't offer you proof (from their forums, which no longer exist, not my own collection of 4e books, which NEVER existed), I offer you logic instead - if the primordials are exactly the same as deities, then what, precisely, was the point of all that? Are they (WotC) now trying to say 'The Primordials' were nothing more than a different pantheon? That *might* please some of the 4e-haters around here, but I thought the primordials were one of the few semi-original things 4e introduced (not an original concept, mind you, but original to FR).

In fact, it was a major premise of 4e that there were several groups of deity-like beings (all now grouped under the term 'god') that could not grant spells, including Elemental lords, Beast Lords and anything beginning with 'Arch' (Archfey, Archfiend, Archdonut, etc). If everything can grant spells, then all of that was completely pointless - deities and gods become the same thing (and yes, I know in the RW thats true, but it wasn't true for the past decade in D&D). I LIKE them different because it makes the game/setting more interesting. The only reason to now just clump them all together is because of the difficulty in wrapping rules around all these different groups (the old concept of 'deities' was tough enough to do that with - they increased that difficulty exponentially in 4e, which is why so much lore contradicted itself).

So how about this - I'm going to go back to my 'A deity is an ascended mortal' bit. That gives them some sort of 'cosmic connection' to the group they were part of when they were elevated to divine rank (that connection that allows them to interact with the group, receiving power from worship, and granting spells in return). In Authentic Thaumaturgy (an excellent resource, BTW, that I highly recommend) this is called The Law of Association. After the being 'ascends', the Law of Contagion comes into play (once connected, always connected - in Physics we sometimes call this 'Spooky Physics' {Einstein's term for it}, but it is better known today as Quantum Entanglement {magic is REAL }). I'm only rehashing all of this so I can get to my point - this would explain how other beings - like Beast Lords and Archfey - might be able to grant spells to very specific groups (and if their power-base grew to includes others, then perhaps their powers would also increase to that of 'deity' status). Humans, due to their highly adaptive nature, have the most versatile deities (and the term comes from them), because their deities easily adapt to iclude other groups, far more quickly and efficiently than any other gods (for example, for as long as the seldarine have been around, how many humans worship them? Far more Elves worship Mystra than humans worshiping Corellon, or the rest of the Seldarine, for that matter).

BUT, primordials are different; they aren't associated with mortal groups automatically - they are created beings. I suppose, if one primordial became more 'famous' than any other (for whatever reason), and admired/feared because of this status, they could possibly ascend to become a 'god of primordials' (scary, huh?). But that is food for another train of thought. I mentioned the 'Potted Plant Feat' because it has a certain simplicity to it: a WotC designer came up with it back at the beginning of 4e to explain a lot of this weirdness (all the 4e contradictions), and it was actually based on three different, already-existing feats that did the same exact thing in 3e (for very specific groups). I've added in the fact that no-one actually needs a real 'god' to have spells up to level 3 - so you can have the crazy old hedge wizard that thinks his cat is talking to him, and THAT is based on some of the SJ or RL rules (I forget which now, but it had to do with being in a Crystal Sphere where your deity didn't have a presence, which is why RL had such limited divine magic - it doesn't allow 'gods').

So thats a nice, simple, tidy explanation that just allows us to break the rules whenever we want (fiends having cults and granting spells, etc). But why? WHY would mortals 'burn a feat' (waste time and resources studying an unnecessary path, in-game), when there are already plenty of gods that grant spells without having to do that - even a plethora of 'evil gods'? My current theory is that there is some sort of 'payoff' in the end. For fiends, it could just be that they get to become fiends themselves after death (and THAT is a pretty cool way of explaining other things, BTW). Maybe by establishing this artificial 'connection' (a personalized 'Divine Conduit'), you get the option of 'joining the group' later on. But what about the Elemental Lords? Thats the entire reason I am posting right now...

How about this? If someone does bother to take this 'Potted Plant Feat' (we need a better name for it LOL) to establish a link to an elemental lord, it also grants them access to the magical (Arcane) spheres of that element. Basically, I'm recreating the old 'specialist priest' using this. So you have to burn a Feat to worship them, but you have the potential of gaining much more power in the long run as their priest (rather than being a priest of say, Bane). That could unbalance things, so there should be a downside as well, like being more susceptible to sells of the opposing element (you should always have to sacrifice something in order to gain more power). So a high-level elemental priest could be a very scary opponent, but if you are smart, you'll also know his weaknesses.

This game (and setting) doesn't need more 'homogenization' - it needs more diversity.... more 'options'. So PLEASE, don't just take the primordials (and we can do fun things with the others, as well) and lump them into the deities, because thats a waste of some really good lore right there. The one major mistake 5e seems to be making is also one of the biggest they made with 4e - ignoring large swaths of lore that made FR so DEEP. You don't ignore (and overwrite) bits of lore that contradict what you are trying to do, you take it, DESIGN IT, and make it all the more interesting because of its foibles. I don't want the primordials to just become a 'pantheon of lost gods'. Thats BORING.

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Originally posted by Markustay

I don't recall their being any sort of 'afterlife' for people who worshiped the elemental Lords, but then again, I'm far from being a Planescape expert. Usually, people go to the Divine Realm of their god, but do the Elemental guys even have their own Realms? I mean, aside form having some sort of domicile with the elemental planes.

Just did a REALLY quick investigation - when you die (in FR), you go to the Fugue, where you 'recognize' an agent of your god and go with them (and if you don't have a deity, then you are 'stuck', or go with a fiend...). Now, it specifically says that you go to the deity's realm in the Outer Planes. Elemental powers live in the Inner Planes - there is NO 'afterlife' there, as far as I can tell (and like I said, it was a super-fast look-through of the 3e setting guide). So, if I were to follow your rules, Starshade, Elemental powers are 'gods', but not deities (god has just become a generic, catch-all term for anything over exarch-level of power... and 'Exarch itself is a catch-all for anything not mortal, but not quite a full god - so, most powerful outsiders). 'Afterlifes' only exist in the Outer Planes.

I hadn't even thought of that - nice catch!

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