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Compass of Terrestrial Directions: Below

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glamourweaver Posted: 27 Oct 2009 4:06 PM
So the realms (literally) beneath the surface of Creation are some of its least detailed, so I thought I'd start this thread as a fan collaborative project to flesh it out a bit.  You can post cool locals, Darkbrood races, Forbidden Gods, cosmology ideas, etc etc

A subject that's been bugging me for a while: There are (non-forbidden) Gods of the Terrestrial Bureaucracy beneath the surface of Creation, as well as celestial divinities they answer to (primarily in the Bureau of Nature).  Is the Goddess of Caverns unaware of the Forbidden Gods, the Darkbrood, & the Endless War?  Is it something she, the God Fossilization, the Goddess of Diamonds, the God of Erosion, the Daimyo of Subterranean Animals, etc etc have all agreed not to talk about?  Do they actively support the Mountain Folk?  Is there a War God of the Endless War?
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I'm sure they're aware of it.  But it's a normal part of thier existence.  And the Mountain Folk seem to be able to contain the Darkbrrod well enough, and the Forbidden Gods are still sealed away.  So the gods of hte Underways don't concern themselves with it too much (until something major changes all that)
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I would say that they're all at least somewhat aware of the Forbidden Gods, and a lot of active Terrestrial underground gods probably support the Mountain Folk in their war. The Mountain Folk are going to be most of their worshippers after all, which makes the Forbidden Gods and Darkbrood direct threats.

The Celestials Gods are probably just in complete denial, like always.
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So would the "God of Caverns" be a by definition a celestial god?

Perhaps there's only a small handfull of celestial gods who oversee the subterranean in the Bureau of Nature.  They're pretty much ignored by the rest of the Bureau?  I'm just trying to fathom how it's possible for Heaven to be so unaware of a MASSIVE portion of Creation & nature.

Mountain Folk & Darkbrood are inside Fate.  How does no one in the Bureau of Destiny notice that portion of the Loom?

With regards to the Loom, I was considering how causality doesn't snare beyond recognition with so much essence expenditure & no Sidereal repair.  It occurred to me that as the Loom & Mountain Folk Charms were both designed by Autochthon, so perhaps Jadeborn charms don't snare & perhaps even resonate WITH causality.  So all Mountain Folk territory is without need of repair.  In contrast, Darkbrood territories are riddled with Escher-like errors in reality that many of the Darkbrood races might actually worship.
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glamourweaver:
the God Fossilization



Is there any evidence fo Fossilization in Exalted?
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Lian:
Is there any evidence fo Fossilization in Exalted?

1) Coal exists

2) Fossils are cool (one of the Darkbrood races I'm writing up for this project - the Omphidians - use a fossil-based variant of necrotech)
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glamourweaver:
So the realms (literally) beneath the surface of Creation are some of its least detailed, so I thought I'd start this thread as a fan collaborative project to flesh it out a bit.  You can post cool locals, Darkbrood races, Forbidden Gods, cosmology ideas, etc etc

A subject that's been bugging me for a while: There are (non-forbidden) Gods of the Terrestrial Bureaucracy beneath the surface of Creation, as well as celestial divinities they answer to (primarily in the Bureau of Nature).  Is the Goddess of Caverns unaware of the Forbidden Gods, the Darkbrood, & the Endless War?  Is it something she, the God Fossilization, the Goddess of Diamonds, the God of Erosion, the Daimyo of Subterranean Animals, etc etc have all agreed not to talk about?  Do they actively support the Mountain Folk?  Is there a War God of the Endless War?


I'm actually working on a sourcebook in the fashion of the CoTD books about the Underground as part of JiveX's Fan Supplement thingy she was advertising a week or two ago. In it I'm going into detail about a few areas and situations, including the Forbidden Gods, specifically the Unwholesome.

My explanation is that those gods whose concepts were erased by SWLIHN's counterattack were removed from Fate, and could actually manifest their power to endow others with the ability to be invisible to Fate. When the attendant Terrestrial Gods sent the message up their chain of command that the Forbidden Gods were free and active, the Sidereals checked Fate and said, "Nah, everything's fine." Two Sidereals are trying to organize a deeper investigation, but are finding it difficult to get political headway, since several gods of the Underground have secrets to hide.

I figure Heaven knows full well about the Endless War, but doesn't care even a little bit, because the only ones they'd save by investing the resources are Mountain Folk.

Other areas I'm detailing: Tunnels beneath Chiaroscuro, the Primordial Races who built the shining city in the first place, the weapons they left behind and the rat-thing culture, and Urvar, the capital of the Mountain Folk, dealing with their interactions with the Scarlet Empire and the complex web of cease fire agreements and war declarations with Darkbrood groups nearby.
"I am no mere God." -- Uttered in complete seriousness during an Exalted game
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This is exactly what I'd wanted to work on & I have ideas for.  Is there still room to get in on this project?

So is that your interpretation of all the Forbidden Gods, or just are "the Unwholesome" a sub-group?
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glamourweaver:
1) Coal exists


That doesn't necissarily prove that fossil exist I mean Jade and Diamonds don't form the same way they do in the real world after all..

glamourweaver:
2) Fossils are cool (one of the Darkbrood races I'm writing up for this project - the Omphidians - use a fossil-based variant of necrotech)


Now that's reason enough to have them. I was just wondering if there was some reference I missed somewhere.
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glamourweaver:
So would the "God of Caverns" be a by definition a celestial god?
Yes, since "caverns" is abstract. "This cavern" is concrete, and thus Terrestrial.

That being said... eh, it's bullshit. The Goddess of the Imperial Mountain is Celestial, and yet her domain is as Terrestrial as they come. The real answer seems to be: are you powerful enough to get everyone else to recognize you as a Celestial, or do you have employment in Yu-Shan itself. (Simple hack for reading godly statblocks in the books: Do they have Salary dots? If yes, they're Celestial.)
glamourweaver:
Perhaps there's only a small handfull of celestial gods who oversee the subterranean in the Bureau of Nature.  They're pretty much ignored by the rest of the Bureau?  I'm just trying to fathom how it's possible for Heaven to be so unaware of a MASSIVE portion of Creation & nature.
There's a really fine line between unaware and denial. I'm sure lots of minor underlings in every Bureau are fully aware of the concept. But if they know their bosses are just going to ignore any report they file, and possibly fire them for their trouble, why would they pass it up the chain?


This is a significant amount of the principle behind the entire Second Age.

As to why this started... Solars didn't give a shit about the Underways. It just wasn't in their area of interest. That attitude spreads, and eventually you get to common knowledge "nothing important ever happens underground."
glamourweaver:
Mountain Folk & Darkbrood are inside Fate.  How does no one in the Bureau of Destiny notice that portion of the Loom?
Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

glamourweaver:
With regards to the Loom, I was considering how causality doesn't snare beyond recognition with so much essence expenditure & no Sidereal repair.  It occurred to me that as the Loom & Mountain Folk Charms were both designed by Autochthon, so perhaps Jadeborn charms don't snare & perhaps even resonate WITH causality.  So all Mountain Folk territory is without need of repair.  In contrast, Darkbrood territories are riddled with Escher-like errors in reality that many of the Darkbrood races might actually worship.
That's really good.

"Your tears taste like candy." -- Holden
Credit to Bodhisattva for the avatar-chibi.
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glamourweaver:
This is exactly what I'd wanted to work on & I have ideas for.  Is there still room to get in on this project?

So is that your interpretation of all the Forbidden Gods, or just are "the Unwholesome" a sub-group?


I wouldn't mind a mind to bounce ideas off of (and encouragement not to let this become another one of my 80% complete projects that I abandon), so I don't mind the help. I'll send you an email with what I've got so far. *

"Unwholesome" is a subgroup that applies to Forbidden gods, but it isn't terribly useful for dividing those gods actually bound in sanctums under the earth. Basically, the gods who refused to fight for or against the Primordials during the war were stripped of their duties and rendered unemployed, but they weren't kicked out of heaven. These were called the "Usurped". The gods who fought on the side of the Primordials, the gods of concepts deemed too dangerous for the post-war Creation, and those gods whose concepts were erased during She Who Lives In Her Name's counterattack at the end of the war were all placed in underground vaults and collectively deemed "The Unwholesome"

So when I say, "The Unwholesome" in terms of the underground, it basically might as well be a synonym for "The Forbidden Gods"

Essentially, my explanation is that the sub-group whose concepts were erased were able to avoid the notice of Fate, and have found a way to spread this occlusion to the other sub-groups in the first steps of an attempt to forge an alliance among them.

* bretdibble at yahoo dot com is me
"I am no mere God." -- Uttered in complete seriousness during an Exalted game
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I'm having a cosmology brain-fart, does the existence of something new inherently congeal a god, or does heaven have to assign & recognize the thing in question?  I'm just wondering whether there would be a War God for the Endless War.
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glamourweaver:
I'm having a cosmology brain-fart, does the existence of something new inherently congeal a god, or does heaven have to assign & recognize the thing in question?  I'm just wondering whether there would be a War God for the Endless War.


I believe its a bit of both. The Primordials after all wished creation to be fairly self regulating so they wouldn't have to forge a new God everytime one of those little prayer batteries thought up something new..
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So there could in fact be a full blown Wargod for the Endless War that the Department of War & the Crimson Panoply refuses to even recognize exists.

I don't think Urvar would have a Cityfather, as just as Ondar Shambal was designed as one giant prayer to the Unconquered Sun, so was Urvar designed as a prayer to Autochthon.  The Great Maker is the defacto Cityfather (while Autochthon was around I'm sure Runel would have been the more direct administrator of divine affairs for the city).  The other city-states though might have their own cityfathers.  Or alternatively each city-state could be dedicated to a different soul of Autochthon, but that might be treading a bit close to the Eight Nations.


On the subject of Urvar, I have an idea for it's layout.  We know that the Sword of Creation is a shaft of the Magical Materials running right down the center of the Pole of Earth.  This prevents Urvar being laid dead-center; UNLESS it's a ring.  It could exist as network of honeycombed chambers & tunnels (all completely carved & adorned, nothing looks like a cavern or mine, save for the mines themselves reaching in great shafts downward from the city-proper) ringing their way all the way around the Sword of Creation.  The majority of structures don't have what we would think of as an exterior, the rooms are carved directly out of the Pole of Earth, connecting into other great halls and chambers.  There are larger chambers though where are are "exteriors" to connecting "buildings" carved directly out of the chambers walls.  The system would be rather claustrophobic for a surface-dweller, despite many halls & chambers being far larger than anything they're familiar with on the surface.
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glamourweaver:
So there could in fact be a full blown Wargod for the Endless War that the Department of War & the Crimson Panoply refuses to even recognize exists.


There could be a whole friggen Court of the Under that isn't acknowledged I mean its as large as Creation proper and heaven barely cares right?
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