Forbidden Lands – Gods

Are the gods of Forbidden Lands real within this world? Or are they just old stories, told and retold until they take of different meanings, different names even?

We know the icons of the Third Horizon in Coriolis are real, because if you pray to them you are rewarded with an increased chance of success. But in the Forbidden Lands, characters find the strength to succeed within themselves. That said, characters with a stronghold can gain willpower if they have a shrine…

One thing I like about the pantheon of gods described here is the idea that a number of the gods are not a pantheon at all, but rather a different understanding of, or name for, a god who may or may not exist. When things are going badly, it natural to desire, or to ascribe your survival to, a Protector God, and so it is for the humans of the Forbidden Lands. They all agree that such a god exists, but they can not agree on its naming or shape.

According to legend, he flew before the ships in the form of a raven with a snake in his claws.

The first schism is over which of these two creatures is the actual god. Was it the snake, Wyrm, carried by a holy but not divine bird? Or was it Raven, who carried the mother of snakes and words across the oceans to prepare the land for humankind?

So two human churches are pitted against one another: The Congregation of the Serpent regards the Raven Church as heretics, and their persecution of the Raven Sisters drove the first human, or Ailander, settlement in the Forbidden Lands. That migration caused the Raven church itself to split – an offshoot cult, the Reapenters or Blackwings, believe that they must rid the Forbidden Lands of humankind, by killing themselves only after they have killed every other human in Ravenland.

A more enlightened school of thought might suggest that perhaps Raven and Snake are aspects of the same divinity. As such a school does exist. However, they use different names. Believing the bird made of iron, and the snake wood, they think it is the materials themselves, not the animals that are divine, and call them Rust and Heme.

But so far we are talking only about the god(s) of humans. The kin who lived here before Wyrm (or the Raven, or Rust and Heme) led humankind here have their own gods, and the Dwarven god is Huge.

That’s his name.

The dwarves have their own creation myth, which gives them a task of building the world big enough to reach Huge’s Hearth, the sun. I note with interest that they are charged with “expanding the Earth” – note that capital E, does this suggest we are playing in some far future or aeons old version of our own planet? Theirs seems a fascinating religion, which I want to know more about. They believe in reincarnation, but also “in a parallel spirit world, where their soles rest and are trained by Huge for their next work shift in the world.” This of all the new takes on the “standard fantasy” racial types is the one that intrigued me most.

“Clay is the god who shaped the world at the Protector’s behest,” worshipped by the Elvensping, but only also by “many elves”. Which suggests that though Clay is a product of elven society (Elvenspring are half-elves from elven culture remember), some elves may have grown beyond worship. That said “all elves” honour Wail. Wail is, according to the Raven Sisters, the wife of the Raven, who carries him and all other birds through the sky. So, Wail is the wind, and weather, and Flow is the water goddess “worshipped by elves, Elvenspring, and villagers.” Maybe the elves are not as enlightened as I thought they might be.

The Nightwalker is the oldest of all the gods. “Normal people do not worship him but may seek to appease him to avoid bad luck and disaster, sometimes by blood sacrifice.” I like that, “normal people,” implying that there may well be weird psychopaths who definitely do worship him.

The final god named is Horn, brought to the Ravenland by the Aslene. Or rather, since Horn is a volcano in their homelands, they have brought the worship of him, as a god of fire.

I like this pantheon. I like it enough to wish there was a mechanic, like prayer in Coriolis, that encourages characters to demonstrate their devotion to one or more of them. But I also like the gritty, direct cost of re-rolls in this system.

You can’t have everything.