Developing A Cosmology

[agony]

Just ordered Burning Wheel and am working on a concept for a Campaign/World.

What I need your guys help with is developing my Cosmology. The world itself is going to be Dark, in a Gothic Fantasy sort of way (Think Ravenloft but I'm trying not to copy the setting too much), with a fair share of Tolkien fantasy mixed in.

At first I was planning on having the Pantheon the Humans worship (the other races are inconsequential at the moment) be rather distant and uninvolving when concerning activities of the world. Then I realized I was ripping a little too much off of Ravenloft and came up with another suitable idea. The Gods will have a certain amount of Greek Mythology flair.

The Gods will be active in the lives of Mortals and bear direct influence during monumental moments and important events. The characters will actually be able to feel the strength of their God coursing through them in combat and disbelief will be virtually non-existant.

The question therefore is, how can I maintain a healthy amount of horrific spin/plot-twist to the Gods while having them interact with the people. Being outright vengeful or mean-spirited upon their worshippers is a no go, but of course their true intentions behind the world could be quite malevolent.

I'm having a hard time establishing that Gothic horror element while envisioning how these God's will interact with society and that dark mood certainly needs to be established.

Any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. anyone have any ideas on how Faith could be used (in addition to miracles) in order to gain favor of the Gods? Or do you think I should just use the Gods as a storytelling tool and leave mechanics out of it?

[foxandwarlock]

I have two recommendations.

The first would be to check out Palladium Fantasy's Deity section - they have some cool "dark" gods and cults.

The second would be to go do some reading on the Aztec deities. They were pretty bloodthirsty but obviously existed in a "normal" social setting since it was a real society. Obviously, the mood/trapping will not fit but you might find some good ideas or jump off points.

[agony]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to check out that Palladium Book as I just dropped 80 dollars on 2 sets of core BW rules and a Monster Burner.

As for the Aztec gods, while that is a good idea and could be interesting, I do not want the gods to be outright Bloodthirsty or demanding of an abundance of sacrafices.

I was leaning more towards the gods being outright evil, but under the guise that they are good. Perhaps the gods are not actually gods, but demons impersonating the deities.

Because they would be evil at the core, the twist of having miracles granted by malevolent beings is intriguing. Perhaps they would leave unobvious flaws behind those who have had miracles left on them in the form of curse or something similar.

[ChrisG]

This sounds like the seeds for a great campaign: evil Gods pretending to be benevolent with their powerful servants working to cover up the Truth.

So the big question is, what are these Gods doing? What are their goals? What actions do they, or their servants, perform to achieve these goals? Because actions are what make someone evil, not just evil intent.

Are these Gods working toward some Ultimate Goal--perhaps resurrecting the leader of their group or opening a doorway to earth, so they can rule in person? Their activities involve achieving that goal, and the evil part is that they are willing to sacrifice anyone in the name of the goal.

Or do they already rule, and are just keeping the status quo? Since their evil is a secret, perhaps they rule by proxy, and their servants are involved in making sure that humanity doesn't find out the Truth and rebel.

Another big question is are the player characters working for or opposed to the Gods? If they are the servants of the Gods, then the characters will drive the character of the Gods (and do a lot of this work for you).

Consider a Belief like "Men are worms to the Gods, but I am a glow worm." And compare it to "My God will usher in a new age--it's my job to prepare the way with righteous fire and blood!" Those two characters believe in very different Gods.

Actually, the same goes if the characters are opposed to the Gods. Then their beliefs will help fill in the details of what they're fighting against.

[agony]

Some thought provoking questions Chris, and certainly helpful.

Some ideas I've been tossing around thus far:

There were three Benevolent (at least they were benevolent originally) gods. I do not have names yet (they will probably be very greek inspired naming conventions) but the main god, or "father" if you will, created the physical world. The two lesser gods in practice bear a relationship of his divine sons. They both have clamored for his divine favor and seek to please.

Granting a bit of his divine spark, the main god bestowed upon his sons the ability and gift of creating mankind (as well as Dwarf-kind if that's even a word). They did so as the father created the race of Elf, leaving them with a stronger divine connection than that of man or dwarf. Elves are unique in this aspect in that they cannot procreate and and are only spawned by the main divine entity himself (how this works and the society functions I have yet to hammer out but bear with me).

As time went on the two sons (well one in particular more than the other) found the father's appreciation and connection with creation somewhat abominable. The fact that the father shared a divine spark with that of man is what is responsible for this connection, and this mix of humanity and divine essence makes mankind unique and blessed. This caused further jealously on part of son #1 who feels left in the darkness.

Just as Satan fell from grace, so does the first son and in a bazarre twisted version of the Caine and Abel story the son murders his father, having succumbed to jealousy, rage, and pride. The second son is deeply hurt by this act but is unable to take action. Responding with lethargic dementia he seals himself off from the world, heading into recluse and dissapearing from mankind (where he goes is not important yet, although that leaves a large plot-hook for the second son to return).

The first son thus realized the horror of his actions and quickly fell down a slippery slope of his own terrible dementia before ultimately forcing himself to cope with reality (or surreality) and justify his actions to himself. Thus he remains a twisted form of his former true self who is all consumed with hatred, violence, evil, etc.

In order to achieve his goals (power...worship...discovering what makes humanity special?) he took on the guise of the human deities, taking along a slew of fallen angels as well (I need another name than "angel" but this will work for now as they were servants of the three gods). The fallen angels act in the place of the human-worship gods as well, granting powers, favor, and boon to all of mankind.

Where the Orcs fit in, what the evil entities are trying to accomplish, and what role the angels served prior to the slaughter of the father I have yet to determine.

I need other divine servants or something instead of angels to emulate the other gods of the realm (as there will be many of them) and I do not wish the PC's to merely interact with one god impersonating a plethora of others. I'm kind of stuck as I do not want them to be angels in theory and am looking for something a little more spicy than merely divine servants of the gods.

[MetalBard]

Hey, for the orcs you could have the fallen son twist some of his father's creations into horrible things that live outside of human lands, keeping humans seemingly dependent on the fallen son for divine protection. It could be a divine "wag the dog" type of scenario where the orcs are reinforced as the "other" that the humans desperately want the "gods" to keep them safe from. Just my idea that came up when reading you post.

[donbaloo]

Its hard to imagine the timeline of events and where mortals stand within it, concerning their worship behavior and intent, from what you've discussed so far...so my suggestion may be irrelevant. I've gathered that elves, men and dwarves have always worshipped the original three deities or were there other persona's that they worshipped as well? If you need other persona's to be the secret gods behind the truth, instead of "angels", you could go a more earthly route.

The first son, after slipping into his dementia, could have used his forcefully inherited divine power to create substitute gods by bestowing various earthly things with divinity (thus in a way mocking what his father had done with mankind). I'm thinking natural features such as animals, trees, rocks, fish, etc. If you went this route you would have for example one majestic oak in the world that had divine powers. One mountain, one salmon, one buffalo, etc. This would also, interestingly enough, place the "cover-up" divine entities living on the mortal plane. All sorts of fun there.

More importantly though, where the game is concerned, is what the players' role is gonna be in all of this. Its neat to have the big meaty cosmic origin myth but its all gonna be backdrop for the players. Which brings me to the question of how much does the world in general know about these "cover-up" deities, if anything. If its initially all a secret, then its obvious that its important to you as the GM for this secret to be discovered. I think there's gonna be a lot of interesting dynamics in that game once the shit hits the fan and you need to make sure that your players are into this lock, stock, and BITs so that it can really roll.

[agony]

I got a little sidetracked and discovered the glory that is the Midnight setting and have decided to run that instead as it is the perfect setting for me.

Thanks for the suggestions once again and sorry for wasting anyone's time ;)