Landfall!; Gods and legends

[kopout]

Discus gods and legends of all pantheons and races, and do it here.
Landfall!

[Limos]

Kobolds

((Tiamat has been nixed. It's full on Dragon Worship now))

The Dragons were not always the majestic and powerful beasts of legend that we know. Once they were but especially fearsome animals. But as you know faith has a way of changing things.

The first primitive Kobolds saw the ancestral Dragons, so similar to Kobolds yet so very much grander, and decided that they were gods. They brought tribute to their new masters and poured out their worship upon them.

In time the Kobold's faith changed the Dragons and they became near deities, blessed with powerful magic and great intelligence. They lorded over the Kobolds and received their adulation stoically.

When the waters rose most of the Kobold dragon cults died out when their masters fled the rising waters. With their source of faith decimated the Dragon's felt their powers beginning to wane. They conspired with the Kobolds of one Katang to sabotage and destroy the crab city. Once free most of the Kobolds on the great vessel departed in their dragon ship, but many others were taken back to Tether. There they were kept as worshippers. The Dragons wrought more Kobolds using the originals as a pattern and soon had vast caverns filled with devoted spawn.

These faith cattle maintain the Dragon's magics through the power of their adulation. The Dragons still have contact with the Dragon ship, being the only free Kobold society remaining. The Dragonwrought Kobolds are sincere in their belief, but they are not particularly powerful allies. They do not particularly care what happens to the denizens of the Katang, other than on Mata where the Kobolds worship the giant construct as their living god. They cannot be allowed to spread this heresy to any other Kobolds lest it weaken their faith.

[Vadin]

Gliss- God of Steam, worshiped by gnomes and the Cults of Gliss on the katangs. Often seen as the father of Mata.
Caina- Goddess of Primal Beings, worshiped by those few marked every generation with her primal touch. A god of dinosaurs and nature that wants to be respected but doesn't want to kill you.
Evadize- God of Nature, worshiped by fey and druids. Wants nature to take everything back from civilization and will fight for it.
Daal- Elven god of storms and patriarchy. Created the Abyss and demons, is pretty neutral.
Dalam- Elven goddess of order and matriarchy. Created Baator and devils, is lawful evil.
Mata- A living katang, worshiped by the kobolds who live inside her, the Cults of Gliss, and many warforged. Literally a living Strider who may or may not technically be a god/goddess.
Naraldi- God of Oceans, worshiped nominally by most people and fervently by Naraldi's Children. Wants to wipe Evadize from Ramua.
Dragons- Gods of Greed and Power, worshiped by kobolds and everyone who fears and/or respects them. Their power stays roughly the same, but that little bit of extra faith power gives them the edge to be truly deadly foes.
Elmanishon- Worshiped as the Immortal God Emperor for the last thousand years by the denizens of his desert.


Did I forget any that have been mentioned so far?


As for Tiamat, I like her, but what about having the kobolds still worshiping the dragons and the dragons, to a certain extent, worshiping each other?

[Limos]

I added two options now that I realized people were gunning for Dragon Worship rather than set deities. I also put in the Dragonwrought Kobolds being kept as faith cattle up in Tether.

Perhaps this could be reflected by giving the Tether Dragons some Divine casting, I know that some dragons already get Arcane casting?

EDIT: OH OH! Idea! What if when the majority of her worshippers died out Tiamat lost most of her divinity and now is physically manifest on Tether? She is no longer a full goddess but just a particularly powerful five headed dragon. The other Dragons have their own worshipers and now form a sort of Dragon Pantheon. We could have one of each color Chromatic Dragon being a different Kobold virtue. (usually sins for Good aligned races)

Ashardalon (Red) - Wrath
(Black) - Cruelty
(Blue) - Pride
(Green) - Trickery and Lies
(White) - Brutality

EDIT2: I think Tiamat, as a standard setting god, has been nixed and we will just stick with dragon cults. I do like the idea of an upper Dragon Pantheon though. The various ancient dragons of each color having their own powerful cults.

[jagadaishio]

You know, the way it's shaping up now, the dragons and the dragon ship are having some serious animosity towards Mata. I could seriously see a full-scale war brewing between the two. After all, who would the dragons be gunning for next if not the entity drawing away such a sizeable chunk of worship?

[Limos]

It seems pretty much inevitable the moment someone brought up that the Kobolds on Mata are worshipping it as a god. True Kobold population is already tiny, they can't afford to let more fall away from the Dragon cults.

[jagadaishio]

Mata is probably the place to go for dragon parts. After all, every now and then a young dragon with everything to prove comes sweeping in only to be taken apart by a batallion of warforged. In fact, I should probably go post as much in the katang thread if it seems everyone is behind this animosity.

[Limos]

I think it definitely adds a nice flavor of conflict and ties together two elements nicely. It's always nice if you can find a link between two or more of our civilizations to either make them allies or enemies.

So Tether and the Dragon Ship are rabid in their hatred of Mata. Likewise Mata hates them for the constant Dragon attacks and the pollutants from the Dragon ship fouling the water and wreaking havoc with delicate magics.

[jagadaishio]

Let's start work on the legends side of gods and legends. Since the people of Ramua don't actually know where the dragon ship comes from, what type of stories do you think that they tell of its origins? With the almost complete absence of kobolds for centuries, do you think that they would be seen in the same way as their ancestors, or seen as they see themselves, as tiny dragons?

[Limos]

The Black storm.

No one is sure where it comes from but all know that if you see the swirling black miasma appear on the horizon there is only one way to survive.

Run.

Those that foolishly challenge the Black Storm are never seen again. Sometimes people find small pieces of wood in the sea bearing the telltales scorch marks. Anything left over from the storms passing is left blackened and... diseased.

Even powerful scrying magic is unable to pierce the storm, it brings back only nightmarish noises and swirling miasma. The warforged say they can feel it coming in their sparks. A slight difficulty just to keep standing as something tears at their very essence.

One man is known to have survived the Black Storm. He was found clinging to a piece of driftwood, covered in clinging acidic ooze and nearly dead from blood loss of his many wounds.

He told incoherent tales of a hundred-headed dragon that spits sparking clouds of cutting steel. All over the horrific creature crawl tiny dragons, coaxing the beast to spit it's terrible breath upon the hapless crew. Then they swarm over the remains to feed the great beast all that remains of the wreckage.

The Black Storm, bane of all who roam the seas.

As you can tell, this is basically a description of the effects of the Dragon Ship as told by someone superstitious and unaware of it's true nature.

The black cloud is the pollutants from the magic reactor. The natural antimagic field scrambles scrying magic so all they get is mixed up static and machine noises. The same pollutants can be felt by particularly magical entities as a slight tug on nearby magic energy as it rushes in to fill the void created by the reactor.

Of course the Hundred headed dragon is the ship itself, with each head being a firing position for one of the cannons. The tiny dragons are the Kobold crewmen which have mostly been forgotten by all but a few of the Katangs. Humans, Elves and Orcs would have no idea what these strange creatures are and thus treat them with superstitious fear.

[jagadaishio]

The Black storm.

No one is sure where it comes from but all know that if you see the swirling black miasma appear on the horizon there is only one way to survive.

Run.

Those that foolishly challenge the Black Storm are never seen again. Sometimes people find small pieces of wood in the sea bearing the telltales scorch marks. Anything left over from the storms passing is left blackened and... diseased.

Even powerful scrying magic is unable to pierce the storm, it brings back only nightmarish noises and swirling miasma. The warforged say they can feel it coming in their sparks. A slight difficulty just to keep standing as something tears at their very essence.

One man is known to have survived the Black Storm. He was found clinging to a piece of driftwood, covered in clinging acidic ooze and nearly dead from blood loss of his many wounds.

He told incoherent tales of a hundred-headed dragon that spits sparking clouds of cutting steel. All over the horrific creature crawl tiny dragons, coaxing the beast to spit it's terrible breath upon the hapless crew. Then they swarm over the remains to feed the great beast all that remains of the wreckage.

The Black Storm, bane of all who roam the seas.

Fantastic. That's exactly the type of story that would surround the dragon ship; furthermore, I think the ship has earned itself a new name. It's not the name the kobolds gave it, but it's the name by which everyone else knows it. The Black Storm.

[Limos]

Heh, the Black Storm comes with it's own weather. It is always gloomy and oppressive wherever the Black Storm makes berth.

This makes it an unpleasant place for Dragons to visit, but the legendary reputation makes it a useful pawn for the Dragon gods.

[jagadaishio]

Alright, what kinds of legends would surround the construction of the katang among those people that don't know or never bothered to learn the actual origin from gnome and dwarf historians of ancient history? Would the fact that the gnomes and dwarves hold such marvels make them be suspect as the origin of the flooding, or would people know well enough, or be apathetic enough, that they wouldn't suspect the ancestral builders so?

[Limos]

Look at their strange metal men with hearts made of fire. led by tiny twisted caricatures of mankind. What cruel and capricious gods that would abandon mankind in their hour of need.

They are demons who brought about the rising waters to wipe out mankind! Look at their fortress which walks upon legs like a beast of the sea!

Some even spit metal like the dreaded Black Storm is said to. Within these strange beasts are markets filled with every manner of strange good such as humanity has not known in ages. They are Demons! They are Gods! Who cares they are strange and frightening!!

I hear they take human children and use their souls to make more metal men to be their servants?!? No no, you are wrong. They feed men to their great crab to appease it!

You are both wrong! They are angels sent to guide us and bring blessings of wondrous objects! Look at this amulet I purchased there, it can cure any sickness!

Amazing! Astounding! Incredible!

[jagadaishio]

I almost forgot. Think of the multitude and nature of the legends which much surround the sinking of Suriya and the origins and nature of the orcs!

[kopout]

Legends of land
It has been a thousand years since the waters rose, and in that time almost no one has set foot on dry land (the possibility of islands was mentioned but the population of them would be negligible). But with vary few exceptions the ancestors of everyone alive lived on the land and you know how old people are, always telling childhood stories. So land lived on in oral history, but oral history is not always reliable and many facts have been changed or distorted.

So, what are modern legends like after a thousand years? Lets find out, shall we?


Kobolds
The kobolds have many legends as they are a fractured grope, each faction having its own "history" that invariably paints it as the good guys. Sound familiar?

Mata
The Mata kobold origin story (the one they tell each other, not the real one).

Long ago the kobolds lived in the mountains and where constantly at war with the scaleless-ones. The evil dragon gods where a mockery of kobold form and made the kobolds worship them, but they cared little for the kobolds. One day the dragon gods decided to flood the world and destroy all life to be remade in their image.The goddess Mata heard of this plot and decided to save the most perfect beings, the kobolds. She instructed the great kobold leader Noanoa to build a grand artificial cavern for the kobolds to live in, with her self in the grandest hall of all. As noble Kobolds from many clans worked feverishly for twenty years the insidious scaleless-ones plagued their works and when the time was right they infiltrated the glorious work itself and stowed away. Mata, being a great and benevolently god allowed this but only if they remained in the outer most halls and galleries.

[jagadaishio]

Legends of land
It has been a thousand years since the waters rose, and in that time almost no one has set foot on dry land (the possibility of islands was mentioned but the population of them would be negligible). But with vary few exceptions the ancestors of everyone alive lived on the land and you know how old people are, always telling childhood stories. So land lived on in oral history, but oral history is not always reliable and many facts have been changed or distorted.

So, what are modern legends like after a thousand years? Lets find out, shall we?


Kobolds
The kobolds have many legends as they are a fractured grope, each faction having its own "history" that invariably paints it as the good guys. Sound familiar?

Mata
The Mata kobold origin story (the one they tell each other, not the real one).

Long ago the kobolds lived in the mountains and where constantly at war with the scaleless-ones. The evil dragon gods where a mockery of kobold form and made the kobolds worship them, but they cared little for the kobolds. One day the dragon gods decided to flood the world and destroy all life to be remade in their image.The goddess Mata heard of this plot and decided to save the most perfect beings, the kobolds. She instructed the great kobold leader Noanoa to build a grand artificial cavern for the kobolds to live in, with her self in the grandest hall of all. As noble Kobolds from many clans worked feverishly for twenty years the insidious scaleless-ones plagued their works and when the time was right they infiltrated the glorious work itself and stowed away. Mata, being a great and benevolently god allowed this but only if they remained in the outer most halls and galleries.

Hah, so by the kobolds' perspective they got all of the prime, cramped, deep real estate while the gnomes and dwarves got that wide open, crappy, comparatively unsafe locations. The gnomes and dwarves would have a largely opposite perspective on the whole deal, but everyone ends up happy this way.