afroakuma's Planar And Other Oddities Questions Thread VIII

[Tzardok]

Thank you for answering about Sharess and Shar.
One final question about them: is the similarity of their names just a coincidence?

No. Sharess had another name before Shar got her hooks into her. She used to be the Mulhorandi pantheon's Bast, hence her having cats in her portfolio.

But I do want to explain why I said that deities in this cosmology are people.

Remember Avatars series? Yes, in three original books deities looked and behaved as people because Ao forced them to this. But the fourth book (different author I think) describes them already after this. And why I say that they behave as people, though their alignments are extreme.

Midnight\new Mystra still loved Kelemvor, but suspected he now sees her physical form as a mummy. Cyric was cheating and plotting as he did in life. It took gods so much of effort and time to reclaim Cyrinishad, and then Mask stole it again, just for lulz. He also said, leave me alone, stealing is my nature. Kelemvor even tried to continue being honest judge of souls, and started sending souls to the Wall only after being scolded by Ao. And it was Cyric who snitched on Kelemvor to Ao about this.

Even in the first book, Helm, the only one who wasn't made mortal, in the scene when he killed old Mystra, while he really created a few forms of himself, he still had a humanoid form and talked like a usual devoted warrior.
Those series do describe deities as people, and they do behave as people.
Are they considered canon or not?

The books are canon. Maybe I was a bit overeager when I said they aren't people. Let me correct myself: they are more than people. Talos isn't just a boisterous guy who likes smashing things and enjoys a good thunderstorm. He is Destruction and Storm and Conflagration, shaped into a semi-human mindshed and body through the beliefs and ideas of his worshippers. Shar isn't just a superpowered goth who enjoys people being depressed. She is Darkness. She is Loss and Desolation. She is The Night.

She is Batman.

To take another example, look at Chauntea. When she was born, she was the Earth Mother. She was nature, red in tooth and claw. She was fertility and fecundity, animals and plants fighting for suvival, feeding, mating and dying. See what she is now, after being changed by millenia of worship. She is the Neutral Good goddess of agriculture, the gentle mother of summer, the patroness of farmers and gardeners. That wasn't just a person switching jobs or changing hobbies. That was a transformation, a shifting of her fundamental nature.