So why are there gods anyway? Or an astral plane?

[faustin]

Weren´t Gods supposed to be just fancy alien wizards who found a way to crowdsource their magic?

[Emanick]

I believe that the term you are looking for is "more annoying yet" but that's just a guess.

As someone naturally inclined towards prescriptivism, I actually agree, but perhaps a more strictly accurate phrasing would be "more relevant yet."

Weren´t Gods supposed to be just fancy alien wizards who found a way to crowdsource their magic?

Sure, if you regard Eugene's description of them as fair and balanced.

[ijuinkun]

My hypothesis is that the astral plane was once completely empty of thought and the gods were completely without characteristics. (or rather, we don't need to assume they had any)

Here's my reasoning.

• Ideas come from people
• Without people there are no ideas
• You start out with no people
• Therefore you start out with no ideas
• The same goes for the gods, people's beliefs literally shape gods

I would propose that the Astral Plane is rather a Platonian realm--i.e. it contains "perfect" forms of ideas without the need for a physical referent. Ideas without the need for a thinker, dreams without the need for a dreamer. It is in essence a superposition of all possible/potential ideas.

[johnbragg]

Also where do the gods come from? It seems they can have children, so may be these gods are children from another part of reality?

Just going to address this one point. Yes the gods refer to family relationships, but it's pretty easy to imagine that they're referring to very different things that mortals mean by "brother sister mother father," that would take way too long to explain in mortal language, that doesn't have words for concepts that we maybe can't even grasp. Like expressing "quiddity" as "color," which probably isn't close to being "true", but is good enough for mortal purposes.

Consider the Egyptian Horus-Isis-Osiris trinity, which doesn't work at all if you assume that linear time applies. So linear time clearly DOESN'T apply, because gods.

Similarly, I wouldn't assume that Odin-Thor-Loki are father-brother-brother in an especially human sense. It's some kind of metaphor, like if electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces and gravity were anthropomorphized consciousnesses. Maybe describing Gravity as Uncle and the other three as Siblings is wrong, but a useful enough model for mortals. Asking "but doesn't that mean grandparents?" Ok, Unified Field theory maybe. "What about their parents?" Sigh. "Ok, kids, that is Forbidden Knowledge that the gods have agreed must never be told to mortals. Sorry, divine pact."

Mortal minds have limitations. See panels 1-3. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1137.html

[johnbragg]

I would propose that the Astral Plane is rather a Platonian realm--i.e. it contains "perfect" forms of ideas without the need for a physical referent. Ideas without the need for a thinker, dreams without the need for a dreamer. It is in essence a superposition of all possible/potential ideas.

That doesn't fit the Astral REalms of most D&D cosmologies, where if what you're saying is true, you could go there and poke the Form of whatever with a stick.

[Psyren]

That strip obviously was inserted as a tribute to the late Dave Arneson, only recently passed away when it was published. It is obviously out of continuity, and doesn't match the origin story as told by Thor.

Except it does. OotSland exists because of D&D, which involved creation of the First RPG World, Blackmoor. OotSland, like many other D&D-inspired settings, was made in its image. Everything she said fits with canon. She even very explicitly says: "You and I and your daddy and our friends Elan and Durkon and even the nice scary elf who just helped us are all here because of one guy's original idea."

The Giant's official answer on where the OotS gods came from is "beyond" IIRC. And they're affected by things from beyond too, like Thor turning blonde because of Marvel comics.