'05/'06 version of divine
(adjust - fourth world, other divine, role of dead, dryads/demons/Void, Winter)
Sala, said Enelari's voice. A real drip. Mopes around doing no-one any good. Even Sorrow is more constructive than that one. Speaking of which ...
"... daughters, Joy and Sorrow. Yene the Everyoung, the Laughing Divine -"
- the airhead - provided Enelari's voice.
"- is well-beloved by men, of course. She delights in festivals -"
- always crashing mine - said Enelari.
"- and weddings; all manner of joyful occasions. She is the protectress of children.
"Her sister, Ilya, the Weeping Goddess, the Griever; also called the Compassionate, for her pity for suicided souls is legendary. Her anger is aroused by those who neglect to pay the dead their respects. Also called the Caretaker -"
- the Melodramatic, the Attention-Seeker ...
(fits Silver Maiden perfectly. account for paladins. Light is what?)
Sala
She wanders there endlessly in the place she has made, filling it with mountains and straight-backed trees and soft flowers, pouring streams through it, shaking snow over it, casting cataracts over the high ridges. But she cannot content herself with these works, and thus it is the Garden of Mirrors - great silver sheets staring back at the world she has left, reminding her always of why she left and why she burns to return.
Love - real love - craves omnipotence or nothing. To save only half of what is dear to it is never enough. To let any of those dear to it suffer even for a moment is too much. If Sala had her way, all things born would be immortal, as they were in the First World, and they would live with her ... but she is not the only divine, and that is not in her power.
And that is why she cannot stand our world, and withdrew from it when the other gods first voted her down. To love all things in the world honestly and equally is to suffer. But we pray to her every day nevertheless - we pray that she will brave the suffering of what she loses every passing instant in order to bring her aid to what she has and what she gains each passing instant. Perhaps one day she will hear us.
(missing details, earlier account of first world - who to give?)
This world is not the first world. It is the third.
The first world was fashioned by unready hands, and the Void ate it. It was the second world where life began, and the second world which saw the ravages of the Wars of the Divine. The families of Fire, Water, Earth and Air fought openly and ceaselessly, unconstrained by laws. That was the age in which Orruki and Valnatos battled until the seas boiled; that was the age in which iron-armed Brann fought the grappling woods of Nuthnata in endless battle and raging Camanya buried her brother Alessan beneath the world's mountains.
In those ages, too, the spirits of men were not barred from walking the earth, and indeed the Divine would often and again clothe their favoured ones in new bodies. The finite earth filled and filled; great-great-grandfathers held their great-great-grandsons in their arms. True death did not exist.
The naked power of the Divine was, at last, too much for the world to withstand. One too many times, Sun ripped open the sky to attack Wind; one too many times, Tur ripped up the Earth and piled the pieces on his foe. In the end, the world was shattered and obliterated, and the Void rushed in to eat of it, and the Divine had no place but the ethers to inhabit. Earth, sky, souls of men - all were unmade.
This hideous destruction moved the Divine to repentance far too late. To prevent yet another catastrophe, the four families and the neutral divines all made a binding treaty, though it is said that the exact terms took many star-lives to settle. Never again may any divine openly war on another. Never again may any divine undo the work of another. And so that a fourth, finite earth might not be crowded again with the undying, it is decreed that the souls fled from their mortal bodies must quit the earth and find a home in one of the infinite realms of the Lower Ethers, divided into one of the courts of heaven or the reaches of hell.
(settled by marriage treaty between divines; appointed command)
It was this latter decision which estranged Sala, Lover of All, from the other divine. Unable to tolerate that any living thing should perish utterly or be callously consigned to the hells, she fled in despair and wrapped herself in her own world of ethers, sealing herself away from gods and men.
Sala, said Enelari's voice. A real drip. Mopes around doing no-one any good. Even Sorrow is more constructive than that one. Speaking of which ...
"... daughters, Joy and Sorrow. Yene the Everyoung, the Laughing Divine -"
- the airhead - provided Enelari's voice.
"- is well-beloved by men, of course. She delights in festivals -"
- always crashing mine - said Enelari.
"- and weddings; all manner of joyful occasions. She is the protectress of children.
"Her sister, Ilya, the Weeping Goddess, the Griever; also called the Compassionate, for her pity for suicided souls is legendary. Her anger is aroused by those who neglect to pay the dead their respects. Also called the Caretaker -"
- the Melodramatic, the Attention-Seeker ...
(fits Silver Maiden perfectly. account for paladins. Light is what?)
Sala
She wanders there endlessly in the place she has made, filling it with mountains and straight-backed trees and soft flowers, pouring streams through it, shaking snow over it, casting cataracts over the high ridges. But she cannot content herself with these works, and thus it is the Garden of Mirrors - great silver sheets staring back at the world she has left, reminding her always of why she left and why she burns to return.
Love - real love - craves omnipotence or nothing. To save only half of what is dear to it is never enough. To let any of those dear to it suffer even for a moment is too much. If Sala had her way, all things born would be immortal, as they were in the First World, and they would live with her ... but she is not the only divine, and that is not in her power.
And that is why she cannot stand our world, and withdrew from it when the other gods first voted her down. To love all things in the world honestly and equally is to suffer. But we pray to her every day nevertheless - we pray that she will brave the suffering of what she loses every passing instant in order to bring her aid to what she has and what she gains each passing instant. Perhaps one day she will hear us.
(missing details, earlier account of first world - who to give?)
This world is not the first world. It is the third.
The first world was fashioned by unready hands, and the Void ate it. It was the second world where life began, and the second world which saw the ravages of the Wars of the Divine. The families of Fire, Water, Earth and Air fought openly and ceaselessly, unconstrained by laws. That was the age in which Orruki and Valnatos battled until the seas boiled; that was the age in which iron-armed Brann fought the grappling woods of Nuthnata in endless battle and raging Camanya buried her brother Alessan beneath the world's mountains.
In those ages, too, the spirits of men were not barred from walking the earth, and indeed the Divine would often and again clothe their favoured ones in new bodies. The finite earth filled and filled; great-great-grandfathers held their great-great-grandsons in their arms. True death did not exist.
The naked power of the Divine was, at last, too much for the world to withstand. One too many times, Sun ripped open the sky to attack Wind; one too many times, Tur ripped up the Earth and piled the pieces on his foe. In the end, the world was shattered and obliterated, and the Void rushed in to eat of it, and the Divine had no place but the ethers to inhabit. Earth, sky, souls of men - all were unmade.
This hideous destruction moved the Divine to repentance far too late. To prevent yet another catastrophe, the four families and the neutral divines all made a binding treaty, though it is said that the exact terms took many star-lives to settle. Never again may any divine openly war on another. Never again may any divine undo the work of another. And so that a fourth, finite earth might not be crowded again with the undying, it is decreed that the souls fled from their mortal bodies must quit the earth and find a home in one of the infinite realms of the Lower Ethers, divided into one of the courts of heaven or the reaches of hell.
(settled by marriage treaty between divines; appointed command)
It was this latter decision which estranged Sala, Lover of All, from the other divine. Unable to tolerate that any living thing should perish utterly or be callously consigned to the hells, she fled in despair and wrapped herself in her own world of ethers, sealing herself away from gods and men.