Basic Knowledge of the Gods

by **Vizayas** on March 6th, 2015, 5:01 am

I know that a lot of people take certain liberties when they talk about the gods. It's likely most will be educated about a number of cultural gods, and a Syliran would likely know of a number of gods.

Lhex is comfortable with 'entire races not knowing of him at all' and I'm not sure if knowing of the existence of this god and what he represents is possible without a lore. Gods are pretty interesting to write about, pray to, and think about from a PC perspective, but I can't find any information on if characters know the name of each god if they so choose, or if they are just limited to cultural or racial gods.

Doing a quick search shows that most people pay homage to any god without having a lore, but I've been told before that I would likely need a lore to know of Ssena since she's new. I'm guessing this means other gods don't have this restriction? But where is the limit on basic knowledge?

I know this a topic that steps on the toes of the founders quite often, so I wanted to make sure I'm portraying this IC vs OOC knowledge gap clearly.

by **Gillar** on March 6th, 2015, 6:31 am

This is a great question and is one I will attempt to a dress in greater depth as soon as I am not at work, on break and seeing this on my phone. In the meantime, I generally view general knowledge of the gods as being a cultural thing. If certain gods tend to be more heavily involved with a certain race or culture then those people will have a basic idea of who those gods are without the need for lore. An example of this would be the relationship between Izurdin and the isur. Unless th character is going to focus on the deeper intricacies of the relationship; like being a member of the priesthood, they won't need lore to know the basics of the god. Otherwise if a particular deity doesn't have a strong culturalconnection to the character, they will need lore to know who the god is and what details are associated with that deity. I will try and work on some clarification regarding the gods and their cultural connections. There are so many gods in mizahar that without the lore a person just isnt going to know much of anything about the majority of them.

by **Vizayas** on March 6th, 2015, 6:52 am

Thank you, Gillar. You were able to address my question quite clearly. I definitely look forward to any more information once you delve into this subject deeper. Most of the gods with cultural significance are quite obvious, though I'm also curious about knowledge of other gods that come from learning occupations or lifestyles such as a thief and Yshul, or a musician and Rhaus.

by **Khara** on March 6th, 2015, 3:29 pm

Thank you so much Vizayas for asking this - I was actually considering posting similar earlier this week! It came to mind after one of Goss' vlogs and I have the feeling I'm quite guilty of taking ooc knowledge of the gods for granted (probably like a lot of others, really).

While I've been trying to keep any references I make to gods down to basic knowledge and keeping it to the more "major" ones - such as Syna is the sun and has a connection to Leth, but all other tidbits are unknowns - I'm now a bit paranoid that I've been overstepping things and definitely want to fix that. (Pretty sure I've referenced Lhex at some point, as an example.)

Rambling aside, thank you Gillar for clearing things up a bit. I'm really looking forward to an expansion on this, especially in regards to how it relates to the various cultures and which gods definitely require a lore to know about.

by **Zhol** on March 6th, 2015, 3:57 pm

Glad I'm not the only one wondering this!

Something that I feel is a little unclear is what "not knowing about" a god actually means. It sounds like with gods such as Lhex, we're not supposed to know anything about them at all; except the lore page includes a quote that uses the phrase "Lhex's smile" to refer to having your throat slashed, which makes it seem like people have at least heard of him.

Is it like the real world, where people know that Mars is the god of war, or Anubis has the head of a jackal, or that Zeus is something to do with lightning and likes to turn into animals and rape people... but are hazy on any of the specific details? Or, is it meant to be more like Kāmohoaliʻi where, unless you're familiar with Hawaiian mythology, you don't have any idea who that is?