--------------------------------
Q: Where do baby gods come from?
--------------------------------
The Walraven concept of godhood is blatantly inspired by Terry Pratchett's book
_Small_Gods_. To quote Acius (Feb 8, 2001):

"... gods are dependent upon their worshippers ... The more devout worshippers
a god has, the stronger they become. Gods cannot destroy each other directly,
but they may attack one another's worshippers, and thus diminish the power of
their neighbors. Even killing all the worshippers of a god doesn't guarantee
their death -- it takes them anywhere from years or centuries to decay,
depending on their former powers, and in that time they might get personally
involved in some heavy proselytizing. In essence, the pantheon is fixed in the
short term, but in the long term it can change."

So, what did he mean? :P In short, a god is the recipient of worship energy.
He is able then to use this energy however he feels like, but most gods tend to
use the energy in a manner that they calculate as best able to ensure the
continued production of said energy. Only intelligent beings are capable of
producing this energy, and they often generate it unconsciously.

A god becomes deified when he has received enough worship energy to cause his
ascention beyond whatever previous state he may have existed in. The amount of
energy required to cause this transformation is beyond substantial.

--------------------------------------
Q: Can players receive worship energy?
--------------------------------------
Of course not. Since I have no intention of allowing players to become gods,
it stands to reason that I won't bother writing a system that risks their
being able to receive sufficient energy to become elevated.

-------------------------
Q: Define "sufficient"...
-------------------------
Well, considering that the halfling totems are not only the weakest gods in our
current pantheon, but are also the youngest ones, we can look at the
circumstances of their creation. They were created ex nihilus by all of the
worship energy put into the construction of the desert shrines. This implies
that in order to empower an ideal to the point where it has enough energy to
become a very wimpy little god, it would take the concerted effort of an entire
tribe of people on a daily basis for many years.

To transform an existing being into a godlike state would probably require more
energy, but as the being has the added advantage of already existing and being
able to impact worshippers directly, it is probably better equipped to receive
that energy in the first place.

Previous existance is also a nice bonus because it means that you don't need
to worry about fading away in the case that the energy stops flowing...

--------------------------------------
Q: So, what about the Gnomish friends?
--------------------------------------
The 'gods' of the gnomish people are three retired archmagi who were pretty
durned close to a state of godhood on thier own before being adopted by the
little people. In their case, it probably didn't take very much energy to
effect the transformation so much as an extended duration of that energy in
order to sustain them while the transformation took place.

They take a very active role in their people's lives. The gnomes are rather
pragmatic when it comes to their gods, they know that they exist because they
come to dinner. When the gods are helpful, it is just another aspect of The
Pattern, and isn't anything more spectacular than knowing that smoke turns
raw pork into nummy bacon.

The gnomish gods are incredibly powerful. They could probably flatten Asile
and Buamer without much effort (thus stopping the whole slave trade, etc...)
but they consider that to be cheating. They also don't really work very much
together - each one has known the other two for centuries and they have their
little squabbles and send each other cards for their birthdays and such - but
they generally work alone. If all three actually worked together on a project
it would be pretty scary, but I'd be more afraid of the one who could wrangle
them into a state of extended cooperation.

--------------------------
Q: Is the planet sentient?
--------------------------
There is no great and universal 'gaia' spirit of Final Fantasy lore. The planet
is nothing more than a collection of matter that has conveniently managed to
adhere together in such a way as to provide a rather pleasant spot for spring
picnics. Rodenon made sure of that.

Individual locations are teeming with earth mana, and are thus 'alive'. Every
rock, tree, and flower has a spirit. But, those spirits are unique individuals
and not one great conglomeration. This means that worship energy (or druidic
requests for favors) that are targetted at 'nature' and not at a specific god
wind up going not to the glowing mass at the planet's core, but to whatever
local earth spirits are present and available.

--------------------------------------------
Q: When plants die, where do their souls go?
--------------------------------------------
I told you, the planet doesn't have a single soul! Oh, wait, plants. Right.

It really depends on how they die. Plants are very strong earth mana. If they
are just cut up and eaten or whatever, then their energy is absorbed by the
consumer. If they burn or rot or whatever, the energy dissipates and is then
reclaimed by the plane itself.

If they are defiled - ie, drained entirely - the spirit is destroyed. This is
the case with anything that has its mana completely sucked out. It ceases to
be.

---------------------------
Q: What about planets then?
---------------------------
See above.

If a planet were to die, lots of energy would shoot all over the place as all
of the individual spirits would be released from whatever force it is 
(grabity) that holds them together. I expect we'd see ripples in all of the
planes as a result.

----------------------------------------
Q: Can we kill another planet from here?
----------------------------------------
Oh, probably.

I don't see me letting people have spaceships any time soon though. ;)

--------------------------------------
Q: Is there a moon? Is the world flat?
--------------------------------------
Yes. No.

To quote Acius from a seriously old copy of the Codex: "The world of Walraven
is very similar to Earth. Its solar and lunar cycles are the same." A great
deal of the rest of that particular essay has since been deprecated, but that
core holds true.

The world has exactly one moon. It is pretty and blue. It takes roughly 30 days
to circle the planet. There are 365.25 days in a year, and the old elven
calendar does, in fact, make provision for a leap day.

The world isn't exactly spherical so much as it is a cyllinder right now. I am
very much stymied as to how we would make it into an actual sphere without
wasting a lot of math and effort for a fairly insignificant gain. That said,
yes, the world will be circumnavigable. I have a continent that wraps around
the map.

------------------------------------
Q: Other continents with other gods?
------------------------------------
Yes. There are essentially four major geological features on the planet once
you get past the big oceans. Ihaya, two other continents, and The Archipelago.

The archipelago is situated west of Ihaya and extends from about as far north
as Falmar to the antarctic circle where it ends in Tatko Island. The majority
of the islands are uninhabited and are frankly uninhabitable.

The other two continents _are_ populated. By different peoples than live on
Ihaya. They are rather primitive. Players will have to wait for an exceedingly
long time before we write the quests that will play out the discovery of these
other continents.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Are you ever going to fix the stupid bugs with the favor system and prevent
   people from getting bolted by gods that they don't follow and stuff?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yes.

[Wait as Allaryin takes time out from the conversation to make a few patches
to the favor system that should make the gods significantly less bolt happy]

The game needs to make a distinction between actions that call the attention
of a god directly and those that do not. There need to be different ways in
which to affect favor.

For instance, right now, my butchering of a lumberjack would offend several of
the gods. But only if they notice. Right now, they're all noticing. In theory,
your average mountain troll should be able to get by without paying much
attention to the gods as they pay little attention to him. Thus, when he eats
a lumberjack, it shouldn't get him into trouble.

There is no elegant solution to this. It is a fuzzy mathematical problem that I
would have solved years ago if I had a good way of doing it. People now have
faith skills that will help tremendously. Basically, the higher you allow your
faith skills to become, the more accountable you become to the various powers
that be.

As mentioned earlier, the gods' primary motivation is the acquisition of more
worship. Thus, if you have a history of having provided a god with energy, he
will work to retain you. But, because they are also pragmatic, they should
eventually stop committing energy to you as you become inactive.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: Will it be realistically possible for priests to lose their powers?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think that signing onto the team roster puts you into the realm of being
permenantly watched by the gods in question. If you fall out of favor with
Cerina, she will stop answering your queries. But, as a priest, she will
continue to work you over with the lightning stick until you reform.

A bit of alignment readjustment and a few hundred points of mana spent in
penitence will probably be required in order to cast spells from a particular
god again once you've offended them to the point where they stopped listening.

-------------------------------------------------------
Q: What will the knowledge.religion skills be good for?
-------------------------------------------------------
The knowledge skills help with two things.

First, they will help you better know when you have done something to impact
your favor. Right now, this is entirely handled by the devotion skill, but in
the future as more gods are added and more actions become able to impact favor,
the individual knowledge skills will become invaluable in tracking this sort
of thing.

Second, they will be required in order to gain access to higher level prayers.
Just like you have skill pre-reqs for spells and crafting recipes, the same
thing applies to faith-based magic.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Q: Are the PW's the only ones who can travel to the planes?
-----------------------------------------------------------
No. The Planeswalkers will not have the planar travel market cornerd by any
means, but they are the only group in the game who has planned abilities that
will allow them to travel to each and every one of the planes.

Different magical guilds will have different abilities (either by spell,
ritual, or a special object in the guild hall, etc...) that allow them to go
to other planes appropriate to their functions. The full details on this sort
of thing have yet to be completely fleshed out - it's waiting for us to
actually write the planes - which thing is kind of pending on the physical
world itself being fully developed, I imagine.

--------------------------
Q: Where do the gods live?
--------------------------
The seven human gods need to have some sort of Olympus/Valhalla-esque place of
unified residence. There is not really any suitable location on the plane of
earth for them to hang out, so I believe that they need to have carved
themselves out a cozy little chunk of the plane of spirit. It grants them a
closeness to their worshippers while still keeping them distant enough to be
aloof and mighty. More on that place later.

The dragon gods are easy, as they are deceased spirits, they dwell in their
plane of origin - fire. The gnomish gods live on Asile and the halfling gods
live in the desert. The All Father lives in his forbidden city-type shrine on
Tol Ainmir.

The dwarven and orcish gods are all that remain, then. Murtavo has been
banished to the plane of darkness where he rules over the wraiths and demons.
Rodenon quite likely has a residence in the plane of spirit, and while it would
be separate from that of the human gods, he would probably have some sort of
guest home with them for whenever he comes to visit.

The orcish gods are not terribly powerful, as the orcs are vaguely embarrassed
of them any more. This does not lend them well to an extra-planar residence. I
think the best place for them to live would be in a sunken city in the frozen
waters to the north of Gromash.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Q: If you go to the appropriate plane, will you meet the gods?
--------------------------------------------------------------
If you go to the right part of the right plane, it is entirely possible. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: What is the material composition of the planes? Cosmological positioning?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The game world _is_ the plane of earth. Just as it is not composed entirely
of stone matter, neither is the plane of fire composed entirely of burning
gasses. The important part is that the energy that holds things together on
the plane in question is the right sort - this world is held together by earth
mana and the fire plane is held together by fire mana.

There are plenty of 'physical' locations in all of the planes. The human gods
have a solid city that they live in. Murtavo is not just a floating spirit but
probably has a little palace of his own.

There is a bit of material bleeding across the borders of the planes. This is
especially true on the plane of earth, which is located at the center of
everything (in a sort of metaastrographical sense). As mages are constantly
fiddling with things and ripping channels between the different planes, mana
and matter are both drawn through.

Other than the planes of earth, spirit, and darkness, which are parallel to
each other, none of the other planes actually touch. It is only as these
channels are opened that a connection is made.

Visualization time. http://simud.org/images/plane-positions.png

At the center of our little metaverse, we have the planes of earth, spirit,
and darkness. Imagine them as a sphere divided into layers, spirit on top and
dark on the bottom.

In a ring around this ball are much smaller spheres representing each of the
four winds. A constant stream of energy arcs between them in little flashing
tendrils that pop in and out of existance at eyeball-melting speeds.

Above this ring is the plane of order. Below it, chaos. Occasional flashes of
energy arc around the world (nucleus of our little atomic model) between them.

Situated beyond the ring of the winds are the other four planes. Stick water
to the southwest and lightning to the northeast, fire to the southeast and
ice to the northwest. Each of these pairs also has its set of arcs passing mana
back and forth around the whole mess.

Add do it tendrils of energy flowing from each of these planes to the plane of
earth where mere mortals are fiddling with things what they ken not.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: So why can't we just grab mana as it fires off between the planes?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
You don't know where the mana will be as it shoots along its little path.

But, you do know (spiritually speaking), where the core of each plane is, and
you then open your own little channel, arc the energy to your own location,
and use it.

------------------------------
Q: How does counterspell work?
------------------------------
By inserting chaos mana into the middle of another mage's casting, thus
disrupting the flow of everything and generally making his pattern awful to
control.

------------------------------------------
Q: What is a spell? How does alchemy work?
------------------------------------------
Every spell is an algorithm for the energy to follow. You pull the energy out
of its location and line it up between the points where you want it to flow.
This is one reason why crystals are appropriate capacitors for mana energy,
they provide a gridwork for the energy to flow along.

Alchemy is nothing more than fabricating these spell patterns and then locking
them into stasis somehow - in most cases, a liquid matrix. This is also the
basic theory behind scrolls and other formal representations of spells.

---------------------
Q: What about pearls?
---------------------
Huh? Well, pearls aren't technically 'stones' and they're definately not
crystals, so why do you plan on allowing them to be used as mana batteries?

Pearls are powerful condensations of earth matter. They have also developed
in connection with a living, growing being. While they may not be crystaline,
they are a bajillion concentric spheres, and if that isn't a matrix, I don't
know what is.

If anything, pearls should come pre-supplied with mana from their creative
hosts. Some types probably will.