The last post (and probably several before it as this is one thread that I can't seem to keep up with considering how much is posted) made me think of one of the ideas that I've been trying to incorporate in my campaign.
Since the planes are all about belief, I am actually trying to make the planes correspond in different ways for different ideologies. For example, I would have a Norse character visiting the Outlands to see the trunk of Yggdrasil reaching off into infinity not the stone Spire. For him, the Spire would truly conform in all ways to an impossibly large tree (e.g. might have moss growing on the side of it, etc.). And there might be carverns at the base of the "trunk" that would lead into Nifelheim in the Wastes (and to him, the other two layers of the Wastes would appear to be "suburbs" or lesser offshoots of Nifelheim)
I was trying to think of other things to tie in from other pantheons such as Ra making a night trip along the River Styx before "climbing" back to the skies of the Upper Planes.
Does anyone have interesting parallels along these lines?
Parallel XXXVIII: The War of Parted Lovers
"What is this life that pulls me far away?
What is that home where we cannot reside?
What is that quest that pulls me onward?
My heart is full when you are by my side -
Calling, yearning, pulling, home to you..."
-Loreena McKennitt, 'Caravanserai'
It began with the dissolution of Apophis. Ra stood mystified on his celestial barge, his body of luminous golden light bleeding solar flares from his wounds. Every time before, meaning every day's dawning, the Serpent's blood would boil out and the ruby clouds of steam would settle on the sun god's flesh as Ra's morning dew.
Every time before, the blood would close his wounds as if flesh were but parted liquid. But in what was clearly their final battle Ra had watched with raptor eyes wide with wonder as blood had become sea water, as scales had become sea foam and bones had turned to brittle souvenirs of coral.
The eyes of Apophis became two black pearls - never had his enemy's eyes so resembled his own. Ra had summoned those pearls into his barge and continued in his daily passage across from horizon to horizon. If any of the billions of worlds whose daylight depended on him noticed the delay in the sun's rising it troubled only the wisest and the most sensitive to the interplay of divine and mortal realms.
The next dawn, which is the dawn of a billion mortal worlds, it was Horus who took up the Barge of the Sun as Ra slept as Thoth and Isis sought to stem the fire that leaked out of their pantheon's godhead.
Ra did not awaken that day, or the next, and on the ninth day since Apophis's death Osiris welcomed the god into his realm. The soul of the god had gone to its rest.
On the tenth day, Geb proclaimed that he and Nut should be together now that the reign of Ra had ended. Isis and Osiris, themselves painfully parted loves, sided with Geb and his wife. Seker found Geb's proclamation disrespectful and Anubis even spoke from the Astral to state that Ra's judgement should stand. Bast believed the lovers' should be reunited, and Set said the judgement of Ra should stand, likely out of spite more than any respect for Ra.
Shu, surprisingly, was one of the gods who abstained from saying yea or nay on the matter. Though he did not give his opinion, he continued to hold the Geb and Nut apart with his power and still does so.
Horus, Ra's successor, was still assuming the powers of his office and was angered by the presumption of the other gods. He might have decided the matter single handedly, but Thoth who had once bent Time itself for the lovers had now given them each a share of power bled from the body of Ra.
With Thoth's ibis head being shorn from his neck, the War of Parted Lovers began.
=-=-=
State of the Planes: Give the pervasiveness of the Pharaonic gods and their followers, the inter-pantheon civil war has dragged much of creation into violence. The Blood War continues but both sides in the now greater conflict, the War of Lovers, have taken it upon themselves to teleport whole legions of fiends near the realms of their enemies. This has made both the devils and demons wary of gathering in open legions without the backing of a deity on the planes of their conflict.
More troubling is that the Upper Planes quake with the warring of the pantheon's legions. As more and more mortals die, more soldiers appear in the planes of Paradise to serve as the soldiers of their gods.
Of great insult to Horus was the untethering of Ra's former realm from Arcadia. Once he killed Thoth Orisis and Isis allowed Heliopolis to shift across the Upper Planes to Ysgard, the plane that most closely matched Horus's alignment. Not only did this leave the realm vulnerable to the violent forces of that plane, but it also was a symbolic insult in that a chaotic power was hardly one to enforce his predecessor's lawful edicts.
That Horus is their son is now a mark of shame to Isis and Osiris, for the blood of wise Thoth is on his hands.
Though Ra's soul passed through Osiris's realm on the way to some Other reality, his corpse shines golden and hot against the cool argent of the Astral Void. Anubis watches over it, for while he supported the dead god's ruling the jackal headed guardian of the divine graveyard will not let forces from either side draw on the energies still contained in Ra's dead body. Every day hundreds of exemplar legions are culled from the the corpse's vicinity, though many wonder how long Anubis can resist the will of so many gods unaided.
What is perhaps more unusual is that Thoth's corpse has not appeared in the Astral, though his priests no longer receive any spells from him and it is clear his realm is fading away. Stranger still is that his proxies retain their power - if anything, the observant might note, they seem to now radiate with divine magics.
More troubling for his worshipers is the lack of inspiration that has beset them and that the ability to commune with Thoth's incredible mind and its knowledge of planar history is gone.
The War of Parted Lovers has resulted in the domains of the gods turning into weapons across the worlds. Horus cannot restrict the sun from rising on the pantheon's worlds, but it glares in the eyes of the "rebel" gods' peoples. Isis, with the aid of Azuth and Mystra, is turning arcane magic against those who side with Horus. Geb attacks the people who've sided with Horus with earthquakes, and Nut strikes them down it lightning.
Because Bast sided with Geb and Nut, and thus against Horus, it seems many hawks in the Multiverse are hunting cats in the wild and in the streets of and rooftops of the cities.
The priesthoods of Set have pushed their way to legitimacy in many worlds as the pantheon's worshipers have been forced to choose sides in the War. Similarly, in many places the worshipers of Geb and Nut specifically are blamed for the shifting tides of misfortune and often abused or run off from their homes. Many have fled into the crypts of their peoples, seeking protection from the living and finding it in the arms of Osirs's dead. Where need is great, his priests are being granted mummy-hood and lichdom in droves which has led to the paladins of Seker declaring war against all of the White Crown's worshipers.
Where Horus's power is strongest, all those who are said to follow the "rebel" gods have been tossed into dungeons. Given that many worshiped the pantheon as a whole this has led to no end of administrative headaches and rampant corruption as merchants and nobles alike seek to rid themselves of long standing rivals.
A great number of the pantheon are providing some measure of aid to both sides or neither. Many are unsure how to proceed, for while they pity Geb and Nut they acknowledge Horus as the rightful heir to Ra. Yet if their pantheon is to retain its strength across the Multiverse it will need a greater power at its head, and thanks to Thoth Horus can only claim to be an intermediate power at best.
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