forum Tani - Character Feedback Wanted (please? :)

Started July 24, 2018 by @Riorlyne pets

tune

First of all, are you German (or from Germany, or near Germany, or speak German) by any chance?

All of the above, I guess. I'm German by passport, but I only recently moved to Germany and am still learning the ropes when it comes to culture and customs and stuff (people here are a lot more direct than I'm used to and it makes me nervous). I have a deep respect for anyone who chooses to study German as a second language because even as a first language speaker it doesn't make sense to me and I barely scrape by, so kudos to you for taking that upon yourself!

I love the Chronicles of Narnia. Those books and Tolkien's work were really what got me so interested in reading and writing works of fantasy and creating my own world/s.

YES. CS Lewis and all his works have been favorites of mine ever since I had the Chronicles of Narnia as bedtime stories when I was super young - have you read any other of his books?
(I think I was too young when I read Tolkien to properly appreciate him - my impression was that it was generally overly descriptive, and a bit dull. I'll have to reread those sometime.)

Now for the Religions/Deities - I reread this several in the interest of not asking redundant questions that were already answered. But there are quite a few names and lots of information, and I am still "dense but curious", so I do apologise if any of my follow-up questions are irrelevant/stupid/have technically already been answered.

Well, first off, for the beings that actually exist: in order of power level there are

• Berad (the Weaver)
• Calar (the Unmaker)
• The Seven (Berad's envoys)
  (These are Celatar, Gwennedir, Bennatar, Taëthedir, Lichedir, Ghelatar and Isulatar.)
• The Six (Calar's envoys)
  (Stand-in names are currently Ir, Da, Tol, Nun, Tend and Laën - the numbers one to six, they'll have actual proper names eventually)
• The ethereals: various and numerous as-yet-unnamed subjects/minions who carry out Berad or Calar's bidding and act as messengers.
  As you're probably guessing, the beings that exist are a bit like God-Satan-Angels-Demons-Lesser angels/demons. Also, these are their names in Gàldorean. Other languages and religions might refer to them by other names.

So I guess my main question is about the duality of Berad vs Calar. If Calar is the unpleasant Satan-esque sort of cosmic antagonist and Berad is the good sort of God-analogue, why does Berad (if he is above Calar in the power level sequence) allow Calar to exist? Or do they work more in a "yin/yang we need evil in order to have good and there needs to be balance" way? Is there some sort of great battle between Berad et. al and Calar and his crew or do they just sort of mildly tolerate one another in order to keep balance?

I'm trying to think of a way to ask my question/s in a less confusing way…
I guess, maybe, if you've seen the Legend of Korra (shot in the dark here), are Berad and Calar sort of like Raava and Vaatu?

Or are they more like God and Satan, where God allows Satan to exist but limits his powers and gives him a time limit until his destruction?

I suppose another question is whether they actively intervene with humanity or if they're more like… symbols? I guess? For example, would Calar actively go out of his way to "unmake" Berad's creation or is he generally passive but will interact and enhance the power of his cult-members so they can wreak havoc/evil?

How obvious is it that that these deities exist and how much do they influence the story? (finally found a way to word this)

When it comes to polytheistic religions, in most of them the pantheon of deities is based off Berad, Calar and the envoys in some way, although ideas of humanness are often overlaid on them and their levels of power are mixed up.

So do the envoys still respond to the worship? How aware are they of they humans and how much do they care?
How did the humans know that there were seven deities but mess up the rest of the information? Do the deities not care that the humans are badly informed?
So how were the names from above in Gàldorean if the majority in Gàldorë refers to them by different names?

In terms of interaction with the world, Berad, Calar and the envoys may appear to humans in human or animal form, and the ethereals appear only as creatures.

Under what circumstances would they choose to appear to humans? How often would that happen? Would it happen to someone more than once?
Is it a big deal for a minor ethereal to show up or is it more like "oh hey it's Kevin, haven't seen you in a while"? If one does show up, would the humans recognise them or not?

Berad's peculiarity is that he's missing his left eye, no matter which form he appears in.

Is that just a lil quirk of his or does it serve a greater purpose/ have a reason behind it/ foreshadow something important?

Oh, one more. You said that Berad is most powerful, but is he all-powerful? If not, then what are his limitations? If so, then that brings back the question of how involved he is and why he chooses to let events unfold as they do.

which means places used by the cult of Calar can be quite dangerous, because his ethereals are very nasty

(sorry I added the emphasis there) so are they more likely to show up in places that they've shown up before in or does it only depend on the people? Would the Calar cult members try to summon Calar's ethereals?
So, say an ethereal showed up in some random ruin (bad example) a few times to chat with the cult members or something (very bad example). If some person came along to that exact ruin in the daytime, when no cult members were present, and that person was strongly aligned with Berad, would the same ethereal show up because it's strongly drawn to the ruin and it kinda wants to ruin the day of anyone who's aligned with Berad? OR would the person's alignment with Berad be the thing that prevents the ethereal from showing up because it doesn't want to mess with someone like that, and any random person who comes along without any particular strong alignment would be in danger of ethereal attack?

(that was a lot of words) (I'm not very sure the question made sense, I apologise if it doesn't. You can just ignore it)
(please ignore any questions you don't want to answer)

I think that answers at least some of the questions that were asked originally! :)

Thank you very much for that! :)

Warning: Very Long Rambly Erratically Capitalised Post Ahead

I'm German by passport, but I only recently moved to Germany and am still learning the ropes when it comes to culture and customs and stuff (people here are a lot more direct than I'm used to and it makes me nervous).

I know what you mean about adjusting to culture and stuff - I spent most of my childhood in West Africa, but I’m Australian by passport. I think it makes it even more tricky adjusting to a culture when it's already supposed to be your culture. There's a weird sense that it's supposed to feel like home, but it doesn't. What region of the world did you live in previously (if you're comfortable sharing that information)? (By the way, I would never have guessed that English is not your first language.)

YES. CS Lewis and all his works have been favorites of mine ever since I had the Chronicles of Narnia as bedtime stories when I was super young - have you read any other of his books?

Yes, I have. I haven't read his theological and autobiographical works, but I've read the Space Trilogy and Screwtape Letters. Narnia is definitely my favourite, though. My parents used to read them to us and when it was my dad's turn he'd fall asleep in the middle of a paragraph. I think I was a bit too young when I read Perelandra and the others because I have only a vague idea of what happened in the stories and I remember being quite confused with how the main character was acting. But I was old enough to know that Venus is uninhabitable… Maybe I should try that trilogy again.

But there are quite a few names and lots of information, and I am still "dense but curious", so I do apologise if any of my follow-up questions are irrelevant/stupid/have technically already been answered.

No need to apologise! I tend to go overboard on the names, anyway. :) And as they say, there's no such thing as a stupid question. :P

Basically, Berad allows Calar to exist because Berad gave the Seven Firstmade (the first humans on Nossi) the freedom of choice and they chose to adopt Calar's ideals. As long as someone values the same stuff he does, he's still around. I haven't seen LoK (though I have seen AtLA and I love it and I'm actually rewatching the series right now) but Berad and Calar don't 'balance' each other - each wants the other eliminated. Calar's power is limited and he is fated to be destroyed at the end of time.

I suppose another question is whether they actively intervene with humanity or if they're more like… symbols?

Whether they intervene or not can depend on the situation. Calar would love to actively unmake all of Berad's creation, but he doesn't have enough power to do that and instead has to persuade or trick people into doing it for him. If people are being destructive without his input, he’s happy to sit back and watch. If they're all being good kids (unlikely), he'll intervene. Berad has power enough to change anything he wants, but chooses to work with humans. However, he doesn't necessarily 'bless' his followers with power, because power corrupts, and all that jazz.

How obvious is it that that these deities exist and how much do they influence the story?

The average person over their lifetime would probably encounter a supernatural being once or twice, and come across an ethereal (a nice one, more often than not) anywhere between once a year and daily, more so in times of trouble or if involved in seriously messed-up stuff (Berad’s ethereals can sometimes show up in these situations, in a ‘guardian angel’ type of role). Before the Mending (I will explain this Important! Capitalised! Term! further down), Berad's envoys would appear to humans in Berad's stead, but since then Berad shows up himself and his envoys remain largely unseen.

Though Berad, Calar and the envoys can change form, they can't (in Berad's case, won't) take the form of an existing person, and there are signs (if you're looking for them) that they're not actually human or animal (e.g., a sort of glow to their skin, no matter what shade; lack of sweat; invulnerability to physical harm; in Berad's case, a combination of magical abilities rather than just one, etc.). If they really wanted to the viewer could dismiss these encounters as random people or creatures, claiming the light was weird or they were tired or it was just a magical illusion.

As for the story I’m writing, I’m not sure yet how, or if, it will be influenced by supernatural beings. Nothing as religiously extreme as the Cult of Calar will feature, that's for sure. At the moment my antagonists are primarily against-the-protagonist types rather than completely-evil-destroy-the-world types that would no doubt attract a lot of unmade ethereals. I've also been working on Marisel's character page and debating whether or not to give her a companion ethereal.

Is that just a lil quirk of his or does it serve a greater purpose/ have a reason behind it/ foreshadow something important?

Berad's missing eye is due to a very Lion-Witch-Wardroby battle between him and Calar at the dawn of the Third Age. (This is the Mending.) (Long story short: he was primarily a user of light magic, which is connected to sight, and one way to hamper the user's magic would be to blind them.)

Oh, one more. You said that Berad is most powerful, but is he all-powerful? If not, then what are his limitations? If so, then that brings back the question of how involved he is and why he chooses to let events unfold as they do.

Yes, he is all-powerful, but he limits himself by allowing humans to make their own choices and face some of the consequences of those choices.

So do the envoys still respond to the worship? How aware are they of they humans and how much do they care?
How did the humans know that there were seven deities but mess up the rest of the information? Do the deities not care that the humans are badly informed?

Before the Second Rift, there was a lot more communication between humans and envoys and most folks lived in a centralised area, so word got around that there were seven and what they were like. Then as folks travelled further from each other, and especially due to fewer appearances from the envoys leading up to the Mending and afterward, the information got mixed up and embellished and changed with changing cultures. The 'seven' part mainly stayed constant due to the fact that the seven Threads of magic are a lot more observable.

Berad's envoys aren't fazed that the humans have things wrong about them because they don't want to be worshipped anyway. They'd care more that the humans don't worship Berad, but that's up to him.

So how were the names from above in Gàldorean if the majority in Gàldorë refers to them by different names?

I think the best way to explain is that one set of names refers to the actual envoys, and the other set refers to the embellished deities in Bittereth. For example, Gwennedir is the actual supernatural being who does Berad's bidding and keeps the weather patterns flowing, but in Bittereth Lili is the wife of the 'top god guy' and the mother of two other deities and she is the goddess of rain, healing and home who will bring health and fair weather to those who revere her and who will strike those who don't with illness or lightning, whichever suits her mood at that moment. Oof, big sentence. So, followers of Bittereth refer to Lili, and (some) monotheistic groups refer to Gwennedir, and they wouldn't say these two names refer to the same entity.

Is it a big deal for a minor ethereal to show up or is it more like "oh hey it's Kevin, haven't seen you in a while"? If one does show up, would the humans recognise them or not?

I laughed at that. I may have to name a minor ethereal Cevèn one day. ;) It's more of a big deal than an everyday occurrence, but some folks would see ethereals pretty often, and probably the same ones, so I can see them giving them names. Ethereals can't alter their form like the more major beings can, so if you saw one often enough you'd be able to recognise it.

Would the Calar cult members try to summon Calar's ethereals?

Short answer: they might try. The thing with Calar's ethereals is that they might turn on the cult members if they chicken out of the evil things they brainstormed to do. There's no guaranteed method of summoning a particular ethereal.

Your description of how ethereals work was pretty near to what I imagined. Their presence does depend on the people, but the more those people frequent a particular place, the more likely those ethereals are to hang around there, even when said nasty people are gone. If someone unsuspecting comes along, they would likely be attacked, although since ethereals cannot take life the unsuspecting person would probably be able to get out of there (unless the ethereals knock them out or restrain them until the cult members return). If someone strongly aligned to Berad and his values came along, there might be an ethereal fight. (Or, knowing that there might be a fight, the unmade ethereal would refuse to show up.)

Some additional worldbuilding - I'm thinking the unmade ethereals are in lots of ways the opposite of the made ones (a bit like how Tolkien's orcs are twisted elves).

I imagine an ethereal aligned with Berad and connected with fire magic being a bit like a semi-corporeal wolf with a kind of a red glow about it and long, wispy fur that looks like it's made of fire and smoke. Its counterpart, aligned with Calar, is still wolf-like in form but more charred-looking with eyes like glowing coals and an aura of swirling ash.

I feel like this was quite rambly and huge and probably very confusing, so sorry in advance for that! Also, you generally haven't asked questions I don't want to answer, just questions I don't have an answer for yet. :P I tend to 'create' the content for some of my answers after you've asked the questions (mostly because you uncover angles and tangents I hadn't considered yet, which is wonderful. Whoever first said that two brains are better than one was on to something. I love your questions) so I hope you don't mind my making this up as I go.

EDIT: Also please don’t think I mean you have to ask questions! If I ramble on about topics that aren’t your cup of tea feel free to let me know. :)

@Matthew - Thank you for your encouraging words! I would be very happy to look at your writing once you've gotten some down. :) This is the feedback thread I started on the Sharing board - feel free to post your work/a link to your work there. :)

Thank you so much. :)

I think it makes it even more tricky adjusting to a culture when it's already supposed to be your culture. There's a weird sense that it's supposed to feel like home, but it doesn't.

Exactly!

What region of the world did you live in previously (if you're comfortable sharing that information)? (By the way, I would never have guessed that English is not your first language.)

Eastern Africa! (I've been mistaken for an American more times than I can count, especially since my English is probably better than my German at this point) (I'm byelingual - fluent in two languages, unable to communicate in either).

Basically, Berad allows Calar to exist because Berad gave the Seven Firstmade (the first humans on Nossi) the freedom of choice and they chose to adopt Calar's ideals. As long as someone values the same stuff he does, he's still around.

What exactly does he stand for, then?

Whether they intervene or not can depend on the situation. Calar would love to actively unmake all of Berad's creation

How come? Where does Calar come from, anyway - if Berad is all-powerful I assume he also created Calar, but why? Is it a Lucifer-esque story where he chose to rebel against Berad or is it something else? If he exists independently of Berad, then how?

Before the Mending (I will explain this Important! Capitalised! Term! further down), Berad's envoys would appear to humans in Berad's stead, but since then Berad shows up himself and his envoys remain largely unseen.

I'm still not quite clear on what the Mending is, exactly, and why it means that the envoys stepped back and let Berad do the heavy lifting - is it similar to Redemption in Christian terms? Is there any analogue for Redemption at all or does this world develop along another route?

At the moment my antagonists are primarily against-the-protagonist types rather than completely-evil-destroy-the-world types that would no doubt attract a lot of unmade ethereals.

What sort of antagonists do you have? I don't think I've ever asked this before, but what's your story actually about [facepalms] - like what's the conflict?

I've also been working on Marisel's character page and debating whether or not to give her a companion ethereal.

So would that be an ethereal that's constantly by her side or a sort of ethereal "get out of jail free" card that shows up when she's in trouble? How would that sort of relationship come about and would she be aware of it?

(Long story short: he was primarily a user of light magic, which is connected to sight, and one way to hamper the user's magic would be to blind them.)

So does that mean that Berad's actually hampered/inhibited in some way? If he's all-powerful, why does he choose to keep the one-eyed form (assuming that he could do anything he wanted to)?

Yes, he is all-powerful, but he limits himself by allowing humans to make their own choices and face some of the consequences of those choices.

Some consequences
So, like, some and not others?

Berad's envoys aren't fazed that the humans have things wrong about them because they don't want to be worshipped anyway. They'd care more that the humans don't worship Berad, but that's up to him.

So if the envoys technically don't want to be worshiped, why do they allow humans to do it (like, if someone in the Bittereth culture prayed to Lili and asked for health and fair weather, would Gwennedir respond to that even though it's technically not addressed to her and she technically doesn't want to be worshiped anyway?) (I mean not that Gwennedir is a she, I don't think) (but you know)

I imagine an ethereal aligned with Berad and connected with fire magic being a bit like a semi-corporeal wolf with a kind of a red glow about it and long, wispy fur that looks like it's made of fire and smoke. Its counterpart, aligned with Calar, is still wolf-like in form but more charred-looking with eyes like glowing coals and an aura of swirling ash.

(Suddenly I really want to see someone draw that) Would the other ethereals, being connected to other Threads, have looks that correspond with their respective Threads or would they all be fiery?

I feel like this was quite rambly and huge and probably very confusing, so sorry in advance for that!

Not that much, actually :)

I tend to 'create' the content for some of my answers after you've asked the questions… so I hope you don't mind my making this up as I go.

I actually think about that a lot when asking my questions, because I feel like it would be super boring for you to keep answering questions about stuff that you already know and just sort of rattle off, idk. I mean I'm happy to listen to anything related to your story, but I do hope that this can be mutually beneficial and that you can further develop your world instead of just typing out a summary of stuff you already know, if that makes sense
I think when I say "stupid" question, I generally mean that I hope I'm not asking you questions that you already know the answer to and have told me and I'm just being dense about it
I'm not making much sense here. Basically, I really do enjoy hearing about any topic that you mention, but I worry sometimes that I'm only skimming the surface and this is some sort of horrible brainless activity for you where you just go through your existing notes and compile a summary of what you've already got (because you're the most thorough worldbuilder I've ever come across). I do realise that this takes a lot of time on your part, so I hope that my questions actually lead you to further develop your world and actually benefit you rather than just making you regurgitate existing information.

wow that was a lot of words

okay

so anyway

I have a few more questions (yay, more questions in an already huge response -_-) about your cultures. I realise that you have several different ones in both Gàldorë and Nossi as a whole, so I guess these can just apply to whichever culture you feel like telling me about (if any) (or, you know, I could just let you absorb the rest of this monster post) (it's just that I'll forget them if I don't ask them now)

• Is it more of a shame culture or a guilt culture?
• How does the culture value family?
• What's the culture's sense of humour like?
• What are the cultures' ideals of beauty and how important is one's appearance to daily life?
• How important are personal space and privacy in this culture?
• How do the different social classes affect it and how important are they to your story?

Cool, no worries!

Eastern Africa!

Yay! I find it fun to think we may possibly simultaneously have been on the same continent. :D

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In answer to the religion questions (hopefully covering all of them):

Nossi’s mythology (for lack of a better term - lore, maybe?) is analogous to the Christian one in as many key points as possible. I’m still fleshing out what exactly that means for each event/being, but that’s the direction I’m going in. The biggest factors that make a difference are the magic system and the greater concreteness of the events and beings (for example, while unmade ethereals are like demons, they’re quite visible and tangible when they’re around). So if you’re wondering if something’s a version of some Christian thing, the answer is most likely yes, but I’m still working on the execution of it.

Calar is Nossi's analogue of Lucifer/Satan. He was originally one of fourteen envoys under Berad, created to be a guardian of the world Berad was making, but he rebelled (wanted the world to be to his glory, not Berad's) and, persuading six of the other envoys and a large portion of ethereals to join him, tried to overthrow Berad. He was not successful. He despises Berad's work and stands for pretty much everything Berad doesn't: conflict, chaos, destruction, deceit, etc.

As for the Mending (that may or may not be its final name): yep, it’s a redemption analogy. At the first Rift, the eldest of the Firstmade was the first one to reject Berad - the others agreed with him but soon after killed him. (Side note: After the Rifts, people were limited to the Thread of magic they were born with instead of being able to learn all Threads. The eldest of the Firstmade would have been left with light magic.) Humanity's rejection of Berad broke their connection to him and brought the consequence of death - literally in that they murdered one of their own, and figuratively in that, like a flower picked from a bush, they were broken off from the source of life and would slowly die.

This bit I'm still working on, but due to humanity's flawed state, Berad's very presence would probably kill them, so the envoys were the ones with whom people had more direct contact. The envoys' roles were supposed to be more background-type (look after weather, align the stars, etc.) but they needed to come into the foreground to deliver Berad's messages to humans. That all goes for Berad's envoys. On the other side of the coin, the Six went around causing conflict and drama wherever they went.

Berad didn't want people broken off from him eternally, so he had a plan to deal with the consequences of the Rift. At roughly the midpoint in Nossi's timeline, Berad came to Nossi as a human, indistinguishable from the other folks. As a parallel with the eldest of the Firstmade, his Thread was also light magic. He was killed by Calar and people who disagreed with him, and his death mended the Rift (hence the name "Mending" for now). But due to his flawless state, death had to 'work backwards' (to borrow a phrase from Aslan) and he was restored to life.

His execution included being struck across the eyes, blinding him in one of them, symbolic of his power being taken from him. He keeps the one-eyed form as a visible reminder of the punishment he bore and the fact that the Rift is mended. It doesn't alter his ability or power in any way, though. People can now be near him and not die, so the envoys can stick to their original roles.

Reasons for allowing people to worship them differs between Berad's envoys and Calar's. Berad's envoys stick with their boss's wish that people be allowed to make their own choices, so they don't stop humans from worshipping whomever they choose. Calar's envoys like to stand in for whichever deities a religion has, but particularly the darker side of those and therefore encourage folks to worship those deities. To them, anything that draws attention away from Berad is a good thing.

If someone prayed to Lili for health and fair weather, Gwennedir (as guardian of weather) would work with the weather according to Berad's wishes.

The envoys don't have a sex or gender, per se, but their names and pronouns are gendered. So Gwennedir, having a feminine name, would be referred to as 'she'.

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And now on to ethereals!

For Marisel, I was thinking a sort of constant companion that's around when she's alone. She's an only child, and possibly grew up quite lonely due to her father's secret sneakiness with the whole employing-users-of-magic business. Added to which, her mother is frail and sickly and Marisel would have spent a lot of time being there for her. The ethereal would have come as a comfort/friend, and because her situation has not changed all that much as she grew up it might still be around during the events of the story (although possibly not as often as Marisel does make good friends with the other characters and might not need the ethereal's comfort as much). She would know it's there and be good friends with it, but she might not know what exactly it is or why it is there. I will probably have the folklore (and even religious lore) surrounding ethereals be slightly different from the actual lore.

(Suddenly I really want to see someone draw that) Would the other ethereals, being connected to other Threads, have looks that correspond with their respective Threads or would they all be fiery?

I tried to draw it but nope. Terrible. Evidence. Gonna stick with my imagination because my skill at animals and fire both suck.

So I was thinking about this quite a lot yesterday and got really excited and if you don't mind I'll stick a link here to my creature page on different Threads of ethereals because why not. They do have looks and behaviour that correspond with their threads. :) They also have a common animal lookalike as well, although there are (for example) fire ethereals that look bear-ish or mouse-ish. Marisel's ethereal (if I give her one - though the more I think about it the more I want to) would be an 'animal' ethereal (due to her need for companionship) and probably look a lot like a marten.

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Don't worry, this has definitely not been brainless for me! :) I find it quite beneficial, and as long as you think so too I'm happy to share these bits of worldbuilding (I would hate to bore you). There's something quite motivating about knowing that at least one person will care about all these bits and pieces.

I'll look at antagonists and culture things in a later instalment. :P