Welcome to Gaia! ::

Class :: Philosophy
Notes::

Worship and the Powers of the Gods

Patron Saint - could be prayed to in times of need by those it protected for guidance, strength, health, or courage. Patron saints were generally a hereditary worship. Specific families or cities would have a God or Spirit they worshipped, and in return the God or Spirit could be called upon in times of trouble.

The strength and authority of any worshipped deity is directly proportionate to how intensely the worshipper's beliefs are held and how extensively they are worshipped. Going through the motions of worship does nothing unless honest faith is possessed. In a way, Gods are co-dependent with their worshippers, yet are also above their worshippers. Deities have skills and powers that Empyreans can never achieve on their own.

There has never been a faithful who became a monster when it died.

Faith in the Gods has no bearing on whether or not they will exist, merely the strength of the connection between you and your deity. Example: If you were to try to contact a deity for assistance once, in the throes of battle to try a last ditch effort to save your life, your response from the celectial bodies would not be very strong. If however, you continueously practise your worship, and excersize your faith, like any muscle that is worked, it will become stronger.

There are those who pray to gods not because they wish to build up their Karma to receive help in times of trouble, but to justify their deeds, and use the god's power as fodder against their enemies. Example: the Outsiders collectively believe in an monotheistic deity known as Jesu. At one point in time this deity may have been the Jesus of Christianity. But like the Outsiders, the deity has become warped and malicious with time and war. The Jesu they worship now is a vindictive and cruel god, all about wroth and smiting the enemies of His people.

Jesu was worshipped by his faithful for thousands of years. As the culture changed, the interpretation of how to show one's faith gradually changed with it. The God had the choice: Abandon his faithful, as some of the older deities had done, and thus lose his worship, or adjust his power and his meanings to suit their needs. Jesu, a young, and short-sighted deity chose the latter. Each little change must have seemed nothing to Him. A small and insignificant detail in the shadow of the larger celestial sphere. But each concession for His faithful changed Him more and more. The faithful can influence a deity, but not change it by their prayer or will. That decision remains in the God's own hands, just as you all have free will to worship or not.

Many of the older deities, especially those of the pantheons have remained true to their stations, and are ready and willing to accept new faith instead of changing for the whims of some few faithful who have tried to manipulate them.

The Deity prescribes how it wishes to be worshipped. Some prefer tribute of wines or foods. Others prefer statuary made in their likeness, decked with jewels or fine fabrics. Some wish for prayer, and soft-spoken heart-felt words. Other require deeds and proofs of faith. Each deity has his or her rules and prescriptions.

The tasks that Gods can be called upon to assist with are things beyond the sphere of mortals. It would be trite and presumptuous of us to ask for help with things we could do ourselves anyways. The spells we have, the crafts we make are things that we rely upon our best to perform. The skills the Gods offer are things well beyond our scope of talents. It is not a matter of misusing the Celestial power like the Outsiders do. We remain different in our faith because of that distinction. I will not say which is the right way to worship, merely that ours is a good and just way to worship.

As an Empyrean, you cannot shirk the blame to a deity, for our existence within the circle of Karma will find a way to punish your falsehoods. You worship, if you so choose. Every time you do, you build up good karma with the deity to whom give love, devotion, patience and respect. You can then call in favours, small ones for small showings of devotion, larger favours in times of dire need if you have been supportive for a long time. You may one day find yourself in peril. In times like those, you may call to heaven for help. If you have been good, and true, the gods may find pity or love enough to answer your need.


Karma

The beginning and end to it all.

Almost everything in life follows a cyclic pattern. Examples: archaic weather systems, the flow of energy through the chakras, the cycle of oxygen and carbon dioxide in animals and plants.

Karma is also cyclic. It is impossible to live on this planet, breathe and move, and not impact something. Each choice made, each day lived making those choices, you influence the things around you, and the path you forge will perhaps allow you to encounter this person, or not, experiece this moment, or that. Attempt to be conscious of how and where we impact other matter and beings in each choice we make, large or small. To understand that connection will allow you to avoid a scenario down your life path that you'd rather avoid, or conversely, make the choices that need to be made in order to ensure that something does happen. Many types of Fortune Telling are merely high levels of understanding these pathways.

There are no coincidences.

Death

When an Empyrean dies, a number of things can happen depending on the circumstances of the death. If attacked by an Outsider's weapons - like firearms and blunt-trauma weapons - the Empyrean falls and over time, usually about two weeks, their Additions begin to reverse and disappear and fade away. This is their Essence leaving them. If attacked by the Outsider's Chemical weapons or a monster, the Empyreans Additions generally mutate and fall off the Empyrean immediately upon death. Again, the Essence if forced to strip from the Empyrean. In both of these cases, if the dead Empyrean's body is left Outside, and not recovered, they will become a Monster. Depending on how they died influences what sort of Monster they will become.

The body must be returned to Empyrean City so that the Metatrons can touch the fallen Empyrean, release their soul and take that soul back into themselves. An Empyrean might be reborn, if their soul is given by the Metatron to a new husk, or an Empyrean might rest at peace with the other fallen of our alignment.

If the Empyrean who falls had a patron Deity to whom they prayed, their body does not lose its additions after two weeks, and never becomes a monster. These Empyreans are safely returned to the Metatron and saved from a worse fate.

Class :: Music
Notes ::

Music is comprised of notes. These notes are strung together to create different sounds and have various pitches to them. These groupings of notes are scales. The distance between two notes in a scale are called scale steps.

Where notes fall on the lines signifies what note it is. The further down it is, the deeper the note is. The higher up, the higher the note. You know the general tone by the location.

Musicians build music by arranging these scales in different ways. They alter the timing, the arrangement, the specific notes used so you get a moving piece of music.

You differentiate the notes by their location. If there are two notes on the same line, it's the same note. You place notes at certain intervals called beats. You combine beat, scales, and notes to get music.

To make music you need an instrument - literally anything from your voice to something that makes sound. That's the beauty of music, you can make music from anything. There are wind instruments that you blow into, percussion instruments that you strike, string instruments and many many more. The easiest one to access, however, is your voice. When you sing, you make music without the use of tools like the flute or drum.

There are a variety of notes. They are set up in accordance to the Time Signature which specifies how many beats are in each measure and what note value constitutes one beat. For example, there can be four beats per measure.

How long a beat is can easily be learned through the use of a metronome. Each tick is a beat. A note takes up a certain amount of time within a beat and the basic group of notes most beginners work with are the semibreve or whole note which usually lasts for four beats, minim or half note which is two beats long, the crochet or quarter note which lasts one beat the quaver or eighth note which lasts for half a beat, and finally the semiquaver or the sixteenth note which lasts for a quarter of a beat.

The notes don't just signify length or pitch, however. Every note possesses a magical property to it that is used in Bardic Magic. There's no set ingredient list or spell list associated with Bardic magic. You learn the effects of the various components of music and then mix them in whatever way you want to get the desired effect.

For example, to increase the potency of some divining practices, one might want to utilize a lamellophone for it's potent prophetic properties and a flute for it's ability to enhance meditative states as well as singing in the notes A, F, or G.

A is good for all strengthening, augmenting, defending and grounding magic
F is good for tuning higher levels of consciousness, chakras, energy manipulation, and charging specific parts of the body for extra damage/healing specific wounds
G is good for healing in general, clairvoyance, calming magics, and sleep inducing magics.