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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.

Location :: The Hallways
Participants :: Astaroth, Arwen, & Biwa

Class ~ History
Notes ~

A State of War

When the Laws of the City can be temporarily suspended for the sake of the survival of the City.


The Call

We will be at risk. Much will be demanded of us. Much more than what we are capable of will be expected of us. Every capable Three will have to rise to the task of fighting, and that leaves Shops unmanned, Classes untaught, supplies unmade.

Supplies need to be stocked, equipment maintained, provisions prepared and properly readied. There is an endless amount of work to be done by Empyreans and by their Hybrids, Cicus pets, Golems and the like. The best thing the Zeroes can do in this situation is attend to their studies. Not only in the book-learning sense to better understand their world, and more swiftly transcend, but also in practice and perfection of skills and crafts which can be more immediately put to use.

If any of us have discovered an aptitude, a calling, an affinity with a section of or direction in this City, explore these talents.


The Past

In antiquity there were countries comprised of many many cities. The nations were composed all of the same race, the ancestral race of both the Empyreans and the Outsiders. Despite their collective lineage, these ancient nations were constantly at war.

However, the world was whole. In this part of the world, in what was called The West in olden times, there was peace. There was structure and law, mighty nations and friendly neighbours. Injustice was punished fairly no matter your origin. Clearly in a land so carefully and justly ruled, they prospered. The land was tamed, and then excavated. The economies boomed, the people flourished, and then the balance tipped to the side of excess. The wealthy became more wealthy, and the struggling fell into poverty. Skirmishes broke out between different factions of humanity. In order to feed the inordinate number of mouths, and to support the growing weight of the Foreigners who flocked to these lands to try and gain some part in the wealth and prosperity of the place, and finally to try and sustain their extravagent and avaricious lifestyles...The inevitable occured: the planet was raped. Too much was taken, too fast. To replace the swiftly dwindling resources of wood and metal, a new creation was introduced to the society in order to make life more convenient: the Plastique

And so, the fighting grew worse. The Foreigners came here united and en masse to silence the citizens of the West. At first the ancestors of the Empyreans - the Kanadins - and the ancestors of the Outsdiers - the Merikans - fought together, side by side. More and more of the Merikan states were destroyed, desolated by warfare and fallout. Unihabitable, barren and unworthy of even the sturdiest crops, the Merikans had no choice but to abandon them. They pressed further and further north, demanding more and more space from their Kanadin neighbours. At first the Kanadin people opened their arms to shelter and assist their comrades of the West. But as the numbers of Merikan soldiers and refugees continued, it became evident that the situation could not be sustained. It was around this time that the Kanadins reached the Ether. In their digging for supplies or perhaps the side effects of their reactors, they made a breach in the planet's veins. They touched on the Font of Ether flowing from the earth. And the very first of the Kanadins became Empyrean. Or, something near to. The unstable way they had fused with the Ether made them more akin to the Cicus animals than what we recognize as Empyrean now. Some say that some spark or fragment of those first four still exist within the Metatrons of today.


Plastique

Like the ancients before them with their poisonous lead, the humans used their poisonous Plastique for everything. They made tools, clothes, foods, storage vessels, equipment and more from this substance.

They ignored it's dark roots and pressed forward with their innovations, and revolutionized the world. But the Blood of the Planet should have stayed in the rock, in the oil, in the once-white ices of the north. Instead it slowly became a part of their clothing, their medicines, and eventually their very food. And their bodies, uncomprehending to this thing that did not behave the way the rest of the world behaved were baffled and began to grow ill from it.

Everything in this world goes in cycle. It is born, it grows, it lives, it descends and ends. That is the way of the planet. But this Plastique did not decay. It merely changed form, releasing toxins into the water they drank, the air they breathed, into their every cell. And then the cancers began to sweep through the nation, far too efficient for medicine to fully heal those afflicted. And they became obese and stupid, displaying imbalances that once-pure diets had prevented. Even the simplest tasks - like balancing one's own blood sugar - became impossible for them.

Its production has subsided. The Blood of the Planet was sucked dry. However, there are still places where the items made from the Plastique are piled kilometres high. The Outsiders to this day use their technology to melt down this nearly-indesctructable poison and form it into new items - Grafts, tools, mechanical and electrical parts. The Plastique could not be so easily tossed away. It did not decay, and it began to pile up. When it was discarded, when it ceased to properly preform its function... When it was replaced by newer, stronger, more toxic forms of Plastique, well...

At first, the peoples of the West tried to ignore it, but as the landfills were filled, and as the oceans were polluted, they had to find new ways to deal with it. They tried to use it as land, compacting it, and sinking it deep into the oceans to try to find more places to build on, now that so much land had been destroyed or littered with the Plastique of bygone days. It was when they began trying to recycle it, releasing poison into the very air we breathe that it became a part of all of us.

Plastique poisoning causes defects. Outsiders and Husks have grown without limbs, or with their organs on the outside of their bodies.

Empyrean City uses only the purest of materials. Everything is built of stone, wood, glass, crystal, metal, ore, and of course ether. However, out there, the Outsiders continue to use Plastique, to fashion their electrical wires and sometimes entire segments of their Grafts which they implant into their diseased bodies, or staple onto their rotted flesh to keep it running long after it ought to have stopped.

Their technology far surpasses that of Empyreans. But technological advances were sacrificed in exchange for longevity, health and peace of spirit. Some advances of science are simply not worth their cost.