I’m pasting below relevant excerpts attributed to Mats/Devs from previous discussions on the Lore channel of the official discord server. If someone can help identify the original source of these, it would be greatly appreciated.
On the Rule of Dawning:
“However, before the Rule of Dawning several creations saw the light of day as a result of forced manipulation by the Gods themselves or by intelligent species wielding great power. Thus, manipulated creatures combining different traits between evolutionary branches such as Griffin or Minotaurs appeared, and those that weren't overspecialized for their 'purpose' managed to survive the coming events and produce offspring, leading to new species and races over time as they too adapted to the environment. Likewise, the majority of 'intelligent', in this case meaning conscious, creatures has been dawned in similar events requiring even more power, although a minority is a product of natural evolution.”
And,
“On top of this, the Gods or rare magic have historically interfered with the evolutionary process although it is nowadays forbidden by the gods themselves by the ancient Rule of Dawning. However, if one were to break that rule, this kind of manipulation must still obey certain primary rules of nature, and it costs a lot of energy. In essence, the more a creature is to be changed, by forcing evolution in a certain direction or by speeding it up (or by reversing it), the harder it becomes and the more energy is required. If a God for instance wanted to create an entirely new type of creature from nothing the energy cost would be tremendous, while modifying or combining already existent species according to their hereditary possibilities would be much cheaper.”
On the Nature of the Gods' Power:
“You start a cult that prays to No-God. You gather enough believers that agrees with you that there is a "No-God" (an entity that is not a God), and that there are no other Gods (also meaning there are no other Gods to fight). Eventually this No-God would actually enter the Pantheon, and this would mean serious problems for the Pantheon and the other Gods, as the prerequisite for No-God is that s/he is not a God, and that no other Gods exist. As the other Gods are real, and closely tied to such diverse things as agriculture, time, war, knowledge, mountains, famine, sanity and so on, the world itself would be really upset. With enough believers No-God would eventually destroy or drastically change the world, the Gods and everything created. More on this in the chapters of the history of the MO world.”
Ithavoll Field:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iðavöllr
Here’s where my train of thought begins.
Let’s start with the assumption that Gods have a vested interest in shaping the beliefs of mortals in Nave. We can see from the excerpt on No-God, that such a development would be problematic for the other Gods, the entrance of a new God into the Pantheon has repercussions for the others. In the case of No-God, potentially deadly ones. So I will just assume that whatever mortals believe the domain and characteristics of a God are, these beliefs get translated into the reality of the divine beings themselves.
If this is true, then the Gods have an impetus to shape the development of their own religions, as well as that of other Gods. Wars between Gods over specific domains (art, war, wisdom, the sea) could very well look like divine intervention intended to shape believers’ beliefs, or destroy opposing Gods’ believers’ beliefs (or just destroy the believers themselves). One could easily see this escalating into a conflict where Gods force their mortals to fight each other. Note also that the majority of intelligent species were indeed the result of forced evolution/manipulation, perhaps for this specific reason.
Let’s hold that thought for a moment and look at the Rule of Dawning. The two things we know about it are that it is intended to prevent Divine manipulation of mortal species, and that such manipulation carries an energy cost proportional to the degree of alteration to the base species. In other words, forced evolution is relatively costly (even for Gods), and that the Gods themselves agreed not to do it anymore at some point.
Consider two possibilities regarding the Rule of Dawning. The first is that the Rule has no intrinsic “bite”, that is, nothing really prevents the Gods from violating it and intervening in mortal affairs. Intervention would only involve paying the upfront aforementioned energy cost but would otherwise be no more difficult. The other alternative is that it does indeed add another (potentially insurmountable) cost to creation, which, as long as the Rule of Dawning stands, makes it extremely costly or outright impossible to manipulate species. I believe the rest of this speculation carries regardless of which alternative is ultimately the case, so let’s carry on pretending it’s the first.
Here’s where this starts getting a little more speculative though. In the old map of Nave, we can see a region in Herabalter called Ithavoll Field. Ithavoll field seems to be a place in Norse mythology where the Gods who survived Ragnarok meet afterwards to reminisce about times past and their slain kin. If this is indeed the inspiration for the name of this location in Herabalter, we can start to place some pieces together.
Here’s my conjecture:
In unspecified ancient times, the Gods used mortal species to wage war on each other over specific domains. At least one of these conflicts became a turning point in the history of Nave, a God was killed, maybe multiple, possibly in Herabalter. After this Ragnarok-like event, the Gods met and decided to put a stop to the arms-race of continuously spending energy to alter mortals, and accept the balance of power between them as it stood.
A couple of extra, more speculative, thoughts:
If this is all correct, then the nature of the Rule of Dawning itself may become relevant in the future. If it has bite then a rising power God is pretty safe and could eventually overtake hegemonic power Gods, such as No-God. If it has no bite, then nothing prevents the Gods from intervening, other than some internal threat that if such a thing is done it will trigger a collective response, and a newcomer God would find it difficult to get a foothold in the Pantheon. The absence of younger organized religions seems to point towards the latter case.
The death of a God could have extremely serious and real implications for Nave, as alluded to earlier. Perhaps the constant geological disasters are one such implication. If I were to put on my tinfoil hat (if it isn’t already on), I would guess there has been at least three deaths among the Gods, corresponding to each of the cataclysmic events in Nave: The Sundering, The Conflux, and more recently, The Irruption. Note that one of the explicitly mentioned divine domains that would be affected by the disappearance of the Pantheon is “Time.” There is some confusion about when exactly the Conflux occurred, and why no one seems to remember or agree on certain details of it. Lastly, consider the most recent event, The Irruption. A mortal species suddenly invades and nearly exterminates humanoid populations in Myrland, when suddenly a geological event occurs, and they flee, as if deprived of their imperative to attack... as if they had been previously controlled by someone, and were no longer so.
In any case, this was something that had been bouncing around my head for a while, and I would appreciate reading others’ thoughts.
On the Rule of Dawning:
“However, before the Rule of Dawning several creations saw the light of day as a result of forced manipulation by the Gods themselves or by intelligent species wielding great power. Thus, manipulated creatures combining different traits between evolutionary branches such as Griffin or Minotaurs appeared, and those that weren't overspecialized for their 'purpose' managed to survive the coming events and produce offspring, leading to new species and races over time as they too adapted to the environment. Likewise, the majority of 'intelligent', in this case meaning conscious, creatures has been dawned in similar events requiring even more power, although a minority is a product of natural evolution.”
And,
“On top of this, the Gods or rare magic have historically interfered with the evolutionary process although it is nowadays forbidden by the gods themselves by the ancient Rule of Dawning. However, if one were to break that rule, this kind of manipulation must still obey certain primary rules of nature, and it costs a lot of energy. In essence, the more a creature is to be changed, by forcing evolution in a certain direction or by speeding it up (or by reversing it), the harder it becomes and the more energy is required. If a God for instance wanted to create an entirely new type of creature from nothing the energy cost would be tremendous, while modifying or combining already existent species according to their hereditary possibilities would be much cheaper.”
On the Nature of the Gods' Power:
“You start a cult that prays to No-God. You gather enough believers that agrees with you that there is a "No-God" (an entity that is not a God), and that there are no other Gods (also meaning there are no other Gods to fight). Eventually this No-God would actually enter the Pantheon, and this would mean serious problems for the Pantheon and the other Gods, as the prerequisite for No-God is that s/he is not a God, and that no other Gods exist. As the other Gods are real, and closely tied to such diverse things as agriculture, time, war, knowledge, mountains, famine, sanity and so on, the world itself would be really upset. With enough believers No-God would eventually destroy or drastically change the world, the Gods and everything created. More on this in the chapters of the history of the MO world.”
Ithavoll Field:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iðavöllr
Here’s where my train of thought begins.
Let’s start with the assumption that Gods have a vested interest in shaping the beliefs of mortals in Nave. We can see from the excerpt on No-God, that such a development would be problematic for the other Gods, the entrance of a new God into the Pantheon has repercussions for the others. In the case of No-God, potentially deadly ones. So I will just assume that whatever mortals believe the domain and characteristics of a God are, these beliefs get translated into the reality of the divine beings themselves.
If this is true, then the Gods have an impetus to shape the development of their own religions, as well as that of other Gods. Wars between Gods over specific domains (art, war, wisdom, the sea) could very well look like divine intervention intended to shape believers’ beliefs, or destroy opposing Gods’ believers’ beliefs (or just destroy the believers themselves). One could easily see this escalating into a conflict where Gods force their mortals to fight each other. Note also that the majority of intelligent species were indeed the result of forced evolution/manipulation, perhaps for this specific reason.
Let’s hold that thought for a moment and look at the Rule of Dawning. The two things we know about it are that it is intended to prevent Divine manipulation of mortal species, and that such manipulation carries an energy cost proportional to the degree of alteration to the base species. In other words, forced evolution is relatively costly (even for Gods), and that the Gods themselves agreed not to do it anymore at some point.
Consider two possibilities regarding the Rule of Dawning. The first is that the Rule has no intrinsic “bite”, that is, nothing really prevents the Gods from violating it and intervening in mortal affairs. Intervention would only involve paying the upfront aforementioned energy cost but would otherwise be no more difficult. The other alternative is that it does indeed add another (potentially insurmountable) cost to creation, which, as long as the Rule of Dawning stands, makes it extremely costly or outright impossible to manipulate species. I believe the rest of this speculation carries regardless of which alternative is ultimately the case, so let’s carry on pretending it’s the first.
Here’s where this starts getting a little more speculative though. In the old map of Nave, we can see a region in Herabalter called Ithavoll Field. Ithavoll field seems to be a place in Norse mythology where the Gods who survived Ragnarok meet afterwards to reminisce about times past and their slain kin. If this is indeed the inspiration for the name of this location in Herabalter, we can start to place some pieces together.
Here’s my conjecture:
In unspecified ancient times, the Gods used mortal species to wage war on each other over specific domains. At least one of these conflicts became a turning point in the history of Nave, a God was killed, maybe multiple, possibly in Herabalter. After this Ragnarok-like event, the Gods met and decided to put a stop to the arms-race of continuously spending energy to alter mortals, and accept the balance of power between them as it stood.
A couple of extra, more speculative, thoughts:
If this is all correct, then the nature of the Rule of Dawning itself may become relevant in the future. If it has bite then a rising power God is pretty safe and could eventually overtake hegemonic power Gods, such as No-God. If it has no bite, then nothing prevents the Gods from intervening, other than some internal threat that if such a thing is done it will trigger a collective response, and a newcomer God would find it difficult to get a foothold in the Pantheon. The absence of younger organized religions seems to point towards the latter case.
The death of a God could have extremely serious and real implications for Nave, as alluded to earlier. Perhaps the constant geological disasters are one such implication. If I were to put on my tinfoil hat (if it isn’t already on), I would guess there has been at least three deaths among the Gods, corresponding to each of the cataclysmic events in Nave: The Sundering, The Conflux, and more recently, The Irruption. Note that one of the explicitly mentioned divine domains that would be affected by the disappearance of the Pantheon is “Time.” There is some confusion about when exactly the Conflux occurred, and why no one seems to remember or agree on certain details of it. Lastly, consider the most recent event, The Irruption. A mortal species suddenly invades and nearly exterminates humanoid populations in Myrland, when suddenly a geological event occurs, and they flee, as if deprived of their imperative to attack... as if they had been previously controlled by someone, and were no longer so.
In any case, this was something that had been bouncing around my head for a while, and I would appreciate reading others’ thoughts.
