[Torg] Spirit Axiom and Cross-Cosm Mythos?

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 3:36 PM, Benjamin Grant <benn at 4efix.com> wrote:
> OK, I am going to riff off Jeff's questions with my own.  I would appreciate
> the insights of all of you, especially of course Kansas Jim.  I'm not so
> much looking for pure opinion as much as what is justifiable given the books
> and what is written in them, even if some of that reasoning must be indirect
> because direct black and white statements are not available within the
> texts.
>
> There's a cosm, call it Sumerian Earth, that has a Spirit axiom of X.  In
> this cosm, the Sumerian Gods are worshipped by the majority of the populace.
>
>
> There's another cosm where the Greek Gods hold sway of Spirit axiom Y.   A
> miracle using PC is from this cosm, but is currently in Sumerian Earth.
>
> 1) If the Sumerian Spirit axiom is 23, the core book states that "One mythos
> becomes dominant.  All others need to create a contradictory reality to
> effect their miracles."
>
> Does this mean the PC needs only to make a contradiction check to cast his
> miracles?  Would that be a 1-case or a 4-case?  Or is the PC unable to cast
> ANY miracles without raising a reality bubble?

If its a pure zone then it would need a reality bubble. If its
dominant/mixed it is a 1 or a 4 case.

> 2)  If the Sumerian Spirit axiom is 27, the core book states that "All enemy
> mythos lose power. No believer in an enemy mythos may access an miraculous
> power."
>
> What is an "enemy mythos"?  Does this mean followers of the Sumerian god of
> Good consider the beliefs of the followers of the Sumerian good of Evil to
> be an "enemy mythos"?  Or is the entire pantheon of Sumerian gods a single
> mythos, and all other mythos' are "enemy mythos'"?

That would be my take on it. I think the wording is poorly done and
something they avoided overall because none of the cosms are that
high.

> To put another way, is this supposed to make it so that Devil's worshipers
> have no power in/near Heaven, or is this supposed to make it so that
> miracles of a Muslim origin have no power, while the Devil's miracles work
> in Heaven itself.

It depends on the overall mythos. It could be that the Muslim has
power in one cosm (say a Uniterian Dios) but not another (the
Cyberpapacy on Steroids).. and the same with the Devil.

> Is "mythos" the entire pantheon, with enemy mythos any foreign beliefs, or
> is "mythos" just one god or side, with the "enemy mythos" being the
> adversary *within* the pantheon/belief structure, and foreign religions are
> treated as neutral?

I think its a lose definition that no one can pin down since its cosm
specific. One cosm might require one thing to tell its story and
another cosm might require something else. One take on the Greek world
view was that it was highly tolerent of other religions with gods
being accepted from other countries with renames.. in this case there
are few 'enemy' mythos as long as they can work out how someone is
'named'. In another world view it might be a dualism or enemy story
where non-named gods are denied because they don't fit into the story.
[Again, overall cosm world view.]

> And however an enemy mythos is defined, if a PC finds himself in a cosm with
> a spiritual axiom of 27 of an "enemy mythos" than that PC is denied all
> miracles while he is there?  Even invocations?

I would say so without a reality bubble.

> 3) If the Sumerian Spirit axiom is 33, the core book states that it is "A
> pure cosm, a cosm in which all aspects of the mythos are literally true. No
> other mythos has any access to miraculous powers."

I would say that at 33 even reality bubbles are impossible. But at 33
everything in weird.

> This seems to imply that prior to this level, some other mythos' did indeed
> have access to miraculous powers - does this support the interpretation that
> level 27 only denies power to enemy factions *within* a pantheon?



> In any case, I thought I read somewhere that Spirit 33 cosms were
> fundamentally the "home cosms" for the gods and beliefs that they are about.
> For example, a level 33 cosm of the Greek Gods would be the source Mount
> Olympus, and that these gods would be the one's granting miracles even to
> their followers in other cosms.  Is this true?  Does one of the books say
> this somewhere?
>
> For that matter, taking a basic mythos, with a good place we will call
> "Heaven" and a bad place we'll call "Hell" - is it the approach of Torg that
> these two places (which must obviously have a spirit axiom of 33, right?)
> are not part of the Earth cosm (which does not have a spirit axiom of 33)?

My take on it has been that in this case they would be two different
'cosms' that would be connected only via a central cosm but would deny
the other to exist in their own cosm.

> Are both Heaven and Hell in the same cosm, just different dimensions within
> the cosm, or does it make more sense and is it more supported by the books
> that Heaven and Hell are two different cosms - one the source of "good" the
> other the source of "evil"?
>
> 4) Do ANY of the above answers change depending on the axiom level of the
> miracle user's home cosm, or for these questions, are the home cosm axiom
> levels irrelevant with regard to the limitations or lack there of of being
> in other cosms?
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Benn Grant
> eFix Computer Consulting
> benn at 4eFix.com
> 603.283.6601
>
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-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- BSD/GNU/Linux
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"