im doing weird things with gender in dasora right. like theres 6 gender signifiers.
padhal - bodily masculine (eg facial hair)*
kotsam - bodily feminine (eg breasts)*
kodsaha - intersex
rozason - literally "sharp", describes fashion mostly, typically considered masculine
raalan - literally "flow", also a fashion/presentation descriptor, typically considered feminine
sazam - unknown gender and/or nonbinary, mixing elements, etc
right. okay. normal so far
but then i was like. okay so in the conlang itself there arent gendered pronouns. but im obviously gonna be using gendered pronouns when i run the game. so i was like. okay, he/him and she/her for padhal and kotsam. cool. they/them and it/its for kodsaha and sazam. cool. what do i do for rozason and raalan
ki/kiki and bou/bouba.
i need to be talked out of this.
*VARIES BASED ON SPECIES . UNFORTUNATELY I HAVE TO GENERALIZE RN
what if your patron god was the god of war. what if your people rose as the most terrifying undead known, creating more of their kind, should they fall in battle. what if the other ancestries only learned this after deciding that your god must have made you inherently violent, inherently a threat, and waged their own war against you, to wipe you out before you ever had the thought to fight, yourself. what if they were slaughtered by raging infernos of people whose minds were no longer their own, who would kill anyone holding a weapon near them - including their own former allies. what if the others backed off, stopped their war, promised peace, so long as *you* didn't fight? what if they didn't listen when you told them you'd never wanted this. what if, centuries or millennia down the line, your people are urged to be bodyguards, mercenaries, gladiators, to "redirect your violent urges", to "keep you sated", all assigned healer-handlers to keep you from falling and rising from ash. what if you see your god both as the slaughter that fell so many years past, and the long, tedious, quiet fight that might yet free you from the burden of that history. what if he was married to love and wanderlust. what if he protected his children and yours. what if everyone else saw him only as something that must be tamed.
so, souls function similarly to plants. they grow in dreamsoil, and they live out their lifespan, and after the person dies, their soul remains for a time, decaying back into the soil
and ader will recycle the energy back into the soil, the world, to fuel the rest
one of her followers, be it someone already in her court or someone destined for it, realized that we could take the dead souls and tether them, in a way, to others
by keeping the soul whole as it rots, rather than breaking it down to be spread far across the rest of the field, the mind remains
usually people will ask to be tied to their family or their partner, to watch over them in death
but some people have the humble request of their energy being given to those who need it most
those with chronic illness, or trauma. any lasting effects that inhibits their day-to-day life
so these soul donors are tied to the disabled, and as anyone watches over their loved ones, so too do the donors watch over their benefactor
giving them little boosts of vitality when they're in an urgent situation. giving a sense of comfort when they're in a depressive episode. guiding their divination, if that's something the benefactor practices
the benefactor usually knows. there’s a very solid presence. communication is hard from the donor’s end but the benefactor can usually talk to empty air and feel their donor listening. it's hard to be lonely, if you've got a soul donor
- a town on a river delta that floods out in the farming off-season. houses on stilts and gondolas. it’s a super romantic destination. donzaas goes there sometimes to scare her devotees
- dragon insurance / mutually assured dragon (govts made contracts with dragons in which we give them food/a home/a hoard and they will help fight significant threats)
- on that note. the chromatic/metallic dragon separation doesnt go as deep. metallic dragons are lawful while chromatic dragons are chaotic. metallic dragons will follow their contracts to the letter. chromatic dragons will scam you
- 5 planes. Dasora, the material plane. Rasta, the dream/god plane. Iinfik, the oceanic plane. Zarnot, the shadow/sky plane. Luupas, the wild plane. Rasta is the only one with finite boundaries and a gate. the other three are more.. transitions into Other areas of Dasora. areas humanity does not believe itself to belong in. shifters are from luupas
- raaminul has a cane
- gods don’t get their names until they’re anchored. they have their titles, but they choose their names themselves
there was one deity who was codified as presiding over all liminalities, all in-betweens. her name was raaminul.
she was a psychopomp, a goddess of dusk and dawn, of seasonal changes
but her domains were so loosely defined and blurry even within their definitions that she herself was blurry and incomplete. it didn't go well.
she tried very hard to maintain her duties, go to her festivals, and assist her followers. but one festival, she just.. snapped. broke. the effort to hold her form together was too much for her, so she reverted.
those who saw her primordial form, including two of her anchors, didn’t survive. the rest of the people there, if they did survive, carried the agony with them. the area as a whole turned to stone
her third anchor, edelka, had already passed on and was waiting in Rasta when she returned. they tried hard to keep her tethered, to help her hold on, but deep down they knew that they had made her wrong and it was causing her pain. knowing that releasing their own soul would break off raaminul’s lucidity, they let go. at least she won’t be awake for the rest of it.
for decades, nobody spoke her name. it would rouse her too close to waking. nobody had the heart to do that to her. but Ciros and Ader knew she was still out there, in the unsettled parts of Rasta, stuck in eternal nightmares. she was still incomplete.
so people realized. they could anchor her again. it would take years of work, to re-make her. but they started. raaminul became the mirrored one. her domains became reflections, mirrors, medicine, healing. it was the descendants of the anchors that were the most dedicated to this.
in addition to her intended domains, she retained influence over gateways, and gained associations of hope and second chances
eventually, once gods and people alike were sure this time would go right, she was anchored again. her anchors worked closely with her, walking through the equivalent of physical therapy. re-teaching her how to be a god, how to take a human form, how to bless.
and once she was sure of herself, she had her first festival.
extra prose bits
thinking about her devotees, prior to the second anchoring ritual, working so hard to rewrite the story telling everyone they meet "no, you mustn't pity her. we've already failed her once. now, now we must have hope for her. hope is what will heal her. hope and effort, and we are handling the effort, so you must help us by hoping."
and "did you hear about her? she's changing her domain. she works with reflections and with medicine. every time you look in the mirror, think of her. every time you bandage a wound, think of her. heal your burns and think of her, and as you heal, so too will she."
thinking about her first appearance in the physical plane after she's re-anchored. how her anchors walk her through every step. how her devotees wait silently, nearly going to catch her when she stumbles a little. how she takes a breath and weaves a glimmering silk tapestry, mirroring the crowd back at themselves. how she opens her eyes and looks back to see herself. how everyone, everyone lets out a quiet sob, that becomes all the louder from the number of those beginning to weep in relief. she is here, she is here and she is whole, and she still has work to do, and you must still work with her, but she is more alive than anyone has seen in centuries
thinking especially about how she feels when she takes form
how shaky she is, and things still aching from when she was first made wrong. how deeply grateful she is to the generations that put in the work to save her. her looking out and seeing just how many people came to see her and support her. feeling the overwhelming love and hope from hundreds of vastly different beings just, wash over her all at once. it renews her so quickly she stumbles
i think her anchors the second time around would all be people who have hurt for a long time in their own ways. trauma survivors, those with depression, or chronic illness.
not just because they know how it feels and want to help pull her out of that,
but because they are adjusted to it. they experienced it all, and they feel prepared to take on that little bit more to heal this god
anchoring rituals need 3 very grounded individuals per ritual.
mentally strong, very devoted, experienced in the worship
and as each of those 3 die, they remain tied to their god and form the beginnings of the god’s Court. these 3 specifically have additional work with parts of the god’s domain, and serve as messengers. subdomain saints.
ie Ciros’s anchors could have power over marriage/family/home, plant life of all sorts, and healing respectively. Ader’s anchors would oversee reaping/psychopomp duties, decomposition, and farming.
while the 3 anchors are guaranteed to persist in the courts, certain other significant worshipers receive an offer to join the court as well. martyrs, influential priests, etc. these court members don’t receive subdomains, but they do have additional duties alongside their god.
on the note of anchors being guaranteed, though. this, among many other things, makes an anchoring ritual incredibly intimidating. the surety of eternal duty, the lofty cost of the components of the ritual, the long fasting and meditation required all are designed to dissuade people from anchoring any god on a whim. you must be dedicated. only the very dedicated will even attempt a ritual, and only the most dedicated will succeed.
essentially like. hm
the symbolism and coding and such of the deity and associations and concepts all evolve naturally
and as such they form a vague entity with a blurry consciousness these entities are in an alternate plane of reality. kind of like the astral plane and kind of dream-like. this plane is known as Rasta, and the dreaming gods are known as fiilohanar.
but these entities are like. undefined and not lucid. until they have a following that is large enough and has enough resources to conduct a ritual
this ritual, known as an Anchoring, "wakes up" the entity, partially by tying them to the physical plane through the human participants. then the entity is a true deity, a lohanar.
it only has to be a one-time thing usually. once the original human anchors have died, the deity's connection remains (in fact, typically the human anchors get partially grounded to the deity in turn, and can persist in lucidity as attendants to their deity).
though if Something Happened to sever that connection, ie inter-god fights or other obstructive interference, the entity reverts to that dream-like non-lucidity until a new anchoring ritual can be conducted
