Dreaming Lord and String of Worlds Cosmology

Or an afterthought, or side effect, or creatures that gained sentience on their own, or sub-sub-creations so far down the line that they cannot create in the deific manner--but are still driven to create in some fashion...

These dieties (or rather, their churches) may not be of the type familiar to most Westerners, but they are very familiar to many gamers. Power in exchange for a token worship, adherence to a code, &/or furthering the dieties sphere of influence, is the basis for many roleplaying games.

On first thought-

far too large. There are a string of universes! This is way beyond my personal limits of scope.

In addition, if there is a priest among the heroes, he will almost certainly have some knowledge of the other universes. Thus, it will be apparent to the players that their heroic deeds are not as 'newsworthy', if you will, as they might be. Adventures and heroism become less significant in that there are hundreds of other worlds where the heroes are unknown.

What about making it a world of many variations instead of a multiverse? Make something like a spider's web, with each crossing of the strands being a bubble of reality. and the gods being members of 'teams' - The Goodness Gospel Gazelles and the Evil Eviscerator Elks... or whatever.

And then, make humanity essential: the gods and angels and spirits may be mighty, but there are thing they cannot do, and places they cannot go - this should surpass the 'generating worship' role of believers by far: perhaps all are allowed to play, but only mortals may score a goal...

The outcome of the conflict is determined by the meekest participants, and the mighty ones are there for support.

So, Budgurz the Basher, a warrior, may be well aware that Carnifex, the god of slaughter, may quench his little life-flame in a direct encounter, but his courage is fuelled by the fact that not his patron deity, Bocc the Brawler, but he, the human, can smash Carnifex's life-orb and end his rule for good.

might be interesting, and promote the mortals from the role of pawns.

Now stop me if I'm way off base here...

But I think a theme we might all recognize in this is the essential 'dreaming god'. Many mythologies have creator gods who created the world and then fell asleep, or are sleeping and their body is the world. Also of note is the Australian mythology of the Dreamtime, a mystical pre-world state of magic and whimsy.

In Lord Dunsany's masterpiece, the Gods of Pegana, the creator god, MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI, is presented as being a slumbering god who passed into a deep sleep after creating the gods, and that when the wakes time will end.

There is, of course, Cthulhu (and where would we be without him)- 'In his house in R'lyeh, Cthulhu lies dreaming'.

So where am I going with all this?

'Dreaming Lord'. There you go. Though MoonHunter did say that he is the 'lord of dreams and nightmares', it would suggest to me that somewhere in the creative process we might assume that the god of the String of Worlds is, in fact, dreaming.

So what does this mean for the String of Worlds?

Well, generally, in mythology, a sleeping god is a happy god. More often than not, the reason the world remains generally in stasis and the apocalypse doesn't occur is that the creator is asleep.

So if we follow this assumption, can we assume that if the Dreaming God awoke, the String of Worlds would be destroyed?

Thus, the reason the Gods and MazGods were created-

Gods are the force of stability. They seek to keep the Dreaming Lord asleep through their actions, to continue the status quo.

MazGods are, rather, the force of change. They seek to awaken the Dreaming Lord and let the Worlds be judged or whatever will happen when DL is awakened.

(Let me digress: At the beginning of The Gods of Pegana, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide who would govern the world. Who won this lot, nobody knows. Thus, perhaps the reason that DL created a force to keep him sleeping and a force to keep him awake is that he wished to keep a balance- the world is 'Fated' to end {he is Fated to awaken}, but 'Chances' are that it won't be anytime soon {there is a low likelihood that he will awaken, little Chance})

What do you think, Moon?