There are four main deities in Þulé; a Sky god of Winter and Air, an Earth goddess of Spring and Earth, a Sun god of Summer and Fire and a Moon goddess of Autumn and Water. The Þuléan year has thirteen months, and each of the months is connected to a deity too; and these in all seventeen deities (four of the seasons and thirteen of the months) make up the sympathetic deities in Þulé – sympathic in the sense that these are the only deities who listen to the prayers of man. The other deities don’t care about man and his problems.
The deities are harmonic or disharmonic, contemplative or ecstatic, spiritual or materialistic, sympathetic or unsympathetic, and one deity, the deity of Time, is truly neutral; time treats everyone in the same way and favours no one.
From MYFAROG: «The contemplative is intellectual, introvert and likes to meditate, think or pray. The ecstatic on the other hand is more extrovert and likes wild dancing, gorging, is inclined to screaming and shouting or violence and combat, or other excitement.
The harmonic is calm, peace seeking, balanced, he thinks through things before he acts and is conflict solving. The dis-harmonic on the other hand is more hysterical, unbalanced, emotional and conflict seeking.
The spiritual always thinks about his existence in the afterlife. He thinks about the consequences of his actions on a spiritual level and believes in a life or at least some form of existence after death. The materialistic on the other hand only thinks about the consequences he will face in life. He hardly believes in a life after death, and if he does he doesn’t let this influence his life.
The sympathetic is considerate, altruistic, kind and empathic. The unsympathetic is more ruthless, egotistical and merciless.
The different combinations of attitudes are what makes up the alignments in MYFAROG. The alignment says something about the character’s motivation in life, his world view, values and morals, and is a guide for the player playing the character. The alignment is also essential for the development of the character (in relation to achieving new character roles).
The neutral is perhaps the most special of them all. He seeks redemption through patience, caution and mercy. He in many ways stands outside the normal society, but sometimes intervenes to restore balance.»
When developing MYFAROG I drew up a circle to categorize the different deities, and I ended up with this;
The symbols (black and white triangles) are supposed to represent the elements of Air, Earth, Water and Fire (and the black dot in the middle Spirit), but in the game I decided to use the card symbols instead; Spades for Air, Clubs for Earth, Hearts for Water, Diamonds for Fire (and black circle/egg for Spirit).
There are no deity names in this Paint drawing, but those of you who are able to click here will be able to translate this information to deity names; each deity with it’s own alignment.
This drawing shows clearely and quickly how I see our different European deities, and what I think each one of them represents.
Perhaps I am not just making a game in this context, but also accurately categorizing each and every one of us human beings? Don’t we all fit into one of these Alignments? What deity is closest to you? If you were a god or a goddess, who would you be? I think I would have been WôðanaR…
