Post-Snarl Ascension

[Squire Doodad]

It's been loosely described in-comic that people can ascend through worship of them, regardless of their...ah...corporeal status. Also, the gods wipe out most things each time, and the interim period is very good at taking out freshly ascended mortals.

What happens if someone is ascended from a previous world?

Let's say there's a great mage, who is so great that he not only discovered the cycle of worlds but also found a way to hide something such that it will endure the interim period. If someone finds the record of him, and decides to worship him as a great god of magic, what happens then? If he has a sufficient following, will this materialize his soul from the Astral Plane? Or could it just manifest a new entity loosely derived from the time capsule and not the actual soul?

What do you guys think?

[Schroeswald]

It's been loosely described in-comic that people can ascend through worship of them, regardless of their...ah...corporeal status. Also, the gods wipe out most things each time, and the interim period is very good at taking out freshly ascended mortals.

What happens if someone is ascended from a previous world?

Let's say there's a great mage, who is so great that he not only discovered the cycle of worlds but also found a way to hide something such that it will endure the interim period. If someone finds the record of him, and decides to worship him as a great god of magic, what happens then? If he has a sufficient following, will this materialize his soul from the Astral Plane? Or could it just manifest a new entity loosely derived from the time capsule and not the actual soul?

What do you guys think?

I'm not even certain that TDO and Dvalin are actually the souls of the mortals, but presuming they are I'd say as long as the soul actually exists still it would be raised, and if it doesn't well the difference between the diety being new and not would be undetectable, but it is possible to raise a non-mortal (Banjo seems to be legitimantly being created, and I would bet good money that Shaman Vurkle can easily cast spells, and that Giggles sort of exists).

[RatElemental]

Well, they'd have to hide it on one of the outer planes somehow, assuming the gods don't clean those up while they're busy mind wiping all the outsiders. All in all, it'd be incredibly unlikely to be found, and if found probably more likely to be seen as a cache left by a great wizard in the current world, and even if it's seen as a memento from a previous world AND was thought to be left by a god then that would just confuse mortal theologists about how a god died.

That said, if the memento was found, its creator revered as a god, and this notion became popular enough that it triggered an apotheosis, that guy might still be sitting in one of the god's afterlives as a blank planar energy battery.

[Anymage]

I can't say much specific about the mage's soul, but I think it's safe to say that it's either long gone or so radically changed by the unimaginable spans of time as to be effectively long gone. As such, if you did manage to concentrate enough belief into the idea of the mage, you'd have ascended the idea of them instead of the person.

For an analogy, think of everything you know about t-rexes. No research, just off the top of your head. If Sue were to become the subject of enough belief to spontaneously ascend, you can bet that the resulting god would owe a lot more to Jurassic Park than it does current paleontology or what real t-rexes were like.

[Squire Doodad]

I'm not even certain that TDO and Dvalin are actually the souls of the mortals, but presuming they are I'd say as long as the soul actually exists still it would be raised, and if it doesn't well the difference between the diety being new and not would be undetectable, but it is possible to raise a non-mortal (Banjo seems to be legitimantly being created, and I would bet good money that Shaman Vurkle can easily cast spells, and that Giggles sort of exists).

Then again, what is the difference between a cleric worshipping an idea of an entity and that entity being a god?

Until the god comes down and zaps people in person, it can be unclear.

[Tvtyrant]

Then again, what is the difference between a cleric worshipping an idea of an entity and that entity being a god?

Until the god comes down and zaps people in person, it can be unclear.

The point they are making is that the created entity is not the same thing as the person that inspired that worship. The Dark One as a person probably wouldn't gamble the souls of every goblin for the hope of getting better rules, but as a god he is really the embodiment of the Goblin people's resentment of their oppression. The wizard who is so beloved and important he gets ascended is not the same person as the god that ascends, because he loses all of the subtly of mortals and embodies his worshipper's ideas.

Put another way, gods in OotS are basically living myths. A mythical warrior had deep internal conflicts, maybe he didn't like the taste of alcohol but drank a lot to be manly. As a myth he loves alcohol because that is what others saw. In battle he drank the blood of enemies and fearlessly threw himself into shield walls, but in his mind he was terrified that he was going to die and just feared being a coward more. As a myth he is fearless, as a man he was trapped by fear.