The Metaphysics

In the begining they were there. They existed. Existed before existance. The one who is within (TOW) made out existance, those who are without made others. There are many, though we see but one. The one we see is the one we are, we cannot comprehend it in any other manner. The One who is within created all of us, after having watched the worlds within TOW's existance grow. TOW coaxed us forward and granted us our sentience with a small spark of TOW's power.

1) Are the Bilblical accounts of Creation correct? No. They almost all tap into some of the inner truths that are carried within each individuals souls but they are viewed through the imperfect prism of the human mind.

2) Which God is the right God? None. And All. This could be a cop out answer but it is definatley not. Honest. All of the monotheistic faiths are correct - there really is a benevolent entity who wishes to see “the children” succeed and advance.

3) Is there a heaven? Yes. A soul sufficeintly intune with the part of TOW within them is rejoined to the whole upon the soul leaving the body.

4) Is there a hell? Yes. Those not sufficiently in tune with the part of TOW within them is cast out beyond to the horrors without, to float in eternity alone and tortured.

5) TO Quote Nick Cave “interventionist god”? No. Individuals can channel the very power of creation if their soul is in harmony with TOW and this appears as what the common man considers a miracle.

TOW can be present and tangible and actively interfering in the world without picking a side, because no one side has got it that much more right than any of the others. All the monotheistic religions get it a bit right, but none of them get it right enough that TOW is going to weigh in on their side. Instead it intervenes with each one in the manner that it's capable and willing to do given the bits of TOW which that side are Getting Right.

One of TOW's decisions is that it is unwilling to disclose information about itself to people who aren't its prophets, so when it intervenes it does so in a way that people will expect – which is why the Catholics get Catholic-looking angels.

It might appear as a result that TOW is a contradictory or inconsistent being because it orders some of its followers to do one thing and some of its followers to do another. This is because those orders have been interpreted through its prophets, who had flawed human minds.

David and I have put some thought into this and we believe we have a consistent fleshed-out version of the metaphysics, which amongst other things explains Lucifer/Satan, Jesus, the inconsistency of TOW and the lack of intervention. It also allows a very large amount of freedom in creating demons and hells and so forth and will also gel in very nicely with the three religious viewpoints and the conflict between them. I'll post more on this later when I get a few minutes. — Dave H 2009/01/15 03:01

Okay, so here's the summary. Please please ask questions if you don't understand, and point out any flaws:

TOW, amongst the Others, creates the Universe. As a rather more benevolent and accomplished creator than the others, his universe is created with sapient life in his image (that is, self aware and relatively moral; cf. the Christian mythos). This life contains within it some spark of himself, because the rejoining of the creation to its creator creates something greater than the original. Meanwhile the Others create universes which are not so well put together or well thought out, and they for the most part fail. Jealous of TOW's creation, they covet it and seek to usurp or destroy it.

TOW creates angels to help him guide his universe in the direction he wants. These angels are janitors of creation - they do the grunt work within the physical constraints of the world, though of course GOD MODE TURN ON in order to get stuff done. Think the Agents within the Matrix. The angels help build the world and occasionally are called in to direct the people (speak to prophets etc.) and do other manifest things within the world.

Satan/Lucifer/Iblis/Mephistopheles is the head one of these guys. He is created as the head of the angels, and is given slightly more power. However, malign influences are afoot. The Others, still jealously meddling, see their first major opening into the world and collectively pour their efforts into subverting Lucifer, suggesting that he is the rightful master of the universe, causing him to fall and rebel against his creator taking some of the other angels with him. This establishes some of the Abrahamic mythos involving Satan, and could also be compared to Nyarlathotep of the Cthulhu mythos.

After this point, with their foot in the door, the Others start trying to warp the world and bring it down. TOW sees this happening and decides that simply sending angels to clear up the mess is not enough. He therefore manifests himself directly in the world; this manifestation was some bloke called Jesus. Unfortunately, his fucked up creation decides that crucifying him is a good idea, and TOW dies on the cross becoming virtually powerless. The Christian church figures this out at some point later then invents the resurrection story to cover this up and convince the masses that their God is alive and that the Church still has the power to intercede with it. The Muslim faith doesn't need the resurrection story, so instead uses the cult of personality surrounding the prophet Mohammed to establish social control.

From this point onwards TOW still exists as and in the Universe, and the power of the divine is still extant. His angels still wander around doing the best they can, and harmonic souls still go to “heaven”, whilst disharmonic souls are ejected from creation almost mechanically. However TOW has lost most of his power for now, and cannot really intervene. He tried to guide creation through Mohammed using the angel Gabriel, but this was the most he can do. The Outsiders start to creep in more and more over the centuries and are able to manifest in many different ways. [at this point, I think it would be an excellent idea to have each GM create one Outsider and make some decisions about how that Outsider is planning to subvert or dominate this existence, plus how they've tried to enter the world up until this point].

The great old ones evil entities lurking outside of the world are each aligned with some aspect of reality.

Enki

He was first known in men's writing as Enki and so that is how we shall refer to him. To others he was bacchus or dionysus, but really he was always Enki. He is the one who know's that pleasure is the only truth and that that single moment of joy is what drives and what will always drive all of creation.

Djehuty (Dave)

Djehuty is primarily associated with knowledge, the occult, cryptotheology and arcane lore. He is also known as The Messenger and The Cryptic, and may have partly inspired or influenced the real-world tales of Odin/Mimir, Thoth, Hermes, Loki and Kutkh, and the Lovecraftian Yog-Sothoth. He is associated with ravens, and may or may not have used part of his influence to introduce them into the world. He is linked also to Hedge, Symbolic and Ancient magics. He is very big on dreams (prophetic, lovecraftian, or otherwise), and this is his primary method of influencing the world.

His primary spheres encompass the subversion of knowledge - he seeks both to corrupt the works of those occasional mystics who “got it right” and also to mislead the unwary investigator through outright fabrication. He uses much of his influence on the world subtly alter events and people's perceptions such that the truth is hidden or twisted to become a red herring or perhaps dangerous lie. This subversion is primarily aimed at weakening TOW's control and presence within the universe.

Djehuty was never a strong creator. His universe failed because he was unable to manipulate it into a solute form. He is too weak to himself assume control over TOW's universe, and so hopes to work with the rest of the Others; an example being in assisting Enki in the confusion of man's languages. However, amongst the achievements to his credit is the fracturing of Christianity and Islam into different sects through introducing conflicting scripture, dogma etc.

David

Gura

Gura's jealousy knew no bounds. Her love was so pure, so understanding. Why did Tow take her chance from her? Why had HE bonded with all life when she could not. His love, compassion and harmony was unfit for the throne that should be hers, fertility, lust, pestilence. Her thousand children would be born Without, forced to squirm amongst the cold. It just wasn't fair. But she knew how to give. And sometimes giving was more deadly than taking.

Gura is your Fertility Goddess gone wrong. She is primarily lust (Ishtar, Aphrodite, Lilith) and fertility (Bast, Gaea, Shub Freakin' Nigurath), her whole outsider shtick being perversion through the creation of monsters, beasts, disease and base instinct. Sometimes, seen through a lens or beside another outsider, she is Feminine Destruction (Kali, Sekhmet) or Science and It's Rewards (Athena). The Plagues of Egypt can be blamed on the issuing her “gifts”. She is the ultimate personification of the Feminine Monster, a terror based in the subconscious of every child woman-born. - David

Axios

Associated with order, perfection and law of the cold and soulless kind. It is associated with the gods that dispense “justice” to those who have transgressed arbitrary laws or that are anathema to mankind’s existence by virtue of what they seek to turn the world into, such as; Tartarus, Orcus, Erlik, Peklenc, Ymir etc.

It is among the most alien of Others from any humans point of view. Its portfolios of influence include the struggle for inhuman perfection and the imposition of absolute and unforgiving law upon reality. It is essentially an entity that seeks to turn the world into a grey featureless perfection devoid of free will or anything that would deviate from “the norm”. Its manipulations of the world are based around corrupting those who seek to achieve perfection in whatever task they have set themselves or the perversion of those who seek to control the world about them by the creation or understanding of laws, religious or otherwise.

Axios’s universe was a place of frigid exquisiteness; a world of perfect forms with every particle set in place within a harmony of laws and ordinances. But despite the apparent perfection the universe was flawed, for reasons beyond Axios’s comprehension, and dissolved into chaos. Axios is naturally contemptuous of the rest of the Others, despising the disorder they bring in their wake. However it hates TOW above all else for TOW’s imperfect universe proved to be superior to perfection itself.
(Basically Plato's evil master with a bit of Ayn Rand thrown in!)- Oliver

Xzoraes (Fed)

Associated with plots, plans, creativity and the magics. It does not relate to knowledge like Djehuty, for knowledge and truth, even of the Others is subjective to Xzoraes. Though Order is acknowledge, it is not the cold order of Axios, it is an imposed order, one so complicated and convoluted the threads of understanding harboured by Xzoraes could never be unraveled. Xzoraes looks to the propagation of complicated plans and plots, to whatever end, to any end, the creation and making for the sake of it - to see what would happen, not for the sake of curiosity but simply so that thing are.

But that is not to be confused with the creations of TOW, the creativity given to man, for Xzoraes' arts are flawed and corrupted when compared to TOW's. The creation and the making is endlessly destructive of all else created and exists to be as above all else - as there must be a multitude of such creations, so none can ever rise, and all seek to destroy.

Xzoraes' world was so complex, so intricate and so convoluted that it barely existed before the multitude of being simply ripped itself apart without Xzoraes' input. With TOW's world so full now, but not full enough, Xzoraes would overpower it with his mind, his plans, his making, and so make it as his.

Bear in mind that ideas for the Others can easily overlap - these are elements where humanity got confused or saw two of the Others acting in concert. In fact, their grounding in real world myths need only be incidental if the concept is solid enough.

The janitors are the Angels, the Djinn and the Elementals. The Angels govern men and their works; the Djinn and the Elementals govern the world (points of the elemental compass). Invokers specifically deal with Djinn. Hermetic mages specifically deal with Elementals. There is no theurgy as such, but everyone is likely to encounter angels at some point. They are in general harmonious.

Elementals are the least self aware and the least free (in terms of will) of the three groups. They are essentially on the borderline between mindless and sentient (and though are a long way from sapience). They exist at the cardinal points of the elemental compass and deal directly with the elements themselves.

The Djinn have more free will and are aware, though ultimately they are subservient to their elements and to the godhead of their court. Their freedoms are still somewhat limited to those associated with their domain, which are the points of the compass between the cardinal directions (that is, a pairing of elements).

The Angels have the most free will of all - as much as men - and have their own plans and agendas (though given their privileged position they for the most part choose to follow the will of TOW.

Some janitors are fallen - these are the fallen angels and the shai'tan (djinn). There are no fallen elementals, largely because they are not capable of the moral distinction. The Fallen are under the leadership of the one known as the Devil/Lucifer, who is still actively working against TOW and the people under the malign influence of the Others (see above). They are disharmonious because of their corruption from the outsiders - this means that the Angels are twisted versions with goat legs, horns etc. and the Shai'tan are the Djinn who no longer deal with elements but with shadow.