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Your Character's Cosmology

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McJigg
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Your Character's Cosmology

Some fun discussions have taken place recently about the cosmology to people's characters. City of Titans has taken an 'open' stance where it's not set in stone so everyone is free to work their own into the game and overlap.

If you don't know the term, it's literal meaning has to do with studying the large scale existence of the universe and it's origins, which in the context of City of Titans would include gods, demons, magic, etc. The Roman pantheon can exist along side the Viking gods, Aboriginal poeple's spirits and modern interpretation hauntings. Everything is game is exist at once with the stance the game has taken.

So, if your character is wrapped up in any such cosmology, what is it?

For McJigg, he's wrapped up with some 'old ones', beings from before material existence. While god like, none of them are 'a god of a thing', or have names, or followers. Certainly none of them ever cared or even knew about Earth, a single unnoticeable planet with pre-space faring life. That is, until the mid 1960's when one was passing by an noticed our satellites. Impressed we were aiming for the moon so early in our technological development, it decided to stay and watch. In those few years it watched us, it came to like our little planet and it's variety of life. Overfilled with joy when we achieved landing on the moon, it decided to stay a bit longer. A pacifist at heart, it watched us struggle with our war like nature. As often as we waged war, we also tried to make peace, and over time, this peaceful nature and intent was spreading more across the planet much to it's delight.

However, in the early 1990's, another such being would find our planet. It's interest in us however, was based on the interest's of the first. This one was a sadist, and it saw opportunity. Not only were humans easy to coax into violence, this violence would hurt those striving for peace, and thus hurt the pacifist cheering on our people. The pacifist would plead with the sadist to leave us alone, try to negotiate, to mentor. The sadist played along for a while but it was just a ploy to bring more pain to the pacifist, stringing it along as if there was actually hope.

The sadist would never stop, and the pacifist would learn a lesson from the humans he had been watching, sometimes you need more than words. Adopting the moniker "The Man of the Moon" (Later, The Man on the Moon) , the pacifist began to present himself to certain humans and built a network to undue the sadist's work. The sadist, in return decided to see how far her could push the Man of the Moon, adapting a form that would only be known as "The Man in the Orange Hat". If the Man on the Moon was to build little network of heroes, then the Man in the Orange Hat was going to give them a villain.

McJigg is going to be one such person working for the Man on the Moon. Originally from Canada (because patriotism), he will move to Titan City when the Moon Disciple from there goes missing. Trained and given power by a being from before material existence, the magic he wields is going to be beyond ancient. While other magic uses energy and mana, he will manipulate what comprises energy and mana. This will have strengths and draw backs, similar to being able to understand all spoken language but not it's writing or being able to understand and play all instruments but not read music. He can understand any magic he can see active, which makes him great when things are happening. However, he can't read traces or remnants from a spell cast in the past, and he doesn't understand any arcane formulae in scrolls or books. The pacifist nature of the Man on the Moon is also seen in the powers McJigg and the other disciples were given (Power Control/ Vampiric Emanation), which disables targets without causing much, if any, physical harm. The teachings of the Man of the Moon are pretty simple, "Don't fight hate with hate" and "Never forget to laugh" being the prime tenants. It's not about being any sort of jokester, more or less it's about remaining 'upbeat' no matter the circumstance as many beings (such as demons or the Man in the Orange Hat) feed off negative reactions.

That's what I'll be working with anyway, so I ask again. What's your character working with?

Foradain
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For many of my characters,

For many of my characters, their background rests on the assumption that one or another aspect of human mythology has at least some truth in it. Goldenrod gets her power from certain Greek godesses who are aspects of older godesses: Maiden, Mother, Warrior, and Crone. Crux is the offspring of two characters from The Völundarkviða. Rhythiel is a demon, a fallen angel in theory, trying to redeem herself by undoing as much evil as she can.

Several of my characters believe that the WWII resistance heroine Fraulein Dämmerung (Miss Twilight) was in fact an avatar of the Norse goddess Freya, summoned by ill intended and poorly prepared magicians allied to the Third Reich, who turned against her summoners to protect the people of their sacrifice; a few have what they consider to be very convincing evidence. Another aspect of this background is the idea that since WWII, some of the people who believed this story established a formal religion, akin to the Wodenists (some of whom may have been involved with those magicians) but with much less intolerance.

A few of my characters come from (or were trained by people from) other realms, mostly resembling some fae tradition or another. One came from a far distant interstellar society, and really dislikes all this magic that seems to be used on Earth.

Foradain, Mage of Phoenix Rising.
[url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/foradains-character-conclave]Foradain's Character Conclave[/url]
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Brand X
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I go with the idea that all

I go with the idea that all the non christian god/angels are just seen as dieties/gods, but there's the one god. Who's never seen of course.

My main is connected to a couple mythological sources (one more than the other) with the connection being inert until one doctor/scientist unlocked it for part of the project.

I figure this way allows ways to keep all sorts of religious/mythologies open.

Halae
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I've got two characters that

I've got two characters that work on a cosmology inclined basis that I'm planning at the moment - all the others are "powers just happen", "Science is crazy", and "Magic is a thing"

The two that actually matter for this, though? The first is an eldjötnar, AKA a Norse Fire Giant, native to Muspelheim, the realm of fire. Like most Americans, though, she's never actually been to the place of her heritage, having been born in Titan City and grown up there. She looks mostly human - though a woman who stands 6'4" is damn unusual - and instead gets her power like all the eldjötnar do; relying on the endless power of Muspelheim to enhance her actions with elemental fire. It's worth noting that "the plane of fire" is hardly a unique concept to Norse mythology, so she's directly compatible with many different cosmologies; Muspelheim might just be a region there, or an alternate name for the place.

The other character is similarly cosmology-agnostic, as she relies on a conceit that almost every cosmology there ever was has - the personification of Death. She bears a mantle of power as one of Death's Chosen - most importantly as a psychopomp (someone who guides lingering spirits to the hereafter), but also as a champion against brutal or untimely deaths. Her regalia as a chosen is a great black suit of armor and a long two-handed sword. Still deciding whether she'll have a cape or not, but her point is to champion the cause of gentle deaths, making her a perfect fit for a hero, as she won't kill if she can avoid it, and is willing to protect people from sudden deaths.

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

Fireheart
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Hmm, many/most of my

Hmm, many/most of my characters don't really have a necessary cosmology, however, a few of my favorites Do. Black Valkyrie is a 'Volva', meaning she practices 'Norse Magic', the Seidr and rune-casting. Astarte Tsovinaar is an ancient sorceress and priestess of 'The Goddess' in her manifold aspects. Kitten Dreams has Cat as her totemic spirit-guide and resides in 'Dreamspace' when she's not 'haunting' the material plane. Kitsuneko also works as 'a sorceress', as she uses a few aspects of oriental spiritualism and animism.

Be Well!
Fireheart