"Hell" is anything sufficiently removed from the acquaintance of god that it looks like a degenerate satire.
Hell is therefore relative according to your position.
"Heaven" as a definitive end point is nothing like what anyone expects. Multiple heavens therefore exist and represent idealised versions of the sphere from which it is viewed. There may be clouds and naked babies, or it might just be less awful.
Definitive, terminal heaven is inconceivable oneness. Impractical though factual.
When planning a campaign be a seer. From tea leaves you see the future: broaden that. Take the interplay of simple things and apply it to larger scales higher up the ladder. The Demon Sea is the Mariana Trench with bigger fish and plans.
Everything is true, even when you're making it up. If you can't fit everything together now that just means hyper-god works in mysterious ways.
Hyper-god does not work. Hyper-god is not the totality of existence. The spheres are a series of reflections of hyper-god of increasing obscurity. He does not move the spheres, the spheres move in response to him.
Spherical reflections are distorting.
Visiting an aeon
Reflections are different but not independent.
Every campaign as a 70s sci-fi novel. The world is a wall; the world is a tree; owls can't die and are sent here to observe us by some unknown party; golden barges are like boats; they're just spaceships; they're, like, a state of mind man; everyone except the players sees an idealised world while the players see filth and muck (who's right?).
Every campaign as a mystery. Have a complicated network of logic between strange people and things and then introduce the players without any context. They have to learn.
Every campaign as a farce of manners. Social traps: does the snake-crab-thing want us to drink the tea or make the tea? Choose wrong and it might snip off your head a lay eggs in your belly. Do it right and it might let you ride on its shell to the nearest barge repairman.
It's all true, even the parts that directly contradict the other parts.
ReplyDeleteI do think your last description of Heaven sounds right.
I once heard this definition...
ReplyDeleteThe metaphor is stroking a cat. Imagine that the cat is facing you. As you stroke her from head to tail, she likes it. She purrs. That's heaven.
But then the cat turns away from you. The direction of your stroke, however, does not change. To the cat, you are now stroking her the wrong way. She doesn't like it. That's hell.
God's love is universal and never changing. The change is our direction toward or away from God. So we are either experiencing heaven or hell depending on our relative direction.
love this
ReplyDelete