You really think they could dream us up? Oh, I know you can't lie,
Six-Eyes. I just have a hard time believing it. Sure, I'll be happy to
tell you the real story, and you can sit there and resonnate me all you
want.
I started out human -- completely human. I was chief of a nomadic tribe
in the southern steppes of Asia, in the early Bronze Age. A high chief,
with many tribes under me, and a good one, lucky, charismatic, and
long-lived. When I finally died, I stayed on as a ghost. I was
expected to. We worshipped our ancestors, and I was supposed to stick
around and inspire my successor.
It was very interesting, to find myself hanging about my tomb and the
chief's hall. There were a lot of sincere mouirners at my funeral.
That's when I first saw it, that bright energy flowing out of their
chakras -- well, not visible, but perceptible. And meant for me. So I
took it. Essence, mana, numen, vis, chi, prana, orenda, elan vital, the
Force, spell points. Whatever you call it, it was great.
And I used it. I dished out luck and I visited in dreams, once I learned
how. I learned more spells -- yeah, sorry, "Songs" -- and delivered
miracles. And in return, I got Essence, delivered in hymns and prayers
and tales and sacrifices. I was on the road to godhood.
It was a lonely road. Not many ghosts hung around, I learned. But I
hunted up the ones from my nation and soon had me a pantheon. "Soon."
Well, in a few centuries. But it didn't seem long before we were too
big for me to attend all my worship myself.
That's where the dream and myth and imagination come in. They're like
your Rites, only running the Essence from the performer, not to.
And, to get that Essence, you have to be what they're worshipping, you
have to match the image. I learned the trick of that and soon had
Essence and to spare. A vast stream of it. My underlings, the
priest-ghosts and hero-ghosts that guarded my temples, could tap into
it. Couldn't keep them out, the bastards. That's how pantheons split.
Ours did. For a while, all us founders had a sort of franchise, with
underlings tapping into Essence streams and learning our Songs. Then
our worshippers would migrate away or fight each other; the underlings
quit and take sides, and you have folk worshipping Zeus or Thor or
Jupiter or Indra instead of me. Dyeaous? Who's he?
Yeah, that's right, I'm Dyeaous. Write all the vowels. Original
king-god of the Indo-Europeans. Haven't had a worshipper in millenia.
So that's it. The gods are human, ghosts built up by ancestor worship.
The worship and myths power and shape the god, but the core is a human
soul. Well, not always. Some of us are Primals. Some are ghosts of
animals, gotten smart over time. Some are so old, they've forgotten
what they were in the beginning. Some are really expatriate
celestials. Some we made. Yeah, made. At the top of my form, I could
sing the Ethereal Song of Life as well as your Archangel, Six-Eyes.
Uriel? No comment. I'm just glad I was under his radar. One advantage
of being a forgotten god.
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