The Order of the Stick

There may be another option. If the Dark One doesn't have enough "food" to survive the drought between the end of one world and creation of a new one, perhaps another god or gods could share some of theirs with him, thereby sustaining him through the interim, and giving him a reason to trust them.

Of course, that depends on whether it's even possible for gods to do that in the first place.

Edited by Wryte on Oct 17th 2018 at 6:05:16 AM

If that were possible, we'd be right back to, "Why aren't there hundreds or more arisen gods from previous worlds?" The fact that ascended gods don't usually outlast their world (but can, rarely) finally explains why, after millions of worlds, there are still only a couple dozen gods in each pantheon at most. Somehow, I don't see the big established gods like Thor and Odin not helping their newer fellows over the hump, if they were capable of it.

I'm a little surprised now that gods like Heimdall and Sunna are willing to damn some of their fellows to whatever "death" means for gods, instead of taking Loki's side and waiting until the last possible moment. For mortals, from the gods' perspective, they're just getting to their eternal reward a bit early, but for fellow gods? Unless you really think a little demigod like Dvalin, who can't even make a decision without a committee discussion, has enough worship to survive to the next world, a Yes vote condemns him to failure.

If you believe Shojo, in at least one instance it was centuries. But then, that's also the part of the story that skipped over the millions of iterations between the first world and this one, so who knows?

If it was possible, I'm sure Thor would have mentioned it during his "Why the Dark One would almost certainly perish between worlds" speech.

Although, I'd still say a bigger factor in there not being a ton of ascended mortal gods would simply be the fact that most worlds probably didn't last long enough to produce any.

Thor says the gods through their countless tries have gotten up to a few thousand years for each, but that implies the vast majority lasted for far less time. I don't imagine that the second world that only lasted for four years, for example, produced any.

Edited by LSBK on Oct 17th 2018 at 9:45:44 AM

The most obvious reason I can think of for why they couldn't share "food" with the Dark One is incompatible quiddities. Yellow can't feed red or purple or vice versa. It's almost like blood types.

That would make sense, but the Dark One is apparently the first example of an entirely new quiddity popping up, which means all the other gods that have come and gone were members of the three existing pantheons.

The way Thor phrases makes me think that most of those that have come have died, but at least a few have managed to survive past their original world.

I mean, I'm sure the pro-world destroying opinion that now that they know Violet quiddity is possible, they can attempt to set up the next world in a way that encourages it. Maybe it'll take multiple tries to get that to work properly, but it's not like they're in a time crunch.

I wonder what gods are ascended mortals from a previous world. Thor makes it sound like it happened before but I can't think of any candidates except for the demigods.

Too bad it seems like gods of a different quiddity are the direct result of someone who really hates the other gods and wants nothing to do with them ascending. So they'd probably just end up facing the exact same issues with the new god that they are currently facing with the Dark One. If anything, the new god might be even more pissed if they find out that the circumstances of their ascension were the machinations of the gods.

Edited by M84 on Oct 18th 2018 at 7:41:00 PM

I wonder if Hel's lack of Worship is likely to kill her during the next transition. That would be a cruelly appropriate fate for her (but also continues the raise the question of what Loki was thinking with his bet.)

I'm also curious which of the four sorts of reverence the Dark One needs the most. It seems like Belief and maybe Souls are the big ones. (It's also probably irrelevant; if the Dark One needs to build up 200 years of any of the four, then it's not a short term solution.)

Probably not. Hel gets a f*ckton of Souls and Dedication if they nuke the world. Also, unlike the Dark One, she is part of a known pantheon so she gets Belief. It's just Worship that she's missing.

Since she pointed it out, the gods seem to be in agreement that the Dedication/Souls she gets upon this world's destruction would not only allow her to survive the transition but empower her to be the new Top God of the pantheon. Nothing in this new information gives us any reason to believe that all of the gods, who each know the material in question better than we do, are wrong about that.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Oct 18th 2018 at 8:08:12 AM

So Hel has been filling up on empty calorie Dedication while being deprived of nutritious Worship. No wonder she's unstable — she's had to go through this entire cycle with almost no mortals actually showing appreciation for her.

Speaking of Hel, doesn't this mean that her bet with Loki no longer makes sense? If the world is going to be inevitably taken apart and rebuilt then of course she would get all the dishonored dead at the end.

That might have been the case before the gates, but now that something like that has been proven to be possible, and there are people trying to fix them, I could see her wanting to act on this.

Speaking of which, I wonder how the Order of the Scribble or whoever convinced the gods to let them handle the rifts in the first place. It's mentioned during the Godsmoot that when the rifts first appeared they voted to spare the world and allow the mortals a chance to try and fix things.

Evidently, those circumstances were pretty special too.

Well, now she has to win because if the current situation keeps going then she'll eventually starve to death. Thanks dad. But I meant in terms of the deal as originally proposed when the gates and the fourth quiddity didn't exist yet. Back then the world seemed inevitably doomed to destruction, after which she'd get every single dwarf out there.

I wouldn't be surprised if the two are connected, and Loki tried extra hard or something to keep this world going somehow.

Even in the event he failed, Thor is apparently the one who would lose the most.

Edited by LSBK on Oct 18th 2018 at 11:18:30 AM

Maybe Loki is experimenting on ways to murder Baldr

This does bring up the question of how many the ascended gods know about this, and their respective chances of surviving.

We don't really know anything about the elven gods situation, but someone like Davlin is probably guaranteed to not be able to survive the cool down period. And who knows about any others there might be.

Edited by LSBK on Oct 18th 2018 at 12:36:04 PM

Malack said that neutrality suits gods of death best, but Hel seems pretty evil. I wonder if thousands of years of mortals thinking of her as unworthy of worship except by the undead have made her that way.

That was just Malack's personal musing, with might also have been to mislead Durkon about what his actual alignment is.

Nergal himself is most likely evil.

I have to say, given more context, I actually feel a little bad for Hel. Her father not only screwed her over, she could in theory die because of what he's doing now.

That doesn't seem likely, actually. The whole idea is she'll get all of dwarf-kind's souls all at once to glut on. Her own expectation, which is likely more informed than the Dark One's, is that'll make her top god of her Pantheon.

It doesn't really sound like this is potentially lethal for her- more like metaphorical malnourishment has caused some brain problems for her. She might be in a bad place if this world continues indefinitely instead of a the few thousand years both her and Loki almost certainly expected it to last when they made the bet, but I feel like there'd be some possibility of re-negotiation in that case.

Because Hel sure as hell won't just concede the bet.

Still, even if she won't die this deal has apparently negatively affected her health.

I'm curious how that'll be addressed actually, because I don't see the story keeping the dwarves with their raw deal at the end of the story, which will probably actually end up benefiting Hel in some way.

Being able to have living clerics will probably do wonders for her. Though it's kind of weird to hope for that, seeing how evil she is.

Edited by LSBK on Apr 17th 2021 at 12:51:40 PM