Into the Weird Blue Yonder: Again with the Dark Gods?
It's been a little while since I've done an Into the Weird Blue Yonder essay post. I have lost a lot of steam on this project but I have still been thinking about it. I don't exactly know what to do with these essays. I don't really think there will be room for them in the final work but I would really like to put in the What is Weird? essay somewhere as it is pretty central to the work.
So what is today's subject? Two podcasts are pretty inspirational to this work though I will not name them so as to spoil nobody. Safe to say that both of these podcasts had a fairly similar twist: it was dark gods all along!
So what?
When you simply expose the grand narrative of the story to be about a conflict between different alien and immortal powers and their mortal and monstrous followers you reach the rock bottom answer to pretty much all the mysteries of your setting.
What can you actually say about gods? The more alien and inhuman the fewer stories can actually be applied to them and the layers of mystery that could have been get stopped dead. Every new story becomes easily categorized, phenomena of the world which once were mysterious become easily sorted through the interpretive tool of "Dark Gods."
Mystery is the fuel of Weird Fiction. It derives its potency through being difficult to clearly sort out. It's not just its horror elements being downplayed, it is the mystery for the reader to endlessly theorize about leading up to a climactic conclusion where somethings are revealed and yet still the mystery endures, latching on to the minds of the readers and living on in their speculative imaginings. And then readers of the Mythos create their explanatory fanfictions and publish them, diluting the mystery by claiming authority to truly add to the Mythos, though their own efforts are utterly destructive to it.
I have fairly strong opinions regarding how people treat the Lovecraft Mythos if you can't tell.
Great works of literature do the same thing: they leave the meaning difficult to discern, easily open to multiple interpretations. Of course, the answer must exist in one shape or another. If all the work does in make vague gestures to a meaning which may or may not exist without anything substantial to dig one's teeth into in the process of interpretation, then the reader has been flailing at nothing. They have been blindfolded and the moment they can see, they find that there was never a pinata.
So what do you do with dark gods?
#1 Don't do Dark Gods
If you have seen the post where I did a table of Weird Powers, you will notice that only a few of them are gods at all. A fair number are things that could very likely be seen as gods but turn out to be something else. It can be a pretty basic but good twist to lead your players to think they are dealing with some kind of god and reveal that it is a spaceship or a vampire or something. See gods, especially eldritch gods beyond human comprehension, are difficult to really have mysteries about. However, if your god turns out to be an alien, the mysteries write themselves. Where do they come from? What do they want? Why are they here? What machinations are at work amongst the cosmos? Simply framing at least some of your Weird Powers as being something other than Dark Gods, improves the mystery of those that are Dark Gods because the PCs will dig to see if that's what they truly are.
#2 What is a God?
This is an interesting question to toy around with if you have some Dark Gods. Start applying to them the questions you might apply to aliens. Where did they come from? What do they want? Ect. A god could be the manifestation of the collective suffering caused in so many hideous wars, a memetic parasite given form and power through those it leeches off of, a wizard's experiment gone wrong, the creation of a very sick man bending human nature into something hideous and alien. Pick apart and undermine the usual assumptions about eldritch deities.
#3 Who serves them?
This may not seem like the most interesting thing, but it is once again a way to reintroduce a human element to something very inhuman. What factions and secret organizations are loyal to which gods? Is it clear or do they serve another power in secret? What elements of mundane civilization are actually influenced by a Weird Power? What good guys turn out to be not so good?
#4 How do you kill them?
Discovering a weakness of a god is a fascinating idea. On one hand, I dislike the notion because it seems to reduce Weirdness (In terms of the Weird Fiction genre being a critique of an anthropocentric worldview) but it is also a very interesting rabbit hole for players who might have come to really hate these Powers. Simply opening up the question of "Is it possible to harm this thing?" starts to unwind a different kind of mystery: a strategic one. Think of the possible crazy plans and shenanigans PCs might get up to in the ultimate quest to shank a deity. In this sense, the more alien and inhuman your Dark Gods are, the more challenging it is to find a way to truly hurt them. Run correctly, such a mystery could lead to divine Murderhoboery of unseen proportions!
Conclusion
Mystery is a narrative of discovery. Narratives or stories are fundamentally human. We require humanity to tell stories even the stories that underly OSR games such as "Where gold? Get gold." When we reach too far into the alien and inhuman, we can very easily get to the point where we start to lose the fundamental substance of a story. The pitfall that can also occur is that we say: the world is secretly ruled by dark gods and everyone is either ignorant or serving them or both, and despair sets in. A story trying to arrive at such a nihilistic conclusion would end there, end with the absolute realization of complete despair before an uncaring universe. Presumably, your games must go on past this point where players have to continue existing in a world where they understand that the Weird Powers are everything.
So the question I would ask is: what's the way out? How do we win against Dark Gods? Is there any victory?
Your final conclusion might be: you should have stayed ignorant. There is no way out.
Another conclusion might be: there is a chance, even a small chance, that humanity can triumph over the alien. That there is some way to win over Dark Gods. What hope frees us? Is it the hope of joining with them: becoming dark gods ourselves in a Bloodbourne style ending? Is it all we can do to survive and return to live normal lives, albeit with scars and nightmares?
A possible twist is this: there is real hope. True rebirth is possible. Humanity still has ways to fight against the darkness. There is something good in this universe and it will save us.
Or... at the end of all things will there just be the thin piping and infernal drums as idiot Elder Gods trample over our world by accident, leaving humanity with nothing: not even a scream nor whimper to let out into the void, just the lumbering dance of dark gods?
So what is today's subject? Two podcasts are pretty inspirational to this work though I will not name them so as to spoil nobody. Safe to say that both of these podcasts had a fairly similar twist: it was dark gods all along!
So what?
When you simply expose the grand narrative of the story to be about a conflict between different alien and immortal powers and their mortal and monstrous followers you reach the rock bottom answer to pretty much all the mysteries of your setting.
What can you actually say about gods? The more alien and inhuman the fewer stories can actually be applied to them and the layers of mystery that could have been get stopped dead. Every new story becomes easily categorized, phenomena of the world which once were mysterious become easily sorted through the interpretive tool of "Dark Gods."
Mystery is the fuel of Weird Fiction. It derives its potency through being difficult to clearly sort out. It's not just its horror elements being downplayed, it is the mystery for the reader to endlessly theorize about leading up to a climactic conclusion where somethings are revealed and yet still the mystery endures, latching on to the minds of the readers and living on in their speculative imaginings. And then readers of the Mythos create their explanatory fanfictions and publish them, diluting the mystery by claiming authority to truly add to the Mythos, though their own efforts are utterly destructive to it.
I have fairly strong opinions regarding how people treat the Lovecraft Mythos if you can't tell.
Great works of literature do the same thing: they leave the meaning difficult to discern, easily open to multiple interpretations. Of course, the answer must exist in one shape or another. If all the work does in make vague gestures to a meaning which may or may not exist without anything substantial to dig one's teeth into in the process of interpretation, then the reader has been flailing at nothing. They have been blindfolded and the moment they can see, they find that there was never a pinata.
So what do you do with dark gods?
Album art for Eradication of Nescience by LVTHN
If you have seen the post where I did a table of Weird Powers, you will notice that only a few of them are gods at all. A fair number are things that could very likely be seen as gods but turn out to be something else. It can be a pretty basic but good twist to lead your players to think they are dealing with some kind of god and reveal that it is a spaceship or a vampire or something. See gods, especially eldritch gods beyond human comprehension, are difficult to really have mysteries about. However, if your god turns out to be an alien, the mysteries write themselves. Where do they come from? What do they want? Why are they here? What machinations are at work amongst the cosmos? Simply framing at least some of your Weird Powers as being something other than Dark Gods, improves the mystery of those that are Dark Gods because the PCs will dig to see if that's what they truly are.
#2 What is a God?
This is an interesting question to toy around with if you have some Dark Gods. Start applying to them the questions you might apply to aliens. Where did they come from? What do they want? Ect. A god could be the manifestation of the collective suffering caused in so many hideous wars, a memetic parasite given form and power through those it leeches off of, a wizard's experiment gone wrong, the creation of a very sick man bending human nature into something hideous and alien. Pick apart and undermine the usual assumptions about eldritch deities.
#3 Who serves them?
This may not seem like the most interesting thing, but it is once again a way to reintroduce a human element to something very inhuman. What factions and secret organizations are loyal to which gods? Is it clear or do they serve another power in secret? What elements of mundane civilization are actually influenced by a Weird Power? What good guys turn out to be not so good?
#4 How do you kill them?
Discovering a weakness of a god is a fascinating idea. On one hand, I dislike the notion because it seems to reduce Weirdness (In terms of the Weird Fiction genre being a critique of an anthropocentric worldview) but it is also a very interesting rabbit hole for players who might have come to really hate these Powers. Simply opening up the question of "Is it possible to harm this thing?" starts to unwind a different kind of mystery: a strategic one. Think of the possible crazy plans and shenanigans PCs might get up to in the ultimate quest to shank a deity. In this sense, the more alien and inhuman your Dark Gods are, the more challenging it is to find a way to truly hurt them. Run correctly, such a mystery could lead to divine Murderhoboery of unseen proportions!
Conclusion
Mystery is a narrative of discovery. Narratives or stories are fundamentally human. We require humanity to tell stories even the stories that underly OSR games such as "Where gold? Get gold." When we reach too far into the alien and inhuman, we can very easily get to the point where we start to lose the fundamental substance of a story. The pitfall that can also occur is that we say: the world is secretly ruled by dark gods and everyone is either ignorant or serving them or both, and despair sets in. A story trying to arrive at such a nihilistic conclusion would end there, end with the absolute realization of complete despair before an uncaring universe. Presumably, your games must go on past this point where players have to continue existing in a world where they understand that the Weird Powers are everything.
So the question I would ask is: what's the way out? How do we win against Dark Gods? Is there any victory?
Your final conclusion might be: you should have stayed ignorant. There is no way out.
Another conclusion might be: there is a chance, even a small chance, that humanity can triumph over the alien. That there is some way to win over Dark Gods. What hope frees us? Is it the hope of joining with them: becoming dark gods ourselves in a Bloodbourne style ending? Is it all we can do to survive and return to live normal lives, albeit with scars and nightmares?
A possible twist is this: there is real hope. True rebirth is possible. Humanity still has ways to fight against the darkness. There is something good in this universe and it will save us.
Or... at the end of all things will there just be the thin piping and infernal drums as idiot Elder Gods trample over our world by accident, leaving humanity with nothing: not even a scream nor whimper to let out into the void, just the lumbering dance of dark gods?
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