Katherine Addison
I'm so glad you asked that question!
My best and most honest answer is that I don't know. Clearly, they aren't real in the way gods in fantasy are often real, as characters who interact with the protagonist and have a direct effect on the plot. (This can be done well or badly, but either way, it's a common trope.) If Anmura and Osreian and the rest of the major pantheon are real, they must be Deist sorts of gods, clockmaker gods, who have set the universe in motion and stepped away. (This is particularly appropriate, of course, for a steampunk world, but that happy serendipity is much more about the *author* as god rather than the deities within the secondary world.) The characters don't EXPECT the gods to interfere directly in their lives; when Setheris asks the goddesses to grant him patience, he's not expecting it to happen. And even the more devout characters like Maia and Kiru are more devout in their practice and their faith, not in their attempt to see the hands of the gods in every happenstance.
The religion of the elves started, well back in their prehistory, as an animistic religion, with souls and godhead attributed to many different things. The god Akhalarna, who fell to earth in Valno, was clearly a meteorite. In northern Thu-Athamar and the badlands of Thu-Cethor, if people do not still *worship* the gods of the mountains, exactly, they are very uncomfortable about denying them. There are dozens of gods that are no longer worshipped; the pantheon that remains--Anmura, Ulis, Osreian, Orshan, Csaivo, Salezheio, and Cstheio--has survived by accreting meaning and especially by accreting metaphors. Ulis was originally the god of the moon; he became the god of the dark, of the night, of silence, of emptiness, of death.
But I don't know if Ulis exists as an entity or not.
My best and most honest answer is that I don't know. Clearly, they aren't real in the way gods in fantasy are often real, as characters who interact with the protagonist and have a direct effect on the plot. (This can be done well or badly, but either way, it's a common trope.) If Anmura and Osreian and the rest of the major pantheon are real, they must be Deist sorts of gods, clockmaker gods, who have set the universe in motion and stepped away. (This is particularly appropriate, of course, for a steampunk world, but that happy serendipity is much more about the *author* as god rather than the deities within the secondary world.) The characters don't EXPECT the gods to interfere directly in their lives; when Setheris asks the goddesses to grant him patience, he's not expecting it to happen. And even the more devout characters like Maia and Kiru are more devout in their practice and their faith, not in their attempt to see the hands of the gods in every happenstance.
The religion of the elves started, well back in their prehistory, as an animistic religion, with souls and godhead attributed to many different things. The god Akhalarna, who fell to earth in Valno, was clearly a meteorite. In northern Thu-Athamar and the badlands of Thu-Cethor, if people do not still *worship* the gods of the mountains, exactly, they are very uncomfortable about denying them. There are dozens of gods that are no longer worshipped; the pantheon that remains--Anmura, Ulis, Osreian, Orshan, Csaivo, Salezheio, and Cstheio--has survived by accreting meaning and especially by accreting metaphors. Ulis was originally the god of the moon; he became the god of the dark, of the night, of silence, of emptiness, of death.
But I don't know if Ulis exists as an entity or not.
More Answered Questions
Kate
asked
Katherine Addison:
Can you tell us anything more about Maia's aunt who ran away to become a pirate?
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