Ether and the Gods

 Hello there!

I was thinking about what would I write next, and it ended up being a post about either the magic system or the story of the world so far, as both of those are kinda required for the rest of the stuff to make sense.

I ended up deciding on the magic system as it is also kinda required to understand Anduria's history. 

So, let's start!

Ether

All the magic in Anduria derives in a way or another from Ether. Ether is the life force of the universe, it's what powers up the wind and waves, allows for plants to grow and all living things to live.

Also, and this is very important, Ether attracts Ether. Regardless of how you read this sentence, it will be true. 

The basics

Every living being is born with a certain amount of Ether inside of them, and for the most part, that's it. As they grow old or get injured the Ether inside of them will leave the bodies and return to nature and when it eventually runs out,  this will cause that being to die.

In large enough quantities Ether might start to gain some degree of consciousness and by itself start absorbing more and more Ether, growing in quantity, power, and size. If those grow enough eventually people will be able to create a link to those huge concentrations of Ether.  This is how Gods are born in Anduria.  

Ether is raw universal power, creator of everything. But everything that is made by or uses Ether functions as a filter taming and attuning this universal force, at least for a while. 

For example, if something catches fire and is reduced to ash the ether that is released will be atoned to fire, at least for a bit until it returns to normal. 

The Gods

There are two types of Gods in Anduria, the ones that were born before the first age and the new ones that started being born around the middle term of the second age.

First the old Gods. They were born from pure Ether at the beginning of time. Back then, everything was Ether and huge concentrations started to gain consciousness. As that consciousness grows those entities developed physical bodies to travel the big void that existed.  

An untold number of creatures were born in this process, but they could only travel the space and exist, no more intelligent than a toddler. But from among those elemental creatures, nine stood out. Those nine were the most powerful among all of their "siblings" and manage to grow far behind the other, in both power and intelligence.  

Those nine would be known as the 9 draconian kings (yes, they took the form of a dragon for no other reason than me liking dragons) and they were the ones that actually created the worlds and stars, 7 parallel realities to be precise (I will get in more detail regarding this at a letter post but basically, each one created one world for their creations to live on, except for Anduria itself that was created by 2 of them and one of the nine didn't create a world of his own) 

Those are the old Gods, being born at the beginning of time and they created everything. They are now gone.

The new Gods work in a slightly different way. They are born out of devotions instead of being born out of raw Ether. Every single one is something that people devoted themselves to,  giving a small part of their own Ether each time they pray to what they believe in. 

If it is just one or a small group of people this Ether would just dissipate into the universe and return to the natural cycle, but if you have enough people believing and sharing a small portion of themselves, those small parts can converge, creating a point of power that if feed could gain some degree of consciousness, just like the elementals at the beginning of time. 

This is a slow process, and for the most part, people would stop believing and praying to those entities before they could grow into an actual God, resulting in its Ether dissipating and it dying. But the ones who got enough Ether would grow and gain consciousness, similar to the elementals, but different in a very important aspect. While the Elementals were raw manifestations of power, those new Gods were dedicated power, filtered across their believers. This is why the new gods have something associated with them, like the God of Justice or the God of War. They are made of Ether attuned to those concepts, which allows for people, in turn, more easily attune to them and create a stronger link.

 These new Gods will never be complete beings as they are made from one concept or belief but some will get very close to it. Some could even survive for some time if those who pray to them would just disappear, but could not continue to exist forever as eventually they would lose their purpose and return to being just Ether, and without this purpose, they don't have enough power to hold to a conscious. 

One last difference is in the connection between the believers and the Gods. To the Old ones belief is not required, nor any type of connection. They created the other species and are their own beings but for the new Gods, those connections are required for them to continue to exist. But this connection goes both ways. 

People that devote themselves to the concept of their gods will be able to tap into their power and channel it.

That's it for now. I will make a follow-up asap going through how people can actually use Ether for themselves 

Love you all! <3