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    Godliness: How does it work?

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    Post by Wintercatalyst Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:45 am

    So in dark souls you have the Lords, who are classed as gods, but you also have Deities like Velka who we don't actually know origin of.

    So did Velka, Fina and other gods come to power much like Gwyn or Nito did? Or did they exist in a time before Gwyn? If so who is the ruler of them if not Gwyn?
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    Post by oubliettesavant Tue Sep 10, 2013 7:42 pm

    I'm going to venture that Deities work the way they did in classic mythology. They had spheres of influence that their devotees would beseech them to influence. Velka, for instance, is sin and punishment. Gwynevere is fertility.

    That being said, I think the game is using the term somewhat ambiguously. Lord Gwyn is technically the deity of Sunlight.

    To answer your question, it is known that certain deities are somewhat mysterious in their origin, e.g. Velka and Fina. In parallel to classic mythology, it is not infrequent to have multiple "creation" events. For instance in Greek mythology, the world Gaia started with the Titans Kronos and company. One day Kronos was decieved and thus Zeus live and started a new "golden age" of the gods.

    Alls I'm saying is I wouldn't get to caught up trying to define these vagueries. The mystery of Fina and Velka is, however, undoubtedly tantalizing.
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    Post by Serious_Much Tue Sep 10, 2013 8:14 pm

    To me God's in dark souls are seemingly different to gods in our own reality. You can be a god by acquiring power, or by inheriting a bloodline but no actual godlike powers such as gwyndolin. Or you can be similar to gods in our reality in the way their influence on the world is through aspects of our reality such as the goddess of sin and the Flame god flann.

    It's a lot more ranging to me. and some like gwyn acquire their god like power by getting souls, or some seemingly just are deity such as velka and fina.

    There are a lot of things in my opinion that are different between our world and lordran- the fact that souls can be a physical thing, and can also be absorbed for power in lordran is vastly different from our own reality, as fire an magic can also be created by ourselves. It's safe to say the terminology we use in our world can have totally different meanings in lordran, hence why God's seem to be a bit different in lordran to our ideas of gods in the numerous faiths of the world.
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    Post by Wilkinson3424 Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:00 pm

    god: A superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.


    "having power over nature or human fortunes"

    Gwyn and his buddies all had the souls of lords, which is power over nature.

    Thus, he is a god.
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    Post by SirArchmage Tue Sep 10, 2013 10:18 pm

    Tolvo probably knows more about me in this regard, but........

    Gods are strange. Gods usually govern over some aspect about the world(Gwyn, sunlight. Gwyndolin, moon. Velka, sin.) and have power much stronger then mere mortals. Gwyn is long gone and so the sun is as well. As with the fact that his power at full strength is seemingly endless, with him having a massive following with many worshipers, we can safely say he has achieved god-status. So there is him and his whole god race. Where Fina and Velka come from is hard to say. It is the same as where did Artorias, Ciaran or the Giants come from? Where did a lot of things come from? Of all the knowledge we have about Dark Souls, exact origins are the hardest to figure out. So it is hard to say how Velka and Fina acquired their powers, unless they themselves found souls within the flame that were of less power then the Lord Souls that were shared among Gwyn, Nito, the Witches, the Pygmy, the Four Kings and Seath.

    So, like is some mythology, Gods seem to mainly just be beings of extreme power that are also worshiped and usual proclaim themselves as "God of such and such"(which is the usual definition of them. In theory, many things could become a god, I believe).


    Sorry, went off tangent a bit. But basically I am not sure they had a ruler, if they even were of any significance before Gwyn came to power.

    Inb4 someone says that Velka is the true god.
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    Post by alchemydesign Wed Sep 11, 2013 1:00 am

    Actually there are only FOUR Lord Souls. Gwyn's, Nito's, Witch of Izalith, and the Dark Soul. So all the "gods" in Dark Souls are descendent from that power and most likely they draw divine sustenance from human worshipers who offer up prayer and devotion. This isn't so far out of the way as illustrated by the Gaping Dragon in the depths who was physically altered by his extreme hunger/greed. Thus with enough force of will and belief from humans, the gods can actually sustain power.

    As far as Fina and Velka go, I think it can be a safe bet that we will be learning a bit more about them, or at least Velka, in DkS II. I base this on the trailers, as well as one of the shields chosen by FromSoft was a Velka-themed one; Great Shield of the Raven Goddess. If FromSoft and the new directors keep true to the formula then the item description should be somewhat revealing. happy
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    Post by Acarnatia Wed Sep 11, 2013 10:19 am

    I (myself) think that the gods are actually just beings who came across extremely powerful souls and/or magic and became patrons/matrons of certain arts and ideas. They pose as supernatural entities who have some power 'over' their supposed spheres of influence, when they actually are more of giant sorcerer-kings than the actual creators and masters over these ideas and crafts.

    The Lords are the four beings who found the unique-ish, much more powerful Lord's Souls. Nito and the Witch of Izalith found a soul of about equal power to each other, like a larger, hotter fire, than almost any other soul. At the time, the soul that Gwyn found was the biggest, hottest soul in existence; and the furtive pygmy found the dark soul, that, rather than being bigger and hotter, was different in nature, like a wellspring of darkness rather than fire. These souls didn't really change the nature of what these beings were much, (except for the Dark Soul) they merely gave them a greater resevoir of energy and brought about a distinction between life and death. Thus, Nito, the Witch and Gwyn's race didn't change; they just went the equivilent of Super Saiyan for their respective race. Nito was the strongest skeleton; the Witch of Izalith was the strongest of her family; and Gwyn was the strongest (I assume) god.
    Thus, being a Lord overlaps with being a god for Gwyn. He's both, just as the Dark Lord is both a Lord and a human.

    I think this goes into what Kaathe means when he says that the Gods 'shepherded the humans'; they aren't actually gods, only an extrremely powerful family of sorcerers, giants and such that claim to be divine entities so the humans will worship and follow them, thus continuing the reign of Fire. (the 'gods) It's politics, not religion.
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    Post by alchemydesign Wed Sep 11, 2013 4:14 pm

    Lordran = Demon's Souls broken land of Giants? On the down-low? winking
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    Post by Acarnatia Wed Sep 11, 2013 7:42 pm

    The games have been explicitly stated to not exist in the same universe; that is, Dark Souls is not technically a sequal because it does not take place in the same world.
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    Post by alchemydesign Thu Sep 12, 2013 5:56 pm

    I know that happy

    Edit: but who says that the thought isn't really the intention.
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    Post by Acarnatia Fri Sep 13, 2013 10:28 am

    The creators did. -_-
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    Post by Soul of Stray Demon Fri Sep 13, 2013 4:02 pm

    Acarnatia wrote:The creators did. -_-
    They can't legally say it's connected......... but it could be... and they just say it isn't.
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    Post by Serious_Much Fri Sep 13, 2013 5:09 pm

    Guys........

    Off Topic 
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    Post by alchemydesign Fri Sep 13, 2013 5:26 pm

    Lol, sorry serious, but that's what I was getting at, the legality issues with confirming it. But I stand by previous post, and agree with Acarnatia to a certain extent on most of it. And I'm about 85% positive that we'll learn a LOT more about Velka (maybe not Fina so much) in DkS II.
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    Post by Aigaios Fri Sep 13, 2013 6:16 pm

    oubliettesavant wrote:To answer your question, it is known that certain deities are somewhat mysterious in their origin, e.g. Velka and Fina. In parallel to classic mythology, it is not infrequent to have multiple "creation" events. For instance in Greek mythology, the world Gaia started with the Titans Kronos and company. One day Kronos was decieved and thus Zeus live and started a new "golden age" of the gods.
    In Greek mythology the world did not start with Gaia, Kronos and the other titans, Ouranos(Sky) and Gaia(Earth) were the first two primeval Gods. Including Kronos there were twelve males and six females that were fathered by Ouranos and Gaia.

    While still in rule Ouranos imprisoned six giant brothers of the Titanes, the Kyklopes and the Hekatonkheires in the Earth which caused Gaia immense pain she then encouraged her Titan sons to rebel against Ouranos. After being defeated Ouranos prophesied the fall of the Titanes.

    As for the game I think that anything with a large amount of power can be  recognised as a God, I dont think there are any true Gods in Dark Souls. In the case of the lord soul owners its not even power, only two of the lord soul owners are seen as Gods, Nito who dosent really seem to care and Gwyn that wants to be worshipped. I dont think that the other Gods need to be connected to the lord souls in any way, they just need to have a large amount of power.
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    Post by Acarnatia Fri Sep 13, 2013 7:52 pm

    That's not accuate, either; see the Protogenoi. Gaia is herself the granddaughter of a much older being.

    In the Greek mythos, the first beings were one of (depending on the particular version)

    Chronos/Aeon, (different from Kronus, the sky) the god of time. Unlike the Olympions and most gods, he was not merely a supernatural being with power over time; he was time, just as Gaia literally is the Earth.

    Chaos, 'the gaping hole/void' was essentially space. It was touched by Chronos and basically made the world. Sometimes is poetically refered to as female.

    Ananke, Fate incarnate. She is Chronos' consort. Depending on the version, she may have existed before or after Chaos.

    Chaos, touched by Chronos, gave birth to a female, Night, and a male, Darkness. They in turn begat a daughter, Day, and a son, Aether, who in turn gave created several other protogenoi, including the Sea, Sky, Earth, (Gaia) Tartarus (a hellish void with ever-raging storms) and so on. Gaia then gave birth to the Titans and later Olympians, giving the pantheon most people are familiar with.

    The mythos of the two games would also clash if they took place in the same universe. One has lore that blatantly refers to a monotheistic god and widespread (if not universal) religion and magic that has only recently beome widespread, whereas the other is blatantly polytheistic and magic has existed in public sight since the dawning of both humans and gods. The histories of both games have absolutes that cannot be accurate in conjunction with the other. Therefore, I think the games really are set in different worlds, rather than merely being in the same universe unofficially.

    Back on topic to the original post;

    Only one of the four beings who found a Lord's soul is a god. Nearly all of that one's family are called gods/esses. Therefore, the gods are that one's family, not those with Lords Souls. The Lords souls are something else. (and, I believe, something more powerful and primordial than most gods) I think the gods are basically a race, just like humans and giants, just as the Izalithians are different. Nito's ilk are the dead of the other races.
    Essentially, there are actually six major races in Dark Souls:
    Nito, and his collection of the dead of other races, are the children of the concept of Death.
    The Witch of Izalith and family are the children of the idea of Chaos.
    Gwyn's (extended) family are called 'gods' and are the race of Fire. (posing as Light)
    And the Furtive Pygmies descendants are the humans, the offspring of the Dark.
    Giants may be the children of Stone, or may not be the children of an element/idea.
    Dragons, the living incarnations of the colorless, grey fog, or Twilight/Shadow.

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