Divinities

Better nate than lever.

Divinity in my worldbuilding (I don't really have a concrete name for the world yet) is something that I think is easy to understand but hard to really describe. Put simply, divinity is somewhat intrinsically tied to concepthood; things that are divine are usually abstract, generally sentient representations of a given concept. This is somewhat complicated by the fact that divinity is not a simple binary; it's a scale, and more to the point, one that can go into the negatives. The difference between a divinity and an anti-divinity can be nebulous, but generally speaking, a divinity is broad in concept while an anti-divinity is narrow in concept. While there's no real way to measure divinity in-universe, the idea that something is "divine" or "anti-divine" does exist; this is another way of me saying that the numbers I'm about to list are made up and don't really matter outside of a general point of reference.

The scale below will be going from +10 to -10. It may be better to think of this scale as being magnified; that it really goes from +1 to -1 and that the values are just increased for clarity. This really matters for the middle of the scale, which is "everything that isn't divine or anti-divine"; the values there are really tiny and insignificant. Also a fair warning that some of this is still a WIP; I know the original version of this was written in March, but when it comes to worldbuilding and writing my brain has mostly been focused on other things. I will say that things are more concrete than they were in March, and I have a general sense of what each point in the scale will be. Also, holy shit did I just fucking yap my head off when writing the original.

+10: Gods

AKA "true divinities," beings that are fully and completely divine. Gods are abstract, sentient manifestations of some fundamental aspect of the universe or life within it. With one notable exception that we will now just largely ignore, gods do not have physical bodies. Gods also don't have "regular" names, with their names instead being closer to titles that describe who or what they are or otherwise relate to their domains; for example, the god of twilight and liminality is named "A Moment In-Between." Gods also, largely speaking, do not have genders, because why or how would these things reproduce.

The exact relationship between gods and mortals isn't something I've clearly defined yet, but honestly it's more vibes-based anyway. A god such as The Blood On Your Hands (god of guilt and third of the three gods of war) would obviously arise from the thoughts and feelings of mortals; but something like the aformentioned A Moment In-Between wouldn't, and neither would be dependant on mortals to survive. Once a god begins (because gods aren't born), they are without end; if all life in the universe was extinct, and all evidence of life scrubbed from reality, The Blood On Your Hands would still persist. This is not to say the gods go unworshipped or unfollowed, merely that the gods exist no matter what you think of them, so maybe it's not a good idea to diss them.

+9 to +4: Lesser Divinities

In the original writeup I said this idea was "still proofing" and it honestly still is. But to put it simply, lesser divinities are many of the things that would simply be called "supernatural." Lesser divinities are also sentient concepts, but unlike gods they are not unique; there can be multiple, say, angels, for example. Lesser divinities also begin without end, though a lesser divinity can go dormant for a time. A lesser divinity more-or-less exists within its defined role; for example, the aformentioned angel would come from the concept of "a messenger," and would exist to "deliver messages," whether literally or figuratively. Furthermore, a demon would also be a lesser divinity, with the concept of "a tempter towards vice or evil," and would exist to fulfill that role. I think there would be a little bit of leniency, but generally speaking a lesser divinity not fulfilling its role would rather just return to being dormant than like, go to a bar or whatever.

+3 to +1: Spooky ghost things?

In the orignal this was just a gap in the scale, but I have a vague concept of what I want here now, that being some sort of undead revenant thing? It doesn't fully align with the idea of a sentient concept, but in some sense it could also be seen as a sort of "corrupted" or heavily distorted version of a lesser divinity. Regardless of what form the undead do or do not take in my worldbuilding, there will always be one thing for certain; those denied The Endless Rest do not speak, for the knowledge of the dead is to stay with the dead.

+0.5 to -0.5: "Most things"

IDK if I really need to elaborate on things here. Most things that aren't divine just happen to have a token, arbitrary level of divinity. As a random example, if you planted three of the same kind of plant, one could have a divinity of 0.3, the second a divinity of -0.1, and the third a divinity of 0.06. The numbers here are especially made up and especially do not matter, and never let anyone tell you otherwise.

-1 to -3: "Stagnant" Nightmares

The awkward thing about the anti-divinities is that all three categories are defined in some way by the middle one, so there's a little bit of dancing around the concept of a nightmare first no matter what end of the scale you approach from, but bear with me.

Stagnants are the other sorta "proofing" idea from the first draft. Stagnants are, in some ways, the secret fucked up third kind of magic. They are concepts too obscure or specific or even vague to truly support an anti-divinity, and as such are effectively inert. This makes them technically safe to handle in the same way that like, rubidium in a glass tube is safe to handle. Just don't drop it or it will very quickly become very dangerous.

The major difference from the original doc is that I kind of have an example of a stagnant to use to demonstrate the idea. "Shrodinger's Cat" is something derrived from the thought experiment (it wouldn't be called that in-universe but it's just way more clear to call the thing what it is), which would apply the mechanics of it to something else, sort of. It applies an uncertinty to a process by removing the non-quantum observability of it; if you had a machine that made widgets that had Shrodinger's Cat applied to it, it would be impossible to see the widget-making process in action. If you opened up the machine, all your would see is everything as it was before the process even began; but still the machine produces widgets, one at a time.

-4 to -9: Nightmares

This is the point where things get Funky. Nightmares are defined not just by their relationship to concepthood, but also by their reliance on Narrative. Nightmares aren't just a concept, they are generally speaking a trope, which necessarily means that Narrative Convention applies. It's very rare for Narrative to even be a concept outside of nightmares, though; it is basically exclusively an anti-divine thing, and trying to make a Narrative will almost certainly just make a nightmare. Nightmares are also, notably, not sentient; additionally, nightmares are inherently parasitic, needing to occupy and control a host in order to persist. Bound by Narrative, and lacking the intelligence to act of their own accord, nightmares will naturally follow the course of the Narrative, and whatever thoughts the host has are bent to align with the nightmare and the Narrative.

This occupation isn't permanent however, but a nightmare won't just go away by itself. While the death of the host will always terminate the nightmare, there's usually a better option that doesn't result in the host's death; generally speaking, this is by breaking the logic of the Narrative, but it can varry. Sometimes the best option might actually be to help the Narrative progress, but watch out; Narratives are sticky, and by participating you risk being made to play along, though unlike the host of a nightmare you can break out of it without outside help.

-10: Syekari

Pronounced [ɕ^jekari]; the ɕ is like a "sh" sound but formed with your tongue forward and touching the middle of the roof of your mouth. Syekari means "Accursed."

Syekari are going to be mostly unelaborated on. Partially because I yapped way too much about them in the original doc, but mostly because I think they work best when not fully elaborated on. I think it's better for information about them to just be delivered through the course of a narrative (as in an actual story and not the capital-N Narrative of nightmares), and I think elaborating on them too much risks overemphasizing them. To give some perspective, the present-day year in my world building is the year 8476 (not Earth years, it's not Earth). In all those years, there have only been about 50 syekari. Realisitcally, one might show up once?

I will elaborate on the goals of a syekari, though. A syekari, like a god, has a domain; however, it's not a god. It's not really correct to call it an "anti-god" either; "nightmare god" is closer to correct but still not right. A syekari, generally speaking, would like to become a god. They achieve this through a Narrative. However, unlike a nightmare, this Narrative is not something that they're trapped in and which might just loop forever; once this Narrative reaches its conclusion, then that's it, they've won. And now, the world itself will be remade, with the syekari as a god, and since they're the one remaking it, they will almost certainly be the central god.

So naturally, syekari are a world-ending threat (unless they decide that that's all cringe and just wanna live out their life, which has happened a handful of times). Thankfully, unlike nightmares, there's no one they posess; furthermore, they have physical bodies, so you can, in fact, just kill them.

Good luck with that.