The sun did not rise when morning should have come. It has been a considerable amount of time, and the morning bells have sounded twice with no sun in sight... people are beginning to panic. Here's what it means to some of you:
Chuihutlei:
Arcana 25: The sun is absent from the sky, but the stars still move in their sacred paths. The new world thus has come. There are several possibilities for how the sun could go down without coming up again (and still have the next world come at all):
[*] It is possible that a fundamental imbalance has caused the world to end before it is time. This can be discounted, because it actually is time for such a thing.
[*] New worlds are strange things. One of the previous ones had no land in it! So it's entirely possible that the sun isn't supposed to exist in this world. If so, the proper task would be to find a new source of warmth and food. The maize does not grow on rain alone.
[*] With a new world, it is possible that new rituals are required to get the sun up. The old songs and sacrifices would then be entirely useless. If so, a new song needs to be found to sing the sun up.
[*] During the change of world, there is a period of a whole sacred week when the gods themselves are... open to negotiation. It is at one of these times that The Smoking Mirror was transformed into a Jaguar and the great Feathered Serpent became a greater god. It is possible that someone is funneling the power of the sun into themselves or has killed the sun. The gods are vulnerable right now.
In any case, it seems obvious to you that the rituals and sacrifices going on on top of the Temple of the Sun are a waste of time.
The world you see about you is but one layer, and like an onion that layer can be peeled back to reveal new layers again and again. The land of the dead has eight layers which normally require 4 years to cross (and crossing it is not fun, from what the dead you've talked to have told you). At the end is Mictlan proper, the ninth level of the underworld. It is guarded by a huge Jaguar that will attempt to eat your heart. It can be bought off with jade (if you've got it), and if you reach the land of the dead with your heart properly ceremonially removed it can go ahead and eat your heart without disrupting your soul. Mictlan is a huge cave where Mictecacihuatl keeps a record of everyone who has ever died and the skeletons of those yet unborn are made from stones, and the skeletons of the dead are reclaimed by their owner (everyone's skeletons are essentially "borrowed" from here in a complex deal cut by The Feathered Serpent).
There are also thirteen heavens, and a proper death in battle or childbirth can get you sent to one of them directly. Also, a proper sacrifice can send someone directly to one of these heavens. The highest of them is Omeyocan, where dwells the Divine Duality, the God of Near and Close.
Engineering 5: Those temples are made of rock from a long way off. Yessirree. The stalls in the marketplace are woven. From things.
Geography 14: To the East is where small people come from. Things become less civilized if you go South and East from Teotihuacan, but they become way more uncivilized if you go in any other direction. Major cities include Dani Biaa (modern day Oaxaca), Tikal, Chichén Itzá, and Copán. Much closer to home is the subject city of Cacaxtla, which has of late been ignoring some imperial edicts. The rodes to these places are well patrolled, and fortress cities like Xochicalco are along the route to protect the trade routes. To the north, it's mostly just El Tajín, which is a sports powerhouse.
History 11: The world ends and begins at a very regular clip, and now it has clearly ended. The land belonged to the Olmecs in the distant past, and they built giant heads. But they are gone now, and noone knows where they went. Teotihuacan was chosen by Quetzlcoatl to lead the world, and he blessed or mated with the kings or something and that's where the priest kings come from. Teotihuacan became the trading giant that it is today because it won a bunch of wars. Once a year, one of the war priests comes out and recites them all, and when that happens some women dance.
-more later-
-Username17
Background Information for IEID
Moderator: Moderators
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
-
Username17
- Serious Badass
- Posts: 29894
- Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm
Re: Background Information for IEID
Tlaloc
Arcana 8: Magic comes from all three worlds, and returns to all three worlds. The world of Gods was probably the first of these worlds, and has the most magic in it at any given time. That world is itself a lot of worlds, but the only one you can remember is Tlalocan, which has the advantage of being really easy to remember. The world of the dead was the next one, and it has less magic, but it has more magic than the world of the dead. There's supposed to be some sort of balancing mechanism that moves magic downhill or something. Strong experiences in any world increase the magic in the others, so passion or agony here is a good thing for gods elsewhere. If gods in Tlalocan have strong experiences, power accumulates here in the regular world. That corresponds mostly to rain, because that's the kind of power that they make. That's why making Tlaloc happy or angry changes the weather.
Engineering: 3 Things are madeout of other things. Sometimes you see people burning rocks or wood as part of construction.
Geography: 17 Different kinds of people live in different places, and as one goes more towards the center things become generally more stable. If you go far to the South, the sun moves to the other side of the sky, the stars themselves abandon you, and the inhospitable mountains of that region are run by the copper gauntlet of the Silver Lords. It is entirely possible that that region simply has a different sky. If you go far enough to the North, the trees stop growing and the waters stop flowing. There is a land there that is itself an ocean made of grass. There are nomadic peoples that live even there, but they have nothing to do with civilized peoples. If you go far enough East or West, the land vanishes entirely, and while the waters to the East are filled with islands without cities, to the West there are cities with no islands.
Closer to Teotihuacan, the primary cities of note are Tula to the East, which is built of reeds; El Tajín to the North, which is built on Sport; Dani Biaa to the South (which is where you are from). Civilization doesn't exist much to the North or West, but becomes quite dense to the East and South. While Teotihuacan is the political center of the world, it is not the geographical center - that honor seems to belong to Chichén Itzá, which has roads leading to all over the known world.
History 33: Before the coming of the Teotihuacaners, the Olmecs, had a mighty empire that was centered somewhat to the South and East of this land. Today, this land is occupied by the Zapotecs, which are your people. The Olmecs left behind massive stone heads everywhere which are apparently life-sized, as a few of the Olmecs still wander in the mountains around Dani Biaa. While the Olmecs were very large, the Zapotecs are very small, and it is thought that many of the Olmec ruins have not been fully explored or understood. The departure of the Olmecs and the subsequent rise of the Zapotecs in that area is not entirely a coincidence - long ago there was a war that saw those smaller than the Olmecs rise up against them and it was the smallest of the tribes that ended up seizing their great palace for themselves. Heights amongst the Zapotecs are pretty regular, but heights among the Olmecs vary wildly. The largest of the stone heads is over three meters tall, which would indicate that some of the stories your mother told you about fearfully large Olmecs are probably true.
The Priest Kings of Teotihuacan were ordained by a great bird god of their people. Every one of them is descended from Quetzlcoatl, and is partially divine. The last two generations, however, have been somewhat less divine than the previous ones. Pointing this out is considered impolite in the extreme, but it is a simple fact that even the strongest of blessings doesn't last forever, and that one has been running down for a while. More recently, the people of Tula to the East have claimed to have gotten a blessing from a bird of some kind, and it is not an unreasonable to think that perhaps their swamp city has gained the blessing that Teotihuacan seems to be losing.
People didn't always die the way they do now. The current setup is part of a complicated deal involving bone borrowing from Mictlan somehow, but not only are other bargains possible, some periods of history actually saw different life and death cycles because of the different contracts. Very large treasures have famously been spent on trying to bribe the lords of death, because noone wants to die and even gods are subject to bling. As of right now, you don't own your bones, you lease them, but people have tried to buy them outright, though those attempts were probably failures.
There was a time that people were able to remember forwards in addition to backwards, as part of a celestial screwup too complicated to worry much about. The important part of this, is that one group actually had the presence of mind to actually write some of that down, and the histories of the people of Chichicastenango go both ways. While this would seem to give them an insurmountable advantage, the entire Quiche region is actually pretty marginal in world politics.
The tributary agreements that Teotihuacan holds over Cacaxtla are just that - agreements. They also have an expiration date built in which is fast approaching.
The world has ended several times, and each time it is remade by a cooperative effort of gods and men. The sun eating demons and jaguars have made several attempts to end the world or prevent it from being remade, some of them quite credible, but have of course always been defeated. It is logical to believe that if they haven't made their move already, they soon will.
-More Laters-
Arcana 8: Magic comes from all three worlds, and returns to all three worlds. The world of Gods was probably the first of these worlds, and has the most magic in it at any given time. That world is itself a lot of worlds, but the only one you can remember is Tlalocan, which has the advantage of being really easy to remember. The world of the dead was the next one, and it has less magic, but it has more magic than the world of the dead. There's supposed to be some sort of balancing mechanism that moves magic downhill or something. Strong experiences in any world increase the magic in the others, so passion or agony here is a good thing for gods elsewhere. If gods in Tlalocan have strong experiences, power accumulates here in the regular world. That corresponds mostly to rain, because that's the kind of power that they make. That's why making Tlaloc happy or angry changes the weather.
Engineering: 3 Things are madeout of other things. Sometimes you see people burning rocks or wood as part of construction.
Geography: 17 Different kinds of people live in different places, and as one goes more towards the center things become generally more stable. If you go far to the South, the sun moves to the other side of the sky, the stars themselves abandon you, and the inhospitable mountains of that region are run by the copper gauntlet of the Silver Lords. It is entirely possible that that region simply has a different sky. If you go far enough to the North, the trees stop growing and the waters stop flowing. There is a land there that is itself an ocean made of grass. There are nomadic peoples that live even there, but they have nothing to do with civilized peoples. If you go far enough East or West, the land vanishes entirely, and while the waters to the East are filled with islands without cities, to the West there are cities with no islands.
Closer to Teotihuacan, the primary cities of note are Tula to the East, which is built of reeds; El Tajín to the North, which is built on Sport; Dani Biaa to the South (which is where you are from). Civilization doesn't exist much to the North or West, but becomes quite dense to the East and South. While Teotihuacan is the political center of the world, it is not the geographical center - that honor seems to belong to Chichén Itzá, which has roads leading to all over the known world.
History 33: Before the coming of the Teotihuacaners, the Olmecs, had a mighty empire that was centered somewhat to the South and East of this land. Today, this land is occupied by the Zapotecs, which are your people. The Olmecs left behind massive stone heads everywhere which are apparently life-sized, as a few of the Olmecs still wander in the mountains around Dani Biaa. While the Olmecs were very large, the Zapotecs are very small, and it is thought that many of the Olmec ruins have not been fully explored or understood. The departure of the Olmecs and the subsequent rise of the Zapotecs in that area is not entirely a coincidence - long ago there was a war that saw those smaller than the Olmecs rise up against them and it was the smallest of the tribes that ended up seizing their great palace for themselves. Heights amongst the Zapotecs are pretty regular, but heights among the Olmecs vary wildly. The largest of the stone heads is over three meters tall, which would indicate that some of the stories your mother told you about fearfully large Olmecs are probably true.
The Priest Kings of Teotihuacan were ordained by a great bird god of their people. Every one of them is descended from Quetzlcoatl, and is partially divine. The last two generations, however, have been somewhat less divine than the previous ones. Pointing this out is considered impolite in the extreme, but it is a simple fact that even the strongest of blessings doesn't last forever, and that one has been running down for a while. More recently, the people of Tula to the East have claimed to have gotten a blessing from a bird of some kind, and it is not an unreasonable to think that perhaps their swamp city has gained the blessing that Teotihuacan seems to be losing.
People didn't always die the way they do now. The current setup is part of a complicated deal involving bone borrowing from Mictlan somehow, but not only are other bargains possible, some periods of history actually saw different life and death cycles because of the different contracts. Very large treasures have famously been spent on trying to bribe the lords of death, because noone wants to die and even gods are subject to bling. As of right now, you don't own your bones, you lease them, but people have tried to buy them outright, though those attempts were probably failures.
There was a time that people were able to remember forwards in addition to backwards, as part of a celestial screwup too complicated to worry much about. The important part of this, is that one group actually had the presence of mind to actually write some of that down, and the histories of the people of Chichicastenango go both ways. While this would seem to give them an insurmountable advantage, the entire Quiche region is actually pretty marginal in world politics.
The tributary agreements that Teotihuacan holds over Cacaxtla are just that - agreements. They also have an expiration date built in which is fast approaching.
The world has ended several times, and each time it is remade by a cooperative effort of gods and men. The sun eating demons and jaguars have made several attempts to end the world or prevent it from being remade, some of them quite credible, but have of course always been defeated. It is logical to believe that if they haven't made their move already, they soon will.
-More Laters-