Owie... this make my head hurt[]
The old WOD was a rather politeistic place where even Vampire with the judeochristian basics had room for more gods... i think this article should be renamed to "(Monotheistic ?)God figures in the World of Darkness" or something similar... Also it's the "August Personage Of Jade" (not in) and how exactly the head of a spiritual bureaocracy fits in with the concept of monthoesistic "god" makes me confused... --Asmodai 10:45, 7 Aug 2005 (UTC)
- Edit as you see fit, the major support for a henotheistic interpretation is WtA, and to a lesser extent MtA - VtMs Gehenna scenarios tend to involve a monotheistic god fairly heavily, HtRs storyteller companion says that God's basically left the world alone and left some flunkies in charge of it, and Demon's pretty much a there's a God, she's gone now game.
- As regards monotheistic god in charge of a bureaucracy - the first commandment states that the adherents of the Covenant don't have any God besides YHVH. It doesn't say anything about other Gods not existing - it just says they ain't part of the deal. If you're looking for a universal interpretation, the closest thing I'd come out of when canon-wanking would be that there's some kind of universal God, who had assistants (some of whom are demons, some of whom are now messengers), and who basically left the WoD alone to fester after the inhabitants of the WoD disappointed it. God doesn't necessarily imply nice, or big beard in the sky for that matter. --Astralagos 18:48, 7 Aug 2005 (UTC)
- For the August Personage of Jade it's something else... "gods", kami and spirits in the Oriental WOD are a whole other breed from the God concept of the west, and as such they shouldn't be confused with the concept of a single big bad God... --Asmodai 21:28, 7 Aug 2005 (UTC)
- That depends on whether or not they'reconsidered the same in WW canon, and there's evidence that that's the case. Hunter's storyteller companion says that the Hunters are a castrated version of the Wan Xian (without using that particular name), and that the reason they are is because the Messengers are explicitly trying to avoid the mistakes made with the Wan Xian and are doing this under the nose of something functionally equivalent to God. In Time of Judgement, Lucifer describes extremist hunters as something that the angels have basically hollowed the soul out of to use as an avatar. Inductively, that leads me to messengers = angels = flunkies of God = flunkies of august personage o'jade.
- Either way, this is kinda moot - apart from the vague relationships that WW keeps among the gamelines, insofar as the canon supports a concept of God its pretty much something that any scriptural interpretation is getting only a fumbling interpretation of anyway. For all we know, the World of Darkness has a God and God's name is Divis Mal. --Astralagos 01:22, 8 Aug 2005 (UTC)
- Metaintegration of games is something i'm fond of... but (as you point out too) White Wolf makes each of the games stand on their own and have different viewpoints. It's also a fact that as the WWw we should be dealing with the stuff as its written unless we clealry say we are going after homebrew theories and game integration. Anytime you go and integrate stuff you end up killing certain aspects of one or another game. This alone makes the article a bit problematic as it goes into the integration and speculation on a hollistic basis for "god(s)". Maybe regiment this into game-per-game and/or add speculation and "game integration" ? As for the August Personage of Jade, i'm planning to make a article on him/her/it and i'll gladly point it here, while holding the Lotus game information on its own page... --Asmodai 00:26, 10 Aug 2005 (UTC)
It's possible that the 'God' that cursed Caine, and perphaps the one Angels obeyed, is the Weaver. You can see this in Revelations of the Dark Mother, where Jeovah has a Tree of Life that keeps the eye of the Ancient One open, which is akin to the Weaver Web entrapping the Wyrm. Also, Lilith and Queen Ananasa are disturbingly similar: both very similar to the one that created them, and both fighting against him/it. The Angels than would be 'spirits' of the Weaver, and would employed as a sort of way to interpose between the wyld, the wyrm and the material relm: the Slayers choose when and how someone has to die, taking his soul and giving it to the wyrm. That would fit the control-madness of the Weaver: she chooses when and how the Wyld and Wyrm have influence on the material world through her Angels. The angels have long since been supplanted by spider-spirits wich are probably far less likely to rebel as the Fallen did. That's why the Fallen can't find other loyal angels of even 'God' when they finally get out from the Abyss.
I have a couple other theories but I'd like to know what you think about these. PS: sorry for my english, I'm italian.