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    Re: WeeJas Dissected Part II (Score: 1)
    by GVDammerung on Tue, March 29, 2005
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    Hi Phoebus,

    It is certainly not out of line to note that the destruction of the Suel Empire would/could have some impact on the Suel pantheon. However, two factors mitigate against giving this too much weight.

    First, the Kingdom of Keoland is a not insignificant replacement for the Empire to which is added the Scarlet Brotherhood and the Northern Barbarian and Urnst States. Not exactly the same but neither is it a yawning chasm either.

    Second, it is an open question whether gods draw power from their worshippers or have power independent of individual belief. Ironically, the greater deity Boccob, who is worhipped very little yet is still a greater god, is a example of a situation where number of worshippers does not equal power - or else Boccob would be a lesser deity. (And WeeJas, to the extent she is described as widely venerated as a funerary deity, would have many more worshippers if sheer numbers were all that was involved - everyone dies and prayers for the dead are common).

    IMO, it makes no sense whatsoever that WeeJas should be a lesser deity compared to Nerull and Boccob. Three principle factors are at work.

    First, WeeJas was and is the Suel goddess of magic, belonging to a race of Man known for magical prowess above and beyond any other. Her status should reflect this, IMO.

    Second, the sheer number of WeeJas' suggest that there is no "logic" to her "demotion."

    Third, Carl Sargent "demoted" every Suel deity to lesser or intermediate status, leaving no greater gods of Suel origin in the aftermath of the Greyhawk Wars and he offered not one word of explanation for this radical change. Later GH authors offered no retcon explaination and simply followed suit. Again, there is less than no logic to this decision as there is no explaination at all and the act itself denigrates the Suel in a manner unsupported in canon. Sargent just did it because he wanted to and could. This is the most specious type of design - ignoring consistency, ignoring the place of the Suel in the setting and offering no explaination for such a radical change in the deific power structure. In this regard, FtA was garbage design, IMO.

    WeeJas' relationship with the undead can be variously expressed but it should not be curtailed, as noted in the article, due to metagame reasons. Undead are a chief feature of D&D play and to reduce a deities relationship (one way or another) to the undead is to diminish that deity - something wholly unjustified with respect to WeeJas, as noted.

    What is more, WeeJas could arguably have as much to do with the undead as any other deity, given the number of Suel who died horrifically in the Rain of Colorless Fire, noting that terrible deaths are a known generator of a variety of undead. At the same time, with no conflict, WeeJas can also represent that aspect of death that seeks repose.

    I respectfully suggest that any appraisal of the "facts" of the matter reveal that Sargent was completely unjustified in his actions and that subsequent authors have blindly followed suit or become apologists for what cannot and was not explained, ab initio.

    WeeJas by any such clear-eyed appraisal must be accounted a Greater Deity of Magic and Death, regarded as less than this only in highly "suspect" sources that might be explained as "parochial" within "canon."


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