[2E] Dead Dominions and folklore

[Adrasalieth]

hmm, I am confused because the books make it seem like the Dead dominions specifically come about due to the people who died and disappear when they are no longer needed.

Like their example was Mictlan was there for those who died to Cortez and the Sainted Kingdom was there for those who died from the plague. How is that not being affected by the core belief of those who died?

Let us not forget that 2E clearly establish a link between failed attempts at Catabasis by powerful Krewes and the constitution of new Dominions. Not all, but at least some part of the Dead Dominions could be explained by this process.

1) Spike in the number of deaths to X cause (e.g. the Plague)
2) Spike in the number of Bargains, amongst which probably figure a significant number of deaths tied to the X cause (e.g. Bound with the Key of Disease).
3) Constitution of Krewes who will probably incorporate imagery and themes tied to the X cause in their Esotery.
4) A fraction of those Krewe attempt Catabasis (and, invariably fail), creating new Kerberoi and Dominions featuring X imagery (e.g. The Sainted Kingdom)

[PrinceKittyCat]

Let us not forget that 2E clearly establish a link between failed attempts at Catabasis by powerful Krewes and the constitution of new Dominions. Not all, but at least some part of the Dead Dominions could be explained by this process.

1) Spike in the number of deaths to X cause (e.g. the Plague)
2) Spike in the number of Bargains, amongst which probably figure a significant number of deaths tied to the X cause (e.g. Bound with the Key of Disease).
3) Constitution of Krewes who will probably incorporate imagery and themes tied to the X cause in their Esotery.
4) A fraction of those Krewe attempt Catabasis (and, invariably fail), creating new Kerberoi and Dominions featuring X imagery (e.g. The Sainted Kingdom)

But "Dominions are born in the lulls between generations of Sin-Eaters, a great upswelling of Essence and life within death" Mictlan was there before the mass killing by Cortez and the Sin-eaters that were born within it. That sounds like the belief in an afterlife to some degree.

[ArcaneArts]

But "Dominions are born in the lulls between generations of Sin-Eaters, a great upswelling of Essence and life within death" Mictlan was there before the mass killing by Cortez and the Sin-eaters that were born within it. That sounds like the belief in an afterlife to some degree.

Except that no one at the time when Orcus was worshipped big time would have imagined him being the chief-king of a soul-smeltery, and certainly the faitful oh Mictlan had zero concept of Anubis.

THe underworld is a sink with garbage disposal, and it's inevitable that human mythos does pop up in it's Dominons as the result of basically chopping up memory and experience through cannibalism and vicious trade/taxation, congeals with the other elements that it runs into and then calcifies into a state of mythos-but at the end of the day, it's all hollow forms creating junkard-and-orange-peel city-states, kingdom-halls of masks and drive-in cathedrals of recitals-without-passion-or-meaning smushed into the ways that lose life as in eats eternally inward, radical scrapyard tabluex of global archetype and personal symbols all screaming silent into the dark.

Sure, you could hypotehtcially evoke a place that looks like an afterlife as described-but your odds are only slightly lower than shaking the pieces together into a radio, and to get a dominion not only mimics form but spirit of an afterlife, to have it feel like the context implies, is a bit like trying to get that to happen twice.

Human mythology has met the blender, and when Dominions form, it's result of what's left in the Lego Box after the kids have mixed it all up and used massive portions to build their own shit. Deep Dominions, as a consequence of the way the Underworld is, are not neat and tidy things.

[PrinceKittyCat]

Oh I definitely agree with that my issue is trying to figure out how ghosts get "claimed" by dominions. Mictlan exists because people who died believed in Mictlan, but Mictlan has no need to closely resemble the mythological Mictlan. It feels naturally contradictory.

For example: "Gehenna: After the fall of the Saintly Kingdom, this Dominion arose to take its place for Christians who maintain their faith against all odds" Gehenna exists because of faith, a direct creation thereof.

But canon also says Faith has no effect on the Dead Dominions.

Maybe hey are more inspired by Death Archetypes. Ideas of the dead in the broad rather than the specific? Or maybe they just exist for a type of thing to die? Like the Cavern of Flame and the Nursery. Different people need different resting places and that can be broad and varied?
Dead Dominions don't make much sense to me on even how they exist at all, so these questions can be a bit hard for me.

[ArcaneArts]

Oh I definitely agree with that my issue is trying to figure out how ghosts get "claimed" by dominions. Mictlan exists because people who died believed in Mictlan, but Mictlan has no need to closely resemble the mythological Mictlan. It feels naturally contradictory.

For example: "Gehenna: After the fall of the Saintly Kingdom, this Dominion arose to take its place for Christians who maintain their faith against all odds" Gehenna exists because of faith, a direct creation thereof.

But canon also says Faith has no effect on the Dead Dominions.

Maybe hey are more inspired by Death Archetypes. Ideas of the dead in the broad rather than the specific? Or maybe they just exist for a type of thing to die? Like the Cavern of Flame and the Nursery. Different people need different resting places and that can be broad and varied?
Dead Dominions don't make much sense to me on even how they exist at all, so these questions can be a bit hard for me.

The underlying tie is Memory, fragments of sorrow and rage and desire and fear, shards of dreams that broke when stumbled up from the sudden rush of plasmic water down into the tunnels.

The Underworld is made up of promises that could never be kept made by things don't even remember who swore they'd never fail. It's sweet whimsy and bitter wit gnashed between the wet teeth of tunnel walls. The Dead Remember what was due, and those lies get stolen from them, and some become faces and some become places, and some get mixed up down the hill and some get stretch and some get squashed and some get broken and some get repaired and others get patched, but these promises are still remembered, thought facade and feeling are often divorced further down the road. The afterworlds are Remembered, but as nothing more than the leftovers from a leftover casserole of personages, these walls of masks and thrones of light are the illusion and dream same as any mother's chair or shepherd's wall thousands of years after the fact.

THe Dead Remember, though they know not what is remembered-and they are very pissed offabout it.

Less Poetry Version: You remember what you were told about Death as a ghost, and as you get chewed up, places get built up out of your chewed-gum-memory-fragments, and that's how you end up with an eternal Azar's 13th birthday party and how it always sucks.

[PrinceKittyCat]

The underlying tie is Memory, fragments of sorrow and rage and desire and fear, shards of dreams that broke when stumbled up from the sudden rush of plasmic water down into the tunnels.

The Underworld is made up of promises that could never be kept made by things don't even remember who swore they'd never fail. It's sweet whimsy and bitter wit gnashed between the wet teeth of tunnel walls. The Dead Remember what was due, and those lies get stolen from them, and some become faces and some become places, and some get mixed up down the hill and some get stretch and some get squashed and some get broken and some get repaired and others get patched, but these promises are still remembered, thought facade and feeling are often divorced further down the road. The afterworlds are Remembered, but as nothing more than the leftovers from a leftover casserole of personages, these walls of masks and thrones of light are the illusion and dream same as any mother's chair or shepherd's wall thousands of years after the fact.

THe Dead Remember, though they know not what is remembered-and they are very pissed offabout it.

Less Poetry Version: You remember what you were told about Death as a ghost, and as you get chewed up, places get built up out of your chewed-gum-memory-fragments, and that's how you end up with an eternal Azar's 13th birthday party and how it always sucks.

Thank you, that describes it perfectly!