What do the Yazata think of Shapeshifting and Illusions? Do they count as 'Lies' in the metaphysical sense, or does Asha only care about straight up verbal lying?
Its up to each ST to really decide, but the guidelines should be, the "the heart/soul of the law, not the rule". I could go on a giant list of things that would be considered lies vs things that wouldnt be, but that list would be giant. Just use common sense and good judgement. If the illusion or shapeshift is attempting to mislead or decieve then it probably counts as a "lie." If its for other reasons, then it isnt.
If you change into a cow, and everyone knows "o, thats billy, hes in his cow form" then you have no problem. If you sneak into a herd of cows to purposefully(or accidentally really) mislead someone into thinking you're a generic cow(or a cow other then billy) then its a "lie".
Illusion has it a bit harder. The whole idea there is to trick and decieve, and there are few illusion boons that dont necessarily do that(and there will be more in the future). So not decieveing is more difficult.
However there is another metaphysical answer, and it leans towards the relationship between the devas and the yazatas. To the devas, all of existence on earth is an illusion. So are illusions actually real? For the time that they are in existence, are they just as real as the rest of the planet? Is a real sound any different from a fake sound? Or an imagined sound? These arent questions I can really answer for you, because I think it depends on the game that is being run and the particular aspects of the "world" within the game.
Id generally lean towards(unless you have a metaplot reason against it), all illusions are lies.
so does Bramaha being the only Deva to have mastered illusion represent (from the Deva's point of view) his lordship and control of "reality"?
ReplyDeleteYes! Brahma has Illusion associated because he is the creator of all reality and all reality is understood to be illusion; hence, he is the master of illusions (which are really reality).
DeleteHinduism!
Questioner here: if it helps, Brahma doesn't actually create Reality. Reality (with the capital R) is explicitly older than Brahma. All Brahma does is program and maintain the interface with which mortals interact with Reality since we wouldn't be able to take the full brunt of divinity, no more than a mortla mind could process Binary Code, and it's this interface, which is perceptible reality, that is the big illusion. Brahma isn't so much the Lord of Reality as he is the Devas glorified tech repair guy!
DeleteAnd as far as the 'are illusions real?' question, I'd say that, for the Devas at least, the whole Chhaya incident would indicate that they are very much real. Or, to be more exact, they're as real as the rest of perceptible reality, which isn't real.
Ooh, yeah, Chhaya is a great example - definitely an illusion, but also indisputably "real" enough to be a person and have offspring.
Deleteso how would the hindu's view one of their up and coming scions who focused on mastering illusion?
DeleteWith great suspicion and dislike, probably. Illusion is, after all, the prison that keeps everyone locked in the cycle of samsara; adding to it is not going to win a Scion any points with his pantheon. It is possible to have Illusion and still be a god in good standing among the Devas, but it would be a long, hard road of proving your worth and that you weren't secretly evil, with a lot of roadblocks, setbacks and heartbreak along teh way.
DeleteThe only one who gets to be all illusiony is Bhrama.
DeleteOne should also remember that, since all of perceptible reality is illusionary, those Gods who choose to dabble in very material Purviews (like the Elemental ones) are also likely to be seen as somewhat missing the whole point. This is one of the reasons the worship of the old Vedic deities like Indra and Agni (who are almost all nature gods) has fallen out of favour; they are literally gods of things that aren't real.
DeleteBy contrast, amongst the Trimurti and family, only Sarasvati has Water, and that has been retconned to represent her 'Waters of Knowledge', as opposed to her ancient role as river goddess (helped by the fact that the river dried up ages ago).
(And yes, I know Parvati has Earth, but I cannot for the life of me remember any situation in myth where she uses it (Parvati in myth doesn't actually do much beyond marry Shiva and have his children really), and I assume she was given it only because there was literally no other Purview that could have been given to her.
@Anne: Does Parvati have any Shaper worthy myths I'm not aware of?)
Contrast this with the Yazata, who literally believe that the six elemental Purviews are the basis of existence.
Re: Parvati, she got Earth because of her strong connection to the Himalayan mountains, as daughter of their personification and to a lesser extent an ancient personification of them herself. It's pretty much the same story as Sarasvati and Water - it's an old elemental association that in the modern day is viewed as more of a connection with solidity and holiness (the mountains as the place of asceticism and meditation, and Parvati's role as the foundation that grounds Shiva).
DeleteThat's a beautiful encapsulation of one of the fundamental problems between the Devas and Yazata - the Yazata believe in the sacredness of the elements, while the Devas literally believe those things don't even exist. Not a foundation for getting along very well.
Thanks for the clarification. This one was bugging me ever since I found an alternate Asha Purview, one of whose powers was forcing shapeshifters back into their true forms :)
ReplyDeleteNeat power! I wonder if something like that should happen in Justice... although I guess folks with high enough Perception to see through it and high enough socials to force the shifter to change back can do that, too.
DeleteTrue, but then there will always be some powers that could be duplicated in other ways. I rather liked the idea actually, especially in a 'power of Truth' sense. I think one of the reasons I dislike Asha as written is that, unlike every single other PSP out there, its name has nothing to do with its powers. Jotunblut is all about giant blood, Samsara's all about overcoming the mire of Samsara, Malak is all about kingship etc. But the Asha PSP has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual principle of Asha beyond the 'you can't lie' restriction'.
DeleteHmm... I see your point. Asha encompasses more concepts than just truth - in particular, "righteousness" or "rightness" is also a major part of it, which is represented in many of its boons (and relates back to good old rta, its sister concept!) - but truth does seem to take a bit of a back seat in most of the purview. It would be nice to see it more front and center.
DeleteWe do need to fix some of its problems anyway, so if we decided to abandon more of the original material from the books and add some stuff... hmm hmm hmm.
I think some illusions could count as not being a lie, if it was understood that you were looking at an illusion.
ReplyDeleteThings like creating illusionary fireworks, or an illusionary map of an area which resembled the actual area, or any other obvious and cool special effect or light show.
Yes, definitely! I think that's what John meant above by there being a few boons that don't necessarily apply to the lying issue. Illusions used as illustrations, decorations, storytelling devices or dream-shaping shouldn't be a problem for Yazata. It's only when they're used to deceive that they fall under the banhammer.
DeleteFor most Illusion boons, it depends on how you use them, though there are some that are probably never going to be okay (Scapegoat, False Prophecy and Stolen Face, for example).