The 21 Spheres.

So if someone had to draw out the 21 spheres in a diagram, how would it look like?

I think there would be 10 pairs arranged in a circle, with one in the middle.

But question. Who is in the middle?

I thought metamagic (Oghma) was in the middle ... but isn't he Mammon's opposite?

I thought Force (Dagda) was in the middle ... but isn't he Ceridwen's opposite?

Or is Ceridwen the opposite of Oghma?

It can get quite confusing


Therefore I propose that we pool our minds together, and once and for all flesh out who is exactly the opposite of who

(or if someone knows, please do tell)

 

Reserved

 

1.Life - Death
2.Fire - Water
3.Ice - Nature
4.Chaos - Law
5.Entropy - Creation
6.Spirit - Body
7.Enchantment - Mind
8.Force - Dimension
9.Earth - Air
10.Sun - Shadow

With Metamagic in the middle


and as for Patron Gods ...

1.Hippus -> Air (Tali)
2.Mercurians -> Life (Sucullus)
3.Sidar -> Death (Arawn)
4.Grigori -> Force (Dagda)
5.Hyborem -> Entropy (Agares)
6.Sheaim -> Dimension (Ceridwen)
7.Luchuirp -> Enchantment (Nantosuelta)
8.Khazad -> Earth (Kilmorph)
9.Ljosalphar -> Nature (Cernunnos)
10.Svartalphar -> Shadow (Esus)
11.Malakim -> Sun (Lugus)
12.Elohim -> Spirit (Sirona)
13.Clan of Embers -> Fire (Bhall)
14.Lanun -> Water (Danalin)
15.Illians -> Ice (dead Mulcarn)
16.Bannor -> Law (Junil)
17.Doviello -> Chaos (Camulos)
18.Calabim -> Body (Aeron)
19.Balseraphs -> Mind (Mammon)
20.Kuriotates -> Creation (Amatheon)
21.Amurites -> Metamagic (Oghma)


(My best guess, imho)

 

7 (6!) good gods

Enchantment, Law, Spirit, Life, Sun, Creation

7 Neutral Gods

Death, Air, Water, Earth, Nature, Force, Metamagic

7 (8!) Evil Gods

Fire, Entropy, Dimension, Shadow, Chaos, Body, Ice, Mind



--> The discrepancy occurred when Bhall fell from being a good god to being an evil god. Used to be that holy fire would only harm the wicked, but now even the wicked (nay, especially the wicked) may use magical fire (no longer holy) to burn anyone.

I believe she was tempted by either Agares, Mammon, or Ceridwen.

iirc, Mammon fell *first* after seeing the future (sort of) and then decided to tell Ceridwen, who then sort of 'lured' Agares into the fall (and keeps egging him on, so to speak).

Sirona may be able to save Agares if Ceridwen was out of the picture ... but seeing as she is the goddess of dimensions (and therefore the goddess of magic, since magic is now only accessed from one of the elemental planes created by her and Agares) stopping her is next to impossible.

Still, even though the trio want for the entire Universe to be destroyed, they were nice enough to give the rest of the gods their 'rightful' powers as well. The irony, of course, is that if they all just gave up their powers that they would become mortal, and 'the One' would rule over creation as a solitary/ monotheistic god. (if even present at all). I guess he wanted creation to go on without him, to be merely an observer of what mortality is capable of.

But yea ... true salvation for the 21 gods would be to give up their powers ... something that Agares and Ceridwen are 'nice' enough to prevent from happening. Makes one rethink how 'charitable' it really was ... especially since Mammon still likely has "some" memories from when he had foresight. Therefore, my theory is that Mammon told Ceridwen that in order for all the gods to fall, they would have to keep their powers. Thus, Ceridwen made Agares help her to create the elemental planes ... perhaps Ceridwen never told Agares the extent of the plot, but convinced him to give the magic to the other gods anyways ... probably not hard to do since Agares is an idealist and wants all 21 gods to have their old powers back. Therefore he would see no reason to deny them of power even if he could much more easily win the war without doing so ... he would rather keep his 'brothers and sisters' and merely take over/ corrupt their creations/offspring. And, knowing that supplying them with their power keeps them from salvation, Ceridwen is more than happy to supply their power to them ... and thus all 21 gods are voluntarily imprisoned by their powers, whether they realize it or not.

 

there you go: http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=148716&d=1172369959

 

Yay I got it right!

and cool pic btw. I knew it existed somewhere ... or thought I did ... but didn't know if I would ever find it/ see it again. Thanks for the link!

 

luckily I remembered it was in xienwolf's signature so it was easy to track down

 

Kael considered a few different possibilities as to which sphere should be the one without an opposite. At the time he made the chart he placed Matamagic in the middle, but his final position (based in part on my reasoning) was that it should be Force.

It ought to be:
Life - Death
Fire - Water
Ice - Nature
Chaos - Law
Entropy - Creation
Spirit - Body
Metamagic - Mind
Enchantment - Dimension
Earth - Air
Sun - Shadow

With Force in the middle.



Mammon wasn't the first to fall. He was the second to rebel openly, after Agares.

Before The One took away the power of ex nihilo creation, Agares stole the Gems of Creation out of The True Heaven. He created twenty-one infinite plains of pure elements, from which he would be able to go on creating forever. (He also created the world of Nyx, where he purposefully hid the existence of any other god and permitted his creations to worship him only.) Perhaps Mammon helped him know that they would loose the power of ex nihilo creation, but this is never stated. The One may have simply told them from the beginning that the gift was only temporary. I have argued in the past that Ceridwen may have helped Agares here, or at least caused in him the strong attachment to his power that motivated him to do so. Kael has not confirmed or denied this.


Before the creation of Gabella, Mammon foresaw that The One would soon return, that Agares would challenge him openly, that Agares would fail, and that he would then loose his foresight. He believed this meant that The One would destroy Creation as a whole. He also saw that Gabella would refuse to submit to her husband no matter what he did, and so decided that it would be kinder or her not to know of her impending doom. As such, he did not grant her foresight. He also cast the deciding vote in agreeing to make her immortal.

I am pretty sure I read somewhere that The One had ordered the gods not to make anything permanent, as creating anything perfect enough to last for all of tie was beyond their abilities. (I can't seem to find this reference at the moment though.) It was Nemed who decided that humans should be immortal and convinced the other gods to agree. As such, Nemed was arguably the first god to openly rebel. His rebellion was simply disobedience though, not an overtly hostile attack. Although some gods (most notably Arawn) disagreed, they willingly consented to join in this disobedience. He too may have done so through a strong attachment to the nature of his sphere which is arguably due to Ceridwen's influence of making is define ourselves by our positions.

After Gabella rebelled, there were many debates about what to do with her. It was during this time that Agares went to Mammon to discuss the matter in private. Mammon knew that he was really more concerned with what The One would do to him. He revealed everything he had foreseen to Agares. This did not dissuade Agares from acting, but made him hate The One even more.

Mammon and Agares both denied having anything to do with causing Os-Gabella to rebel. Mammon seemed to think that rebellion was simply inherent in creation, and that The One might see this as a design flaw serious enough to justify destroying everything. The two of them did not completely dismiss the possibility that Ceridwen may have manipulated Gabella's rebellion though. None of the other gods have ever been able to understand why she does anything.

The One did return, and Agares rebelled and was tossed aside as predicted. Mammon then became the second god to openly rebel, at Agares's urging. This is what changed his nature so that he could no longer foresee the future, as he desire to control it was too strong.

Five other evil gods then followed him into rebellion and corruption: Ceridwen, Aeron, Cammulos, Esus, and Mulcarn. Aeron was already rather corrupt, as he was trying to rape Gabella at the time when The One returned. Camulos was corrupted much more slowly. There were already diverse groups of humans with incomprehensible languages when he created the Pacales to be diplomats and traders; his further corruption eventually turned into the Chaos Maraduers.

 

both make sense to me, but I am glad to see the final format posted here as well.

I can see both metamagic and force as the central figure .... force to balance, and metamagic as the 'source' of all magic (even if its not fully lore appropriate).

From a gameplay element, psychology element, this is perhaps because Metamagic and Force seem to have been combined within the base game.

I mean think about it ... 'Dispel' magic ... seems more like a matter of force, at least as far as getting rid of magical effects (such as buffs and curses), but then, on the other hand, reverting a node back to purity seems like it could be either from Oghma's knowledge (returning it to the source), OR force (cancelling the magics of others).

So in a way, at least the effects that we can see, in Meta 2 you see a spell that could easily come from either force OR metamagic. Perhaps if force spells had been implemented in the base game, and if there was a clear separation between the two, then it would be more easy to simply declare force in the middle as canon ... but as it is I think I could still see either in the middle.

I could see Dimensional as the opposite of Force in a manner that Force tries to bind ppl to contracts while Dimensional tries to evade contracts through loopholes. {going through other dimensions, etc, slip space) ... able to teleport from one planet to the next, even though the laws of physics/laws of magic seem to normally bind people to an agreement of travel through time and space.

I would be interesting in hearing how dimensional is the opposite of enchantment, but I am sure that there is a usable example.

It is an interesting thing ... really.

Metamagic and Dimension both seem like the sources of magic, while Metamagic and Force both seem like the nullification of magic (or, on the case of Meta, perhaps nullification as a byproduct of mastery).

Ceridwen, Goddess of Magic. Would make sense that she is the opposite of Dagda, the god of contracts. Why? Well, assuming that the laws of physics are a giant contract between all inhabitants of creation, then any magic is a breach in that contract. Therefore the struggle between magic and force seem to make most (if not all) magics only a temporary thing in true creation.

So then, what is the source of magic? Well, Metamagic could be considered the mastery of magic while Dimension is the source of magic ... so either could make a proper foil* for Force.

*is that proper use of the word? Opposing sphere in any case.

Dimension, however, seems wholly unable to sit at the center of the universe ... if only because that would be too binding for a sphere such as dimension. No, she would rather sit at the outskirts, waiting for the chance to escape.

Therefore, I can only think of two fates for force. Either as the opposite of Dimensional Sphere or as the central binding 'force' of all magical existence.

Still, I cannot see force as the source, of course, but perhaps just the glue that holds it all together, while Dimensional would rather riddle it with holes, to make creation like swiss cheese to chaotically jump forth and back at will.

Metamagic is certainly a mastery of mana ... perhaps as masters of all the spheres (and thus able to nullify the acts of other gods/spheres) or perhaps as masters of a certain type of magic. If masters of all magic, it would make sense for Metamagic to take the central role. If masters of only certain types of magic, perhaps a foil for mind would be in order.

Still, I can think of only one way to settle this. If Dimensional vs Enchantment makes more sense than Dimensional vs Force, I would gladly concede ... however if this cannot be accurately conveyed, I think I would be happy in continuing to consider Metamagic as the central sphere.

 

This might be thread-necromancy, as the last post was from more than a year and a half ago, but I thought I'd just go ahead and post a corrected mana chart here.

(Diavolo Rosso just PM'd me looking for such a chart. I am not sure if one has been made or posted before, but I couldn't find it and thought it simpler to make another. I would have just sent the jpeg to him, but PMs do not allow attachments. I would have posted it in the thread where Kael posted the original chart, but it was taking too long to find that and this thread on the first page of the lore subforum seemed as good a place as any.)

Personally I'm not a big fan of some of these icons, but these are what Kael used way back when. The icons used for mana in the game are probably better. I definitely think that Force ought to be scales rather than fist, as it is really about balance. I'm not sure what should represent enchantment, but that image seems far off. I think is the same as is used for moving units though Nexus, which is very dimensional related. Since owls are associated with Sirona, it would fit Spirit better than Mind.

 

thx magister! btw, what program did u use?

 

I used GIMP 2, a free program is much more heavy duty than is really necessary for such a minor edit. I initially tried just using MS Paint, but it is harder to cut and paste circular areas with it. Given what I moved it would not have big that big of a deal to cut and paste as rectangles, but then I would have had to erase and redraw some line segments between mana types in order to make it look the same.

(I'm not sure I'd used GIMP in more than a year before this. I used it a while back to create some buttons and reskin models to serve as new units in my modmod, but have not really bothered with art modding since I discovered that I discovered that PakBuild crashes before unpacking all the art files in Magister.FPK and that I now longer have other copies of some of them, so I can't include all of the art for my modmod in that archive as I'd prefer and would really rather not have to keep track of oo many files outside of it.)