So I love Ben Wray’s Old Parishes! Who else has districts they want to share with us?
So I love Ben Wray’s Old Parishes! Who else has districts they want to share with us?
So I love Ben Wray’s Old Parishes! Who else has districts they want to share with us?
In the Thousand Temples neighborhood, each house is a temple to a unique, almost always fictional, god. Abandoned gods from every dimension have relocated to the district – some to offer themselves as a better alternative to the homeowner’s imagined god, some to pretend to be the fictional god worshipped in that house. It is a lie that dweller and deity are both glad to believe.
*One resident whose god has suddenly started granting favors wants to recruit apostles to evangelize for his personal deity. He was non-specific as to how converts should be won.
*The architecture of the district is a fascinating melange of religious styles from all planes. A noted scholar wishes to take notes on the interior features of several of the temples, but the locals are wary of those who wish to gain entrance. He could use a little muscle on his side.
*A certain homeowner has come into possession of a relic sacred to another order in Dis. He seems to believe that the relic is a foundational object of his fictional god. Relieve him of the artifact and his foolish notions as to his – and I can’t stress this enough – completely fictional deity. It is certainly not a shockingly potent being that will rise up to defend its believe and his artifact.
I like the parish concept, and the jobs!
Why fictional gods, incidentally? Why not have the Thousand Temples district be from a plane that worshipped a lot of gods (either most of them are dead, or else the inhabitants of the plane were somehow aware of the existence of other gods – because they were magically advanced, or because pantheons are shared between planes), and now that Dis has swallowed up their city of temples, people squat in derelict temples and worship forgotten gods?
You could totally do that, too! The genesis of the fictional concept was Voltaire’s quote “if God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” So everybody from that dimension did create their own god. Most often, this god differed by degrees from their neighbor’s. _I_ worship a statue made flesh who can see your intentions through his fourth eye and smites his enemies with boulders, but you worship a statue made flesh who can see your intentions through his fourth eye and smites his enemies with magma. Irreconcilable difference. But because of these uncountable varieties of god, some of the residents by sheer chance happened to invent a god that actually existed. Those lucky ducks!
Anyway, that was my thinking, but I imagine both genesises would lead to similar adventures in the quarter.
Bonus Parish:
The Empty Quarter is not empty, although it seems to lack all life. Instead what it has is a thousand signs of life being lived. Still steaming soup on a well-set table, footsteps in the newly fallen snow, fresh horse manure down the middle of the avenue. But no indication of whoever, or whatever, has made these signs. Sometimes the penniless will declare they are going to migrate to the Empty Quarter to subsist on the food and shelter that is not being used. None of them ever do, or if they do no one ever sees them there.
*A scholar wants proof that something is living in the Empty Quarter, that something is effecting the changes that occur there. He would love to be able to dissect that proof.
*Your fixer has recently been ripped off by a different, less scrupulous group of freebooters. He has heard they’ve been hiding out in the Empty Quarter. Dispose of them and enjoy their loot.
*The Empty Quarter is the only place in Dis that isn’t teeming with (obvious) life. As such, it is prime real estate. A certain consortium would love to be able to lease or sell that real estate. Find out why anyone who lives in the Empty Quarter disappears and fix it. You may even get a great rate on a midtown loft out of it.