Enkidukai... and the gods

[Korumak]

Enkidukai
FOURTH EPOCH: THE CIVILIZATION
<snip>
Besides the strong presence of Lemurs and Kran, Ylians and Enkidukai arrived from the Stone Labyrinths, speaking of magical portals deep in the caves.
<snip>
Something has been well nagging at me for a while.  This isnt about, "New characters" portaling in etc, but it may help with those characters who 'found their way there by...<insert plot hook device>'.  Most high fantasy worlds where you have a bunch of races existing on the same world tend to have there own pantheon.  I could site many examples, but you get my point.
According to the texts, and common sense they admit to there being other gods, but not worshiped by the populace in general.
Has there been really any work done on the 'old gods' as per race type, like the dwarven gods, or in this example the Enkidukai?

What I did with my character Koru, since stuff about the world was all over the place from the few sheets on the web before jumping in to the game and getting that "So where you from?" question long before I ever got near a library.  I came up with my own background using plot points from another "Game".  In that Game Forgotten Relms, they have a pantheon which is basically the Egyptian pantheon of another name, and I just used bast, and mentioned there where other Enki there but scattered all over, thus a rare species there, separated to keep their species alive.  Thus as I the player learned about 'planeshift' so did he, so it worked.
So with all the Religious stuff that goes on with PS.  It got me to wondering.
Where are all the old gods? Surely some of them have followed, if not personally, or at least expressions using their names have shown up just as even Athiiest, or people who don't believe in any gods, still say "Oh my God!", that some of these expressions even only 2-4 generations would still be floating around us.

Any thoughts or information on that?

[LigH]

Just a brief thought: The era of the portals is long ago, the portals disappeared already, and the knowledge about the old home worlds and possible ancient gods there was already delivered through several generations and is therefore not very "fresh" anymore. Building a history around a persistent or recent "teleport" from a different world to Yliakum is probably not accepted as settings conformant.

The Royal House of Purrty had a similar issue with their own plot, being still connected to a kingdom called Printh. This approach has been criticized several times. With the death of the character and the player of Lolitra, "the remaining staff of the royal family returned to Printh" (IC), so this topic is past now...

[Korumak]

I kind of find it hard to believe that a sentient race with the ability to read, write, (presumably sing) and tell tales, would loose a major core part of their primitive culture to the point where, not even a expression, is left after a "Few" generations.  I can understand if maybe Great gradpaw worshiped the great feline gods when he came across now the current generation favors Talad etc, but theres going to be expressions, some stories, some legands, and the odd yongins who get there hands on some of the old stuff, and basically change its meaning. Historians who have the Tribes history from before the portal to where ever the original Enki came from.

Why? well think about it.  "And Laanx created... and Talad created..." and the Enki raises his hand, "Where did the Enkiduki come from" "They came through a portal," "From Where..."  Every Enkidukai child will ask that question will want to know where they came from, where their race comes from, will want to know why their people came here, what was it like before, why did they leave.  So a history that stops at 2-4 generations ago.... I kind of find it hard to swallow.  So I thought someone had at least some kind of flavor text with it.  After all with the level of culture we are dealing with Religion is a major factor of their culture and civilization not to mention they came here with language (spoken and written) and history intact.

  <<< getting way to addicted to emoticons   

Building a history around a persistent or recent "teleport" from a different world to Yliakum is probably not accepted as settings conformant.

[Yeah I know not a personal attack, just wanted to clarify]
Like I mentioned, and I wont quote my self, it is neither here nor there.  Its one of those "Going to turn into a flame war so lets avoid it" issues and yeah their are some... individuals who have different opinions on how people should do just about everything.  But for a first character, IMHO its fine, and it's my character, and cause I was asked for my back ground long before I ever made it into east Hydlaa to where the 'books that tell the worlds history so you can make a character background', to be honest I don't think i even made it into the plaza, so i went with what works in free form, set a plot hook run with it, thus as my character learns, so do I and its turned out some great plot lines, one with Ven where where they debate Talad's teaching of patience and forgiveness, and no hes not trying to convert them he's learning from them as I learn, and my yes other characters are local now that I the player know a bit more about the world and it's ways.  So let's end that one in the bud and go back to the topic at hand, and yes, I can see your point I just don't want this derailed to a side flame war and besides everyones a critic 

[bilbous]

Real gods can mold mortals minds so the past becomes completely forgotten. The gods of PlaneShift are petty, jealous and vengeful.

[LigH]

No panic, Korumak. I appreciate the wish to have more settings about the "immigrated" races. The more one can learn about the in-game elements, the more interesting the whole game can be.

Unfortunately, the ideas of individual players are not always acceptable by the development.

[Elkarway]

The lack of knowledge of the old gods was decided and explained by Settings while I was part of the team.  The reasoning was never released (to my knowledge) and may have been changed since I left.

As for the whole first character conundrum (or even, characters who became contradictory to the settings once the settings team released some information), it's very annoying.  I'd suggest looking into explaining it or making a new character.  The Dark Empire's name was a contradiction after some of settings came out and that made it very annoying; we had to change a lot of it.

Nurahk had some backstory which didn't fit with the settings, my solution: he went crazy for a while

There's a balance between taking settings too seriously (restricting yourself) and ignoring it (having to explain/defend yourself).  I'd say the closest you can get to the settings part the easier it'll be.

[Phantomboy86]

Often toyed with ideas like this on klyros. Supposedly they don't have any gods at all, but that was the old world and a crapton of generations ago, feelings would change. But the only god I find it to make sense for most of them to worship is Vodul (since they used a chamber that let them know the future, and he's the god of future events so I get the feeling he was involved with that), and I've no idea whether anyone actually knows about that god from settings.

As for enki, while they might be the mongrel race they do have the ability to write. But yeah, the current gods could have destroyed most of the writings themselves or simply made people forget.

Most likely reason is purely OOC, in that hte settings dev don't even know themselves what to do with the old gods.

[Aramara Meibi]

also take into consideration that two of Yliakum's deities did not reveal themselves as such until late into the history, Xiosia and Dakkru. But, considering their corresponding realms, Life and Death, I feel these two are sort of Universal entities, and their reach is beyond the tiny conclave of Yliakum, and even the (lesser) gods of Talad and Laanx, and whatever deities ruled over the abandoned homeworlds, must bow before them.

Aramara and Icerra give each other a high five.

In a more direct answer to your question, maybe some knowledge of these old world gods has been retained, but since these gods have no reach into the dealings of Yliakum, I feel the stories and legends associated with them would be assimilated over time into the religions of Yliakum, kind of how the Roman pantheon adopted heavily from the Etruscans, Greeks, and Egyptians, even Apollo was stolen from the Hindu pantheon and eventually the Sun God became the Son of God and so forth. The concepts stay the same, but the names change is all.

[Aramara Meibi]

I just had a late night thought about this. I think the most reasonable explanation of a general lack of knowledge about the homeworlds and their corresponding gods would be a corrupt and oppressive government. In fact, thinking on it, that would be the most plausible explanation for most inconsistencies found within the settings. For instance, why is Harnquist the only citizen in Hydlaa licensed to teach the art of metalsmithing? It is the common opinion that he is a lazy alcoholic  only capable of churning out the lowest quality pieces of junk valued only by one-eyed rat hunters, while upstanding citizens such as Hangytyr can craft the finest blade, of luxurious detail and finest craftdwarveship, but is not allowed to take on students and apprentices.

So, for some reason, the powers that be have agreed that homeworld knowledge is dangerous to their continuous hold of power. Whenever someone would begin preaching about the old gods, or tell stories of the homeworlds, Octarchal agents in their black cloaks would swoop down from their stealth black Pterosaurs, label them a heretic, criminal, terrorist, whatever, and fly them to the crystal, brainwash or minderase them with Azure Way, or lock them up in indefinite solitary confinement, fudge with the records a bit and summarily unperson them. Thus, if anyone ever talked about the homeworlds, the public would look at them as if they were crazy, not because they didn't believe them, but who would be so self destructive and suicidal (or stupid) that they would go around and openly speak of such things? 

[Rigwyn]

Honestly, I think its best not to try to make sense out of nonsense. Its not like there's some profoundly wise, underlying truth to be unearthed... the settings are not perfect, some stuff just doesn't make sense, the economy is broken, and some things are just in place for the sake of gameplay.

P.S.  For what its worth, I'm willing to bet that you are right - at least to some extent.