Notes
Once the Saga of Life had its first cycles, I wanted to plan the “origin stories” of the gods. Each god must have its own story in which they are born and receive their powers or personality. Because these events are bound to happen all the way at the start of the timeline, I needed to think about this now, before creating all sorts of holes in the timeline later.
This story is the first one of a sequence of stories about the demigods and the Heavenly Palace. Because Ardex is the first child, but also because he is perhaps the most powerful and influential.
His youth, power and personality play a large role in why the entire family is eventually banished. You know, the event that started the Saga of Life for me, now 10+ years ago.
That’s why I already had a rough outline for this story. And, for a change, I turned that into the full story without much issue!
The hardest part is actually the representation of gods. We intuitively write them like humans, with a human body, a human way of speaking, thinking, moving, showing emotion or affection, etcetera.
But they are gods! They could look like anything! Maybe they don’t even have an appearance! (The same issues obviously occur when trying to represent the Heavenly Palace.)
After several failed attempts I decided to go the route of humanization anyway. It reads more easily. It’s easier to imagine or play with, allowing the story to actually come through. If I made gods too different, I’d need to constantly remind you of that fact and convince you to keep reading anyway. Something for which I simply have no time in short stories like these.
They’re clearly gods. They shapeshift, nonchalantly use very powerful magic, design the universe, see several centuries as “a fraction of a second”, etcetera. But they’re still very humanlike, which the narrator explains by saying that’s simply how you (a human) would see and interpret them.
That’s something I want to introduce more in this cycle: the narrator. They were there in previous stories, but too much in the background if you ask me. Slowly, I’m approaching a style for the Saga of Life stories that’s more like a legend of old that’s being told to you by somebody. Somebody who was there, or who has a stake in that story. Hopefully, I can keep refining this style and really make it work for every story!
Characters
- Oeros: “the” Chiefgod, named by Gaia and put on a throne. Believes in “Zyme”: gods should just let stuff happen and reduce their involvement as much as possible. Very powerful in negative powers (destruction, removal, etcetera), basically useless in positive powers.
- Gaia: the Chiefgoddess. Very powerful in positive powers and even goes so far as to get rid of any trace of negative power, putting it all inside Ardex. Fears for the Prophecy of Guds which she interprets as “one of her children will be the monster that destroys the universe”. Wants to control, speed things up, only add and grow relentlessly.
- Ardex: our demigod of fire and death, seen from birth until adulthood. His powers, his intrinsic personality, and his experiences with both his parents create a very powerful god who has no clue what is the right course of action in any case.