“I am afraid that our eyes are bigger than our stomachs, and that we have more curiosity than understanding. We grasp at everything, but catch nothing except wind.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
“So the unwanting soul
sees what's hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.”
― Lao Tzu
Gods are tricky complicated creatures. Some dispute what even MAKES one a god, can one be a god genetically? Can a god die by being forgotten, and if that were true, why are not the half remembered not waging reckless wars to be sustained by ire alone? Is THAT why the evil gods sit in the shadows? Questions my viewer, questions. It is difficult for a concept to be personified, yet there they are.
Perhaps then, it is easier for a person to become a concept? I certainly have seen it tried. And once or twice, some of them have succeeded.
Shadow, Lord of Thieves.
The difference from Shadow and many gods is he was born mortal. The greater difference is that he was born mortal RECENTLY, his behavior is as documented as it is doctrinal, and some can certainly argue that Shadow has not yet behaved in a manner that is quite cognizant of his freshly gained eternity.
Part of that youth is a lack of perhaps the most common emotion of all the gods, jealousy. We live in a polytheistic union of monotheistic faiths. We know that gods fight, some of the gods even love each other, yet we rarely love two gods. However Shadow encourages such plurality, indeed Shadow himself once worshiped five gods. Among them was Mystra, the goddess of Magic (Whose creations he coveted above all things), The Cat Lord, god of stealth, survival, instinct, and thieves (virtues he has carried far), Selph, the god of greed of whom he was Champion (No comment), and then Chandros the Reaper of death, who once upon a time sat upon the Wheel of Chaos.. Then there was It. Most quarrelsome of his faiths was the Great Grandfather, the All, the Dark One, Entropy Itself. You see the Dark One IS a jealous god, more then any other, and thus when Shadow prayed to another, Shadow found himself hunted long and far throughout the Realms. Perhaps hiding from these hunting parties allowed Shadow to hone his skills high enough to do the deeds he did in the future. Or perhaps it was merely the foolishness of youth.
However even through this ire, there was one he hated more, Lolth, the god who demanded he was champion. This was a obligation brought about only by his possession of the Amulet of Night, the signet of her Champion, and one of the few shackles that Shadow found himself unable to escape. At least for a time.
As mentioned Shadow worshipped Mystra through her creations, magic items, which he coveted above all treasure, a trait shared by many in the realms. Thus was his bounty, and such was his obsession with it, that he would become allergic to nonmagical things, the very presence of nonstealable items being toxic to his touch, demanding he wear gloves to manipulate the mundane world, thus gloves are one of the few articles of faith taken seriously in the church.
Such is his love of his trove that his bag of tricks, his sack of magical items, is oft the answer of their followers prayers, and the powers of his bounty are bestowed to the faithful, temporarily, in shadowy spirit. Most notable is Yashin and Schizo, his katana and dagger, the dagger of which is still in possession of the church. Also among his relics in the church’s possession is an Elven bow, the Void (which I am naturally jealous of), the Crown of Science, and the unsearchable tin. However the bag once, and as a god still does, hold many more items, the Amulet of Night that gave him such trouble, the horn of a unicorn, the Staff of Law and the magical bookmark that can rewrite laws, the Ka-bar, the sphere of setty, a righting blade, and even a magical kirin named Celeste. Wonders many would kill for, formeost among those murderers being Shadow himself.
While Shadow is a Neden god, and one of its small pantheon, he was not always in Neden, indeed he predates it by far. His first mentor was Prince Iron Hand of the borderlands, where he rose to high priest of Chandros making him among the first followers of chaos. After Iron Hands left Shadow joined Creathorn as a regulator for a brief time until joining Cadre. It was with Cadre Shadow first cheated death and he escaped their doom.
It is here, heels freshly singed from the fires of Cadre, that he met a young Tallon Purplewood, and thus Shadow and Neden first crossed paths. Shadow was a mentor to the future mischief maker and helped him establish their nation before he joined Folkestone, confident that he will never have any conflict of interest between his loyalty to his king and loyalty to his protegee. It was here he learned of the void’s embrace and entered the service of the Dark One, and it is under the influence of the Arch-ender that he saw Neden get sent into the All by his own nation. Helpless to help those he helped shepard, and unwilling to play the role of their killer, Shadow faded into his own name, hiding until Tallon himself stopped and emerged back into the world.
With his old protegee returned, Shadow joined Neden again during the Protectorate era of Neden, until the time of Jonas Cooke the King of the Shadowlands.
Jonas Cooke is a story seldom told, and one that belonged more to his queen then his ursurper, however his powers were bound to him not by blood, but by power not of his own. And like all gifts, it could be lost, and like all lost things, it could be stolen.
And thus it was, in a expedition lead by Shadow himself, and Nos, Blackwood god of Shenanigans. The two braved many dangers only to be faced with a mantel only bearably by one. Nos had skill and ambition, but Shadow had his own skill, and it was his nameright. Thus the two dueled over the treasure and thus did Shadow’s blade prove swifter, and Nos was first to accept Shadow’s new divinity.
And thus, in triumph rather then shame, did the god fade into his name, and the tyrant Cooke fell.
Admittedly this is no doctrine, it is merely history. But history is analogy, and its own doctrine. They say those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it, but that is a misdirection.
Those who do not learn history will find themselves easily swayed by those who would see it repeated. Those who do not learn of Cooke will be fooled by Shadows.
Mantra 4: A picture is worth a thousand words. A deed is worth a thousand pictures. Sometimes a thousand whys can be answered by a single How. Not every tale has to harken to the next ancient doom that the world will face or hint to some magic item. Its only when a story is pointless when it can actually have a point.