Gods get their power via their worship. - Okay. I understand that bit. But how did they as "new gods" get enough "power" together to take on and throw out the Valheru ?

From: Raymond E. Feist
Date: 23 October 1995

Boy, you folks really get into the nuts and bolts stuff of fantasy, don't you?

I think we'll start a new sub-genre, "Hard Fantasy!"

I don't want to get too far down the road of explaining how some of the underlying cosmology works, but let's start off with this one assumption:

There is a quality in the evolution of the universe which can only be called "mystery." The Roman Catholics among you are very familiar with this ineffable aspect of the nature of God, among Earth's religions.

The Indus among you know about the Brahma Dream as the model for creation.

So, OK, SOMETHING happened and the universe was created. Macros and Pug watched it, but no one knows WHY it happened, or HOW it happened.

The ORDER of the universe changed at a point when the Valheru were supplanted by the Gods. People know that it happened, but the how and why are also unknow.

The "raw," unfinished gods (if you will) rose and battled the Valheru, each seizing a position in the scheme of the universe. Then after the dust steeled, humans began to worship them.

Which helped define them, to a large degree.

Remember, just because the humans have given places in the order of things to the gods, in terms of their religion and function that it's exact or accurate. It's what lingusts called "confusing the map for the landscape." Or as my grandma used to say, "Just because the cat had her kittens in the oven don't make them biscuits."

Remember, just because humans call Astalon the God of Justice, doesn't make him exactly that. It means that's what humans see him as, and that's how they treat him.

For more, you'll have to read the next book.

Best, R.E.F.

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