Deities and Divinity in Talavai

The following are aspects of the dieties of Talavai that may be different from a stereotypical fantasy pantheon:

• They are quite separate from the Material Plane and their motivations and plans are somewhat inscrutable to mortals. Their will is not obvious and requires the interpretation of many different signs, leading to both intentional and unintentional misinterpretation.
• Likewise, the relationship between clerics and their diety is less personal and closer to real-world worship. Theologists have struggled for centuries to develop theories as to why certain people are bestowed with such divine powers and why some clerics are magically stronger than others. There do appear to be patterns, most notably a correlation between cleric power and devotion to a diety as well as their principals, but unexplainable exceptions abound.
• They rarely ever manifest physically and when they do it is never in humanoid form (they would consider it beneath them to imitate lower forms of life). Instead they are more likely to look like biblically-accurate angels (see picture below): massive, horrifying, and difficult to comprehend. This does not stop mortal artists from depicting them in humanoid form, but it is understood that these human forms are a short-hand reference, not a one-to-one depiction.

• Dieties are not considered creators of mortals/kin. Most organized religions admit to the fact that the dieties were created at the same time and by the same entity/force.
• Most are genderless. Those that have adopted gendered pronouns are theorized to have been genderless originally.

Dieties include

Tengri, god of the sky

Tu Bon, goddess of rivers

Neang Konghing, goddess of the earth

Negafook, diety of winter and cold

Pele, diety of fire

Sedna, diety of the ocean

Sola, goddess of the sun