THE CHRONICLES OF INTHANDONIA: PART THREE

The Face of Athil Atoz'i

"The various peoples of Inthandonia have never had much to do with gods and demons. It is a planet where the supernatural is considered as 'only natural' - or 'all supernatural'. After all in a Universe, a 'One Song' where everything is connected to everything else, separations and divisions are only arbitrary mental constructs with no objective reality of their own. Despite the lack of gods there is still religion on Inthandonia. The main religion there is known as the Church of Cosmic Uncertainty which recognises that Nothing is Certain and that this is a very good thing! Worship does not occur there for how does one worship gods and goddesses who only "might be there but we're not really certain"? Gods are seen as anthropomorphisms, mental constructs that exist only within human awareness as mechanisms for understanding the cosmic All. So gods - particularly weather gods and stern bearded patriarchal overlords lolling about on clouds - get little response on Inthandonia. God-forms however do get some recognition. God-forms have the advantage of being unreal and therefore quite capable of unreal abilities - while the farmer cannot conceive of all the complex interactions required to grow a better crop he can imagine - creatively visualise - a god-form that can not only conceive of but directly intervene in those natural cycles - leading to a better crop. The Farmer does not believe in the separate and actual existence of his imaginary god yet he nonetheless uses the mental construct - a thought form shaped like a god, or a god-form - to assist his labors According to the Church of Cosmic Uncertainty we cannot be sure that visualizing an imaginary god-form encouraging your crops actually makes any real difference in the long run. However neither can we be certain that it doesn't so it's probably worth doing just in case! This policy of using god-forms to help shape ones creative visualisations was once very widespread in ancient Darthan and over time a collective image arose of one particular god-form. He was called Athil Atoz'i (literally meaning 'Spirit of Nature') the Horned God. His face, always depicted withing a halo of encircling leafy foliage, commonly adorned meeting halls, grain stores and particularly places of magic. The image above shows the Foliate Man, the Green Man Athil Atoz'i - a carved stone which is displayed in the Grand Hall of the Imperial College of Thaumaturgy at Thanhome City in Thania. This is the only known statue of Athil Atoz'i still in one piece. The Doors of Qloom, entrance to the magickal hidden City of the Magus, is reputed to have a similar carved visage above a double door marked with the Sunburst device of the House of Smekter - of course the entire city of Qloom vanished without trace two thousand years ago and hasn't been seen since." Extract from "The Green Man of Darthan" by Senior Augurer Provid Cromik, Imperial College of Thaumaturgy

Rendered in Vue 6 Pro Studio, modelled using trueSpace 7.6 and Hexagon.