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One issue I have with your account, Eldacar, is how much time there was between the collapse of the Warp Gates and the Incursion.
It's unknown. I'm guessing a few centuries. It is, of course, equally possible that it took millennia, or the reverse (no time at all).
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You get yourself into trouble when you say that there was no need for gods as long as the Old Ones were around, because if,
There was no need to consciously pay attention to the concept of gods, no. They would still have formed over time in the Aethyr, but their "design" (for lack of a better term) would have been much more vague than it was once the Elves deliberately started worshipping them.
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as I suspect, there's a very short period of time between the collapse of the Warp Gates and the invasion of the daemonic legions there is not enough time to form the gods nor any logical explanation for a Golden Age of peace based around the Everqueen of /Isha/.
Define "short" first (i.e. a few years, a few decades, a few centuries?). Moreover, the Elven histories in that regard are flawed, or at least incomplete. The elf talking about the "Golden Age" is living in
Caradryel's time, and he still doesn't know much about it. Only the oldest songs of the High Elven bards even remember the Old Ones themselves. I mentioned it above: what is known regarding those times is murky at best.
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This discussion is, in general, a major problem with how GW has chosen to take the Fantasy religions in the past few years. We can all accept that the gods are warp entities, daemons writ on a grand scale. But this whole thing becomes a cynical, almost nihilistic affair once you start adding in the crap from the Liber Chaoticas and other new roleplay sources.
It's been around for much longer than the past few years. The concept has existed going right back to 3rd edition and earlier. The books I use as references most often (Realms of Sorcery, Tome of Salvation, Liber Chaotica) are merely the most recent
iterations of those concepts. If you have a complaint with it, you'd be better off aiming your complaint at Warhammer being dark fantasy rather than high fantasy in general, not just the last few years. On the
sliding scale of idealism vs. cynicism, Warhammer is very much a cynical world.
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The elven gods as described by Eldacar aren't gods at all, they're tools.
How are they not gods? They are very much gods - "divine" beings who can enact their will on the material world in via certain methods. Calling them a tool just because they were originally formed from elven (or human, in the case of human gods) thoughts, dreams and the like doesn't make much sense to me.
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In Eldacar's construction Asuryan is not the god of the elves, the elves are the gods of Asuryan.
My construction? Since when was it ever
my construction? If you like, I'll find you the quotes and page numbers from canonical material that backs up what I'm saying. It isn't my construction, it belongs to GW.
And, incidentally, Asuryan is very much a god of the elves. That he originally came into being partially as a result of the elves themselves shouldn't really have much to do with it. He exists and has power far beyond the scale of any mortal (albeit limited by certain rules that are a part of his existence, just as they are a part of the existence of any god). Moreover, now that he does exist, the Elves can't just un-exist him whenever they feel like it. They have essentially placed Asuryan above themselves.
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It's possible for gods to be warp entities and be mysterious at the same time.
They are mysterious. Think about this: Why are the Chaos Gods trying to destroy the world and every living creature in it if they themselves know that they will cease to exist (or at the very least lose their coherence and sentience) when they succeed? Why did Asuryan within Aenarion
oppose Caledor Dragontamer's plan to create the Vortex when he should have realised that it would save his people? The gods exist on a completely different level of "being" to a mortal, with motives, compulsions and drives that are essentially incomprehensible to their followers. They aren't like, say, the Greek or Roman gods, who were often very much like mortals in their drives and wants, but with a lot more power.
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Why are we trying to make the gods, well, not?
So basically, you take issue with what the Warhammer world calls a god, because it doesn't match up with what
you think should be a god?
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Khaine is not Khorne, just as murder is distinct from slaughter. Pay attention to the small differences between the gods.
I pay much more attention to it than you'd think, I suspect. Nor do I really see what Khaine has to do with it, since anybody who even halfway bothered to read the material would know that he is distinct from Khorne.
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Then, and only then, will you arrive at a system that has some coherency.
You won't have a system at all, if you're saying what I think you're saying.