The Secret Lives of Gods

When I was creating the character of Zvoltz, after I decided on his general background and personality, I spent some time thinking about his relationships with the other gods. Was he mad at Elostian for messing up the concept of Divine Circles? How did he feel about Eventru and Fain? Did he think Kalikai was dangerous or just a drunkard? At the time, I thought that would be about all the work I had to do to develop the character because that was my naive idea of what a god was: just some bland definitions, a sprinkling of goals, and some ideas about who he liked and who he hated.

Now that I’ve been out in the game, interacting with our wonderful players and the other admin characters, I’ve learned that there is a lot more to a god’s personality than that. I’ve done a lot of brainstorming with the other admin, especially the amazing Isune and wonderful Maylea, about what actually happened in Zvoltz’s past. Who did Zvoltz hang out with back before the events of the Elder Wars? What was his creche like? Did he have a mate? If so, what happened to him or her? What actually went on between him and Mysrai? The more I thought about Zvoltz, the more questions I was coming up with about who he REALLY is.

This is when I discovered that admin have a secret and sometimes incredibly detailed history of their characters squirreled away inside their heads. Isune calls this “headcanon”, the sort of unofficial lore we make up in our minds, but I think it is wonderfully exciting to get a glimpse into the heads of the gods. Recently, I had been thinking about the details of what happened when Zvoltz orchestrated the formation of the Circles of gods and Eventru’s player shared his thoughts on how Eventru ended up in the position he ended up in. These are all things that I never thought of as a player, the real details of who the gods are beyond zaps, truefavours, shrine powers, and the occasional (un)holy crusade.

I always have a full list of things I want to do as an admin, many of which I will probably never get around to doing. One of the things I really do hope that I will end up doing, however, is revealing a bit more about the true personality of Zvoltz and sharing with the players some of the epic joys and sorrows that he has experienced (at least in my head!).