TheEldritchGod
A Cloud Of Pure Spite And Eyes
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2021
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- 2,810
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1. That’s what I think is stupid about the philosophical context of enlightenment in the first place. Considering what we know about being human we know that emotions often guide us (sometimes well sometimes horribly) between good and bad things. To sever oneself from emotions and love to be enlightened is like saying one should no longer be human, which makes me question whether it turns someone into a robot.
I ran a D20 campaign that utilized the immortal rule set. So the player started at level 1, got up to epic, became a god, then gave up being a god, started over at 1 and worked up to being a god again. The second time around, they "won" and left the game.
I had two examples of previous gods who tried to pull this off and failed. The purpose is to demonstrate you can become a god 'naturally'. The first time could have been a fluke, so you have to do it twice to prove you qualify for ascension. The first one "cheated". He left a bunch of cheats behind for himself to help with his second life to fast track to becoming a god a second time. The second god accomplished both attempts to becoming a god, but when the final step came he was so pissed off at having been jerked around, that he said, "Nope. I'd like to stay here." and turned down ascension. He couldn't let go of this world.
They served as examples of what happens when you screwed up.
The player let go of everything, ascended, It was quite the finale to the campaign, I assure you, then managed to 'leave' the universe. In the process she was "born" as a universe and was the baby to two very nervous universes that REALLY wanted to have a baby, and they had two previous "miscarriages".
So the Player got to have the entire campaign as the 'final prize' because, they 'became' the campaign by ascending to the next level. And I informed the player that, "I have no idea how to run a campaign where you are an Nth Dimensional Being and an entire universe, so I'm ending it here. But I assure you, your two parent universes are very happy you arrived.
I think that was a good 'ascension', but it also clearly required you to 'give up' your connections to everything as a human to become something BEYOND. What being BEYOND actual means, we as humans cannot imagine, but I have a fairly good 'hint' with the final conclusion and I think it went well.
My point is, some forms of Ascension/Enlightenment might work in a narrative situation as long as the MC is becoming something More Than Human, thus why they have to cut ties to BEING human.
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BTW, Yes, the player actually played through every single level. The campaign lasted for about a decade.