Two conversations
I have recently had two separate conversations with two unlikely sources of information.
The first was with Baern who put forward an interesting theory. When we all passed through the portal from Haven to Furlough, we each had an encounter with beings representing themselves as the four gods of Furlough. Each of us was asked to make a choice.
The choices were as follows:
Bearn: The Mother (clearly)
Olen: The Father (again, clearly)
Myself (Savin): The Brother (The offer was of knowledge)
Voss: The Brother (likely for reasons similar to my own)
Yulia: Unknown. We did not discuss our respective encounters until very recently (for reasons of our own) and Yulia is, temporarily, not with he group.
Here is what Baern asserts:
1. Yulia chose the Father.
2. The current state of the Furlough pantheon is a direct reflection of these choices
a. Two chose the Brother and Barrera now represents this diety (where before the Brother was the least openly worshipped)
b. Two chose the Father and the Ecclesiarch (a Father aligned relio-political faction) now rules Ascension.
c. One chose the Mother. Worship is scattered and weakened. Common wisdom holds that the Mother was wounded during the fall (Those of Ascension say it was the Brother though this could be propaganda)
d. None chose the Daughter and she appears withdrawn or gone from the world.
This is a compelling theory. In fact, it allows me to place several additional pieces together.
As we know, Deities are little more than stabilized Thaumological Fields that have obtained consciousness (or at least an approximation thereof). Consider if, during our transition from Haven, something blocked the "belief field" (see my landmark paper on the sources of magic) from reaching the gods. This would have resulted in the instantaneous disruption of their being. The five of us, however, were in transition through the astral plane and thus were unaffected by the blockage.
In desperation, the gods must have waylaid our travel and used us to keep their field stable during the disruption. The Father and The Brother would have maintained greater strength while the Daughter would have been largely (or completely) disrupted.
Greater research is required to confirm the validity of this theory.
The second conversation was with the Memory Devil in Eddington. While great knowledge could be gained by actually having the Devil use its powers, this conversation was with the Devil itself. It has been trapped on Furlough since the fall. Unfortunately, the creature was far from a trained Arcane scholar so any practical knowledge was hard to come by. One thing it did say, however, was that divine worshop was flawed and that, "they worshipped mortal beings rather than true gods." At the very least, this statement would indicate the existence of additional forces at work.