It is an honor to stand here, giving praise to Deoch once again.
May you embrace that which makes you an Aisling, the gift of Deoch and the Inspiration you have fostered within yourselves
As we know, Deoch has been known as different things throughout time. During his servitude to Chadul, Deoch was the god of Debauchery. And, of course, we praise him now for being the god of Inspiration and Creativity. But there is one thing Deoch is occasionally called that you may not have heard yet.
Outside, you’ll see a very old, dilapidated signpost that points at this temple and says: Temple of Deoch, God of Rapture. It is an old view of Deoch, one that existed as a way to bridge the contradiction between his former nature and his current one.
You might ask: How does Rapture bridge Debauchery and Creativity?
When it comes to Debauchery, Deoch’s link to Rapture was entirely physical. Deoch’s Debauchery was unbridled and sinister. Among his many temptations, Deoch used his dark magic to craft fruits that were the largest and most colorful Temuairians had ever seen.
Deoch welcomed all to feast with him, tempting the Dark’s embrace to those willing to turn away from the Light. Those that did so found that those fruits weren’t only as flavorful as they looked but once eaten they gripped the body in a perpetual state of ecstasy. After one bite they could think of nothing else and the more they ate, the more lost they became in their own minds as their physical pleasure took priority. With the promise of more fruit, the enthralled practiced depraved rituals of the flesh to Dark powers with lecherous abandon. A rapturous but ultimately damning arrangement for those foolish enough to engage with a god of Darkness as the magics eventually warped them beyond all recognition into true beings of Darkness. Thralls of Chadul.
Like many things, when Deoch forsook the Darkness, this link to Rapture also changed.
When Deoch completed the Spark in Danaan’s absence, he performed what is still the most unthinkable union: a harmonious melding of Light and Dark energies. This act was the apex of creativity; an accomplishment so inconceivable that it transformed Deoch into the god of Inspiration.
Surly Deoch must have felt it in that moment, just as many of us have felt it at many points during our lives. The rush of mental triumph, the pleasure of a unique and creative endeavor being fulfilled. Something that only we, ourselves, could have created given form by our hands. This is intellectual side of rapture. The spark that flits from a simple idea and grows into a flame of elation inside of us as we bring that idea into creation.
This connection to Rapture is the mythos that was created to explain Deoch’s dual sided nature immediately following the birth of the Spark. The one that tried to explain how a god can transform so completely that he becomes unrecognizable to his former self; that there must be _some_ connection between the two. It has never been a widely practiced view, but it is a view of Deoch all the same and, as with all things, something to think on.
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