Steinbjorn: On Being an Agent of Divine Intervention

The relationship between wizards and their gods always has a measure of tension. On the one hand, a wizard is as humanoid as anyone, and contact with a higher power can be welcome and add great meaning to one's life. On the other hand, wizards are, by their nature, a natural rival to the gods, a source of power that grows outside of divine purview and can, in time, challenge even the power of the gods themselves.

I mean this as a general rule, of course. The place of the gods is in heaven, and any man arrogant enough to feel that they should rule alongside the gods is a dangerously unstable example of a magic user and should be neutralized by any means necessary. The sheer number of gods relating to Necromancy should serve as reason enough to Abjurers of rational bent to wake up and strive to a more perfect ability to stop those who would become such a god.

The end result, regardless, is that wizards often see their gods less as someone to be worshiped than an ally, perhaps a superior officer. Useful, yes, but a wizard doesn't necessarily need anything from their god, and therefore has no real reason to swear complete fealty to them and blindly do whatever they ask.

Mind you, that's not to say that your average wizard doesn't do exactly what their god requests, eventually. It's just that most of them are recalcitrant, egotistical whiners until you convince them that what you want them to do is precisely what they wanted to do anyway, and then they will.

Which, I suppose, is how I ended up following the path of Angr-Boda. She's not one of your well known Goddesses, not the sort that has temples and priests and what have you. I don't know that I've ever met a cleric of the giantess, or met anyone who would say they worshiped her primarily. Every now and then, you meet a mother whose children have fallen under a particularly nasty reputation, and then you might find a small shrine, but she's not a very visible deity.

She's not the sort of goddess who appears to you and demands fealty, or makes you turn ill if you refuse. She doesn't find you, you find her, and those of us who follow and serve her do so because we respect what she does. And, when she asks us to do something, we know it is for a purpose that we support: maintaining a balance, doing the things that must be done because they must be, though it may not be popular, and may not be something that you would like to advertise widely.

Mostly, this ends up meaning that I spend most of my time doing the work of other gods whose will needs doing, serving as their miracle at a time when it would be handy. Because, as any cleric will tell you, divine magic is only one sort of miracle. A word of kindness, or even a well placed word of derision, may alter someone's life as surely as destroying the undead or healing someone of plague. And, for a god, it means that they are not required to be everywhere at once, and don't need to spread their attention quite so widely. They can respond to a cry for help by sending myself as an agent, knowing that I will look into the situation and try to do the correct thing, without blindly doing what I'm told.

Which, I think, is why I have been let to travel with Valdis so long. Of the things that fascinate me, one of the most certain is her loyalty, her willingness to do anything asked of her by Hel without a question, without hesitation. To put her fate entirely in the hands of the goddess, and believe that she'll come out okay.

And, so far, she has. Several times only because I have been there, looking at angles to the situation completely left of of Hel's instructions.

Which could be seen as a sign of Hel's shortcomings, save for one thing: Hel is the reason I'm with her in the first place. So while it could be that Hel isn't very wise, it's just as possible (and, in my opinion, more so) that she was so wise that she made sure I would meet Valdis, stay with her, and that I alone could get her out of whatever situations she might find herself in.

And Angr-Boda, for her part, saw in Valdis someone who could help me accomplish the giantesses goals, while doing the same for me.

I may never know. But whatever the answer, I thank them for that gift they gave me, every day that we both remain alive.