Fate, Choice, and Destiny

A key to understanding the difference between imperials and the people of Tarsa may lie in understanding how the two groups understand the interplay of Fate, Choice, and Destiny. Both cultures have highly developed philosophies regarding these concepts, but they understand them very differently. While Fate and Destiny are often personified (Fate is usually considered female, Destiny male), they are not understood by either culture to be individual entities like the Living Gods of the empire or even the The Old Gods of Tarsa. Instead, they are impersonal forces that help shape the world, in the same metaphysical category as magic, the movement of the stars, or the cycle of death an rebirth. These forces affect Gods just as much as mortals.

Tarsan Beliefs

To the Tarsaks, "destiny" refers to the circumstances--but importantly not the time--of a person's death. Some Tarsan peoples believe that Destiny recorded the deaths of everyone who will every live at the beginning of time; others believe that each person's death is set down by Destiny at the time of conception. In either case, Destiny is merely a neutral record keeper. He plays no role in determining the contents of a person's destiny and takes no interest in the words he writes down. The words Destiny writes always come to pass, but not through any effort on his part.
According to the Tarsan philosophy, everyone will die in the way Destiny has preordained, but the timing of the event is ruled by choice and Fate. The traditional example used to explain this idea is the story of Molak the Merchant:

"Molak's destiny is to die at sea during a storm. Molak, unaware of his destiny, has booked passage on the Sea Snake, a ship that is fated to sink when it takes storm damage. The trip on the Sea Snake is to be Molak's first ocean voyage, and the reasons for him choosing to travel by ship are sufficiently unusual that this may be Molak's only chance to experience ocean travel. Is there anything that will prevent Molak from going down with the Sea Snake?"
At this point, the student typically admits that the Sea Snake seems to be the instrument of Molak's destiny, to which the teacher responds something along the lines of:
"Aye, and a betting man would be wise to wager against Molak, but there are two things that can still save the merchant: Choice and Fate. Molak my unwittingly choose to save himself: Maybe he gets scared and decides against the voyage when a fish head washes up in the gutter by his front door, or a bard at the Minotaur sings a song about doomed sailors in a watery grave, or maybe he just decides that whatever he was leaving town for isn't as worthwhile as he thought it was when he made plans to set sail. Whatever the reason, Molok can choose not to board the Sea Snake and stave off his death for the time being.
"And even if Molak has every intention of dying at sea, there's always the possibility that he'll be foiled by Fate. Maybe she fogged up the captain's mind and caused him to tell Molak the wrong time or day for departure, maybe she sets a band of thugs on poor old Molok and he's still lying in the gutter unconscious when the Snake leaves port, or maybe she gives Mrs. Molak a stirring that causes her to give him grand goodbye that makes him lose all sense of time and get to the dock a half-hour after the ship's underway. In any case, Molok doesn't die aboard the Sea Snake.
"Of course, don't misunderstand, Molak hasn't escaped his destiny, he's just postponed it. Maybe he'll book passage on another ship next month and fall overboard when the seas get rough, maybe he'll get swept off the dock during one of those fast-moving summer storms while he's scattering Mrs. Molok's ashes 50 years from now, or maybe he'll drink too hard on rainy night and fall into the drink. There's nothing Molak can do to keep from dying in stormy seas eventually, it's just a matter of when."

While Molak's story suggests that Fate is taking an active role in things, to the Tarsan's she is just as disinterested in human life and welfare as her brother. She may have some goal in doing what she does, but the effect she has on mortal lives is a negligible (to her) side-effect of her work, not the work itself. A common analogy is to imagine Fate as a spider spinning a web around all creation to catch some unimaginable cosmic fly. A mortal caught in her web is as uninteresting to Fate as a leaf or twig to an Eyeder.

Imperial Beliefs

To the imperials, a destiny is a thing that will come to pass. Unlike the deaths in the Tarsan Destiny's book, the Destiny of the imperial imagination records prophecies upon his scroll that are not tied to any particular person. For instance, there are presumably thousands of prophecies that are variations on "A brown-eyed solder dies on the battlefield," "A sandy-haired farmer raises a family," and "A merchant loses his caravan to bandits." Prophecies like "The bastard son of a king will forge a sword for the ages," or "A silver-eyed slave will cause the downfall of a great Wizard" are presumably rarer. To the imperials, one of the goals of life is to secure the greatest destinies to which you are entitled.
While the choices a person makes can help lead them to the destiny they deserve, Fate also plays a role. Where the Tarsan Fate is barely cognizant of humans, the imperial Fate rewards the noble and leads villains to their own ruin. Unsurprisingly, kind of "nobility" that garners the blessings of Fate involves adhering to imperial values like obedience, loyalty, and deference to one's betters.

How These Differences Play Out

The two different philosophies concerning Fate, Choice, and Destiny create several distinctive differences between imperial and Tarsan culture:

• Seers, Oracles, and Soothsayers of all stripes are in high demand among imperials, especially those that deliver the rare prophecies about great deeds or epic downfalls. Even those who do not meet the requirements of a particular prophecy take great enjoyment in speculating about how it will play out.
• Tarsaks have little interest in fortune telling. The only thing a fortune teller can truly reveal is how you're going to die, and knowing the details might just cause you to bring it about sooner by working too hard to avoid it. Instead, Tarsans look for omens that can help guide their choices and keep them from wandering into the wrong parts of Fate's web.
• Because the empire's conception of Fate rewards the noble and punishes the wicked, people tend to see their place and life as the result of their own choices. If their life is good, it's because they have lived virtuously and deserve it. If their life is bad, it's because they have made bad choice.
• Tarsaks take a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" approach to life. Fate's influence is just as likely to cause the virtuous to suffer and the villainous to prosper as the other way around. All you can do is be ready to adapt to whatever Fate throws at you until you meet your inevitable destiny.
• Imperials use the words "Fate" and "Fortune" interchangeably, because good fortune comes from making choices that please Fate.
• To the Tarsaks, "Fortune" is a separate concept from "Fate." To the people of Tarsa, "Fortune" means coming out on top despite the machinations of Fate and Destiny. Their saying that "Fortune favors the bold" is often taken to mean that since you can't control Fate or change Destiny, the best course of action is defy them. Don't worry about what the impersonal forces of the creation might do to you and set your mind to what you can do for yourself.

Manifestation

Stories of divinations and prophecies fulfilled seems to prove that some form of destiny is at work in the world, but the variety of examples suggest that neither culture has a completely accurate understanding of the phenomenon. More understood are the workings of Fate, or more precisely the idea of "fates:" particular events or situations that Fate has arranged for a person. Wizards called Fatespinners can sense the fates that are in store for a person in the near future and have found ways to remove them and transfer them to others. An even more immediate example of Fate in action are the supernatural events that take place during a game of Fate's Hand with a competent Fatespinner presiding.

Type

Metaphysical, Supernatural