Failed Religions

Failed Religions is a scholarly work examining the many religions and gods worshipped throughout the world before Demmazon openly revealed himself.

The book discusses numerous nature gods and spirits that were heavily worshipped during the period when Demmazon deliberately kept his own existence secret. It also explores the theory that many of these religions appeared to function because Demmazon himself answered their prayers while allowing their followers to believe they were worshipping other gods.

The Gods Before Demmazon

According to the book, Demmazon occasionally masqueraded as whatever god was being worshipped by a particular group.

Once a religion had gained a following, Demmazon would answer some of its prayers. This gave the worshippers apparent evidence that their chosen gods truly existed and helped reinforce the religion.

The authors speculate extensively about Demmazon's motives for doing this. Several theories are presented:

• Demmazon may have been preparing people to eventually accept his existence as the true God.

• Demmazon may have regarded the world and its inhabitants as a kind of grand experiment, with the existence of multiple supposed gods providing additional variables.

• Demmazon may simply have done it for his own amusement.

The book does not establish which, if any, of these explanations was actually correct.

After Demmazon revealed himself, the book states that there were no further significant attempts to establish independent religions outside his church. Miscellaneous cults continued to appear, but the beings they worshipped were considered lesser entities rather than true gods.

The Attempted Rise to Godhood

A substantial portion of Failed Religions examines the possibility that a non-divine being might ascend to godhood.

Several scholars, dating back to ancient times, proposed that a mortal or other non-divine being could potentially reach divine status if three conditions were satisfied.

Power

The being must first possess some extraordinary power that sets it apart from others of its kind.

Examples given in the book include:

• A wizard who possesses unprecedented control over magic

• A child possessing exceptional intelligence

• A beast of unsurpassed cruelty

Worship

The being must acquire a substantial number of followers who genuinely worship it as a divine being, or who genuinely believe that it has the potential to become a god.

The book emphasizes that this belief cannot simply be faked. The followers must genuinely believe in the being's divinity for the condition to be effective.

A Divine Demonstration

Finally, the being must demonstrate its power through some sort of miracle.

The demonstration must be sufficiently impressive and far-reaching to establish the being's potential for divinity. A small or localized miracle would not be sufficient.

The theory presented in the book is that a sufficiently powerful being that satisfies all three conditions could potentially ascend to the level of a minor deity or demigod.

The book does not establish whether these criteria are an absolute requirement for divine ascension or merely the conclusions reached by the scholars who developed the theory.

Filtiarn

The book identifies Filtiarn as one of the most notable attempts at ascension.

Filtiarn was a powerful being who became known as the self-styled god of wolves. He is believed to have been the first documented werewolf, although the question of whether his original form was that of a man or a wolf remains contested.

Filtiarn rose to prominence around the same period that Aegea was founded.

The book considers Filtiarn to have satisfied the first requirement simply through his existence as the first werewolf. His lycanthropic nature provided a power that distinguished him from ordinary mortals and beasts.

His approach to the second and third requirements was considerably more deliberate.

Filtiarn had already gathered a substantial following among wolves and wolf-like creatures, including worgs and winter wolves. He attempted to turn this following into genuine religious devotion by demonstrating his supposed divine power.

He created additional werewolves, and those he transformed were naturally inclined to follow him. In this way, each transformation simultaneously demonstrated his extraordinary power and produced another potential follower.

According to the book, this still was not sufficient. The miraculous demonstration needed to be sufficiently widespread to propel Filtiarn to divinity.

The Plague of Aegea

Filtiarn therefore created a plague.

He somehow infused the essence of his lycanthropic curse into an airborne disease and unleashed it upon Aegea. His plan was to infect a large portion of the city's population and then trigger the lycanthropic curse in thousands of people simultaneously.

This would have served two purposes:

1. It would have provided the widespread divine miracle required by the theory of ascension.

2. It would have transformed thousands of people into followers of Filtiarn at the same time.

The plan was disrupted when the disease developed a flaw. Several citizens transformed into werewolves before Filtiarn was ready to trigger the curse throughout the city.

This alerted the people of Aegea that the outbreak was something more than an ordinary plague. They were able to discover a means of stopping the disease and ultimately defeated Filtiarn.

The event prevented what the book describes as the likely destruction of Aegea and prevented Filtiarn from completing his attempted rise to divine power.

The details of the Aegea plague and the effort to stop it are documented in The Quest for the Cure.

Historical Significance

Failed Religions is important both as a study of pre-Demmazon religious history and as one of the surviving scholarly examinations of the possibility of mortal ascension.

Its discussion of Filtiarn provides an account of the events surrounding the Aegea plague from the perspective of later scholars. The book's theory of divine ascension also provides important context for understanding Filtiarn's ambitions and the methods he employed in attempting to achieve them.