Ok, I'm not fully knowledgeable about the Gaia setting. I've not played the Tactics game nor have I completely read the Gaia source book. Maybe some of my questions are answered elsewhere, but I don't know where to look to be honest. So... can someone help me make sense of some of the following things?

1) Why does the Church pretend the Supernatural doesn't exist, or at least work to cover its existence? Fear is the number one religious motivational tool. Why the hell would the Inquisition pretend that the Supernatural doesn't exist when its their job to hunt them down? Why wipe out towns to cover up things, when the dogma of the Faith actually says that the Church warred with the forces of the Supernatural? Wouldn't it make so much more sense to just paint them as all evil and say the boogie man is out there and we are here to protect you?

2) If the Church is a false religion, WTF do the Shajads and Beryls allow themselves to be co-opted by it? They must know the truth, or at least the fact that the religion isn't real, so why allow their followers to be involved in it even under false pretenses?

3) Are any of the religions worshipping real gods, and if they are, what are those gods doing? There are several faiths in the Gaia book, but none of them are presented (afaik) as being true or false or anything (unlike Christianity). Yet gods are mentioned, so they exist in the setting. So...what do they do, these gods? Are they involved with humanity at all? Do they do stuff like the Shajads and Beryls (i.e. Elan)?

4) Spear of Longinus... it 'absorbed some of the Messiah's Gnosis'. Ok, first off, the 'Messiah' was just a constructed human with techno-magical powers... how did the Powers in the Shadow 'give' him Gnosis and allow him to maintain his humanity? Since Gnosis comes from fate at birth, and the most a human can have is 20, at best he was a 20 which is huge, but... what's the big deal about the weapon absorbing it? From the description of the Pillar of Souls, those things already had some Gnosis of their own, and the 'Messiah' being a false patsy, well, he wasn't that special (in the 'divine origin' sense of the word). One imagines the Imperium could recreate him if they really needed to.

5) All the Apostles pretty much sound like they were Bad Asses with a capital BA. Their abilities were beyond human and I can only imagine that they wielded Ki (the most likely power since they were fighting a war against magicians). So... why does the Church view that as evil again?

Thanks for your help in advance!

I am definitely not an expert in this. But here is how I see it:

1. Logically I do not know. However, if the church did not try to hide it the PC's would have an even harder time hiding. In universe I don't understand it but it makes sense in that it allows supernatural people to exist in secret, and thus PC's are born. Sorry I can't help here.

2. The Sajad and Beryls actually don't want to effect the human world anymore, unless it is very important. They keep agents in the worlds (people with Elan) in case they need to intervene. For the most part people believing a false religion makes it easier for them to manipulate things in the shadows.

3. There are religions that worship the Shajad and Beryl. Other "gods" exist if the GM wants them to, and can grant Elan powers if the GM wishes them to. They probably have less Gnosis and power than the Shajad and Beryl but otherwise have no limits. I think they presented these to allow the GM to create his own powers, a lot like allowing "Great Beasts" to grant Summoners Invocations. They don't have any preset rules on what they do, so the GM can do whatever s/he wants.

4. Lets say Messiah's Gnosis is 20, and the Spear of Longinus had a starting Gnosis of 15...it now has a Gnosis of 35. At least that's why I figure it is important. It probably has a Gnosis of 40+ after absorbing the Massiah's. As per the Imperium creating a new Messiah, I do no know.

5. Because...hypocracy does not need to be explained! You dare question the Church? THEN YOU MUST DIE!!! (I have no idea. They just do. Makes an interesting story, just go with it.)

1. I think, the church says "Supernatural powers don't exist, but powers from demons and devils". IMO the difference is: If the power (magic etc) is from demons and devils, it must be evil. But if it isn't from demons etc. it would be a part of your potential (like your ability to walk, you can cast spells), therefore, the powers wouldn't be really evil (you can use them for evil things, but I need not).

2. I think, what Lia Valenth said, it true

3. The setting has creatures and persons with nearly divine powers, but never gods, so I think, it is a message of the setting: Gods don't exists. Everyone with enough potential (Gnosis), can be something like a god, but true gods aren't there.

4. I don't think, that the highest gnosis is 20. It is true, that the highest natura is +20, but if you have more than 20 gnosis, your natura wouldn't become greater as +20. Example: If Abel was human, his normal gnosis and natura would be 0. But if he had a gnosis of 35, he would have a natura of +20. So is my interpretation of the natura part.

To the Spear of Longinus: It could be possible, that Imperium can only create "humans" or things with a gnosis of 20 or lower (or some other number). But if there are objects, which can absorb gnosis, they can create stronger things, with this way. For example: We say, Imperium is only able to create "objects" with gnosis 20 or lower. So the create Abel and the Spear, both with 20 gnosis. Now the spear absorbs the gnosis of Abel: Yeah, now he as 40 Gnosis, which is huge. But this is only a theorie.

1. I have found certain similarities between the way religion and inquisition work in Warhammer 40k and in Anima. In both cases, the institutions are more than a little hypocritical and bigoted. In Warhammer 40k knowledge of certain technologies and of the Chaos gods and their demons is supressed because the authorities (rightly) fear that otherwise the opressed masses would fall to the lure of chaos, and psykers are rigidly controlled (and most of them just sacrificed to the emperor to power the astronomican).

Likewise, in Anima the church tries to withhold the knowledge of the existence of the supernatural world from the common folk so that they do not go and seek it out, thereby making it more difficult for the church to control it. The numbers actually do speak for their methods: not everybody by far has the potential to be a wizard or a mentalist (the rules say about 1 in 10,000 have the gift... while psychcic abilities may or may not be as rare, they are not exactly the norm. Consider now that if everybody was aware of the existence of the supernatural, almost all of those people would sooner or later notice what kind of advantage they have and try to develop their powers, thus increaseing the threat the church faces. If they don't know that they're gifted, most of them won't try to start seeking out ways to learn to further their powers thus making it easier for the church to control them. Remember, the text says there are only about a thousand inquisitors, and those are the only people the church has they actually deem capable of handling supernatural problems.

That leaves the summoners and the ki users... the summoners may actually be the greates problem for the church since they wield the greatest power without even needing the Gift to acquire it. Everybody can learn how to be a summoner. So it follows, that if everybody knew about the supernatural, underground summoner cults would probably run rampant and be much harder to put down by a meager 1,ooo inquisitors. Again, best option is still to deny all knowledge of the existence of such powers from the general populace in order not to tempt them.

Ki is also a problem, but I'm guessing that since everybody has at least some potential for it and most of the major heroes use it to some degrees the church doesn't crack down on that as long as the users stay unobtrusive (i.e. no flashy effects that remind people of the existence of the supernatural).

In my own game I have created a "hierarchy of sins", meaning the worst offense is summoning, then using magic, then using mentalism and then using ki. Ki is actually more or less accepted by the church because it's not really a supernatural power since it's just a way of training your body. But if the power used looks too much like magic (flaming weapons or something like that), you will be persecuted. Mentalism may or may not lead to persecution, depending on the power used - if it looks too much like magic (e.g. pyrokinetic powers) the church will have no mercy on you.

Magic and summoning are always persecuted and punishable by death.

If you look at it like that - an understaffed institution trying to stem a tide - it makes sense when you concede the point that keeping people in the dark helps them keep that tide at a managable level. Remeber, they don't need to say that the supernatural is out there and evil to have the favour of the people - they aleady have that because they are the church.

2. As I read it, the Beryls and Shajads aren't really co-opted by the church, it's rather that they are similar in "personality" to some of the beings the church mythology says exist. They don't want to be bothered by affairs in the world anymore... thy have a few agents in place willingly, but synchronizing may also happen without the Beryl / Shajda actually being aware of it. They are not really interested in the affairs of humanity as a whole anymore ever since C'iel and Gaira decided to keep aloof from mortal affairs, so why should they care if people follow a false religion? Also, remember that the church does a lot of good for the people: it is one of the pillars of stability for the old empire, and the dangers of the supernatural can't really be denied.

3. As Lia said, you can always create your own gods and have them offer elan. I advise against that, however. I always thought that other gods are just wayspeople look at the Shajads and Beryls, merely aspects of their personality. As such, if you worship, for example, Kali in her aspect as goddess of murder, you start to synchronise with Zemial. This way you can worship any of the mythological gods with the effect of actually gaining your elan from the respective Beryl or Shajad.

In addition to that, there are probably a whole lot of beings from the Wake posing as gods or other legendary figures for their own purposes... however, their powers should be constrained by the usual rules for creating creatures (which are powerful enough thanks to high gnosis).

4. Really can't say anything about the spear of Longinus... no idea what absorbed Gnosis would do or how it would be possible. If you can absorb Gnosis (by whatever arcane means Imperium would be able to do that), it stands to reason that you can transfer it. Grant anybody an infusion of only 20 Gnosis and see every mage gaining that do a dance of joy. Also, a single individual is not restricted by the maximum gnosis of his race... it just means that when he reaches higher Gnosis, he is no longer strictly speaking a member of that race.

5. The Apostles would, by the viewpoint of the church, be considered "Saints". The way the church views the world, approximately 99% of all supernatural powers stems from Satan, but the rest get their powers granted by "God". Those people who get their powers from god are declared saints and go on to become the powerful High Inquisitors or gain similar positions of power in the church or the empire. Supernatural powers of saints are not subject to persecution... but how the church determines who is considered to have their powers from god might not really have anything to do with how they actually got their powers, but how susceptible they are to chruch dogma (which brings us back to Warhammer 40k, where sanctioned psykers are not persecuted, but unsanctioned psykers are considered a danger to everybody and will - if they are lucky - be executed without a semblance of a trial.

I think that the church really doesn't advertise the powers of their saints so that people don't get their noses shoved into the existence of supernatural powers at all (compare 1.), but that classification is really more of an internal mechanism of the church... every church saint or licensed empire soldier (like the knight s of the heavens) is free to use supernatural powers (as long as there are no witnesses), everyone else just isn't.

As far as the supernatural powers of the apostles go, they're likely either not mentioned in official church doctrine (something like "... and then the apostles went forth to battle the darkness..." without going into specifics or saying that in those days the apostles had powers they gained from the messiah, but such things are no longer commonly available to pwople in "this day and age", just like todays religions talk about the miracles of the prophets from bygone ages, but those are not replicated today.

As always, YMMV.

Ok, thanks for clearing up the Gnosis/Naturae thing.

As to Gods, the fluff is pretty specific on it in several places. The two dragons are 'beyond gods' and Gods are mentioned in TWWAU in a few places (though no stats are provided). So gods do exist in the world they just seem to be not doing a whole lot.

The thing with the Apostles is this: they led the church. They were the generals of the armies that smashed the ancient power of Soloman. They had serious power on their side. This had to be most likely Ki and Psychics. Now, as these generals led their armies and trained their men to match the arcane forces of Soloman, why would they turn away from continuing to train their armies in that way? Everyone can learn Ki, so why switch tracks when it was such a useful tool to begin with, a tool you yourself used, and start taking a sketchy look at people doing the same thing?

I know that some Ki use is accepted in the setting. It just smacks me kind of arbitrary and a bit weird to pretend that the theocratic nations who used this stuff openly to conquer the world, would give up such a weapon.

Well the answer to that is, as far as I could read from the setting information, that only after the war with Ra under the new empire of Zhorne Giovanni did the resentment against supernatural creatures really start because of the devastation supernatural powers caused during the war. That and the agreement between the powers in the shadows to separate the world and keep the existence of other races a secret is the basis for the secrecy surrounding the supernatural races.

The empire and the church probably merely extended that subterfuge to include supernatural powers as a whole after Zhorne Giovanni tasked the church with destroying supernatural powers, including supernatural creatures that didn't want to leave the human part of the world and wielders of supernatural energies (compare page 229 in the rulebook).

Why exactly they decided to include supernatural powers in the secrecy that should only concern the supernatural races is not relly clear besides the fact that the sole control of supernatural powers of the church and the empire more or less means the same as the sole control of firearms during the colonization meant for the British: it makes it incredibly hard for your subjugated people to rise up and rebel against your rule.

my 2 comments on four, where did it say hat his genosis was 20? I never read that I did read he was beyond what any human before thus wag above a normal humans max of 20, the people that created them have powers and abilities beyond the normal realms ability thus the messiah doesn't follow normal human restrictions, if he did why would anyone said he was beyond human if he wasn't like you are getting to justify. He easily could have a genosis I the 30s or 50s, that is the power the spear gained some of, not of a near human but something, manufacture yes, but manufactured to be well beyond the normal scope of humanity.

Guys...Abel was a protodeus with Gnosis around 40. All frigging Jurgands are. And almost all of the really big ones within the Imperium. Eljared is/was.

The strangest thing is that Abel was CAPTURED! A being with that Gnosis should have been almost unstoppable, but probably Imperium used some technomagic defice to "tap" his powers for a while.

Anyway, just to let you know, the Senators in Solomon had found the way to achieve similar Gnosis themselves and turn themselves in walking godlike-beings...and that's exactly when Imperium decided to stop them once and for all.

As for gods, there are 4 classes of them.

Gaira and Ci'el: Their Gnosis is simply IMMENSE. They are over 50...meaning they can't even be expressed by a sheet. They are the real stuff...but don't give a thing about what's happening around. They won't budge a single inch until their intervention is absolutely necessary for the existence of Gaia.

Berils/Shajads: Gnosis 50...yes, they're immense too, and they are the gods that created stuff on Gaia except for men...probably rolling a character sheet for one of them would mean rolling a Level100 character using Anima System. They too won't act too much in the world...but if they discover that Imperium is aiming to their destruction and actually has a good plan underway, I guess they might choose to become more active, but they will still have to do it very carefully since the balance between them is very tense...and after having fought a war that destroyed almost all of them in a few minutes, they should be wise enough not to want to try it again!

Average Gods: Gnosis 45. Most gods venerated by the religions are either "aspects" of Berils and Shajads or Beings like these. Probably the Aityr god of the norths are entities with Gnosis 45, like Fenrisulf which seems to have been destroyed by Abel. Probably Malekith has this same Gnosis as far as he stays quietly in the Wake. The three Fates also have probably this level of Gnosis. Perhaps Pistis Sophia. Oh, and higher Kamis of course.

Lower Gods: Gnosis 40. These are fairly "weak"...they are much more powerful than most stuff on Gaia. It's the Gnosis of the Aeons, the immense elemental gods. Also higher Demons and Onis and lower Kamis. I believe Jurgand and Protodeus from Imperium are around this level as should have been Abel, but possibly some of them, including Abel reached even Gnosis 45. Anyway, consider that Gnosis 40 is already sufficient to cast Divine Magic.

Actually beings with Gnosis 35 are "half-gods"...they're not as powerful as gods, actually, but under a mortal perspective, they can easily be mistaken for gods.