Divine Genders

[XuaXua]

Many times when I read this forum, posters in threads discussing particular game dieties swap pronoun usage; he or she, him or her; in reference to the same diety. Are genders strictly defined, or no, and if so, what are they?

[nicolae]

Many times when I read this forum, posters in threads discussing particular game dieties swap pronoun usage; he or she, him or her; in reference to the same diety. Are genders strictly defined, or no, and if so, what are they?

I think a few of the gods used to have a gender in their descriptions, but some time back the devs went through and explicitly removed any and all gender references to the deities (and are working on doing the same for the player.) Any given deity can be male, female, neither, or both, as your taste suits you. Xom is probably five genders at once.

[KoboldLord]

In-story, the gender, race, and physical form of the gods probably varies according to the culture who is telling the story. The spriggan berserkers in their forest vault probably imagine Trog as a mighty bear spirit looking after her cubs, while Snorg probably imagines Trog as the biggest and meanest troll of all. Neither is right or wrong, and Trog never incarnates personally to set an objective truth.

[nicolae]

In-story, the gender, race, and physical form of the gods probably varies according to the culture who is telling the story. The spriggan berserkers in their forest vault probably imagine Trog as a mighty bear spirit looking after her cubs, while Snorg probably imagines Trog as the biggest and meanest troll of all. Neither is right or wrong, and Trog never incarnates personally to set an objective truth.

If you arrange for your followers to argue about the small details of your personality and appearance you can make sure they never argue about whether you're worth worshipping at all...

[mageykun]

Crawl goes out of its way to avoid gender pronouns when discussing the Gods.

I kind of like to think of it this way. Of course the gods don't have a defined gender- that's a gross physical concern they are well beyond. However, greater than us as they are the gods still choose (need?) to interact with us lesser beings. This needs to be done on our terms. Towards this end each god has a variety of aspects- faces they wear when they appear to worshipers. This well exceeds mere regionalisms or disparate perceptions on our part- it's more a deliberate invocation of the observer effect. To different people the same God may actually does have a different face, a different form, even a drastically different personality and motivations. Nemelex is the archetypal Trixter, He's the brash, arrogant and oversexed Coyote, He is the dour and dispassionate Clerk, and She's the mischievous and endearing Maid with a penchant for gambling. Sif Muna- He is the dignified and scholarly Professor, She is the demure Sorceress, and She is the stern and tactician Librarian. Or take Trog for example- many crawlers seem to most familiar with Him as a screaming, insanely bloodthirsty lunatic not even capable of coherent speech. However, the Trog I know is much more reasonable, almost jovial at times.

The important thing to note is these are not disguises, they are lesser aspects or facets of a greater being, contorted and confined to be compatible with mortal comprehension. No one aspect is correct, nor is any wrong. They're all equally right. And wrong. At the same time. Like a superposition state in quantum mechanics, or eigenvectors. Not that this stops anyone from fighting wars about it, of course.

The fun bit is this justifies using whatever fannon interpretation of the gods you want when you play, because they're all cannon. xD

[Roderic]

http://theinfosphere.org/Yivo

[Zelkelion]

http://theinfosphere.org/Yivo

Shklwhat.

[Danei]

Here's my personal conception of the gods and their genders:

The Shining One - Male
Elyvilon - Female
Zin - Male
Okawaru - Male
Trog - Male
Kikubaaqudgha - Female
Yredelemnul - Male
Sif Muna - Female
Makhleb - Male
Fedhas - Male
Nemelex - Male
Beogh - Male
Xom - Male
Lugonu - Female
Jiyva - Genderless
Vehumet - Male

[ElectricAlbatross]

Xom - Male

Xom sounds like he would get a sex change once every couple of weeks just for the hell of it.

[roctavian]

Xom's gender is Xom.

[varsovie]

Well at least no German came here. With three genders (female, male and neutral) plus pronouns for each and possessive adjectives (his, her) taking in account the gender of both the object and the owner + quantities + the polite and common way to say things...

And anyway, do gods have a gender?

[Galefury]

Crawl doesn't go into where little gods come from, so nobody knows if crawl gods have genders (and if calling them the same as human and animal genders would make any sense). There is no reference to god genders in the game.

[TehDruid]

Here's my personal conception of the gods and their genders:

The Shining One - Male
Elyvilon - Female
Zin - Male
Okawaru - Male
Trog - Male
Kikubaaqudgha - Female
Yredelemnul - Male
Sif Muna - Female
Makhleb - Male
Fedhas - Male
Nemelex - Male
Beogh - Male
Xom - Male
Lugonu - Female
Jiyva - Genderless
Vehumet - Male

That's exactly the way I think of them too. Or to be more precise, here's a more in-detail explanation for each one.

TSO - Name doesn't push me towards male or female but I envision him as a legendary paladin of the past that was a paragon of kindness, justice etc and was deified later on(if that's the right word).
Elyvilon - Name sounds female to me. As more of a caretaker of everyone (even evil-you can attempt to pacify demons) than a fierce smiter, I can't help but think of this god as a loving motherly figure.
Zin - Other than the name sounding male to me, I can't think of another reason.
Okawaru - Name sounds male. Warmaster just seems like a title that would be fit for a dude.
Trog - Name sounds male to me. Anyway, I'm more used to male barbarians and their brutal deities than females, that's it.
Kiku - Name sounds female (mostly because of the a in the end, to be honest) but I could also think of him as a cruel god of constant blood sacrifice and dark rituals fit for something like an advanced troll society. It's just that trolls are a bit too primitive in DC.
Yred - Male 'cause he just strikes me as a father figure (albeit, a bit abusive) to all these poor, depraved undead.
Sif Muna - Name sounds female to me, and I can't help but imagine her as the nerdy all-time-library-dwelling sort.
Makhleb - A name fit more to a demonic dude imo. That's it basically.
Fedhas - Name sounds male, but of course you can think of her as a nymph or dryad or even an ancient, huge tree.
Nemelex - The gambling sort, seems fitting to a guy more than a woman.
Beogh - I don't like thinking of orcish chicks.
Xom - There's (as others have mentioned) some small hints that Xom is male in some messages in-game. But yeah. Male.
Lugonu - Sounds female to me. Not much else.
Jiyva - Sounds female to me but can't think of it as any gender.
Vehumet - Sounds male, a slightly crazed destructive sorcerer.
Ashenzari - Male. I can't really think of an explicit reason though.

By the way, is there any chance that there's any art on Crawl gods? I don't expect a yes but it's worth a shot to ask.

[greepish]

Not anything serious really, but there's some rather amusing ones in crazy yiuf under "Actual picture of zin taken!"

[aegis]

What i think of the gender of the crawl gods:
TSO: Male
Elyvilon: Male
Zin: Male
Okawaru: Male
Trog: Male
Kikubaaqudgha: Female, sound like a demon mother to me.
Yredelemnul: Male
Sif Muna: Male
Makhleb: Male
Fedhas: Male
Nemelex: Male
Beogh: Male
Xom: Changes his gender when he wants.
Lugonu: Female
Jiyva: Genderless
Vehumet: Male

[mumra]

Gods are beyond gender, they are both and neither. When you think of Lugonu as female she is female, when you think of him as male he is male. This is how gods work in real life too fyi

[sgrunt]

The gods sneer at your puny pronouns.

[khalil]

I've never really understood the whole gods being genderless thing. Most of the classical pantheons (Norse, Greek/Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian) had defined genders, and the DCSS pantheon feels rather similar to them in most ways. (A bunch of infighting morons.)

[nicolae]

I've never really understood the whole gods being genderless thing. Most of the classical pantheons (Norse, Greek/Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian) had defined genders, and the DCSS pantheon feels rather similar to them in most ways. (A bunch of infighting morons.)

it's not so much that the gods are specifically genderless, it's that dcss doesn't say one way or the other

[khalil]

I've allways felt that the best myths involved some kind of gender characteristic. Zeus woudn't have been nearly as funny had it not been for his drunken womanizing. Likewise, the fact that Mjollnir(Thor's hammer) gets longer when you stroke it.
Not making that up.

[roctavian]

Gender is important in pre-modern mythology, which attempts to explain how the world works. The world is frequently viewed through the lens of sexuality, a necessary aspect of human life. Gods in Crawl are an aspect of a game made for the entertainment of humans, who in the modern era have varied tastes and interests, and said gods are best left genderless to the benefit of player imagination and preference.

Also who cares?

[yogaFLAME]

Since crawl leaves it up to me, I assume they all have boobs.

[scorpionwarrior]

Gender is important in pre-modern mythology, which attempts to explain how the world works. The world is frequently viewed through the lens of sexuality, a necessary aspect of human life. Gods in Crawl are an aspect of a game made for the entertainment of humans, who in the modern era have varied tastes and interests, and said gods are best left genderless to the benefit of player imagination and preference.

Also who cares?

yeah, I've never understood the obsession so many people have with what Crawl gods might be packing underneath their spirit-boxers

[brendan]

Chei, god of snails, is clearly hermaphroditic. Please enjoy these Leopard Slugs mating.

[dpeg]

Genderless gods are inherited from Linley's (pre-SS) Crawl. I think it's a great way of building theme, utilising intentional reduction. The regular "What's my god's gender?" threads only confirm that point.