Motif · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

The gods

'There are no gods here. Just those who pay for the privilege.' A war gauntlet that warns it can transfigure a worshipper of the god Grull into the god himself, and Mordecai's solemn insistence that Grull is not real — nor is any god in this game. Zev, in passing, mentions that a hostile government could 'spring for a deity sponsorship.'

Segment appearances

Prologue — Prologue
Chapter 3 — The Scavenger's Daughter
Chapter 5 — Sister Ines
Chapter 6 — Monk seals
Chapter 11 — Asojano
Chapter 16 — Ogun
Chapter 17 — Two goddesses
Chapter 18 — Club Vanquisher
Chapter 19 — What's in the box
Chapter 25 — The crab trap
Chapter 26 — MaeMae
Chapter 33 — Vorpals
Chapter 36 — Nekhebit
Chapter 38 — Monroe County
Chapter 52 — Two of five
Chapter 56 — The Fumble
Chapter 62 — Where the Sidewalk Ends
Chapter 64 — Spunky Jefferson
Chapter 65 — Graupel
Chapter 66 — The Missing Piece
Chapter 69 — A deity has fallen
Chapter 72 — Falling Up

Progression

A Thorn Room with seven shrines and every choice a thorn (ch. 15); a god who punishes in person and spares Carl for another god's esteem (ch. 16); locked deities, retainers, temple rules, deity messages the system cannot read (ch. 17); a window that shows Taranis, a sacrament no god can overhear, a crystal for a living goddess (ch. 18); gods re-ascending by egg and obelisk for the players above (ch. 25, ch. 36); gods 'acting in ways they should not' (ch. 54); Devotee (ch. 47); a goddess beheaded by her own totem (ch. 69).