Iryhor said
Esra: It seems to lack a little bit of cohesion. Don't get me wrong, it's well written and fun, but she just seems to fall under so many categories. Void, construction (which in essence is the opposite of void), time, order. Maybe try altering the CS a bit so that it falls under a general theme? All of the themes there would be fun, but try sticking to just one and fleshing it out more. EG: Domain - void. Has power over nothingness. Not to say she doesn't have power over anything, but over the actual idea of nothingness. Think Sithis from the Elder Scrolls. If you want to link some sort of observatory power to that, maybe something like... being able to see out of the eyes of anyone who's blank minded?
Well, let me try explaining my thought process a little more. If this helps, I'll edit it into the CS accordingly, if not then we'll just go from there.
In essence, the central theme revolves around Order. Order has a few different components under the umbrella of its concept. First and foremost is the creation of systems and rules, that's fairly self-explanatory with regard to what a god of Order would do, and I don't think you have any issue conceptualizing that as falling under the concept of order.
Next up is Order in the sense of perfect organization. Order is the concept of states of affairs and underlying existences existing in a "proper" state of affairs, such that there are no "errors" with the foundation of things. This is in contrast to Chaos which is based in a destruction of stagnation and deconstruction of what "is", as Chaos is the ultimate state of undoing. Thus, preservation of Order reaches a single precept from which the others follow. Stagnation. Halting, Ceasing, Ending. Order is not allowed to change, Order is not allowed to be altered as then it is not Order. This is the sense of Order behind Stagnation, and to a lesser extent Void Command.
While I put the domain of nothingness up there, that was just semantic; I'm ultimately considering that nothingness to be a fundamental part of order. A void is a state of perfect order, unchanging and static for all eternity, perfectly existent by the fact that it isn't existent. At the same time, a void is a starting point. In a void no system exists, so a void is where systems are created and order is born. In that sense, nothingness is both a representation of and a starting point for Order.
The Observation ability is meant to be a viewing of the systems that are already in place, an understanding of the nature of reality and the right of the god of Order to oversee those systems. In other words, the top-notch scrying ability of a tyrant, who views the world as a set of systems that give rise to phenomena. You can cross-apply that to what's been said above. I'm a bit uncomfortable with changing that into seeing through the eyes of certain people or anything like that, because the reason I made her people so utterly useless and her power set like this is because it's meant to be something that doesn't attack "individuals". It's meant to be a power that attacks the "world", as a god of order sees human followers only as an underlying phenomenon creating by a given system. This doesn't mean that it's more "powerful" than abilities that target individuals; rather, hope, oaths, concepts of that nature are all human-centric and so the gods of those domains will have a stronger connection to humanity than one whose domain considers itself "beyond" man. That's both an advantage and a disadvantage, for obvious reasons.
Numerical Phantasm I already explained a bit. Math is just shorthand for what reality does, but at the same time its an "a priori" truth that exists prior to human contextualization of it, in some sense it's a primal form of order that reality is bound to, a natural premise and system that explains phenomena. In that instance, the command over that system would be within the realms of Order's authority.
First Precept is creation, but in a different sense. Recall that "In a void no system exists, so a void is where systems are created and order is born." First Precept and System work alongside one another. First Precept creates, and System applies systems to the things which are created. It's a replication of the making of reality, though of course Esra herself lacks the capacity to outright create/destroy a world, but it's based on the same concept. The creation of things such that they can fit into the natural Order.
The most important ones for me are quite frankly System, Void Control, Observation, and First Precept. They create the narrative of the god of Order, who stands in the center of nothingness as an empty husk, seeing everything and nothing, and by viewing those possibilities of what "could be" is spurred to action, to make them occur through effort. The void is reshaped and melded, existences are created, systems are applied to those existences. Rules of the world are written in as the world itself is created, all the while the god of Order shapes it, viewing everything in terms of a possibility. They form that narrative, which is what the concept of a God of Order is meant to convey, in terms of how I'm trying to frame it.
Following them in importance is Stagnation, and lastly is Numerical Phantasm, so if some things need to be done away with I'd prefer it's one or both of those.
