#offler the crocodile god

[fictional-gods-tournament]

Prelims

Fandom: Discworld

Characters' info under the cut

Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers (wiki)

Domain: Hangovers

Propaganda:

has a grudge against the god of wine, Bibulous, because whenever Bibulous drinks, Bilious is the one who experiences the hangover

Azrael (wiki)

Domain: The Death of The Universe

The Auditors of Reality (wiki)

Domain: Order and physical qualities of reality

Propaganda:

Sticks in the mud

Offler the Crocodile God (wiki)

Domain: Crocodiles

The Lady (wiki)

Domain: Luck

Propaganda:

do not draw her attention or call upon her name for she will abandon her most ardent worshippers

Anoia (wiki)

Domain: things that get stuck in drawers

Popaganda:

"I pray to her when I get my hand stuck in my dresser drawer" -my former roommate

Death of Rats (wiki)

Domain: guides recently deceased rats to the afterlife

God of Evoloution (wiki)

Domain: Evolution

Propaganda:

he loves bugs :)

Nuggan (wiki)

Domains: official god of the state of Borogravia, also in charge of paperclips and unnecessary paperwork

Propaganda:

anything you don't like can be called "an abomination unto Nuggan"

The Great God Om

No particular domain.

Propaganda:

Satirical take on the Christian God. How many gods do YOU know who got turned into a tortoise because their followers stopped believing in them, and then had to learn from their mistakes so they could get powerful again?

[stellarmeals]

Discworld inktober day 9 - Offler, the Crocodile God

Ive never been the biggest fan of Offlers previous designs.

I have always imagined Offler as a chonky guy because one of the common offerings made to him at the temples were sausages. Heres my version of Offler, the Crocodile God.

“He, of course, eats the spirit of the sausages. We eat the mere earthly shell.”

I’m really having a good time doing discworld inktober. If all of you are having a great time watching me make silly drawings of our favorite weird story full of puns, and are feeling generous, tip’s would be greatly appreciated.

[latter-day-saint-nick]

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain this, but if you're going to make a post about authors who should be boycotted because they support Israel, the least you could do is provide sources instead of just reciting a list of names. And if you come across a post like that, you should do your own research before deciding to cancel Rick Riordan, just because some rando claims he's a Zionist.

Keep boycotting corporations that fund the Israeli military. We've seen that it's had an impact. But for the love of Offler the Crocodile God, try to show a little discernment before spreading misinformation.

[divine-swag-summit]

Lower Bracket Round 3: Match 6

Anoia(Discworld) vs Offler the Crocodile God(Discworld)

[senadimell]

This is a fascinatingly common theme in Discworld, sans the fully-static aspect. I skimmed the notes and was surprised by the infrequency of mentions (found 2 for Monstrous Regiment, one for Small Gods), so I'm going to bring it up here.

The best examples of this theme for me, generally speaking, are the Death books, because Death is the most common godlike figure to interact with book characters. I say godlike, because Death seems different from other gods on the Disk who typically have followers and worshippers and are named as gods, e.g. the crocodile god Offler, the great god Om, etc. But Death is treated like a god, and subject to the same supernatural rules as the rest of them.

People don't typically worship Death-the-character with ritual, but lowercase-d death is filled with ritual (you see a lot of this in the Witches books)

People believe in Death, and Death's appearance and ideosyncracies are shaped by human beliefs

In the Disk, gods are shaped by believers (so is reality, but we'll focus on gods). The universal nature of death pretty much guarantees people will form supernatural beliefs around it, and people being people, will tend to anthropomorphize death (thus death now involves Death, who is not a personification of dying but a separate figure who enacts death by collecting/guiding/greeting/directing the soul of the dead. When death does this for their body and soul, it is pretty permanent. That same body and soul don't reunite again in the same living way (though reincarnation is possible, as are zombies).

This is a problem because humans' tendency to anthropomorphize Death means that Death is very connected to humans. This pull routinely makes Death human enough to be bad at being a god. Which then tends to suck some other poor soul into the Death-shaped hole.

The most obvious example to me is Soul Music, wherein Susan finds herself becoming Death because Death is grieving and having an existential crisis following the death of Death's adopted children. When a human is drawn to fill a narrative role, there's often tension between their individual, human desires and personality vs the role they are being pulled into playing. The role becomes reality.

I think this comes into play in just about every Death book in some major or minor way. When we see magical-but-human figures or demigod figures* (as Susan becomes), they're interesting in that they're capable of wielding other's expectations to supernatural effect while remaining consciously themselves and thus retaining humanity. True, complete gods, on the other hand, lose this ability to shape themselves and are subject to losing the ability to shape the world around them because they are fundamentally reliant on external believers. You see this in Small Gods, and it's also a theme in Monstrous Regiment. These particular stories tend to be very involved with social critique around the systems we create and under which we rationalize and glorify violence, so the weak god role serves to highlight the disconnect between the cleansed-earth fantasies created by believers/the belief systems people are locked into, and the scorched-earth reality they are actually creating in the name of their god, who is far weaker than their belief in their (belief-reinforcing/policing) system.

Another good literal example of this can be seen in Wintersmith, wherein a certain character puts herself in the symbolic role of a goddess and thus accidentally invites her counterpart into this world, to dangerous affect. She has to figure out how to return the god to the figurative world and avoid getting sucked in herself. Other good examples would be the Moist Von Lipwig books, where the titular character keeps finding himself in Situations and trying really hard to believe that magic isn't real and can't hurt him (it is real and funnily enough the only thing that keeps it from swallowing him is probably a) his wife and b) the fact that he fundamentally does not believe in himself that way; he's very very aware of his own mortality. These things are mutually reinforcing btw. Oh, and his fear of Ventinari, I guess**).

You can very easily extend the theme of deification beyond the scope described in the original post. I won't say it's exactly the same, but it's a similar palette. You see it in witches, whose magic and usefulness depends on the image they cultivate with their villages. It's kept in balance by the actual good they do for people, and it's also kept in check by each other. 'Cackling' can be used to indicate going-too-far, where the witch loses touch with reality and loses herself to the story, and other witches are good for getting doused with reality.

I guess that's what happens when you have an author who's very keen on the stories we tell ourselves and has a sharp eye to the social dynamics around us. The magic of Discworld revolves around belief (whether in the ideological sense or in the ritual-practice sense), so naturally the blurring line between human and deity will be a common, illustrative theme.

*with the exception of wizards, who don't necessarily rely on headology. but also they know about the power of robes and staffs and hats and things. my theory is wizards are a magical feedback loop and the primary source of fueling source of wizard belief is wizards themselves. but I haven't read many of the wizard-only books so this is just conjecture. I know there is literal evidence to the contrary, where magic is just a natural element that builds up in the world and oozes out in wizards, but I like grand unifying theories when they fit and probably at least 80% of wizard belief is fueled either by their own ego or by the awe/respect/fear of other wizards.

**nowhere else good to put this, but it's been said that Vimes is basically a witch, and I agree, but I also think this makes Ventinari a demigod of the more Susan variety, which is especially amusing because his skill is entirely self-created. I would say that Ventinari is a witch, except I think he is too Patrician to be a witch and has gone straight for Susan territory. Except he didn't need magical heritage. He just learned to not wear straight black. And you know, observe people with insight keen enough to cut fabric, which means he's so good at seeing and manipulating beliefs so as to be practically immune to magic. Anti-magic, as it were. So very very not magic that it is an art.

In fact, the fact that Ventinari is not striking people down with lightning bolts is to be admired and now I'm wondering who keeps him in check because somehow I don't know if Drumknott and Lady Margolatta are enough. Maybe fake Da Vinci whose name I can't remember helps. But he definitely puts the fear of god into the hearts of the likes of Moist von Lipwig, except the fear of god is the fear of Ventinari and the many, many ways they could find themselves dead if they do not toe the line. this is not done out of brutality, btw (as contrasted by the torture shown in Night Watch; it is a cartoon-like spectre of mysterious violence that nevertheless can move mountains with a few words and a smile).

more stuff about becoming a god being inherently dehumanizing pls

[terrypratchettparadise]

Most gods were people-shaped; people don’t have much imagination, on the whole.  Even Offler the Crocodile God was only crocodile-headed.  Ask people to imagine an animal god and they will, basically, come up with the idea of someone in a really bad mask.  Men have been much better at inventing demons, which is why there are so many.

Terry Pratchett - The Last Hero

[potato-lord-but-not]

There's been a LOT going (haha Going) on, but I just got back from another set build, here's your photograph update!!

Neither Rain Nor Snow Nor Glom Of Nit Can Stay These Mesengers Abot Their Duty

Lord Vetinari's office, featuring May May's boob statue (TUMBLR DO NOT TAKE THIS DOWN MAY MAY IS THE LATIN TEACHER IF A HIGH SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION CAN TOLERATE IT SO CAN YOU)

Our prop tables

Mr. Director Man said we were allowed to promote it on the internet *and* that if we mentioned it online it legally had to be accompanied by this so very ashamed self promotion, sorry potat guy :(((

The pin magazines

Obligatory thud photo

Offler, The Crocodile God (I heard he loves sausages)

The post office pieces

Pieces of the burnt down post office

I will have better pictures/more in like an hour!! They're taking a while to upload :( I haven't been online much, but I just checked your blog and I am absolutely blown away by your artistry skills. You are so, so good at what you do and I doubt there will be a day where I'm not impressed by what you do. You're gonna go really far, and I want you to know that you mean a lot to me, and that I'm very proud of you.

my GODS these all look so FUCKING TASTY WHAT- severely impressed by all of this oh my god the PROPS dude THE OFFICE. Y’all are literally doing such an amazing job!!

ALSO UMM THANK YOU SO MUCH ?!??!? I’m glad you enjoy my silly little online posts <33333

[stellarmeals]

Sketch of my take on my favorite discworld god

[im-flashtoo]

Isn't this more or less Discworld's Offler the Crocodile God? That's how Offlerites come off to me any time they appear.

Also Sithrak, for those who know Oglaf.

I always love Evil Religions Of Evil because at some point you have to imagine them as actual religions

Like, sure, we want to slaughter the world for our dark patron below but also when's the next big Chaos God festival and do people complain it's been overly secularised? How does the Cult of Cthulhu do weddings? Is there a cheesy youth pastor giving a bad rap about the Neverborn? Are there cultural Bhaalists?

I'm just saying, these religions tend to have huge congregations and massive temples, so it can't be all murder all the time, you know? At some point someone's going to have to do an Evil Bake Sale to pay to fix the Evil Church's Evil Roof.

[vifetoile]

at this point rich burlew is the offler the crocodile-headed god of webcomics. Order of the Stick has outlived scores of other webcomics that had way better art.

[divine-swag-summit]

Lower Bracket Round 2: Match 12

Starclan(Warrior Cats) vs Offler the Crocodile God(Discworld)

[rallamajoop]

Discworld crossover AU, PG, 4635 words Geralt took up monster hunting with the expectation it would be mostly, well, hunting monsters. Not bringing mildly-traumatised vampires home and making them tea.

The call came in a few hours after sunset in much the usual way: some exhausted, nearly-hysterical peasant, all but falling off the poor nag that had carried him to Geralt's doorstep. Between the man's wild-eyed begging and rambling, Geralt mostly managed to get the story out of him as he pulled on his boots. This sort of thing always happened on the days he tried to get an early night.

By the time he reached the village it was largely over. Some of the more enterprising locals had apparently fought the beast off with a pitchfork and a hefty religious relic Geralt recognised as the Orb of the Inverted Maw of Offler, the crocodile god. The rivers of Uberwald had never provided much native inspiration towards the worship of crocodiles, but the peasants would eagerly decorate their homes with most any relic that struck them as religious—and nothing inspired religious fervour like knowing the Inverted Maw of Offler also doubled as an improvised mace in a pinch.

A prequel to Scenes from the Ankh Morpork Melting Pot, covering just how Geralt and Regis met back in Uberwald - with a little more of Geralt’s backstory and a share of hurt/comfort for flavour.

[mari-buginette]

Well done. I am making gf graham crackers. Tovi will get some once they are cooled. I commend their graham spirits to Alice, like Offler the crocodile god.

People are really fucking weird sometimes, and I'm really exhausted of dealing with how fucking weird they can be in my direction.

Today is the last day of September, 2024.

Show me your pets. Please add them to this post bc I have images off in asks. 💗

[noirandchocolate]

Okay so there’s several rules in this Assassins’ Guild school diary that say students can’t keep alligators, crocodiles, or giant newts or other huge reptiles or amphibians in their rooms.  That in itself merits wondering what the stories behind this are.  But then there are these rules, which I must share:

18G.  None of the above rules 18-18F apply to pupils who are worshippers of Offler the crocodile god.

18H.  No boy is to convert to Offlerism without permission in writing from the Headmaster.

18I.  Any boy pretending Offlerism may, at the whim of the Headmaster, bu subjected to twenty complicated questions on its tenets and beliefs.  Inaccuracy in this area will result in expulsion.  Religion is not a joking matter.

18J.  The Guild of Assassins and its associated teaching establishment fully accept that to the worshippers of Nog-Humpy the custard god, religion is a joking matter. --Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs, “The Ankh-Morpork Archives”

Like WHY is keeping animals like this such a THING Assassin kids want to do, that there needs to be ALL these rules?  Who tried to break the rule by claiming it was because of his religion.  Who then tried to loophole into the rules by ‘converting’?  Who got offended (or faux-offended) at Rule 18I when it was first included in a rulebook?

This is already hilarious but I have to also wonder if it’s a reference to anything, because this is PTerry we’re talking about.

[pratchettpatricianpages]

“After all, you have such a lot of work to do,” Lord Vetinari went on.

“Well, of course this is the case.” The thief hesitated. The Patrician’s last remark had barbs on it. You found yourself waiting for him to strike.

“Er,” he said, hoping for a clue.

“With so much business being conducted, that is.”

Panic took over the thief’s features. Randomized guilt flooded his mind. It was a case of what had he done, it was a question of what the Patrician had found out about. The man had eyes everywhere, none of them so terrifying as the icy blue ones just above his nose.

“I, er, don’t quite follow…” he began.

“Curious choice of targets.” The Patrician picked up a sheet of paper. “For example, a crystal ball belonging to a fortune teller in Sheer Street. A small ornament from the temple of Offler the Crocodile God. And so on. Gewgaws.”

“I am afraid I really don’t know-” said the head thief. The Patrician leaned forward.

“No unlicensed thieving, surely?” he said.

“I shall look into it directly!” stuttered the head thief. “Depend upon it!”

The Patrician gave him a sweet smile. “I’m sure I can,” he said. “Thank you for coming to see me. Don’t hesitate to leave.”

The thief shuffled out. It was always like this with the Patrician, he reflected bitterly. You came to him with a perfectly reasonable complaint. Next think you knew, you were shuffling out backward, bowing and scraping, relieved simply to be getting away.

-Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

[latter-day-saint-nick]

I'm pretty sure the only reason I'm still here at the hospital is because yesterday was a Bank Holiday and the days before were the weekend, so the orthopedic doctor hasn't been around to discharge me. Emilly has prepped our house to be safe and accessible for me while I've got the cast on, the hospital has delivered some equipment to help me there, the physio is happy with my progress and is happy for me to go home, I've still got some pain in my leg but nothing that can't be handled with over-the-counter meds. There is no reason to keep me here. For the love of Offler the crocodile God, please just let me go home!