#the silt verses glass angel

[catwyk]

huh. there's something on my face

[thesiltverses]

The Silt Verses RPG has just launched from the acclaimed designers of Brindlewood Bay and The Between!

Investigate stray angels, strange haunts, and murderous cults in a world of gods and sacrifice as a disciple of the Saint Electric, Trawler-man, Watcher in the Wings, Cairn Maiden, Pox Martyr, or the Waxen Scrivener.

Delve into backwoods towns, floating markets where sacred relics are bought and sold, bustling clinics where medical 'miracles' come at a hideous cost - and even a towering skyscraper of conjoined steel, glass, and flesh.

You can purchase a copy over on DriveThruRPG, or at the Silt Verses or The Gauntlet Patreon, netting you the rulebook, 8 Assignments, 6 Faith Sheets, 8 Journey Sheets, and more.

This game really is a labour of love from a small team of innovative indie RPG creators, and already a genuine work of art (so we'd be incredibly grateful for your help in playing, giving feedback, and spreading the word far and wide) - we think it's an absolutely fantastic achievement, and we know The Gauntlet are only going to keep building and improving on the game from here.

You can find out more by joining The Gauntlet Discord.

[siltslut]

my dealer: got some straight gas 🔥🔥 this strain’s called “the silt verses” it’ll have you zoinked out of your gourd 💯💯🦀

me: yeah. sure. i don’t feel shit.

one hour later: hey i think there are some fucked up wolves over there

nana glass: the door’s been sticking lately, give it a good push. lay the table. we’re almost there. if it doesn’t rain tomorrow, we can get you started on repainting the coracle. what do you think? we’ll have enough leftovers for tomorrow. would you like to say grace, mallory? you’re very quiet, girl. everything all right? it’s getting dark. damn, em, he knows he mustn’t be out this late. you’ll have to do his work for him, mallory. you’re old enough now - yes, it’s about time. unlock the cellar. take that boy by the halter and lead him down to the garden. make him ready for the angels to come. and see that he’s tethered properly, too. lose him, and i’ll make you chase him down yourself. what do you mean, you don’t want to? “a coward comes prepared with the soundest arguments. courageous souls need none at all.” and why not? if we want our god to hear us, this is the method. it’s the only method - it’s the way that’s always been. it isn’t a pleasant duty, it isn’t something we should take joy in, but it’s a part of life. the boy’s to be given tonight. and you’re the only one who’s to do it. do you think you’re above this, mallory?

[tropinano]

List of As Many Fiction Podcasts As I Could Think Of

NOT ORGANIZED! This is a big list of fiction podcasts with no descriptions, meant for the sole purpose of picking one based on the title and just trying it out. Just a big ol' list of titles. Kindof like a blind date! Explore a couple of the ones that intrigue you and come back later for more.

The Hotel

The Night Post

I am in Eskew

Whisperling

Residents of Proserpina Park

The Daedalus Compound

EOS10

The Magnus Archives

Francis Forever

SMILE GROVE

Janus Descending

The Godfrey Audio Guide

Old Gods of Appalachia

Camp Here & There

The Way We Haunt Now

Jack of All Trades

SUPERSUITS

Illuminati Interns

Death by Dying

Life with Leo(h)

Hello from the Hallowoods

Malevolent

The 12:37

Spirit Box Radio

Lost Terminal

Desperado

Neighbourly

The Switchboard

The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity and Mortality

Aurora Everlasting

The Swashbuckling Ladies Debate Society

CARAVAN

The Amelia Project

Jar of Rebuke

Monstrous Agonies

Where the Stars Fell

Kisses In The Dark

The Town Whispers

Uncommon Commons

The Author's Anathema

Elevator Pitch

Brimstone Valley Mall

Kane & Feels

Middle:Below

The McIlwraith Statements

Caledonian Gothic

I have seen Niagara

Petrified

In Darkness Vast

The Outside Tapes

Seren

Gather the Suspects

This Foul Earth

John from Home

Glasgow Ghost Stories

The Tower

The Antique Shop

either

Tales from Aletheian Society

The Secret of St Kilda

The Green Horizon

Road X

THE NOWHERE MALL

Seven of Hearts

The Department of Variance of Somewhere, Ohio

SubverCity Transmit

The Nuclear Solution

Inkwyrm

Jim Robbie and the Wanderers

Burst

With Caulk and Candles

This Planet Needs a Name

The Glass Appeal

Mar's Best Brisket

Nym's Nebulous Notions

Midnight Radio

The Bright Sessions

When Angels Visit Armadillo

The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie's Botanarium

Nowhere, On Air

Dark Ages

Welcome to Night Vale

The Silt Verses

Care & Feeding of Werewolves

The Bridge

The Far Meridian

ars PARADOXICA

Among the Stars and Bones

Counterbalance

Primordial Deep

Hannahpocalypse

Someone dies in this Elevator

Mabel

Seen and Not Heard

Abyss FM

Bodies in Space

Among the Stacks

Station Arcadia

Station Blue

Mnemosyne

Wolf 359

Tranthologies

Mx Bad Luck

SAYER

Limetown

What will be here?

Wake of Corrosion

The Pasithea Powder

SINKHOLE

Tell No Tales

The Vesta Clinic

Dreamboy

Georgie Romero is Done For

The Domestic Life of Anthony Todd

Alice isn't Dead

Stellar Firma

Unwell

The Strange Case of Starship Iris

The Heart of Ether

The Orbiting Human Circus

Wooden Overcoats

Greater Boston

Valence

Moonbase Theta Out

The Penumbra Podcast

Desert Skies

Deviser

Leaving Corvat

Red Valley

Back Again Back Again

Sidequesting

[caimitos]

lil sketchdump for the silt verses because i miss them.....a lot.....

edit: added ID below, originally written by @princess-of-purple-prose, thank you so much!

[ID: Silt Verses fanart done in dark brown.

1. On the left, Carpenter’s narration hangs next to a portrait of Nana Glass, an older woman with fishhooks radiating around her face and curly hair tied in a high bun. Carpenter says, “Over the long years, she pierced her ears and cheeks and lips with seventeen barbed hooks of varying shapes and sizes in devotion to the Trawler-man.” A note says “*hair curls look like hooks.”

On the right, a young Em and Carpenter walk with Nana, who looks ahead as they stop to look at the corpse floating in the river. Carpenter’s narration says, “Em and I would run and play for hours in the waterlogged garden, dancing amongst the sweetgrass. Leaping over the bobbing buoys of the lifeless, sackcloth-covered heads that bobbed in rows along the shallows.”

2. The bride and bridegroom in a church. The bride is a towering hermit crab-like figure with a mostly-human torso that a long veil flows off the head of. The narration says, “And as the bridegroom staggers back, aghast, he sees the angels part, and his promised bride comes forward to the head of the procession. Swept inland upon new towering legs, smiling as she strides forwards to meet him.”

3. Mercer and Gage, smiling teens dressed in furs and skulls and carrying guns. As Gage says, “We dress in the things we kill, in sallow bone and in bloodied rough fur. Mercer's hood is topped with a goat skull; mine with the skull of a dog.”

4. Carpenter, Paige, and Faulkner in a car together. Carpenter looks tired as she drives, and Faulkner smiles in the passenger’s seat as he and a smiling Paige split a Kit-Kat. Text from the season one recap says: “MÉABH: Carpenter and Paige drag him to the car and the three best friends that there ever ever was... go on a roadtrip :)”. The words “go on a roadtrip” are handwritten in. End ID]

[millenniumbreak]

Did a little audio edit of the Silt verses, thinking about feeding your family to a god.

Track Used - Jack de Quidt - Eat (bandcamp link)

Only contains audio from Season 1. Spoilers for some fairly major reveals though.

Transcript below the cut

CARPENTER: Em and I would run and play for hours in the waterlogged garden. Whenver one of us tripped and fell, the other would shout ‘Trawlerman! Life has been offerred! Trawlerman, take your prize and leave a gift behind!’

cut

PETERSON: If you don’t mind me asking my boy, how did you come to join our family?

FAULKNER: I was... called.

cut

FAULKNER: ‘When I go back under,’ Charlie said, ‘I want you climb up on the ladder after me and sit on my back. Use your whole weight. I might struggle ‘cause I’m gonna think I’m drowning, but you need to keep me under the surface. When I lift up my right arm out of the water and give you a thumbs up, It’ll be because I heard the words and its safe to let me come back up.’

cut

SID WRIGHT: My uh, my brother-in-law called me last night and he said, he said this was- this was foolish! He said uh, he said ‘You’re killing yourself for coffee, and not even the luxury brand of coffee Sid, you know its- I don’t even like the Grindinglord’s stuff, it is not good coffee.’ Can you imagine that, the lack of vision? Can you just- What’s a life? Without something to devote itself to?

cut

CARPENTER: And on the third night, Nana Glass decided to feed my brother Em and I to our god.

cut

SID WRIGHT: Do you know what your children are speaking to, late at night?

cut

FAULKNER: I didn’t think false gods could do that.

CARPENTER: Sainthood doesn’t come unbidden. Peterson summoned that change onto his brother, or perhaps Abel did it to himself.

cut

CARPENTER: I told my Nana, I didn’t want to become one of the trembling shrimp-angels that swam out of the ruined corpses of our family’s sacrifices. I didn’t want to be devoured. Nana ran her hand through my hair. She said, in a voice that was soft and crooning as a lullaby, ‘ You need to remember, Mallory Glass, that nothing in this rotten world knows how to withstand change. So if you’re frightened, that’s only because what’s coming for you, is a change that lasts.’

cut

FAULKNER: Charlie stopped, took a small and halting breath and plunged his head back into the water. I pressed my weight down, feeling with satisfaction that I was playing my part. I watched for the bubbles. They came, they ebbed, they ended. I pressed my weight down harder. And because I was a dutiful brother, I watched for his right arm

Transcript ends.

[nana-glass-chillhop-radio-hour]

the Silt Verses Fanworks Bingo! (General)

image ID below the cut

how to play: create 1 or more fanworks to cross out a line (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal)! Four corners plus the center also gets bingo. To fill out the bingo card, you can create 1 fanwork per prompt, check multiple boxes between a couple of works, or even try and check 4 or more boxes with 1 very creative project.

Fanworks (fanfic, fanart, podfic, playlists, music, animation/animatics, moodboards, etc) can be posted on Tumblr with the tag #the Silt Verses Fanworks Bingo 2022 and/or the Silt Verses Bingo Collection on Ao3 - just list what bingo prompts you are filling with each fanwork. It doesn’t have to be fancy - a 400-word flash fic or a doodle totally count.

Soft deadline: plan to post all your bingo entries by March 15th, 2022 (but, really, there’s no bad time to post TSV fanworks. The Trawler-man is patient, and so are we.)

Want more specific challenges? Artist edition - Fic writer edition

Want a bingo card that’s unique to you? Message me and I’ll send you one!

This is my first time running a bingo challenge, so if anything is unclear, please let me know and we can figure it out together! (Especially if you have any trouble posting to the collection in Ao3)

Image ID: A plain 5x5 bingo card. Left to right:

1st row: the Saint Electric, minor characters: Eddie Mr. Finch Stanton Adelina Glass Em, canon divergence, supporting characters: Mason Sid Wright Vaughn Charity, crossover/fusion (bonus points for another audio drama)

2nd row: prayer marks, angels / animals / saints, modern AU, road trip, Whisper text game fanwork

3rd row: outlawed gods, wildly invent a backstory for Hayward’s wife, Free Space, podfic, Paige’s corporate seminars

4th row: the Aesthetic, childhoods of the main cast (bonus points for Baby Goth Carpenter), original characters, animation / animatic / playlists / original music, role swap AU

5th row: arospec/aspec Carpenter, hurt/comfort, god swap AU, text fic AU, gone fishing

/end image ID

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 42

Table of Contents. Second Instar, Chapter 9. Go to previous. Go to next. ‘Choly, slow down. You’re advancing the plot.

________________________________

Kitchen sounds beneath ‘Choly woke him. He glanced to his Pip-Boy for the time. 4:47. He rubbed at his face. Angel had covered him in his sleep. He slumped upright, then wandered into the bathroom before heading downstairs.

Angel had opened all the windows downstairs overnight to air out the dust. The Handy hummed pleasantly to itself at the pantry. ‘Choly smiled to himself as he ambled through the living room and across the crusty, deteriorated low-pile red carpet, to sit at the small linoleum kitchen table.

“Good morning, Mister Carey! I was just about to rouse you, when I heard the plumbing. Oh, please tell me you rested well.”

“I rested... amazingly.” He nodded appreciatively at the presentation of coffee in his Billerica Golf Course mug. “You’ve been busy.”

“My apologies that breakfast isn’t elaborate.” It presented plated reconstituted egg powder with some hard yellow cheese and a mound of nondescript fruit preserves. “But I’ve made sure you have your morning coffee, at least.”

“Where did you get eggs?” He nearly didn’t think it could be eggs.

“It’s another MRE. G-3 was by already with your dry cleaning. I asked it to bring you an MRE fitting for breakfast fare, and also a percolator.”

With a mouthful of egg and cheese, ‘Choly gazed, half-awake, at the percolator beside the stove. Vaguely, he recalled that MREs may have precipitated his concocting Melancholia in the first place. The eggs weren’t bad. They were just... wrong. Scrambled eggs were supposed to be chunky and fluffy, but these were almost like aerated rubber. It was better than the Yum Yum smoothie. Just about anything was better than the Yum Yum smoothie. He washed it down, and sank into his chair.

“I want to try to dry the silt beans as soon as possible. Preferably dry roasting in the oven, I think. We’ll need a way to grind them.”

“I take it the meal last night gave you trouble.”

“Yeah, and this one probably will too. It’s got nothing to do with the taste. I have to eat something, though.”

The fruit preserves were neither tart nor sweet. He ate them anyway.

He glanced around the kitchen and living room. Angel seemed to have unloaded a majority of its storage to the locations typical of such items: magazines on the coffee table, rations in the pantry, and toiletries in the bathroom upstairs he realized. His syringer rifle jutted out of the golf bag in the front corner, an odd juxtaposition to what could have otherwise felt like just another day in 2070. He supposed Angel still kept all the chems inside itself, though. He picked up his plate and stood in the living room, to look at the periodicals on the coffee table. The history textbook lay among them.

“You said G-3 stopped by?” He sat on the edge of the couch to finger through the book.

“I didn’t want to wake you, so I received your dry cleaning. Everything is hung or folded upstairs in your closet.”

He murmured in affirmative, and set his food in his lap to stare at the photograph Jared had shown him. Figure 16.4, ‘Major Johnston and Three of His Pharm Corps Chemists.’ Left to right: Second Lieutenant Gary Sydney, and Captains Olivia Francis and Alan Carey. Major Theodore Johnston to the right.’ The Major had been a grizzled old man with peppered hair and a bulletproof mustache, while 2Lt. Sydney with a slicked short dark undercut had likely been the youngest officer on base. His brow furrowed before slacking as he stared at Olivia. With a heart-shaped face and a full head of blonde hair pulled back into a neat bun, she had a few inches on Carey, who stood beside her with his dark hair in a mussed french twist and his eyes half-hidden behind crescent-frame glasses. No, he remembered her. Structured, punctual, and paradoxically recalcitrant to spite her rank. If there’d been anyone Johnston had indicated express dislike of on base, it was Capt. Francis. Everyone had to mitigate between the two of them by proxy. Just as the military had overlooked his more glaring traits, they were just as desperate to keep someone as skilled and versed as she.

His finger traced at his chin scar, recalling the photo predated his receiving it. He hadn’t had friends on base because he hadn’t let himself. He’d stayed to himself. The hardback book shut. No, unless it came up in conversation, he wouldn’t bother Olivia with his relic, or how he got it. He set the empty dish in the sink and finished off his coffee, then vanished upstairs.

As indicated, his orthotics and uniform pieces lay in the drawers of the chest in the closet. He strung himself into his orthotics, which now shone white they had come so clean, and brushed his teeth and washed his face. He dully traced at the metal he’d applied to his bathrobe the night before, only to remove them and set them atop the closet chest. The wool uniform, combat boots, and tucked four-in-hand khaki necktie came next. His hair swept up into the neatest french twist he’d achieved in recent memory, owing to the decent lighting and access to a mirror. He retrieved the white coat from its hanging bag, and returned the nameplate and bars to it, to wear it. The full length closet mirror had shattered, so he sized himself up in the bathroom. The echoes of 2077 snagged at him, and he loathed a moment what his work day might bring, until he could reassure himself that Olivia had sworn they no longer needed to test CM on soldiers. With a sardonic breath, he went downstairs in search of his bracers and holsters, to complete the ensemble.

‘Choly and Angel went to the General’s office, to meet G-7 waiting in the hall.

“The General got restless,” it informed, leading the way to the Robotics wing. “She’s always working on something.”

When they arrived, Olivia had powered down a Sentry Bot and crouched to do maintenance on one of its three mecanum limbs. An Assaultron stood nearby. G-7 excused itself, having accomplished its shepherding, and silence besides mechanical operations subsumed the space.

“Good morning,” ‘Choly began, hands laced behind him. He stiffened in the presence of two of the military’s most powerful robotic models.

The ghoul looked up, but didn’t stand, focused on her task.

“Take it the food was satisfactory,” she commented, deadpan.

“It would be apples to oranges, to compare an MRE to Angel’s cooking.”

Angel scoffed at him and he grinned at it with a side-eye. She guffawed.

“Since it’s just me, I don’t really bother much with getting meat and produce on base. I’m fine with the bicentennial MREs, with the occasional indulgences. They’re edible, and there’s enough variety left. It’s not like I’ve been stuck eating InstaMash every day, three meals a day, all this time.”

“--But don’t you miss things that can’t be in a Meal Ready to Eat? Salads? Or--”

“--Around the time the world ended, I took my grieving, Carey. Melancholy. I don’t need the pampering of fresh food, or... sweets... or a... rare steak...” She tossed down her crescent wrench and sat cross-legged. “Oh, who’m I kidding? I’ve just gotten so used to it, that I stopped questioning it. It’s convenient, and it’s still edible, and it’s not junk.”

“It sounds like you’re fishing for me to give you a reason to do something about the food,” he smirked.

“It’s certainly not something I’d fix, just for my own sake alone, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe once we contend with the potential security threat, we can work on improving the quality of the base’s food supplies. I feel like we both could probably stand to take better care of ourselves.”

Olivia’s features tightened just enough to notice, before she stood, and patted the Sentry’s thigh plate with a resigned satisfaction. She rounded to its back, and uncoiled the key prong of her Pip-Boy to plug into the robot.

“Maybe so.”

The Sentry powered back on with a series of hisses from both mechanism and steam, and it lurched as its hydraulics kicked in.

“Good morning, General,” it grunted in a low broken digitized voice.

“Good morning, S-2. I’ve replaced that cracked roller, and I rotated your belts. You’re free to return to regular operation.”

“Affirmative. Maintenance valued.”

The Sentry rolled out of the garage doors with unexpected agility for something as enormous and bulky as what amounted to a robotic tank. ‘Choly gave it a wide berth, straightening on his cane. Meanwhile, Olivia had begun to circle Angel with her hands in her back pockets.

“Parts from Handy, Gutsy, and Nanny,” she remarked, nodding. “You’ve gotten parts from all three models cooperating smoothly. Impressive. Angel, what’s your current ammo count?”

“Miss Olivia, I have twenty-seven 5.56mm bullets, and 59 fusion cells.”

“Oh, no. This won’t do.” She about faced and waved them to follow her to the next hangar over: Storage. They trailed behind her as she skimmed aisles for mental notes. As she spoke next, she produced the indicated items. “All three tendrils utilize laser attachments. You need at least a hundred fusion cells on hand. And I won’t accept anything less than a full 5.56mm belt.”

“Thank you!” It loaded the ammunition into its attachments, handing off the 27 spare bullets to her in exchange for the full belt of 500.

“Always thought any Handy could be a Gutsy at heart,” she grinned. “Angel, you’re a beautiful piece of work. Really something else."

“It’s all thanks to Mister Carey,” it insisted in continued gratitude.

"You deserve the best,” he deflected, stressed to realize that the Assaultron had followed them.

“Oh, Melancholy. Lighten up.” Olivia gestured at the Assaultron. “This is Helen. Helen, Melancholy. Sorry I didn’t introduce you two earlier. I forget everyone doesn’t already know everyone.”

“H-- hello, Helen.”

“I won’t hurt you unless you deserve it,” the cyclopean robot greeted in a deep, coy tone.

A nervous laugh trickled out of him.

“The army didn’t issue me a robot like they did you, so I appointed Helen mine myself.”

“I see.” His composure slowly cemented. “You... mentioned my accent last night.”

She paused to find the best wording she could muster.

“We all knew you’re red, ‘Choly. You weren’t the only one of us that passed for an American. The Feds got real desperate in the final years before the Great War. Reached for just about any asset they could grab, including contracting well outside the Thirteen Commonwealths. You’re fortunate that of all your colleagues to survive, you’re stuck with one that worked alongside you long enough and closely enough to know you’re a loyal fuck.” She leaned in with a quiet grin. “Look, I’ve read the DIA papers on just about everybody who frequented this chem pit. I know you’re only half Russian. The other half behaved itself, never betrayed us. You’ve proved yourself just as much as any of us did.”

The truth rang in his ears like gushing water. What was his motivation? He’d told Jared he’s loyal to security and safety, and money in lieu of the first two. Confident the dollar no longer carried any weight, he wondered if how he’s changed as a person since Lexington was for the better. It hadn’t even been a week, and already his priorities had been turned on head. More than anything, they had to work toward preventing the raiders from overtaking and occupying the Deenwood Compound. The Rust Devils would abuse the chem resources far worse than the Deenwood chemists had, and in the wrong hands, Deenwood’s robotics could easily decimate what was left of the Commonwealth. The base was viably his new home now--the sense of belonging had not been stronger since he’d thawed out--and Olivia’s reply had him grasping blind for any way to prove what he was willing to do to defend it.

“It’s not just the two of us and all these robots, right? Surely not. And even if there really isn’t anyone else on base, there has to have been survivors in Lowell? Or Chelmsford? I... didn’t get a good look at the state of Billerica on the way up here, but I wouldn’t be shy to double back if it meant we could drum up allies.”

“Chelmsford and the Highlands are crawling with ferals. Most of Lowell and Pawtucketville’s wildlife. Pelts and Merrilurks. There’s a pocket of trappers in Centralville that call themselves the Furriers...” She trailed off into a frown. “I... don’t know if I like where this is going.”

“Would they help us? If I can get up there, would they talk with me?”

Somehow, she found cause to warm to the idea.

“I haven’t made contact with them in a long time. It’s been since before the Rust Devils settled in. Too nervous to leave Deenwood on automatic, especially without knowing how far the Rust Devils’ territory expanded. I don’t know. It’s a long shot. They keep to themselves. They’re descended from mill workers who survived since day one of the new world order.” She paced the stock aisles again, arms folded behind her. “The way’s dangerous without proper gear. You can’t cut North on Chelmsford Road and follow it up to O’Donnell Bridge, for a lot of reasons. The Devils recently took Back Central--from what my Eyebots have reported. You’re probably safest taking the West route across, and cutting across Rourke Bridge to follow the shore. Hermit crabs often hole up on O’Donnell Bridge, and believe me when I say you don’t want to know why I’m warning against encountering them if you can ever manage it.”

His face slacked. He hadn’t encountered any shellfish yet.

“If the insects got big, the crustaceans must have got enormous.”

She turned to grin at his naivete.

“Seeing it’s believing it, but you’re dead right. There’s another reason to favor Rourke Bridge. You need to go see Sticks. He lives at the Sampas Pavilion. Get him to go with you. He’s got clout with the Furriers’ sachem, Reese. Just you on your own, they might turn you away. But both of you? A much better shot.”

Doubt screwed up his face.

“What makes you think this guy will help us?”

“He’s helped me a dozen times. He’ll definitely grasp the stakes. And I’d warn you in advance, but you seemed less shaken that I’m a ghoul than you are I’m still kicking--he’s a ghoul, too. Try not to stare at him as much as you stare at me, all right? And don’t give the farm away, either. Negotiate without bartering, if at all possible.”

Caught admiring her, he poorly disguised his averted gaze with a cough.

“So you think it’s a good idea then?”

“We haven’t been able to outgun the Devils in two years. You know what an arms race looks like. You’re on the money, to propose calling in reinforcements. What’s important is, are you absolutely certain that you want to do this? You only just got to Deenwood, already flying to her defense.”

He glanced over to Helen, recalling the two savage robots that had torn after him and Angel on their way on base, and his mouth became a thin line.

“I don’t think we have another choice.”

Go to Next »»»

[catwyk]

huh. there's something on my face

[thesiltverses]

admittedly it's a silly question to ask because i think giving a full answer could potentially undermine the message and definitely the horror of the setting, but ive also found myself incredibly curious about the nature and origin of divinity in the silt verses setting. whether or not there is a "why" that is known in the setting or if it's just, how things are.

irregardless of the answer, thank you for all the work you've all put into the series :)

No problem and thank you for listening!

Yeah, we're definitely not ever going to find that out beyond the principles and hints that already appear in the show (a god must feed, a god is driven to reshape the world in its own image) because like you say that's just not what the story's about. Although I think the Nana Glass-imitating angel in Season 2 already delivers a plausible folk-tale origin story for the divine in this setting:

that the first god and the first sacrifice were born from a heroic (or 'heroic') desire to bargain with an indifferent and arbitrary universe

That the second god was born from the human reaction of horror, shame and fear to that first sacrifice and everything else began to bloom into existence from there.