>The gods already had a relationship with designed Dragaerans before >Easterners came around. And they seem to operate differently with >Easterners. I'm not sure what you mean by "before Easterners came around", considering that Terrans were around before Dragaerans and Easterners are basically just Terrans with psychic abilites programmed in. It seems to me that the reason we have Easterners in the East and Dragareans in the West is because the Jenoine set things up that way in order to keep their control group separate from their experimental group. Either that or the gods decided to separate the two peoples once the Jenoine were banished/destroyed in the cataclysm that created both the Sea of Chaos and the gods themselves. In other words, the Easterners were always around, even if the Tribes didn't actually learn about them until they attempted to expand into their territory. Verra is the eldest of the gods, having arrived with the Jenoine as their servant. She takes an active interest in the East (or parts thereof) as have one or two other Gods we've seen and possibly more that we haven't. It seems unlikely that the Gods would have had no commerce with the Easterners before the Tribes encountered them. You're correct that they operate differently with Easterners and that's what I'm wondering about. In part, it's because Easterners are simply different and relate to the Gods in their uniquely Eastern way. However, it's worth wondering if the reason also has something to do with an agenda on the part of the Gods. In _Brokedown Palace_, Verra represents stagnation as well as tradition. She's one of the forces holding progress in check. She's not evil, in that she seems to believe that she truly knows what's best for everyone, but she's part of the Establishment that has resulted in the palace crumbling into ruin while everyone in charge attempts to preserve something that is past preservation or else hold on to their own power base. _Brokedown Palace_ is part fairy tale and part allegory, but it may also be representative of what the influence of the Gods has done to the East as a whole. It would be very interesting if Vlad were to discover or at least come to believe that the Gods were keeping his people under their collective thumb for their own purposes.