The Chinese character “tian” refers to all three Heaven, the sky, and the weather. To the Shén, those three concepts are one and the same. Heaven is the Gods’ abode and workplace, where palaces, citadels, and offices sprawl amongst the upper troposphere’s clouds. While other pantheons break their own overworlds away from tellurian skies to avoid, for example, getting in the way of spacecraft launches, the Shén wouldn’t dream of dwelling in a different World than their human charges. How, then, might they manage and monitor the weather? Can you imagine the paperwork? Accordingly, jets that fly high enough above China find themselves soaring amidst cloud-wreathed pagodas, with serpents and star-spirits darting back and forth in their path. There were even a few crashes early in the 20th century until Nüwā built an Air Traffic Control Constellation. Heaven is accessible via sky ladder or by climbing certain mountains.
