Godsend [IC]

[Razade]

Session Zero
The Titan's Age
https://i.ibb.co/bWxPf85/tumblr-mww43y-Bzw-D1t271yno1-400.jpg (https://imgbb.com/)

Before Time, for Time is a mortal concept, there was The Void, The Titan and the Space, and in there dwelt yet more Titans. Alien and mighty, the Titans warred eternal, breeding and dreaming vast monstrosities and horrors in their eternal conflict. Of these vast and incomprehensible things, five were the mightiest. Hi No Gion-Go: The Flame, the Ever Burning, That Which dwelt within the Chest, led a fiery host that dwelt within a singlar point of intense flame, a Sun.

Gobo Gobo: Which Split in Twain, Of Rushing Rivers and Mighty Streams, What Brought Sorrow sat within the icy regions of the Void that the flames of Hi No Gion-Go could not reach and ruled the mighty rivers of the icemelt. Here in these crosswaters dwelt serpents and many tentacles creatures. Ikki: The Mud of the Rivers, The Mason, Second of the Firmament and A Single Stone rolled from these rivers, a mighty Titan of Earth and Dust. Its armies were countless as the grains of sand upon a beach, terrible and stalwart as they warred with Pogpung: The Fortress of Sighs, The Maelstrom, The Dreamer who Could Not Dream and That Which Came with No Face. It was these mighty winds of Pogpung that did cool the rivers and thus make the icy and did blow the mighty hot breezes so that the Dust and Earth could grow verdant.

It was here the mighty Titans created their greatest works. Smaller than the many monsters, smaller even than the smallest of Titans, The Divinities came. Five families and one made by the Five, they dwelt within this realm, The Divine Realm, where the war could not reach and yet was eternal. For Ages the war raged. Divinities against Divinities. Monsters and Titans against all, there was no end in sight and for each mighty blow, a piece of The Divine Realm was lost and with it Divinities for the Void was not a realm even they could survive.

It was Skall, The Mighty Drummer, who called out first to the Five Families. "Look here" he bellowed out across the shattered fields of the Realm. "With every ring of our Master's voice, more of our brethren fall to the Void. Are we playthings to our Master's whims? Are we less? Are we not Divine? Have we not the gifts of creation?" And it was so, for the Titans had made the Divine capable of Creation as they themselves held even if lesser. A Divinity could make life where there was none and could sing the Song of Creation as the Titans did, their voices weaker and needing more than a single mouth.

"If we were to die, would the Titans merely make more? Our deeds and our sorrows forgotten? I say here to you now, should we not take our Destiny into our own hands? Shall we not be unlike the Titans, and bring an end to these Wars? So that we might live in peace?"

This too was so, and many Gods rose their banners in Rebellion. The war raged for Ages more, the Titans against themselves and the Gods against the Titans, for the Dreamers could do nothing but war against each other, they had done so before the Gods and would have done so after. Skall was the first to be slain, leading the charge against the Five and their multitude, and many more fell. Many Gods were made to meet the rebel and willful Divinities. The Kyojin. Yet others refused the call for Freedom and cast their lot with their Masters, spies and betrayers, champions and lovers. The Akuto.

But the Gods did win the war, and the Titans were slain yet dreamed still and the Gods did turn their hands to imprison the Titans. The Titan of Earth, Ikki was enwrapped about the beating heart of Hi No Goin-Go, their blood mixing and soothed by Gobo Gobo. Their life infused all that The First World could be. The Titan of Skies, Pogpung further separated this world from without, and gave sweet air for the beasts that sprang from the earth and wave. The final Titan, unnamed in its terror, was cast across the Void and dwelt as a prison to all Titans great and Lesser. These can be seen today, for the stars and the Moon and the Sun are seen by even mortal eyes.

The Kyojin, born for War, were banished to the edges of the Divine Realm or slain, few being taken in as wife or husband to the Gods. The Betrayers, the Akuto, were sealed away in prisons dark and terrible for their crimes were many but they were the Blood of the Gods and the worst of their punishments averted by ancient Oath and Blood.

But what of these Mortals? Ah, for the start of the Divine Age would be incomplete without them. From the acts of the Divine sprang for lesser life, greater than beasts but lesser in all regards to the Gods. From the dust came Man, simple and crude but possession a brilliance and a desire to serve and to worship. From the beasts and the Elemental magics that raged across the world came the Derro, honorable and keen in the workings of tools yet possessing little spark of invention like Man.



The Pantheon: Answer and detail the following

1. Your purpose to the Titans and your creation. Feel free to lie here, tell us what your worshipers believe, how they think you came to be.

2. Your part and how you joined the Rebellion and how you helped create The First World.

3. Flesh out your Relationships in story.

4. Detail the creation of your wonders and perils on The First World.

5. Interact a little, the War has ended and a new Age is upon you. One without the Titans and their leashes. One where you are in control. The future is bright. The future is yours. I'll fill in NPC gods when and where needed.

[Longes]

The Dragon

Torch in hand, Avek led Mordunn and Tenedor down the narrow steps of the pit. The well-like structure, allegedly located very close to the heart of the Void, always read as a downward direction to the spatial senses of the gods, no matter what their eyes and balance told them about the geometry of the stairs. Avek didn't know who built it and why, as no titan claimed its halls of weathered red marble, but it was perfect for his needs so he put the question off for later. Today was certainly not the time for pondering it. Today he was going to show his fellow rebels the fruit of his labors.

At the bottom of the well, the gods found a colossal chamber, its far walls only visible through divine scrying. Despite the vastness, every centimeter of the space was covered in intricate formulae, occult diagrams, and focusing materials. While his companions stood awed by the space, Avek began the work. His leathery weathered palm traced sigils in the air leaving faint lines of flame in its wake. Today he was claiming his domain. His. He was not a function crafted by his father. He was not a tool for others to wield and discard. Today Avek was proving to everyone, and to himself, that others could not define him.

The chamber shook, space rippling under the strain of forces at work. The pull of the well, magnified by Avek's will, drew the necessary materials from the world, violently ripping them from the constituent wholes when necessary.

Ikki, the titan of earth, roared as the peak of his palace unwound into a ribbon and flew off, reshaping into titanium bones and diamond talons.

Gobo Gobo's serpents desperately writhed, as thousands of them were spirited away and melted into the primordial soup, to be rewoven into threads of muscle and sinew.

Threads of plasma from the Sun pierced the vast space, settling in the veins as the eternal blood of living fire.

Channeled by the mystic sigils, the well's gravity reached into the dreams, tearing a piece of Maelstrom's cloak of wind and letting it into the lungs.

Juggling the eldritch powers in an intricate balance, Avek combined them into a single militant form, like an old carpenter covering his Pinocchio with layers of armored plating.

With the final, greatest spell, Avek pierced the Void's skin, grasping for a fistful of primordial chaos to become the soul of the new creature.

Rising before the eyes of the gods, the diamond-toothed napalm-breathing newborn sparked the baleful green light in its eyes and let out its first roar.

[truemane]

1. Your purpose to the Titans and your creation. Feel free to lie here, tell us what your worshipers believe, how they think you came to be.

Murduun's purpose was to be an intercessor: between Titan and Divinity, between the Divinities themselves, and between the Divinities and the other Orders of Creation. His name means, more or less, "He Who Stands Between." He was meant to be a part of all worlds, but have a home in none. It is no coincidence that the ritual meditation favoured by his followers is often called 'Seeing Between the Moments.'

The myths surrounding Morduun on the First World almost universally feature the ascension of a mortal (usually referred to as "the Founder") to Godhood. Sometimes local legends will involved some local hero or figure of folklore, most of the time the legend features someone from 'far away' - another land, another time, another world. Someone alien and 'other' who went on a long and arduous journey (usually from 'there' to 'here') and, faced many hardships on the way (sometimes a desert, sometimes a plain, sometimes a hellscape, sometimes physical dangers, sometimes mental dangers) and, at regular intervals, paused to reflect and achieved wisdom over some aspect of reality.

The places where these 'reflections' happen differs wildly in different places, but there are always nine of them. Always the Nine Reflections. And, upon reaching the Ninth, the Founder ascended to the Celestial Realm.

Completely untrue, of course, but the myth persists. The reason, perhaps, why Morddun's myth is so mortal-centric is that, alone of the Gods, his followers follow a path of self-reflection and personal perfection to serve their Lord, rather than a path of obeisance and ritual. 'Communing" with Morduun is seen more a matter of 'communing' with oneself, with the universe, with the All, than anything else.

And Morduun teaches that Justice is a real force in the universe, and that his followers serve it, not by learning and following rules and laws, but by perfecting their ability to see things clearly and objectively, and then doing what is naturally right.

Mordun's dominant organization on the First World is the Order of the Nine Reflections, a monastic order that teaches perfection in body, mind, and spirit, and whose adherents can be found all across the world, serving as magistrates and judges and advisors and teachers.

2. Your part and how you joined the Rebellion and how you helped create The First World.
Morduun was late to the Rebellion party. He sort of knew it was going on, but he didn't think of it as a Rebellion, so much as a conflict it was his job to mediate and solve. It wasn't until Athrea came to him and made the case that there could be no Justice between two parties when one of those parties ejected the entire idea of justice. "Your purpose is to build bridges, Morduun. But how can you if one of the shores is made of sand?"

This idea, that peace might only be possible through war, and justice served by Rebellion, had literally never occurred to him. Was, in fact, counter to the very fabric of his being. He went away for a long, long time and thought about all the possible ramifications of this startling idea (echoes of this journey are found in the myth of the Founder). And when he returned, he told Athrea that agreed. He joined the Rebellion, and his privileged position among the Titans allowed him to tip the scales in the Rebels' favour.


4. Detail the creation of your wonders and perils on The First World.
WONDER
By the time Morduun turned his eye toward the First World, he was surprised to find that there were already stories about him and people who tried to follow his example. He took to contacting those who had mastered the art of entering deep meditative trances and aiding them along their path to wisdom and enlightenment. Those individuals grew in stature and influence and, within a few generations, his devotees could be found in many places around the world. But, because wisdom, enlightenment, and even justice, were different for everyone, there was no consistency in his message or teachings or methods.

So he inspired a small group of mortals to build in the mountains the greatest architectural wonder of the age: The Halls of Wind, a massive, impenetrable fortress and monastery that housed many of his followers and served as the collected wisdom of his Order over the ages. People climbed the mountains to seek wisdom, sometimes found it, and the masters of the Order, gifted with blindingly white ribes as their regalia, left the monastery to travel the world.

SHRINE
The Donshen Empire benefited greatly from the proximity and assistance of the Order of the Nine Relfections. They grew quickly in size, power, in the arts and sciences, maintaining a just and compassionate society. As they became seafaring, and traveled to other places, they were able to spread their way of open-minded cosmopolitan living to other lands, and they became rich and powerful through mutually beneficial trade.

In the capital city of the Empire, the largest and most complex city on the continent, Morduun caused a small park, a glade, in the middle of the urban centre, to remain untouched and unsullied by the urban growth.

It remains to this day, a walled off section of pure, untouched greenery. And those who mediate there find themselves able to touch deeper and more universal truths than anywhere else.

(there is a persistent rumour that this glade was to be a gift for the goddess Athrea, possibly an engagement gift, but this has never been confirmed)

PERIL
Morduun had a very large staff of angels before the Rebellion. When he rebelled, about half turned sides with him and were loyal servants for the chaotic time after. Once the war was won, and Morduun was establishing his Order on the First World, some of the angels turned out to be... mislead... on what Morduun thought "Justice" was. They thought that justice was whatever THEY decided. Morduun felt that it was a higher, more nobler cause than that. Those angels, the Azhanim, rebelled against Morduun just as they had against their old masters. He and his loyal angels, the Dozhanim put the mini-rebellion down and locked the Azhanim up for 'And Age and a day." That day is coming, and Morduun has to decide to let them out (and risk them wrecking his pretty world) or renege on his vow.

[Longes]

> Your purpose to the Titans and your creation. Feel free to lie here, tell us what your worshipers believe, how they think you came to be.

Avek is quite proud of his life path, and variants of it are eagerly shared by the followers among each other. The myth always follows a few basic steps: Avek being created for a menial job, Avek becoming equal to his masters through learning and self-improvement, and Avek overthrowing his masters. One of the most popular versions is attributed to Groln Silken Voice - a blind sitarist and author of many myths. In Groln's ballad Avek begins as a nameless slave toiling the Void during the day and seeding it with stars so that they may bloom and shine during the night. In the Void he finds a dragon, and, coming to its cave after the days of toil, listens to the dragon murmuring in its sleep. After a century of toil and secret-theft the titans notice that their slave has changed in character and stature, and jealously imprison him. But Emerra and Jarrus smuggle in his magic cloak and staff, and Avek breaks out, shattering the walls of the titans' prison with the first utterance of his self-claimed name.

> Detail the creation of your wonders and perils on The First World.

Wonder

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/623811672641110027/626407340450775052/pendor_paint_small.png

Avek's Wonder in the world is the isle of Salamanca, or more specifically, the school located on it. It was created a few centuries ago, when overzealous clerics of Emerra decided that all magic is as bad as necromancy. Persecuted by witch hunters, the wizards prayed and cursed, bemused why their patron has abandoned them. Little did they know that a plan was already in motion. In the far north, a charismatic youth named Salamanca has started his pilgrimage to learn every magic known to man. Salamanca traveled from city to city studying under wizened archmages and crotchety witches, and soon his power was such that people were coming to study from him. Even as his followers grew, Salamanca was skilled at evading witch hunters, and people came to believe that he is an avatar of Avek, coming to deliver them to salvation. Salamanca, grateful to the teachers he met along the way, obliged. Guided by Avek's visions, he came to shore, and summoned mighty ships driven by the elementals. Thus Salamanca brought the wizards to an uninhabited isle, where they built the first and greatest repository of magical knowledge.

Shrine

Peril

[Tsunderella]

Pretty, pretty thing. An artwork, a trinket. Such was my beginning: the little god who ruled over flowers, prim and sweet-smelling, fawning. I brought art and beauty to the divine realm; I was art and beauty itself. Coveted, intangible, crystalline. Only the Titans know why they saw need for beauty then. Perhaps I was some warped proof of their might: that they, through my mother Athrea, could create something fleeting and delicate even in the midst of their eternal wars; that they encompassed everything -- the heaviest fist and the lightest touch.

It grows tiring quickly, being seen but not heard. And that is why, when silver-tongued Avek came to me speaking of rebellion, I did not hesitate. He promised not only the death of the Titans and the beautiful end to their ceaseless rule, but my own death as well. He spoke of the Void-forged dagger which would lead me to the Shaded Garden's thorned throne, queen of the dark paradise. I was no longer satisfied with belonging to someone else, on display for their pleasure. Finally, I would have something that belonged to me. I rushed to tell my sister Tenedor, the most warlike among us. I was close with her then, before her belligerent followers championed the glory of death and not the ecstasy of life, before they crowded my garden with shiftless ghosts. Before she sought the ruination of the one good thing we've ever done: creating the First World and all the pretty lives within it.

[to come...]
WONDER
SHRINE
PERIL

[DuReign]

"Listen well, you, Kerak Son of Kilrek, and you, Jinrah Daughter of Koralik. Listen, you two survivors of the Trial, who still live after 100 days and 100 nights alone, out on the seas, bare, dependant on you and yourself, while the rest of your brothers and sisters lie dead and rotting in sharks' bellies. Listen, for you have learned Mother Tenedor's first two lessons: fight, survive, and live to see the tides change; or die while testing the will of another. There are no other ways.

"You two are no longer children - here, Kerak Son of Kilrek, is your Spear. With it always remember Mother Tenedor's Trial, begun when she was first spawned from Nature herself, to live on the primordial seas for a 100 eons alone, with nothing but her petrified birth cord as weapon. Here, Jinrah Daughter of Koralik, is your Sword. With it always remember Mother Tenedor's Second Trial, when she battled the fell Titans for a 100 years alone, in deepest darkness and with nothing but her teeth.

"May you fight on for many more days - or else die with your teeth in your enemy's throats."

- Gooru Timanok, the Strangled One

~~~

"Tomorrow will be a glorious day. Tomorrow we march on Kundalamun, to defeat its defenders in True Battle, to cast down its gates, and seize its lands as our own. They say Mother Tenedor was not truly alive, just an automaton of sand and salt made by the Titans to be a war machine and plaything, until they had used Her in a thousand glorious wars and the blood of a billion slain enemies drenched into Her core; then, reliving each and every battle as the bloods joined together, She became Herself.

Tomorrow, my Knights, my loyal soldiers - you too will become your true self. Tomorrow, we march to True Battle!"

- Lord Commander Byron Pantaginous, before the Battle of Kundalamun and the end of Widows' War

~~~

In a book hidden in one of Avek's many libraries, guarded by a War Engine jointly created by both Avek and Tenedor, is perhaps the closest truth to Tenedor's origins.

In a passage buried within its countless pages is a story of a daughter born of Athrea the Then Consort and Skall the Drummer, in the time when the Titans still ruled Creation.

The details of that courtship are cross-referenced in another tome lost to the ages; however, the passage does go on to say that this daughter would in an infinitude of time eventually become Tenedor, Who Fights in the Foremost Ranks, Goddess of War and Strife. She initially stayed in Athrea's tutelage within the primordial oceans for countless eons where she learned the ways of change, flow, and the endless cycle of life, conflict, and death.

She was then taken by her father Skall against her mother's wishes, to be trained for a special purpose. The passage is cryptic in what this purpose was, but repeatedly mentions that Tenedor was "to bear Witness", and then lists several monstrous atrocities the Titans committed that Skall brought his daughter to observe. The last terrible thing this passage mentions is the death of Skall himself after he invoked rebellion against his Titan masters. Supposedly the last thing Skall said as he was eviscerated was to Tenedor, saying "Bear Witness, daughter, and fight not the war in your heart."

Next: The Blood Sands, the Temple of the Foremost Ranks, Madrigor the Mad, the Courtship of Avek the All Seeing

[The_Snark]

I. Of Athrea and her Sisters

The Derro say that in the youth of the world there were three goddesses of the waters. First and fairest was Athrea, the Light-on-Water, ruler of the sunlit shallows and the open ocean. Second came Meliandre, Whisper of the Depths, mistress of the deep sea and keeper of forgotten things. Last was Ethaile, Rider on the Tempest Winds, queen of the wind and rain, whose endless wanderings brought life-giving rains or calamitous storms according to her mood. Together they shared dominion over all the waters of Creation, and sang life into being; in those days the waters of the sea were sweet and good to drink, and all manner of beautiful and wondrous creatures dwelled from their domain.

Yet unknown to them, a terrible creature slept beneath the sea, and after a time the song of the three sisters woke it from its slumber. It looked up at the world, and at once both hated and desired it, and in particular the goddesses who had worked so hard to make it fair. It reached out with a thousand arms, seeking to claim the ocean for its own and with it drown the world. Dark-haired Meliandre was first to face it, and first to fall, for such was the beast’s power that no god or goddess could hope to best it single-handed; but she called to her sisters for aid before the end, and they came. Athrea held the tides in place to halt the monster’s onslaught, while Ethaile scourged it with lightning and killing winds until both she and it were utterly spent.

When at last the monster fell, Athrea saw both her sisters had perished, and wept bitterly for a hundred years. Her tears cleansed the titan’s poisonous blood from the water, yet alone and grieving she could not remake the ocean as the three goddesses together had. This is why the waters of the sea are salt, and give no life.


Is the story true? Yes and no; like many myths, it holds truth and falsehood in equal measure. Meliandre and Ethaile were quite real, and their purviews and character were much as described in Derro tales. But Athrea was in no way their elder, and they were not the rulers of the sea; rather, they were made to ornament the courts of the Titans, to sing and dance for their pleasure when they retired from their endless warring to take their leisure. But few indeed are the mortal tales that share this fact - for who wishes to believe their sacred goddess began life as a humble concubine? And what goddess would boast of that?

Of the battle itself, little is accurate; whatever her deeds in the war, Athrea does not care to tell tales of them. Indeed, the Titans themselves are all but forgotten in most of her followers' stories, sometimes presented as terrible monsters but only rarely given names - and certainly never credited with the creation of the gods. As far as mankind is concerned, Athrea’s origins are unknowable. Where does the sea begin? Where does it end? She simply is.

But the greatest secret - the one that no mortal legend speaks of, no matter how ancient or obscure - is this: the sisters of the sea numbered not three, but four. Gentle Alhuanna, Maiden of the Sea-Foam, who once walked the shores and welcomed others to partake of the bounty of the seas, refused to join the battle against the Titans. Though she never raised a hand against the rebellion, still she was counted among the Akuto at war's end, and banished beyond the edges of the world.

[Razade]

Skall the Drummer


Among the mortals, one legend remains consistent and steadfast to the touch of heresy and liberalism. The story of Skall the Drummer.

Skall was the first. The first god in the realms of the Divine, the first to sing the Song of Creation for it was Skall who began this eternal rhythm and all the Song that came after it. Skall, born from the Void itself, to make war upon the beasts that dwelt beyond the Realms. It was Skall, in these tales, that brought the Rebellion to the other Gods though whence these others came vary from nation and tribe to cottage. Skall drew his wife, Athrea and her daughters by many Divinities, into the conflict. Wise Murdunn and clever Jarrus and many more. They all rose to the sound of Skall's rousing drums and the march of War for the first and only time drowned out the Song of Creation.

It was Yen'Shi the Corpse Dragon that rose to meet Skall as he rose his mighty host. Hwang Sa who had drapped itself in the fallen flesh of Titans, which prowled the battlefields like a cloud of vultures. It was not by Titan-Hand that Skall would fall, but by Titan-Flesh he fell. The mighty beast, Hwang Sa the Corpse Dragon, did swallow Skall's mighty Drum and with it Divinity was awarded. Thus the beast, immortal and garbed in armor of Titan-Flesh, fled and the Rebellion's mighty lead fell silent.

Who among the Divines did raise the banner fresh? The Derro say Athrea, the wife of Skall. Who else could be so wise, with what fury a wife might mourn her husband and it is surely said that Derro women are as mighty as their men. In the realms of Man it is said that Mordunn did council the Gods themselves and set upon them their charge. To make the First World, to banish the dark and to raise the Pantheon from those gods that did survive.