Previously I rolled up a new pantheon utilising the World Builder’s Guidebook, which resulted in an interesting mix of deities.
I felt that it would be fun to expand on what had been created, and even utilise them for a future project. So I started to write up a bit more about the deities, and the people who follow them. This is still a work in project, and names are not finalised.
Skokaya, The Glorious Queen, The Radiant Empress of the Heavens and Earth, Creator and Destroyer, She Whose Right Hand gives Life and Left Hand brings Death.
(Chaotic Evil Greater Goddess of Death, War and the Sun.)
Skokaya currently stands as the most powerful of the gods, though it was not always so. She rose to the top through the deaths of millions, for, as with all the gods, her strength is tied to that of her chosen people, the Uskaya, and for now they are ascendant, a brutal and expansionist empire that have crushed all that have stood before them.
Skokaya is a cruel goddess who feeds upon death and war and who preaches that the strong should rule the weak simply because they can. Compassion and understanding are seen as weakness by her. Lives sacrifices in her name give her power, and to those who perform the sacrifice in her name, the blood split fuelling prolonged life.
Yet she masquerades as a bringer of life, a radiant being whose glory shines upon the earth in the guise of the sun, without which none could live.
When the Uskaya began their march to dominance over their neighbours, Skokaya was seen to manifest and to lead her armies to war, taking on a more active role in the world than other deities had in the past. In the capital of the Uskaya Empire, a temple-palace has been built for her, one as large as any city, and she has been known to manifest there, to lead vast sacrificial offerings in her name, for she says that without due reverence to her that her radiance would be withdrawn from the earth and all would perish.
Ever hungry for war and sacrifice and conquest, she looks upon the lands of all other nations with envy and greed, and she preaches that in time all will bow down to her and she alone will rule the heavens and earth.
Qasari Rhun, Queen of the Mountains, The Divine Protector, The Stalwart Shield, She Whose Hands Spill Forth Gold.
(Lawful Good Intermediate Goddess of Prosperity and Guardianship)
In the mountainous regions that border the lands where once the Rhikari dwelt live the Zhurqavi, the dwarves, under the protection of their goddess, Qasari Rhun.
Qasari Rhun values law and order, honour and disciple, and rewards those who adhere to that with wealth and prosperity. She, and her people, have long tended towards the insular, shut away in their mountain holds and lands, defending them as needed and not getting to involved in the affairs of lands not their own. Yet their traders and artisan are well known in the world, and well regarded, travelling far and wide in the pursuit of wealth.
Recent events with the Uskaya, and their wards of conquest have shaken up Qasari Rhun’s views and she and her people have started to take a more active role in the affairs of the world.
Karhi Zel, The Fortunate One, Lord of Magic, The Trickster, Father of the Land.
(Neutral Good Intermediate God of Earth, Magic and Fortune.)
Karhi Zel remains one of the more powerful of the deities, despite recent set backs, though his power is fading, for his people are scattered and conquered, the most recent victim of Skokaya’s rampages. Most others would have fallen far but he clings on, for he has plans and stratagems and more than a few tricks that remain unknown to any but him. Time is not on his side, and unless his plans come to fruition soon it may be that he fades as others have before him.
He has long been a force for good, a caring and compassionate god, the most active of the deities in this regards. He sought to thwart Skoyaya as she rose to dominance, and it may be for that reason his people were so ruthlessly targeted by the Uskaya, subject to death and enslavement.
While a believer in the need for laws, even ones for the gods as well, he has no qualms in breaking them should they prove unjust or conflict with the need for good, and in this his people have long followed.
It is in the lands of his people, the Rhikarians, that his greatest strength resides, in the earth, for the magic he wields and provides comes from the earth. As long as the Rhikari dwell in the lands he provided for them, they are blessed with good fortune, though to interlopers upon it falls a curse that hounds them.
With the Rhikari scattered, though, and Karhi Zel himself in decline, the magic and fortune that the lands provide is fading.
Oriansa, Lady of the Clouds, the Skyborn Goddess.
(Chaotic Neutral Lesser Goddess of Wind.)
Every mercurial, the Skyborn Goddess rules aloft, favouring the form of an ethereal, mist-like dragon when she manifests. Hers are the wind and the clouds, the gentle rains as much as the fearsome storms that can rage in destructive might.
She dwells not in the realm of the gods, but in a city int he clouds that drifts above the world, never settled in one place. There her children dwell also, not just the drakes, but also the Cloudborn, humans that have adapted to living in the city she has provided for them.
From the cloud city, the Cloudborn, riding the drakes, descend on the lands that they pass over, sometimes to plunder, sometimes to trade, or to simply explore, depending on whim, for they are as mercurial as their goddess.
Once Oriansa held greater power than she does now, for she has diminished in strength. In the past ages there were few that could challenge the might of her drakes and most were helpless their marauding ways. As the land dwellers grew in numbers and gained new weapons and powers, though, they were able to stand against the drakes and many were felled until now few remain, and those of a lesser kind compared to their ancestors. For the Skyborn Goddess, patience does not come easily but she has little choice if she is not to fade away like mists in the light of the sun.
Erissan, The Shrouded, Lord of Dreams and Nightmares.
(Chaotic Neutral Demigod of Darkness.)
In the mist shrouded lands of the Alassan elves dwells Erissan, the ancient and immortal lord of Alassa. It is by his will that the lands lay in perpetual gloom and darkness, and by his whims that dreams and nightmares afflict any who trespass into it.
His people, the pale and ghostlike elves, are a sombre people, but as fickle as their ruler, caught within the dreams, a shadow of whom they once more, much as their god was.
Erissan was once a true god, but he had descended into the ranks of the demigods, walking the line between god and mortal, neither fully one nor the other. He has largely closed his people and himself off from the wider world, seeking to preserve the power that remains to him least he join the ranks of those that have fallen and been forgotten.
Hutuata, the Cruel Tide, Reaver of the Seas.
(Chaotic Evil Demigod of Oceans.)
Hutuata is the vicious ruler of the Ahuaga fishmen, a cruel and heartless people who live int eh seas and who launch raids upon the shores of the land dwellers, seeking and prey. Hutuata is not a true god, though his people worship him as the Shark-God. He is semi-divine, on the cusp of true godhood, feeding on the death and destruction his people cause in an effort to elevate him to the status of a true god.
He has no allies among the existing gods and none, not even Skokaya, wish to see him rise to join them, for most abhor his cruel nature and the carnage he inflicts on their followers, even Skokaya’s. In him, Skokaya sees him as one who seeks to rival her in her domains, though for now she sees him as an irritant and not a true threat.