Avatar: The Godhead
In The Beginning
The Primordials
From Pantheon to Pantheon the story of creation varies greatly. Yet all share a common belief that at the beginning, Something stirred the universe into motion. What that something was remains a topic of hot debate between divine entities within each Pantheon. Wars have even started between the Pantheons over this subject and all now generally agree to disagree with the goal of avoiding pointless violence.
One thing all the Pantheons can agree on is the existence of primordial deities, like: Chaos, Darkness, Day, Earth, Light, Night, Sea, Sky, and the Underworld. Other potential primordial deities include: Fate (one or more), Life and Death, Time (or Eternity) and Love (or Misery). A few of the Pantheons include negative aspects of the previously mentioned primordial deities and can include personifications, animals or stranger things.
Creation: The First Age
At some point, after the the awakening of the Primordials, they procreated with one another and gave birth to the Elder Gods and the world as we know it. These amazing beings had few if any limitations and many represented unrestrained elemental forces. Some were intelligent after a fashion, but many were thoughtless entities who were ruled by their passions. During the first age, the Primordials and their children shaped creation to suit themselves, giving birth to the stars, separating landmasses from the sea, creating mountain ranges and giving birth to the origins of all life. Their battles and lovemaking created the world and universe as we know it now.
The Second Age
After unrecorded ages, the Elder Gods rebelled against their Primordial parents. From Pantheon to Pantheon the reasons for this the first War of the Gods vary and likely the true story may never be told, if indeed those who were present during the conflict and survived it, still remember. From the remnants that have come down to us through ages uncounted, the Elder Gods felt mistreated and or grew jealous of their progenitor's power and authority. The war was long and epic, but the Elder Gods ultimately won with the aid of a few turncoat Primordials. The fate of every Primordial remains a mystery, but the greater host were banished to a distant realm of suffering and imprisonment. This first true war did have casualties, and revealed to the Gods for the first time that they too could die at each other's hands or to divinely forged weapons. This sad truth led to a complete end to the hostilities and all the divine weapons were destroyed or hidden away leading to a golden age of peace and prosperity.
The Third (Silver) Age
The Elder Gods took dominion of the universe for themselves and partitioned the governance of the varying layers of reality between the strongest of them. Those original Dominions went to the leaders of the newly established Pantheons and lesser Dominions were handed out to each of the surviving deities as spoils of war. Of course the leaders of each Pantheon had their favorites and cronyism and nepotism were rampant, but the Elder Gods knew no better and in the celebratory mood which followed their victory they cared little. The leaders among the gods did not notice the disparity as they received the lion's share of the spoils and for an age all the gods were agreeable.
After the First War the various Pantheons drifted apart and most lost contact with each other. The third age was a silver age in that the Elder Gods perfected their parent's crude Dominions into lesser Powers that could be taught and traded. It was during this time that each Pantheon established for itself earthly abodes in places of of power that were often remote and difficult to reach. These Sanctuaries served as both communal gathering places and refuges against those few threats the early Pantheons would acknowledge.
With the fate of the universe settled and the First War over, the Elder Gods found room for love and relationships and in time to the birth of a third generation of Golden Gods. It was also during this age that humanity rose above the animal kingdom, but this event largely went unnoticed by the Elder Gods as they drew the fuel for their Dominions directly from the cosmic ether. During this time, mankind and the deities interacted infrequently, but mankind's need to imitate the divine and to worship the gods created a foundation for a later relationship.
The Second War of the Gods
The twilight of the Third Age began with the birth of a third generation of gods, the Golden Gods. These callow youths knew nothing of want or suffering and the world was their playground. Learning at the knees of the Elder Gods their parents, they were born to the Dominions and Powers and possessed a skill with them that surpassed their progenitors. Initially this created delight in the Elder Gods, but as time passed fear and resentment began to manifest.
Indeed the Golden Gods were not only virtuoso with the Dominions and their Powers, but they also found Humanity fascinating in a way the Elder Gods could not. Initially, the youthful gods just watched mankind, but in their playfulness and curiosity they began to interact directly with humanity who idolized them and offered them Worship and Sacrifice. During this time the Elder Gods began to bicker among themselves as families are wont to do. Their grievances ranged from genuine to the imagined and long festering resentments over the apportionment following the First War created deep divisions among them that could not easily be resolved.
What specifically began the Second War remains a mystery, some say it was triggered by a murder carried out with ancient divine weapons or that the hubris of the Elder Gods created Strife between the generations, or that someone within the Pantheons betrayed the Elder Gods by teaching the golden generation secrets that should have remained secret. In all likelihood, all of these things created an explosive situation that the gods failed to resolve in time. One theory above all others reappears in motifs across the bounds of all pantheons, that towards the end of the Third Age the Golden Gods were cut off from the quintessential divine fuel or Aether used by the Elder Gods and in their weakness they turned to the Worship and Sacrfice of mankind to fuel their divine Dominions.
What we know for certain is that one or more of the Golden Gods turned to the imprisoned Primordials for aid and released them in a bid to usurp their parent's place within the pantheons. Once released, the Primordials unleashed havoc on this this and all other worlds. A few of the more thoughtful Primordials sided with each of the younger generations of gods creating a three way struggle for the universe. The earth was laid waste and mankind in their hour of need prayed and offered up massive sacrifices to the Golden Gods granting them the fuel the youngest generation needed to battle their elders, but it also revealed to that their relationship with mankind was a symbiotic one. If the ravages of the Primordials were to extinguish humanity, it would also doom the younger deities to irrelevance or possibly oblivion.
Imperiled by this unwanted knowledge, the Golden Gods husbanded their followers, selected able leaders, struck alliances with key Primordials, unearthed ancient Divine Weapons, and banded together for an age to bring the cataclysmic Second War to a conclusive end. Once the war was over, the majority of the Primordials and the Elder Gods were again imprisoned, this time together and a handful of the loyal Primordials were made their jailers or allowed to wander free with the caveat that the Golden Gods were now the rulers of the universe. This situation did not suit everyone, but all those who dissented were likewise banished to the realm of imprisonment.
The new regime likewise partitioned control of the universe in similar fashion to their progenitors and reorganized their respective pantheons as they saw fit. With the advent of peace, the Golden Gods returned to their games and contests, entertaining themselves with their mortal followers and for the first time, begetting upon their mortal lovers semi-divine children, half human and half deity, the demigods were born.
The Fourth (Golden) Age
Like the gods that gave birth to it, the fourth age was a golden one. The gods and mankind freely intermingled and it was a time of great and terrible deeds. As a result of the Second War, the golden generation created new Dominions and Powers that they perfected in the fourth age. The fourth age saw the birth of organized religion and with the growth of mankind, its spread across the world. The Golden Gods looked upon this and were pleased.
During this time, the gods initiated many relationships with their mortal followers spawning a new kind of deity, the demigods. The demigods represented the golden generation's love for humanity and these half-breeds often acted as intermediaries between the divine pantheons and their mortal followers. Sadly the demigods were a symptom of a time when mortals were the playthings of the gods, who often took them as lovers willingly or no. Rape and incest were quite common among the golden generation in the fourth age and this unbridled passion often mirrored the Primordials in its destructiveness.
The fourth age also saw the gods moving among mankind and teaching them mundane versions of the Dominions and their Powers. Some of the gods did this more directly, like the gods of magic, while others helped mankind perfect their own arts and crafts. Mortals became surrogate children to the gods, loved, but not dangerous enough to be feared, humanity became pets to the golden generation. Likewise the the demigods became a safe alternative to more divine children, loyal and loving, but not powerful enough to threaten the established order, the demigods became the preference for gods who wanted progeny.
The presence of gods on earth, made the fourth age one of miracles, but also one of divine atrocities. Humanity's need to worship the divine would inevitably lead to mortal competitiveness and human hubris, pride would come before the fall. Great mortals and sometimes demigods would struggle and brag of their prowess in all the arts and crafts, quickly followed by divine retribution. It was an age of wonders and great terrors as the gods sought to ever increase their follower's numbers, first through miracles and then by intrigue, and followed by war. The proxy wars of mankind allowed the golden generation to compete with each other without the need for divine conflict, allowing mankind to pay the bloodly price instead.
It was also an age of divine justice when the gods acted upon the prayers of mortals who sought everything from justice, love, vengeance or wealth. And the gods found common cause with humanity against one another as well which often lead to more strife, suffering and warfare. Still, mankind perfected the science of religion and gave back to their gods a thousand fold, allowing the golden generation to create miracles that would inspire Legends.
The Heroic Age
The Age of Heroes was one of magnificent deeds, it saw the god's slow withdrawal from the world to replace direct divine intervention with influence peddling and indirect manipulations through dreams, omens, prophecies and revelations. Epic quests led demigods and heroic mortals to seek out unimaginable danger in the hope of fame, power or wealth, but what they created for themselves and those who would come after were legends. The birth of Legend created something new in the world or perhaps something just previously unseen by the gods, demigods who could ascend to true godhood and mortal heroes whose legendary spawned cults of their own and elevated them to the position of demigod.
Lengthy recitations, mostly genealogical poetry, created cycles of stories which followed the deeds of heroes and their relationships to one another and then extending to the relationships of heroic families. Epic sagas created a chain of divinity from the golden generation through demigods to the heroes of the age. The birth of hero cults both weakened and strengthened the gods by turns as they found themselves bound hand in hand with heroes in daily prays, oaths and during sacrifices. This revolution happened quite slowly at first and went unnoticed initially and once discovered, it could not be undone.
As the trend in gods creating demigods to be their progeny or to act as divine emissaries increased, the number of true new gods being born declined to nothing, seemingly overnight mortals began to deify their heroes and new heroes had a way of being raised up from the endless army of the dead. The fourth age gave birth to something else as well, monsters, the results of divine atrocities committed by the gods on individual mortals or entire races spawned obscene or profane creatures whose existence was curse to both themselves and the human settlements closest to their lairs. Demigods and heroes could gain legendary status if they could rid the people of these horrors and sometimes in the process they managed to offend one deity while amusing or pleasing another god. Each deed created a new legend which fed the cycle of myths which were no longer specifically about the gods and sometimes occurred despite their preferences.
The greatest demigods or heroes created powerful family lines which came to dominate the next age, blending legends with and inspiring new deeds both great and terrible to become history.
The Age of Empires
The current age of is one of empires.
So You Want to be a God?
"Being a god is being able to recognize within one’s self these things that are important, and then to strike the single note that brings them into alignment with everything else that exists. Then, beyond morals or logic or esthetics, one is wind or fire, the sea, the mountains, rain, the sun or the stars, the flight of an arrow, the end of a day, the clasp of love. One rules through one’s ruling passions. Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, ‘He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.’ [...] they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them." — Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
Lexicon
- ATTRIBUTES: Attributes are a group of permanent traits that govern mental, physical and social interactions or challenges.
- DIVINE ATTRIBUTES: Divine attributes are a group of nine permanent traits that mirror standard attributes, but they are supernatural in character and are considered Dominions.
- DOMINIONS:
- PROVINCES:
Dominions
Introduction
The term dominion means the power or right of governing and controlling; sovereign authority. But with respect to deities, the term dominion comes to mean something similar, but different. Here dominion refers to sovereign authority over a given aspect of reality, such aspects cover a wide variety of material phenomena such as: animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers or other entities of the natural environment, including thunder, wind and shadows. The deity's divine authority allows him or her to command these diverse phenomena through their spiritual element and each deity's dominion over their chosen phenomena grants them nearly uncontested control of those phenomena.
Classifications
There are three classifications of dominions: common, pantheon, and sacerdotal. Common dominions are available to all deities regardless of their pantheon, sacred band or parentage, provided they are not anathema to the deity or violate that deity's taboo. Pantheon specific dominions are only available to deities who belong to a specific pantheon and cannot be taught to another deity outside the pantheon. Sacerdotal dominions are very specialized dominions that govern the more mysterious powers of the universe like: fate, magic, prophesy and sacrifice. Most deities with sacerdotal dominions are perceived as having a greater power over their progeny, sacred band or pantheon and as such, they are usually loath to teach these secret dominions to other deities regardless of their relationship.
Character Creation
At the point of character creation, players may take up to three Dominions, one gained from their Divine Progenitor, one gained from their Pantheon and one jointly learned in tandem with their Sacred Band. Those Dominions taken by the Sacred Band must be agreed upon by the group of players before hand.
Powers
Each dominion is further broken down into classifications of potency known as the lesser dominions and the greater dominions. Lesser dominions are available to demi-gods and lesser deities, while the greater dominions are only available to full-fledged gods. Within each delineation of the lesser or greater dominions, individual acts of dominion are called powers. For example, the first power within the Lesser Dominion of Beasts is Beast Speech which allows the deity in question to converse with most animals. Both lesser and greater dominions are broken down into five powers ascending from weakest to strongest, so the fifth and strongest power of a given lesser dominion would be slightly weaker than the first and weakest power of the greater dominion. Despite this arrangement, there is a considerable jump in potency between the lesser and greater dominions.
Common Dominions
| Common Dominions |
| Beasts |
| Chaos |
| Darkness |
| Death |
| Dreams |
| Earth |
| Fertility |
| Fire |
| Fortune |
| Guardianship |
| Justice |
| Luck |
| Moon |
| Sky |
| Spirit |
| Sun |
| Vitality |
| War |
| Water |
Lesser Dominions of Pantheon
| Lesser Dominions of the Aesir -- The Norse Gods | Lesser Dominions of the Dodekatheon -- The Olympian Gods |
| Lesser Dominion of Blóð af jotunnum -- Secrets of the Aesir | Lesser Dominion of Epikrátisi -- Mysteries of the Dodekatheon |
Lesser Dominions Sacerdotal
| Lesser Dominion of Fate | Lesser Dominion of Prophesy |
| Lesser Dominion of Magic | Lesser Dominion of Sacrifice |
EXPERIENCE
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| New Trait | Cost |
| Ability | 3 |
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