God of radiance, splendor, and the sun. He has ambitious eyes and a sly grin. He’s the precious thing you stow away and the attention of a thousand eyes.
Traits: Golden eyes and shimmering hair. Gold dust freckles and small cracks on his skin, like cracked porecline
Motifs: Sparrows, coins, crowns
Colors: Gold, yellow, reds, white. Appears across different cultures in colors of royalty and regality
Personality: To put it plainly, a little bitch. He’s petty, shallow, and incredibly vain. He thinks he can buy anyone or thing because in truth, he can. He keeps a happy, care free atmosphere and almost always has a menacing smirk. He loves to scheme and cheat and pull luxuries out from under those who displease him. His attention can leave you wealthy or penniless, depends on how interesting you are.
He loves gambling and building/paying for massive works in his name. As a result there are many pyramids, towers, and temples dedicated to the sun. He visits these constantly, always inspecting them and making sure they are properly cared for.
Easily the most self absorbed of the gods, they are also the most self aware. They are deeply aware of their flaws and attempt to cover them, surrounding themselves in riches to hide the fact. They wear a ludicrous amount of jewelry, commissioned paintings and statues, and have been known to create theater masks in their likeness. They are never who they seem.
Notable crimes: turning those who defy him into gold
Sustained by: Commerce. Most gold in the world was made by them. As a result, greed and trade and the act of paying are enough to keep them alive. Cities made in his honor have all coins marked with his symbol
Home: A golden city lying in a desert oasis. Towers and buildings made from beautiful marble and assorted precious metals. His temple is a golden pyramid.
Lord Vel, Sovereign of Snow
God of ice, snow, and the far north. He is the frigid winter night. He’s the pure black sky with no stars and an ominous moon.
Traits: Frostbitten skin and black veins. Wears many rings
Motifs: Rings, the moon, shields
Colors: Dark blues, steel gray, black
Personality: A boisterous man with a focused mind, Vel always seems to be planning something. He is very much like a proud king or CEO. Ruthless, determined, and is both feared and loved. His temperament makes it quite hard to tell if his jovial nature is true or if it was nearly to make you lower your defenses.
He’s extremely possessive and always plans to win. He takes immeasurable pride in what is his and always desires more. He is infamous of taking prizes and war trophies back to his kingdom, never to be seen again. Those who step into his territory, those who disrespect him, or that which he simply wants, are up for the taking. He has a habit of freezing prizes into ice sculptures.
He stands well above others, but lavishing in his glory with them. He’s a warrior king who marches with his men and will destroy cities for them. That being said, his expectations are quite high and if not lived up to, he won’t assist. It’s common to find a few bodies scattered around the north, the poor souls who couldn’t survive his long, conquering marches through the frozen terrain.
Notable crimes: destroying any ship that sails under a full moon. Freezing an entire kingdom because they did not pay “proper homage”, when in truth, he was simply greedy for more territory
Sustained by: The acquisition of territory. The more frozen land and seas, the larger the frozen wastelands, the more powerful he becomes
Home: A near-impenetrable, ever-expanding fortress made of solid ice in the far north. It is said that the corpses of beasts from ages past, or whatever manages to captivate his interest for long enough are preserved within the labyrinthine, frozen walls.
Goddess of fire, mania, and desire. She is the warm glow and the raging inferno. The gentle kiss and the enchanting song
Traits: Long, flowing black hair the wisps like smoke. Deep, red, jewel-like eyes. Embers float off from her skin
Motifs: Bees, petals, amber, gems
Colors: Amber, crimson, ruby
Personality: “Hestia if Hestia hated kids”
Alana is a petty god fueled by want and desire. She loves people. Drinking, eating, partying, sex, etc, but absolutely despises commitment. She pledges no oath and swears no fidelity. She is goddess of song and she sings for all.
The most cunning and seductive of the gods, Arlana is nearly impossible to forsake. She’ll sink her claws in, leaving her mark, and it’ll be impossible to escape. She can make anyone love or lust for her and make her more desirable than she truly is. She toys with people, using and abusing and neglecting anyone she so pleases. Her charm has made others self harm in attempts to please her.
Her rituals and traditions all deal with fire and are probably the most dangerous out of the whole pantheon. Probably because she enjoys watching people getting maimed or dying during them.
Rated R for Rip your heart out
Notable crimes: Immolating people she finds attractive, setting entire cities ablaze with passion or literal fire to the point that they’re obliterated
Sustained by: Festivities. Solstice festivals and parties or events fuel her. She also has a number of holidays and practices revolving around burning effigies.
Home: A sprawling palace at the base of a volcano. A large port allows people from all over the world to come and join the festivities. The volcano is a nest of massive, amber-dripping bees that produce lava as they expand her palace.
Goddess of knowledge, stories, and learning. She’s a burning library and the thing you can’t quite remember. She’s the feeling of loss, like something was taken, but you don’t know what.
Traits: Short silver hair and pointed crystal nails. Crystal orbs orbit her
Motifs: Snakes, cloaks, crystal
Colors: Lighter shades of blue, reflective and iridescent crystal, white, gray
Personality: Hellbent on seeking all there is to know, Inet scours the globe to find all that she can. Though she doesn’t care for studying or organizing or record keeping due to perfect memory, she does keep grand libraries that house the massive volumes of “scraps” and “loose ends”.
She’s known for destroying many of her sources once she’s done with them. She monopolizes learning.
She’s perceptive, seeing and hearing nearly anything she focuses on. She is also known for being clairvoyant, simply knowing what will happen before it does. This mixed with her paranoia and spitefulness has resulted in any defiance against her being put down before it could truly start. People were slain simply for thinking negatively of her for too long.
She’s a loner as far as the main pantheon goes, always keeping her followers and servants in the dark.
Notable crimes: Restricting education and advancement for cultures she doesn’t like, ie burning historical books, stealing their libraries, etc
Home: A flying, teleporting library with columns of solid crystal and walls lined with scrolls. It’s said that the interior is much more vast than what it looks like from outside, but that’s difficult to confirm as the crystalline doors have been forever closed to any mortal.
Ko, the Verdent Peacemaker
God of plants, medicine, and poison. He is the grasping vines and the overgrown roots.
Traits: Vines wrap around his neck, wrists, and ankels. A weapon or two is always logged into him.
Motifs: Verdant pools, vines, hanging trees
Personality: A seemingly zen person who always has a knife up their sleeve. They trust nothing they don’t 100% control. As a result, all things under them become part of their forest. Every plant, every follower, every attending nature spirit. They become a part of a vast spiritual and physical root system.
His controlling nature has left him a god of justice and vengeance, often taking matters into his own hands and acting as an authority so he can “manage” the “bad seeds” of humanity. He presides over his trials much like a mad king, insisting that every ridiculous rule and tradition of the court be followed. Most of the proceedings are in fact just for show.
He seems to be oblivious to how corrupt his “justice” system is. Despite the fact that his entire jury is composed of mind-controlled or indoctrinated zealots, he sees nothing wrong with how it works. His closest advisors and followers all have a mind-affecting flower planted in one of their eye sockets that allow them to retain their memory but have their morals and beliefs twisted to be completely and utterly devoted to him.
Along with Vel, he probably has the cruelest methods of imprisoning or publically executing his enemies. He’s very “eye for an eye”. People praise him for dealing with criminals well, though he is very zealous about his job and has a tendency to go overboard.
Notable crimes: Walls off massive forests, forbidding entry to anyone or thing that isn’t part of his network. He often demands human sacrifices from hanging trees, the trees absorbing the heathen/criminal and turning them into a barely sentient drone.
Sustained by: Protected forests. Many spirits and nature gods draw power from the places they consider home. Ko has a dozen forests dedicated to them and keeps many sacred groves in his primary temple. Is also lowkey a god of executions.
Home: A cavernous garden courtroom, deep underground, sustained by the heat of the earth and lined with the most extravagant greenery from around the world. It’s less inviting than it seems: the clear, deep pools are concoctions of various acids and poisons instead of water, and many of the plants are aggressively carnivorous. Scattered and half-embedded in the mossy earth are countless graves and skeletal remains.
Kaetal, Master of the Skies
Goddess of rain, storms, and weather. She is the pouring rain and the storm you can’t ignore. She’s a clenched fist and the beat of a wardrum.
Traits: Pure black eyes and blue, glowing lightning tattoos. Black circlets hover on her ankles
Motifs: Skulls, war drums, axes, spears
Personality: Overly enthusiastic and aggressive as all hell, Kaetal revels in nature’s wrath. She’s a dangerous thrill seeker, always looking for more and more. She is incredibly temperamental and capricious, going from calm and content to wild and manic in the blink of an eye.
She revels in chaos and conflict, always arguing and standing her ground. She has earned a reputation for carelessness and generally being the most dangerous of the main pantheon. Whereas all others have a plan, she will wage a war simply for the fun of it, with no goal other than crush her enemies.
Surprisingly bright and informed, she knows what she is doing. She understands repercussions and intentions and circumstances, simply choosing to not care. To her, a man murdering his family and a man killing in self defense is the same. So long as people hate, so long as they act on that hatred, they are in her favor. She despises pacifism and the unsure and sees innocent bystanders or the defenseless as weakness that must be cleansed.
Notable crimes: Forcing gladiator events where she duels those who have sinned against her.
Sustained by: Chaos. Through storms and natural disasters she is able to stay alive and well. Mixed with recklessness and thrill seeking, she causes many great cataclysms. Rioting also gives her strength, so she whips up mayhem when she can.
Home: A large plateau at the center of a great plain. At the center of the plateau is a massive metal and stone tower spiraling up to the heavens. This tower is akin to a Tower of Babel. During storms it becomes almost completely electrified and looks as if the whole thing is composed of lightning.