Dead Gods

I am the consequences!

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Info

Appearances

The Dead Gods are immortal entities that controls various aspects of the world and the creators of the Grand Design. While everyone on Innworld believe them to be long dead, they have returned because the arrival of Earthers.

Overview

Not one, in over ten thousand years of history, as far as I can tell. [... ] Oh, there are hints — references to someone trying to bring back the [Cleric] class, a faded relic here and there, but no gods are ever referenced directly. They’re dead.
Ryoka on the general knowledge of gods

Over eighty thousand years ago, multiple pantheons of gods existed on Innworld alongside other species. They proposed to create a system of classes and levels. While the other species protested, the gods ignored their subjects and implemented the Grand Design, sparking a war between the gods and the mortal races. In the end, the gods died, unable to regain power due to the Gnomes sealing the knowledge that the gods are alive. As such, to the present day, people in Innworld believe that the gods are dead and no longer pray, though the exclamation "Dead Gods!" is a common expression of disbelief or surprise among many Innworlders. If confronted with evidence of living gods, they temporarily stop breathing and their memories are wiped.

However, the arrival of people possessing knowledge of gods and religion has enabled some of the dead gods to reclaim a certain degree of their power. Currently, there are six gods active within Kasignel: Tamaroth, Kasigna, Emerrhain, Laedonius Deviy, Cauwine, and Norechl. It's speculated that the more people know about their existence, the weaker the cognitive effect censuring knowledge of them gets.

In addition to the six, there is a sleeping demigod in Rhir, which was overlooked by the Gnomes after the war. Though it lies asleep, its dreams and nightmares have spawned and given life, such as Crelers and Antinium. While weaker than a god - being compared to as a "half" a god - it is stronger than the six due to it having a body in the living water. It is currently kept under guard and contained by the Antinium of Rhir.

Pawn created a new God on the day he heard Erin's stories about Earth's Christianity. He then started an Antinium religion for which Klbkch nearly killed him, due to the latter's animosity towards the sleeping demigod. However, Pawn quickly refocused his faith onto a safe place called Heaven and denounced the existence of deities.

Individuals

The Six

There are six primary Dead Gods, who attempted to form pacts with people from Earth, who regained power at the Summer Solstice

• Tamaroth — The Man with the Beard - God of Leaders and Rulers. Mortal Agent - Laken Godart
• Emerrhain — The Wise Man - God of Scholars, Magic and Secrets. Mortal Agent - Aaron Vanwell
• Kasigna — The Three Women in One - Goddess of Death and the Afterlife. Mortal Agent - Eldavin
• Norechl — The Lost Thing - The God of the Lost, the Forgotten and Seekers.
• Laedonius Deviy — The Dancing Man - God of Dance and Love.
• Cauwine — The Young Huntress - Goddess of War and Youth. Mortal Agent - Eldavin

Other Dead Gods

• Diotrichne — Goddess of Afterlives, created Diotria. Slain by mortals.
• Isthekenous — God of Designs and Plans, creator of the Grand Design. Killed and eaten by the other gods.
• Iyedoth — God of Time. Body eaten by a Seamwalker who later become known as the Timewalker, the Devourer of Gods.
• Unnamed God of Secrets — A god whose power was claimed by Emerrhain.
• Unnamed God of Tricks

The Shadows Things

Multiple Lesser Dead Gods that are so weak that their form has been lost and their minds fragmented. While weaker then the six, they are still dangerous as they too want to escape from their desperate fate.

Chronology

Over eighty thousand years ago, the gods created the Grand Design against the objections of the Elves, Gnomes, and the other species. The gods' refusal to listen instigated a great bloody war that drew in other worlds and pantheons. In the end, the Gnomes killed the few remaining gods by binding the current and future inhabitants of Innworld with the idea that "the gods are dead," which prevents them from even comprehending the word "gods" without the context that they are dead. Without a source of worship, the "surviving" gods were trapped in Kasignel and left to starve and rot. While the dead gods could feed on the souls of the dead, they lost their forms over time and became shadows that could be warded away by stronger souls. Still, over the centuries, ghosts became increasingly unwillingly to cross back to the land of the living in fear of being eaten. However. with the arrival of Earthers, people from another world with knowledge of gods and religion, six of the dead gods regained their forms and a semblance of their power.

Volume 3

Tamaroth, Emerrhain, and Laedonius Deviy appeared in Erin Solstice's inn on the Winter Solstice. Erin emptied her food storages to serve them, and Tamaroth made allusions to others who couldn't make it to the inn: “They are lost as we are, but do not fear. We will meet again in time. That is a certainty, and they do not fear the storm.” [...] “Do not worry. They will come in time. As for names… it would be pointless to ask. Few remember my name, let alone the others.” Then, they offered her three gifts in trade of her soul:

• Tamaroth offered the Umbrella made from the Sun's Light, to burn away fears and untruths among other benefits
• Emerrhain offered the Hangman's Rope, a tool to escape your enemies and live. It is implied that as long as you hang from the rope, you can survive indefinitely.
• Laedonis Deviy offered the White Horn of Friendship, to call all of her friends. Ryoka was able to hear the horn from somewhere near Riverfarm when Erin used it in Liscor, giving evidence to the claim her friends would hear it no matter where in the world they were.

Erin refused their gifts but found an ancient mithril coin after the strangers left, and dimly remembered the encounter like she would a dream.

The same night, Ryoka was also haunted by the other three of the six while she returned from her delivery run to Invrisil: Kasigna, Cauwine and Norechl. She conversed with them around a fire and one of them banished Ivolethe when the Fae attempted to counsel Ryoka against listening to them. Norechl offered her two lost fingers as a gift. Ryoka fled the fire, barely escaping them with her life. She threw her moving fingers into her campfire and also burned her scarf that had been touched and turned into something evil as well.

Volume 7

Erin gave the mithril coin for Pelt Dooristone to restore. When he restored the coin, it revealed the words "Tamaroth, Who Leads. The G— of Rulers. Protect Us in Our Weakness." Thanks to the Gnomes' geas, Pelt suffered a minor heart attack when he saw the word "god," and accidentally scratched the word out.

Other Earthers aside from Erin and Ryoka were confirmed to have met people on the Winter's Solstice.

• Laken Godart has reluctantly received counsel on being an [Emperor] from Tamaroth, having been tricked into taking his hand. His insider knowledge allowed Laken to claim land via totems, elevate his people to better classes, and prepare for being judged by the nobility of Izril.
• Aaron Vanwell was taught how to reach the Evermote Room by Emerrhain, God of Magic and Secrets. Emerrhain then used the pact he made with Aaron to force the young man to cast a ritual on the Summer Solstice. That ritual sent a message to all electronics from Earth saying that the gods are alive, further empowering the six.
• Dev the [Explorer] encountered a stranger while camping outdoors alone in the middle of winter in Baleros. He believed the woman to be a bhoot (ghost/devil) and refused to take her hand or receive what was offered; the stranger then vanished into thin air.
• Luan Khumalo encountered Kasigna while rowing his boat at sea in the middle of winter. He later believed the woman to have been a nightmare, but was still glad that he didn't take her hand. He later encountered Laedonius Deviy during the Summer Solstice and refused to take his hand as well.
• The Prophet was approached by them, but rejected them as false gods.

Volume 8

Empowered by Aaron's message to the other Earthers, "The Gods are alive," the six dead gods began consuming ghosts en masse. In the days after Erin Solstice's death, almost all of Izril's ghosts were eaten by the gods. Erin, arriving in the land of the dead as a living shade, was captured by Kasigna and put in various scenarios to determine why she was special. The [Innkeeper] was freed by the ghosts of Maviola El, Zel Shivertail, Califor Weishart, Sserys, and Yderigrisel, though Maviola El and Zel sacrificed themselves in the process. While the remaining ghosts escaped back to the safety of the Byres' lands, they were soon besieged by Kasigna, Tamaroth and Norechl, forcing Erin, Califor, and some of the other ghosts to flee Izril. They were chased to Chandrar, arriving at the sanctuary in Khelt where most of Chandrar's dead had gathered, Though the three dead gods couldn't bypass the borders guarded by Khelt's rulers, they were joined by the other three. However, Erin summoned Tamaroth's gift of the umbrella and the sword in the stone from her memories. Both the sunlight from the umbrella and the threat of the sword, which could harm them, forced the dead gods to retreat.

The six continued to feed on wayward souls, while attempting to break through the sanctuaries of the other continents. Norechl, for reasons unknown but to itself, decided to travel to Rhir and threw itself off the Last Tide. Stimulated by the lost thing's presence, the sleeping demigod briefly stirred, causing massive damage to the Antinium Hives of Rhir. Kasigna lured Fithea sor Kerwenas into her service, tempting her with promises of resurrecting her kin. She ordered the Dryad to kill Ryoka Griffin, which failed and resulted in Ryoka murdering Fithea. in self-defense. Emerrhain, seeing Eldavin - and Teriarch by extant- as a threat, hijacked Aaron's body to create a ritual that would sever the connection between Eldavin and Teriarch. The ritual activated during the Archmage of Memory's battle with Viscount Visophecin, killing the Dragon and leaving the simulacrum on the verge of collapse.

Norechl returned from its fall, along with thousands of Seamwalkers, which threatened both ghosts and gods. Intimidated by the arrival of Gnomes and Sprigaena summoning the Devourer of Gods, Emerrhain activated a backdoor in the Grand Design, restoring the ghosts' classes and levels. Tamaroth learned about the ritual attempting to revive Erin by listening through Laken Godart's ears. He traveled to Liscor to hijack Erin's body, while fighting with Cauwine and Laedonious Deviy, but was thwarted by Sserys, who possessed Erin's body himself. During the battle between the ghosts and Seamwalkers, the God of Secrets was tricked and exiled by the last Gnomes, while Laedonius Deviy was pushed off the Last Tide by the ghosts of the Drath Archipelago. Razia, an Agelum from Ailendamus, accidentally fell through one of the cracks between the lands of the living and the dead, caused by Oberon. As person whose nature was at the same level as a god, she was able to beat up Tamaroth and Norechl without being absorbed by them. Meanwhile, Kasigna, having defeated the Timewalker, began erasing Kasignel after listening to Drevish's presentation on how to improve her afterlife's structure and layout. Using the hangman's rope summoned by Erin, Xarkouth the Dragonlord of Stars and Razia subdued Tamaroth and Norechl, and carried them off into the void. The last of the six, Kasigna and Cauwine, approached Eldavin, and offered him a chance to live in exchange for service. Eldavin ended up accepting Kasign's hand, becoming a real half-Elf capable of leveling.

Gallery

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  Innkeeper vs Dead Gods by Miguel
  Clockwise (mines Erin); Laedonius Deviy, Cauwine, Tamaroth, Norechl, Emerrhain and Kasigna.
  (8.11 E)

• 

  In Geneva's Mind by LeChatDemon
  (8.51 D)

Trivia

• The first recorded exclamation of "Dead gods!" within the story was uttered by Zevara.
• It is implied that the gods created Innworld and the space around it, given that one of the Gnomes criticized Emerrhain for not understanding how stars worked, and simply hanging orbs in the skies in the shape of constellations.
• There are Skills related to the Dead Gods, but no one has ever gained any of them due to the cognitive censure around the gods.