The old gods have been worshipped for a very long time, it is said that when Soteria was very young they walked its lands and sailed its oceans but they became too wise and lost touch with the world, so the world cast them into the skies. For each God there is a counterpart Goddess to balance each other out. The God and his Consort, the Goddess and her lover.
Gods
- God of Keeping
- Onos is the central god of the Elder Soteria pantheon. He presides over the contradicting forces of war and peace. He preserves the balance of all things with his consort, Myta the Goddess of Decay. He guides the hands of mortals when war is necessary but gives the strength to stop fighting and see reason in the face of the savage nature of mortals. It is said that Onos gave mortals the ability to be strong in the face of adversity and keep themselves steadfast. To honor him is to balance the urges of violence tempering with the reason of thought.
- God of Stillness
- Eruer is the son of Onos and Udona. Their affair enraged Myta and she exiled Eruer and Udona over the affair and they were forced into the company of mortals and while Udona stayed separate and listening, dancing to the music of life Eruer was quiet and listened to the tone of struggle within mortals. He is the god of care and neglect, striving to listen and know when to embrace and when to let go. To honor him is to site quiet and hear the world moving around ones life, to notice the details but not to disturb them. It is said that if one finds the power within themselves to become truly still and one with the world in a moment, that he will appear and join a mortal for a time. Leaving a gift behind for the company without saying a word.
Goddesses
- Goddess of Decay
- Myta is the central goddess of the Elder Soteria pantheon. She presides over the contradicting forces of growth and atrophy. She ensures that new life can spring from old, as the old withers and decays so that new life can form. She provides an end to things when they are through, that mortals shall grow old and then rest after a long life is the reward for fighting so long while living. To honor her is to accept ones death is coming and help new life come forth.
- Goddess of Music
- Udona is the goddess of hope and despair. She brings color and feeling to the world, from her mortals know love and hate, fear and bravery. She loves the sounds of life and encourages tales of deeds past be told in song for all eternity. It is said that when a mortal sings anywhere she will stop to listen for a moment of her long existence and dance if the stones are sweet enough and the words powerful enough. She is the daughter of Myta and Onos, after the Fates began to quarrel so heavily her parents grew tired of the constant bickering. Soon after they gave birth to her and she grew up listening to the sounds of mortals and the music of the Fates plucking at the strings of life. To honor her to to embrace ones feelings, to sing and dance as if any one day could be your last.
The Fates
The fates are a trio of powerful beings, they are neither male nor female yet somehow both. They have the power to pull pull and shape the lives of everyone from entire kingdoms to individual people. The three beings are siblings, children of Onos and Myta when the world was young and devoid of life. Their children began to fight as they grew older and each took up a different quality of life. Their voices can be heard in the natural sounds and music of the lands from the oceans to the woods. The fates speak in the tones of nature itself.
- Discord
- Believing that life is disharmony and each note diverging from the others. This Fate argues for self determination and free will, whatever it may bring.
- Harmony
- Feeling that the truth of life is to fight and strive for togetherness and being one with each other. This fate argues for people to be brought together, the good of the many over the good of the one.
- Timbre
- Balancing between its siblings bringing together the notes of harmony with the notes of discord. This fate argues for peace between the others, and that both have their place in the world, it does not understand why they do not see this.
The 3 fates can only sway either one at a time or all at once, when they act apart from each other, their influence is minimal pulling at their individual strings within mortals. Discord and Harmony often fight over what should be done while Timbre carefully plucks the strings of mortals in subtle ways to bring them together. It is a rare thing for the siblings to agree, but when they do they can sway all the people in the 10 Kingdoms to their will and play all mortals in a symphony. Legend says, the Fates brought the Ageless Ones across the realms, having decided each that the war had brought too much discord, and so it was satisfied and ready to give in. Harmony was said to be filled with the actions of the heroes having sacrificed themselves for their people but too many over the years had done so, and was satisfied. Timbre as saddened, all the death, all the destruction, and finally was satisfied to bring peace.
When the siblings came together, they called across the realms to bring the Ageless Ones and influenced the mortals of the 10 Kingdoms to agree to and honor the Peace of Ages.
Forces of Nature
- Protector of the Forests
- The Kraul
- Protector of the Dead and Dying
- Osyn
- The protector of the dead and dying is the daughter Eruer's mating with his daughter Aelia. She bore the child in an angry rage and during that time, the work of the world suffered hard, she frequently would rage through the moral world declaring that people were too lazy and punishing them hard for it. Many died during this time, when the child was born, her father - Eruer - took her from her mother, calling Aelia unfit and cruel. Eurer raised Osyn to protect those mortals who needed the most protecting, the dead and the dying on their way the other side. She would judge them and take them to either Ocean of Dreams or the Severed Realm.
- Before Osyn, mortals could hold onto the mortal world and continue to plague the living. It is said that while once ghosts were common and the dead would come to smite those down for the wrongs of life, Osyn protects us from such. She protects the dead from being taken over by the rage and revenge of life, and then escorts them to the next life. Those souls which will not go quietly, who have lived bitter and angry lives with much wrong deeds of hate, anger, and violence will be taken to the Severed Realm, which is cut off form the mortal world entirely. Those souls which accept their fate and let go of the anger and hate of life, can die in peace and go to the Ocean of Dreams where it is said that they are permitted to watch over loved ones, viewing across the gulf between the living and the dead.
Lesser Deities
- Goddess of Work
- Aelia is the daughter of Udona and Eruer, she is steadfast and focused at all times. Their parents had not intended for their coupling to produce a child, so when their child was born Aelia was put to work with mortals and not told she was a Goddess. Her power never truly blossomed until she was told by her grandfather, Onos, what she really was. Enraged at her parents for neglecting her, Onos granted her the power of clarity to see the quickest means to an end. She is singleminded and tends to be unable to grasp the larger picture, drawn to places where mortals work extremely hard, she is said to watch over the poor and desperate trying to get by on what they have. Legend has it that she rarely appears to mortals, but that when she does it is a mixed blessing - she will show mortals the quickest path to their goals but that path will require a dedication to get that which few mortals possess.
- God of Lust
- Somus is the son of Myta and Eruer. To hide him from her jealous husband she forbade him to leave his chambers and he spent all of his time watching the mortal world live. Loneliness blossomed in him with an intense desire to belong and be together. He is said to be incapable of passing by a truly beautiful man or woman, that if a mortal catches his eye he must have them. Over the years alone he learned to disguise himself, until one day he found he could transform himself into someone else for a time. Using this, he escaped from his mother, who was too ashamed of what she'd done to go after him. Since then he disguises himself as a mortal and is said to spend nearly every waking moment with the most beautiful and attractive mortals he can find, spreading his seed throughout the world. Legend has it that he gave mortals an exceptional quality of the Gods which had been forbidden but left a wake of broken hearts and ruined lives as he flitted from interest to interest, never settling down.