The core of this story will be a tournament style competition between gods for an appropriately incredible prize, with teams of champions selected by each of the participant gods to play on their behalf. This thread includes a list of the twelve gods who will be taking part in the competition and which will therefore be selecting the NPCs making up the teams you'll be competing against.

Note that, while there are only twelve gods competing, many of them (although not all) are there as the chosen representatives of other gods; this means that, for some of the gods here, their teams will be composed of more than just their worshipers (for example, any god of undeath would be aligned with Hel as their representative, while a large supermajority of evil gods are represented by Asmodeus, with contracts ensuring the deal is maintained). This is something to keep in mind for the "Connection" portion of your RTJ, hence why I'm mentioning it here.

However, as the game begins, your characters are not aware that such a competition even exist, much less of which gods take part in it or any information relating to that. I will be updating such information to this thread as your characters learn of it, so I encourage you to check it over from time to time, or whenever you have doubts as to what your team has currently been told about.

What your characters have knowledge of is the fact that these gods exists, a general sense of what they're about, and an idea of what their worshipers are generally like. So, here follows the list. You might notice that some of these gods might look completely original or otherwise be slightly different from the traditional version you know; rest assured that, in this case, I'm taking inspiration from myth to offer you a more varied and interesting selection of antagonists. You'll be able to learn more about these deities by interacting with their followers throughout the game.



Achaekek

The mantis god and patron of assassins, the legends say that Achaekek was created as a tool of the gods, to hunt down and kill mortals who attempted to ascend to godhood, until its creators lost controls of it and were murdered by their own creation, which then proceeded to start hunting down other gods. In answer to this, the other gods somehow came together to limit the mantis god's power so that it could not hurt the god themselves, thus forcing it to limit its attacks to demigods and those attempting to gain godhood, as it had been originally meant to. Whatever the truth of this legend, Achaekek has no known relation to any other god, although it will accept assassination contracts from any of them, and its worshipers are all practitioners of the killing arts and empowered by it to excel in them.

Asmodeus

Ruler of all the devils and sovereign of hell, Asmodeus claims to be the most powerful god in existence, and as the patron of contracts, he enjoys having people in his debt and making deals with all sort of creatures, including other deities. He's a firm believer in the concept of rule by strength and the duty of obedience from the weak, and accordingly, his believers and followers tend to favor tyrannical attitude toward their inferior and flattery toward their superiors, while using various combinations of binding promises and treachery when interacting with others.

Gaea

As a fae ascended to godhood and a mother goddess who presides over growth and lust, she is the chosen representative of those deities who are more concerned with benefiting plants, animals and the primordial wilderness of nature over the civilized races. Primarily worshiped by druids and creatures of the first world, she sees most other non-nature deities, good and evil alike, as interlopers that polluted what she claims as her own creation with their own meddling creation of the various sentient races.

Hel

Goddess of diseases and plagues, as well as undeath, is known to be a firm believer in the spreading of both to as big of an extent as is possible. Despite a relatively small following, due to being custodian of only the soul of those died in dishonor, and being mostly ignored by most other deities due to her apathetic and often stoic personality, she is held in the highest regard by almost any known god and goddess of undeath. In fact, most cults of those deities include provisions for making small side-offerings to Hel along whichever major offering the primary divinity is receiving. Because of this custom, she is able to maintain her power and divinity despite a very small amount of dedicated followers. Among those few, a majority are sentient undead, some of which (ghouls, in particular) seem to believe that she first created them. The scarcity of intelligent undead and their difficulty in openly practicing or getting along with non-undead followers are one of the reason her cult is so small.

Lao Shu Po

A minor goddess of rats, thieves, subterfuge and the night, she reached her position by stealing from more powerful gods, often by engineering conflicts between them and then scavenging power her better lost during their clashes. Nobody worship her openly, but many do in secret. While she is not known to hold connections to other deities, except for those that held a grudge at her thefts, a common rumor is that all the gods of intrigue, shadow, mystery and other such under the table abilities all known each other and cooperate, despite their oft repeated claims to have no idea what others are talking about.

Nethys

He is a god of prophecy and magic, torn between destroying the world with one hand and saving it with the other. While he holds magic above all things, his ability to witness past, present and future across cosmic and multidimensional distances at once drove him to a state of mind where he no longer understand morality in the way most other creatures and even deities do, which lead to actions that appear erratic to an outside observers, delighting in destruction as much as in providing aid to those who seek it. Due to this, he has ambivalent relations with pretty much everybody, having both assisted and thwarted any one multiple times. The one exception is the respect he receives from those who believe in the supremacy of magic, be they divine or mortals, as prioritizing it is the only thing he can always be trusted to do. As a result, most that follow or would work with him without reservations are always those who are seeking magical knowledge or power above all other goals.

Nyarlathotep

The most prominent and active of the Outer Gods, and the most invested in re-awakening the Great Old Ones, a group of eldritch demigods of chaos, destruction and madness, which he always seeks to spread. His worshipers follow a similar approach, relentlessly working to bring the state of the cosmos to one of greater chaos and torturing sacrifice into madness as offering to their lord.

Shelyn

A goddess of art, beauty and love, Shelyn is extremely popular among deities, with even those who aren't her friends considering her at least a pleasant acquaintance; even among evil deities she has almost no enemies. The only exceptions are divinities of destruction and torture, which she considers enemies as they naturally oppose her own divine calling. While a few of the most lawful among good deities might consider her somewhat flighty, most others consider her more than level headed enough to be deserving of respect; she is considered especially close to Desna, the great goddess of travel, Calistria, the most worshiped goddess of vengeance and lust, and Sarenrae, the mightiest and more powerful of all sun and/or fire deities, while also bridging the differences between them, making her an exceptional spokesperson for most non-evil deities. Her worshipers and followers are as varied as her allies, but they all tend to have some form of artistry (especially music) as a prominent part of their life, and are generally quite more interested in adopting gentle and passive approaches over directly forcing others to follow their guidance, even at their most argumentative.

Son Wukong

Also known as the Monkey King, he is the Tian Xia god of trickery, drunkenness and freedom. As befitting a creature that started its existence as an inanimate statue granted sentience and rose to divinity by means of repeatedly outwitting everybody he encountered up to and including the gods themselves, he is unpredictable and capable of astounding feats of cunning despite is often idiotic and buffoonish appearance. He is known to deeply love travel and carousing of all stripes, and interacts with mortals incredibly often; while he is worshiped primarily by con-artists, drunkards and other people who simply admire his carefree attitude, he is known to grant his favor to people who are not even aware of who they have been blessed by and, at times, even believes themselves his enemies. Thus, despite being known to often indulge in many vices and to always pursue his base interests, his true nature is often inscrutable even for the most wise among the gods themselves.

Torag

As the head of the dwarven pantheon and the god of honor, planning and war, Torag is a deity who tend to deal in a fair manner with others, although also one that is prone to pointing out the faults in others whenever he judges them to be threatening to a orderly existence. He also has a deep focus on the preservation of communities, and believes in providing support without open action. As a result, his followers tend to prioritize activities that have a focus on the protection and developing of communities, such as smithing, crafting, building and other activities that benefit those near them.

Ydersius

The creator and primordial god of the serpentfolk, he had a passion for small scale destruction and loved the taste of blood, demanding large amount of humanoid sacrifices. Due to his belief in the superiority of the scaled races, such as his own creations but also others like dragons and lizardfolks, he took a much more direct hand in mortal affairs than most gods, flaunting the non-interference agreements gods had signed in the confidence of his own greater power. This resulted in his undoing, as he was led into a trap by a mortal champion who had secretly been divinely empowered by multiple gods, and he was beheaded in the process, with his head secreted away and, when it proved impossible to destroy, hidden so that he could not recover. Even in this reduced state, he still holds greater power than many demigods, but his ability to act is greatly reduced, and almost the entirety of his worshipers have focused on nothing but trying to find and bring back together the severed parts of his body for millennia, greatly limiting their ability to interfere with the affairs of other faiths. As a result, his power has been slowly decaying as his followers dwindle, but those he still has are truly zealous in following his dictates.

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If you kept count, you might have noticed that's only eleven deities, whereas I said there would be twelve contestants. That's because, predictably enough, the last contestant is also your sponsor, the deity that contacted your characters and asked for their help. The gods above are the ones who will be supporting your opponents, while this one below is the goddess who'll be supporting you.

Khepri

Minor sun goddess of cooperation, rebirth, freedom, and hard work, she is commonly a figure of worship among peasants, laborers, slaves and all forms of the downtrodden. She represents those who toil in ignominy and squalor, and yet can turn that ignominy back upon those who consider themselves refined, elevated, and superior if only they work together; among those who follow her, it is said that she provides the greatest help to those who take action for themselves and reach their hand to help their fellows.

The most well known myth about Khepri that identifies this behavior see her as part of a pantheon which contains a much greater sun god as its ultimate ruler, one who draws power from the sun while Khepri pushes it through the sky, in a parody of servitude. At the same time, she has the power to stop the movement of the sun, thus depriving the mightiest god of his power, and is known to do so whenever that god falters in his commitment to just rulership. How much truth there is to this myth is unclear, but it is clear that Khepri is the type of goddess who'd force those more powerful to bend to her requests for the common good of all.

Khepri is the goddess that will contact the players to introduce them to the contest; she represent a group of good gods who want to use the contest to achieve as much happiness and benefit for the least fortunate as is possible. Most of these gods are minor in power and have a small amount of followers, or they might be lesser demigods or other creatures with a limited amount of power. However, this does not mean that players can't be members of a class with ties to a god; rather, it means that whatever deity is followed by that player would be a member of the alliance Khepri represent. This would, of course, work better if any such deities are minor ones, but I will be willing to work with players who have divinely empowered character concepts to ensure things work appropriately.

The holy symbol of Khepri is a scarab with a golden sphere in its jaws, often represented in a simpler golden scarab design. The scarab is also her sacred animal.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:11, Thu 13 Jan 2022.