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The deities of Vennar are worshiped across the lands from small tribal settlements to vast empires, as the paragons of law, chaos, goodness, evil, and neutrality, as well as a host of various other ideologies, ideas, and concepts. Most deities are believed to be the sentient personalities of their respective domains such as Valorikan, who is the most popularly worshiped of the deities in Makhavireth and stands as the god of Courage, Justice, and Honor. He is believed by many scholars and researchers to be the very essence of those ideas made manifest in the celestial plane, and his whims and wishes are, in reality, the force of those ideas worked upon the world.
While many wars among the gods represent the clashing of their respective domains, many others are instead personal squabbles, due to their clashing personalities and historic rivalries. While Ronnovar, god of order, may clash with Oras, god of chaos, because order and chaos clash as ideologies, Valorikan clashes with Deminadrus because one god holds what the other wants.
Stature[]
Deities may be divided in the most clear sense by their stature. That is, many deities are more or less powerful than others, according to their level of worship and respective personal power.
Lesser Deities[]
Lesser deities are generally personal or ancestor deities, worshiped by few and largely known only by their specific societies and cultures. Lesser deities hold house shrines and isolated village churches, holding only one domain to their nature. Lesser deities may include a beloved ancestor, venerated into the lower ranks of the gods by their descendants, and great kings or mages held in esteem by those under their power, or mere forest spirits and guardians of ancients sites. Lesser deities are never worshiped and only rarely known of beyond the area of their origin.
Minor Deities[]
Minor deities hold scattered or secret worship, held in esteem by the far-flung refugees of shattered kingdoms, hidden cults of bloodthirsty fetishists, minor duchies, or are more in line with village worship. Minor deities hold only two domains core to their worship, and are generally considered mid-tier and not well known. While the average citizen or villager may not have ever heard of a minor deity, a scholar, city councilor, magistrate, or ruler might, for the sake of informed decision making. Minor deities are the focus of those generally unconcerned with fame, or more detailed in their beliefs.
Greater Deities[]
Greater deities are popular and well known, normally holding a temple or shrine in nearly every major city, port, or pantheon. Greater deities are often worshiped across the entire world, and count Aejuna, Goddess of the Moon, Ordrae, God of Nature, and Oras, God of Chaos, among their ranks. Greater deities are the strongest of all deities, and hold at least three domains to their name, but may hold more. The average person will have heard of most of the greater deities, and they hold places in nearly every pantheon across Vennar.
Origins[]
The deities have many origins within the Age of Arcana, from mortal to immortal, with births spanning from mere decades to before the creation of the world. Every deity has their own story, but the most prevalent are outlined below.
Ascendant Mortal[]
Many of the greater, some minor, and most of the lesser deities originated as mortals of the world, ascended to godhood through great acts, incredible personal power, or immense popular influence. Alana Sjalfili, Goddess of Righteous Glory, is one such deity - a goddess of craft, war, and understanding, she rose from her life as the first blacksmith of humanity to her current position through her words and deeds. Many mortals seek this route to godhood, but only handful of the vast multitude ever attain it, with far fewer rising to the height of prominence shared by such as Alana Sjalfili, Kidesis, and Deminadrus.
Remnant Primordial[]
The primordials of the ancient world were largely chased off, imprisoned, or destroyed by the dragons in the Ascendance War, but some few remained. Those primordials who courted peace with the dragons and mortals of the world, or those who escaped the purge of their kind in hiding, often gained worshipers among mortal kind through their sheer power and ability. Lothos, God of Time, is one such deity - Taking a neutral stance in the primordial war, Lothos sought peace with the victorious dragons and remaining mortals, and soon took up a place of power among them for his standing as the primordial over time itself. Representing balance, Lothos was worshiped from the start as a bridge between the old world and the new.
Otherworldly Influence[]
Some deities stand apart from the world, and gain power as a god through the nightmares, dreams, and desires of mortals. Already particularly powerful, these otherworldly beings were worshiped by those who felt their influence and desired to use such influence for themselves, or genuinely considered the origin of such dreams and ideas as worthy of worship. One such deity is Ordrae, God of Nature - Believed by his worshipers to be a member of the overarching fey court, Ordrae influenced the young world and the mortals within from the fey realm, teaching and tricking as he went. Though these kinds of deities are rare among the ranks of the greater deities, many minor deities hold this as their origins.
Ability[]
The deities of Vennar are formed through the faith and belief of their worshipers, but once created are largely unshackled from mortal limitations. The balance and universal laws of the world, as well as the checks and balances of their peers, are all that bind gods from absolute dominion of reality.
Greater deities hold the greatest power among the deities, wielding a might capable of changing the very fabric of the world. Many among their ranks hold sway over entire continents worth of mortal kind, and cause vast changes across the surface of the world from war to natural disasters, and even lasting peace and tranquility.