Return of the Old Gods

[Funky Wombat]

I have received a revelation.For many moons now I and many like me have laboured under great sorrow. Our gods were gone. Or so we believed. Consumed in the final blast of energy that came from the destruction of the Ybrekki daemons, who banded together to pervert the minds and hearts of men and to destroy the world and the gods. But we were wrong. Aiya, how wrong we were.Last night I, to quote many a song, had the strangest dream. I stood in a pitch-black chamber, nothing all around me but infinite darkness. For all I know, nothing existed in that moment but myself. In the next moment, I was no longer alone.Before me there was a blaze of light. Shielding my eyes, I squinted, trying to make out what was within the stunning, blinding flash. When my eyes adjusted, I perceived.It was a huge throne, the size of a castle tower. It seemed far away, and yet very close. Its dimensions were immense, and all the more breath-taking for being constructed entirely of crystal. It looked to have been carved from the first gems of the earth, a million facets all winking at once in reflected light, reds and greens and whites and blacks (there are black gems in the world, indeed) and all manner of shades and colours.They reflected the light, not from a moon or sun, but from a being. A figure who exuded light, and now stood before me, gazing on my face with eyes full of both sorrow and joy. I stared, I could not help it, though if I'd had the wits I may have averted my eyes. None prosper who presume to stare upon goddesses.For it was a goddess. Clad all in silver raiment, her feet bare, and her unbound red hair cascading down to her waist, she waved a long, graceful hand and bid me rise. I had not realised I was kneeling, and attempted to stand. I could not."When the Empress of the Crystal Throne bids you stand, you stand," said a strange voice by my ear, and I felt two pairs of strong hands grip my arms from either side and I was hauled to my feet. Looking wildly around me I saw two others, one huge and clad all in bronze armour, with a three-bladed axe slung over one shoulder, his face covered by a strange helmet with a chainmail veil over his face; the other wearing a snowy-white robe with a gold hem and decorations, the hood pushed back to reveal a face haughty, pale but noble and wise. These two, who I'm sure you will recognise as the Warrior Prince and the Firelord, dropped me onto my feet. From this posture I might have fallen directly onto my face, but for a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Steady, brother," the Warrior intoned.Eiseamlar was now seated, and looked upon me in an appraising fashion. The Empress opened her mouth as if to speak, and beside her there was yet another too-bright effervescence. When I was once again able to see I saw a fey young woman, her eyes all bound up by a white cloth, and her clothes of the same material. Her skin was dark, and her hair a near-black. "Harken to the voice of the Empress of the Crystal Throne," she spoke in a voice like tinkling water. This could only be the Mother of Us All, Laguna. Somehow I had always imagined her to be older, but her voice spoke of all-too-much experience."Those who dwell on Tir I Lar have wandered for many months without direction, without their gods. Sundered from each other by the Ybrekki deceivers, you believed us all dead, as we believed our world had somehow been destroyed. We dwelt in Tirbal, sorrowing for our lost people and the beauty of Tirlar that might never return in a million Verses. But now the veil of deceit has fallen from all our eyes, for what reason we know not. Perhaps the Ybrekk heretics have finally broken their long alliance, and fights amongst themselves once again. Without the leadership of Lest, they do not last long in amity."Laguna spoke long, about things I could barely fathom. What I gathered was that the gods had found us once more, and that there had been no Last Battle, no Last Day. All tricks, all lies implanted into us by the Ybrekki, who I remembered as the Cult that rose in the "last days" of Treesia. All apparently the work of a confederacy of daemons.A rage kindled deep within me. Retribution must be sought, it cannot be let go that men and all their cousins lost sight of what is true and right because some evil force willed it so. And Laguna's words buoyed up my anger. Indeed, I remembered the scenes of chaos in Treesia, when men thought they had lost their gods. The crumbling of the Church, the destruction of the temples, the ridiculing of past beliefs. Someone must pay.When I cried out "How may I repay these Ybrekki for their wrongs?" Laguna was silent for a moment, as were all the other gods. Then Mandorel the Warrior spoke, his voice deep as the abyss, and rolling like thunder, "The Long War has not let up, brother, this is merely a new beginning to it. Of Lest, Elwynn and my father Aeon we know nought. They have disappeared, even more totally than your world and your peoples disappeared from our sight. Perhaps we shall meet them all again when the time is right, when the All-Father wishes it." This last was with a nod to the Crystal Empress, for it is she and she only who speaks for Spedomhain, the All-Father, the Universe itself. And Laguna and the other gods speak for her, lest the enormity of her words shatter the ears and minds of mere mortals.The strong, sword-callused hands of the Warrior gripped my arms again then, turning me to gaze into his gimlet-like eyes, visible through the strange chainmail veil. "The fight must be carried on. Take up your spears, take up your swords. The Old Gods ride once more against the creatures of Ifreann. Resurrect the old beliefs, they have lain too long dying. We want to know our world once more, and for our world to know us. Let the people know."With those last words I awoke, sweating, in my bed. Was it all true? In my heart I knew it. I arose that morning and knew I must preach this message to all I meet. The Old Gods are returned. The Faldia, the Irdia, the Eisdia, all live and reign still in Tirbalar, the City of the Towers. Aiya, what a day to be alive! Eoinsy

[Braden Indianensis]

You decieve only yourself, and those fools who will follow you...your gods are falsehoods!

[Kaiseress Semisa I]

Tell that to my tiger friend. //indicates Horjin

He's only the God of the Hunt, with a following of several hundred heavily armed and highly trained Hunters of the Stag.

[Braden Indianensis]

As your excellency would have it. I have already spoken the words I meant to speak.

[Braden Indianensis]

But listen well, all of you! Remember that idols of stone, of gold, of silver--every vaunted Asherah pole--will eventually crumble, for they are the creations of mere human civilizations, all of which crumble themselves, and thus take their gods with them to the abyss of obscurity.

[Bill3000]

Micras civilization is full of pothytheism - If there is any christianity, it is very rare, at least in this part of the world. (Odd too, as this isn't Earth - there was no such thing as Jesus on Micras.)