Monday, September 19, 2022

Gods of Asterion

Before the founding of Asterion along the shores of the Inner Sea, the Aramites of the city which stood on the same shores worshipped a trio of goddesses: Manat, Al-Uzza, and Al-Lat. In the years after the sons of Orontes came and set the walls of Asterion upon the old city they maintained the worship of these three and had only small shrines to the gods of Ilion.

Manat - Aramite goddess who doles out dooms* upon men, affording them their portions of life and death, fortune and misery, pain and ecstasy. A temple to her may still be found in the desert town of Olizon, to the south of Asterion.

Al-Uzza - Aramite goddess who sunders the veil which prevents us from sight, granting access to visions of other places and other places in time.

Al-Lat - Mistress of the moon and binder of stirrer eddies the hearts of men and women.

Then the satrap Ajaxos came to dwell in Asterion, and due to his ailment - a mystery to all the healers and philosophers of Ilion and Yavana - threw out the goddesses and set up for himself new temples to gods from his homeland.

Hyperion - Giver of the light of science to the sons of Orontes. His priests are ascetics who eat only seeds and who drink only water purified in strange tanks made in some time out of time by those who first knew Hyperion's light. They dwell on the abstract mathematics which bind the universe together and which drive all things in mechanical certainty, or so they say.

Iapetus - Psychopomp and knower of ways. He was the first being to die and it is through him that men may know the way to the underworld, and perhaps eventually transmigrate back to the world of the living and dwell again upon it. He also guards travelers upon the earth.

The Aramites in Asterion venerate him as Japheth, who they claim was a man before his descent into the underworld. Their rites to him are strange to the Ilionians, but they claim they predate the worship of Iapetus by centuries.

Koios - Ponderer, searcher, striker with visions. Koios like Al-Uzza shows that which has not yet come to pass. He is also a blinder, and his punishments turn men catatonic. He is fond of brooding and requires libations and doles them out to his friends as well.

There are gods beyond Asterion which still influence the people within.

Abzu - Aramite god who dwells beneath the ocean deaths. His temple was set in the mangroves near the city but has since been abandoned by man.

Dead Gods - There are many gods of the people who lived in Yavana before even the Aramites. Their names and natures are unknown to the Ilionians but they still may have puissant dooms** to distribute on those that violate their abandoned fanes.

The Saurian Gods - Gods of the beings who lived even before the coming of the Men of Gold. There are tombs where their idols still stand and it is said the worship of them is maintained among the Iguana-people and the Gorilla-people


*In the original sense. Judgements.

**In the normal sense. Bad stuff.

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