God (Species)

Gods are a race of immortal beings that rule over different domains of life. They are a main focus in the Gods Rising series, giving their powers over to The Successors. They are also sometimes referred to as Predecessors.

Description
Gods are an divine race of beings who rule over the cosmos. They typically appear as humanoid figures, but can take other forms, such as Egyptian Gods sometimes presenting as humanoids with animal heads, Zeus transforming into animals during many of his affairs, and many Aztec Gods usually taking the form of animals (like Xolotl being a dog, and Quetzalcoatl being a feathered serpent). God with a capital G is known as the Alfather of all Pantheons, and technically rules over all of them. Each head god meets with the other head gods yearly, and the host changes each year. Seraphina/Goddess hosted on The Silver City during the year of 2018, and Ana Davis on The Duat during the year of 2019. A god cannot die, unless they lose all believers, are killed with a god-killing weapon (sometimes just referred to as a 'God Killer'), or are to die by prophecy. The only God-Killer's in existence are Cronus's Scythe, Surmarbander, and Saturn's Sickle.

History
They have existed since ancient times, most since the creation of the universe itself. All of their creation myths are true, from a certain point of view. God created light on the first day, the sky on the second day, dry-land, the seas, plants, and trees on the third day, and on the fourth day when he created the sun, moon, and stars, he created each creator deity, including Amun-Ra, Ouranous, Gaea, Tartarus, Oceanus, Khaos, Coatilcue, Ymir, and many others. On the fifth day, God created fish and birds, on the sixth, God created land animals, and then created Adam and Lilith (in his image) to inhabit the sacred Garden of Eden, where they thrived. However Lilith was rebellious against Adam, so God cast her aside and created Eve from Adam's rib so she would obey him. The two thrived and had two children, Cain and Abel. Eve was seduced by Lucifer Morningstar, in the form of a serpent, to eat the forbidden fruit, and she gave some to Adam. Angered, God cast them out of the Garden of Eden as he did Lilith, until Lucifer had found and courted her.

From there, Amun-Ra inhabited Egypt, and created his deities. He became the first Pharaoh, and created the Egyptian peoples. He eventually left his position as leader god. After him, Osiris, first born of Geb and Nut stepped up and became the Pharaoh of the Gods, and consorted his sister Isis. He found Egypt uncultured from Ra's time as Pharaoh, and gave the Egyptians culture, law, religious practice, and more. With his brother Set envious, the two became bitter rivals. Set snapped after Nephthys, his consort, shapeshifted into Isis and courted Osiris, becoming pregnant with the Jackal-Headed God Anubis. Set created a coffin to Osiris's exact dimensions and held a grand party where he said if any god could fit in it exactly, they would be presented to it as a gift. Osiris, of course, fit perfectly. Set slammed the lid shut and cast him into the Nile. Isis wandered the land for her husband, and when she found him he had died inside the coffin. She took his body to the swampy Nile Delta, and left his body with her sister Nephthys as a guard while she gathered herbs. Set learned of his brother's return, and found his wife. He convinced her to tell him where it was, and he destroyed his body, cutting it into forty two parts. Isis returned, horrified. With her sisters regretful help, she found forty one, all together but his penis, which had been eaten by a fish. Isis fashioned her husband a new one of reed, and mated him with him, to become pregnant with Horus, the younger. She revived him with the power of Maat, successfully, however Osiris felt incomplete and did not want to rule the land, going to rule The Underworld instead. Isis hid in the Nile Delta until her son was grown. Horus then battled his uncle for control of Egypt. Set was driven from the land, but Horus's eye representing the moon was slashed out. It was eventually returned, but dimmer.

Gaea, Ouranus, Oceanus, Khaos, and Tartarus found rest in the land of Greece, where they existed in primordial chaos. Gaea eventually bore twelve sons and daughters, The Twelve Titans. Afterwards, she also bore giants named the hundred handed ones. Ouranous feared his new children, and locked them in his brother, Tartarus. Gaea fashioned a sickle with the help of God, who had seen Ouranous's violent ways. She offered her children the sickle, and whoever took it could lead the world after their father was dead. Cronus (also known as Kronos, Chronos, or Chronus), the youngest titan of harvest and time stepped up, and took the sickle. He beckoned his brothers Hyperion, Crius, Coeus, and Iapetus to help hold down their father. They obeyed, and their plan began. Gaea beckoned Ouranous to come down from the heavens, and he did so. Cronus who had been hiding, jumped out with his brothers. The four titans held down their father, each in a cardinal direction. Cronus sliced their father into many bits, destroying his physical form. His genitals were thrown into the sea, and the foam landing on the island Cyprus bore the eldest goddess, Aphrodite. Cronus then ruled the land, his brothers becoming the pillars of The North, East, South, and West. He courted his sister, Rhea, Titanness of Progression and Motherhood.

The Titans ruled for many years, but Phoebe warned Cronus of a prophecy, that he would sire a child more powerful than he. Cronus became anxious over this, around the same time Rhea became pregnant with their first child, Hestia. Rhea eventually gave birth and, Cronus, fearful ate his newborn child, however, due to no prophecy, the goddess did not die and continued to grow in the stomach of her father. Rhea became pregnant again, with another daughter, Demeter. Cronus repeated his actions, and continued to repeat them with his next three newborns Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. On her six child, Rhea had enough. She hid her child named Zeus away on Naxos with her niece, Amalthea, where he would be raised in a cave. Rhea then presented Cronus with a stone, which he proceeded to devour as well. Zeus was raised into a young warrior, and eventually was secretly indoctrinated as a servant for his father. Eventually, Zeus fed his father a mixture of mustard and wine, telling his father it would make him more powerful. Cronus drank it, and surprisingly he vomited his elder children up. Enraged at their father, the six Gods and Goddesses declared war on their tyrannical father. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades descended to Tartarus to free their uncles, who gratefully allied with them and crafted three major weapons; Zeus's Lightning Bolt, Poseidon's Trident, and Hades' Helm of Darkness. For ten years, the Gods and Titans fought. At the end, The Three Brothers cornered their father and he proceeded to curse the Gods with loss of power. Zeus ignored this and destroyed Cronus the same way Cronus their grandfather, casting his sickle into the sea and creating the island Corcya. After the war, Zeus cast the Titans aside in Tartarus and prepared a special punishment for Atlas, Titan of Strength, who laughed in the gods face. Without the pillars, the sky would fall, Zeus knew this, and condemned Atlas to hold it for the rest of eternity. After the Titanomachy, Prometheus and Epimetheus, who sided with the gods were tasked to create man. They did so, and created Pandora. Prometheus gifted fire to man, and angered Zeus. After Pandora opened her box, Prometheus tricked Zeus into letting humans keep the best parts of animals and sacrifice the worst parts to the gods. For this, Prometheus was bound to a rock and cursed to have his liver be eaten by an eagle every day, and for it to regrow only to be eaten again the next day, for eternity.

Eventually, The Roman Empire, descent from Romulus and Remus, who in turn was descent from Abel, began to worship the Greek Gods in other forms than their own. This caused the Greek Gods much distress, causing them to begin to form alternative personalities. God saw this and gathered all Pantheons for a giant meeting. He agreed to separate the Greek Gods from their alternative personalities, at the cost of a universal reset, everything would go back to the beginnings, but this time with The Roman Gods always existing. Everyone agreed. First, God found Noah and his family, warned them, and flooded the entire Earth, leaving them the only ones alive. God promised Noah he would remember the universal reset when he was born again, and the rainbow would be a sign he would not flood the Earth again as he did, and the First Universal Reset was caused.

God created light on the first day, the sky on the second day, dry-land, the seas, plants, and trees on the third day, and on the fourth day when he created the sun, moon, and stars, he created each creator deity, now including Terra, Uranus, and other Roman Primordial Deities. The Roman myths followed a similar path as the original Greek myth, with Saturn/Cronus killing his father, and eventually Jupiter/Zeus killing his father, the only major difference being Saturn never cursed his children. The universal reset also caused duplicates of famous Greek Heroes to take Roman forms, like their gods. God's solution to this was to change the spellings of certain names, changing Greek Apollo to Apollon, Heracles to Hercules, Odysseus to Ulysses, etc.

Ymir settled in the Gunnungagap, a gap next to the other 'empty' realms in other mythologies, but most importantly, next to a realm called Muspell, beyond Gunnungagap, was a realm called Nifl. As Ymir entered his first sleep, he began to sweat from Muspell, and under his arm became a man and a woman, the first frost giants. Thawing frost formed a cow near Ymir, called Audhulma. She began to feed the giant. The cow licked salty, ice blocks on the edge of Nifl, and licked out a man. Buri he sired a son named Bor, and he married Ymir's daughter, Bestla. Bestla gave birth to three sons, Odin, Vili, and Ve. Eventually, Odin and his brothers killed the giant Ymir, his blood caused the a flood which killed most of his children, and contributed to the flood for the Universal Reset. They carried Ymir's body to the middle of this gap, and from his blood they made the sea and the lakes, from his flesh the earth, from his hair the trees, and from his bones the mountains. Using their grandfathers eyebrows, the three sons fashioned Midgard, the 'middle realm'. Really, they just fashioned the Nordic lands they were worshipped. Bor created two humans on Midgard, Ask and Embla, named after the wood he fashioned them from. Odin gave them spirit and life, Vili movement, and Ve clothing. Bor eventually created Asgard, and let Odin rule over it. Odin married Frigga and had many children. A tree began to sprint from the remains of Ymir's corpse, called Yggsdrasil, where all the realms resided. Eventually the Æsir had infighting, causing a split into two tribes, The Vanir, and The Æsir. The Vanir, led by Freyja, retreated to Vanaheimr, her realm. The Æsir stayed on Asgard. The two would remain split until they were forced to come together to discuss the possibility of Successors.

Most Godly Pantheons have modernized, looking no different than the average mortal man. The only exceptions for this are The Mesoamerican Aztec Gods, who retreated to Atzlan when they were losing power. The reason the gods have not had to take successors sooner, is that they had the Ascension constantly worshipping them.

Powers
Godly powers are different based on the gods domain, however their is a standard powerset

Immortality: Each god is immortal, only killable with a God-Killer or by prophecy.

Deity Physiology: Each god is usually equally strong and durable

Trivia
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