The Aetheric Concordat

### The Founding

During the Empire of Ashes' attempt to engineer a distraction for Nugle, to enable scouting of the defenses around Isha's cell, one of the countless ploys was a loose alliance of minor gods. Working with the Devouring Goddess Zahhak, Cegorach was able to coordinate a raid upon Nurgle's holdings by dozens of minor gods. Both gods fully expected for it to be a massacre, a bloody culling to find what minor deities were sane enough to be trusted, or strong enough to be tolerated. To the surprise of both masterminds, the raid was an overwhelming success. The goddess of friendship Faust acted as a diplomat, trading on her reputation to enable normally fractious gods to truly work together, making up for their individual weakness by leveraging the synergies of their varied domains. Nowhere was this as evident as Rucik, Bulwark, and Ruick working together to construct an auction house, enabling the raiders to quickly auction off the seized territory to the various gods of chaos, allowing it to be disposed of both more quickly and more profitably than their wildest expectations. With the Doomed One dying to cover their escape, the small gods managed to flee without losing a single member.

The gods now had a choice: they could take their stolen power and hide, wait for Nugle to forget their insults and continue on as they had, lurking in forgotten corners of the galaxy, living below notice of the powers that be; or they could risk it all and attempt to stand. The risk was staggering - the dark gods had always made a point of corrupting or slaying gods that lacked the taint of chaos, but a full pantheon? One that had formed by humbling Nurgle himself? Yet, the chance to no longer live forever in fear, of no longer being cowering vermin, of being able to live rather than survive was to many gods worth the risk. They might die, but they would rather die proudly than live as cowering vermin. From twenty-six gods was born the Aetheric Concordat, a defiant light against the dark and a hope for a brighter future. It was a hope that would soon be put to the test.

### The Plague of Retribution

The first true test of the Concordat came scant years later when the forces of Plague, enraged at their part in embarrassing Nugle, came for them in force. Dozens of daemons, each the match for any in the Concordat, fell upon them, eager to earn favor with their deaths. The opening engagements were a disaster for the forces of plague - isolated demons were surrounded, overwhelmed and slain, fleets meant to crush petty kingdoms found themselves facing coalitions that could match them hull for hull. Yet, the forces of Rot are nothing if not persistent, and the following attacks would not be caught off guard by the Concordat's very existence.

The advantage of the Concordat was coordination, a dozen minor gods could match almost a third again their own might in demons of mixed courts, synergizing domains and working together with trust. Yet the holdings of the Concordat were scattered, dozens of gods and hundreds of petty kingdoms throughout the galaxy.  Too often a God would have to choose between coming to the aid of their fellows, or fighting to defend their own people. Gods and empires fell to the legions of plague, traitors doomed entire worlds, but the Concordat fought with desperate courage, even as every slain god chipped away at the synergies they relied on.

The end of the Plague of Retribution came when their continued survival against the forces of Rot irked one of Nurgle's chosen, Qaramar, 5th among Nurgle's esteem, and one of the most personally powerful exalted demons of Rot moved upon them. The battle was apocalyptic, entire sectors burned and rotted as the concordat and their foe fought in realspace for an advantage in the warp, until Qaramar grew tired of such games and assaulted the Concordat himself. The battle was cataclysmic, but ultimately, the Concordat emerged battered, bleeding, but victorious, while the now merely honored Qaramar slinked away to lick his wounds.

By the end of the Plague of Retribution, half the Concordat had been slain, and the survivors were badly scarred. Worse, a number of gods that would have been vital for the Concordat to have any chance of rising to prominence were among the dead. Nevertheless, the Concordat still had thirteen gods, and for the time, it seemed they had earned the right to exist.

### The Calm

Battered, bloody, but ultimately victorious, the Concordat began the long process of rebuilding its losses and consolidating what gains it had earned. Beginning a number of long term projects, and seeking to curry favor with the larger powers, they began the slow process of proving themselves trustworthy. Free from any imminent threats, the Concordat began to lay the groundwork to truly establish itself. Many of the empires exchanged populations, creating countless xeno enclaves throughout their space and allowing dozens of minor races greater chance of survival, should their home empires fall. The Concordat even began transitioning to a true pantheon, working to establish shared religious mythology.

This was the golden age of the Concordat, and it did not even last half a century before they received news of their doom.

### Nox Pandora

The Grand Ritual of Chaos, the dark gods acting as one to smite the veil so they may more easily act in reality. The dark gods found by sacrificing the correct deity they could enhance their portion of the ritual, using the murdered gods domains to bend reality in the dark gods' favor. This was the death knell of the Concordat. The armies of four of the five great gods of chaos descended upon the beleaguered gods of the Concordat, their masters having decreed they would bring them a member of the concordat or take their place upon the altar.

While the Concordat and their mortal followers fought with desperate courage, they ultimately failed. Worse still, the losses were mostly among their key members. The realm of Ilfeliare was devastated in her capture, the smith Valanar was taken, stripping them of the desperately needed boon of his crafts. Most devastating of all, however, was the mercenary god Zaeed, whose endless legions of devas provided the bulk of the Concordat's forces in the warp. To make matters worse, Khohthos was carried away by the abomination, as it loudly trumped its intention to claim rulership over the Veil itself, limiting the ability of the surviving gods to act in reality.

The Aetheric Concordat was dead. The losses of its few remaining key members shattering any hope of its surviving as a unified pantheon, the only left was for the gods making it up to decide how their pantheon would die.

### Ragnarok

The gods decided, without exception, that their pantheon would not die quietly. Working with the Empire of Ashes, they readied themselves for one last battle. When the vast coalition of Imperial remnants, warp-lost xeno armies, old heroes, and the Doomed One marched upon Tjapa's part of the Grand Ritual, they marched under the grim shadow of vengeful gods. Some fought because they had nothing left but a glorious death, some fought to ensure the safety of their people, and some fought simply because some things must be fought.

It was madness. The Concordat had been nearly broken within their own stronghold by the attention of a single exalted demon, but now they marched upon five such monsters, standing in the shadow of their god in the heart of its domain. Yet they did not falter - even as gods died they pressed on, inspired by and inspiring the mortal armies that had come here to die spitting in the eye of a god of chaos. Impossibly, miracle by miracle, suicidal charge by suicidal charge, the coalition of the doomed advanced, coming to the very heart of darkness, where Khohthos lay bound. It was here Malal struck.

The renegade chaos god whipped the warpstorm into a hurricane, scattering the angyl legions but leaving the Coalition trapped upon the planet-sized altar of the ritual. It is said the chaos god to this day cannot understand why the Coalition and the surviving members of the Concordat responded to this treachery with laughter, before charging the now much-reduced line of defense. It was here that the Concordat performed its final miracle. Freeing Khohthos, and allowing him to take up a new domain, that of the Doomed King. Even with a victory such as this, the ritual could not be stopped - but it could be changed. The Concordat died searing their defiance into the veil, and showing the galaxy that the dark can lose. Against all odds, three of their number survived: Zahhak was reborn as the Goddess of Free Will, Ruick was empowered as the God of Defiance, and Faust emerged as the Goddess of Unity.

The Aetheric Concordat died, but from its ashes rose The Triumvirate, three gods on par with the greatest of exalted demons, and each carrying an unrestricted domain utterly anathema to the Abomination. The Concordat's existence was a few hundred years of strife and loss, but in its death throes, the gods comprising it proved to the galaxy that they were not vermin and that the dark did not always win.