Ninth God

The **Ninth God** is a god worshiped in the Kingdom.

## Overview

The majority religion within the Kingdom is semi-monotheistic and worships the Ninth God. Their doctrine teaches that once upon a time, there were eight gods, who created a flawed world full of sinful people. Then the Ninth God willed Himself into existence and banished or destroyed the other eight, punishing them for the faults in their creation.

Now the Ninth God is striving to fix the mistakes of His predecessors, and it is only through worship that we can persuade Him not to destroy us all and start again. Those who worship Him and live a good life will be taken to the Thereafter - the world He will make after ours is destroyed, which will finally be perfect. Non-believers face oblivion, while especially evil souls will be condemned to join the other gods in one of the Seven Hells.

It is orthodoxy that the Hells are ruled by the Seventh God, who the Ninth merely banished rather than destroyed, and are populated by demons and devils who serve as the Seventh’s servants. These servile demons are believed to be fragments of the Fifth God, sprouting from cinders after the Fifth was burned.

Though the Monarch does not lead the Church of the Ninth, they are considered to have a divine right to rule, deriving their earthly power from the Ninth God Himself.

The Church of the Ninth is led by an Archbishop, who resides in the Capital City, within St. Bertrand’s Cathedral. Functionally the Archbishop’s role is similar to that of a Pope - he is considered to be a vessel for the will of the Ninth, and is hugely powerful in his own way.

The Church of the Ninth also maintains an active Inquisition, which actively roots out heresy and ‘devil-worship.’ It is led by a High Inquisitor, who is subordinate within the Church only to the Archbishop himself. The Inquisitors love to burn people alive for witchcraft or heresy, and they are (reputably) impossible to bribe. As a result, even Nobles live in fear of attracting the Inquisitors’ attention - especially the Counts of the East, who have one or two things to hide.

## The Deposed Gods

The Deposed Gods are the Eight Gods who were defeated by the Ninth in a terrible war after He willed Himself into existence to save the world from its creators. This moment was known as the Ninth’s Triumph.

Worshippers of the Ninth refer to the period of the Eight Gods’ hegemony as the Cursed Age. The game’s calendar starts at 948 - the Kingdom is counting from year 0, where the Cursed Age ended and the Ninth God was finally victorious.

The official teachings of the Ninth Church is that the Eight were each defeated in different ways:

* The **First** vanished upon the Ninth’s arrival, and was never seen again;
* The **Second** was exiled after most of his power was stolen by the Ninth, and now wanders the world as a sad and powerless creature;
* The **Third** was drowned in the darkest depths of the ocean, where her ghost still lingers;
* The **Fourth** was eaten by the Ninth and the Sixth in a grand banquet;
* The **Fifth** was burned to ash, which scattered across the world, causing demons to spring from the land which flocked to serve the Seventh;
* The **Sixth** who had thought herself allied with the Ninth in his war, helped him devour the Fourth - but the Ninth fed her a poisoned seed, causing flowers to blossom within her and kill her;
* The **Seventh** was banished to the Hells, along with all his demonic followers, where he still plots the Ninth’s downfall to this day;
* The **Eighth** was torn into eight pieces and buried deep beneath the earth.

Common folk remember the fates of the Eight with an old schoolyard rhyme -

> *“Eight dark Gods, lords of hellfire,*
>
>
> *Three would live and five expire;*
>
>
> *The First, the coward, fled and vanished,*
>
>
> *The Seventh, the rebel, beaten and banished;*
>
>
> *The Second wanders, now depowered;*
>
>
> *The Third was drowned, the Fourth devoured;*
>
>
> *The Fifth burned while the Sixth bloomed;*
>
>
>
> *And the Eighth, asunder, lies entombed.”*
>
>

## References

1. ↑ Finding Games, Faith & Feature Reveal