Anatomy of a God

## Though they are extremely powerful and eternal, gods are not completely inexplicable. Few possess the knowledge, but gods are made up of a few discrete parts that can be listed and mostly understood.

Gods are composed of five elements which define divine nature. Each is a conglomeration of Primal energies serving a specific need of the deity. Ascended mortals have their souls transformed and magnified into a God's Akh (A-guttural-k), or divine spirit-body. The Akh is made up of these five parts. Not all gods possess all five parts in equal measure, but all possess some. Whether the Precursor is so divided is debated.

1. Sahu. This is the living energy of the god which exists in the present and can be manipulated consciously to create. It is the power used to make avatars and create life, and can only be stretched so far, limiting the god's influence. Sahu "expended" to create living beings regenerates over the course of years or decades. Sahu trapped in an an avatar is unavailable until the avatar is dissolved, or until some of the Sahu is expended to make the avatar a separate and real living being.
2. Ib. This is the "heart" of the god, though it functions like a combined heart and brain. It contains the inaccessible bulk of the god's power, renewed by the Primals and supplying immortality, as well as their capacity to feel and think in the way mortals do. Gods deficient in the Ib are less comprehensible to mortals than gods with more Ib.
3. Sheut (Shoot, or Shay-oot). This is the god's "shadow," or spirit mind. It allows them to feel and think as a spirit does - completely in the moment and in tune with their dominion. It allows them to hear prayers without being consciously overwhelmed by them and to answer in subtle ways while performing other tasks. An excess of Sheut makes a god quick to anger and alien in outlook, punishing transgressions harshly but almost nonsensically and granting blessings with similar strangeness.
4. Ren. This is the god's "True Name." The enduring imprint of exactly what and who the god is on the cosmos which remains even if they are "killed," and allows them to reform in time.
5. Sekhem (Seh- guttural- em). This is the effect the god has on the cosmos simply by existing. Gods influence and regulate the phenomena they embody in specific ways even without conscious use. For instance, Meshvara was angered long ago by the inhabitants and gods of Askaadya, and though she has long since forgotten the feud consciously it is so much a part a part of her that her Sekhem twists most manifestations of fire on that world into malevolence to this day. If a god "dies," their Sekhem is discharged into the universe and runs wild as their Ren gathers power to recreate them. This causes unpredictable, potentially devestating, phenomena across many worlds.

The Abolythic Exception

Abolyth possesses a massive amount of Sahu compared to other Raelin. It constantly generates beings in a unique half-avatar/half-independent state which defy the conventional rules and demonstrates no reduction in power. While these beings do become technically mortal with time and growth, Abolyth is still capable of generating far more of them far more quickly than should be possible. Abolyth is notably deficient in Ib, however, being among the most alien of gods, so it is possible that its excess of Sahu and rapid regeneration of Sahu comes from this deficit.