8 Gods of the Hole

A depiction of the Wof-based god Shjis with Awefian influences

*"The Eight Gods of the Hole, the Eight Ones of the known cosmos, which resided after The Hole had taken shape in the center of the Pencilcosmos; the Eight Ones with unimaginable power, and knowledge, who knew more about the inner workings of reality than the rest of the entities; it was They who shaped the realms and They who gave life to them. The Ones in tune with the Info Pools, the ones who gave birth to reality and shaped it." ~ Ujukatskho Uwaskats, The Creation of Everything*

The 8 Gods of the Hole are mythological cosmic deities which created the structures surrounding The Hole (and in some myths, the entire Pencilcosmos), said to be at the same level as the Info Pools\* and completely omniscient and all-knowing, typically depicted as somewhat detached from the cosmos and very rational. The 8 Gods of the Hole feature prominently in ancient Freeglian myths, many of the oldest onces which have been dated back to ~ -500 LPT. In ~ -470 LPT, the Freeglians spread the myths to the Wof Pencils, who later adopted them as a major part of their own religion; the main Pencil religion as of the fall of the Empire of Yageeb in 28 LPT was a fusion of Wof Pencil and Freeglian Pencil beliefs. Most of the myths regarding the 8 Gods of the Hole (within a Freeglian context) were recorded in *Ujukatskho Uwaskats*, a collection of Pencil religious and mythological texts written in -287 LPT. The religions which contain the 8 Gods of the Hole are collectively known as the Ujustūcpusoskats (LIT. "those of the 8 Gods" in Freeglian).

The 8 Gods of the Hole, across the religions in which they are present, are generally associated with The Hole (hence their name), although the exact relationship varies, sometimes drastically. For example, while the Śawīw have associated the gods as creations of The Hole, many Pencil religions have posited them as "working against" The Hole (this indirectly led to a few conflicts between the 2 groups).

The Pencils practiced rituals for the 8 Gods of the Hole, including the Wof-ian kwajawi, a Wof ritual which involves sending out cylinder-shaped objects out into the void, and the Freeglian upkosokhts, involving the spreading-out/bunching-together of planets.

## Depictions and Interpretations

### Wof

Before The Black Realm was partially consumed by The Hole in -400 LPT, the Wof Pencils made numerous depictions of the 8 Gods of the Hole. Most share common characteristics; i.e the Gods being depicted as having many limbs/appendages, them usually having a singular eye, and them holding -verses. The ancient Wof Pencils also incorporated their variants of the 8 Gods of the Hole into their preexisting religions involving YEB WAKAB. These variants' names/key traits are:

* Hajas; God of peace and prosperity
* Shjis; God of creation
* Hesos/Hezos; God of the voids
* Wahesos; God of war and chaos
* Has; God of time
* Des; God of stability
* Rawasa; God of knowledge and thinking

#### Relation with Yeb Wakab

Following the incorporation of the 8 Gods into the Wof Pencils' main religions, the creation myth was modified. The 8 Gods would be the creations of the cosmos (which had been considered a living entity in its own right by the Pencils), in this case equivalent to Yeb Wakab.

\*This suggests that the Pencils had known about Info Pools much earlier than the rest of the intelligent Pencilcosmos species; it is still a matter of debate whether the original texts discussing this actually referred to Info Pools and not just a concept among the Pencils; most of early Central Regions history is poorly documented.