The Pantheon (WtC)

The **Pantheon** or **meta-pantheon**, not to be confused with the Gods of Aerb, were a collection of assistants or subordinate beings to the Dungeon Master. Juniper and the party became vaguely aware of their existence after he met the Layman, who hinted at others,We're Here, We're Deer, Get Used to It but the full group was only introduced at the end of the game.Reflection at the End

## Members

### The Layman

Perhaps the most notable member of the Pantheon, the Layman was just a regular guy. His purpose was to adjudicate potentially ambiguous rules questions, providing an average person's opinion on matters of defenition and reasonableness.

He showed up in person in We're Here, We're Deer, Get Used to It. 5’10”, average build, plain face, with a buzz cut, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans and carrying a can of "Mountain Rush" soda.

Personality-wise he is firmly of the opinion that he doesn't do "meta stuff", and easily annoyed by time-wasters.

The Layman is the only member of the Pantheon to be explicitly invoked by the rules:We're Here, We're Deer, Get Used to It

**Dodge 20, Thaumic Dodger:** Eliminates the penalty for dodging magic, magical effects, entads, entad effects, and any supplemental physics which would appear magical to The Layman.
**Six-Eyed:** Any attempt to use any system in a non-standard way will be considered one degree more reasonable than it otherwise would be. Any existing virtues, entads, or effects that specify a degree of reasonableness are increased by one degree of reasonableness in your favor (calculated after all other effects). The Layman will look more favorably on your attempts to argue definition.
***Deer to Me:*** *When within the domain of the locus, you can sweet talk the Layman. When within the domain of the locus, the map might become confused with the territory. You, and some distance around you, are part of the domain of the locus, except not for the purposes of the prior two abilities.*
In the version of the game played by Aerb Juniper and his friends, the Layman was more of a concept; any available passing person could be used as the Layman, or the DM, or a player who wasn't invested in the argument.

### Narrator

A version of Juniper that existed to narrate *Worth the Candle*. Ended up with both versions of Fenn after the world ended, friends with the other two Junipers.The Narrator, the Angel, and the Devil Possessed various enhancements to make him a better narrator, including improved memory, writing skill, and some precognition.Reflection at the End

### Fenn

While not strictly a member of the Pantheon, she got to hang out with them in their "heaven" after her death and watch anime (and hook up with the Narrator).Reflection at the EndThe Narrator, the Angel, and the Devil

### B-side Juniper

Also known as Boon or Other Juniper, the Juniper of Aerb was displaced by the Juniper of Earth and sent to the Other Side of Aerb. He finished his adventures there sooner than Earth Juniper did and the DM let him hang out backstage with the others, along with his harem of companions - a cactus person, an anthropomorphic otter, a non-anthropomorphic octopus, a woman with precious gems for hair, a halfling, and a woman who flickered and changed appearance when examined.Reflection at the End

### Entad Maker

A being postulated to exist by Juniper, on the basis that the DM probably wouldn't want to design a billion or so entads himself.

Possibly the same as the Architect.

### Warden

Postulated by Juniper as the being responsible for enforcing Exclusions.The Palace Turned out to be real. Wore a lot of chains.Reflection at the End

The Warden was not completely omnipotent. They were only capable of containing one of the World Lords at a time, and could be potentially affected by Mome Rath's antimemetic powers (allowing for partial or entire exclusion breaks), which is why it was prophecied that three World Lords existing on Aerb at a time would result in the end of the world. Other methods of defeating of manipulating the Warden were theoretically possible, although she would be incredibly difficult to defeat in a straight fight.

### Scribe

The being "who hand-writes all the notes",Reflection at the End possibly referring to the notes the backpack spit out and/or the texts generated by the Infinite Library.

### Actor

Also known as the Thespian. Fills roles when it would be unethical for them to actually be "real", most notably all the people in the Hells. In his true form, a generically handsome man in a suit, who carried a business card that just read "Thespian".Reflection at the End After the end, the Thespian(s) became an integral part of the new utopia.The End of the World There's No Knowing Where We're Going

### Architect

A tall man in a rumpled suit.Reflection at the End The DM mentioned that the Architect was responsible for designing the 9,000 Hells (except for Alpha and Omega, which the DM handled personally).Hellfall Presumably responsible for any world-building details the DM couldn't be bothered with.

## Behind The Scenes

Alexander Wales has noted the Pantheon an idea he thinks might have been better worked in earlier in the story.

## References

1. ↑ “Thaumic Dodger,” I said. “Eliminates the penalty for dodging magic.”

“No, it was more than that,” said Reimer. “Magic, magical effect, entads, entad effects, and then the Layman clause.”

According to the notes that Reimer had given, the Layman was more of a concept than a person, one which could be ‘instantiated’ in different ways, either through DM fiat, through agreement by the players, or by asking a third party who had no or little stake in the outcome. What that would mean on a system implemented in full with more rules, on what was *probably* a simulation was anyone’s guess. - Chapter 144: Skewered
2. ↑ I occupied my mind wondering who the people he might be talking to were. The Big Guy was pretty obviously the Dungeon Master, or maybe the Dungeon Master’s boss, if there was a distinction. No one else had been mentioned in the rules text we’d been given, nor implied through conversation with the Dungeon Master or conversations with Reimer about what the game had been like. I had long theorized a Dungeon Master’s Assistant type of role, the kind of entity responsible for making a billion entads, or doing other work that would be too tedious to comfortably fit in with the Dungeon Master’s persona. At least, that's what I would do if I was making a pantheon for this world. - Chapter 224: We're Here, We're Deer, Get Used to It
3. ↑ There were a bunch of rules behind the scene that weren't very important and could only *really* be revealed through prophecy, like 1) the exclusionary principle could only contain one of them at a time and 2) they would grow more powerful with each other's power to draw on. Mome Rath's antimemetic power breaking Fel Seed free of containment, or at least allowing expansion of the borders of the exclusion zone, for example. - WtC Q&A
4. ↑ Q: How does exclusion breaking work in-universe?

A: I had a few different mechanisms in mind. They all rely on there being some diegetic machinery behind the exclusionary principle in one way or another. One was anti-memetics powerful enough to affect the Warden (or alternately, the universe itself), so that it forgets you're even there or to watch that you don't violate the rules, and then *also* something that lets you go beyond the removal of mechanisms in some unique way that's not already blanket banned. The other was to affect the Warden herself in some way, either through outright attack (extremely difficult) or some other method. The third was to go into the rules of the world and alter what was there, reinstating something that had been 'patched out'.

Obviously all of those have something like consent from the Dungeon Master, given that he's the ultimate and unassailable authority.

- WtC Q&A
5. ↑ One of the things that I really wanted in place were backdoors into mysterious systems and diegetic answers to questions. So, the schlossvolk are a diegetic answer to how things get retconned into Aerb, and the 'machinery' that works on the renacim exists behind the scenes to get accessed by Dahlia, and ... other stuff. The Warden doesn't just exist as a member of the pantheon, or just as DM fiat, she exists as an interactable part of the world in one way or another. - WtC Q&A
6. ↑ One possible rework, which I’m almost certainly not actually going to do, would be to include more of the “Pantheon” stuff right from the start, with regular cutaways to what the Dungeon Master is doing behind the scenes, and sometimes with the Narrator and Dungeon Master talking together … or something. Done as commentary on the work and teeing up for the ending, maybe it could work, but it might also just be annoying. - Post Mortem: Worth the Candle