The Archaran Pantheon

The Archaran Pantheon is a group of Nine Gods who were born at the primordial creation of Archara. Only eight are still counted as gods, due to the defeat of cruel Malus years back.

## History

### The Era of Creation

At the creation of Archara, trillions upon trillions of elemental power particles fused together, then expanded into space. The remains of the power particle fusion were nine living beings, a red mass of heat, a white mass of pure light, and tons of different materials floating across the void. These nine living beings awoke and observed the universe around them, wowed by it. Then, they disbanded, deciding to explore the vastness around them.

The first travelled to the center and felt a great yearning to use the objects around her, to create. She found that matter bent to her will and used her powers to fuse together all the material around her into one object. She settled inside of it's center and used her elemental control to create a wondrous world that she came to call "The Earth".

The second saw this marvelous Earth and decided to contribute her own powers to it. She settled on it and began a nomadic life, constantly moving to different places and causing the changes now called "seasons".

The third looked upon the newborn Earth and sought to protect it, to provide it with warmth and protection for the darkness around it. He spread his arms and willed heat into existence, fusing gasses and light into a solar object: The Sun. He then took pieces of his Sun and scattered them across the galaxy, and so they became stars.

The fourth and fifth looked upon the mass of light that had spawned along with them and everything else. They combined their abilities and bent it all into Heaven, a realm where the seed of ultimate good began growing and would stay soiled forever.

While the others were giving to this new universe, one of the new beings felt a cold desire to take from it. He used pieces of metal left in space and forged the first weapon: A steel dagger. With his new weapon, he ventured to the new Heaven, where he snuck up on the two who created it, who had taken up the names Caius and Theta. He crept up on Caius and slashed open Caius's arm, causing blood to spill across the cosmos. Most of it landed on Earth, and suddenly grew into the first humans. Several droplets landed on the light of Heaven and evolved into the first angels. Another of these newborn gods heard the screams of Caius and felt an urgent will to find whatever had caused his companion's horrible anguished noise and eradicate it. He ran to Heaven, where Caius and Theta confronted the dark creature in front of them. Theta used her divinity to heal Caius's wound and they stood to face the attacker. The attacker only laughed and said "I am Malus, the force which will dominate this newborn void." The new god watched the three clash in what he perceived to be a battle. He felt as if it was his place to join this conflict and end it, and so he created an object similar to Malus's, which he called his spear. He threw the spear into Malus's back, causing the other gods to notice him. Malus fled in pain and hid on the other side of the Earth to figure out how to rebuild the broken part of his body, for he did not have Theta's gift of healing. Caius decided to start a meeting concerning the generation of gods and their domains over the universe. He gave each one a name that he felt conveyed the gifts they had given to the world. The creator of the Earth become known as Ember, the season-bringer was Astra, the creator of the Sun became Cade, and the one who had intervened in the battle became Obor. On the last two who hadn't been named, Caius was stuck. Neither had shown any potential yet. One showed him her ability to access power from a parallel source of power to the universe, which she called "magic". Caius called her Myra, and looked upon the last one, hoping to see a glimmer of talent to determine what he would be called by. He only exerted an aura of gloom from his pale gray skin, and Caius plucked a name for him from the depths of the depression he gave off: Hades.

They looked toward the Earth, where Malus had healed and was planning his revenge. He saw the humans created from Caius's blood frolicking and evolving in the fields, and decided that if he could not take from Caius, he would take from the miserable mortal creatures of Earth. He used his darkness against them, putting corruption in some and killing off others. Caius noticed the flood of mortal souls leaving Earth as Malus rampaged. Fearing that they would crowd the universe, Caius desperately began looking around, and that's when Hades realized the nature of his abilities.

He felt an urge to control the souls of the dead humans, and realized that in the way material and light bent to the will of the other gods, death and the deceased bent to his. He used thousands of souls to create a realm beyond the Earth that was barely touched by the Sun, and the other gods took to calling it the "Underworld."

### The War

As Caius prepared for a war against Malus to save Earth, two gods expressed their choice to remain neutral. Ember would retire inside the Earth and keep it stable throughout the war, while Hades would remain in the Underworld and look after the souls of the lost.

Astra used her power of seasonal change to cause chaos by constantly changing the weather. In his confusion, Malus was less able to combat the bolts of light from Caius, the sunbeams of Cade and the weapons of Obor. Every time he damaged one of the gods, Theta used her healing power to heal the wound and provide defense against Malus. Myra used her versatile magic to attack, protect, and stun Malus. He was outmatched. None of the other eight gods wanted him to live. He was crowding the Underworld at a rate that Hades didn't appreciate. Ember was unsatisfied with her Earth being wrecked and trampled upon. And the other gods had a natural calling to good. They incapacitated him, but his invulnerability from godhood presented a challenge. As they closed in on him, he summoned up all his dark energy and hurled it at the gods in a bolt. It missed and flew into the red mass of heat that had spawned from creation, fusing the evil of the energy with the fire and heat of the mass. It became Hell, the cosmic opposition of Caius's Heaven. Devils and Demons crawled, warring and spreading sin across the red realm. The gods paid no attention to this, and focused all their power into destroying Malus. They channeled light and magic into his body, effectively exploding it. They incinerated the remains inside the sun in the hopes that Malus would never return. However, a bit of his soul survived and latched onto a Desolate Island, where it remains, unable to move or communicate until restored with energy and a physical form to inhabit.

### The Aftermath

The blood spilled by all the gods had left messes and generated all kinds of life. Animals, Elementals, the Vypix and Lizardians, Dragons, and so on. As compensation for all the losses, each of the eight gods bestowed a gift upon the frail humans. Caius gifted them with faith, promising that if they worshipped the pantheon that they would have his eternal protection. Theta gifted them with healing, allowing them to regenerate from past wounds that they formerly wouldn't have ever recovered from. Obor gifted them with weapons and battle tactics for combatting inevitable evils. Myra taught the smartest and wisest humans how to access magic and use it. Cade gave the humans vigor provided from the sun. Astra taught them how to benefit from the change of each season. Hades gave them the chance to be reborn again as humans if they died after leading noble lives. Ember gave them domination over the Earth. With these gifts, the once-weak humans rose to the top of civilization and proudly worshipped the 8 Gods.