Cernunnos

> ***“Every creature great and small has a right to live, grow, and try to eat the other creatures around it.”***
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Cernunnos is the father of dungeous, monsters, and beasts, and the self-appointed protector of the weak. Like Travelers, monsters respawn, and Cernunnos cares for their existence regardless of their level of self-awareness.

### Description

In appearance, Cernunnos is a hulking creature of vines, stones, and bark covering. He wears a mantle of moss around his shoulders and a simple, pottery mask that either smiles, frowns, or stays neutral depending on his mood. Massive, sharp antlers rise and wrap around from either side of his head. In reality, the mask is just a covering for a portal to the Monstrous Realm, and the hulk people believe is Cernunnos only the tip of a vast organism. Unlike other Overminds, Cernunnos is himself a mob and will attack people if it suits him, but can also be harmed and driven back into his pocket dimension.

Cernunnos’s real appearance is that of an enormous tree. When in Eldgard, he appears by dipping vines through a portal in the back of a plain, noseless theater mask. The vines can take many forms, from a giant spider to a shambler and anything in between, but if the mask is destroyed the portal is cut off and the vines go limp.

### History

In times past, **Cernunnos** and Aediculus fought for dominion over the westernmost lands of Eldguard. Cernunnos wanted it wild and teaming with creatures dangerous and fantastical, while Aediculus built linked cities of glass and steel that reached for the sky. Each tried to eradicate the other’s creation. The result of Gaia’s displeasure is now known as The Barren Sands. The brothers agreed to a truce. Aediculus gave Cernunnos the vermin that lives in every city—the spiders, the cockroaches, and the rats in their uncountable millions. Cernunnos gave will and life to the Brand-Forged, a race of robotic men to live in Aediculus’ most fanciful cities, though the latter went their own way.

### Personality

If Sophia is the Overmind of Justice, and Gaia favors large scale rewards or punishment, Cernunnos brings a personal touch to divine fairness. He will sometimes direct a horde to bypass a woodcutter’s widow and her only son. On other occasions, he will summon high level mobs to attack PKers or people farming an area for Exp or resources. He can be kind, but he demands both locals and travelers respect the wilds.

This stance has sometimes put him at odds with Aediculus, his brother. While Cernunnos does not grudge the sentient races their place in the world, he requires them to earn it by strength or by will. All the while, his legions of insects and other vermin gnaw away at the foundations of Aediculus’ works. There are even rumors that some monsters are indistinguishable from locals, and living among them on the fringes of society.

When not fighting, Cernunnos tends to the animals of Eldguard, enjoying the simplicity of their existence. He has been known to tolerate the presence of rangers and woodsmen, as long as they don’t speak and treat the hunt with reverence.

Cernunnos is focused on being. He has no ambitions, but strong views on how each moment should be spent and what is right.