Superbios's betrayal

Time had passed since the rise of the Pantheon, and the gods were for the most part, at peace. There were constant small and petty raids across some of the frontiers because of rampaging hordes of demons, but otherwise there was nothing the gods were to be afraid of. More so, the first sighs of the mortals were showing up on the earth, as their simpler, more bestial ancestors were spreading across the land, with every generation getting closer and closer to the mortal worshippers Prophetor saw in his visions. Under the rule of the High Council, all seemed to go perfectly for the gods.   Yet for a particular god, this was not enough, far from it. For Superbios, his current position as the sixth member of the High Council, and role as the God of Oratory and the title of Orator, the speaker of the High Council during the Parlamentum meetings, weren't enough for the proud deity, who considered that what he should have received was the Crown of Heaven itself for all of his mighty efforts during the plot to overthrow the Firstborns. He felt that his part in it deserved such a position, and by extension, when the rest of the Pantheon choose his managerial twin Administratios, whose key part on the uprising Superbios couldn't consider in worse light, his opinion that the entire rest of his peers were inferior fools was cemented, and therefore, they needed even more for someone like him to take the reins of power and guide them to a "truly" greater era.   Yet he was attentive enough to realize that if he even tried to stake such a claim, none of the gods would accept it, much to his chagrin. So instead, he decided to play the long game, waiting for his sibling to mess things up, which would inevitably occur. And once his brother's true inferior capabilities were proven to all, he would just need to rise to the position, with the rest of the gods being extremely grateful to have him ruling over them instead.   Yet he underestimated his brother and the rest of the gods, for any crisis that emerged, be it a demonic invasion, damaged infrastructure, and so on, were quickly and efficiently dealt with, so Administratios capabilities were proven to make him worthy of his position as monarch. Eventually, Superbios had enough of this: if no crisis was good enough to show the idiots of the other gods how bad and unworthy of a monarch his brother was, he would make sure of it himself.   In secret, he started to gather followers from among the main mass of gods, members of the Parlamentum that, for one reason or another, felt that despite the High Council's best efforts, they weren't getting the best deal and treatment possible. Some were greedy or ambitious, while others were dissatisfied with how a specific crisis had been dealt with. No matter their motivation, Superbios found ways to garner their loyalty with promises of huge rewards, on the condition that they helped him become the new king of the gods.   Once he managed to gather enough gods willing to help him, he started a long campaign of sabotage and disturbance of the peace: a group of his followers became a terrorist organization that started to wreak havoc and mayhem all over the realm. At the same time, he managed to infiltrate select followers into the Army, who was also the main force for order in Paraborn: with them inside, the peacemakers could never catch the troublemakers, and to make matters worse, they started to influence the behavior of the soldiers beneath the command of many of them, provoking incidents of abuses of force and brutality against the very people they were supposed to keep safe. Other agents of his instead infiltrated the bureaucracy, disturbing and spoiling the delicate machine and making the lives of all harder and worse little by little. Finally, several started to speak against the management of the High Council, to whom they blamed deficiency to solve all these mounting issues. In simple words, wherever he could make the life of the people worse, and put the blame on the rest of the High Council was an opportunity Superbios took.   This plan was working, but Superbios wasn't satisfied: he wanted not only to succeed, but to succeed in the least amount of time possible. And despite his best efforts, there was so much he or his followers could do to worsen Administratios standing and credibility. No, he required agents who possessed power and influence beyond the reach of most. And only fellow High Councilors fitted such a requirement. With this in mind, Superbios secretly contacted the two he considered most useful to his master plan: Bellum the God of War, and Adulteria the Goddess of Intrigue. To the bellicose deity, he offered him a free permit to wage war against any outsider entity, something that was forbidden by the rest of the High Council, in return to have him and the army by his side if the rest of the Pantheon refused to accept him as ruler once Administratios was forcibly deposed: meanwhile, he promised the beautiful and seductive goddess greater power and the position of Queen once he reached his rightful throne, but only if she managed to seduce and earn the trust of Administratios himself, feeding any information she gained to his plotting twin.   Bellum answered that he would take his time before answering, but promised that he wouldn't reveal the occurrence and the content of this meeting, which suited Superbios well enough. As for Adulteria, such a promised reward combined with the greatest challenge yet to her abilities easily convinced the young vain and currently bored goddess to do his bidding. This went on for several months, and with every mounting crisis, and with Administratios reign more and more disrespected, with rumor about Scientiar himself starting to stand against the monarch's authority, something that symbolizes that the King had become a tyrant; Superbios could feel the weight of the crown on his head. Yet his overconfidence and arrogance proved his undoing, for he started to make several key mistakes that doomed him.   First, he never looked at anyone as his equals: even those he trusted most were considered beneath him, estememed subordinates but subordinates nonetheless. He revealed his true feelings to those he considered deserve it, but only a few stayed with him once he revealed the truth of what would happen once Superbios became the new ruler: a fate of servitude. Most tried to leave disgusted, insulted and/or feeling tricked, which forced Superbios to act in permanently silencing them to ensure his plot wasn't revealed prematurely.   Second and most importantly, although they were very important to his plans, Superbios always looked down upon Bellum and Adulteria: the first he saw as an idiotic raging brute, while the other he saw as a vain and manipulable young female, both of which he intended to eliminate and replace with more “capable” subjects once he came into power. He looked down so much on them, that he never bothered to keep an eye on their actions and behavior, leaving the God of War all but abandoned while belittling and slandering Adulteria behind her back, to such a point that he became confident enough to not care about if she managed to listen or not when talking with the followers he actually care about.   So when he entered the chamber of the High Council, accompanied by his élite personal guards, the rest of the Council was ready for him, having been long warned by Adulteria, who had become a double agent and the loving wife of the King. What's more, she had gathered enough proof and evidence to show to the rest of the gods the true aim of his cause, as well as his motive. Immediately after being surrounded and forced to escape from the building, Superbios had lost many if not most of his followers, who decided to take their chances by switching sides to the High Council on the civil war that was blowing up across Paraborn.   And to make matters even worse, Bellum revealed that he had chosen to remain loyal to the rest of the Pantheon, both because his view on war had severely shifted after the Great Hyderokian Conflict, and also because he had become engaged in a lovingly relationship with Legatia, Goddess of Diplomacy and fellow loyal councilor. And with him stood the vast majority of the armies of Paraborn: the officers and soldiers loyal to Superbios were quickly purged from their ranks the moment the Civil War began.   It was short yet quite bloody, for Superbios and his followers had prepared for a long time for a scenario when they would face the entire might of Paraborn; he even released the primordial demon Vindictus, action that however ended up being far less efective that anticipated. Yet the traitor knew this war was lost the moment both his coup and Bellum's potential aid failed, so instead he tried to make as much of a carnage and destruction as possible before escaping, sacrificing all but his closest and most loyal servants to ensure it.   As he escaped from his former realm and abandoned his people, he swore to wage eternal war against Paraborn, until the day he took what was rightfully his. He then disappeared into the unknown, and from there he has waged constant wars against his enemies, forever seeking to conquer the realm he considers his.   As for the land he reigns over, little is known, but what does is the following: Superbios had grown more arrogant and despotic than ever before, not having to hide his true nature anymore to anyone. His followers are power-seeking fools, drawn to the promises he and eventually, his cult make. Not only that, his ambition has grown far more: he not only ambitions to rule over Paraborn, but he now wants to rule over it as its sole godly member, the only god worthy of prayers.   Yet to this day he had always been thwarted by the Pantheon, who had grown in strength ever since, for they preach and act upon a message far better and worthier than the demands of submission and blind obedience that their most tyrannical former member exposes. The Cult of Superbios wants nothing more than to enslave the people to the authority, to serve blindly to their superiors in the hierarchy, who themselves are slaves in a practically infinite chain of puppets and lackeys subdued to the behest of a god who promises much but delivers nothing. Yet he's also the embodiment of what rulers can become. And that's something they should always be mindful of: after all, a king without their subjects is nothing. And once a tyrant has lost their hold in power, an inevitable occurrence, what is there to protect them from the righteous wrath of an abused people?