The fall of the firstborns, the second Great Purge, and the rise of the Pantheon

As previously told, the rebel god Scientiar had ended up in prison, fated to starve to death by the rest of the Firstborns. And to them, nothing had changed since they chained and locked up by the rogue deity.   However, this wasn't the case, for Scientiar would in secret together with the persistent soul of his wife Linderia, they would have and raise their children, educating them and helping them develop their key powers that would help them live and thrive once they were all free, with their enemies defeated at the end. This was a plot that would take its due time, but it would bear fruit. And in an impressive manner.   For you see, the firstborns not only had grown tyrannical and sadistic as before, but had also become more despotic towards the newer generations that were born after the Grand Mortal Rebellion: after all, it took but a single, young god to almost kill them, and because of that, the eldest of their number, with the Almighty first among them, decided to intervene and have a higher control on the lives and ways of the younger gods, while at the same time demeaning and belittling them severely for even the smallest perceived slights against their elders. This sort of treatment had the effect of producing weak, ever fearful gods, who tried to do whatever possible to not anger their superiors in the hierarchy. And if their puny actions proved to be good enough, the best they could hope and expect was a simple, short smile.   This was the result for most of the new gods, but not all: some were simply born with naturally tougher character, or developed them out of defiance of what they could clearly feel as unjust treatment. But even these gods, for all of their strong attitude and even slights of resentment towards the elders, couldn’t even consider the possibility of rebellion and the end of the oppression by themselves...except for a few, who were "lucky" enough to be assigned as the latest jailers of Scientiar.   The older gods had kept most of the truth hidden from all the younger deities, only hearing but a heavily distorted and extremely evil picture of the caged god. So even after a while since younger generations of gods were assigned the role of wardens (for despite considering them all inferior compared to themselves, the elders were confident enough on the severely weakened state of the prisoner, to delegate the job to them, allowing the higher ups to have leisure time instead), they never even attempted to insult what they saw as the ultimate evil being of the cosmos, a traitor who had betrayed their own for their own selfish desires, yet even though all the time since his “rightful” defeat, still remained strong enough to kill any of them with a single shove. It was a matter of their fear of the being stronger that their anger, both towards the prisoner as well to the job of keeping him under watch at all times: the prison was a lonely place, terrible and isolated from most things that kept the gods content, so all of them wanted to leave the job as soon as they could.   Scientiar merely watched as the different groups of jailers came and went, just waiting for the perfect helpers to assist him in his plot of freedom and vengeance. A wait that paid off, for a group of particularly defiant and troublesome deities were sent to guard the prisoner as punishment. There, having nothing better to do to pass the time, they started to chat with their prisoner.   At first they merely threw insults at him, but Scientiar always managed to easily rebut them. Eventually, the young gods realized that this being wasn't as evil as they had been told, and this allowed one of their number to try a proper, civilized discussion with the prisoner.   Soon enough, the tales and knowledge the prisoner spoke to his young guards inspired them, first to try to find the facts and info necessary to prove him a liar; then to simply confirm the information of the story of the rebellion, what had really happened then.   Members of the group constantly sneaked in and out to the depths of the gods' library in-between guard shifts, going deeper and deeper to secret places they never imagined were even real before. Not only that, they learned that the way gods used to interact with mortals was very different, which to a few proved to be the highest revelation.   With his conversations, the prisoner slowly but surely gained both the trust and eventually, the loyalty of his wardens. They became close friends, to the point of the god revealing his family's existence to them, keeping them secret to all before. Their interactions with these even younger beings, who grew up with a father in chains, a spectral mother, and their world the walls of their father's jail, innocents whose original fate was drastically disturbed by the Firstborns' tyranny.   They couldn't stand it, but were unsure of rising up in rebellion like Scientiar suggested. Legatia, one of the five members of the group, wanted to try instead convincing the older generations to change their ways and to forgive and release the prisoner, but her attempt with the High Council, the ruling body of her kin, was met with ridicule and humiliating treatment by the elder deities, and with harsh, personal physical abuse by the Supreme One himself. She was allowed to remain guarding the prisoner, but was warned that if either she or anyone of her peers brought the matter of Scientiar again...they would suffer the same fate.   This abuse and unfair treatment of Legatia, the kindest and gentlest member of their small group of friends, further stoked the fires of utter hatred of the rest, to the point that Bellum, the fiercest and most wrathful member wanted to immediately start the rebellion. But even he listened to Scientiar’s advice, telling them that proper preparations were necessary to ensure the success of the future uprising.   And so, each of the five went to do their own part, making the most of their own natural powers and skills. Bellum spent as much time as possible training and improving his martial skills, while Legatia attempted to chat, inspire and find allies amongst both similar aged gods and above with her dissertations and debates in the Parlamentum (a location where all gods exposed and debated about several topics), all of which expertly hid her true treasonous agenda; she was so successful that she even managed to gain the allegiance of a few key members of the elders, who had grown disenchanted over the millennia in regards to the worsening treatment of both mortals and younger generations.   Meanwhile, Administratios gathered and stockpiled the materials and power reserves to make the uprising easier, the elders weaker, and for them to be able to wage a long war if the original plan failed: he was also the head of the group to whom all members both old and new of the plot responded to. His twin brother Superbios acted as his deputy on the field, coordinating and inspiring all with his own grand speeches about the greatness of their cause.   And finally, the last member of the original 5, Adulteria, gained the utmost trust of the elders, serving them directly, and even pleasing them in a personal manner if they asked of her. All this while serving as the secret double agent of the conspiracy, passing the secrets and knowledge her superiors revealed both directly and indirectly to her. But mere spying and seduction weren't the only things the young and beautiful goddess did: for in the few instances that their plot was discovered by loyalist gods, she was the one who either silenced them permanently before they could reveal what they found...or tortured them so thoroughly to the point of forcing their silence; in a few specially gruesome cases, she accidentally broke the minds of her unlucky prisoners, turning them to a husk of what they once had been. Her actions were overall nefarious and devious, yet they were essential. Especially once she managed to get hold of a particular substance that would allow the rebels to win on one, fell strike.   Several months if not a few years had passed since they had started the plot, but they were ready, as ready as they could be. All the other members’ which would either help them or stand aside had been found and aided to seek refuge if the need came, while the war material had been stolen beneath the elder's notice and their most loyal servants eliminated one way or another. There was only one thing remaining. If all went well, the entirety of the elders would be slain in one fell swoop, if not mortally wounded and weakened if things went wrong.   They gathered on their High Council as they usually did, chatting and even arguing about the most mundane of stuff. All the while their servants, with Adulteria being first among them, served them and filled their cups and plates. Yet this time, these would not just fill the stomachs of the old gods, for embedded in them was a deadly poison, which would put them to sleep, to then start slowly but silently killing them from within.   Once all the gods were lying dormant on their seats, the gates of the holy Chamber were opened, and Bellum entered, fully armed and armored with the best equipment they could forge for him. He had been waiting a long time for this.   He immediately charged forward, slaying many of the elder gods before they could even blink. A few managed to react and awoke to the sudden screams of pain of their fellow elders, but they were also cut down in the blink of an eye. Only the strongest members of the Council, with the Almighty leading them, were strong enough to resist the poison's effects, and effectively stand fighting the attackers. But not only were they extremely weakened, but in practical terms, they were outnumbered: Bellum was a general as much as a warrior, so he had created lesser but still elite versions of himself, overwhelming the mighty gods that stood in his way.   And so, in a few minutes, all gods were laying slain on the floor of the chamber, their godly blood pooling all around. Only the first of them remained barely standing, bruised and coughing on the floor. The almighty was on his knees, barely standing to face the slayer of his closest kin. It was at this moment when the rest of the rebel gods entered the chamber, all five of them ready to witness the end of the tyrant's reign. Meanwhile, the ruler of the firstborn growled and raged, demanding to know the meaning behind this treachery. It was then when the five young gods not only revealed the truth, but also came with a proposal: deliver the secret of life's creation, and he would have a swift, painless end. The young gods thought that such an offering was impossible to reject, for not only was the Almighty’s fate sealed both by his grave wounds as well as the poison running through him, with this same poison provoking enormous amounts of pain every second the elder god kept breathing. They thought these facts would be enough to force the god's hand. But the elder deity proved to be too much of a sore loser to accept this: he would rather die in horrible pain than to relinquish what he held most dear. No, if he was to die he would take these traitors with him.   He charged forwards, unleashing all of his power and lifeforce to make the greatest blast since the Big Bang, killing both himself, and all the gods of Paraborn. But the younger gods reacted quickly, striking him and defusing the mounting power to safe levels. Yet the elder had one final card under his sleeve. With a final breath, he banished from existence the third generation of mortals, starting and ending the Second Great Purge; the mortals were completely unaware of what was happening to them before they were then gone. And so, the elder god's body fell flat on the floor, with empty eyes and his great secret gone with his life. The young gods had triumphed in one fell swoop as they had intended, but their greatest price was stolen from them. They had won what seemed an empty victory: the tyranny of the elders was overthrown, but they would soon follow them as they started to starve, unable to recreate new mortals that would sustain them.   Yet when they released Scientiar and his children from their cell, one of them named Prophetor would reveal that there was no need to worry, for he had seen the future: new mortals would eventually rise from the simple animals that remained in the world, and the gods had more than enough reserves to survive until then. They would simply need to be prepared to teach and guide this new generation of mortals, becoming icons to aspire to rather than beings to be feared.   With this calming revelation of the future to come, the gods’ immediately went to work, laying the groundwork of the new structure of their people, a new hierarchy that would also serve as the base of how the mortals would organize themselves as well. To make matters easier, they would follow the guidance of the young prophet demi-god, who was seeing what was eventually to be.   With this in mind, the new structure and hierarchy of the gods would be as follows: there would "be" two governing chambers instead of the previous one which ruled over all the gods. The first chamber, the Parlamentum, would integrate all the gods into the government, allowing them to participate in the decision making of the entire realm, especially regarding the legislative function of the government. The second chamber, the new High Council, would be formed by the main leaders of the former rebellion alongside key positions; they would be the executive branch of the government. Besides this, a third independent judicial chamber would be formed, under the leadership of a. Officialia, the firstborn daughter of the Almighty, and the goddess with the highest experience regarding the matter of bureaucracy and judicial duty.   As for the gods themselves, each one would fill a particular role, a function which was foreseen by Prophetor as the jobs that the mortals would require of their deities to fill. To make matters easier, the role a god would fill was the one better suited to their character and abilities: this was how Bellum became the God of War, Legatia the Goddess of Diplomacy, and so on.   Finally, there was the existence of the titles, special positions that a god would fulfill besides their specific role. First among them is the title of Crown of Heaven, the ruler of the gods. This was granted to Administratios, first among his equals of the Main Five as they became known, both because of his character and role as the leader of the rebellion as well as because all considered him the better candidate for the role. Scientiar himself, now as the God of Learning, would crown the new monarch himself, and become his closest advisor. He would help the young deity to fill his role the best, yet warned him that if the new ruler of Heaven would become a tyrant, to either the gods or especially the mortals, he wouldn't hesitate to stand against him. A warning that Administratios took very kindly to, for he wouldn't want to become a despot like his predecessor.   Unfortunately, while the successors of the firstborn were working on their new organization, their realm extension was for the most part, left unattended, and by the time they were ready, most of it had been lost, either to marauding hordes of demons, or foreign deities who had taken advantage of the severely weakened and disjointed state of the gods of Paraborn to carve out their own realms. This was so severe, that the Pantheon, the new name that the gods would be known by, could only hold effective control of a comparably tiny sliver of their former realm, a sliver of heavenly territory directly linked to a specific area of our world: this area would eventually become known as Breoria, the birthplace of our Empire. This is why there are other gods unrelated to the Pantheon in foreign lands; these other gods took the opportunity of the sudden and grave instability caused by the regime change to lay claim to bits of territory that originally were once ruled and were part of the Firstborns realm. Yet make no mistake: just like the firstborn laid effective claim to a great part of the cosmos, so too have these foreign gods lay effective claim to their controlled territories, both in the Heavens as well as in the world with their respective mortal worshippers. Their territory is legitimately theirs by the only right that is universal to the Cosmos; that of force. If the Pantheon wants to recover what their predecessors once ruled over, they are going to have to take it one way or another.   But those are tales for another time, for we have reached the conclusion of this tale: the firstborn are gone, and the Pantheon rose from their ashes. They now protect and guide us, as we pray and worship them in return, for unlike the Firstborns (thanks in great part to Scientiar's efforts), they don't look at us as superiors from above, for we will always hold the key to their survival; Just as our people have the duty to serve and our rulers the duty to rule well, so too we followers of the Pantheon have the duty to worship and the gods have the duty to guide and protect us well in return.