The "Old Essarian Gods" are species of highly advanced individuals capable of harnessing the powers of very specific concepts in the world, both physical and metaphysical. Though they are not technically "gods" in the traditional sense, many of Essaria's people regard them as such, for lack of a better way to refer to these powerful beings.
History
Before the
Pliscians took Essaria, the planet belonged to another highly advanced species. Capable of existing in multiple dimensions at once, these powerful entities had been cultivating Essaria and its fledgling people for some time. When the Pliscians began to develop
The Legacy to change Essaria's energies to simulate their own homeworld, the Old Gods fought back. A long war ensued, where many of the Essarians perished.
Eventually, the Essarian
Nyx betrayed the rest of the Gods by assisting the Pliscians in finishing the Legacy. In doing so, the Essarian Gods were trapped in a new Iterum, far away from their home. This Divine Prison would hold most of the Essarians for the next million years as they drifted into a long stupor.
During the eons of Pliscian rule over Essaria,
at least one deity was able to escape the Divine Prison and find their way to another Iterum.
After the fall of the Pliscians and the
Pliscian Winter, the Legacy began to decay, causing the Divine Prison to weaken. Several more deities were able to escape;
some directly to Essaria, though most to yet other Iterums in the multiverse.
A few years after the
disappearance of the Third Moon, a ritual colloquially known as the Awakening was performed on August 12, 459 AE. While the ritual was solely intended to summon the entity
Kosmar to Essaria from the
Elfhome Iterum, it had the added side effect of sending reverberations throughout the multiverse, reawakening the long-sleeping Essarians. The Legacy is still intact enough to keep these deities trapped within the Divine Prison, but enough of the Pliscian's network has decayed to allow the multidimensional beings to manifest a fraction of their power on Essaria for the first time in over a million years.
Now, worship of these deities has sprung up all over the world. Chosen clerics and champions of the Essarians preach their patron's edicts, raising religions and cults around them swiftly in a veritable divine arms race.
