Gods:

The gods of Gaiatia are not parents of creation, nor artisans who shaped the world at their leisure. They are the living souls of existence itself, manifestations of forces that cannot be untangled from reality. Fire’s rage is Druvain. Fate’s turning is Ny'yala. Mercy’s quiet is Chiniae. Greed’s hunger is Xaethra. These beings are not infinite in scope, but absolute within their nature. They endure so long as these fragments of the world endure, yet they are diminished or exalted according to the strength of their worship and the balance of their domains. Before The Fall their voices were known only in dreams, omens, the shapes of clouds and storms, never direct; Loose direction at-best in silect treaty to preserve the natural balance. Mortals invented countless lesser faiths to fill their absence, some so strong that thought and magick birthed false gods, tulpa-like beings who still haunt folk tales and cults. But the true gods remained ever-aloof, until Xaethra shattered that silence with her infernal armies. For the first and only time, the pantheon spoke clearly to mortals, gifting them tenets and the first powers of faith to combat the invasion. When the war was won, they withdrew once again, leaving only the laws of devotion behind. In Everwealth, the gods are both anchor and fracture. They provide tenets, virtues, vows, and prohibitions, which allow priests, paladins, and clerics to channel divine power. Yet these powers obey conviction, not conscience. A righteous saint and a corrupt paladin may both call upon miracles with equal strength, so long as their faith remains unbroken. Thus, divine orders often wield tremendous influence, for good or ill, interpreting the gods’ silent will through their own politics, ambitions, and fears. Faith shapes law and culture across nations. The Knights of All-Faith enforce orthodoxy and guard relics, facilitating their worship and preventing conflicts between them as there were many of during The Great Schism, their authority is mistrusted by many who remember the gods’ long silence.   Though distant, the true gods are known and named:

• Caelbrith, The Veil Between - The god of endings and silence. He is the knife that severs, the wound that never heals. To pray to him is to ask for finality that nothing can undo.

• Chiniae, The Silent Mercy - The goddess of restraint and forgiveness. Her mercy is a sword never swung, her calm heavier than wrath. To follow her is to endure and be spared.

• Druvain, The Everforged - The god of labor and transformation. His worship is the hammer’s rhythm, the sweat of endurance, the fire that makes broken things whole again.

• Ny’yala, The Lady of Cycles - The goddess of fate and inevitability. She is the Wheel turning all things to ash and bloom again. Her truth is that nothing ends, all returns.

• Orram, The Deep Pulse - The god of depth and concealment. He is the pressure in the dark, the weight of secrets, the silence that crushes until only truth remains.

• Thalyss, The Veiled Tome - The god of memory and secrets. He is the archivist who forgets nothing, the whisper that ensures no story ever dies. To be seen by him is to be remembered forever.

• Xaethra, The Wanting Maw - The goddess of hunger and envy. She is the endless gnawing, the desolation of greed, the promise that nothing is ever enough. To worship her is to embrace desire as power no-matter the cost.

Each is eternal, yet each competes, for faith, for, for place. They are not allies, nor rivals in the mortal sense, but inevitabilities whose domains cannot help but grind against one another. Each god is also not merely a being alone, but a place. The divine exist in their own 'realm' we may stride upon death, pocket worlds of eternity where faithful and fated souls are drawn once their time has come. To worship is to tie one’s soul to that inevitability, but often your fate matters not, here you will very likely find yourself standing before the god when your time has come. Those who embody mercy are carried to Chiniae’s still waters; Those who grasp endlessly fall into Xaethra’s banquet; Those who endure labor find themselves reforged in Druvain’s crucible. Paradise, torment, or something between, these heavens are not chosen by prayer alone but by the shape of the life one lived. In this way, the gods remain present even in silence, their realms the final promise or warning, waiting to claim what the mortal world has shaped. The gods of Gaiatia are not shepherds of creation but forces embodied, vast and unknowable. They do not rule, but they endure, and their endurance is woven into the fate of the world itself. Worship is covenant, but also cage; faith is both weapon and shield. In silence they wait, in silence they watch, and through the faith of mortals their power continues, distant, daunting, yet forever inescapable.