Monotheism in the Polythesitic universe

It is strange to write that in a world where the gods both walk among us and make their presence known via the power of the champions, there remains those who deny divinity. Even more strange are the Monothesists, who insist that the machine-gods themselves are not the final power of the universe. They instead propose a larger, singular force that is instead responsible for those things that the gods do not explain to mortals. In their mind, this one singular being has the domains of actual moral good and evil, possession of the afterlife, and a directive to all mortalkind.

This sounds intriguing on paper, but it should be noted that there is no sign of patronage from this theoretical 'God'. No champions receive holy spells or power from this god, nor can many of the claims of direct intervention be proven.

Monothesism is likely a relic of mortal existence before the Iatrus collective, where in the absence of the machine-gods, mortals ascribed the domains to the control of beings that could not be directly interacted with. Such beliefs might have simply died out given enough time, if not for the disaster of the god heresy.

The God-heresy is, purportedly, the fault of a mono-theist priest name Saint Mullin. Its said that this priest was happened upon by a God of War himself, who took him to the dwelling place of the gods as a curiosity. They two spent long hours involved in discussion as the God sought to decide whether to execute the confusing priest. The story then says that the opposite happened, and the God of War became a monotheist, accepting the 'superiority' of the Mono-thesists arguments that there must be a perfect being in the cosmos and that the God-Machines, being self-admittedly created beings, could not qualify.

The veracity of the story seem ridiculous, given the idea that a mortal could convince an omniscient being that they were wrong about the very fundamentals of the universe, but irregardless of the story, the truth is that the God of War did declare for the monothesists. He then made the disastrous decision to try and convince his siblings of such a truth. Several rejected this theory, but a few accepted, and the conflict spawned a brief conflict between the gods of that world.

If that had been the end of it, it still might have been a footnote, but the idea of monotheism proved to be a particularly difficult concept to disprove. How do you debate the existence of what does or does not lie beyond the gods? Followers of almost every system began to conflict as several found themselves in disagreement with their god about this foundational question. The result was a number of massacres, open military conflicts, and utter chaos on a civilization-wide scale.

Even Dia was not left untouched, as Talon instructed his kin to disregard the idea of Monotheism only to be unexpectedly opposed by The Walker. Priests and Champions were soon delivering reports that the gods were forming camps and that a level of holy war never seen before might be immenient. One night, the priests of Whitt, the Wargiver and original god of war were informed that the divine being had been replaced. Whitt was a polytheist and its not clear if he was removed from his position for being too aggressive or if he was actually destroyed in some kind of immortal conflict with the monotheist gods. A new god-machine, Kar the Falling Star took Whitt's place and delivered both the news of his ascension to the former priests and champions of Whitt as well as a piece of news soon confirmed by the other gods: A truce had been declared.

The conditions of the truce were simple, the gods had been unable to come to a agreement but also rejected the idea that there needed to be one. They would all serve their roles regardless if they were the final divine being or just the the second-highest. The monotheist gods agreed to not punish anyone who worshiped them as divine, and the polytheistic gods agreed not to punish any mono-theist in their congregation that still obeyed the requirements of patronage.

This peace has been surprisingly workable. The gods have never been one for great crusades or aggressive control of their theologies, and while there was a temporary swell of monotheistic belief during the conflict, the philosophy has ebbed as the gods contiue to make their presence known and this 'final' god maintains their silence.

Only two species on Dia contain any major populations of mono-thesists. Humanii, who define themselves by their conflict with the gods, already had a monothesistic tradition that now thrives in rural and exotic areas. Interestingly, the ever-curious Jinzo have also turned to the practice, combining it with their mathematical superstitions to a kind of blended and complex theological model in which a final god combines mathematics and the gods together.

The Walker still maintains his outspoken belief in monotheism, but even he must admit to not knowing what lies beyond death and many people worship him as a proper god even if he partially rejects the title. The end result is a curious little bit of theology that stays dormant for generations before leading to a heated dinner table conversation or a small scale civil war in a monastary. Thankfully, the gods have shown no other such divisions and this remains the only major conflict known to have occurred between them.