Gods' End

Disaster / Destruction

"...and the Weave called out for the careful hands that had tended it since the Creator vanished, a sound like the out of tune shrieking and snapping of violin strings piercing the world.   Like the cries and pleas and curses of the masses, it fell on the deaf ears of the gods that left it."  

~ Last Elegy: A Recount of Gods' End

The first gods to disappear were the Lord and Lady Death. The first to notice was a priest and her entourage that were calling upon the Sleeper for a blessing on the newly dead, then on the Dreamer in desperation. They continued to try to call on their gods, but were continuously answered with silence. This set a precedent. Slowly, other gods both major and minor stopped answering as well, and incidents started happening.   Restless dead began appearing more often, even without the help of necromancers. Graveyards and other places where the dead were laid to rest became dangerous as corpses began clawing themselves from their graves. Even the more benign of the undead became more hostile, and nearly every single one lost any higher thought they had and went feral. Those undead that could still think were captured and questioned, and even they appeared incoherent and pained as they rambled about being lost in the dark.   Next to go quiet was the Warmonger. You would think that would make things more peaceful, but it was the opposite. Vicious wars broke out across the world, bloodlust and battle frenzy clouding the minds of the masses in fits and bursts. Countries torn apart from the inside as their citizens burnt it all to the ground, only to regain themselves when the madness passed and be horrified by the carnage.   When the Huntress disappeared, natural disasters began to increase in strength and frequency, decimating entire regions. The continents split further under the assault of earthquakes and rising seas. Families and countries were pulled apart further by the sea and land, and resources became scarce in the wake of the wild weather.   What caused major devastation, though, was the disappearance of the Weaver, deity of magic and fate and crossings. Without their careful hand, the fragile Weave began to fall apart as the gods under them scrambled to keep it from collapsing completely. Magic died and went out of control in equal measure, the few protections spellcasters had created against the apocalyptic phenomena collapsing or backfiring fatally.   The world seemed to be ending at this point, and civilization all over the globe was in shambles. However, through the effort of the gods left, the Weave was stabilized as a new god ascended to take the Weaver’s place in desperation. This set a precedent, and slowly other gods ascended and inherited the domains left behind, further stabilizing them and the world as it started to recover from the near apocalypse.   This stability was threatened once again as gods continued to disappear, though slower than before. However a succession system was set up that allowed for the quick ascension of those left, keeping the apocalypse at bay.   Eventually, few gods were left, creating the current pantheon. Where before there had been hundreds of gods and divine beings from major to minor, there were now under 20 not counting the angels left behind in the mass exodus, with nine previously middling and minor gods ascending to take responsibility of the now split domains.