The Elemental Gods

Scalgard, the Phantom World, hangs in a mist of legend and glory, and from that mist come its gods. Great elemental lords, they are none of them immortal; simply powerful beyond a human's measure. Though natural in their own way, the gods are not of Scalgard - each element they embody is a thing added to the surface or the belly of the world, not a part of its green-growing life. Scalgard's gods did not create the world or the mortal races, and they are uninterested in humanity's salvation or survival.

To say that one of the gods "rules" an area of mortal endeavor is at best a convenience. The gods have their own agendas, and where they intersect with the good of man is a happy accident. These gods gain no strength from faith, and so do not ask for worship; only tools. They strive against each other in ancient sport, and use men as soldiers in their wars.

But even knowing this, many mortals give obeisance or worship to these elemental gods, and the gods grant them with power in return. The mercenary general, after all, knows to equip his soldiers well to win a war, and rewards his men with the gold of plunder. Only a fool thinks he's anything other than expendable in his general's service, but for some, service is the only route to power.

Annwyn - the Prince of Dust

Brother Worm is the god of the hidden earth, patron of that which lives in or falls to dust. He is the keeper of Scalgard's dead, those who fell to disease or age, and the vanquished and the slain alike. They all march, visible only to those with eyes to see, from their deathbeds and battlefields to the shore, and from there board black ships to Annwyn's realm to the southwest.

The voyage is not without danger, for all that the passengers are already dead. Mannanan sends his storms swiftly in the wake of Annwyn's ships, to drive them into the depths and claim more souls for his bloody army. Those who safely make the trip, however, find rest among Annwyn's dry halls, at eternal leisure to read the books in his ancient libraries, for Annwyn is also the god of knowledge.

Annwyn appears as a pale and wrinkled man, wrapped in layer upon layer of torn robes, all in shades of gray and covered with the brown dust of time. His hood is pulled low over his face, casting it in deep shadow, and in his hands is a book said to contain within it's pages the writing inscribed in all books across the world. Annwyn's priests are called Cerements and are usually Devoted Clerics, and their powers do Psychic damage rather than Radiant.

A character knows the following with a successful Religion check:

• DC 20 - Corpse On the Run - Annwyn's devoted priest Rhygedd is a genealogist and explorer in the Low Countries. He writes of military exploits and history across the land, but his researches have recently turned up a strange treasure - a large iron crock that, once filled, seems to never empty of food so long as it rests above a cook-fire. Strange as this power might be, there must yet be more to the crock, for since his find Rhygedd has been pursued by the servants of giants and the clergy of Beira both. What they want with the crock, and his life, Rhygedd has no intention of finding out.
• DC 25 - Calling Home the Weary Sailors - Daily in his innermost sanctum, Annwyn practices a ritual of power, the only thing that brings the dead safely to his black ships and from there to his realm. If he failed to perform this ritual, the dead would remain in Scalgard and who knows what might happen then? There are some who claim that, though very secret, the ritual is not hard and a very skilled mortal necromancer might master it; a good thing, should Annwyn ever fall, or a terrible temptation to his power.
• DC 30 - Dust, Ashes and Forgot - The Prince of Dust calls many souls guests in his house. One of these, his name now lost, was (or would have been) a sixth god, his purview the Shadows. If he knows the name of his slayer(s) and what has become of her, he has whispered it only to Annwyn. Who now, if anyone, controls his shadows is similarly a mystery.

Beira - the Queen of Frost

Mother Crow is a goddess of permanence and stasis. She has found, in Scalgard, a perfect place, and she wishes that it would never change; she would cover the world in the stasis of her bitter cold, and rule forever as its queen. She has already begun, for far to the north, past even the frosty shores of Orcheim, the goddess lives in a palace made of crystal. So cold and still is her domain that not even Mannanan's winds can reach her - they die in silence while clouds fall to the ground as snow. A thousand frozen statues of men dot the approach to her home, testament to her implacable will.

In her goal, though Beira stands opposed by every god, the last laugh may yet be hers; Beira's interest in an endless time gives her the gift of prophecy, and the furthest futures she predicts always end with ice. The Queen of Frost may tell a petitioner what she sees, and for this reason alone many lords of Scalgard have asked one of Beira's priests to advise them.

Beira is an older, serene woman with painfully sharp features and bluish skin and hair. She wears a mantle of furs above her gown, and cradles a crystal scepter in her arms. On her regal brow she wears a crown of icicles. Her priests are called Rime-hags and are most often Devoted Clerics, and their powers do Cold damage rather than Radiant.

A character knows the following with a successful Religion check:

• DC 20 - Getting A Head - Knowledge and wisdom are not the same, and though Beira's priest Branwen had knowledge of the doom of Mathol, Saeson Duke of Harlech, he did not have the wisdom to keep from speaking his prophecy. He lost his head as a result but even that didn't stop his tongue. Within the season, Mathol had the head placed far out of sight in his tallest tower, where it continued to tell of the future. Mathol's doom came from the sea soon after, though, in the form of giants, and what's happened to Branwen's head since no one has been willing to find out.
• DC 25 - The School of Ice - Few have ever survived the tundral cold long enough to find Beira's icy palace, but for those who do the Strigamarche awaits. In this dread school, Biera teaches her greatest rituals of prophecy, divination and control. The cost of such knowledge is simple - each student must, at the end of one year of study, divine the time and nature of their own death. Few to begin with, fewer students still return to the world of men, either driven mad by the knowledge or finding that their life ends there, with Mother Crow's cold hand on their warm hearts.
• DC 30 - Standing On Native Snow - Of the five gods, Beira alone was born within Scalgard, and raised herself to godhood only after Cerithwen traced her path to this world. Her history is sung in the howling of the winter wind and written in the patterns made by snow drifts. Learning the whole of this history would undoubtedly grant insights into the origins of her sorcerous power, and how possibly to usurp it - or to claim new godhood of one's own.

Cerithwen - the Lady of the Moon

Sister Hart is the mistress of the new. In other spheres, she dreamed of the world that Scalgard could be and she now longs to shape it to her dream. In her mind she sees crumbled towers not just made whole, but built up as spires of marble and silver, testaments to her glory. She will heal men of hurt and illness, or inspire inventors to new heights, all in the name of her dream. But a dream to some is a nightmare to others, and not all of the moon-beasts she makes have mankind's interests at heart. Her world is primal, and dangers would lurk there; worse, for her dream to become reality, the Scalgard men know today must fall, so its nations have much to fear from the Lady of the Moon.

The gods' worst rivalry traces a regular path across the night sky, where Cerithwen makes her home. Month by month the moon waxes full and wanes, pursued, sometimes covered over, by storms. Mannanan chases Cerithwen through the night, and Stormlords make cruel jokes of their patron's lust for the comfort of her full breasts and his willingness to hold them by force. Annwyn's Cerements, a more scholarly lot (who nevertheless hold no love for the goddess who would unmake all of the lore they have collected), point out that a god so devoted to destruction would be naturally opposed to a goddess who sought to renew. Mannanan's chaos will never be complete so long as Cerithwen still lives.

Cerithwen seems to be a full and beautiful woman with dark skin that yet shines white. Her hair is silver, her court-dress is blue, and both trail into a mist that pours from her as she walks. In her passing, flowers bloom that have never been seen on Scalgard before. Her priests are the Luminous and are invested as Devoted Clerics.

A character knows the following with a successful Religion check:

• DC 20 - The Churlish Servant - Cerithwen set her priest Gwion to tend the fire beneath her cauldron. But when three drops boiled over from the bowl and splashed on his hand, the goddess came at him in a rage for learning the secrets she had brewed. He turned himself into a rabbit to run from her, but she chased him as a hound; he became a salmon and jumped into a river, but she swam after as an otter; he took to the air, a swallow, but she was faster as a hawk. Gwion only lost his lady when he became a seed, but now he will not return to life as a man for fear his goddess will find him from her view in the skies.
• DC 25 - Early Birds Better Late - Ever seeking the new, Cerithwen was the first of the gods to come to Scalgard. Though she did not mean for them to see, Annwyn and Mannanan followed her light to find the way. A skilled astrologer might be able trace her courses through the sky and find a path to the land from which the gods arrived, but reaching that land once a path is found might prove... difficult.
• DC 30 - Birthing the New Flesh - The same ritual that the Luminous use to change their shapes can be turned into a terrible curse when used against their foes. A man can be changed to a pig and set in a sty to wallow his days away in filth, or a fox to be hunted by his own hounds. But cursed worse yet is the man whose form will not stay still, but changes from man to wolf and back again, his nights filled with murderous rage directed against his most loved, as Cerithwen chases him across the sky.

Mannanan - the Duke of Thunder

Father Wolf is the god of the boiling sky. Oaths, sworn in anger and broken in fits of rage, belong to him, though he never seeks to hold them. They may be the only things in Scalgard he is willing to let slip past. Everything else, his savage heart has already laid claim to. Murderers are his, and tyrants, and any who lash out in pain. The orcs are his as well, and they send their sons to join him on his battlefield in the sky, carried to his clouds on pyre-smoke in return for strong wind in their sails.

The Duke of Thunder makes his home in the stormclouds, where he can watch battles from on-high. Persistent legends, particularly among the orcs, say that he strides the worst of battles in person, seeking out heroes and laying waste to their hosts, solely for the joy of it.

Mannanan appears as a muscular warrior in light leather armor every bit as scarred from battle as his arms. His face is hidden beneath the shadows of his great helm, though his voice rumbles out across the field of war as he speaks. He holds a spear in his right hand and a shield in his left. His priests are called Stormlords and are rarely other than Battle Clerics, and their powers do Thunder damage in place of Radiant.

A character knows the following with a successful Religion check:

• DC 20 - A Disquieting Storm - While most of Mannanan's clergy take up an axe and chain, Strannik is armored only in black robes and madness. A devoted cleric, Strannik wanders the Volkhovi countryside, preaching surrender to Mannanan, who he credits with the whole of Volkhov's sorry state. The only true protection for the people, he says, is submission to the Duke of Thunder's will. With little other hope, some few of the people are listening, and offering up their own kin as sacrifice.
• DC 25 - The Hungry Throne - Few of Annwyn's black ships have sunk beneath the sea, but Mannanan has made every soul aboard them count. Those who die in the Saeson county Durham rise as ghouls and take up their old lives again. These cunning hunters influence those around them into cannibalism and terror, and soon more ghouls are born in Mannanan's consumptive service. The Duke, Sweyn, is now one such ghoul, and he will soon march against his former fellows, the head of a terrible army.
• DC 30 - Lone Wolves Never Rest - The Duke of Thunder is the one who lead the charge to drive the Foimoire from the earth, in the days when the gods still stood together, for he could countenance no challenge to his rule. But now that he and his fellows have turned to fighting amongst themselves, and he has no allies to stand at his back, he is fearful of revenge. The Foimoire, after all, are not dead, only driven into the waves. So Mannanan starts at the quaking of the earth and the tall shadows, thinking always that the Foimoire have returned.

Nefain - the Maiden of Steel

The Steady Blade is devoted to equity and justice. She is brave and honest, and expects those her followers to be likewise. Nefain the youngest god and, unlike the others, has never been human and fully mortal. Rather, she was one sidhe-kin and raised in her father's dreaming kindgom. Stories say that this fosterage, and the pacts she made from it, is the source of her power as a god; if her father's kingdom were ever to fall, so too would she. True or false, the armies her followers field are often peopled with soldiers of the Tuatha-Sidhe, and not always through summoning.

True to her raising, Nefain dreams of fairy castles, and she would return the kingdoms of the Tuatha-Sidhe to Scalgard, where they will sit side by side with the new kingdoms of men and strive together for justice and glory. Already her dream touches on reality, for in the Low Countries she lives in a castle of illusion with her mortal knights, and the Strange Lords are her frequent guests.

Nefain appears as a young maid, just entering womanhood, clad in plate armor all of silver. Her hair is gold, her skin silver and her eyes bronze. In her hands she carries a greatsword of the strongest steel, apparently far too heavy for one of her height to wield. Nefain's has no priests save the sorcerer-paladins of the Red Branch Knights.

A character knows the following with a successful Religion check:

• DC 20 - Free and Scarlet Knights - In service to Nefain's law, the mercenary Red Branch Knights are renowned for their ability to combine the powers of sidhe magic with strength of arms. They take their name from the red color on their their armor, which they're sworn to wear to honor their goddess' pacts. The Branch owes allegiance to none save Nefain and takes any contract that will further her interests. Though they may fight the man who hired them when the next season turns, they are knights of their word, and have never broken a contract. They draw their ranks from all over Scalgard, but base themselves out of an ancient and sprawling castle in the Hills of the Slumbering Beast, one of the few areas of height in the Low Countries.
• DC 25 - Bright, With a Fair Hand - The most promising captain in the Red Branch is the young Aelfin, Garwyn Fairhand. Greatsword clenched in strong hands, he has lead his men in defense of giant-sieged Low Country town and faced down Saeson drakes, all in the course of two short years. But the Branch's leaders cannot say if he is too full of ambition or of honor; he has more than once refused contracts they have assigned, and given no reason but to laugh and seek work elsewhere. Garwyn is a great knight, but only if the order can rely on his service.
• DC 30 - Keys To a Heart-Shaped Box - It was a mortal that brought Nefain to the Phantom World, or love of one at least. She watched him, a swordsman seeking justice, from afar, and every glimpse brought her closer to a mortal's life until, at last, she crossed from the Faerie Realm. Though that paramour is long-dead, she founded the Red Branch in his honor, and the leaders of that order always seem to bear a striking resemblance to certain ancient statues the goddess keeps in her halls.

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Legends of the Phantom World