Divine Tyranny

Gods live in another plane but often come to the mortal realm to interact with us. They can remain immaterial, incarnate themselves, or possess humans, all while still retaining access to their enormous power—any human nearby is unlikely to survive its use, however.   Gods have imposed on themselves rules to follow while in the mortal realms. Without those rules, mortals' kingdoms would not survive very long, and where would the fun be in that? The rules state how much power the gods can use and where they are allowed to intervene. For example, directly killing a member of a royal family is forbidden. Much more fun to plot an assassination attempt with mortal pawns, you see.   If the gods break a rule—and are caught doing it—they are dragged back to the gods' realm by their people, where they will be given a big public judgement and a penance in proportion with the size of their infraction.

Why do gods do all of that? Well, I guess immortality is rather boring; the poor dears have to occupy themselves in some way. And seeing all the same faces centuries after centuries is not interesting enough. Nor is blasting away mortals and making them die in all kinds of imaginative ways. That too becomes boring after the first century.   What the gods ended up doing is play an elaborate game against each other using mortals as pawns. The general idea is to get many mortals to pray for them specifically. This is, of course, for their ego and to improve their rank in their own social hierarchy, but they also get a small boost of power from it. One mortal alone is insignificant, but once they get whole countries to worship them...   So, the gods all play their little games, showing off to the mortals, building their priest-minion cults, vying to become the official religion of empires... before throwing it all away on a whim because that man over there was rude, and washing the insult away with fire—and the whole country with it—was far more important. Priorities, you know...

Why do mortals play along with the gods? Well, it's not like we have a choice, what with the enormous power difference. Even if you're not truly awed by the gods, you'd at least want to appease them. But also, greed. Never underestimate the power of greed. When a god comes along and says you could be great if only you follow a few instructions, not a lot of people have the moral fortitude of saying no to their face. Not that anyone who actually does would survive very long...   Those who think themselves clever will pick and choose which god to show devotion too, even attempting to play them against each other, thinking they are beyond the lessons of the past. All of this is useless. We just have to look around to see that there are no immortal humans anywhere. No matter the gods' pretty promises, we all turn to ash in the end.   Even the strong magic, political influence, and high social status will all crumble away as soon as the gods get bored. There is no interest in peace and happiness, after all. And the gods are expert at creating drama...

Cécile lives in the capital of a powerful empire that has thrived for millennia thanks to the patronage of the water god and the forging god. The country is currently in the middle of an industrial revolution which is causing a lot of pollution of the water's god waters and having the two gods in permanent conflict.   The king ruling the country is elected by its citizens. This is an important choice, as the new king gets to decide who will be the main patron god of the country for the length of their reign. Unsurprisingly, each election brings a lot of drama, and the current conflict between the gods is not helping.