Kivish Pantheon

While the Kivish religion is generally one of enlightenment rather than divine devotion, gods have their place in Kivish temples. Worshippers relate to and understand these gods very differently across clerical and class lines, with some people treating them as active identities with distinct personalities and other people treating them as broad semi-symbolic natural forces. Despite this, the gods remain important symbols for many of the faithful.
There are seven gods that are mostly unique to the Kivish religion, which constitute the Kivish Pantheon:
The most important and powerful Kivish God is not a figure that is frequently given prayer: Rumek the Dreamer. Rumek is the sleeping titan whose dreams are the reality of mortals, the host of the shared illusion that binds all slumbering souls. Rumek is neither benevolent nor malevolent, but is trapped in slumber and illusion just like mortalkind. 
Six more active and aware gods orbit around Rumek, representing the different parts of Rumek's mind and of existence. The  most important of these for religious and cultural purposes are the two benevolent and protective gods. These are called the Aspirant Gods and they aid the faithful in both escaping The Dream and reducing mortal suffering during the cycle of rebirth before awakening. Below the Aspirant Gods are two callous and destructive gods who rule much of material reality. These are the neutral Mundane Gods, who are given prayer and sacrifice for material goals and problems but who are largely considered untrustworthy distractions from enlightenment. Beneath the two Mundane Gods are two more gods of sin, suffering, and ignorance: the Profane Gods. The Profane Gods are not given prayer and act as monsters and explanations for extreme acts of mortal evil. 
Each of these three pairs of Gods has an Orderly god and a Disorderly god. An Orderly god draws from and connects to the Lightened Mind, the mind of reasoning, planning, and abstract thought. A Disorderly god draws from the Darkened Mind, the mind of intuition, imagination, and emotion. 

The Aspirant Gods

Kivay is the Orderly Aspirant God, who represents Rumek's wisdom, self-awareness, and good intent. She manifests as the Heavenly Kobold or the Winged Spirit, and is the Goddess of Wisdom, Magic, Knowledge, and Leadership. She holds domain over matters of the sky and sea. She leads the pantheon as the Chief God and is often associated with legitimate government. She is long-term and distant, delivering subtle blessings to those who wait.
Ketisk is the Disorderly Aspirant God, who represents Rumek's  joy, compassion, and love. She manifests as the Kobold of the Deep Earth, and is Goddess of Prosperity, Protection, Luck, and Health. She is associated with the earth and underground spaces. She is often associated with domesticity and the common people, as well as motherhood. She gives aid to those in desperate need, but her blessings lack the long-term strength of Kivay's. 

The Mundane Gods

Uzren is the Orderly Mundane God, who represents Rumek's skill, focus, and desire. Uzren is a many-faced Kobold carrying a scepter and many riches. She is the god of physical possessions, animals, riches, and attachment to physical things. While Uzren's bounties can be used to better oneself, excessive devotion to her leads to the suffering of all those who grow too attached to physical possessions. All riches given by Uzren become debts, in the end. Uzren is associated with the non-Kobold species of the land, as she rules their world. Her domain is underground.
Gevig is the Disorderly Mundane God, who represents Rumek's fury, passion, and excitement. Gevig is a Kobold with fiery fur and lightning in her horns, who wears iconic spiked boots that clap with thunder as she walks. Gevig is the god of war, fire, revelry, intoxication, and attachment to sensations and people. Gevig holds great physical strength and the capacity to empower people, but devotion to her leads only to the suffering that comes with excessive attachment to sensations and feelings. Gevig's highs always are followed by lows. Gevig stirs the seas and created all aquatic species. Her domain is the sky and waters.

The Profane Gods

Haval is the Orderly Profane God, who represent's Rumek's despair, cruelty, prejudice, and hatred. Haval is a cold black-furred Kobold who carries a spiked chain to bind mortal souls to this world of suffering. Haval is god of disease, curses, senility, and decay. She is associated will bad government and illegitimate rule. Haval plants the seeds of ignorance, guides the hands of false teachers, and binds people to their lives with mundane suffering. Haval offers false balms to the suffering of the world in the form of despair, apathy, and acceptance. She lives in the earth. 
Kodever is the Disorderly Profane God, who represents Rumek's terror, rage, and temptation into weakness. Kodever is a burning Kobold of many colors who wears a robe of serpents. She is the god of dark magic, monsters, poisons, and violence. Where Haval represents gradual collapse, Kodever represents sharp pain. Fast-paced and painful diseases are often associated with Kodever, while longer-working diseases tend to be attributed to Haval. Kodever may be mercifully short in her work of ruination, but her suffering is intense. Kodever uses the fear of material pain and the loss of one's possessions or relationships to prevent the enlightenment of mortals. Her realm is the sky and seas. 

Schools of Interpretation

Among clerics and scholars, there are four main schools of understanding the pantheon, each linked to a different understanding of how minds work: 
Animatomism, or Eradevera: The belief that a person's mind is composed of subprocesses that qualify as individual people, often theorized that this is how new souls are created. In this framework, the Gods are real people just as we are. This school of thought tends to resonate with less-scholarly understandings of the gods as characters that can be related to and connected with. Scholars of this school tend to approach mortal minds in similar ways, personalizing the 'inner selves' of people as distinct characters. 
Moralism, or Itstenok: The belief that virtues and vices bundle together, and gain spiritual power in a person through habitual action. This school argues that Rumek's intellectual-behavioral bundles manifest as the Gods - invisible forces that are very real but also not a 'person'. This perspective of divinity frames ritual and prayer as a behavior intended to attract, embody, and empower that force, but frames the gods as mechanical natural forces. This school implies a behavioral approach to individual psychology, driven by action and reinforcing habit. 
Constructionism, or Genshkeltok: The belief that virtues are actually situational or distinct from each other, and that the Gods are essentially constructs we make to represent trends in the world and ourselves. They are models for behavior and whether they exist at all is unimportant. The Gods matter as a framework of symbols for understanding the world - and they do have a divine element as symbol-concepts given by awakened beings to aid mortal enlightenment. This school of mind-studies sees the mind as a series of rational interconnected parts that serve specific purposes and must be correctly ordered to those purposes.  
Aspirationalism, or Trodevkesh: The belief that a person who embodies a concept enough can leave their role as a mortal to become a subconcious advisor to Rumek- that a person can become a God, likely by perfecting their role in the Dream. This is typically actually bad, as it destroys the person or at least locks them into a position of perpetual dream-imprisonment. This school means that the Gods are people, and is a path to many odd cosmological musings - are these Gods also hosts of the Dream? This school understands the mind as a fundamentally social thing, that all consciousness is driven by either direct or 'implicit' social connection. A person, their mind, and their morals are all rooted in who they entangle themselves and in their material context. A person's material context is also a social relationship, as it is by extension a relationship with Rumek. This is perhaps the most controversial school of the four.

Type

Religious, Pantheon

Notable Members

• Ketisk
• Kivay
• Rumek