Anaetherials

They who rose beyond mortality

The Anaetherials (lit. not from Aetherius) are a subset of deities who started out as mortal creatures, and, by means of superb wit, courage or evil, managed to transcend the limits of mortality into the ranks of the divines, next to the Primordial Deities and the First Children.
The Anaetherials come from many races, genders and social and economical statuses. All of them ascended to divinity during the Age of Heroes, although nobody discards the possibility of new Anaetherials being born during the running Age of Light. They all live past the Aetherial Void, the edge of the universe, in a realm known as the Anaetherial Expanse. Within, lie the private planes of each of these deities, either gifted to them or stolen by wit or force, and from where they exert their influence on the realm of mortals.

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The Deities

List of Anaetherials

Ascension

The methods through which an Anaetherial might transcend mortality are almost as varied as the deities themselves, but can be classified in one of two ways:

Rejection from the Cycle

The Cycle of Life And Death requires a careful balance between the energies of life and death. If this balance were to be broken, all reality could cease to exist. When an individual becomes a bright spot in the system, an anomaly too large or too powerful for the system to handle without collapsing, the Primordial Deities intervene, remove the individual from the universe, and cast them out to their own planes within the Anaetherial Expanse. Some examples include:

• Indira, who became so loved and worshiped that, upon the time of her death, she was invited to her own plane outside of the universe, lest she unsettle the balance.
• Gerrash Vahar, who had ended so many lives during his lifetime, was rejected, not by the Primordial Deities, but by the souls within the system itself. The thousands of souls of his victims refused him passage to the realm of the dead, and to avoid the whole system grinding to a halt, he was escorted out to his own realm.
• Legion, an agent of violence and destruction so terrifying that even the Primordial Deities feared a direct clash with it. Through the great sacrifice of Valen, the Primordials were able to imprison Legion in a plane outside of the universe.

Escape from the Cycle

While some became pebbles too tough for the Cycle of Life And Death to grind through, some decided to circumvent the system entirely. Through wit, trickery or simple abuse, these deities managed to remove themselves from the universe willingly, without the intervention of the Primordial Deities. Some notable examples include:

• Virse, who had seen through the entirety of the Cycle of Life And Death and knew all of its weaknesses. Upon death, he simply walked out of the universe through a crack no-one else had seen, and left to wander through the Anaetherial Expanse.
• Larzier, who, upon dying, took with herself thousands of slaves, bound in soul to her. When Lunaris went to receive her into the flow of souls, she sicked her slaves on the goddess, used them as cannon fodder to keep her busy, and run out and cross into the Anaetherial Expanse, and where she resides now, in her own plane.
• Behebi, who, during his passage to the afterlife, made Lunaris laugh and distracted her so much that the Jester used the distraction to make his way out of the universe and to his own plane.

Power & Divine Intervention

Just as the First Children are sensitive to the worship and perception of mortals to gather power, so are the Anaetherials. However great their powers were during mortality, their true strength lies in the worship of mortals whose willpower fuels them. The miracles granted by them can vary in power, but they would not be able to influence the world of mortals if it were not for the link between their worshipers and themselves.

Worship

The Anaetherials are worshiped by individuals in every nation of Namyria, and their cults vary from organized churches to secret and personal worship. Their following can come from different sources, like the effect they had on the world of mortals before their ascension, or the whispers and signs they provided to mortals to begin their worship once they had already ascended.

The Anaetherials:

• Xyrcanas Stargazer
• Larzier
• Behebi
• Stix Nicksix
• Valen
• Gerrash Vahar
• Virse
• Teyr
• Ciel Illya
• Taran Calben
• Indira
• Virhael Rhaegas
• Legion
• It-With-Many-Faces
• Ackriss
• Ulos Goldfoot
• Lancrym Silktongue

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