Aesa
Aesa is the Mother of the Gods, often compared to Dieterra, Mother of the Titans. She, and The Blight, were gods of Torthe’s boundless nature, making their home in the depths of the Arden Forest. In this earliest days of Torthe, the forest stretched almost all of the world, and the gods both old and young laughed, danced, hunted, fought, all alongside their servants from the mortal races. In those days, Aesa was the Goddess of Autumn and Winter, with The Blight in his old form and name being God of Spring and Summer. Together they led their court of gods, guarded the world against incursions from other worlds, and worked in a Balance.
Aesa would bring the slow decay of autumn, before the cold death of Winter – and then The Blight would begin to waken the world once more, before leading the world in great festivals in the height of summer. Aesa was always a merciful goddess, and through her serpent race, the yuan-ti, she fostered temples in the glades of Arden where people could come for healing. Only those unworthy, who had contributed little, or who had taken from the Balance, would be refused.
She and The Blight were inseparable, and they lived in the Evergreen Court, amongst trees that remained colourful and bright throughout winter and summer. This halfway world was a place where their powers could be joined, and where they spent millennia in bliss, ordering this world that they had created, and tending the great forest glades, keeping the world alive.
This all changed when the silver ships of the Titans began to land, in one long Autumn season when Aesa was Queen. Master Blight and Aesa left their Court, and met Abrastis, Diettera, and Nefferlasta, the first Titans to land on the surface. At first negotiations went well, and Aesa as Queen of Autumn welcomed the refugees to their world. They were brought food of the gods, for both Aesa and Master Blight recognised that these creatures were divines of some form, and needed ambrosia to survived. For a time there was a peace, but the Titans began arriving in greater and greater numbers, their silver ships in one year, outnumbering the stars themselves.
Abrastis and Dieterra spoke to Master Blight and Aesa of a terrible enemy that would pursue them in time, and said they had forced their way through a gleaming series of wards to come to Torthe – repairing it after themselves. Although suspicious, Aesa let them remain, and even gave them spaces on Torthe within Arden’s glades to call their own.
Alas, with so many Titans now arriving, soon they turned to cutting down those glades, clearing vast areas of land for their servants, and the humans that were born to them multiplied like locusts, burning ancient trees and leaving species extinct. Aesa, at that point in her Winter Guise, demanded that the Titans hold their servants in line, or remove themselves.
That did not happen. And so the Outworld War began.
The gods and Titans both suffered massive losses. Much of Arden Forest burned, and countless millions lost their lives in the cataclysm that followed. The Titans and the Gods, seeing the wards weakening and the great Enemy seeking entrance once more, finally made their peace. Aesa and Father Blight were invited to the Golden Throne, and over centuries the line between God and Titan blurred. Aesa and Father Blight did not last long at the Throne, they found the alien rules and laws of the Titans impossible to follow. They left to become Wanderers, beholden to no law save their own, and returned to their much smaller, diminished domains in Arden.
This was when The Blight’s change, a disease, began to appear. Always a gentle, light-hearted God whose focus was tending the gardens of the world at spring and summer – sometimes kindled to anger in defence of his realm, but largely a shepherd of trees, things started to happen around him that caused Aesa concern and fear.
Centuries, Aesa spent, watching as first his moods and mind changed, and then as a great black rot set in. She tended him, to the exclusion of almost all else, using her power to hold this decay in check. Around her, Arden Forest ached and raged for vengeance, and it was all she could do to keep her love from over the millennia, safe.
Finally though, it became too much. In almost an instance, her former love was transformed into Master Blight, and the transformation was so complete, root and branch and leaf, that it seared away Aesa’s knowledge of her former love. She knew that once he had been different, that once they had walked in all seasons together beneath the beautiful trees of the world. She knew that they hard borne children together, and fought darkness together. But she could not remember his name, and all she had was an aching gap in her heart.
It was at this moment, as The Blight stepped out into the world, and was discovered by humans, that Aesa truly became one of the Dethroned. She swore an oath of eternal vengeance against the Golden Throne and the Moon Court, those of the Titans and Gods alike who had surrendered to these new laws and rules, forsaking the old ways. And so was born a new Aesa, one of perpetual plague and decay – of corruption of laws and ideals, of the slow rot of autumn and the death of winter, placed in the centre of all that is hated about civilisation.
In this, her ways are similar to The Blight, but there needs to be reference to a subtle distinction. Aesa seeks a return to the Balance, to a world where Arden flourishes, where humans are once again in manageable numbers, and where she rules as Queen of Autumn and Winter. The Blight now mindless, seeks only corruption, uncontrollable power, a black and shadowed rage that will ooze like oil until all is either Blight, or dead.
Nonetheless, Aesa’s change hit the world hard. Her yuan-ti worshippers, once creatures of healing and hope, transformed to bearers of plague and disease. Her temples of wisdom and refuge became locked away, turned to temples of dust and decay.
And in each temple, a tiny shard of Aesa, watching, wasting away, a shard of perfect hate and jealousy – and deepest grief.
Tenets of Faith
- Civilisation is a fool’s game, and it destroys all that is magical about Torthe;
- Destroy all that harms the forest, by any means necessary;
- The Calculix will destroy us all, if we do not destroy it;
- Alliances and strange unions are permitted when stopping the Metal Lord;
- Brew delightful poisons, breed exquisite disease, and release my many children on the world – the strong survive, the weak will distract.
- Remember who I used to be, protect my memories, but use it to harden your heart.
- No plague must kill more than six in ten people;
- No poison must use a metal;
- Guard against the Blight, fight if you must, and always, always seek a cure for him.
- Hates all of the Golden Throne;
- Opposes all others not in the Dethroned
- Fights against Calculix passionately;
- Guards against the Blight, but seeks a cure
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