The Elder Gods

[CaptainPenguin]

Your Lordship,
We discovered this scroll when we raided the heretic's house. We thought that it might be of some interest.
Y'houndeh be praised,
Tzalchen

The Gods are liars. Each pantheon propitiates its own cult, at the expense of the others. Yet, they are all false. The only true gods are the Elder Gods, who reign from their thrones and exhibit power where the other gods allow humanity to rot!
I see you! I see you now! I can hear the Whispers of Xathob-Raak! I can hear them!
On rivers of fire he comes!

(OOC: From here the page degrades into mad scribbling. What appears to be a bloody handprint is stained across the bottom.)

[CaptainPenguin]

Set, the Great Serpent, is a dark and evil god, the Lord of All Snakes, the Demon-God of Venom. He has dwelt on the Earth for the thousand thousand generations since the sea vomited up the land, since before Man's ape ancestors first dropped from the trees, and in the darkest of prophecies it is said that he shall exist until the Firmament itself crumbles, like a constricting serpent crushing the world. In ages misty and forgotten, he was called Yig by his worshippers. In the current age, he is called Set, the name given him by the Cemitians of the South, but he is also known as Mi-Shao-Shur by the slant-eyed ones of the East, and to the Nakcre people of the Great Mountains, he is the Black Serpent.
Set is the father of all snakes, and as such, he is often invoked by sorcer who wish to weave enchantments pertaining to the slitherers. Many sorcerors also worship Set or his other incarnation, Yig. He is a harsh master to serve, however. Many who fail Set have found themselves strangled in the night by snakes which leap from their throats, or blinded by spitting cobras born from loaves of bread. It is said that the dark wizard Thankorius, who dwelt in the Saellos Valley in Arcturus, offended Set by summoning and enslaving one of the ancient and wise Serpent-Kings of Set, and, for so angering the Great Serpent, awoke one morning to find the moat of his castle's moat full of cobras, its floors carpeted with adders, and his breakfast rife with tiny green tree-snakes from the jungles of the Farther South.
Set's symbols are many, and vary according to the incarnation one worships, and the worshippers. But common symbols include intertwined serpents, a green snake in a coil shape, and a sword with a snake for a blade. The Serpent God is often represented as a titanic serpent, or a snake-man, like his children, the Serpent Folk.

[CaptainPenguin]

Y'houndeh is an ancient goddess, as old as Set/Yig, and that ophidian deity's constant foe. She has not been a resident of Earth quite so long as Set, but her cult is still very ancient. She is worshipped in many places under many names.
Y'houndeh is not the mother of mammals, but she is an ancient and powerful patron of them, and her favoring of warm-blooded ones runs deep. She rejects the Black Arts, and so she is not often esteemed among sorcerors, though, truth be told, her intentions are scarcely better than Set her adversary's. She, too, seeks dominion over all the Earth, as, it seems, are all deities in their own way. The various priesthoods of Y'houndeh are fanatical in their devotion, and inquisitions are not uncommon among them, seeking out the cults of Set and demon-worshippers who they can find. Priests of Y'houndeh also seek the destruction of sorcerors and other practicers of Black Magic, which the Elk-Goddess abhors. She, like the Great Serpent, is a harsh mistress, quick to punishment. The High-Priest of Y'houndeh, in her incarnation as Mylahsh in the Marcosian district of Bannor, once went astray of her teachings and delved into a tome of the Black Arts. Throughout the weeks, he complained of a pain in his chest, obstructing his breathing, until, one day, as he spoke the Holy Verse of Mylahsh, the front of his chest exploded outward and a live young deer dashed out of the temple, soaked in his blood.
Y'houndeh's symbols are many, and vary greatly based on the incarnation. Common symbols include elk's antlers, a curved sword with a flower growing from it, and a the head of an elk. She is most often represented as a elk-headed woman wearing a green robe and carrying a curved sword made from bone.

How adacious! Such a heretic! -Eskkura, High-Priest of Y'houndeh

[CaptainPenguin]

The Great Ghoul, Mordiggian, is another ancient god, said to be a brother of Set and the uncle of the Arcturan Titan of the Underworld, Cthonus. He is a horrible deity, called the Charnel God, who has no worshippers, at least among the ranks of Men, though some do offer him their dead as a form of placation of his hunger. His name comes from the Arcturans, who call him the Demon of Cannibals, and say that he resides in the deepest circles of the Inferno.
Certain necromancers call upon the powers of Mordiggian, offering him corpses and blood in exchange for black powers puissant and evil. It is said that the wizard Eibon once summoned the Ghoul God, and that, also, there is a ruined city where there once lived a people, the only ones ever to truly worship Mordiggian, and here there is a fragment of the Charnel God's skeletal hand.
Mordiggian has no worshippers, and possesses no symbols. The dark rituals tied to his worship are written in black tongues accessible only to sorcerors skilled in evil lore. Mordiggian is never represented, except as a shadow within other scenes, as one of the royal murals in the Marcosian capitol of Assenero, called "The Slaying of Khoora Bronzeblade", in which the hero Khoora's death scene is suplemented by a curious darkness between the fallen Khoora and his adversary, representing the presence of Mordiggian.

[CaptainPenguin]

R'lim Shaikorth is an ill-regarded polar deity, said to be the brother or son of Aphoom Zah, Lord of the Pole. The White Worm is a vicious and bestial god, worshipped by few, but his power is great, and he may also call upon the near-limitless puissance of his relative, Aphoom Zah. The Radothites know him by a different name, Skurra-Maggu Jott, and say that he is the father of all ice. They say that Roth, their god, imprisoned him in the never-melting iceberg of Yikilith.
Some sorcerors call upon R'lim Shaikorth, but more often that worship goes to Aphoom Zah, who has a greater control over the forces of cold. The White Worm has a small following among the very northern coastal towns which his floating iceberg-domain of Yikilith visits. Sacrafices to the White Worm are left to freeze to death and then tossed into the sea to drift to Yikilith where R'lim Shaikorth devours them. The presence of this god casts a great cold over the places that he frequents, and prolonged exposure causes utter death from cold.
R'lim Shaikorth has no symbols, but he is said to be in the shape of a massive white serpentine worm, with a horrid humanoid face possessed of bloody-red eyes.

I am not familiar with this demon. Please provide me with more information so that we might better assess the threat. -Eskurra, High-Priest of Y'houndeh

[CaptainPenguin]

Nodens is a god in league with the Elk Goddess, Y'houndeh, not an overt enemy of humanity, if not an overt ally either. Nodens is said to dwells beneath the surface of the Earth in the strange lands of Subterranea. Nodens has many servants, though most are disguised as the servants of other gods.
Nodens is also called the Hunter, for it is said that he hunts demons with his trident, accompanied by his servants, the Nightgaunts. He is a mysterious god, and information on him is sparse.
Nodens is usually depicted as a mighty man with long, flowing white hair and beard, who's eyes flash golden, and who bears a trident. His symbols include a trident, a golden arrow, and a black triangle.

This god, also, is unknown to me. -High-Priest Eskurra

[CaptainPenguin]

The Green God is a mysterious god who is also called the Great Other, the Green Shadow, and the Vermillion Heart. He and his worshippers came out of the East ten-thousand years ago and have since been festering in the dark corners of the Armorican Lands.
The Green God's religion is a secretive one, and few know it's workings or secrets. It is, however, said that the Green God dwells in the shadowy gulfs beyond the stars, and that His is the power of time, dimension, and thought. His worshippers tattoo themselves with a symbol of a green handprint, or a green heart upon their chests, and wander masked in green robes through cities, proclaiming that only the Green God is truly divine, and the others are all demons sent by His enemy, the Red One, called the Enemy.
Rarely is the Green God's ire aroused, and rarely also does the Green God provide boons and blessings. He is mostly indifferent, and few sorcerors call upon him. Yet when his anger is aroused, it is terrible. It is said that one priest of the Green God, Robbet Kyros, offended the Green Shadow and found himself chained to the peak of Mount Hessimoth, where he lay for four days until a devout pilgrim of Ben-Hanan, the southern god of mercy, came upon him and released him. Robbet proclaimed that, had the pilgrim not come along, he might have lain there forever.
The Green God is represented in many ways; a green-robed being, a green-skinned giant with curved horns, a green-scaled dragon. His symbols include a green handprint, a green shadow, or a green heart.

[CaptainPenguin]

The Unspoken came out of the South in the days of yore, carried by strange exiles from the land of Elael.
Nobody purports to know exactly what the Unspoken is, nor what it can do. No. The worshippers of the Unspoken pay it homage to save the universe from it's vengeance, they say. Long, long ago, something deeply and woundingly betrayed the Unspoken, and drove it into darkness. It is for this that the Nameless One seeks revenge on the Earth, and it is the duty of its worshippers to forestal this vengeance for as long as possible. However, they say, it cannot be put off forever, and some day, the Unspoken will drain the Earth of its lifeblood, and, so-empowered, destroy its ancient enemy.
The Unspoken has no symbols. It requires only human blood as its sacrafice.

[CaptainPenguin]

In the Poscerdian districts of Arcturus, it is said that in the beginning of time, the World was all darkness, and that Erebus, the Void Between the Stars, ruled this darkness. Then, the Titans came, and brought brilliant light, and the building blocks of the Celestial Palace, and destroyed the perfect emptiness of Erebus with their being.
Erebus is often said to be the oldest of all gods, a being that exemplifies the perfect nothingness of the zero world. Erebus is bitter, hateful, and vain, and considers the Gods to be interlopers, and the spoilers of his darkness. He revels in the destruction and darkening of the works of others. He regards his worshippers as nothing more than tools, to be used in furthering his shadowing of the world.
The destructive cult of the Master of Nothingness is outlawed in Arcturus, where Erebus is well-known as a terrible demon. In Marcosia, the cult is known to have many small remote shrines, especially in the Black Forest area, where there are many shadows and places where the sun has never broken the forest canopy. The cult is devoted to the worship of Erebus, and the furthering of darkening the world. It is widely believed by Erebites that the key to returning to the primal blackness is to destroy the sun.
Erebian rites are held in complete darkness. Erebus favors sacrafices of the blood of humans and black cats, spilled on black stones or cold iron.
Erebus has only one symbol, a horned arch that is sometimes described as the Horns of Darkness. Erebus is not to be described; it is considered heresy by Erebians.