Hey Game Fans, we’re taking a look at some world building ideas and concepts for the home setting i run. If you’ve checked out my other world building articles, this is the setting that focuses on Lakeport and the larger world around it. Today i’m going to take a look at one of the oldest gods for the setting, Ahrimaius, the Lord of Creation.. Before i get started on Ahrimaius himself, let me give you a little background for the gods of this world.
Broadly speaking, the gods divide themselves into a variety of groupings and factions, but the grouping i am concerned about today is the old gods and the new gods. The Old gods predate one of the most important conflicts of the setting, the Fey War. These are the gods that originally found this world and shaped it to their designs and interests. They shaped the great forests and mountains, and populated the world with creatures in their own image. The first Gods to walk the world were the gods of Giantkind, the Fey themselves, and the three Elder Wyrms. A few other gods would appear after this first establishment, most notably Ahrimaius, the God of Creation. These are the Gods of antiquity, and they made the world the way it was, for good or for ill.
The Fey War began as internal issue between a small fey enclave and their neighbors. It spiraled out of control to a level of violence and bloodshed that would haunt the old places of the world forever. At the darkest point of the war, when the Me’Ah’Chin hordes looked ready to take the fight to the Gods themselves, the eldest of the Fey Gods, Grandfather Oak, cast the most powerful magic anyone had ever seen. He summoned heroes and champions from across time and space to the Garden where Oak had planted his first seeds. He made them a simple offer. If they would turn back the tide of darkness and save the world, he would bestow upon the seeds of godhood, and make them the new gods of the world.
Heroes to the end, most of these people died during the war to liberate the world. Heroes from thousands of worlds and cultures fought, bled, and died in a distant land to save it from the most terrible monsters they had ever encountered. When the last battle had been fought, and the dead tallied, less than fifty of the thousands of heroes and champions were still standing. A few would succumb to lingering injuries sustained in the war, and their number would be diminished even further by a tragic incident.
The survivors returned to the Garden, and Grandfather Oak kept his word. Each hero or champion became the living embodiment of an idea or a race. One by one, the new Gods and Goddesses organized themselves, and set about the work of trying to heal the lingering damage the war had caused. Some places were never completely healed, and there are distant parts of the world that still think that ancient war rages….but that’s a story for another time.
Ahrimaius, The Fires of Creation
History
Ahrimaius is a god who is as old as the world itself. Grandfather Oak and Grandmother Lion met him during their earliest explorations of the world, and he was powerful even then. His dominion over creation gave him great powers for creating new things, from the simplest of living creatures to the most complicated ideas and concepts. The spirits that were made in the image of Oak and Lion drew their original inspiration from something that Ahrimaius made.
Even more terrifying as a concept, Ahrimaius had a well established order of servants with their own hierarchy and servants. While Lion and Oak were discovering this world, those servants were making additions and improvements, and tinkering with the underlying fundaments of creation. The riverways that connect the great forest and the canopy dwellers are thought to be a remnant of that initial tinkering.
Ahrimaius is considered by most of his contemporaries and the gods that would come after him to be a madman. He’s an artist who has no concept of the work he made yesterday, but is always looking to the things he’ll make tomorrow. When his attention is focused on a task, he is a terrifying maker of things, and he is responsible for most of the weapons and armor that the rest of the Gods wield to this day. But his attention is a lightning strike, and flits from place to place, idea to idea.
During the War, Ahrimaius was extremely inactive. He forged weapons for the rest of the heroes, but otherwise stayed out of the war. His motivations are often uncertain, and at least one of the other elder gods are certain that Ahrimaius is responsible for the creation of the Me’Ah’Chin, whether by design or by accident. The few times he manifested during the war, he built fortresses and redoubts for mortals to wait out the fighting. Several of his servants were extremely active, and the Hands of Creation destroyed at least one entire Me’Ah’Chin horde during the war by themselves.
After the War, Ahrimaius carried on as he had before the war. He made new things and set them loose on the world (maybe not this world, but there are rumors amongst the gods that Ahrimaius is an order of magnitude more powerful than anyone thinks, that he might be the head of his own pantheon in distant planes of existence). He continues at the frantic pace of a man running out of time, making as much as he can for as long as he can.
Relations with Others
Ahrimaius has one role that keeps him firmly grounded with the young gods. He, Oskar, and Hassur are responsible for the continuation of the cycle of reincarnation for the souls of the living. Oskar moves them where they are supposed to be, Hassur watches over them, and finally Ahrimaius binds soul to body when new life emerges. The rest of the court gives Ahrimaius a fairly wide berth, between his rumored powers and obvious mental instability, no one is quite certain how he is going to react to any given situation.
Relations with Servants
Ahrimaius is the god with probably the most servants in the pantheon. Most likely as a reaction to his mental instability, they are an extremely ordered bureaucracy filled with tiers of workers, managers and there are a select few of his servants who make decisions in his name. This highest tier of servants are theoretically on par with the young gods in terms of power.
Relations with Mortals
Ahrimaius is the quietest of the Gods when it comes to interacting with mortals. He barely notices most of them, but he is responsible for the creation of every sentient being (and most of the nonsentient creatures) in the world. He doesn’t watch over any of them directly, but he does remember every soul that he binds to a body, and he knows the name of every child that’s ever crossed his path. His clergy are the patrons of smiths and artists, and they are more than willing to encourage new ideas and options in the arts of creation.
Unusual Sayings
“Do not be saddened that the Lord of Creation does not keep his eye upon you, child. His gaze would burn the soul from your body. Be gladdened that there are so many other Gods and Goddesses to watch over you.” Ahrimaius very rarely “revises” his work, preferring to express himself in new, different ways. From this perspective, he rarely spares an afterthought about a person, place or thing he’s made, and when he does, it’s usually not good.
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