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 the last of the major deities of the Divine Court. Today we’re going to be talking about the Slumbering King, the god of Humanity. Before i get started on him, 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.
The Slumbering King
History
The Slumbering King, when he was awake and participating in the Fey War, spoke rarely of his home and never at length. He was a warrior of no small skill, and he was the lynchpin that held the entire war effort together. With a mind for strategy and tactics, he directed the rest of the many heroes who went to war against the Me’Ah’Chin.
He led from the front, personally leading many assaults into the forge foundries that spawned the hordes of the enemy. He personally smote one of the grand clockworks, Jerridath, the soul of the Mountain King, in the Shattered hills and finally pulled the bloodied corpse of the fey princeling Cog from the machine he had created. With Cog’s removal, the power of the Me’Ah’Chin was spent, and they ceased to function. The war was finally over.
After the war ended, The Slumbering King dealt with a dozen different crises that emerged in the aftermath. Even before he ascended to the divinity, he was chosen by the rest of his remaining companions to rule. He had been just, and he had been wise in the ways of war. They elected him their King, and that decision troubled him greatly.
The most trying moment of that ascension was the betrayal of another hero. Tyran, a warrior king from a distant star had fought side by side with The Slumbering King, and they were as close as brothers. After the war, Tyran started making plans to turn this world into a mirror image of his own home, complete with a god king to rule over it. The two came to blows, and in the throne room of a castle in the stars, Tyran almost killed his brother. The King raised his great hammer, Lifegiver, and ended Tyran, and the threat he posed to the world below.
After that, the new King was despondent, and he made a very difficult decision. He would sleep away the pain and the misery of that moment, and absorb all of that from the world below. The Slumbering King took to his chambers and entered the Great Sleep that would define the current age. While he slumbers away the ages, the worst emotions of the world below are bound in him, and the people of the world are spared from them.
There’s a myth from those earliest days that The Slumbering King still walks the world in his mortal form. Traipsing across the world, looking for adventure and excitement, this avatar of the divine is shirking his duties, and that should he finally die his last death, that The Slumbering King will awaken, and usher in a new era of peace and prosperity for all of the world.
Relations with Others
The Slumbering King gets along well with all of the other deities of the Divine Court, who are ostensibly his advisors and confidants. Before he went to sleep, he had a great love for all of them for different reasons, and there is no reason to assume that the Great Sleep has changed his opinions. They often visit him, and talk to him while he sleeps, and in this way they all continue to advise him on the world.
Relations with Servants
The Slumbering King has 1 servant, who watches over the chamber where he sleeps. This is an easy duty for this divine being, who loves her God with fervor. She’s been known to chase out other deities who linger too long, and none have decided that giving her grief for doing her duty. She often appears as the night sky above the bed, and her star field changes while she whispers stories to her sleep Master.
Relations with Mortals
The Slumbering King is the patron god of humans, and represents the potential that all sentients have. He is also the patron of sleepers and it’s rumored that people who die in their sleep are pulled into his dream state. His clerics roam far and wide, hoping to inspire the people around them to realize their potential. Most communities have at least a basic shrine to him, even in distant communities composed of nonhumans.
Unusual Sayings
“zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” The Slumbering King is an ancient deity of great wisdom and knowledge. Learning how to interpret that wisdom is a life’s work, but the journey is worth the effort. .
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