Essays Index
Pantheon series: Part 1 - Elder Gods and Outer Gods | Part 2 - Greater Deities - Eternals | Part 3 - Greater Deities - The Great Wyrms of Time | Part 4 - Lesser Deities - Earth Gods | Part 5 - Lesser Deities - Alien Gods

Lesser Deities - Earth Gods:
In contrast to the greater deities, who are gods born of souls with unique properties, lesser deities are beings whose souls encompass a psychic impression of a concept, a relatively more common quality. By holding this impression within themselves, they attract psionic energy formed from strong thoughts related to that concept, allowing them to grow more magically powerful. However, the impression also affects the soul it is bonded to, changing it to better reflect its nature. Most lesser deities are spirits who were born with their impression, but mortal souls are also capable of taking an impression into themselves and ascending into this form of godhood.

Psychic impressions are usually strong enough to attract associated psionic energy from all over the planet, meaning that for every inhabited planet, there can be only one impression of a specific concept. Such concepts must also be clearly distinct from one another in order to form separate impressions. For example, if a particular planet already has an impression of the concept of food, then it could not form an impression of the concept of cooking in addition to this, as they are too closely linked in most people's minds.

The Eternals also interfere in the creation of psychic impressions, as concepts which are too overtly associated with them also cannot form separate impressions, no matter the distance. For example, there could never be a psychic impression of the concept of peace, because peace is too conceptually similar to harmony, and thus is one of the Tree of Harmony's domains.

Earth has been populated by lesser deities for almost as long as sentient life has existed on the planet, and many of these native gods made themselves known to the mortal races and had their own parts to play in Earth's early history. Some were worshipped, and some still are, but Earth's gods are demonstrably not all-powerful, and over time, many of them fell, just as mortals do. The mortal races thus came to know them primarily as spirits, rather than as gods. They were treated not as divine beings to whom mortals were subject, but instead merely as aspects of the world that they lived in, worthy of respect and reverence, but not necessarily of worship.

Collectively, the native lesser deities of Earth and the Nine Realms are known as the Earth gods, or sometimes the old gods (since they were present long before the Eternals arrived). After the Eternal War came to the Borderworld, most of the old gods took sides in the conflict, and many of them were permanently killed as a result, some even being forgotten and fading into myth.

Celestia and Luna:
Princesses Celestia and Luna, also known as the Royal Sisters, are the incarnations of the sun and moon, and the goddesses of these heavenly spheres. Like most Earth gods, they hold within their souls the psychic impressions of their respective concept, but unlike the others, they are also true embodiments of the actual heavenly spheres to which these impressions are devoted.

Almost all celestial objects and bodies across Creation are infused with large quantities of natural magic, an effect of the shattering of the Fundament of Magic at the beginning of time. Due to the nature of magic, these celestial objects and bodies thus tend to form spirits, and attain some level of sentience, but their own gravity keeps the celestial spirits firmly bound to their physical forms. As they lack anything resembling a real brain, these spirits are very slow to evolve, and often take eons to develop any level of intelligence close to that of organic beings. This was also true of Earth's sun, known as Sol, and its moon, known as Luna.

Sol and Luna began life as a fairly standard pair of cosmic entities. Sol was an ordinary sun, though a much smaller one than our own, and was closely orbited by Earth and several other planets in a typical heliocentric fashion. Luna in turn orbited the Earth, reflecting the sunlight from Sol, and also glowing under its own magical power. Both radiated their own kinds of magic, and were already sentient (though not particularly intelligent) for billions of years before ponies existed.

That changed early in Earth's history, when the magical and religious practices of primitive mortals who knew the sun and moon as their gods called their spirits down to Earth. The spirits of Sol and Luna were incarnated in physical forms for the first time in their existence, gaining mortal levels of intelligence and the ability to roam freely on Earth, while remaining connected to the heavenly spheres which they came from.

Though these forms of theirs would eventually die, from then on, they were able to reincarnate into new forms, just as other souls could. Unlike many spirits, the two did not usually retain their memories across lives after reincarnating, but they nonetheless stayed close together throughout their history, both in death and life. They preferred female forms when possible, and in most lives saw each other as sisters, even if their incarnations were not always biologically related.

On Earth, ritual worship of the sun and moon was present in many cultures, both early and later, and so the two naturally came to host the psychic impressions of the heavenly spheres which these cultures worshipped, as well as other concepts that mortals related to them. The sun spirit came to be associated with light, heat, fire, daytime, the summer, and fertility, while the moon spirit was associated with darkness, cold, shadow, night-time, winter, and dreams. In several of their incarnations, the two spirits were openly worshipped as the goddesses of these domains, but in general they preferred to keep low profiles and live as equals among the mortals, whether out of caution, or out of simple ignorance to their true natures.

This peaceful existence would later come to an end when the Eternals arrived, bringing their war to the Borderworld. As the Nine Realms were consumed with their conflict, the spirits of the sun and moon were recruited by the Tree of Harmony to help her protect Midgard from Order and Discord, which they devoted centuries of their lives to. However, as their spirits were wandering the Earth in mortal bodies rather inhabiting the heavenly spheres themselves, they unintentionally provided Order with a unique opportunity to gain control of the celestial cycles for himself.

Order slaved the sun and moon to his will, transforming the heliocentric cycle into a geocentric one, and requiring that they be manually moved by the will of his creations, the alicorns. The spirits of the sun and moon themselves were powerless to stop this at the time, limited by their own mortal forms, and unable to resist Order's dark magic, and so had no choice but to join with the Tree of Harmony's forces in their attack on Asgard to stop him. In the following conflict, known as the War of the Sun, both of the spirits were physically killed, along with Order and Discord, and control of the heavenly spheres temporarily fell to the unicorns.

Having died in Asgard, the spirits of the sun and moon lingered in the realm for decades after the War of the Sun, until they were finally able to reincarnate again as a pair of alicorn half-sisters during the reign of King Odin. The sun spirit was born first, and was named Skinfaxi, meaning "Shining Mane," while the moon spirit was born several years later to a different mother, and was called Hrímfaxi, or "Frost Mane." Both were illegitimate daughters of Thor, the prince of Asgard, and thus grew up fantasising about being princesses one day. They lived together in the Elysian Fields outside Valhalla, and in their youths frequently crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Midgard to explore and play amongst the Canterlot Hills with the other ponies there.

During their childhoods, Asgard was going through a period of adjustment, as contact between the alicorns and the Three Tribes led to cultural exchange between the two. The spoken and written languages of the Tribes, particularly those of the Unicorn Kingdom, began to gradually replace the language which the alicorns had inherited from Order, and so the sisters were educated primarily in Equestrian rather than their native tongue. As was the trend among younger alicorns at the time, they gradually moved away from their Alicornish birth names, and instead chose more Equestrian-sounding names for interacting with non-alicorn ponies. Skinfaxi renamed herself Celestia, after the stars, while Hrímfaxi chose the name Luna, after the moon.

Because alicorns age differently than ordinary ponies, particularly in their mental development, Celestia and Luna still lacked lacked cutie marks and were technically considered children well into their twenties. However, the sisters were also relatively mature for their development, well-educated, and possessed kind hearts. These qualities, along with their royal blood, made them ideal candidates to serve as unbiased overseers and mediators for the newly minted alliance between the Three Tribes. And so, shortly after the foundation of Equestria, Celestia and Luna were approached by Star Swirl the Bearded and three of the Six Founders, and asked to become the first princesses of Equestria.

Celestia and Luna were soon coronated, beginning the Equestrian diarchy under the royal House Invictus. The earliest days of their reign were preoccupied with the construction of their castle in the Everfree Forest, their first meetings with the leaders of Equestria's member nations, and the resolution of several diplomatic disputes. The Royal Sisters also finally earned their cutie marks after taking over the Unicorn Kingdom's duties of moving the heavenly spheres, a feat which they were able to perform alone thanks to both their alicorn physiology and their spiritual connections to the sun and moon.

Shortly afterwards, Asgard was destroyed in the cataclysmic event known as Ragnarok, of which the Royal Sisters were some of the only survivors. Thus began the Reign of Chaos.

The Headless Horse:
The Headless Horse was the god of animals and the hunt, and was born of chaos magic many millions of years ago. His spheres encompassed all animals, intelligent or otherwise, and he grew in intelligence as animal life on Earth did. Over time, he became a practiced magic user, allowing him to modify the appearance of the bodies he chose. As the god of the hunt, his bodies were often altered to resemble slaughtered prey. He became comfortable in forms like these, eventually settling on the appearance of a decapitated equine, which is the form he became best known by.

As a chaotic god, the Headless Horse enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, but also desired to create and be artistic, which he expressed by attempting to influence evolution. It was he that was the driving force behind the rise of mammals as the dominant life forms in the Paleopony Period, and he that drove the dinosaurs underground, where they became the dragons.

After the Eternal War came to Earth and flooded it with chimeric species, the Headless Horse stopped creating new life and influencing evolution, and returned to focusing more on the hunting aspect of his godhood. He stayed out of most of the fighting between the other gods, and instead enjoyed watching the conflicts between the chimeras and native species, very rarely intervening to pick a side.

When the fighting eventually died down, the Headless Horse roamed the world, taking residence in secluded forests and other remote locations. He began regularly going out to hunt and kill for fun, sometimes hunting animals, and other times hunting people, such as ponies. He did this for many centuries, and became a figure of legend to ponies, spoken of around campfires in hushed whispers and fearful tones.

Eventually, during the original reign of the Royal Sisters, the Headless Horse ran afoul of the princesses themselves. Princess Luna led the hunt for the Headless Horse and very nearly killed him before he abandoned his body to avoid potentially falling into a helpless, drifting state upon death. This was a mistake, as Luna continued to fight him in his spectral form, and she destroyed his very soul with her spells, bringing an end to him. Even the psychic impression which was the basis of his godhood was no more after she was done, and it has still yet to reform today, though the fear his legend inspired means that it doubtlessly will eventually.

The Woodfather:
The Woodfather was the god of all plantlife, both magical and otherwise, and was also considered the god of nature in general, but forests in particular. He was a being of harmonic magic, and was a very passive and quiet god for most of his existence. He took the form of ordinary plants in his earliest days, but later began using his magic to create more magical plants to inhabit after he kept getting eaten by animals. This eventually led to the creation of animal-like plants known as the woodchildren, which could move, think, and sometimes even talk, just like animals. Such creations included the fruit bats, sass squashes, and most importantly, the entfolk.

After growing into a sapient being and taking an ent form, the Woodfather came to see it as his duty to protect the forests. By that time, the first civilizations had risen, and deforestation near large settlements was already a concern, as well as large monsters, rival spirits, and natural disasters such as freak weather. To defend against these threats, the Woodfather created more ents like his own form, and sent them out across the world to inhabit various forests and other wildlands, which they were to defend with their lives.

Not being a naturally violent being, the Woodfather and his children were quick to make peace with the early civilizations, working out treaties with the ponies and other species like the deer to limit the damage they caused to the forests, and establishing standards of mutual respect. Because of their reasonable nature, the entfolk came to be held in esteem by most of Earth's native species, and the Woodfather even gained a small following of druidic nature cults across the world who helped the entfolk to protect their forests.

The advent of the Split and the Eternal War coming to the Borderworld were disruptive to the Woodfather and his followers, but were not too great a problem at first. Though the deerfolk fell under Order's sway, they continued to work amicably with the Woodfather and the entfolk for a time, as Order had no objection to their policing the forests. Discord's chimeras rampaging everywhere were often a problem, but moreso for the civilized world than the Woodfather's. And the Tree of Harmony was quick to offer her friendship and assistance as well, lending the entfolk some of her magic to help keep the worst of the chaos out of their forests.

It was not until the creation of the screaming trees that the problems truly began. Provoked to action by the Woodfather's alliance with the Tree of Harmony and mutual passive tolerance with Order, Discord began specifically targeting the entfolk and druidic cults, and eventually created the screaming trees as a method of forcibly dispersing them. Created from the degenerated forms of undead ents, Discord's screaming trees were immobile but highly dangerous parasites that drained all magic from an area, and drove off any who entered their territory with magically animated wooden constructs of the beasts whose souls they had consumed. The screaming trees were lethal to the entfolk, and dangerous to the druids, making them a nightmare to deal with for the Woodfather and his followers.

When Order later seized control of the sun and threatened to cease the cycle of day and night, the potential ecological disaster he promised drove the Woodfather to one of his rare moments of bold action, as he joined with the Tree of Harmony and several other Earth gods in the attack on Asgard in the War of the Sun. In the final battle outside Valhalla, he and a substantial force of woodchildren assisted the alicorns in beating back Order's forces, even briefly allying with Hixelkicks and her chimeras in the process. However, the Woodfather tragically did not survive the battle, as he was slain by Duroc, the god of death, who destroyed him in both body and soul.

The ent forces that the Woodfather led to Asgard were almost completely wiped out by the battle's end, leaving only a few to gather his remains and return them to Midgard. He was quietly buried by a gathering of entfolk and pony druids in a forest in the Equestrian northwest, so that his essence could be returned to the earth to help the trees grow strong. His followers observed his death with a month-long period of mourning.

Following the Woodfather's death, the entfolk sadly fell into decline. The coming of the windigoes, the Reign of Chaos, and the Tree of Harmony weakening herself by giving away the Elements all harmed the entfolk to varying degrees, and by the present day, they are a species on the brink of extinction. Nonetheless, the Woodfather's legacy continues. He is still remembered and venerated by various druidic cults across the world. The entfolk's duty of protecting the woods is still carried on by Equestria's forest wardens, such as Fluttershy. And though his race is almost gone, the ent king still holds a position of great respect on the Cosmic Council of Asgard, allowing him to serve the Woodfather's will in the realm where he fell.

The Stonemother:
The Stonemother was the goddess of stones, metals, and all other kinds of minerals, as well as blacksmithing and masonry. Though her domains included somewhat creative pursuits, she was primarily a being of order magic, and more reflected the unyielding, unchanging nature of stone than anything else. For much of her existence, she was a barely sentient spirit inhabiting a large boulder, concerned with little else other than rocks, and she only began attaining some level of intelligence when mortals began using tools and crafting things with the materials of her domain.

Even after achieving sapience, the Stonemother was a simple being, caring little for the creative pursuits of blacksmiths and masons, and remaining monomaniacally focused on rocks. For centuries, she did little more than watch rocks, play with rocks, and search for interesting kinds of rocks, while walking around in a golem-like body made of animated rock. Eventually, however, her course changed after a chance encounter with a solitary cave troll.

The troll, also being a simple creature, was more than happy to spend hours conversing with the Stonemother about rocks, all the great things about rocks, and how impressed he was with her body of rock. The cave troll wished that he was also made of rock, so that he could be stronger and tougher just like her, and asked the Stonemother to transform him to be like her. The Stonemother, having no objection to this sentiment, used her magic to transform the cave troll's skin to stone, fortunately in a way that did not harm him. During the next cave troll mating season, the stone troll defeated all his rivals, and was the envy of all.

After this, the Stonemother's life was forever changed, as other cave trolls began to call upon her, requesting that she transform them into beings of stone too, as well as their companions, their pets, and their trophy kills. Before long, the Stonemother had become the patron goddess of the cave trolls, who had become an entire species of stone-skinned giants, and nothing delighted them more than seeing her change another creature into living stone just like them. Her creations, which came to be known as the stonechildren, included such creatures as the cragadiles, the crystal lizards, and the rock lobsters, the latter of whom were sapients that came to worship the Stonemother just as the cave trolls did.

The Stonemother, for her part, was content with her role in life, happily whiling away her days creating more stonechildren to entertain the trolls, while continuing to go out on expeditions to find and collect more rocks.

So absorbed was she in this life that the Split and the arrival of the Eternals on Midgard barely affected her. As a spirit of order magic, Order's forces initially attempted to recruit her to their cause, but the Stonemother cared little for their conflict, and only begrudgingly agreed to give up a few stonechildren as foot-soldiers to make them leave her alone. Discord also paid her a visit at one point and attempted to annoy her, but got no satisfying reaction. The Stonemother got Discord to go away as well by again offering up several stonechildren as a bribe, which Discord took and used to create the crystal bards and Equestrian mimics.

Stonechildren of different types thus fought on the sides of both Order and Chaos in the War of the Sun, but the Stonemother herself remained firmly uninvolved in the fighting, just keeping to herself and her rock collection, while occasionally entertaining the trolls and rock lobsters.

It wasn't until later, shortly before the Reign of Chaos, that the Stonemother met her unfortunate demise. While on one of her many geological expeditions, she accidentally wandered into the territory of the Dragon Empire of the far north. As she had spent millions of years now inhabiting a golem-like stone body, which she had become extremely adept at repairing damage to, it was exceedingly rare for her to encounter anything capable of completely destroying her physical form. Dragons, however, being evolved to eat minerals such as gemstones, were a different matter, and so the Stonemother was eaten and killed by the dragon Calcifex.

Though her soul was not destroyed like the Woodfather's or Headless Horse's, the Stonemother notably did not seem to return from this death. Having spent so long in a singular form, she was not used to bouncing back from death and reincarnating with all of her memories, and so her soul instead went dormant after she died, like a mortal's, and was left to drift.

Some believe that her soul eventually found a simple inanimate rock to settle in, and that she remains there somewhere up in the Frozen North to this very day. Others believe that the Stonemother reincarnated like a mortal would, and probably still lives an ordinary life in some form or another, likely not remembering her previous life or godhood, but probably doing something related to rocks. Either way, the Stonemother has not yet made herself known to the world again since her death by Calcifex, and likely never will.

Despite this, the Stonemother's legacy is still felt in Equestria today through her stonechildren. The wild species such as cragadiles can still be found all over the continent, having carved out their own ecological niches, and the sapient ones are also still around. Though the simplisic and solitary cave trolls eventually forgot the Stonemother after centuries of absence, she remains a figure of reverence in the cultural traditions of the rock lobsters, who even maintained a life-sized statue of her golem form in their underground city of Black Grotto until its destruction by the dragon Krografar.

Boreas:
Boreas was the calamitous god of the sky, winds, thunder, storms, and war, the creator of the rocs and many other giant bird species, and the patron deity of the griffons. He was a being of chaos magic, and originally took the form of a pterodactyl, from which he gained the predatory instincts that would come to define his later life, though he later changed to a more avian form as the dinosaurs evolved into birds.

Early on in his existence, Boreas learned that he gained power from flying creatures, and so sought to create a world where the land and sea were at the mercy of the beasts of the skies. He fought against the other spirits and creatures, unleashing fierce storms and hurricanes on them, and created bigger and more powerful flying predators like the rocs, which could survive his storms and terrorise the ground-dwellers more effectively.

As life evolved and the creatures of the sky changed, Boreas changed as well, but he never succeeded in his goal of dominating the land and sea. Boreas spent much of his life fighting with the other gods, such that mortals came to know him just as much as a spirit of war as a spirit of the skies, and so he welcomed the coming of the Eternal War. As a chaotic spirit, Boreas was quickly recruited to Discord's side, and he soon became one of the most active and influential Earth gods involved in the conflict.

Boreas's chaotic nature, and his abnormal combination of the domains of storms and warfare, inspired the creation of the windigoes, and his personal dominion over the sky also made him an ideal warchief to lead the griffons. Setting himself up as their god-king, Boreas led the griffons in an invasion of western Thoroupe, conquering the lands of the ponies and driving the Three Tribes across the Forsaken Crags into Equestria. His campaigns led directly to the founding of Griffonia and the city of Griffonstone, and contributed to the collapse of the Arachnian Empire.

But though a capable warrior and general, Boreas made a poor ruler. His inclinations made him cruel to his subjects, and he had very little interest or skill in governance, leading to widespread deaths, famine, and general chaos in the process of trying to settle the lands that the griffons had conquered. After several decades of his questionable rulership, the griffons finally rose up and killed their god towards the end of the Chimera Wars, and sealed his essence into a magical artefact known as the Idol of Boreas.

Over the following centuries, the Idol changed hands many times. Griffonia under mortal rule remained a land of strife, periodically ravaged by civil wars and rebellions as the griffon nobility struggled against each other for power and dominance. The Idol's true history was soon forgotten as it passed from family to family, and the Idol was eventually lost altogether during the Reign of Chaos. Its rediscovery by Grover centuries later marked the beginning of a Griffonian renaissance, and the foundation of the independent kingdom of Griffonstone.

The Idol remained the possession of Griffonstone's royal family for the remainder of their rule, serving as a symbol of griffon nationalist pride, unity, and accomplishment. However, its later theft by Arimaspi and loss in the Abysmal Abyss was a great blow to this pride, leading directly to the fall of the royal family and Griffonstone's decline into anarchy.

This incident also damaged the Idol itself, partially cracking the red gem which contained the essence of Boreas, and may potentially have allowed him to escape. The Idol still lies deep within the Abysmal Abyss, its red gem long gone dark, as powerful winds too strong for any griffon or pegasus to resist blow through for seemingly no reason. These winds may be natural, but may also possibly be a lingering effect of Boreas's power, whether working through the Idol, or left as a curse on Griffonstone when his spirit left.

Whether Boreas escaped from the Idol's confinement or not, he has not yet returned under his old identity, though he has had plenty of time to do so. This may indicate that his spirit still remains in the Abysmal Abyss, but it could also be that Boreas is lying low, that his memories have not yet resurfaced, or that he has been biding his time waiting for an ideal host body. As a god of skies, storms, and warfare, it is likely that he would wish to reincarnate as a flying creature with both physical strength and magical power, such as an alicorn or a dragon. If he were to take any other form, Boreas would likely spend his life seeking out artificial means of gaining flight, strength, or magical power if he did not naturally possess any of the three. In any case, Boreas in his new life would likely become known as a great warrior or warlord.

Leo:
King Leo is the god of the seas and the ruler of Aquastria, as well as an adoptive cousin to Princesses Celestia and Luna. He is a harmonious deity who currently takes the form of a sea lion. Leo was a fairly unnotable spirit for most of his existence, simply living out his days in the forms of various different aquatic species. Undersea life developed sapience just as life on the surface did, Leo along with it, but this had little impact on his routine, other than allowing him to experience love and friendship through his many lives instead of just operating on primitive base instincts.

Leo first came to prominence in undersea society after the arrival of the chimeras. Discord and Hixelkicks unleashed various aquatic chimeras on the world's oceans, upsetting the ecosystem and causing conflict between the chimeras and native species such as the sea beasts. As the god of the seas, Leo was contacted by the Tree of Harmony, and pressured to do his part in bringing the violence to an end. Though unsure of himself at first, Leo was powerful, and his voice was respected by the native sea-dwellers enough that they rallied around him. Acting as the natives' representative, Leo reached out to the chimeras, and succeeded in negotiating a peace with the kelpies, seaponies, and merfolk, with the other chimeric species soon following.

Though it took a while for the new ecosystem to balance out, the peace between the chimeras and natives held, with Leo acting as a bridge between the two sides. He came to be a greatly respected figure by all the denizens of the seas, not just the native species, and so when the first underwater cities were built by the kelpies and merfolk, they chose Leo to be their king. Leo accepted, becoming the king of the new nation of Aquastria, and soon others flocked to the cities as well to live under the safety of his protection.

Aquastria first made contact with the surface-dwellers some time after the Reign of Chaos, when three rogue kelpies known as the Sirens left the seas to menace Equestria's east coast. King Leo personally travelled to the surface to apprehend the Sirens, and met Star Swirl the Bearded during the wizard's own attempts to stop them. After the banishment of the Sirens, King Leo was taken to Canterlot, where he met Celestia and Luna for the first time. Recognising them as fellow spirits, and they recognising him as a fellow adherent of the Tree of Harmony, they soon established a firm rapport, and thought of themselves as long lost cousins.

King Leo returned from his first visit to the surface with new allies, new friends, and new family, and from then on was one of Equestria's staunchest allies. He later made contact with other coastal surface kingdoms in Zebrica and Thoroupe, working out formal alliances and trade agreements, and soon Leo made Aquastria a player on the world stage. Along with Celestia and Luna, he also later became a founding member of the Cosmic Council, a gathering of the various gods, spirits, immortals, and monarchs of the Nine Realms.

Duroc:
Duroc was the ancient god of death, hunger, and silence, a being born of order magic, who chose to represent death as something of finality and decay, rather than as part of the natural cycle of life. Much like the Headless Horse, to whom he was both a rival and frequent companion, Duroc did not take a natural form, but instead one altered by his own magic to resemble the death and decay he embodied. Again, much like the Headless Horse, he eventually settled on an equine form, which became Duroc's most famous and culturally enduring appearance. In this form, he resembled a skeletal pony carrying a scythe, clad in a dark cloak and hood to hide his identity when necessary, becoming known to ponies as the Grim Reaper.

As an embodiment of the finality of death, Duroc did not approve of the cycle of reincarnating souls, and desired to end it. For millennia he sought out the dead and dying in their final moments before their souls moved on, and sucked the magic from them, costing them their rebirths. To the otherwise immortal spirits, this was seen as a horrifying and unnatural crime, and so all but the Headless Horse reviled and opposed Duroc, often even setting aside personal grudges with other enemies to join forces against him whenever he showed himself. Because of this opposition, Duroc eventually relented on killing souls, and kept a low profile until the Eternal War came to the Borderworld.

Duroc was recruited by Order after his arrival, and worked closely with Agamarath and his dark creatures in the following wars. He became a figure of worship to the umbrums and nightmares, and fought alongside them to bring true death to Order's enemies. However, even Order's forces were not entirely comfortable with Duroc's love for soul murder, and so the vast majority of his victims' souls he did not consume, but instead imprisoned within the Great Abyss. There, he condemned them to live forever alone in darkness and silence, as close an approximation to non-existence as possible for a living soul.

Duroc fought at Asgard during the War of the Sun, notably killing the Woodfather there, and was even among the few gods of Order's faction to survive the battle. He left for Svartalfheim after Order's defeat, laying low in the Great Abyss amongst the souls he had imprisoned there, waiting for his time to come again. He stayed there throughout Ragnarok and the Reign of Chaos, quietly biding his time, and finally made his return to Midgard when Luna fell to darkness and became Nightmare Moon. He joined the Nightmare Forces in the War of the Night, assisting in their rebellion, but disappeared again shortly after their defeat and Luna's banishment.

What happened to Duroc after this is not clear. What is known is that souls continued to be stolen away to the Great Abyss for the following two centuries, but that this abruptly stopped sometime in the Third Celestial Era with a mass breakout of ghosts from the Abyss. This event also coincided with the last appearance of the mysterious blood moon, a phenomenon observed in the early Celestial Eras wherein the moon turned red and drove those under its light into a heightened state of aggression for one night each month.

What link Duroc and the imprisoned souls had to the appearance of blood moon is unknown, but its disappearance and the release of the ghosts also seemed to indicate Duroc's own death, as a new god of death later rose in his place, claiming that Duroc had been slain by mortal hooves.

Slender:
Slender is the second and current god of death of the Nine Realms, taking the form of a tall, thin, faceless equine with tentacles sprouting from his back, often also bizarrely claimed to be seen wearing a suit. He was once a mortal, but ascended to godhood by stealing Duroc's power, allegedly through some manner of dark ritual.

Accounts differ as to how he achieved this feat, with some claiming that he slew Duroc himself and claimed his mantle by right of conquest, and others saying that he unearthed the dead god's remains years later and used the lingering remnants of his power to form a new impression. Just who Slender was before his ascendence is also a matter of debate, with people variously claiming that he was a scholar, a knight, a priest, a cultist, a bandit, a hunter, a vampire, and a prince. Even his species is disputed, but most at least agree that he was probably a pony, given the general shape of his current form and preference for Equestria over other lands.

Whatever he may have been before, Slender today is one of Midgard's most prolific serial killers, thought to be responsible for thousands of deaths and disappearances since taking up Duroc's mantle. He targets children, as well as the weak, sick, and elderly, and often stalks his targets for months before attempting to abduct and murder them. He is known to torture and devour his victims, and the grisly remnants of his feasts are sometimes found in the remote woodlands and high mountains of the world. Fortunately, unlike Duroc, he leaves the souls of his victims alone, and he is also extremely cowardly, easily scared off from a target, and known to always flee from a confrontation rather than fight.

Slender's existence was disputed for a long time, and wasn't officially acknowledged until the Fifth Celestial Era, when the invention of hoof-held cameras finally allowed photographic proof to make its way into the hooves of the authorities. Since that time, Slender has become very camera-shy, and learned a special variety of magic to disrupt or distort any images taken of him, but this has not stopped authorities from attempting to track down and capture him. Slender is currently the number one most wanted criminal in Equestria, last reported seen by Goldie Delicious in the woods around her cabin, though he has likely since moved on from this area.

Others:
As well as those already discussed here, there are also many other minor gods, both on Midgard and elsewhere in the Nine Realms, who do not warrant lengthy descriptions. Not all Earth gods are powerful, well-known, or historically important, and there are some whose very existence is a matter of dispute. The donkeys of Zebrica, for example, claim that the reason they do not have cutie marks is because they were stolen from them by a primeval god of deception, known in their language as Every Lie. The buffalo pay respects to a harvest spirit called the Rainbow Crow, who in myth is said to have burned her feathers black while bringing fire back from the sun, to melt the ice of a harsh winter. And many Equestrians believe that both Princess Cadance and Princess Amore before her were incarnations of a yet unnamed goddess of love.

These are but a few examples of these alleged minor Earth gods. Many of them are likely fictitious, but most of the ones who are actually confirmed to exist and who are not malevolent hold seats on the Cosmic Council, and so do still have some sway over world affairs.

Acknowledgements:
-Equestria's moon glowing under its own power seems evidently canon given Princess Twilight Sparkle, but was first pointed out to me by Oliver in one of his Random Thoughts About Canon blogs.
-I earnestly don't remember where I got the idea of screaming trees from, but given the publishing dates, it's very likely I was drawing from Lupine Tree by wille179.
-The name "Griffonia" is common fanon that I don't think I could credit to anybody specific, but its period of internal strife with nobles and petty warlords jostling for place as High King is inspired by the Griffonia of The Lunar Rebellion by Chengar Qordath.
-Slender is a fucking internet meme that came from the Something Awful forums. If you're wondering what on Earth he's doing here in my world-building essays, well, it's because he's actually canon. Pay attention to the backgrounds in Pinkie Apple Pie. I just couldn't let that slide by unexplained.
-Also, these acknowledgements are usually just to point out and credit my other influences in this fandom, but since it's relatively obscure (especially to American readers), I'd also like to add that the Doctor Who spin-off show Torchwood inspired much of the character of Duroc, including his name.

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I suppose the question is whether the Stonemother reincarnated as Maud... or Holder's Boulder.

Why did you think Limestone didn't want anyone touching it?