You have to admit, when you see the Grand Swamp for the first time, it is uniquely beautiful to you in a way few mortals could comprehend. The entire realm is brimming with an ancient, natural and copious amount of life and death. It is like staring at kaleidoscopic stars, softly flaring and waning like a dance or a symphony. You feel like a child seeing a rainbow the first time, but many Kirin have reactions similar to yours. It has been so long since they have seen a place untouched by the ever creeping chill of the windigos and this canopy is so thick that the jungle floor can rarely be seen. Not to mention that truly huge trees, floral mountains almost, that dotted above the rest of the treeline.
More than that, the blood of the Kirin know this place and it reminds their hearts of home. It takes a bit of scouting and patience, but they eventually find a large enough clearing to land the ships. And as more of their hooves touch the fertile ground, you feel yourself, your very essence flowing out through the forest. Yet it does not accept you so easily. Of this, you are not surprised. This place is truly primordial, it would take great time for any god to truly make it their own, even a god of life.
Which brought up an issue you know you will have to address very, VERY soon.
What are you, you really?
You take a precautionary sweep over every creature under your protection. While you can't control the forest or had enough time to understand just what or even who dwells within it, you can sense that everything in there is too spooked to try attacking just yet, if anything even wants to. Frozen Meadows and Shaded Gold are already doing their parts, organizing groups of Hunters and Harvesters to scout the immediate area around the clearings for anything edible or dangerous. Quick Blade is helping others begin to set up temporary camps for the time being. Thicket's sheer presence will hopefully ward off and neutralize anything that tries to sneak up on your future worshipers. For now, they are all relaxing and enjoying true warmth for the moment.
With this, you take a chance to contemplate your own existence. In what you shall become.
As you have grown this past month, you have come to understand more about Gods in general, and some choices you have to make.
The most important thing that you have learned was the six over arching domains that all gods started their roots in: Life and Death, Heart and Mind, Material and Spiritual. And each one of those were more complicated than a mortal might initially believe.
Life and Death were both the most straight forward, but had far more depth to them than just their namesakes.
To be a God of Death, to draw strength from each mortal end, is to be a God of Fate. To influence the paths of mortal lives and know their potential futures. And to give your more devoted worshipers similar abilities. It is to be a God of Soulless Things, of the dead that still move. It is even possible for your followers to linger as spirits.
To be a God of Life, to be given new power with every mortal birth, is to be a God of Nature. For you and all that follow you to be friends to beasts and plants alike. To heal wounds so quickly that often only age may bring death to your followers. But it is also to be a God of Struggling, for as the windigos prove, life can be so utterly fragile. But it is in that struggle that you and your chosen might revitalize what was broken.
Next up, the more personal domains of Heart and Mind. Without either in the world, sapience is merely sentience. Awareness without Feeling or Feeling without Awareness.
To be a God of Heart is not merely about Love, but about Passion and other emotions. To strive out of pure desire. To give deeper meaning to things, to inspire feelings for no logical reason. To be a God of Art, by whom the greatest of expression might not only be made...but, for a time, give life to Art and even Dreams.
To be a God of Mind, however, is to favor reason. To cultivate the mortal capacity to understand and learn, to discover new ways of doing things. It is to be a God of Craft, to inspire your followers to invent tools and ideas in pursuit of progress. And, potentially, to create even mockeries of life: nonliving, but not undead entities of metal and stone: Golems.
And the final two, the hardest to grasp for mortals are Material and Spiritual ...and you can sense that these two have been claimed in their highest by a pair of gods. One of whom you know.
To be a God of Spiritual, to call the heavens your true home, is to be a God of Order. To not only inspire peace and lawfulness in all your lands, but to allow your followers to enforce it when needed. To resist unneeded and dangerous change, to find a place for all things. And to cause all in your dominion to sway to a more idealized state, that is to be a God of Harmony.
To be a God of Material, is to claim the mortal realm as your truest home, to embrace its rebellious nature to both mortals and gods alike. It is to become change itself, to be the embodiment of a paradox. It is to have the power to destabilize and adapt to any situation. To be a deity of disasters, to make your foes question the very reality they face. That is what it means to be a God of Chaos. A God of Discord.
You shudder, somehow certain that a certain god you cannot see is chuckling, wherever he is.
Still, while gods can expand beyond these definitions, their domains are always and eternally a part of them, unto a god's very destruction.
Which brings you to the first and foremost decision you must make: Your potential peer or peers as Gods of these Kirins. Following that, which of the six overarching domains would you be tied to, to define yourself as a god. For pantheons mainly came in four flavors, with some deviations and exceptions, and those four flavors determine how many domains you shall be limited to.
The first was obvious. Rule alone, be a Monotheistic. Or henotheistic, if other lesser gods joined in. The main idea being that you rule alone, wholly and fully as the highest god for your followers. This was certainly appealing, and for good reason. Doing so would give you access to all six domains, but there was the risk of spreading yourself too thin in doing so. For it would take time and energy to make use of each domain to their maximum potential, if you so choose to.
The second was to rule with one other: A Duality, a "twin" in a non-literal sense. To do so would mean to rule with one who covers all you do not: For each domain you shall rule, they will be of the opposite. To allow one to be strong in everything the other is weak. To have a clear and clean divide between all matters of Life and Death, Material and Spiritual, Heart and Mind.
The third was interesting and, if nothing else, efficient. A Trinity, to have a god ruling over both domains in each sets. Fpr instance, to rule over Life and Death, giving and taking lives with each limb. To grant equal, non-conflicting authority and attention to each of the two opposite realms of power.
The final could be the most and least tempting: a Pantheon, true Polytheism. To share your authority with five others, for every dominion to have its own individual god to manage and oversee it. Certainly a way to keep all areas covered, and to have many peers to watch your back, but it would make cooperation and consensus difficult.
It was a deep and difficult things to consider. To share your divine rule in such a way was to run the risk of resentment and rebellion between not only each other, but your cultists. To rule alone was to risk defeat by lack of comrades. But your own personal power was not the only thing to consider. You would eventually have a religion, a church of sorts among your followers. Not only that, you had to consider the prospect of an avatar, among other things. You only had so much power to work with and shape yourself and your followers.
And this was the first step. Just as the Kirins considered the bedrock of their new society, you were now considering the first stone to be truly placed at the foundation of your godhood.
To Rule Alone or To Rule With Others?
To Risk it all on yourself?
To Risk it all on other gods?
Would you be end up bringing others into the fold or even raising some among your mortal followers to a divine, equal level?
Not only that, but...the subject of the Death domain had made you wonder, what happened to the souls of the Kirin already lost? Was there another god, native to their homelands that claimed them? Or did some other divinity claims the ones left behind? Worse, were they just lost and alone, unable to move on?
It was something you'd have to look into one day, but you did know this much: The souls of those that died escaping the Crystal Empire were yours, if only briefly. They were...waiting on you, for lack of a better term. Not truly awake, but in an unaware state as their souls clung to yours. This made you realize that you needed to pick an afterlife for them. Creating one was surprisingly easy, almost any god could do it. Even those without the Death domain were empowered enough by the passing of their followers to
support one.
Trouble was, you weren't...well versed in this subject, yet. You only had knew of two afterlife systems currently, and only because almost every god used these two.
The first was simple and took care of itself: Reincarnation! Your followers would be reborn upon death, and while it was mostly operating on its own accord, you could take direct control to ensure certain souls were reborn where, when, and to whom you wanted. While risking the notion of Kirin Supremacy, you could even ensure your non-Kirin followers could be reborn as Kirin. Thoughts for later.
The other was popular just for its use as an incentive, or as something to fear: An afterlife as an actual place, a plane or planes for your spirits to dwell in. A chunk of the heavens, fashioned to your design and welcome to all those you deem worthy. Of course, this also allowed you to create...alternate locations. Underworlds to house the average soul belonging to you. Not paradise, but not terrible. Dull at worse. And, of course, you can have a realm to punish your truly unworthy followers and captured souls of enemies. You liked the rewarding one, but were unsure how to feel about the other two.
But you hesitate greatly as you believe you know why these two are picked the most often. If you are in anyway normal for a Godling, than others likely picked these as they are the first two options to have available. But you know better.
You sense there are more forms of afterlives. Not many, but some. The souls of your dead were waiting, but was there a reason they could not wait longer?
These subjects weighed heavy on your mind and heart as you watched the Kirins go about their lives, unaware of you in their encampment.
Mostly unaware, at least. You have found more than a few staring at you. Most were children. What did they see, you wonder? Or was there even anything definite to see about your being yet? Still, some were adults, squinting their eyes at something that wasn't there. Interestingly, Shaded, Frozen, and Quick were NOT among those that saw you, and you had watched them to be sure. You'd have to take note of those that seemed attuned to you. When you got around to revealing yourself to them, you'd likely need them.
Still, you reminded yourself not to think too far off to delay making a decision. So, the grand questions were, what kind of god did you wish to be? And did want to grant your followers an afterlife or reincarnation? Or wait and see what else you could grant them?