The Valcadian Pantheon

The world was still and lifeless in the void for millions of years. Then, carrying the memory of their own broken and lost world, came two divine beings. Valthoria and Valcarion. They were the preservation of the world where they had been created. A divine couple. Mother and father to what would become this new world, a tribute to the original, but unique and diverse in a thousand thousand ways that neither could foresee. 

Arriving upon the lifeless planet they fell upon each other in a last embrace of destruction and creation, love and hate, despair and hope. Together they carved each other's flesh and divine souls into eighteen parts. Eighteen lesser gods that were born as their parents died. Each with the power and resources to shape the world and its peoples.  

Epochs have passed since the first gods came out of the void to build the world. Empires rose and fell. The landscape changed by the mortal races and natural catastrophes both. Entire civilizations forgotten or lost. The one constant is those eighteen godly children, now ancient and without the burden of the first god’s purpose. 

They are bound to this world and to the prime material of their progenitors. Each god can hold only one true form made from the divine flesh of the mother and the father. Should these avatars be damaged and destroyed the consequences would be shattering, perhaps earth shattering. 

It is because of this that the gods long ago found a way to project their divinity and purpose into a willing mortal vessel. Most peoples are too weak to hold such a magnitude of primordial power within their mortal flesh, but some few have the capacity to hold the mind and power of a god.

The practicality and ethics of this practice divided the gods and the nations of mortals. Cultures emerged on both sides of the debate. Empires where the highest honor was being chosen as a vessel and serving your god by relinquishing your body to them. Conversely there are those who worship the gods who find the practice of possession profane and cruel. Millions have been slain in holy wars over the milenia, and many more will surely die before the last days of the sun.