[h3]Hybris, God of Arrogance and Proving Others Wrong[/h3]
Most gods kowtow to their believers. They may put on a scary face in public, but the fact is that the gods need followers to exist, whereas their followers generally have the much envied power of existing regardless of whether anyone believes in them or not. Among the pantheon, it is considered common wisdom that the best way to gain more followers is to do whatever your followers want, no matter how embarrassing. However, there are a select few gods that manage to exist despite being absolute jerks. Hybris was one of them. Such gods were much more common in ancient times, feeding off primal urges like love, fear, and hatred rather than belief like the later gods. Some even say that Del, the creator god, derived its power from a source other than belief. But even among this select group of gods, Hybris' story remains unique.

Hybris was created by atheist philosophers. The triumph of the Restored Empire's tactics, strategy, and good supply chain management over the powerful gods of the seven kingdoms sparked a rationalist renaissance. But not everyone liked it. Civil war broke out amid the academies and imperial bureaucracies. But, as it was a civil war, the fighting was limited to impassioned philosophical sophistry and purposefully misleading rhetoric. A favorite tactic of the rationalists was to posit the existence of an omnipotent god, and then show that this lead to logical contradictions. This was a dumb, invalid argument for many reasons, but most importantly because before this point nobody had ever even suggested the existence of an omnipotent god. The war grew more and more heated, with both sides continually throwing up the same exact arguments over and over again like a chant. A chant that summoned the god of omnipotence into existence.

Except, nobody actually believed in the god of omnipotence. What everyone on both sides of the debate passionately believed in was that they were right and the other side was wrong. And so the actual god that was created was not the god of omnipotence, but Hybris, god of Arrogance and Proving Others Wrong.

The appearance of this new god turned the civil war into a very uncivil, violent, and bloody war. Ordinarily the death of so many of a god's believers would reduce that god's powers. But Hybris, being the god of Arrogance, believed in its own superiority so much that it managed to sustain its power largely with its own thoughts. As an added bonus, this proved the majority of the nascent Ruse theorists completely wrong.

Free from the humdrum obligations of attending to a flock of needy followers, or even the primal gods' obligations of stirring up strong emotions, Hybris declared itself ruler of the cosmos. It tore up the grand capital of the newly Restored Empire and turned it into a massive throne. It rearranged the nearby mountains into a great wall around the throne, and created the central ocean to be the moat. The other gods, being extremely jealous of such power, joined with what remained of the Restored Empire's army for the greatest siege in history. For seven years, comets and lightning bolts rained down from the heavens even as earthquakes and volcanoes shook forth from below. Witches and wizards shot forth magical beams and fireballs. A swarm of the titanic centipede-like barkolopus even joined in the siege, attracted by the aetherial residues of the divine war. And even the rationalists and wizards put aside their differences to create a magic-powered cannon capable of firing a hundred ton rock, each shot creating its own miniature earthquake. This was all the more impressive considering cannons hadn't even been invented yet. In the end, though, it was not really force that brought down Hybris; It was an idiot.

The idiot's name has been most unjustly lost to history. But what we do know is that this idiot suggested that they give up fighting and start worshiping Hybris instead. Then Hybris would have a large flock of followers just like any other god and would stop being so difficult. The idiot was immediately killed for saying such a thing, but the god of wisdom happened to overhear the conversation and realized just how good of an idea it actually was. When the siege stopped, Hybris came out to investigate, only to be met with a throng of cheering worshipers. At this point, Hybris finally felt that special connection that had been missing since its creation. And then immediately began arguing with its new followers about the proper way to worship it. At this moment, seventy-eight gods of war and other associated concepts sprang out from hiding and totally beat the shit out of Hybris.

Arrogance and the desire to prove others wrong being among the most popular personal qualities, it is widely assumed that Hybris still exists in some fashion although there have been no verifiable sightings since then. Its fortress of geological proportions certainly still remains, located in the eastern reaches of the hills of Cansma, where the mighty barkolopus continue to siege it in vain. Perhaps, as many believe, the god of arrogance lies imprisoned behind those impenetrable walls. Fears that philosophical bickering may awaken Hybris and start another devastating war have prompted no less than thirteen kingdoms to sign the Philosophical Nonproliferation Treaty and have made many philosophers consider switching to a less controversial field such as necromancy to avoid persecution.