Name:Artheron, more often referred to as the
Wild God by man, few short of scholars and select priests know his actual name. For common folk however, he has many titles and names that describe his nature and role to them, many of which are to avoid acknowledging his influence or are just descriptive terms of his whims, such as the
"Devourer of Men" or
"The Roaring-Death".
Gender:Male, not only because his role is masculine, the feral hunter and killer, but too as he is considered the father of beasts; the one to have sired the fiercer things of the world.
Appearance:There is no shortage of forms the
Wild God takes on, yet none of them are short of anything but savage and beastly. It is said that on any whim, at any moment, he can overcome an animal or even a man who has given himself in to primal ways. However, this is not at all his true form, that of which is a ghostly, near intangible body made up of ether as very few men can see him as he is, their minds clouding his approach by instinctive fear, but for what he is, he is the truest of predators incarnate.
The Primeval takes on the shape of its greatest work, a sleek beast of fur and flesh, with curved ears, a cunning nose, glinting eyes, and terrible claws and fangs. The four legs he stands upon are not only powerful, but capable of great dexterity, just as the muscled body speaks to unbridled agility. It is unclear if he adopted the form of the great cat out of satisfaction for his shaping of them or if such man-eating beasts were made in his image as sired by him.
Personality:The characterization of the
Wild God is one largely based in perception; man views him as a terrible force of nature, one as merciless and spiteful as the wrath of a storm or the rage of flame. He is made out to be an unthinking, unfeeling entity that derives pleasure only from the satisfaction gained in a successful hunt. What positives he is viewed with are not often recognized, instead the obsession of mortals being that he is a force of terrible nature, not tamed or coerced.
In reality these rumors are not untrue but they are too simple an understanding of an entity as vast and powerful as something that embodies all of predator-kind. It is this that makes the
Wild God an archetype of history, knowledge long before man and a form of the father archetype, whose shadow is callousness and indifference. To his kind he can be both a welcome or terrible figure. Subsequently, as his varied names imply, he is more a beast and force of nature than a personality. Despite this, he maintains a level of respect beyond mere animals, even those mythic; often being seen as their own god of sorts if such simple creatures could even have one.
Major Domain:PredationMinor Domains:HuntingAnimalsWeaknesses:Only a huntsman can marshal in on a hunt, as any predator worth its salt can disappear as swiftly as it can strike. Thus to actually track and fight a beast of legend, in particular Artheron at all, one must summon the greatest party of equally legendary huntsmen to have lived; only such a cadre of fellows might have the skills and talents to hunt a literal god of the wild in its own domain. Without such aid, there is no entrapping the beast and thus it may continually run off to lick its wounds and restore its strength where no mortal or god otherwise could find it; such a mighty quarry would make this an infinite endeavor.
Thus the true, greatest weakness of the
Wild God is the God of the Hunt and their followers, all of whom possess the opposed power to challenge and destroy him or those he holds power over. The game of predator and prey here is played carefully and unlike any other, the sort that would have great ramifications if either ever managed to kill the other.
The
Feral Heart has another tremendous weakness that few gods of the pantheon know for themselves in quite the same way, that he and his domain has no true following. There are no places of worship for the few who follow the way of the ferine, at least not in the places of men. The few dens, the few lairs, he lays claim to are holds of primitives who still see him as a major, compelling aspect in their lives; tribals who view him as one of their great spirits. Others still do follow him, yet they do so in secret - often regarded as closely guarded cults who wish to become like the
Animal Father, invoking aspects of his power and influence through rituals and magic that are mostly unheard of and unknown to "civilized folk".
Lastly, there exists the matter of balance within and throughout in all of nature, something the God of Predators cannot surpass; there only ever can be so many. His domain may only grow where the Goddess of Nature's does and shrinks whenever hers suffers too. This component has long since enslaved him to the Goddess, a piece of her whole, but rather than rebel at this relationship, the two have made it as symbiotic as any other to be found in the mundane world of fauna. Although, this cannot change the reality that his mass is so few, at its best never more than one to ten.
Avatar:Said to be a creature perfected to hunt and kill, even amongst gods, Artheron has no divine incarnation other than himself. His "avatar" is either his own form, that which appears to great fear, or the interpretation of it through the beasts of the world he might possess.
Stance:There is only one loyalty to the
Feral Heart, the
God of Fang and Claw, and that is in the Goddess of Nature, one whom he and his few share claim to and are critical for in the cycle of life. Nature is the one domain whose lot Artheron is cast into, subject to her whims and her works.
Loyalty During the Rebellion:The Father, as nature seeks balance in all things, just as the powers of the creator enforced in the Great Design. No one being was fit to rule and all had a role to play in the cosmology of the universe. With the God of War seeking to usurp the throne, the
Wild God joined his companion in the Goddess of Nature to resist this uprising and claim.
Center of Power:The Fangs of the Predator God are as literal an artifact as any other, given that they represent not only a physical thing but a concept; the enormous teeth are the embodiment of predation, the means and tools to hunt, kill and consume, the very root cause of death and life anew. They are sickle, ivory things that have an edge sharper than any mortal steel and dare not bend or break no matter what way they are stressed. To possess them as even a sliver of their whole, that is to so much as have them on one's mortal person, is to come under urges of instinctive, primeval thoughts - to continue the cycle without rest or conscious choice; held, instead they are like compulsion to do these things, something no man can dare resist - great enough to turn them into a figurative and literal beast. Owing to this, in the circles of knowing, the teeth themselves are seen as nothing short of cursed.
Though they have never left the possession of the God of Predation, they are an embodiment of the ideal, something that transcends the deity himself. Without them, he is any creature of epic power, but no more a divine force unmatched in his domain.
Relations:The Goddess of Nature,
Sylendre, is the mate of the
Wild God, the only being capable of soothing the beast and catering to its animal ways. For how long they have known one another, let alone been almost one force, is unknown but only reasonable to assume from their creation onward. Reasonably, this makes both quite ancient, older than many and some of the earliest embodiments of the world before man was even shaped from the primal clay of creation.
Powers:The embodiment of savagery, the
Wild God has an array of devastating talents in his arsenal, not the least of which is his own body; his claws and fangs cleave and sunder with crushing ease, fueled by the force to shatter stone and splinter wood without exerted effort. The thick flesh and hide of his resplendent body is unmarred and unmatched by even the most exquisite weapons or armor and his very roar can powder thick glass and create waves of force so great that a gale like the leading front of a storm might be born. Even the single strike of a paw can send the earth rattling beneath feet.
His physical aptitude is thus legendarily tremendous, matched only by a god who knows how to fight the beast, as the battle is not one of the mind, but rather instinct. Failure means the
Wild God retreats to lick his wounds and rejuvenate himself yet again, right and ready to fight once more in little time at all; a power he too can bestow on others as the brush of his tongue staying even the most mortal injuries - a gift that marks him as both a creator and taker of life.
As an etheric presence, his means to manipulate the wild world is born most of his domination of predators; all such beasts bow before him and heed his command unerringly, even to the point they allow the
Wild God to see and hear, live through them, to such an extent that if desired, he might assume control of their being. While so empowered, they can fight until their body is no more, run and rampage without fatigue, and reign unearthly terror on their prey with unnatural speed, agility and resolve. Such possessions are not unknown and when roused, it is not uncommon for the
God of Fang and Claw to wreck havoc on mortals through another savage body than his own in retribution. This power ends not there, for the primeval often steps through his animal servants; winking from one location to another through their mind and eyes, seemingly impossible to tie down and capable of being anywhere his domain holds sway.
At the command of the
King of Beasts, animals from all around, even times and places long dead, answer his call; drawn from his otherworldly domain. Thus it is no surprise that when Artheron's roar booms, the world comes alive with hungering, fierce creatures, some too terrible and unnatural to speak of by men; armies of the scale, feather and fur. They fight remorselessly, only to return to their place when laid to defeat or dismissal.
No secret among the divines, the
Wild God may not be found or so much as summoned if he does not desire it. The one great exception to this are those pledged only to the God of the Hunt and that deity themselves; only they might scry his location and follow him to one of his innumerable, undetectable lairs. No less, it is only they who can see him when he wishes not to be seen - a trait he loses outside the wilderness of the world such as in the lairs of other gods, their followers, or their domains.
Finally, there is one talent which he dares not share, one secret he bestows upon those mortals who fall under his sway; he is the giver of the great gift, the power to assume the form of an animal. What few mortals ever give themselves wholly to the feral life are permitted the grant of changing their forms on whim, freely between their animal aspect and themselves. These gifted few become like agents to him, acting as an extension of his will and whatever animal gift they have been given.
Godly Equipment:There are no artifacts that belong to the
Wild God or those who abide by him. Those who have been granted his power are marked in body and soul, thus when those fail and exist no more, their gifts vanish as well.
Demigods:Among the deities, the
God of Fang and Claw avoids the expected of him; he has no lesser force to represent his domain other than the creatures of the world as a whole. Thus, there are no demigods of whom belong to Artheron. It is this unusual quality that aids him in the consolidation of his power - what makes him so renowned and feared when he does appear in the flesh.
Name of your Land:The WildlandsLands:The supernatural wilderness of the
Wildlands exists as a plane beyond the mortal one, ventured into only by the delving into the deepest depths of nature; the furthest, darkest trench of the sea, the most remote oasis of the desert, the highest mountain top and so. The land itself is the embodiment of extremes, one timeless and evidently untouched by man, a place where life goes on as if the domain never knew anything but the grace of the gods before added creation.
While its limits are virtually boundless, time and distance make no logical progress here. A mountain days off in the distance might in fact be months away, just as a night seemingly drag on well beyond its time. Unbalanced as it is cosmologically, it all serves purpose in exemplifying the creatures, predator and prey alike, that dwell there; many of whom are living their life thereafter in nature's splendor following their deaths.
Just as they did in life, predator and prey, plant and animal, all live and die to be reborn again anew within the
Wildlands. Mortals however, when they do lose themselves forever, assume their bestial forms time and time again with each reincarnation, becoming men no more but instead wise beasts.
People: The few mortals that exalt Artheron are disgruntled outsiders whose hearts run red with the passion of the ferine. They are men and women who wish to become as beasts and assume lives in the great, savage way or... they are primitive people who do not yet understand the world they surround themselves with. They view him as many different great spirits, at times one, who they pay tribute to in their humble lives. What they do fathom is that such a force is very real, more real than many other gods of the realm for they are unlikely to ever witness them in their simplicity.
These tribals, savages, barbarians, whatever their name and wherever they are in the world, know the
Wild God as the source of their animalistic powers, not the least amazing is that the most devoted of them might call upon beasts of the world or more miraculously, change themselves into beasts themselves. Such humble origins leaves them distant from all the rest of civilization and with time, many have abandoned these ways as they have progressed on, becoming outside the Great Cycle as is the way of man.
This has in turn created the secretiveness of cults in modern society who have seen or do know the
Feral Heart and who then abandon conventional worship for obscure and archaic rights of primal power. They meet in hidden groves or caves, invoking the power of the predator, hopeful that they might again discover what was lost to their people.
No matter the case, those adopted by the God of Predation as his own, who find their way miraculously to the
Wildlands on their own or live out their mortal life in service until death, are rewarded with becoming part of the Cycle Eternal. They live to die again forever in nature, reborn and reincarnated as their animal selves when the mortal flesh fails. It comes to reason that many exemplary beasts of his realm, where only nature regularly dares, are either former mortals or those animals who he so gifted.
Culture:There is no universal culture of those who follow the wild way, only those of the scattered tribes and odd wanderers who adopt it. The few cults that have arisen abide by their own rights as well, often exalting some specific aspect of the God of Predators be it the bear, the wolf, the eagle, the lion or so on. Such invocations to totems and spirits, as well as general animism, often do conjure up aspects of the
Wild God and in the rarest of cases, call him forth in the flesh.
Technology:The spread of technology among the followers of the
Wild God vary greatly from none, as the beasts of his creation and ideal, up to those used by modern men who walk the line between worlds.
Capital:There is no capital to exist for a god whose domain is carnivorous beasts.
Beings:There exists no shortage of mythical beasts born of Artheron's doing, all of whom are deviations of mundane creatures; snakes whose eyes petrify those that dare look into them, bears whose flesh is hard as stone and prowl the underground depths, birds of prey that can lift off with horse in tow, phantom cats who wink in and out of reality, wolves whose cries drive mortals mad, and other such exceptional wonders of supernature. In the rarest of times however, the blood of predators and men mingle to create beings who are then born as half-beasts, creatures somewhere between mortal and animal. So few are they in number that like the mythic animals whom they share kinship with, they are more tale than truth.
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