The Gods of Lornn pt. 1

My 20th anniversary retrospective of Lornn continues...

The Gods of Lornn

In the beginning, there was only one god known to Lornn, Mahadra, also known as Mother Lornn, the Weaver, or simply “Mother”. Historical collectors display ancient stone or clay statuettes of the Mahadra, depicting a round, heavily pregnant woman. Diviners have revealed some of these artifacts to be so ancient that they were made before the coming of the Faenorr more than ten thousand years ago. Through all those long millennia, worship of the Mother has persisted even to this day, and the Druids of Lornn have kept her wisdom and ways alive despite long periods of heavy persecution.

Some Druidic beliefs say that all other gods are her errant children, and once they have all murdered one another, Mother will again reign alone over Lornn.

As mankind slowly climbed their way towards civilization, more gods began to enter their mythology. The richest of mankind’s civilization flourished on the shores of the Sea of Constellations, and so too did the rise of the Old Gods.

According to scholars, the Old Gods were a great family of powerful entities, all related in some way to each other and all responsible for a particular natural phenomena such as lightning or earthquakes. Some were responsible for protecting the homes of commoners, or bringing productive crop seasons, or for guaranteeing revenge against one’s enemies. As the mankind grew in numbers and spread out across the face of Lornn, so did the number of gods increase, until soon there were more than any one man could give name to.

As humanity began to feel the sting of their inferiority to their Faenorr teachers, they began to search for more powerful gods who would enable them to rise above their teachers. Unfortunately for Lornn, the answer to mankind’s prayers was the Elemental Lords. According to ancient druidic lore, the Elemental Lords were always there, each controlling one of the four basic building blocks of creation. When Mahadra begin to bind together the elements to create Lornn, the Elemental Lords fought against her viciously, for they regarded her actions as a theft of their rightful sovereignties. Mahadra proved more powerful, and she wove tight barriers around Lornn to keep them out.

What she could not have anticipated, however, was the introduction of foreign magic into her world, in the form of Faenorr sorcery. Human wizards knowledgeable in this alien magic were able to make contact with the elder beings and once more let them into Lornn.

Though they are known by many names, these four are most common: Surtur, lord of Fire; Moksha, lord of Earth; Gnomus, lord of Air; and Poseidus, lord of Water. While not necessarily evil in the classic sense of the word, the Elemental Lords epitomized Chaos, and their capricious energies were often focused towards vengeance against Mahadra, Lornn, and the race of Man. Their vengeance was slow, but carefully thought out and perfectly executed, resulting in the two-thousand year dominion of the Mordrimm and the near extinction of the Druids and knowledge of Mahadra herself. But the Elemental Lords had been too quick to dismiss the Old Gods as simple myth, and this proved to be the root of their downfall.

When the Immortal Emperor appeared from across the great Western Ocean, he brought with him the Jeheradim, the New Gods. Sages now are beginning to believe the New Gods are in fact those few of the multitudinous Old Gods who did in fact exist. Druids, however, maintain that the Jeheradim are in fact the children of Mahadra, who escaped their private domain on the mystical isle of Weaver’s Way to play their games with humanity as pawns. Whatever their origins, the Jeheradim were very real, and it was they who tipped the scales in the war against the Mordrimm and the Elemental Lords, for the priests of the New Gods had magical abilities more than adequate to match the elemental sorceries of their foes.

To be continued...