Heroes' Epoch Campaign: Background - Deities and Titans (Patreon)

I'm continuing work on the Heroes' Epoch campaign, a Pathfinder 1st-ed game using my Start-11 rules.

Because I am designing this game to run from 11th to 20th (or so) level, I want players to have some idea how ancient history, planar politics, and cosmology work in the campaign. Running a game where things such as plane shift and create minor demiplane are realistic options (soon, if not to start), question about how gods and outsiders work are more likely to come up than in a game starting at 1st level.

OTOH, I don't want players to have to read a 64+ page gazetteer before they can make characters. So, I’m not writing a huge history of the universe, but when dealing with 11th-level characters, things like divinities, near-divinities, and eldritch horrors may well come up, and I want the players to have a simple grounding they can use as context to events as they encounter them in-play.

Quick Cosmology and Deity Guide

Since I am running this in Pathfinder 1st ed, I’m using the gods native to that game system… but I am not using that game world or history. This gives players a huge range of deities with game mechanics built in, without me being tied to that game world. The deities are listed here: https://www.aonprd.com/DeitiesByGroup.aspx

Since cultures are not based on species, neither are deities. The Reisende worship tough, hearty gods including many categorized in Pathfinder as core deities, other deities, dwarven, giant, and orc gods, but also Ketephys the Elven Deity of forestry, hunting, the moon. The “major gods” include all those listed as core deities, other deities, Azlanti Pantheon, deities of Ancient Osirion, deities of Tian Xia, dwarven deities, elven deities, giant deities, goblin hero-gods, and halfling deities. Many are not commonly worshiped on the campaign continent (such as the Azlanti, Ancient Osirion, Tian Xia, and goblin hero-gods), but are recognized as Major Gods by those well-educated in such matters. No god was ever a mortal, and stories about those who were once mortal in Pathfinder cosmology are instead told as stories about them in their divine youths or moments when they divinely blessed a major mortal agent. There is no Starstone, and the idea a mortal could become a god is considered debunked.

The Young Gods are as close to divine ascension as this campaign gets. The most powerful outsiders, dragons, and fey became the minor Young Gods, and include Archdevils, Asura Ranas, Daemon Harbingers, Demon Lords, Fey Eldest, Elemental Lords, Empyreal Lords, Horsemen, Infernal Dukes, Kyton Demagogues, Malebranche, Oni Daimyo, Primal Inevitables, Protean Lord, Psychopomp Usher, Qlippoth Lords, Queens of the Night, Immortal Rakshasa, and Sahkil Tormentors. These entities are often collectively called the Young Gods, and nearly all answer to and serve a true Deity. They are not as widely worshiped as the Major Gods, and in most cases have localized cults or are patrons of a single city, group, organization, or uncommon profession or status.

A Summation of All History

The Firmament War

First, before things like time and space existed, there were just the Great Old Ones (both the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods in Pathfinder terms) in the morphic Eldritch Weave. Then Gods game to be. There was a war between the gods and the Great Old Ones. Gods made the outer planes and a Firmament, which kept the Great Old Ones and the Eldritch Weave outside of reality… mostly. To guard the Firmament, they jointly created the Tarasque, which sleep on the Firmament Fault.

The Gods' Epoch

The Gods stopped acting in unison and, in groups called Pantheons, formed time, the Astral, Ethereal, and Material Planes, and defined the reality of each Outer Plane. The gods often came into direct conflict but discovered that doing so could tear apart reality. The Material Planes would begin unraveling immediately, the elemental and ethereal plane after anything but the briefest of conflicts, and the Astral and outer planes if conflict involved numerous gods or a sustained opposition.

As time passed, the most powerful outsiders and fey and dragons achieved the status of minor deities, becoming The Young Gods. They were far more likely to engage in direct conflict than the older Major Gods, and all of reality was threatened, especially the barrier keeping out the Great Old Ones. Each Pantheon of the Major Gods acted to reign in the Young Gods and a status quo developed where all the Gods took to working through agents, often called ‘worshipers.’ Gods are not dependent on worshipers for power, but for the most part can only see their vision of a preferred reality brought forth through the actions of worshipers. Acts of worship do more closely align mortals with their gods, allowing the mortals to channel more divine gifts from their patron god or gods.

The Titans' Epoch 

(Art by Alejandro)

The most powerful mortal creatures, the Titans, ruled the world. These all existed prior to the creation of the Material World, and included the progenitors of aberrations, giants, and magical beasts and demigods and godlings descended from Young Gods. The most powerful titans sought to follow the eldest dragons and fey into godhood, but lacked some needed element to bridge the gap from nearly all-powerful mortal to true god. Magic spells, magic items, alchemy, runes, and undeath were all created by Titans seeking to solve this failing.

A Titan known to history only as the Godsbane sought to release the Tarasque to slay the gods, believing there was a finite amount of divine energy, and for new gods to rise old ones had to die. The Godsbane war was fought between those Titans willing to destroy reality to become Gods and their mortal servants, and everyone else. The Godsbane’s forces were put down or imprisoned. Those Titans who accepted they could not become gods built or found strongholds to protect them, and slept.

The Heroes' Epoch

With the gods working only through intermediaries, and Titans dead, imprisoned, or asleep, the remaining mortals were free to build civilizations… or tear them down. City-states and a few empires arose. The powers created by the Titans were studied and expanded by other mortals, and in many cases expanded and codified. A few of the most powerful mortals choose to conquer all of the Mortal world, or to expand into and control the Ethereal or Elemental Planes, and Heroes arose to stop them. While some heroes were agents of the gods, others drew on the inventions of the Titans, or the power of Blood and Iron to put down their enemies.

It has been 500 years since the last titan went to sleep and the Heroes’ Epoch began. No God has directly interfered with mortals or come into direct conflict with any other god in all this time. Mortals have fought wars, delved into the ruins of the Titan’s Epoch, run across ancient cultures than one worshipped the Great Old Ones, fought wars over ideas, wealth, land, and resources, had both unspeakable villains and noble heroes rise from their numbers.

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