Everyone assumes once you gain enough power to be considered one of the Gods, you become omnipotent and know everything. But you don't. Almost none of us have such a thing. We have power, true, but we still have our hearts. -- Lessons
Deification is one hell of a drug. Do something that the world remembers, and your name and soul become immortal. Do something truly awesome, and you become worshipped. Which is something of a shock when you started life as a Tiefling.
Perseverance Buschelle rose up on the flood of faith. She had never had wings and did not need them now. She had expected to die, but this was the furthest thing from death that there could be.
She could see... and feel... everything. It was awesome. It was awe-full. It was awful. She could hear thousands of prayers already.
Have mercy... they cried. Take pity... they begged. Spare my... they whispered. All at once. She could hear them all. Feel the belief fueling her. Devout hands were already shaping idols, making altars. Some were asking what they should sacrifice to her glory.
Worshiping a Tiefling. All because she defeated an elder god with a spool of thread and a toothpick.
Anyone could have done it if they were determined enough to do all the research. Create the right thread. Have the exact right kind of toothpick... But they had all seen her go in with those weapons, and then watched the elder god die.
Fields watered with the blood would be fertile and abundant for millennia. Weapons and arms forged from the bones would never break. Perseverance's first temple was made out of its hide. And her mortal remains would be housed there in full reverence.
Religion is weird about this sort of stuff.
When one god dies, another takes its place. But it doesn't always take its role. Usually, the belief sways and the deity rises slowly as the other fades into whispers and rotting temples or vine-wrapped altars. This was as abrupt as her deification, and twice as suprising.
Guide us... said the prayers. Teach us... they murmured. What will you have us do? Who are you? What do you champion?
"I... am..." said Perseverance. "I am my name. I am perseverance. I admire determination and thoroughness. Not merely to do what you wish, but to do things for the greater good. Lift up my kind in kindness and kindness shall be your reward. Take steps to worry away at trouble, and I will aid you. Grind away at evil until it is nothing and I will be your pestle."
They were good words for a new god. Perseverance was exactly the kind to do the same even with the power of the divine. She was still a small deity, in a world full of others.
Tieflings flocked to her, as one of the few gods who did not automatically view them as an ill omen. They learned quickly that the divine powers could only assist. They were the ones who had to do the heavy lifting.
And still the prayers came. Have mercy... Spare my... Guide me...
It would be centuries, yet, before Perseverance would surrender her mortal habit of doing things one at a time.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Gamjai]
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