The Court of the Gods
The Lord of the Skies and King of the Gods, Zeus himself, was dead. Very, very dead. After having ruled the world for centuries, he’d come to appreciate those few times that eyes were not upon him, and so he had been known to spend sleepless nights out in the crisp air, lost in reverie and meditation. So it was under the first rays of dawn that the servants found him upon the floor of his palace’s terrace.
The horrified, piercing shriek of the first serving girl to discover him had cut through the listless halls that morning. Guardsmen had quickly arrived, and then the madness began. The servants were immediately seized by the palace guards and taken for interrogation, and then those very same guardians were in turn seized for their failure and similarly put to question. Despite every effort, it took mere hours for word to spread throughout the palace, and then the resplendent marble halls and golden streets of the city of the gods. By midday it seemed as though half of the great pantheon already knew: all the gods of importance, as well as many others who were merely well connected or wont to gossip.
The cause of death was anything but natural; with all their power a god need not fear being stricken down unexpectedly by chance ailment, and Zeus’ body had been infused with enough vitality that everyone expected him to last another half century at least, even if his memory had been fading and his behavior growing more erratic in recent years. Indeed he’d been starting to deteriorate, and that had made his enemies, old and new alike, start to slowly circle like jackals.
So this was certainly an assassination. The Highest One’s own constitution had somehow been corrupted and turned upon itself to gruesome effect: little was left of Zeus’ form save for some brittle skeletal remnants lying within a grisly pool of viscera, choked with a thousand different poisons. The very powers that had sustained him had gone rogue and set about deconstructing and destroying what was left of his worldly remains. This rendered the exact cause, time, or perpetrator of his demise impossible to determine on the spot.
Everyone had their suspicions, but few dared to voice these out loud and point the finger for fear of bringing unwanted attention onto themselves. Instead, the greatest of the gods had quickly come together and conspired to cover this up. Gods could not be seen to die; the primitives down below could not be afforded to learn anything of these events. In the late Zeus’ pride and arrogance (and perhaps foresight, too) he had fortunately ordered a twin of himself to be pulled forth from the pools of life. The King of the Gods took his young simulacrum under his wing, bringing the boy around court. He had spoken to this younger duplicate and raised him as his own child and heir, to the neglect of his many biological children. For all the scandal that it had been, this egoism of the late Zeus was the Pantheon’s saving grace – a perfect replacement of their lord stood ready, identical inwards and out, a genetic replica and the spitting image of the late Zeus in his early teens. His voice was identical, his temperament every bit as haughty as the old one if not even worse. This secretive replacement would be as seamless of a transition as such things could go, and all but the most perceptive of the base mortals would likely never even know the difference – if any did, they could be decried as heretics or quietly dealt with.
So the gods anointed the young clone as the new Zeus, and quickly resumed their game with renewed fervor. Expecting that this young lord would be impressionable and easily manipulated, the High Pantheon – his most prominent officers and advisers and ministers – immediately resumed their politicking and plotting and scheming, while the kingdom’s slow decline continued.
Setting, Mechanics, Other Explanation:
General Premise
General Premise
This RP would take place in a sci-fi setting where the vast majority of the population are ‘primitives’ or ‘mortals’ who live in feudal or theocratic Iron Age communities, with a separate class of humans that have access to incredibly advanced technology and use it to pose as gods and rule over their lessers. Your characters would be members of the High Pantheon, some of the most prominent gods with important positions in society and/or access to the ear of Zeus. As high-ranking gods, your characters likely have some form of artifacts and technologies in their possession and control that grant them abilities that the primitive humans consider to be divine and magical; for instance, Zeus can remotely activate weather control satellites to conjure thunderstorms on a whim.
As they jumped into their newfound positions as gods, many of the first crewmen would have presumably taken Zeus’ lead in borrowing heavily from ancient mythology as they set about constructing their identities and roles in the pantheon. Zeus envisioned a general Greek theme to the pantheon, but with that said, some gods could certainly have constructed their own original names, identities, and mythologies, and I’m not opposed to the idea that some gods drew inspiration from different mythologies instead. Naturally, you can heavily reinterpret the mythologies if you like – a character’s history, persona, or powers need not reflect the original myths too closely (or at all!). The pantheon and religion in this setting would have been quickly cobbled together by dozens of different people with their own ideas, many of whom would have wanted to embellish their own importance. The result was probably a chaotic amalgamation of all sorts of crazy things that the mortal priests and scholars had to later go back and struggle to make sense of.
Lore
Humanity prospered and advanced, and eventually disparate factions departed from Earth and its solar system to slowly colonize other parts of the galaxy. A distant planet was terraformed in preparation for one of the first attempts at interstellar colonization, only for these first settlers to suffer some disaster early on that crippled their industrial capacity and left them trapped on the planet, doomed to live a primitive lifestyle while they hoped to eventually be rescued. A much smaller, specialized vessel was eventually sent to their aid; however, over the long and lonely voyage its captain made a decision that would alter history.
The captain decided that rather than aid the hapless people rather than help them in keeping with the original mission objectives, he would establish himself as a living god so as to lord over them. Many of the ship’s crewmembers agreed to this course of action and became the first members of a great pantheon; others did not, and were imprisoned, killed, or banished. History was rewritten and those defiant people of moral strength were denounced as demons and the like in the new canon faith.
Many centuries have passed since this first ‘Coming of the Gods’. The gods themselves have long lives and memories and have retained knowledge of their history and origins, but the base mortals condemned to live below have almost entirely forgotten about anything prior to the Coming of the Gods. Only in a few remote hamlets are there storytellers that speak of Old Arith, the heavenly plane where men inhabited before they were cast down and left to dwell in the known world. The primitive mortals have similarly forgotten about the workings of technology and many of the discoveries of science; the odd tale mentions great sorcerers and artificers from the heathen days of old, men who stole divine providence and captured lightning for their dark arts.
Many of the original pantheon have died or retired, either way with the outcome of them passing their divine titles and roles on to children or other successors. The pantheon has gradually grown from the original few dozen members to hundreds of deities of various importance and niches. Through population controls and decrees denouncing the status of half-primitive demigods, this growth has been slowed and kept at a manageable level. Though the individual gods have temples, monastery retreats, and palaces all across the planet, for the majority of the time almost all of them dwell in a magnificent utopia impossibly high in the mountains, with great ivory spires and golden streets. Base mortals are generally not permitted to enter this hallowed capital, but a few demigods or great heroes have visited it and returned to spread tales of its splendor. This place is the seat of Zeus’ throne and all divine power, and it is known by many names: Mount Olympus, the City of Marble and Gold, Elysium, Paradise.
But all is not well in Heaven. To call the gods stagnant would be generous; rather than improving the capital and advancing their powers, they have allowed some of the city’s infrastructure and systems to gradually deteriorate. Their morals and spirits have also decayed into ever lower depths. With all their politicking and hedonism, the gods’ relatively small population has gradually grown more idle, less disciplined, less knowledgeable, less competent. They no longer visit the mortal realms so often as in the days of old, and nor is their vigil over the masses so diligent as then, so more heresies have been cropping up and spreading unchecked. Even worse, the mortals have managed to attain a series of significant technological developments, several of which have contributed to a rapid rise in their population – to maintain control, the late Zeus had recently been forced to check their rise by smiting countless scholars, inventors, and priests. Then for good measure he’d ordered his pantheon to plunge the mortal realms into turmoil by inciting a bloody period of many holy wars. Discontent has slowly grown up like a creeping vine, but within Paradise itself and in the mortal plane below.
If this interest check can garner enough attention, then I would be willing to proceed on by making a real thread for the RP and perhaps expanding with a little more details about the setting and themes.
In the meantime though, I’ve already made a Discord server: DISCORD LINK
I encourage anybody interested in this to join that server to say hello and/or ask any questions or bounce possible ideas. Hope to see you there!
I already have the interest of several people – among them are @Oraculum and @Lauder who encouraged me to make this, shared ideas, and agreed to assist me as GMs. @Terminal gave me some feedback too. So thanks to them!
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