The Banished Gods Era

The All Lives War left the landscape of the Multiverse with many deep and long lasting scars. The once vibrant Materium bore the brunt of the conflict. Spans of the landscape laid shattered, and lingering magical scars served as a reminder of the devastation. To this day there are still some of these scars that can be seen on Inventa.

The Creations, although victorious, had to grapple with the aftermath of the onslaught. Towns, villages, and communities all lay in ruin and entire ecosystems were thrown into disarray. Islands and landscapes formed unnaturally now just shards of a once complete planet, and Inventa seemed like a lost hope. Yet, amidst the wreckage, a newfound spirit of resilience bloomed. Races that once disliked each other’s existence and argued or warred amongst themselves now banded together to rebuild the shattered world.

The Balance called upon The Collective, and this time the offer extended to the evil deities, with the promise of no ill play. During the assembly an agreement was met, the evil deities were to be banished to the evil planes of existence and not destroyed. Within the evil planes they could do as they saw fit with no repercussions from the good deities. The evil deities were to also be added to The Collective moving forward, so they could be heard, input on affairs, and work alongside the other deities for the longevity of divinity.

The trade-off for this was that no divine begins would be allowed to directly step foot within The Materium, and instead had to influence the plane through other means. Good deities went to the good aligned planes, neutral deities would harbour wherever they saw fit, and evil deities returned to whence they came.

The Creations, unaware of such a ploy by the Lesser Deities, started rumours that the evil deities were trapped in a desolate void, forever yearning for their revenge. Those that saw the evil deities as leaders rebuilt their temples and places of worship, believing that their prayers would empower their return. Other believed that the evil deities found refuge in a hidden plane called Shimmering Shadows, plotting their return, and so began building temples to the good deities in preparation for another war.

Regardless of the evil deities’ location, the theories of their fate were a constant weight in the minds of the Creations.

It was The Judge who was tasked with upholding the separation between the good and evil Creations by The Balance, which led to bearing a heavy burden. He established a celestial gateway, a shimmering carrier pulsating with divine energy which served as a boundary between the planes. The gateway was, and is, not a physical thing, it represents a fundamental tenet of the Multiverse – the delicate balance between light and darkness.

Maintaining the ruling of balance was not without its own challenges as The Judge would find out. Deities with more militant tendencies, particularly those born from the fire of war, chafed at the restrictions the barrier presented. The line between righteous fury and destructive rage is often blurred, and during this era it led to skirmishes and accusations hurled at the divine to map the limitations.

With the evil deities “banished”, The Sword became a beacon of hope for the Creations. Temples were erected in her honour, and her image adorned countless banners. She was worshipped directly as a deity, but instead revered as a champion and a symbol of unwavering spirit. Bards sang of her bravery, mothers told tales of her resilience to their children, and combatants trained in her name. Yet underneath the adulation, a quiet unease lingered.

The Sword, burdened by the weight of leadership in the eyes of the Creations, worried about the complacency that could settle in with peace.

Meanwhile the evil gods set to work once again, using their twisted minds to impose great discomfort and torture on the souls of those that fell in the evil god’s name. Great cities were built on the evil planes and where they butted against one another large endless wars would rage, fuelled by the ever-arriving spirits of evil believers. They settled on being known as The Banished Gods, believing it carried weight with their previous actions and celebrated the evil they implemented on the world.

With an equilibrium being formed throughout the Multiverse it seemed everyone was beginning to settle. The Allseer knew this peace wouldn’t last and so employed The Architect to begin work on both a city of good and its defenders, birthing the era known as The Mehrd Metallic Protectors.