Venadak
Contents
Introduction
Venadak was once the chief of all Gods, their uniter and King. After the Bleeding and his subsequent self-imprisonment, the Adac King fell from that mantle, unable to contain the havoc coursing through his form. Venadak is often seen as the bringer of the end times β a force of nature so raw and powerful that it can unmake reality, acting as an arbiter of Atharen's destruction. While he remains quietly imprisoned in Adena, far away from thought or view, millions still fear what might come to pass if he were ever to leave his confinement and seek to become what he once was.
History
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Foundation
"Venadak would form life from formlessness. He would create, without technology, on a palette of empty space. With each creation he made, though, something from him was taken away." Evitrix
Venadak, once Venadr, was born trillions of miles away, on a distant ship known as the Night Eater: the flagship of a great Imperium that scoured space, the helm of a dark Empire that slaughtered lifeforms by the billions, sacrificing them in a tide of blood to a dark, starving God. The millennia of Adac dominion over space was one of rationality, scientific innovation and enterprise, but not for Venadr's people. They wielded the technologies common to their kin, but innovated in other ways: they learned magic from landmarks known as Grim Altars, facets of the God which provided them with power beyond imagination in exchange for inflicting chaos upon the stars. Venadr, the Crown Prince of this Empire, watched as his father's legion inflicted rotting plagues upon nebulae, drained solar systems of life, and eradicated species that sought to grow to fruition. All of this power was funneled into a black pyramid known as the Leviathan, the mouth of their hungry deity. It grew and grew, and yet still, it wanted more: it commanded the Empire to eradicate all other members of their kind, setting them on a crusade that would eventually afflict their species with doom.
The Empire won the war, and from the Night Eater, Venadr commanded many of their victories. The Prince never longed to fulfill his imperative, but he listened dutifully to the man he revered, and equally to the gnawing voice that whispered out from every Grim Altar that he forged, creating fonts of power from the writhing souls of the dead. The Empire marched in a wave of chaos, towards the last bastions of resistance. Where they expected vibrant planets and barricades of defense, they found silence, the surfaces of once thriving worlds black, the oceans dry and the lands remade of nothing but ebony sands. As they drew near to what was once the thriving core of their species, the planet on which they were born, they met with the creature that would eventually spell the end of their kind, feasting on the tattered remnants of cities, the star that once illuminated their home shriveled and empty.
Venadr lost his battle against the devourer, and then he fled. He left the Night Eater behind and practiced what the Altars had taught him. He moved within light, then moved faster still, folding the boundaries of space and time. He returned home, to a realm watched by the Leviathan, and informed his father of what had occurred. Despite what he relayed, Venadr could not penetrate his father's lost, brutal mind. He was ordered to return, to reclaim the Night Eater and slay the foe who had disgraced him. Thoughtlessly, he complied, though that night the Altar's whispers boomed and echoed within his mind. He was tormented, brought to his palms and knees against the frame of his bed, agony enveloping him as the voice and its demands grew louder, and louder, and eventually clear. Certainty echoed. He finally knew what the voice wanted, and like the obedient soldier he was, he obliged it. Venadr moved through the light once again, rising in a spire towards the mouth of the Leviathan, which throbbed with both anticipation and fear.
The echo that had tormented him thrummed through the black, sleek halls of the ship instead, the walls singing that single word. Vessel. Venadr approached its heart, and it lurched forward to swallow him, enmeshing him with warmth. That night, the ship became quiet and quickly fell into disrepair, but from it emerged the savior of the very species he had doomed: Venadak. No longer merely a member of a species of ageless aristocrats, but by his own estimation, a God. Venadak slew his father as dawn broke, and set out to find the remainder of his kind.
Whatever he was to them before, Venadak was no longer considered an enemy. Alongside Tenebrax and Evitrix, the God-King shifted the focus of his Empire to the production of a marvel that would break the boundaries of time and space, a vessel that would escort the Adac to their freedom. Venadak began to create the earliest disciplines of magic, imbuing his chosen kin with dominion over broad spectrums of reality. He gifted others with aspects of himself, imbuing Malek with the power to harvest souls, Saren with the ability to interface with probability in order to build a tapestry of time, and so on. Time passed on, and through the creation of Evitrix's vessel, the Adac moved forward to a new home, the God-King's sole intention being to preserve his species above all else.
The Outsider, the name they had given to the mantis-shaped beast, followed them even across galaxies, a feat they thought to be impossible. The beast, forged by the Adac themselves to defeat Venadr's brutal, unruly Empire, annihilated their vessel, and crushed their dreams of reforging an enlightened civilization somewhere in the distant confines of space. The Adac scattered like insects and were picked off over time, until eventually Venadak found his closest allies again.
The King forged the plane of Atharen, and with thirteen of his brethren he built the structures that became their bastion. He and his peers created life, a seed meant to nourish the plane, which depended on the souls of the dead as much as it did the light of the sun. They became Gods among these fledgling beings, and over time developed more and more sophisticated life-forms, until they found that they very much looked like themselves.
Through all of this time, Venadak pleased himself with distractions.
Atharen
Venadak suffered, always, struggling with the writhing creature that still echoed within him. He had learned very early on to control it β to calm its impulses, to erase its identity. The God-King had escaped the moniker of vessel, becoming the face of the dark power bestowed within him. The battle had always been difficult, but it was one he consistently won. The line between vessel and ruler narrowed, and the other Gods stopped fearing him over time. The Creator came to live among his flock, who carried his original likeness, and they celebrated him as a good and merciful Lord. Ages came, so many of beauty, though centuries of pain followed alongside them like familiar passers by. Venadak wanted very much to interfere with the growth of Atharen's life β to fight to stop their fits of cruelty, but always the other Gods restrained him. He became isolated from them, and eventually took to living on the planet in the guise of a regular man, one who traveled the breadth of his world. He took on countless lovers, built a hundred families, and left a facet of himself in place when he was ready to leave, like a snake shedding its skin.
He whispered wisdom into inventors minds, and saw the creation of marvels once built by his own kind thousands of years in the past. At the culmination of Venadak's many mortal lives, he witnessed the Unbroken Empire meet its zenith, the greatest nation ever born on Atharen. The Emperor, Valen, was one of his own sons, and in much the same style of his father, he had drawn others of his kind β Draedan β to rule alongside him as his council. Twelve of these Demigods presided over their sprawling nation, eluding the judgment of the Gods as they dreamt of surpassing them, and becoming them.
The Creator urged his son to cease his heresy, but his words only inflamed Valen's actions. He began to persecute and kill mages, who were traditionally the acolytes of the Gods, and ransacked countless monuments to the Adac and chapels of their worship. The God-King grew incensed, and in a fury demanded that the other Gods meet to plan a counter-initiative against the heretical Empire. While all of them understood the threat that encroached towards them, many were content to idle and leave things as they were β as long as mortals lived and died, they would feed the Well of Souls. Venadak became furious with his subordinates, snarling at them in a rage as they appeared to helplessly allow for the oppression of their own people β those loyal and faithful to them. Against the will of the other Gods, he went alone, commanding Evitrix to utilize Eridan-5 to raze the Empire's capital province of Mithira, and for Saren to prevent any of the Empire's rulers from leaving.
Venadak plummeted from the heavens, watching as flexing beams of light descended from the sky, obliterating entire cities as they scorched through the land. There, he met with the twelve ruling Draedan on the field of battle, and utterly crushed them all. He was shot in the head; he slaughtered the first Draedan, ripping out their spine. Vessel. He was kicked and clawed as he beat another to death. Vessel. He was spit upon, cursed, as he watched his own daughter weep and mewl while her ribs were broken and her lungs were crushed by her father's bare hands. Vessel. Venadak remembered his old life, who he was: the dutiful Prince. He had never fully forgotten, but killing his kind always made him remember with clarity.
His eyes emptied, after a while, and his mind soared to a galaxy dead. The voice thrummed within him again. He could feel it all once more β his hand moving along the sleek black walls of the Leviathan's corridor, the floor quietly rattling, the word singing to him as his body filled with a burrowing, painful terror. Vessel. Before he knew it, a knife was plunged through his chest, and the putrid essence of that old, dark God spilled out. He bled. He was bleeding.
Vessel.
Venadak ached as he once did, feeling that voice crawl beneath his skin. It poured out into the world, and suddenly he could no longer control it. Within him, that power had morphed into a hideous, twisted thing, and it threatened to annihilate everything around it, just like it once did: draining the lives of entire worlds, their souls withering into the mouth of the great Leviathan. Venadak sobbed, and mourned, as the sky lit up a familiar, crimson red. The boundaries of the plane became unstable, energy pouring in and erupting with volatility, particles colliding against the shores of Mithira with the force of meteors. As reality became unraveled, six of the Adac that had left Venadak to fight the Emperor alone came to Adena to piece him back together, to close the bleeding vessel, but they could not. Reality continued to tear, and unravel, and Venadak continued to weep. Before any of them knew it, they were all confined to a Bel forged of desperation and fear.
He imprisoned all of them, as all of them were corrupted by the plague that bled out from his form; the plague of corruption and rot, and the dark will of the entity held within him. Y'shendra, Jaxkael, Saren, Valteran, Brazim and Valice, all were inflicted with the same, aching madness he had survived for millennia, and few could handle its sheer, piercing shape. They fell to the ground, squirming, blood and pus spilling from their eyes and ears to the tainted ground. Venadak left them to die, there, as he gorged on the remnants of the entity still spilt across the floor, and crawled deeper into the pit he had made β towards the ruined capital he had encompassed within his twisted land β and isolated himself, alone.
And so was the beginning of the end.
Depiction
Venadak is an enigmatic figure, though it is known that he appears as a very large man clad in intimidating black armor, lined with jagged spikes. He wields an incredible black blade that emanates searing heat even meters away. Within the black, there can be seen traces and scrapes of gold, which appears to be the original color from within the corruption. This weapon was once the tool through which Venadak emanated his light while seeking out the other Gods, and was the holiest artifact of the Path. Now, like him, it has fallen to corruption.
Before his fall, Venadak was a tall man of golden skin, amber-colored eyes and shoulder-length blond hair. He had sharp Elf-like ears, with the Hyr'norai apparently modeled after him and other Gods like him. It is unknown how he appears now, beneath the armor, though the shade of his eyes has changed to a shade closer to a smoldering red.
Domains
Venadak has three domains: Light, Order and Creation. However, 'Creation' is rarely spoken of, largely due to a lack of understanding as to what it truly means. All Gods are capable of creating, but Venadak is capable of doing so to a different degree. While all can create, Venadak can bend reality to a level beyond that of the other Gods around him, at least in terms of raw construction and alteration of physical matter. It is with this power that he has created the planets, the stars, and even the planes. Venadak is a true warper of reality, capable of manifesting his divine will even beyond the barriers of Bel. Many of the ethereal storms that have raged across Atharen since the Bleeding are actually the result of his misguided divine will; moments of weakness, suffering or bitter rage, leaking out beyond their confinement. His divine will is perhaps the most sharp and capable of all, which leads to the extent of his power.
Order is the Domain that allows Venadak to create the foundation of planes, while 'Creation' effectively allows him to build them and fill them in, enabling him to create vast structures of land with refined acuity. Order also allows him to manipulate the planes, and open doors through them. He effectively creates laws and rules for planes using this power, with many of these laws so compelling that even other Gods cannot defy them, forcing them to play by the rules he constructed.
Light is a simple domain of his: before his corruption, he was called the God of the Sun, as he created it. Venadak is capable of producing endless light, and manipulating it to wield a variety of characteristics and features. The reason the sun's glow brings warmth is because of him; the reason it travels quickly, the reason it nourishes life. Many of these factors were decided in coordination with the other Gods, but the importance of light is due to Venadak's influence over it, and how it was made to affect the world. Venadak's powers over light are immense. He is capable of wielding it as a weapon of endless possibilities, and can perform great feats by using his light alone.
Influence
Venadak was always depicted as a God of civilization and laws before his fall. He was also the God of the Sun, and many also attributed the creation of Atharen itself to him, though it was a collaborative project between all of the Gods. He was incredibly important to the divine pantheon before his fall, with the sun the primary symbol of the Faith for thousands of years. However, as a result of his descent, this is no longer the case. He is now depicted as a creature of terror, with darkly talons and deep red eyes that stare with hatred. His 'light' is always said to wield a smoldering red haze within it, with his realm a wasteland of fire and misery. Venadak has moved from being the archetypal figure of Godliness to that of destruction, evil and ruin, and perhaps much of this is due to the living Gods' fear of him. Mostly he is a terrifying enigma, and often when brought up, people will simply say not to speak of him before ultimately changing the subject.
Dogma
Venadak does not seek out followers any longer. Even the cultists who do worship him tend to be scattered without a reliable divine text or dogma to work from, and so they tend to have a plethora of regionally-influenced beliefs. He almost never speaks to mortals, and seems to lack in ambition to spread any of his word or ideals. As a result, he ascribes no code of ethics to his followers, and has no true dogma that is known.
Notable Religious Factions
The Order of the Imprisoned
The Order of the Imprisoned, or the Imprisoned, are the largest cult of Venadak by far. They are a group dedicated to freeing the self-imprisoned God, and reintroducing him to the world so that he may cleanse it of mortal anarchy. They believe that the Gods must rule Atharen, and that the seven Living Gods must be punished for their failure to intervene in the events that led to the Bleeding. While Venadak is the chief figure of the Imprisoned, they worship all eight Corrupted Gods, and often facilitate between their many cultists across the world.
Bel
Bel is the realm of Venadak, who created it to be his own prison, and bound the other corrupted Gods within it. The bottom layer of Adena is where Venadak lives, and so information on his realm can be found in that section of the article.
Demigods
Venadak once had the most Draedan of any of the Gods, as he would often engage in long-term relationships with mortal men and women, and would create children with them through divine means. As a result of this, there are still a considerable number of Venadak's Draedan alive, though many of them came to Bel to live with their father after his corruption, leaving very few remaining on the surface world. It is unknown if Venadak has had any mortal lovers since his fall, and while it is possible for the Corrupted Gods to procreate through their avatars, not a single new child of Venadak has been confirmed on Atharen in hundreds of years.
Lyria
Lyria is probably the most famous of Venadak's children, a Hyr'norai woman sired by an Elven mother, who has since become one of the many warmongers of Bel, leading a large army within the Mantle of Arun. Many of these followers of hers are spirits who once served her father, though she has also created many of her own to serve as an extension of her divine might. Lyria is a cruel and vicious woman, one who has been corrupted by the ether of Bel for hundreds of years, leading her to madness and loathing. She believes that Bel is her birthright and that even the Gods of Velyar must bow to her.
Before her own corruption, Lyria was Venadak's beloved daughter, most loyal and fervent of his children. She was the first to join him in his solitude in Adena, but the corruption proved too much for even her divine veins. She eventually grew enraged with his inaction and left to fight in the Endless War, wielding her immense powers to subdue and cull the many lesser spirits and even mortals who found their way within the grim realm.
