Venadak
Contents
Introduction
Venadak is the most powerful of all the Gods, and he is also the most feared. Once the beloved and gloried God of Order and Light, and an image of the divine love held for their creations, he has since become a corrupted force of terror and spite, locked within the depths of the infernal plane. Among all the Gods, even the corrupted ones, Venadak speaks and interacts with the world the least... and so, little is known about him now. He is spoken of with a sense of tragedy and sorrow, but also incredible worry, and around him come speculations of worldly death and the apocalypse, the God viewed as the bringer of the end-times. Many believe he is awaiting a moment to leave his darkly realm, and as the Gods have learned of the horror he has become, they fear the moment he decides that he will contain himself no longer.
History
"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 nebula, drained solar systems of life, and eradicated species that sought to grow to fruition. All of this power was funneled into a vessel 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 inflict 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 to the 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 Outsider, and then he fled. He left the Night Eater behind and practiced what the Altars had taught him. He moved within light, but moved faster still, folding the boundaries of space and time. He returned home, to a realm overlooked 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 asked 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 slayed 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, Saryn 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 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.
Venadak suffered, always, struggling with the writhing creature that still echoed within him. He had learned very early on to control it -- 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.
x
The Emperor, Valen, had lived a long life. A Draedan, he had gathered many other Demigods to rule as his council. Some of these pseudo-divine were even the children of Venadak himself, crafted by his many physical bonds to the men and women of their world. All-in-all, there were twelve of these divine beings present upon the God's confrontation, and -- perhaps due to some reluctance to cull them -- they managed to best the God by a hair, defeating him and eventually taking his form and essence. Seven other Gods came to his aide, hoping to free him before Valen was able to find a way to destroy him, and a brief battle raged. It was a bloodbath; all of the Demigods that gathered were killed within moments, as the militant half of the divine pantheon ripped through the palace and punished the people of the city below. The capital of the Empire was razed in a destructive fury, and quickly the divine beings closed in.
Perhaps Venadak's attack - and his failure - had been the one thing Emperor Dres needed in order to achieve what he so desired. Most believe he did not obtain anything but death, only managing to damage what he could as he desperately lashed out in his final, bitter moments. The Emperor used what he had learned to sunder the planes, using Venadak's failing form as a conduit, and rupturing through his own soul to break through the foundational stability of these realms. A fracture was made through the Light God's chest, and as the planes contorted and holes bled through them, the unmitigated ether of the universe flowed through the God's body, his own form the epicenter of it all.
The seven other Gods that had come to his aide, as well as Valen, were the first beings struck by this explosion of destructive power, and they were filled with a raw energy so copious that even they suffered the extremities of Magithermal Entropy, their divine souls incapable of managing the sheer amount of energy that flowed through them. Their bodies were first mangled and nearly obliterated, and then the corruptive nature of this overflow took root from within their veins. Venadak became the most corrupted of them all, a living vessel for the Bleeding of the Planes, the outflow of energy that eventually spread to the corners of their world. The mortal plane was nearly destroyed, with the closest life to the epicenter being totally culled. The entire region of Mornoth was brutally wounded, with whole countries overcome by ethereal waste, and corruptive plagues.
But Venadak was still alive, and so were the other seven, though all of them were now corrupted. Even facing the breadth of the Bleeding so directly, and in full destructive force, and even filled with near-infinite degenerative energy... he and his companions still lived. It was only then that they truly understood the nature of divinity, and just how Godly they truly were. They looked upon the Empire around them and saw that the land itself had fallen into a rotting sea, and that all living souls for hundreds of miles around had died the moment this corruptive energy emerged. But they still lived.
Venadak could already see the madness beginning to brew within many of their souls. The corruption had in some way begun to decay their minds, much as he felt it decaying his own. As they all recognized their power, many of them began to speak of how they should no longer allow mortals to lead their own fate; how the actions of Lord Dres had taught them that the people beneath them needed to be strictly controlled. And they laughed, and reveled, in the immensity of their might; how they had survived the Bleeding, while millions of others died like crushed ants. He began to see a difference in his peers, and while some of them had been affected far worse than others, the inherent shreds of goodness within most of them had begun to fade.
Worse of all, he felt corruption bleeding out from them into Atharen, deepening the wound left by the suffering. If allowed to return to Muid, the eight of them would only taint and destroy the realm of their home -- they had become carriers for a virulent, ethereal plague.
The Light-God acted, forging a new plane. Venadak managed to construct a prison that even divine beings could not slip through, confining all of them into this new realm of Bel to ensure that their corruptive energy did not continue to leak out from their forms. In containing them all, he averted the true dangers of the Bleeding's aftermath: the madness of the Gods that would see all of Atharen razed, the web of poison that gushed from their souls. Venadak locked himself at the bottom-most layer of Bel, preventing even the other Gods from entering, so that they could not come together to destroy him and thus free themselves of their prison. He would bring with him his spiritual companions, and they would create more of their own, to provide themselves company and to fulfill his and their ambitions.
And since this time -- now hundreds of years past -- Venadak has lived at the lowest layer of Bel, alone, contemplating as corruption continues to make an affront upon his mind. A warden to his own self-created prison, it is known by many that he has lost himself and the man and God that he once was. No longer an unmitigated beacon of light, Venadak finds himself scarred by pain and isolation, and the rot of ether within him. He has become a torturer, a punisher, a cruel flail of unending judgment -- but one who still maintains his prison, perhaps as a result of his last decent shreds.
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 eight 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.
