This pantheon belongs to the native Old Settler religion of the Aondoar Stellar Republic. It is the second most widespread religion in Imperial Space, after Ideolatry, and, as is common with polytheisms, often intermingles and syncretizes with it.
Onss (fr. Latin "ens," being)
High god, conceived deistically or pantheistically, with virtually no cult. Identified with the Pantomorph or Being in Ideolatry.
Nadra (fr. "nature")
Goddess of physical life and health, evolution, ecology. Cf. "Mother Nature," Ideolatry's Nature, St. Yarth, the Fate Clotho, the elan vital. Patron of environmentalism, medicine, bio-science, and bio-tech.
Goss (fr. "chaos")
Goddess of luck, non-linearity, fractility. Cf. Fortuna, Ideolatry's Luck, Loki, Hermes, Thoth, Coyote, Br'er Rabbit, and the Fate Lachesis. Patron of gamblers and schemers. A trickster figure.
Untervo (fr. "entropy")
God of destruction and knowledge, vengence and fate. Cf. Mimr, Yama, the Devil, Hades, Nemesis, and the Fate Atropos. Patron of science and justice. Psychopomp. Sometimes a trickster figure. Sometimes a muse. Has several identifications in Ideolatry, including Fate/Destiny, Death, Justice, and Wisdom, but does not really syncretize well.
Retti (fr. Latin "rete," net)
Goddess of cybernetics. Cf. Thoth, Hephaistos, Athene. Patron of AIs, robotics, virtual reality, comm tech.
Barr (fr. "power")
God of energy. Cf. Thor, Zeus, Marduk, Indra. Patron of power technology and utilities.
Moda (fr. "media")
Goddess of fame and reputation. Patron of celebrities, performers, mass media, politics. Sometimes a trickster figures. A common muse figure.
Nanish (fr. "financial")
God of wealth. Cf. Pluto, Ganesha, Mercury. Patron of bankers, merchants, brokers, business in general.
Venna (fr. "winner")
Goddess of victory. Cf. Nike, Ideolatry's Victory. Patron of athletes, military commanders, and contestants of all kinds.
Oth (fr. "authority, authorize")
God of authority. Cf. Isis triad, Zeus, Jupiter, El. Patron of government, law enforcement, politics, leaders and leadership. Sometimes identified with Ideolatry's Justice.
Draffo (fr. "driver," "traffic," or "travel")
God of traffic and vehicles. Cf. Hermes, Mercury, Odin. Patron of travellers, navigators, cars, and ships.
Fyless (fr. "violence")
God of battle. Cf. Mars, Ares. Patron of all professional fighters.
Aratta and Aratto (the Arratti) (fr. "erotic")
Goddess and god of passion. Cf. Venus, Aphrodite, Eros, Cupid. Patrons of romance and sex. Sometimes syncretized as the children of Ideolatry's Love and Beauty, or identified with them in various ways.
Sig (fr. "psych" or poss. "Sigmund")
God of mentality, including inspiration, dreams, and madness. Cf. Thoth, Apollo, Dionysios, Hecate. Patron of recreational stimulants, psychology, parapsychology. A muse for more profound or abstract inspiration. Sometimes identified with Ideolatry's Wisdom.
Pakris (fr. "progress")
Goddess of justice, mercy, generosity, and social harmony. Cf. Ma'at, Athene, Amida. Patron of reformers and special interest groups. Sometimes identified with Ideolatry's Mercy.
This group appeals most to the highly educated. As a result, it has a body of mythic literature (largely allegorical) out of proportion to the relatively small size of the cults of the triad. (The individual members have fairly vigorous cults.)
Example: Each member of the triad is seen as standing at a midpoint between the other two. Between Nadra (as law) and Goss (as chaos), Untervo stands as the law of chaos, or the chaos produced by law. Between Untervo (as destruction) and Nadra (as creation), Goss stands as a whimsical blend of the two. Between Goss (as the excessive) and Untervo (as the deficient), Nadra stands as the viable middle way.
This group is worshipped jointly at shrines in public places and office buildings, and often invoked together at major public or business events. Public events are often depicted as being arbitrated by them. Oth and Pakris tend to be depicted as quarreling antagonists, Oth representing the status quo or status quo ante, Pakris representing the forces of change. Nanish and Venna then come to represent the capricious forces that break up the deadlocks between conservative and innovative forces.
Although each of the deities has a flourishing cult of its own, their spheres overlap enough that they also frequently appear in joint shrines, e.g. in a maintenance department for a large building.
Moda, goddess of the media, is the clear central figure of this group, which is more an expansion on her cult than a grouping in its own right. (The other groups do not have unambiguous leaders.) The other deities are, so to speak, mythological celebrities, representing those things most reported in the media. The Arratti preside over fashion as well as their more obvious domains of pornography, romance stories, and contact between lovers. Fyless presides over action-adventure fiction, and (together with Venna) combative sports. Venna presides over all sports, game shows, and every other form of contestive entertainment. Nanish presides over financial news, business communications, and the large quantities of money associated with fame.
This triad represent, respectively, the emotions of battle (courage, cowardice, rage, and fear), the science of battle (tactics, strategy, weapons technology), and the fortunes of battle. Sometimes, Fyless is simply the patron of the bad guys and Untervo of the good guys.
Sister and brother deities of sexual attraction, often appealed to by lovers and lovelorn alike. Aratta is the ideal of female beauty, gives beauty to women, and inspires desire in males; her brother is the converse. Each may also inspire desire in their own sex, usually accompanied by inspirations on how to achieve that desire. Aratta has a larger independent cult than Aratto, but both are popular.
There is no clear king of the gods analogous to Zeus. But the cosmological triad, Nadra, Untervo, and Goss, are clearly of greater rank than the other gods.
Onss appears only at the beginning of the theogony, and only as the source of Goss, Untervo, and Nadra, along with the raw energy of creation.
The cosmological triad shapes this raw energy into the cosmos. With the creation of physical life, Nadra gives birth to Oth, Fyless, the Aratti, and Sig.
Goss is the mother of Venna (by Untervo) and Pakris (by Sig).
Moda, Nanish, Draffo, Barr, and Retti are deified heroes of ancient Yarth, born as mortal inventors of the fields they personify:
Moda, the most ancient, was the first troubador, and her myth has acquired many of the features of theOrpheus and Taliessin myths.
Draffo, the next most ancient, is the inventor of the wheel.
Nanish is said to be an ancient king who invented coins.
Barr invented the power grid, pulling lightning down into the wires with a kite. He is sometimes said to be lame or hard of hearing as a result of this exploit.
Retti started as a mortal noblewoman who wrote the first program.
At death, Untervo or one of his angels brings the soul before the senate of the gods. There, Untervo reviews the soul's career and character with his usual perfect, clinical fairness. The soul is then claimed by the deity most concerned with the soul's life. Thus, lovers are claimed by the Aratti, warriors by Fyless, craftsmen by Retti, Draffo, or Barr, merchants by Nanish, etc. The soul then becomes an angel of that god, unless the relationship was essentially antagonistic, in which case the god may have some unpleasant fate in store for it, typically involving transformation or reincarnation.
Awundi folklore shares these figures with the whole Reach. They are mentioned here because the most widely-circulated versions of the stories involved come from Aondoar.
vogs (fr. "bugs")
Mischievous spirits infesting cybernetic systems, banished and sometimes sent by Retti. Cf. gremlins.
grotches (fr. "glitches")
Mischievous spirits infesting power systems, banished and sometimes sent by Barr. Cf. gremlins.
phantom hitchhikers
Ghosts of traffic accident victims who, being taken for ordinary hitchhikers, ask to be taken home, or to the destination of their fatal trip, but vanish out of the vehicle on arrival.
devil-cars
Cars that bring death by traffic accident to a series of owners, the car itself surviving to be repaired and bought again by the next victim. They are traditionally destroyed by the first owner to learn of the fatal history and take it seriously.
softies
Intelligent programs existing and acting secretly on the net, using software techniques far beyond organic ken. Sometimes identified with vogs. Sometimes characters in conspiracy theories. Sometimes described as souls belonging to Retti, i.e. the ghosts of cyberhands.
psiware
A variation on the softie legend, migrant intelligent programs with psychic powers.
spyware
A variation on the softie legend, migrant intelligent programs engaged in espionage. That such things exist is a public fact, but the powers and intelligence ascribed to legendary spyware is beyond the limits of mundane technology, as with softies generally.
warbots
Combat robots are, of course, real. The legendary ones vanished in the chaos of battle, never accounted for, and haunt battlefields or their environs, never breaking down, always eluding capture.
ghost ships
Some are supposed to be automated, an example of warbot; others are more spectral; still others are just derelicts.
hacker mages
People with paranormal powers over computers or, more often, owners of a secret level of programming knowledge, able to make arbitrary manipulations in cyberspace. Commonly cast as characters in a conspiracy theory.