The Pantheon War

The Pantheon War – Approximately 2,400 B.E

There is very little documentation regarding the events surrounding the legendary Pantheon War. However, the documentation does exist is believed to be highly accurate and invaluable. The most complete of these accounts would have to be the personal journal of the Dannan druid known only as Thurn.

The origin of the wars can be attributed to the Druids' development of the Lia Fail. The Lia Fail, according to Dannan legend, was a stone through which something Thurn describes as a sub-psychic field was channeled. This field consisted of the will of the Dannan people. In order to select a king, the candidate was to touch the stone. If the stone reacted by glowing, then the candidate was to be king. It was a sort of pre-democratic way of selected a leader; an attempt Thurn believed would eliminate the violent contention that often occurred upon the changing of the leadership.

Thurn's duty was to study the physiological elements involved with making the stone work. In the process he stumbled upon a crucial key to making it work, though nowhere in his surviving journals does he describe what it was. In any event it was created and Crom, the king of the Dannan Gods, decided to examine it, due to concerns he had. He appeared before the druids and they willingly gave it to him to examine. After nearly a year Crom returned the stone. Thurn noted that Crom look "disheveled and disturbed. His voice was weary, but it felt like he was on the verge of laughing. It made me afraid for some reason."

During the wait for Crom to return the stone the tension between the various pantheons of gods increased, resulting in a sort of cold war. These conditions were reflected in relations between their followers. After the stone was returned the cold war turned hot, and god fought god. The war filtered down to Earth and other worlds, where fanatical worshippers of one Pantheon would attack those of another, encouraged by their gods.

It was at this time that Thurn records a meeting with the mysterious Wardens of Light. A warden calling himself Mathias appeared before Thurn, and asked him several questions about the stone. When Thurn asked why the wardens wished to know about the stone, Mathias told him only that it might be related to the chaos going on in the world.

After 14 months of skirmishes, there were reports on Earth of village after village where its inhabitants had been brutally massacred, with no sign of survivor and no clues as to the perpetrators behind it. In this note to the Elaran Paladins, a farmer describes his journey to Stoneville.

"There was no smoke in the air, nothing. My cart, my horses and me drove up into town. As I got closer, I could smell this awful, rancid stench. After a few minutes, I saw shapes on the ground. Soon, I saw that they were bodies. Their limbs was torn off of some of them, and their guts was hanging out. Heads, all sort of body parts had been torn. And on the face of every man, woman and child was a look of such horrible pain and suffering, that I couldn't' stay any longer, even to see if there were somehow survivors. I don't think there were."

It was initially blamed on fanatic followers during the war. However the number of villages massacred increased, until it appeared that there were at least two, or three groups acting simultaneously throughout Earth. The mystery was solved after the large Dwarven city of Helgan was massacred. Approximately 15,000 people were killed in what is estimated to be a one-hour period. Somehow, a young boy survived the slaughter after his parents knocked him unconscious and hid him amidst the fecal pits. Several calming spells were cast before the boy could describe what he'd seen.

Shadows. It was Shadows, coming out of nowhere in the middle of the day whooshing along instead of walking, slashing at everything. They were mortal-shaped, and like shadows, only walking like a normal person. You could see right through then. They didn't make a sound. Father said they snuck in somehow, and killed all the horses. Then they started killing, with some of them surrounding the town so that no one escaped. Before everything became dark, I saw a woman slip past them. A shadow leapt after her, and grabbed her. She stated twitchin and screamin'Ë

The Shadows, as they were now called, became more daring. Their attacks came at all hours of the day, against larger and larger cities. Thurn notes that the fighting amongst the Gods seemed to stop, as they finally noticed what was happening to their followers on Earth. It was then that the mastermind revealed himself: Crom.

In another discussion with Mathiasand another Warden named Dvorak, Thurn writes that Wardens and the Gods believed that Crom had used his power to examine the Lia Fail, and had been driven insane by the power of thousands of minds linked together. At some point, he decided to journey into the Void, where he was tainted by its evil. He brought back with him the shadows; though whether their race had a name was unknown. Through manipulation and deceit he initiated the conflict between the gods, in order to weaken them so that the Shadows could make their move.

The Gods and Wardens united to battle the Shadows. Ultimately it was with the help of Crom's daughter, Medb, that Crom and the shadows were tricked, trapping them back inside the void.

Most estimates by scholars believe that this war lasted, from the development of the Lia Fail to the defeat of Crom, anywhere from two to ten years. The death toll on Earth alone, where the battles against the Shadows occurred, is estimated to be somewhere in the tens of millions. It was after this that Danu, Crom's wife, stepped up as the primary deity of the Dannans. The Gods made peace with each other, and the mysterious Wardens returned to the background.

Updated August 16 2002
By Moderator/Group Owner Senidel - [email protected]