Long ago, in the ages before the Great Silence, the Mortal Plane was a place of vibrant, terrifying beauty. There, man and God walked the land as one, their steps indistinguishable on the fertile land. Mortals sought guidance directly from the divine ones, and the gods, in turn, indulged in the dramas and pleasures of their creations. This symbiotic existence continued for millennia, a golden age of direct divine interaction.
Then, the Incident occurred. The true nature of this cataclysmic event remains shrouded in mystery —some say it was a blasphemous act of mortal hubris, others a spectacular divine blunder. What is known is that this singular event brought about the raging fury of the Ruler God, the God of gods, Fei. Fei, whose presence was silent, was roused to an unprecedented, thunderous decree.
By Fei's absolute law, each and every single god, great and small, was commanded to immediately return to their domains, dominions, and realms, ascending beyond the veil that separates the mortal and divine. The final command was absolute and etched into the very fabric of reality: never to descend upon the Mortal Plane ever again. The plane trembled, the skies tore, and with a collective sigh of grief, the gods departed.
The immediate consequence of this withdrawal was catastrophic. With the gods absent to carry out their constant, nuanced, and essential divine will and duties—the tending of the harvest, the turning of the tides, the judging of disputes, the gentle shepherding of souls—the mortal world fell instantly into disarray and chaos. Civilizations crumbled as their divine foundations vanished. Order dissolved into anarchy, and the Mortal Plane became a wounded realm, spiraling into chaos.
Witnessing this decay from the serene distance of their throne, Fei realized his decree, though necessary to punish the original trespass, was inadvertently unmaking the established order itself. A compromise was required. Fei, whose desire for quite outweighed his fury, allowed the gods a single concession: they could create or bestow a fraction of their power and essence upon a mortal being. These chosen vessels were granted the divine force to carry out the gods' will and duties in their stead. These beings were dubbed Avatars, the true representation of the gods in the fractured world.
Initially, this arrangement worked with surprising efficiency. The Mortal Plane stabilized under the renewed, albeit indirect, divine guidance. Seeing order restored, Fei was satisfied and took what was intended to be a restorative, long nap lasting hundreds of years.
However, upon the Ruler God's gradual awakening, he found that the Mortal Plane was once again engulfed, not in the chaos of absence, but in the chaos of saturation.
When the gods were granted the ability to create Avatars, no specific limit was initially placed on how many each deity could produce. Driven by rivalry, ambition, or genuine duty, the gods had spawned legions. The world was now plagued by conflicting divine agendas, a traffic jam of overlapping jurisdictions, and thousands of Avatars battling for dominance in their respective patrons' names.
The Age of Unlimited Avatars ended abruptly with a new, uncompromising set of rules and laws established by Fei to address the rampant exploitation. The decree was stern and specific: "A god can have a maximum of three personal Avatars and one Mixed Avatar. An Avatar may serve a maximum of two gods." Furthermore, this strict limit included a grim provision to prevent replacement-churn: a new Avatar slot only opened upon the death of the previous one.
Despite these seemingly ironclad limitations, the gods were, above all else, masters of divine bureaucracy and loopholes. They immediately circumvented the restriction on 'personal' Avatars by focusing their efforts entirely on the Mixed Avatar category. By endlessly partnering with different gods—forming ever-changing coalitions and esoteric dual-patronage agreements—they were able to continue multiplying their influence, ensuring that the Mortal Plane remained saturated with divine presence, even if that influence was now thinly spread, often contradictory, and sometimes comically inefficient.
This labyrinthine, over-divinized, and constantly legislated world is the stage inherited by Helen Phi. She, an example of the new reality, the Mixed Avatar of Teleute, Goddess of Death, and Cyrius, God of Justice. Hers is a world that demands absolute, unwavering divine perfection in every judgment and action, a perfection that is consistently and hilariously undermined by the existence of her assistant, Titan, a demigod of unparalleled intellect and truly spectacular, world-class ineptitude.