So, I presume you're in for a little chat about drow, elves, orcs and other matters getting progressively worse. I suggest you grab a mug of tea, it's not a short tale.
Anyways. The drow. You already met at least one, and since I can't be arsed with a disguise now, it makes some of it pretty obvious. Sophisticated, clever, resourceful… before you ask, no, the gutter people don't count - that's natural selection in practice for you. And yes, beautiful - after all we're made in the Goddess's image, and calling her ugly is an accusation even she'd laugh off before turning you into a drider. Seriously, half the pantheon were head over heels over her, but that will come soon enough.
For now, we'll have to go back to the time there was no such thing as a drow. Or elf, or any other mortal, really. There was mainly a bunch of gods that did as they pleased, treating this world as their little lab experiments.
Well, one of the gods was Liothe. By then, a minor goddess of fate and planning.
Let me just say, back then the position didn't entail much. The thoughtless beasts had, asides from a funny incident now and then, pretty straightforward fates, the gods didn't let her touch theirs for obvious reasons, and with all the world running on individual whims of a few gods, you couldn't reliably plan your morning mushroom stew. In other words, she was bored worse than an ogre at a poetry reading.
One of the days, Liothe was wandering about our plane, when she noticed a massive cloud of smoke. One, I might say, that was entirely unplanned. So, of course being a clever and curious sort, she went in to investigate, to say it bluntly, who in the demonweb pits - yes, that was the other thing gods did at the time, try to squelch the persistent attempts of obyriths at making their home in our plane and worse, making our plane into their home - is raising all the mess.
Well, she happened onto Angolf, the divine smith back then, working his hairy dwarven arse off in the forge. Now, she was, as you might imagine, pretty intent to give him a full-on verbal lashing, but something in her guts told her to hold up for a moment. After all, if he's putting so much sweat into something, it's gotta be important.
So, she put on her sweetest smile and went. "Oh, Angolf dear, just came to thank you, that obyrith-gutting dagger you forged for me is just so beautiful. Not to mention, handles beautifully…"
To cut the long story short, after a few mentions of what else would handle beautifully, the squat geek got all flush and flustered, and in an attempt to make himself sound like the hottest thing after thermal streams, started to babble about his oh-so-important experiment. Apparently, he was working on making life, but this time something smart. Something to take care of the demon incursions, to help him with his craft.. after all he was forging the little wretches in his own image.
Well, what do you say, Liothe was getting all sorts of ideas here. But of course she had to find out a bit more. So, she played a bit incredulous, you know, a giggle here a teasing look there, and of course the dummy slurped it up, and went on to explain her everything he thought up in his smelly forge, just so that she'd believe him. Even gave her a demo of a few prototypes, the dumbass.
So well, she gave him a kiss that singlehandedly created the need for alcohol to wash the memories away, never mind the smell, and went on her merry way. Found herself a nice little cave to sit in with a nice wall to draw on - her tastes, even back then, were a lot like ours - and set off to work.
Now, I can't tell you how she did it, otherwise I'd be a goddess myself, but a few days later, the earth gave birth to the first batch of elves. The buggers had incisive minds just like their mother, and when they learned of their creator, thought it'd be best to keep on her good side. Especially since she held their book of fates, and could make fairly liberal edits to it with the accompanying quill, and praise can hardly get you on someone's bad side. So, they began with all the prayer-and-worship shebang. And, as Liothe found out, it felt completely awesome.
So awesome in fact, she felt herself gain power from it. Suddenly, the world was clearer, everything was easier, and her reflection was prettier - power does wonderful things to one's complexion. So, she went to make more of them, because, hey, more power.
But, you know. Once you have figured something out, it's sort of boring. So, she thought. "I'm cleverer than that filthy rothe dropping. I'll make them make more of themselves."
Well, it's not like she didn't have a source of inspiration - she was a she, other gods were he's and other yet were fuck-if-i-know or worse. So, it came to pass the second-generation of elves - don't ask me, I dunno why she came up with that name - should have, in theory, been capable of breeding like cavern rats. And they did because it was just as much fun to do the bedsheet romp back then as now. Except.
A big except. The new breeds came out soulless. Little more than slobbering animals ,and certainly not something that can give you a power boost. Disappointed, she tossed them away, most of them, and began looking for why it was the case.
Turned out it was simple. For intelligent creatures to breed, they have to have not one but two divine sparks, different ones - just like you need, well, I guess you aren't obtuse enough for me to have to spell everything out.
Now, Liothe was out there, looking for a divine stud for her experiment. And sure enough, she came upon a fairly decent-ranking god, who besides was fairly into arcana, so not a complete idiot. And, of course, he noticed her as soon as she passed by - a little skill in carrying yourself does wonders even for a deity, plus there's the whole issue with power being sexy.
Well, it didn't take much effort for her and the two ended up sharing a pretty divine experience - you could say the earth shook under her, and mean it literally. But, what our coaxed conqueror of hearts didn't know was that the main point was her getting way more of his seed than she hoped for. After all the after-climax pleasantries were done for, she rushed off, and used it to imbue her little power boosters.
Now, a funny thing happened. When the third generation of elves was born, and began to worship her, it wasn't just her who got a power boost. It was our divine stud as well. At first, he was as surprised as anyone's guess, but he soon figured out - I said he wasn't obtuse for a male - and came back to Liothe, just as she was dreamily watching her little creations making ritual sacrifices to her.
Well, she was sortta caught red-handed, but of course, it wouldn't be our divine mother not to make best of the situation.
"Oh dear! You found out! I… I wanted this to be a surprise! See, love, I thought up a way to gain power for free, more or less, and I want my chosen mate to be just as powerful. Can you feel it, sweetie? We'll be the king and queen!"
And so it happened. The god in question became king of the elves, Liothe became the Queen, and of course, she used the power boost to rub the faces of all her former rivals deep in the mud.
But, of course, it wouldn't be a good story if matters didn't complicate further.
It came forth that Angolf finished his little project - the first, forged dwarves - he gained a bit of power himself, perhaps grown taller just a little - and of course, first of all he went off to show his 'sweetheart'.
Well, let's say the sweet turned to sour when he found her beaming, in the arms of an elven god, and with thousands of minions which seemed to share a suspicious resemblance to his own craft.
"I trusted you!"
"Who are you?"
"You know well! You.. cheated on me! You stole my work!"
"You think that… scrap of yours compares with my little eidolons?"
"You stole my work!"
"He sounds insane and dangerous! Deal with him, honey!"
Well, despite his reservations about the disheveled guy looking lots like the divine armourer, the elven king kicked his self-claimed predecessor out.
"What a creep."
"I'm afraid he'll be back. You should kill him, honey!"
"Don't worry. I got a couple friends and couple favours to call, and with a bit of a power boost from this on here folks, we'll kick his arse into next week if there was a dozen of them."
For obvious reasons, Liothe wasn't too hot on sharing her newfound source of power, but then, she thought, she'll still keep the lion's share, and an army of gods who owe her a favour and fight her battles doesn't sound like half a bad thing. So, when his buddies showed up, with an obviously heavy heart, she handed them out a couple followers each. But, before that was done, she meddled with them a little, to breed a little less often, so that their new masters wouldn't gain power quite as quickly.
The lot of them, the first Rua'ferilan, ended up grabbing it up with the hook.
Except for Phos, of course. The bugger noticed the breeding rate anomaly, but rather than suspect the sweet Liothe - see, this is why putting up a decent public image is great - tried to fiddle with them.
He … sort of succeeded. He never replaced the bit of divine essence she took from them, so when he made them exhaust it faster, it did real wonders to their lifespans. Plus, since he patched them up using some animal spirits, they became more animalistic, hairy and wild - the first humans. Needless to say, after the fiasco, nobody else tried the same, but Phos stuck with them as he was just the sort of a hoarder.
All in due time, as the royally pissed off Angolf showed up, with a few buddies of his own, and a veritable army of his ugly squat dwarves.
Needless to say, Liothe let her husband and his buddies to do the fighting, and some fight it was. While the elves, and yes, even the humans were more clever, wielding arcane magic with little second thought, the dwarves' stubbornness and resilience - sort of how a block of wood is more durable than an exquisite chalice crafted from it - made it a close call.
In the end there was another obyrith incursion, and both parties decided to pull together for a bit and sort it out, and while they did, Angolf found himself a sufficiently squat, dumpy and simple-minded goddess that he forgot all about Liothe, and didn't bother picking up the fight again.
For a while, everything seemed fine, but it wouldn't be life if things didn't go wrong, and so they did.
First of all, the King of the Elves turned out to be something of a deadbeat, which is amusing in a really sad way if you are his ambitious Queen-of-the-Elves wife, which Liothe definitely was. See, there does come a point where someone is too obtuse to be pushed where you want them, especially if you also have to keep up appearances of a lovely sweetie. And, while he definitely did have a cartload of alliances and drinking buddies - ambrosia, I guess - he was the butt of all of them, getting used harder than a dildo in the yathrine academy. Anyhow, while sure, her creations did put a certain amount of a hamper on the obyriths' ambitions, the basic result was that all of the worthless divine sacks were enjoying day by day power gains, with pretty much fuck-all to show for it. While still fairly close to the top thanks to being clever, never mind getting there first, Liothe could feel herself slowly drifting towards the bottom of the pile yet again. Adding insult to injury was when some of her creations went forth to also revere Phos, because apparently being in charge of sunlight is that glamorous.
Fortunately, something else had happened while all of this was going on.
One day, while wandering about grinding his teeth, grumbling, and generally having the looks and sound and intellect of a slave's hind parts, Ghorlok - back then, a minor deity of hate and caverns - came upon the discarded two-point-five generation of elves, the brute soulless husks I mentioned. Well, I guess he really wasn't that obtuse since he figured out what they're missing, and worked hard to fix them up by bringing in the essence of cavern fungi and algae and other advanced lifeforms, never mind injecting them with his own which I really don't want to think about.
Either way, the first orcs were born, and turned their heavily browed eyes towards their sort-of-creator. And Ghorlok felt that his chance has come and began subtly - tee-hee - gearing his brood towards war with the whole world they hardly know existed; that said, he gleaned some knowledge of their origin from them during the process, and understandably, the orcs were rather miffed about being the rejects of their mother and her footlicks by proxy, who had way more power and riches and didn't live in smelly tents of animal hide.
And so, pretty damn soon, Ghorlok's minions marched upon the lands occupied by the other races, and began to kill, pillage and rape as only the filthy orcish hordes can. Naturally, the elves, humans and to a lesser extent, dwarves, didn't take this lightly, but the orc were so fertile - no wonder as they incorporated the essence of simple species which breed quickly - and their minds so set on Ghorlok, their big strong divine chieftain, that both him and them proved far too much to handle for any of the great gods individually. It only got worse when a particularly hotblooded war god long forgotten challenged him to a duel just like you'd expect from just that sort of a brute idiot, lost, and through absorbing him, Ghorlok gained the divine domains of strength and war.
Now, all through the heavenly war, our Goddess was thinking to herself - remember, she had her vassals and supposed allies that were for once making themselves useful - because she noticed something didn't quite fit. By all rights, she should have felt weaker as a number of her followers got massacred, but nope. For a while she ascribed it to an increase in faithfulness among the flock, but she couldn't shake the feeling something was off. And so, being the clever and curious sort, she sneaked off to the military border to investigate. If anything, she figured, she had to get some flowers for an elixir, and of course it wouldn't be proper to bother you or your important divine allies in their war effort and planning, would it honey? Yeah, just the sort of thing her oaf of a husband would lap up.
The orcish encampments weren't hard to find - tents made of poorly dried out hides, heads on pikes at every corner, and burning piles of refuse of all kinds everywhere amid smelly, green and tusked nomads, and their herds of small, hairy and equally smelly horses. But the more she looked at them, the more suspicious it seemed. Finally, she devoured the essence of one of them - a good means of finding out whether a soul can vomit, I guess - and she realized the truth. Asides from a pile of crap tacked on, these were her own creation, specifically the soulless offspring from a failed experiment. It all made sense.
With a smile which she could totally afford as there was nobody clever enough to anticipate a sacrifice if they were tied down to the altar, she strolled through the encampment until someone got half a clue, and demanded to be taken to their chieftain in chief with the big axe, because even then orcs completely lacked the imagination to come up with a clever title.
Ghorlok, needless to say, was surprised and excited in all the wrong ways.
"I know ya! You iz da King of Elfs vife!"
"No, dumbass. I'm the Queen of Elves and that oaf is my husband."
"I vill eat ya and get yer powah!"
"You're welcome to try, numbskull."
Unfortunately, Ghorlok wasn't *that* obtuse, and it took a single touch for him to be able to tell the deity standing in front of him is strong enough to devour him if he tried - although not by much.
"You strong! I lock you up, get stronger then eat ya!"
"You'll never be. You know why? Because your offspring are mine. I created them. Even if you killed every single elf that lives I'd still only be your equal because as you derive power from them, so do I." She grabbed a nearby orc, ripped the tack-on essences from him and turned him into one of the original misshapen sort-of-elves. Ghorlok just stared, scratching his thick-haired chin. "And if by some miracle, you happened to kill me, all of your broods would die." Of course, this was a complete baldfaced lie and even the first effect was at best second order, but it doesn't take much to fool an intellect of Ghorlok's caliber.
"…I knov! I lock ya up and azk da King fer ranzum!"
"That's better! Except for the bit where he chops you to bits and uses you as the greens in elven hound kibble. So, listen."
"Vhy? Ghorlok iz not lissen to enemy! Iz not good taktiks!"
"Look. My husband is an oaf. A moron. A stupid. Right? You at least have ambition, and instead of buttering them up like the idiot does, you kill your inferiors and take their power for yourself. And know what, I like that in a man. So… I'm willing to help you a bit, very quietly of course, and if you can use that help to climb to the top of the pile, hey, I won't be against ruling together with you. After all, a cake that's not big enough for dozens upon dozens might just be enough for two, right?"
"Vat iz cake?"
Anyhow, you get the idea. So, she persuaded the orcish chief to wait a few days until she'd figure something out. And that she did - the best thing she figured out was to poison him, but with something nice and slow - she couldn't quite risk Ghorlok absorbing his essence and growing over her head.
Now whipping up a poison wasn't such a big problem - Liothe was a pretty good alchemist as far as deities go. Delivery, however… Ghorlok couldn't really be trusted not to screw it up, and most other means would kinda sortta implicate her as the one who did it, and while that's less of a problem if it had worked out, it makes for poor planning, which would be embarrassing to the goddess of it.
Anyhow, as she walked about the camp, pondering, she noticed a spider pouncing upon a fly - they all hunted like that back then - and she got an idea.
She approached the little beast, picked it up on her finger and went.
"Pretty hard work getting your digestive glands busy this way, isn't it, little one?"
Well, the spider couldn't talk, but the look it gave her with its eight eyes pretty definitely spelled out a "You don't say."
"You know, I got pretty godly skill in biotransformative arcana. If you'd just do a little job for me, I could make your life a whole lot easier, what do you think?"
The spider bobbed up and down excitedly.
"So, let's say. I'll give you a pretty deadly poison to overwhelm your prey with, and since I'm big into weaving and fate and all that, I'll give you the means to produce copious amount of thread, plain or sticky, whenever you want - I think we can agree the possible uses are almost endless. In exchange, you'll pull your weight for a bit, and deliver the poison to someone I particularly detest. Deal?"
The spider gave her finger a high one, and the rest is history.
The sort of history that cost Ghorlok a hand, anyways - while the poison did make the King noticeably weaker, as she promised (not a word about the future aftereffects), it didn't make him susceptible for the sort of brute sortie the orc god wanted to finish the fight with. Cut up beyond recognition, both gods returned home, the elven king with his sufficiently excited and worried and whatever else appropriate looking wife in tow.
Well, he was feeling worse and worse, but she persuaded him it's just a bit of headache ,and that perhaps he shouldn't have drunk so much at the victory feast. Then, when he passed out during sleep, she had a little taste, then bottled up the rest of his essence in what basically was a large-scale soul trap, took his body, and announced, all teary and sad, that her husband succumbed to his injuries the night, that she suspects it's something Ghorlok did, but could Phos please come look over him because it looked a lot like poison.
Phos immediately 'discovered' the truth, thanked her astute eye, and after just a little bit of prodding from her, 'deduced' that someone must have poisoned him during the feast. Well, what do you have - an investigative committee of gods formed right away, and while the cross-accusations flied and former alliances broke in a way only bureaucratically investigating a nonexistent crime can bring on, Liothe went back to her soul trap to have a snack.
The snack had almost snacked on her. You see, when the King of Elves' death was announced, there was widespread mourning among the gods, and more importantly, among their followers. And solemn mourning is, what would you, a form of worship. As such, her dear husband had unfortunately received a post-mortem power boost, and almost used her as a vessel for his return when she tried the whole deity merge thing on him.
Well, she tried to wait it out for a while, which proved to be an extremely frustrating and futile experience, as some sort of a martyr god cult was starting to form around the dead king, and going at this rate, he was bound to burst the soul trap by sheer spiritual girth in an uncomfortably short estimated time. What was worse, all of this was making her cranky, and as such harder to effectively lead the other gods by their noses - for one of his few skills, her husband's idiotic good-natured cheer sort of did it swimmingly on its own.
So, in other words, she needed a solution, and needed it quick.
Of course, this is our divine mother with a domain in planning and fate I'm talking about. So, she warmed herself a nice cup of ambrosia, sat down in one of her comfy caves with a lookout to a pipeworm chasm, and began to think. Her problems essentially boiled down into two. The first was, finding a way to cut her former husband to size so that he could make for a nice essence-rich snack as soon as possible, while the second went more among the lines of, you know, having a dummy that could butter up other gods and push her agenda while she'd do her plotting, relax and generally spend time in the ways that didn't feel like an eternity. And being, well, our divine mother, she found a way to pierce two backs with a single stab.
She used a liittle pinch of her own essence to create a blank, the sort that'd probably become an atropal if left to its own rather vacuous devices, and then did something clever. She forced the blank to merge with the dead king of uncertain name. Now, the moment her oaf of a husband felt the possibility of release, he began pouring himself into the new divine vessel, little surprise if you consider he's been stuck in basically a sensory deprivation chamber. Of course, that was just what Liothe was waiting for. Snip - she severed the connection, ripping off a sizable chunk of our divine dupe, and from then on it was a matter of relatively routine thaumaturgy, at least for a goddess, to fashion a new divine being from the mix - I mean, you'd get some sort of a deity if you just left it to its own devices. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's how Slortia, the goddess of oozes arose. But, anyways.
Our divine mother named the result "Lafaias", don't ask me why, and, truth be told, was pretty happy at how she, yes, she, came out to be, at least at first. The whelp had all the markings of one day growing up into a powerful and beautiful - less so than Liothe of course - goddess, and her fates foretold…
Yep, that's where it went bad first. Despite being the goddess of fate and planning, Liothe found out that her daughter's future resembles a duergar joke, in that it made no sense and gave her a monumental headache. Seriously, she couldn't foresee a blink forwards.
Now, the would-be-clever among you might go 'uh-huh, bad times ahead, she should have scrapped and started anew', because hindsight is oh-so-accurate, but you really got to remember that the oaf probably wouldn't be fooled a second time, she couldn't afford to become weaker herself, and especially, that by all other metrics, Lafaias was a stellar success. She inherited all of her father's social charm and apparent good nature, and not long after her debut out there among the pantheon, everyone went head over heels for her and promptly forgot about their former companion, or better said - tool.
And at first, this was totally great - divine oaf to be absorbed was fading by the day, and Liothe herself could finally avoid dealing with the bootlick host and prepare herself for the big day.
Except, the oaf-traits Lafaias unfortunately inherited grew stronger and oafier, and the company she kept didn't help at all. Of course, Liothe still managed to more or less keep her under her thumb by the old-fashioned sugar and whip, but truth be told, the more time she spent with the likes of Phos, Kayle and Sambel, the worse it got. "Uncle Sambel, why does mom keep calling you a shining wit when it's uncle Phos who's the shiny one?" gave way to "Moom, but uncle Kayle says human sacrifices are wrong unless they die in a tournament." and eventually "Mom, why did you talk to that gross Ghorlok again, his attitudes are like so primitive." (You wouldn't believe just how often she walked in on our Goddess doing something she definitely shouldn't have been privy to. Being unpredictable tends to kinda make that happen.)
On top of all that, believe it or not, the investigative committee's work was nearing completion. With no clear result except for reams of paper and a large ambrosia bill though - divine or not, it was a committee.
In other words, the time to act was now.
First of all, Liothe dressed in something, you know, nice, flowing and showing - it does wonders for your wardrobe having spider friends - made her hair and put on some pretty divine perfume, and went on a little visit to Angolf again.
"Hammer an' anvil, wha' da ya want 'ere ya trollop!?" The welcoming screech, of course, belonged to Angolf's somewhat possessive and very hideous (Noticed how those traits go hand in hand?) dwarven wife, forgehammer in her meaty fist.
As much as she'd gladly reduce her to a steaming, greasy fleck, Liothe kept her calm. "Get me your husband. I need to speak to him."
"Getcher ass outta here before-" Before she could bring the hammer to play… well, her screeching attracted Angolf, straight from the forge (He looked that way at least, though, dwarves…). "Carburized casing on a cock, Kintas, is this how ya welcome a guest? Pull that rod outta yer arse and invite 'er- What in the arse of 'eavens and 'ell are ya doin' here?"
Well, now was her time. Liothe gave him one of those coy apologetic looks and let her outfit and fragrance do its work. "Angolf, dear, I know there's been a bit of bad blood between us in the past, but there's things I overheard…"
What can I say. She "explained" him how she overheard that the investigative comission is planning to blame him for the King's death with fabricated proofs and all, since they have nobody else to plausibly drop the blame on and they need some results. Besides, the likes of Kayle and Feraless envy his weaponsmithing expertise and Phos himself sees him as a dangerous upstart - after all, dwarves don't exactly prance about in the sun, do they? And of course she can't abide this travesty of justice because, you know, "I only had to say those nasty things back then because I was afraid of my now-dead boyfriend, dear". And Angolf the dumbass swallowed it all up, not the least since his eyes and mind were on her cleavage more than anything else.
She departed, swearing him never to mention her visit again (Betcher ass I won't, ma'am. I had it with them fuckers fer good.) and when he wasn't looking, she nicked a nail or some other sharp, pointy bit of forge junk.
Now, the rest was exactly what you'd expect. A trip to her lovely project cavern, dousing the needle with poison and a bit of the king's essence, and a quick… okay, not so quick trip to Ghorlok because persuading the webknot that he needs to put together an army now took such a long time. Finally, she appeared before Phos, making sure to be seen pointedly coming from the direction of orcish lands.
"Oh dear comrade chairman Phos! I'm so glad to have found you!"
The sun god rose from beyond the horizon of paperwork and gave her this burning look through his reading glasses. "Yes, sister?"
"Comrade chairman… I went.. you know it's the anniversary of the death of my dearest husband-" she let a few tears drop for the show, "and I went to the battlefield to lay a few flowers to the memory of his heroic sacrifice… I know, I know, I shouldn't have risked so but I couldn't let his heroic deed-" you can imagine she was throwing up on the inside but that's the price of diplomacy. "Anyhow, when I was there, I almost stepped on this, and then I felt my… *sniffle*… my husband's essence on it… you think it might have something to do with…"
The significant pause stretched on and on as the luminous bureaucrat took in the full implications of the spike ahead of him. "Remarkable, sister. I will schedule an unscheduled meeting of the Rua'ferilan's investigative commission to address the issue at hand and coalesce towards a resolute action proposal in the first qua-"
"But comrade chairman, couldn't you do something…quicker?" She didn't even have to fake the indignance.
"You are right, sister Liothe." Phos said with all the energy of a career bureaucrat forced to make a decision, so you can imagine it was rather unimpressive. "I will immediately schedule a preliminary pre-meeting to schedule an exceptional unscheduled meeting of the Rua'ferilan's investigative commission-" You get the drift.
Anyhow, bureaucracy is where it all went wrong. You see, while the pre-meeting and meeting raged on, resolutions were drafted and plans to increase military expenditure discussed (and while Angolf, Liothe and Ghorlok were preparing their forces), Lafaias - you bet Goddess left her at home - was bored out of her mind. And, of course, she alleviated her boredom by pilfering her mother's cupboards and drawers like we all did at one point or another. Well, you know. Instead of finding a cute scarf, her stash of candied purple mushrooms, or a ring of scorching flames, she managed to find… her father. I told you the meeting was a long one! Along with all the calculations related to absorbing him, and many, many other crystals with obvious implications. Needless to say, the result was a reconsidering of mother-daughter relations, some messing about with the seals and finally an equitable fusion with the irate elven king (which by the way is makes Lafaias somewhat hermaphroditic these days).
Meanwhile, all was going to plan on Liothe's side. Angry words were exchanged, conclusions reached, resolutions written and finally, the second Rua'ferilan's combined armies were standing to meet the combined armies of dwarvenkind.
Liothe, of course, was looking at it all from well behind the frontlines, not even having to cover up her excitement - after all, it was her husband's murder that was going to be avenged! Well, right until…
"What in the demonweb pits are you doing here, Lafaias?! The one time I tell you to get out of my sight, you- you look different…"
"'S right, you bitch! Phos, bro, you wouldn't believe what this harpy did to me." Not only did her daughter suddenly inherit her dear father's looks, she was followed by a crowd of Liothe's own flock, shouting the King's name.
"Don't believe her! It's my stupid daughter playing tricks!"
"Oh shut up. Phossy, old man, it's me. Remember the one time you were trying to get it on with Zasen, I was your wingman, things gave way to things, and Staniol happened? You punched my lights out when you found out, buddy, and we didn't talk for a century, not before you chatted up Chaskel."
"But if it's you, that means… We need to call a pre-meeting to adjourn this war and organize a meeting as soon as-"
Before Phos mustered up any action, Liothe disappeared to see Ghorlok.
Last-minute preparations were made, plans drafted and the combined armies (While he was dealing with the boring war stuff, Liothe made sure to chat up Slortia, Duburkin, Raktorack, Anenmesh, and anyone else with a bone to pick with the Rua'ferilan or eager enough to carve a bit more of the material plane for themselves, because she was quite lavish with the promises - a slime pool in every cave and a human in every pot, or something like that.)
The final result was, I think you call it pliers. Ghorlok's wing of the army attacked the combined human-elven armies, while the remaining faithful elves, alongside oozes, kobolds, goblins and the living dead went on to cook up some dwarfloaf.
It was a clever plan - there was a good deal more orcs, and with Phos occupied, there wasn't much the dwarves could do against the backbone of Liothe's armies, provided by Anenmesh. As it happens with clever plans though, there's always some little catch.
You see, Ghorlok fought his way to the king, and instead of trying to kill him like anyone sensible would do, challenged him to a re-match. And since the new king - well the part of him that was still Liothe's daughter, had caught a teeny little bit of our Goddess's wit? She… he… whatever, had chosen Mom's soul trap cave as the battlefield.
"En garde! Oh, see that crystal formation to your left, Ghorlok?"
"Vat of it, elven filth. WAAGH!" *clang*
"It's all yours, dear!" *slash* *clang*
"Vat you *whoosh* mean."
"It's the spot mommy dearest had ready for you, once you were done with her dirty work. Now watch me work that blade!"
Shortly afterwards, Liothe knew she was in a slight bit of trouble. Just before the final strike against the remains of Kintas's iron guard protecting the dwarven command post (easily identified by the vicious arguing between Angolf, Kintas and several other dwarven gods heard from within.), the combined army of humans, elves and orcs (first and last in recorded history) surrounded her completely everywhere.
"Oh for my sake. You utter webknot, you filthy green rothe dropping, we had this won!"
"Zere is no ve. Ghorlok knovs yer traitor plans."
"Those were old, you fuckwit! Strike now, while-"
"Notice how the bitch immediately knows which plans you're talking about, Ghorlok, buddy."
"Oh, shut up!"
The worst thing was that her allies of convenience decided to conveniently sell her out the moment anyone they could negotiate with showed up. And so our divine mother stood, with a bunch of her own troops, against about two thirds of all intelligent life back then, and all their pissed-off gods.
"And now you'll pay for everything, bitch. I'll-"
"You'll let me go. I-"
"I don't think so. This ends here."
"I vant drink her blood! WAAGH!"
"Fifty fluttering fucks up a flintlock, that bitch's done and over for, I'll see to it!"
"The Exceptional subcommittee of the Rua'ferilan investigative committee has univocally decided that the transgressions of sister Liothe against the public good merit-"
Despite shaking like a surprised spider inside, Liothe took a deep breath, and put on her sweetest smile.
"Very well then. I mean, I couldn't care less, you know? A life without power, without everything I have worked so hard to build isn't worth living, and every moment I have to spend looking at you utter webknots making a mockery out of my own creations I was forced to lend you-"
"I get that last words are kinda important, but get on with the point."
"That's the point, you webknot. I thought absorbing my daughter would make you a bit smarter. Except for the runt, all of your people, they're mine. Even Ghorlok's. At least half of the divine essence within them is all mine. And what do you think would happen if you were to kill me? Tell them, Ghorlok."
"Zey vould die."
"That's bullshit."
"Oh, I welcome you to try. I have nothing to lose.. while for you, it's everything and then some. Have fun figuring out how to create life from scratch while most of your power gushes away like the warm blood from a-"
"Enough! Fuck, we need to-"
"I shall call an emergency pre-"
"Shut up, Phos. No, we need to deal with this now. As much as it pains me, the bitch doesn't seem to be bluffing. We can't-."
"Leaden lobcock, brazen balls. Who the fuck cares. Kill her for her crimes. If she's right, I'll help-"
"Like I believe it, Angolf."
"Dooming our followers would not serve the greater good as per paragraph fifteen-"
"Yeah, it'd be a rotten thing to do."
"But she bloody well-"
"Look, Angolf, she killed me. If anyone's to speak."
"To hells with it. Fair enough!"
"Burrs on a bollock! Angolf, you can't be serious! The bitch murdered my iron guard and almost had me…"
"Oh shut up for once, Kintas."
"That stare…You still love that frilly treacherous whore, don't you? That's it! I'm going, and taking the kid with me."
"Kintas! My warmest ingot! Fuck you all with a forgehammer!"
And so it happened Kintas and her then-little son, Drald, went to live on their own, founding the Duergar nation, while Angolf turned to booze (Metherust, the dwarven god of ale arose when he had a genuine splitting headache the day after), and swore off business with the Rua'ferilan forever.
But, I'm getting sidetracked.
In the end, whatever emergency subcommittee pre-meeting Phos came up with decided to banish our Goddess into the Abyss, with the Rua'ferilan itself conjuring a massive ward to keep her out of the material plane.
However, there was a loophole.
They couldn't banish the remainder of her followers, the elves who remained dedicated to beauty, conquest and superiority over the lesser races, much like their mother. For, you know, pretty much the same reason they were afraid of killing her, except this time it was definitely true. Well, they did decide on the second best thing - driving them out from every little nook and cranny under the sun (Phos's doing), but see the problem there?
Yep. Liothe took them - and by them, it's by now pretty obvious I mean us - underground. She made us what we are, and showered the khaliothe - literally Liothe's trusted - with gifts. She gave us her spiders to provide us with companionship, protection and beautiful fabrics, she gave us mushrooms to act as food and medicine, and to top it all, she made every cavern ceiling alight with a million colourful fungal beacons of luminiscence, far prettier than the stars the Rua'ferilan chose for their symbol. And of course, we got to keep the natural magical prowess and the ability to resist magic that has long since degenerated out of the surface elves.
And then she pretty much left us to do as we please - which, given we're an ambitious lot just like our Goddess, incidentally involves making the whole world ours again. This is where the whole "blessing the strong" thing comes from, right? "Quarval-sharess bel'laar lil z'ressyrr!" and all that - you can't conquer everything with a nation of weaklings, no matter how fertile - just look at Duburkin and goblins.
Well, as we please, on two conditions. One is, worship her and place your faith her alone, but which sensible goddess would encourage competition? I sure wouldn't, in her place.
And the second is, well… that if you die, you suck, and your soul is hers to do with as she sees fit, depending on how well you did in life - she isn't in the habit of promoting failures, and she'll likely throw your soul at some demon lord to curry favours if you are one. On the plus side, it does mean that killing someone you really dislike will probably make a good impression.
But other than that, you're entirely free to do as you wish, at least in theory. See, there's the whole thing about our dearest priestly sisters, but that'd be for a very long talk, and we're out of tea and lemon cookies anyway.
Delicious little things. What recipe did you use?