Of Gods & Champions: Book I: Fate

III. The Stranger Who Comes From The Wilderness

Rule of the physical world also applies to that of the world of the immaterial. This is the purpose to the numerous battles of the Gods. They could care less about who holds dominion over the material plane of existence. The real prize is the realm of the Gods, and it is for that which they battle over. Their conflicts in the physical world are merely a means to that end.

It was for this reason that the fellowship between Order and Fate came to a swift end. They had once been considered to hold the closest bond out of any of the Gods. This was due to the compatibility between their traits. They both desired things to be structured and planned out, so they worked together in creating the physical world, the arena on which they would soon do battle.

They also aided each other in the creation of humans. These creatures were made to match the form of the Gods, in an effort to make things more orderly.

However, a rift developed between the two companions over who would claim ownership of these new servants.

Order desired to use them as tools to bring about structure in the world. They would construct cities and build societies to cut away at the chaos and wilderness that reigned supreme.

However, Fate had another plan. He desired the humans to become more than just destroyers of the Wild. He wanted them to be conquerors of it. He desired them to spare the lives of Wild's creatures, but to also enslave them, so that the humans would literally be the masters of every creature's fate.

The two Gods bickered over who would claim ownership of the humans. They grew petty and uncaring towards one another. This distraction is what allowed the Wild to finish the majority of his conquest of the physical realm, and become its main ruler, and as a consequence of this, the greatest of all the Gods.

Even with this development, Fate and Order continued their quarrel, and they began to drift apart. The humans once benefitted from the combined efforts of Fate and Order, but now their conflict was spreading to their creations.

The humans started fracturing and forming their own kingdoms, all the while weakening themselves from being able to combat the encroaching wilderness. Wars broke out between the human tribes, and this lead to many famines. The Wild's creatures relentlessly besieged them, and the humans nearly went extinct.

After the Wild destroyed the last stronghold of the Fate worshipping humans, Fate became powerless in the world. Order's servants were all that remained, and Fate refused to help them, so he fell into irrelevancy.

Thankfully, Order was able to successful defend his creations from the onslaught of the Wild. He wasn't able to push against them, but he was able to hold his own, and this balance of power has been maintained up to the present day.

I PROUDLY CARRY MY TWO BOBCATS back into the village as the sun rises in the east, clutching their tails in either hand tight as the butt of my rifle bumps the small of my back with each step.

"You're going to have to tell me how you shot them both," Morgrove tells me as we walk home together, Fellon sullenly following behind us, dragging his bayonet behind him. He was the one hunter who shot nothing, though the others only killed weak, sick rabbits or birds that are unfit to eat.

"Hmm... maybe. Surely you have some knowledge or wisdom from all of your years that you can pass along in exchange," I suggest, raising my eyebrow.

"Oh, you don't need any advice from me!" Morgrove responds, shrugging and waving his hands dismissively. "Young folks these days are such a generation apart from us that they forge their own path, and need not the philosophical ramblings of old geezers from years past."