Heimos

"When the chariot had come to rest upon the Aksus, Heimos, captain of the Princes, looked out upon the world of Erenth and declared that if man should heed their counsel, then the Princes would reward them. In return, the Princes would be as gods to them and protect them and keep them safe. And the people who were gathered there said, "Let it be," and paid obeisance."

In the earliest records Heimos is described as a tall, broad-shouldered man with bright blue eyes that seemed to burn with undying fire. He kept the company of six formidable Northrun warriors and two-score fawning Fahrish sycophants, including a half dozen wives (all pregnant) that he guarded with no little jealousy. At that time no mention is made of any supernal power beyond having a commanding voice and being possessed of great personal charm.

The next mention occurs in the records of Menea five years later. In 3749ey a great battle is described in which Heimos, now called the Conjurer and also named the Lord of Lightning, kills or puts to flight a company of Menes who outnumbered his forces. In 3774ey Heimos is made the king of the Meneans and Talireans -- ruling both kingdoms through vassal earls from his island redoubt. 

Heimos is eventually named the Patron and Protector of All Nations (of Westrun.) Records indicate that all but one of his six wives died in childbirth. Ranay lived to give him three children. All of his offspring were raised by his devoted followers and a kind of priesthood they developed toward that cause. By all accounts, the children of Heimos were quick to anger and difficult to control. Each of them was called a conjurer and wonder-worker, like their sire, and that made their easily roused anger a dangerous thing.

They became agents of unpredictability and violence. From the first, each showed even less interest than Heimos in having control of armies and land. Rather, each enjoyed the tribute and accolades heaped on them by the men of Westrun and each developed their own cult of personality.

Sometimes called the Lost Centuries, the years between 3800ey and 4100ey are filled with fantastical tales of the works of Heimos and his offspring. There are records of battles but the casus belli for each amounts to the offense of one god or goddess against another. There are also strange inversions of cause and effect in which certain of the line of Heimos are claimed to be the parents of ancient tribal heroes of the Nandi, now divinized.

In 4122ey after three centuries of direct involvement in the affairs of men the gods of Westrun were summoned to Ochre Island by their father and grandfather Heimos. While the sire of the gods had suspended his own activities among men for more than fifty years and entered a kind of reclusive retirement, the sometimes murderous and rapacious deeds of his children continued. These deeds were noised abroad and the worst of them eventually made their way to his redoubt.

The Priesthood taught that the Divine Recession was the prohibition by Heimos for any of his children, or children's children to personally leave Ochre Island under any circumstances. Under a kind of house arrest, he mandated that mankind would have to appeal to their gods for favors using the Invitatory Court or through messages delivered by the High Priesthood, who alone could travel to and from Ochre Island on the Consecrant Vessels.

Eighteen years after the Divine Recession, in the Fall of 4140ey the construction of the Grand Temple of Heaven began and the physical rule of the Pretenders became a religion instead.