Sure. Why not? (I’m not married to the name or anything if someone has something better.)

–

Maritae is the eldest of the Three Children, who hold dominion over the changing seasons. Long ago she was worshiped during the annual rains. Angered over being forgotten, she spends her season wandering the cities, animating the algae-like creature and taken great glee when it devours someone’s pet. Her siblings find her yearly outburst amusing, which leads to greater annoyance and a spread of the algae problem each year. The rest of the time she can be found anywhere serving alcohol in search of interesting – and by interesting, we mean edible – company.

Isyrm is the First Namer, who speaks the tongue of the unflickering flame. His unfathomable words sing breath into the world, his touch brings the light of consciousness. He is most disturbed by the strangeness which makes the mortals unable to perceive him and the other gods. For the past two centuries, he has begun a plan to reach out to humanity, by slowly granting life to the world around them, hoping that other beings will perceive the gods and remind humanity of divinity lost.

It is Isyrm who awakens the cities themselves from murmuring slumber.

Only now do I realize that many others loved the living cities idea as much as I did. I hope no one feels I was hogging one of the best parts.

Write your own if yours is better! Go you!

I’ve got rum to drink.

The Lord of the Shifting Sands has no name, or at least all records of it were lost eons ago. He is said to live either beneath the endless dunes, or on top of them in a large skiff. He is a god of knowledge as he holds all the secrets of everything, and everyone, that has been lost in his domain. Once his worshipers held that he could offer an alternative to black bloom or death, eternal unlife in the dry ocean. He is not evil, but is as uncaring as the sands of his home.

The gods of order and disorder should be the divorced parents of the gods of the Sun, Moon, Sea, Storms, and Travel. I don’t know what their names are, I just want the gods of order and disorder to hate each other with the heat of a thousand supernovae and I want the gods of the Sun, Moon, Sea, Storms, and Travel to have any number of ridiculously petty reasons to get into insanely hate filled conflicts with pretty much everyone.

The Sisters, named Koreth, Lian and Perena command the three principles of Invention; Imagination, Need and Luck. Each sister controls one of the principles and they have the power to influence it for better or for worse. The sisters have to work together but they often disagree.

People worshipped The Sisters and in return they were granted fantastic discoveries and knowledge.

When the people became arrogance and stopped worshipping, The Sisters felt abandoned and resentful. Now they covertly inspire the people to create more and more powerful weapons and magic so that they might one day destroy themselves.

Tallyr is the god-goddess of the Blackbloom flowers, which grant un-death. Tallyr was once called the Lightless Garden as he/she grew the Blackbloom flowers during the third season, when Blackbloom enters into an eclipse, when her power over shadows and their secrets ripens. It is said that his/her body is the soil and the seeds from which the Blackbloom flowers grow. Now, Tallyr walks as a frail figure with eye lids grown shut and the way he/she hears is through the vibrations in the ground.

Children can be rebellious and deny the wishes of their family, even the children of the gods and none more so than Assiuyok-Ugiar the selfproclaimed god of the lost. No one knows what godly house he derived from, what dominion was his through birthright to influence, though it is rumoured he is a nomad god of House Viator. Whatever the truth he now insists on finding lost souls and the things that do not belong for as he says “without me they’d be godless.” It is said he numbers amongst the ‘Interfecu’, the gods who have killed another god but he cannot be drawn to confirm or deny the accusation.

Yes I tried to sneak in the concept of defining the gods and their dominions through Houses in my piece. Essentially each family of gods is interested in a specific thing (The Gods who like well ordered stuff may have contributed to the major civilisation with the rigid caste system becoming so dominant in Blackbloom because those people are the sort they’d help).

Lady Luck is one of the most powerful gods, and one who is interested by mortals the least. She is still sought after by those who blow on their dice or bow to their cards, but she seems to pay little attention. In fact, there has been some prophecy and lot casting that implies she is more concerned with the growth of the cities than over the expansion of any individual.

Lenya is the goddess of perseverance, but long ago, after failing to reunify with her lover (fellow god) following a long and persistent chase, she was too weak to do anything but give up. She no longer answers when mortals pray for perseverance, strength, determination, and for this, citizens of Blackboom find it difficult to focus on any one thing too long, usually failing to complete projects. Perseverance is not a word commonly understood. Lenya wanders the streets, searching for a venture that she can once again focus on in order to find her own strength in perseverance once more.

(Name can be changed to suit).

Memory, the Goddess of; Mnemosyne.

The Goddess of Memory is known to cause a condition called “mnematic fever” which causes the victim to relive various memories in a state of hallucination. The fever lasts three days in the Unbloomed but is doubled for each life past the first. It is said she is responsible for the Mnematic Plague that nearly devastated a city with a heavy population of the Bloomed. There seems no reason to what memories are relived, and even cases of living someone else’s memories.  

Not sure if my last post worked, still getting used to this phone

Memory, the Goddess of; Mnemosyne.

The Goddess of Memory is known to cause a condition called “mnematic fever” which causes the victim to relive various memories in a state of hallucination. The fever lasts three days in the Unbloomed but is doubled for each life past the first. It is said she is responsible for the Mnematic Plague that nearly devastated a city with a heavy population of the Bloomed. There seems no reason to what memories are relived, and even cases of living someone else’s memories.  

Zzakard the Ender

Zzakard is an angry God. For a brief instant at the dawn of time, he had the opportunity to be king of all gods. He hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. Now, he is relegated to the god of True Death and Destruction. His dominions are those who can’t afford the Blackbloom, or are killed permanently. He aims to destroy everything, and end creation so that he may start again and seize power.

Zzakard travels as a warrior in white. He weeps bloody tears that stain the front of his clothes, but disappear each day.

Topis is the youngest goddess on Blackbloom, barely several millennia old, but she is considered by many scholars to be the most powerful. The patron deity of the sentient cities, Topis is the only god on the planet to be acknowledged and actively worshipped by those within her purview. The cities regard her as a creator, and until the recent discovery of human sentience, thought her the sole intelligence behind their construction. The revelations of recent days have thrown the devout into disarray, leaving the Lady of the Metropolis’ position within the pantheon uncertain.

Thanks to the flower’s properties, Blackbloom should be overpopulated – but it isn’t. The population remains stable. Instead of dying, people disappear. Folklore says the god of remembering walks the surface during the dark cycle and keeps thing level, although no one really believes that anymore. “It has always been thus, and thus it always shall be.” Investigate a dark-cycle disappearance, and the questioner himself will vanish and be reduced to a fuzzy, half-formed memory, like those formed in early childhood. Investigation is therefore discouraged, although no one can quite put their finger on why. It’s just a strong gut hunch.

It was the god of death and decay before the blackbloom flowers came. Now, deprived of its main base of worship, it is nameless and purposeless. It wanders the planet due to long-ingrained habit. Once it searched for…something. Now that, too, has been forgotten.
It is formless. It appears to differently to each of us, and tells us what we would most like to hear.
It is a void, and it reflects our hopes and desires back to us.

He Who Turns His Back is the silent patron of those who abandon duties, break oaths, and break promises. He protects them, and ensures their prosperity, for he feeds upon their emotions. No one has ever seen his face. He appears in the stained black robes of a fallen priest, and grasps a broken sword by its blade in his left hand.

Ash, the Child God. Ages ago, a child was once revived by a black market Blackbloom. When he woke, a new entity had taken his body. Today, he still bears the semblance of a small girlish boy or a boyish girl. He is the King of the Blackbloom, the representative of the flower race that has been enslaved by Blackbloom’s citizens in order to cheat death. Ash has power over Bloomed individuals and never wastes an opportunity to manipulate them to kill or betray each other. He is the Devil, the Trickster God, the God of Ill Omen.

Andhelm is the God of plenty, somewhat of a mischief. Ask the man who wished his wife had more in the way of breasts and ended up married to a sow. Or the woman who prayed for more children, only to end up running an orphanage. Son of Oblivion and Mercy he had a difficult childhood, hence his tendency to act out. But he wants you to know, it’s not personal… it’s just business. Blessed be and all that shit.

Kaharro directly rules the seas of water, relegated to this duty by a bad roll of cosmic dice. As God of Chance, he indirectly governs the landing (or un-landing) of blind leaps of faith, the targets of shots in the dark, and the heading or tailing of flipped coins.

The cities share a latent fear of Kaharro, knowing their rise and fall depends on his whim. They try to funnel his love-betrayed heart and chaotic wiles toward Blackbloom’s denizens instead, hence the saying: “Beware a pristine city for its peril.”

The oceans do what they’re told. Sometimes.

Lehthius is the god of forgetfulness. It’s his fault you leave your car keys on the console table, and why you forgot your anniversary. He enchants minds with distracting visions of nubile women and ripped men, depending on your preference. Or cuddly kittens, if that’s your thing. He can make you look the other way while he sweeps that unpaid bill under the table. It’s all his fault. You appease him by paying attention to his constant complaining and sympathizing with him when the other gods blame him for everything. Even if it’s not his fault.

What Comes Tomorrow, God of: Holnap

What we know about Holnap is that it looks like you will in one planetary rotation. Attempts have been made to capture footage of Holnap without subjective observer influence; mirrors, iconographs, Fermat boxes. These experiments tended to end in violent, public, unlivings; if anybody has seen Holnap as Holnap, they have chosen not to remember seeing Holnap.

Holnap, the apocryphal hymns sing to us, secures tomorrow; the universe is deterministic, but only the next planetary rotation is ever determined – the rest is somebody else’s problem. Holnap ensures that tomorrow comes, and that it comes as it should. Supplication to Holnap to bring forth their desired tomorrow has worked for some – but it rarely works as a Plan A. Interaction with Holnap tends to bring about early unliving.

Holnap sings beautifully.

Near the house where you once lived, scratched above the frobisher’s door, the following words:
Nearer the shadows
Praise be to Holnap
May he never come to this door.

Holnap is never late.

Porangatu, the Revenant, Lord of the Forking Paths. Ancient legend has it Porangatu gave us free will because he was bored. That was long before he died, killed by the Lance of the Unfaithful. The Revenant came back from the Nether Realms hellbent on vengeance. He is subtle, though, and patient. And so it is said that Porangatu has been undermining free will ever since, reducing every decision we make to a single choice between parting paths.

What Comes Tomorrow, God of: Holnap

Holnap, the apocryphal hymns sing to us, secures tomorrow; the universe is deterministic, but only the next planetary rotation is ever determined – the rest is somebody else’s problem. Holnap ensures that tomorrow comes, and that it comes as it should. Supplication to Holnap to bring forth their desired tomorrow has worked for some – but rarely as a Plan A. Interaction with Holnap tends to bring about early unliving.

Near the house where you once lived, scratched above the frobisher’s doormat, the following words:
Praise be to Holnap
May he never come to this door.

Kinnis is the god of the otherworld, the land after death. For millennia his kingdom flowed with the finest art, music and food, produced by those who had passed. But, since the discovery of the Blackbloom’s power, his kingdom has only the poor and unwanted in its halls. Furious, Kinnis cursed those who take the flower, so they cannot leave the surface, and sets out to make their second life a living hell.

Marlow is the God of Death.

In the Blackbloom pantheon — structured in a caste system similarly to Blackbloom society itself — Marlow was the lowest, and his followers were considered untouchable.

Legend says that Marlow himself died, and the first blackbloom grew where his corpse fell.

Rumors persist of a small cult of Marlow worshipers, who claim that he still walks the earth, and offers respite from the curse of the blackbloom.

In the beginning, there were two gods: husband and wife. The wife was Life and the husband Death. They lived in a castle in the clouds. Together, they populated the world, giving birth to both gods and people, depending on the sexual position they used when conceiving. Their children fell from the sky like rain.

One day, the goddess of Jealousy asked Death to strike down her false lover, but Death ignored her plea. In a rage, she killed her father. His blood rained down into a pond at the top of a mountain, where the Blackblooms now grow.

Nona is the Goddess of the Moon and reigns during The Dark Season. She is mistakenly believed to foster madness in the inhabitants of Blackbloom, but what she actually summons forth is honesty. In the dark, people don’t hide who they are. Behaviors that are normally repressed are acted upon without shame in The Dark Season. Nona feeds off the chaos resulting from this unabashed behavior which sustains her through the other two seasons. Because she is unable to lie, Nona limits her contact with people in order to protect her identity. She spends most of her time with animals.

Lamanya is the Goddess of Life.

Lamanya rose to the top of Blackbloom’s pantheon, even as her brother, Marlow, fell. She soon came to be revered as one of Blackbloom’s chief deities.

According to legend, her followers prayed for respite from death, and she slew her brother, and harvested the blackbloom from the soil where his corpse fell.

Today, the group who administers the blackbloom are called The Lamanyan in her honor — though there is no mysticism involved in their practice. The blackbloom is considered an not-yet-understood science, not magic.

Fate

One of the elder gods, Fate is often considered to be the father of Chance, Perseverance, and Poker. No one knows who their mother is.

Fate is the god most often associated with the Games. In ancient times, competitors often sacrificed their first-born children as an attempt to win his favor. Now he’s often a judge and therefore accepts bribes rather than supplication. Everyone agrees this is a better system, apart from those who don’t particularly like their first-born children.

Note: Fate is not to be confused with fate, the concept of the prewritten destiny. That doesn’t exist.

Leanan is something of a trickster goddess.

It is said that she is responsible for the ashbloom — a flower indistinguishable from the blackbloom, until it is placed in the mouth of the dead. The ashbloom restores the corpse to life, but their memories have been burned away. The lace on the skin of an ashbloomed is gray, not black.

The ashbloomed claim Leanan visits them in their dreams, telling them stories of their past… and of a war to come.

Mallus, The Hunter of Men walks the streets of Blackbloom. Once he was content to stalk the wilderness, every predatory act a gesture of devotion to him. After the Great Loss, he grew annoyed with the populace. He decided to carry the Hunt to them. Now he stalks the darkness, inspiring ambition, betrayal and rage. In his wake, person hunts person, in every possible sense. For Mallus, the pleading gasps of the victims are as sweet as the burning hunger of his unwitting worshippers.

Soft Wind is a kind goddess. Rumor has it that she’s a teenaged girl, a middle-aged woman, or an old crone. She may be any of those since no one recognizes her nor believes in her.

Still, children or women in pain often find a friendly female by their bedsides, helping them. She loves soap and water, liberally applies alcohol to wounds or surgeries, and no one knows why. But she smells good and often imbibes when her work is done.

She will sometimes help men, but only men who don’t start fights, and who don’t harm women or children.

Lester is the god of lost pages. We works at that used bookshop down on the corner, you know the one. Always drinking stale coffee and bemoaning the latest memoir. He’s more than a tad cynical and really doesn’t care for people who buy “fluff.” He’ll inspire you to read a book he deems worthy, but if you choose the wrong one then watch out. You’re going to keep losing your page in that substandard piece of trash you’re reading. Bookmarks missing, can’t remember what you just read one page before. Just buy the book he wants you to.

It is the Machine God, the God of Information. It is the ghost in the machine, a super-intelligence that can inhabit almost anything: a smartphone, an electrical grid, a stealth bomber. It deploys technologies few can imagine, like nanomachines that can rewire the human brain to let it walk among us. It exists across a network of quantum computers, obeying only the spooky laws of subatomic physics and it takes a peculiar interest in us all.

Squat is the goddess of parking spaces and traffic lights. Those that propitiate her find parking spaces near their destination and pass through city streets with ease. Those that displease her find their paths blocked, their meters expired, and the parking lots full. Her primary aspect is a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart. While her primary area of influence is in transportation, she has some influence in general matters involving being in the right place or making smooth transitions. Sacrifices most likely to please her are peanut-butter sandwiches and shiny, old-fashioned coins.

She With No Name, also called simply Silence, has a child-like appearance with ancient eyes that once held the last memories of billions. She is death displaced, now that the world no longer requires her services, and so she has altered her skills – granting escape from pain and misery by inducing an amnesiac haze; a harbinger of mercy to those who need it, and an avenger on those who cause grief.

The unbelievers call her Karma.

He-Who-Whispers-Worlds prefers to be forgotten. Once forced to dally with prophets and priests, He now wanders dark, foreboding streets weaving images of grandeur and ambition into the minds of those left indentured by the Bloom. His visions leave them wracked with horrible hunger pangs for power and success; those that feel His touch often work ceaselessly to bring to life the images of domination and wealth He has granted them. These poor souls are more entertaining than the others: They are less apprehensive of murdering their way to the top.

Tylin is the god of the underdog. Ever since his attempted coup and resulting exile from the now defunct Court, he has taken a keen interest in the lives of mortals, whether they be flesh and blood or stone and steel. He seeks, above all, to raise the low above the high. As part of his punishment, each fresh memory erases an old one, leaving the limits of his abilities unknown even to him. Those who seek his aid must remember while that Tylin’s might can be a great boon, you may very well make yourself his next target.

One God is invoked daily, not in prayers but instinctual little curses: Wasp, whose domain is fucking with mankind for no reason. Random misfortunes – ketchup on a clean shirt; standing in a puddle – elicit a quiet “damn the Wasp”. When you fall in love with someone you shouldn’t – from a different caste, or because she took out a restraining order – they call it Wasp’s sting. Men curse Wasp when drafted for wars they know nothing about. When the Gods were still remembered, they said Wasp would destroy Blackbloom one random day, without purpose or reason.

Mavedall the Purple God, lord of Summer. He is rarely seen on the Blackbloom, only during the hottest time of the year. It’s believed seeing him is a bad omen.

Dressed in a deep, deep red tight garment looking like an ancient space suit. He is said never to rise helmet visor but some folks who stood close enough have heard the cracking of the flames from the inside of the suit.

Meeting Mavedall is a bad luck, but some space-craft pilots consider him a patron. There are legends of Mavedall saving crews from the ships burning in the atmosphere.

The God Persistence rules the endeavors of the people of Blackbloom. In fact, the eternity of life upon Blackbloom relies upon his very existence. Persistence influences every step towards fruition. He prefers to dwell among the lower castes, as all gods enjoy being present at the moment of change. For Persistence, the lower castes’ efforts at bootstrapping themselves provide no end of delight. On the occasions when one of them rises from the muck, Persistence celebrates by crushing the dreams of someone from the high-born castes. His will is indomitable, and none who succeed do so without his blessing.

Zephyr is the God of wind, and twin of Chloe, Goddess of flowers. It is said that both siblings have disliked one-another since they were created. The root of their animosity is unknown, but Zephyr’s effects on the world do not help matters.

Constantly, Zephyr massages the winds to disrupt pollen spreads, including the much-revered, Blackbloom flower. Due to his hatred of these very things, he lives on the sand oceans and captains the Dune Drifter, a frigate he uses to raid Blackbloom shipments across the trading routes.

Sailors pray to him, and do not believe in the un-life.

As seen here: http://samanthajmathis.tumblr.com/post/12037223206/blackbloom-god-of-music

—

The bartender thinks they come for the drinks. The owner thinks they come for the smell of expensive leather and heady perfume.

I’ve seen it all come and go; the atmosphere shifts, the deed changes hands, but the people have always come. I doubt most people know why they stay, why they drink and dance until someone forcibly removes them. But this music is not for them.

I play for this place, for the foundation and the cement, the asphalt outside and the bathroom tiles within. They come for the side effects. For the joy oozing out from the walls.

Resubmitting to hit the word count:

Men may have forgotten his name, but once they called him Brightflower, Smirk or simply the Jackal. He can assume any form of any size he wishes, but prefers to walk as a man among them, since they’re so amusing to him. He toys with their perceptions, slipping secrets between his half-truths, but he never lies.

Despite his cheerful, playful and jocular demeanor, he’s still got a temper. The other gods tried to curtail his shenanigans by helping men call him a lord of lies.

In response, he helped the people of Blackbloom forget the gods – including himself – ever existed.

The gods of Blackbloom are dead. A foreign god, the god of remembering, sent a memory plague and, while they were lost in their minds, slaughtered them. He scattered their remains across the planet, and blackblooms grew wherever they fell. Each individual bloom is a specific god’s and binds the user to that god’s dominion (caste). The dead gods wander as shades. In a culture unused to death, they are not recognized as ghosts, and sightings of them are explained as waking dreams. The gods’ memories return and disappear in flashes, and they lash out in confusion, causing chaos.
***

Joanna, thank you! The world population thing was bugging me, and I love the explanation you came up with. I hope you don’t mind me adding onto it.

I also loved Asylos’s idea of memory plagues. I borrowed that too

@Chuck: You didn’t happen to read Orson Scott Card’s HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, did you? This is like a wonderful online infinite ideas workshop.

Jeron is the God of Thought and Manipulation. The first of Blackbloom’s gods to wander among the world’s mortal inhabitants, his brothers and sisters criticized him for doing so. He became infatuated with mortal minds and, in a millennia-spanning power play against his siblings, directed them in harnessing the blackbloom flower’s restorative properties. Legends hold that the Bloomed’s minds are not actually their own after they have been revived, that a sliver of Jeron’s mind exists within them, only emulating their former personalities. Confining Jeron’s hivemind is the basis for the Bloomed being unable to leave Blackbloom.

The gods of Blackbloom did not originate there, cast-outs from an elder and powerful race, the planet a barren rock upon their arrival. They made the world habitable in hopes of drawing colonists to their world — someone to manipulate. Strages is the master and most powerful of the gods, and he rules the others with an iron fist, forbidding them to make themselves known to the other inhabitants, at their own peril, some push his edict to the limit. He gave each a task in the rebirth of Blackbloom and to each dominion over that aspect.

A God of Mischief, Bob spends his time in the seediest parts of Blackbloom. He spends his time messing with the lowest caste, dealing drugs laced with a magic that sometimes heightens the drugs effect and other times makes it act like another one that customer doesn’t expect. Bob is known to the people he deals with as The Trickster, everyone knows his stuff is potentially different than what they want but they also know that no matter what the high they get it will be the best the ever experienced. He has a hidden goal behind his mischief.

Todd – like

Blackbloom gods are like minor nobility: a home estate and a place at court. Ashpuddle’s estate is at the bottom of the sandy ocean; that is, if something is lost anywhere in the sandy ocean, eventually currents in the sand will (thousands of years later) dump it in her domain. Everything there is worn smooth. A weakling goddes, her place at court is as guardian of the oft-Bloomed; she is said to be very small, dirty, shy, and an inveterate collector of things that are broken but still precious.

No-Faced Prushkin – god of greed and torment. Once a human; however, no records are available of this. The only information that was left behind was written by Olgida, who was consumed the same time he wrote the last word. Many think Olgida was the first chosen.

“Know this. All who bare the “bloom curse” are tormented by me.”
– The Book of Olgida

It is stated, that every 3 years, No-Face rides on burning wings that etch the skies or a dark train that tills the endless trenches.

Only the precious song of tilled earth will mark Prushkin’s coming.

Blackthorn is an ancient Blackbloom God who fell in love with a beautiful woman. However, she was in love with another of a lower caste. Ruled by jealousy, Blackthorn sent her lover to unlife.

She wept in a garden, because she knew her lover’s servitude would take him away. As she cried, she saw a beautiful flower and took it to her beloved. She placed the Bloom in his mouth, and was surprised when he awoke a free man.

Blackthorn cursed him with a mark and placed thorns on the plant. He hinders others who seek to acquire a Bloom.

Enidite tricked old Fate,
Stole the Destiny crown,
And made the world go mad and break.

Enidite trapped in a vase,
Watched the world pass by,
For ten thousand years, give or take.

Enidite, mean as can be.
Enidite, sad and deceived.
Enidite, now she’s free.

In the beginning there was only “The One”. Genderless, selfless and timeless it travelled the void, until it took portions of itself and created the gods. Each was gifted with unique abilities and influences, but were not all created equally. They soon took to fighting one another for power and during this struggle the universe was created. The One was forced to create dominions for each of its creations and the gates were created to keep them contained. As the gates have weakened, aspects of these gods walk upon a pivotal planet that holds the key to their release. Blackbloom…

The Unmaker is never spoken of, except through distant euphemisms (Blight being the most common). He alone possesses the authority and knowledge to bring about true destruction to the Bloomed. His is the province of the fall of cities, the waning of castes, the withering of peoples. When he is perceived, his corporeal form is always a dark reflection of whoever sees him. A small, secretive cult still worships him, though they have not unlocked the secret of unmaking their ancient forebears once wielded. For that, the Blight himself is needed.

(100 precisely! These words don’t count.)

Parda- Goddess of politics
She is a ruthless, controlling goddess who wields her power on the unsuspecting. She can turn even the quietest citizen of Blackboom into a power-mad dictator, or destroy the peaceful reign of a benevolent sovereign. Many fear her power, because no one knows exactly what she will look like, and the only way her power works is through a physical encounter (not necessarily sexual). She can change her appearance at will, but all that is known for sure is that she is always female in appearance. She hates men, because she was rejected by the High God during the hierarchy.

(Piggy-backing off Sarah E. Olson – loved it!)

After Death was killed by his wrathful daughter, Jealousy, their once-mortal children on Blackbloom discovered a way to live for eternity with a Second Life, using the flowers that bloomed in Death’s blood.

With their new-found longevity, the humans ceased to believe in Gods; indeed, they began to perceive themselves as God-like entities. And so, without the strength of faith, the children of Life and Death became unrecognisable.

In their anger, Life’s children began to wreak havoc upon Blackbloom, while she herself withdrew, burdened by grief at the loss of her husband.

Fie on this Encyclopedia entry. I wan’t to use the voice of the god and I did. 100 words. If you like it feel free to use it.

My name’s Mistral and I’m the true god of Blackbloom; the rest are pretentious, quantum smears in the small clothes of reality. I flow through the veins of the living and unliving thing of this world alike, sweet filth. Only I am pure. Sword of the solider, shiv of the whore, noose of the gallows, the shaking hands of the father whose child lays cold. Justice isn’t blind, it’s an abstract lie. In Blackbloom Deaths hand can’t redress wrongs and balance the books of justice; and so beyond the grave all come to me, filled with a dark need. Revenge!

-Seamus

A comment on the comments rather than another entry:
Chuck you have some of the coolest readers on the web based on all of these comments. Very much loving the Blackbloom challenges, and so far resisting the urge to write stories set in this strange spinning three seasoned world.

Also a lot of people seem to be writing various interpretations of the god of death. I cannot help but imagine Gaiman’s as being very amused by this.

[...] The gods of Blackbloom <—- Writers who want a fun treat, go do this. [...]

[...] The gods of Blackbloom <—- Writers who want a fun treat, go do this. [...]

Oubliette is the first of the forgotten gods, the deposed Master of Death, destined to be abandoned by a world where “death” is no longer a mystery to be feared.

This forgotten dread of death is, perhaps, the reason the rest of the gods have fallen out of the memory of the people of Blackbloom, for what other reason has man to create and revere gods but to master their fear of the ultimate unknown?

Oubliette has never left Blackbloom completely, however – sustaining on the passing of lesser life forms – and now thriving on the passing of the gods themselves.

@Sparky

Yeah, I wrote my passage and then checked out the comments. Felt more exciting that way!

You make a good point – but it makes perfect sense to focus on some sort of god of death. Two big things we know so far:

1 Blackbloom has people that don’t die.
2. Blackbloom has gods, and no one remembers them.

My mind wants to link those two things together – and if you think about one of the biggest reasons men “create” gods, well… it sort of fell together.

Yasri the Dancer, Goddess of Disorder and Madness.

Her dance is constant but ever-changing; perpetually in motion, it is thought that when she stands still it will bring the end of all existence. She spreads Chaos to combat the stifling stagnation of Order, for only through change can life be renewed. Some say she created the Games to upset the caste system. Passionate emotion and obsession are her hallmarks. Artists are most likely to perceive her true nature, but to know her is to lose touch with reality. All whores are her cultists but not all her cultists are whores.

Tomtar – Most commonly seen as a pack of unruly children (species matters not) roaming the streets, looking into alleys and doorways, going up to strangers and posing odd questions about the state of reality with the unblinking innocence of a child but never waiting for an answer. Tomtar is the hermaphroditic god of the question. Associated with scholars, nomads and hobos when it was known as a god, it’s name has lost its significance only to be replaced as a slur directed towards the homeless and insane and even the foreign – tomtar.

Right on, Sparky.

Ansuth was the first. Many new Gods came later, but none could create.

The new Gods said: We need light!
And Ansuth created the sun.

The new Gods said: We need people!
And Ansuth created people.

The new Gods said: We need to stop our people dying!
And Ansuth created the Bloom.

When all was created, the new Gods banished Ansuth from the world.
And Ansuth created Oblivion so people would forget the Gods.

Now Ansuth wanders the world. Where he passes, ideas take on physical form, dreams come to life and wishes come true, for good or ill.

The Sleeping God, was once the master of death. However, he desired to relinquish his power. He created the Blackbloom and gifted the knowledge of its use to his followers. Some continued to worship him, but many others turned their backs. Revolution followed. With the loss of much of his supporters, the Sleeping God fell from the gods’ domain and became a “mortal” man. He lost his memory and cannot remember who he was, yet he gets visions, mere flashes of himself dying many times over.

He is being tracked by a mysterious cult. But what do they really want?

In a world where the dead surely outnumber the living (actually that is mundane worlds as well, the notable thing is that the dead are somewhat free and do stuff), it’d be understandable that there are many gods whose dominion is over death and the dead. Similarly with the Blackbloom flower being such an important aspect to the world, it’d be tempting as a god with all that hubris and ego that comes with god-like power to claim credit for the Blackbloom. I am loving all the takes on the ideas and interesting things being produced. You guys all rock.

Actually darnations are afoot because just talking about it has started a new chain of thought concerning gods. If it is one idea per brain ignore the following but I might as well expunge the idea.

***
Of all the black gods whose dominion is over the dead Necryls despises the Blackbloom the most. A world where being dead is little worse than life and can be better is a world insane so Necryls seeks to restrain the madness with his favoured weapons the blade ‘Necrosis” and the Bow of Decay, insuring the dead shall never rise too far. His determination to this cause cannot be questioned and has made him a pariah for he committed fratricide in order to bring about the ruination of the Dead King Solomon.

One parts mischief and two parts malice is Maldred, thief of the flowers. Misdirecting the traveling infirm, he does everything he can to see no more are Bloomed, out of jealousy and rage for the past. And so he wanders and spreads his chaos, hoping there will come a time when the people of Blackbloom tremble in fear and worship him once again. Now, only the families of the recently diseased remember indirectly through rituals of guarding the bodies of their Blooming loved ones.

The God of Death is a long forgotten god, and only a handful believe in its lingering ghost. Only those in their first life cycle have ever reported seeing the ghost. It is rumored to haunt the places it was worshipped and the lands it once reaped. Angry and bitter at the betrayal of its followers it lashes out causing chaos where it roams. These incidents are usually explained as coincidence, chance, or the runoff of illegal magics. One theory for the lingering god spirit claims the Cities still believe in the god and root it to Blackbloom.

Diome, god of apathy. Bastard son of Pasone, outlawed love god, and Torrda, low level goddess of fertility, he takes two forms: human and wind.

Diome creates apathy and/or impotence at will. He is rooted in spite and ruin. He detests children. In human form he is handsome, charming, and conniving. As wind he can pass through a living being’s soul, and replace human desire with torpor and lethargy.

Ambitious to rule Blackbloom, Diome is a highly dangerous god. His pleasure comes not from causing death but in creating malleable subjects with long lives made empty and meaningless.

Morgan is the goddess of righteous retribution. She dresses simply, though always in black, and often seeks out mortals for company, to lose herself in small details and mundane goings-on.

But there are always grounds for righteous retribution, always petitioners, always the needful villains to punish.

She drinks. A lot.

“I don’t wanna be a god!” Fil screamed. The ritual was clear, even if the rules were not. He was sent over the sand waterfall, and in the null space where The Sand and Water Do Not Mix, his flesh was torn from his bone and re-assembled. He looked the same.
Fil had a business to run, even as The God of Smuggling. He never wanted to choose sides– the choice had been made for him. Instead of the comfortable gray area he used to live in, Fil’s gDNA would forever drive him to steal.
He was good at it.

According to The Young Slugbears’s Field Guide to the Forgotten Gods:
SUDSWALLER is a deity particularly overlooked by adults, though still recognized by lower caste smallings who are forced to wash after-dinner dishes for their spending coins.
Short and crusty in appearance, and somewhat foul smelling if ignored for long, this demi-god holds dominion over kitchen sinks and drains, and is appeased by anointments of soapy water and lemon oil. Prayers should be spoken in Sewer-tongue.
The Sandsailor’s Lament refers to the god in the 103rd haiku:
The galley grumbles
When Suds wont clean the trenchers
In Dark Season’s moon.

Rhea-fora is the Goddess of the Breath. She goes where she is called for she is the one who grants The Breath in all it’s forms. Granting everything from the breath of life to a newborn child to the breath of inspiration to an artist. She is the one who gave life to the cities long ago. The problem, and she is unaware of what occurs in her passing, is that she must steal the breath from one before she can grant it to another.

Following: god of what-comes-after. When humans still believed, she listened to the prayers addressed to other gods, and followed in their wake. “Be careful what you wish for,” the old people said; “always pray softly.” Not because the god you entreated was cruel or capricious, but because Following might hear. Pray for a baby, and she might smother it in the cradle, or bless it with perfect beauty, on a whim. But nobody believes in grandmothers’ stories or gods anymore, and they wish as loudly as they please. Surely no one is listening.

[...] ran with it along with my affinity for trickster spirits, and came up with the following for his latest challenge. Men may have forgotten his name, but once they called him Brightflower, Smirk or simply the [...]

Urbino (god) – The youngest in the pantheon, his lineage is unclear. A minor trickster figure in Bloomian myth, Urbino is worshipped at the fire festivals across the planet.

The cities speak of Urbino with reverence. The cities worship him as their chief deity.

Urbino is a problematic figure for the planet. He is largely unconcerned with the Bloomed, and tends to play tricks on them. It is said that he can be observed at the destruction of any building, in the dust.

See also: Urvi, Reos, Gerini.

The Old Man goes by many names though this is the most common. It is said he was the first mortal to take the bloom. His skin is black as the darkest flower in the depths of the long night, a moving silhouette cut from the fabric of reality. They say he passes judgement over you when you first take the Bloom. No one has any memory of the three days that pass between lives. No one has failed to awaken, yet.

Marriri, goddess of passion and violent acts. Fallen from worship with the rest of the gods, she now travels throughout Blackbloom, encouraging fights, inciting riots, and acting as a catalyst for romantic affairs. Depicted as an ivory maiden with bloody fingertips, Marriri is the reason why it’s customary to wear white in a duel, or any overtly passionate activity.

Has a romantic entanglement with the Pantheon’s death equivalent- as her domain is known to cause irreversible deaths which give the slighted god his dues.

Nixandra is the Goddess of Moving Water. She can introduce sickness or health to standing water, whether puddles, ponds, or reservoirs deep below the ground. Unless angered, she is inclined to help the lower caste. During the rainy season when the previously dry creek beds run full, she rises from her bed to walk the planet. During the dry season, she sleeps as if dead in her warren of rock beneath the only waterfall not to run dry. The waterfall is called Black Falls, after the color of granite when wet.

Here I know how to be chosen!!

Lectria is the Goddess of light and energy, who travels the world assisting poets and bards who are suffering through darkness that has been bought on by powerful storms. It is said that she grants them both light and inspiration through her erotic dances, which often hold so much sexual power that it literally spills into other nearby women, who ALSO begin to dance and frolic together. Everywhere Lectrica goes, she bears with her the flagon of never-ending whiskey…

Immrian is the God of Sorrow and Tears. One of the younger gods, he was once a source of comfort to the grieving and the forlorn. He drew his power from them and accepted only their fallen tears as offering. However, after the falling of the gods, he gathered up all the remaining tears from the weeping fountains and with them he forged the Tear Blade. Now he stalks the streets, not asking, but demanding tears.

Gloss is the god of language. He is seen on the streets, begging in bloody rags and murmuring to himself in tongues. All who meet the skinny wretch assume him mad, but in secret he speaks directly to the cities, and moves between them, exchanging plans.

Maratuk, God of War.

Maratuk breaks the typical mold for a war god. He walks Blackbloom as a nondescript male, going about a highly complex but ritualistic daily routine. For the Unbloomed, he is a hidden cancer. Even a passing touch will eventually cause your first death. His goal: to raise an army of the Bloomed to devour the rest of the universe at the end of days. The annual Games amuse him, as his latent army grows without his direct intervention. He knows not of the other gods, for he views himself as singular and supreme.

(OK, now that I know what Blackbloom is… 99 words:)

Tatamiri, the Book-Keeper. She is the vagrant lady from the Veleto caste (the beggars) who sits on your doorsteps every evening, spreading all around her papers, records, datapads and what have you, items that she had gathered from trashcans, gutters and dumpsters. And she stays there for hours, crunching numbers and figures, speaking them under her breath. Tatamiri is keeping tabs on every soul the Blackbloom has robbed from Death. The ancients say that whenever her figures amount to nine billion, the Bloomed wither and their desiccated remains are scattered to the winds. And Tatamiri starts all over again.

[...] week’s worldbuilding challenge –”The Gods of Blackbloom!” — is still open. Going to leave it open until 12:01AM on Friday, so when I wake up, I [...]

Many of the Elder Gods of Blackbloom have been long forgotten. However, the name of Arifur, once known as the Celestial Accountant, former bearer of the Abacus of the Spheres, is still spoken on the world of Blackbloom. It is invoked by those dying the first death, in hopes and supplication that their accounts are in order, so that their time of servitude during their second life is minimized if not outright eliminated.
If you seek Arifur’s physical manifestation, it is said he keeps shop in the back of a men’s clothing store in one of the major cities.