So I’ve been tinkering around with the Rinmaru games some more because I can’t help myself, and decided to create a bunch of characters I haven’t worked on in ages — not since the last cartoony character-creator I got sucked into, back when they all had Greek names because that’s what I was doing at the time.  (According to the stamp on the file, that time was 2004.)

Surprisingly, my visual concept of them hasn’t changed much.  Or maybe that’s not so surprising, since they’re the gods — seldom seen, not often active, just lurking in the background unbothered by the world.  What changes did come around happened when I started writing my cosmologies and realized that most of the major gods manifested in (or rose up from) specific areas of the world — and thus should better reflect the populace of those areas.  My world in 2004 was much more Western European than is is now.

Anyway, starting with some of the bigger influences in the story, here is the Trifold Goddess.  Old version:

New version:

Ammala Cray

Fiora Kinrick follows the Sword Maiden Breana; Ammala Cray follows Brigydde (as a laywoman, and only slightly more than she follows the rest of the Trifold).  It is somewhat implied that Cob’s father and Enkhaelen’s wife both followed Brancir.

Brigydde and Brancir’s colorations are two that changed because of locale.  Brigydde lived in Illane before it was known by that name — a hot, dry country with seasonal monsoons.  In life, her hair was dark, and I imagine she looked rather like Ammala, who is from the same area; her apotheosis transformed it red as flame.

Cob

(The cat on her head is the lion-god Athalarr, who is currently courting her.)

As for Brancir, she’s the Primarch of the silver elementals called Muriae, who live up in the Thundercloak Mountains with the people of Kerrindryr and have adapted a sort of artificial skin over their metal ‘flesh’ in order to look like the Kerrindrixi — thus they should be the appropriate tone, like Cob.

Breana looks basically the same from before, because it suits her southern Altaeran heritage.

Next comes a big lump of old-version gods.  Ignore Khronos, he no longer exists.  Also ignore the Greek names.  Ignore!

Augh, my past.

Starting at the top, we have two of the Dread Triad — the goddesses that are considered to oppose the Trifold.  Red Eris became Lady Ruin (and also somewhat less red), while the Nemesis stayed the same, only had a better reason for being called that.

Rule of Law

The Lady of Knowledge first manifested in one of the desert countries, Yezadra, so took her appearance to echo the populace — then gained the golden hair when she absorbed the Primarch of the House of Gold.  After murdering her lover, the god of law, in a jealous rage (or so it’s said), she absorbed some of his essence and took on the iron tinge of his skin.

Law’s actual face was never seen; he always wore a helm.  In fact, he never took off any of his armor, and while some believed he was hollow inside, others had a different interpretation.  This appearance is a popular extrapolation from his later years, when he started being sidelined by his original people — the Altaerans — and his once-pristine iron-knight form began to rust.

Third in the Dread Triad is the Blood Goddess, Loahravi.  Together with her two ‘sons’, she is the most active opponent of the Trifold — what with Nemesis having withdrawn into her libraries and Ruin never showing her hand.

In order from the original picture, they are Deimos, Lorelei and Maenithmos.  The only relevance there is that Deimos was a Greek demigod/the personification of terror, and his cognate Daenivar is the demigod of nightmares.

Neither Daenivar nor Rhehevrok are Loahravi’s biological children.  Rather, Daenivar was a haelhene wraith and Rhehevrok a Leshya ogre, both of whom Loahravi ate but couldn’t fully digest.  She tore them from herself and reshaped them as her servitors, one to invoke fear and the other to create bloodshed.  And…other troubles.  Note the grabby hands.

Meanwhile, detached from the eternal scuffle of the Trifold and the Triad are the two major gods, Andar and Morgwi — or Light and Shadow.  (Previously called Luminus and Ker Moera, because….I don’t know why I called him that.  I liked the sound of it?)  Joining them is an equally detached and often overlooked deity (at least in the north), known as Dalatha or Moon-Shadow.

Emperor Aradys IV

These three are technically the most powerful gods, but with the exception of Morgwi they are also the most distant.  Andar and Dalatha are both celestial powers, corresponding to the sun and the moon, and are said to be engaged in a love affair and thus not much interested in the world.  Meanwhile Morgwi, the third wheel, involves himself in human affairs out of boredom.

Meanwhile, the Risen Phoenix Emperor purports to serve an alternate Light, brighter and harsher than Andar’s warm glow.  Many of the Imperial characters follow this Imperial Light, considering Andar to be a pretender and his worshipers to be heretics.

Andar and Dalatha’s people do have defenders, though: two demigods in service to the celestials.  Iroliyale the Traveler patrols the day, and Tatska the Night Wind does the same for the night.

Not much is known of them beside their allegiance.

Finally are the two quiet gods, never seen unless on the business of their realms.  Surou rules dreams, daydreams, hallucinations and other altered-consciousness experiences, and granted Daenivar his power over nightmares because of favors the former-wraith once did.  While the following image has a vaguely male form, Surou has no gender; technically none of the manifested gods do, but most have chosen to portray themselves as one, while Surou constantly changes appearance, gender, and even species.

This is Surou’s most common coloration, even when randomly mimicking the appearances of dreamers.  Though not active within the waking world, Surou is known to wander extensively and can sometimes be seen out of the corner of the eye if the observer is tired or daydreaming.

Even less visible is Death Herself, for she only appears to the dead, to her High Priestesses — or to necromancers who irk her.

Judge

Most often she appears as a stark-white jackal-woman, because the land where she first manifested (Xiroacer) is ruled by them, and almost all of her High Priestesses come from there.  When dealing with humans, however, one of three versions will appear: the Reaper, who claims the dead who need to be unbound from the world in some way; the Hunter, who tracks and kills necromancers and others who disturb the dead; and the Judge, who rules the Deadlands and presides over reincarnation.  It is not entirely certain whether these three incarnations are one goddess with three forms, or three goddesses sharing one realm, and they do not answer questions about their affairs.