Worldbuilding 101: Gods of Varheim
At this moment, I’m pretty deep into writing a novella set within Varheim. (It started out as a one-off-but-maybe-prequel short story, and has already exploded into a 75,000-word book.)
Unfortunately, my time for blogging, reading, gaming, and other hobbies have all dropped off. So it’s been almost three months since my last Worldbuilding 101 update.
My hope is that you’ll understand the irregular posting. From a creative perspective, it’s definitely a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I am doing a ton of worldbuilding through the act of writing in this world. But then again I haven’t dedicated time to brainstorming or behind-the-scenes storytelling, and there is so much of Varheim left to figure out.
At this point you already met the nine fantasy races that live in Varheim, and that’s a big start. But I don’t know all the historical relations between them, the regular trade routes, the specific city locations, or the foundational legends in each subculture.
There’s an overwhelming amount of stuff to tackle. And it will take years for me to build all of that. So for now, you’ll have to settle for a single update.
And to do that, we’ll have to talk about the gods of Varheim.
The gods of Varheim
Like any fantasy story, the gods play a major role in Varheim; their influence touches everything. These entities—called “the Nine”—have a hand in the day-to-day life of every single person or thing on Varheim.
Each member of the Nine represents one of the nine races. Similarly, each one also manages one of the elements of creation. (And yes, those dual responsibilities are bound together.)
Sibbum: The god of light and the valoth
Vaela: The goddess of darkness and the saoturi
Eld: The god of earth and the engila
Marek: The god of air and the otassi
Valhore: The god of fire and the eylings
Seidna: The goddess of water and the ruada
Yngot: The goddess of stone and the yotnar
Falka: The goddess of wood and the inukith
Meldr: The god of aedra and the kantu
Every element of creation has a counterpart. And so the Nine are broken into a pair, with their cumulative powers offsetting the unchecked power of the ninth element, aedra. Aedra is the core building block of the realms, a veined stone from the stars that seeds Varheim with both life and magic. (There are a lot of legends about that, which we’ll cover later.)
One major benefit of this is that all of these connections create a shared pantheon for the world; no god could function without the others. As you’d expect, religious practices differ by god, race, region, or even family. But there are still a lot of similarities across Varheim.
That also helps maintain a level of balance across the gods and the races.
Divine influence
Nine gods that manage nine elements and oversee nine races could be a nightmare. If they were a dysfunctional family like the Greek pantheon, life would be disastrous for everyone in Varheim. But the system has built-in pieces to balance everything involved in this jigsaw puzzle, especially because the gods of Varheim are fundamentally different from each other.
Here’s how it works.
Time is broken up into thousand-year ages. At the beginning of each cycle, the Nine are reborn and they remake the world. Five of these nine gods are chosen at random to become Firstborn, the first deities to awaken and set the changes in motion.
As a result, the Firstborn have the most power in the age to come. Their element (and its associated magic) is more powerful, and the people they represent often become a leading force in global events.
This is where things get interesting for mortals. When the gods of Varheim enter the Great Sleep, every living thing joins them until the world has been restored. And this works because there are a finite number of souls in creation; a person will sleep for decades or even centuries, waiting until their god summons them into a newborn body.
(Similarly, once a person dies, their soul is cycled back into the Great Sleep.)
The silent betrayal
One last note of interest. The Nine have a special “seat of power” in Varheim. They reside on the island of Godshome when they choose to walk among mortals, so it became a sort of divine garden where priests and pilgrims could travel to commune with the Nine directly.
At least, until the end of the most recent cycle.
When the Nine came to Godshome to end one cycle and begin the next, they fell into the Great Sleep. But while they slept, someone betrayed the Nine.
It should not have been impossible, with the entire world silent. But someone murdered Meldr in his sleep. And he would have been one of that age’s Firstborn.
When the other four Firstborn woke, Meldr was gone. His chair was broken in two, and without the lifegiving power of their god, his people were turned to stone. (Their statued remains can still be found across the Grey Barrows...which would indicate that they were alive and moving when Meldr was lost. But that’s another story for another day.)
The loss of one of the Nine wasn’t the biggest concern. Without Meldr to control an element of creation, the careful balance shifted, and the rest of the Nine could do nothing to restore it. So the current age has been filled with bizarre weather patterns, changes to the world’s flora/fauna, and even odd fluctuations in the very nature of magic.
And to protect themselves after Meldr’s death, the Nine becalmed the ocean around Godshome. Then they raised the island into the sky, floating about the new “Sea of Glass.”
Power shifts
Something like that has a lot of affects. Without the same level of interaction, the races’ connection to their gods lessened over time. In order to protect themselves, the Nine lost a lot of their influence over the rest of Varheim.
Sure, they still controlled the elements of creation (and magic as a whole). But rulers and noble houses no longer sent delegations to seek the gods’ advice. Which meant the the Nine managed and sustained the world, but not really the people who inhabited it.
The current age in Varheim became something very different from all the ones before it. And as a writer, I can say that creates a pretty fantastic backdrop for me to explore and make sense of a setting that’s going through so much upheaval.
After all, it means there are a lot of interesting stories to tell.