<span class="bbc_u"><strong>The Setting</strong></span><br/>The capital city is Invictia, and you will all have come along with countless other would-be heroes to answer the kings call for brave souls willing to go on a dangerous quest on his behalf. This is beyond a doubt the most powerful kingdom ever to have existed, with armies that rule much of the known world and counts many other smaller kingdoms as satrapies or allies. The game will start the night before you are to have an audience with the king. You'll all be at the Golden Bull tavern, a normally very exclusive establishment in the garden district that has been opened to the general public along with the garden district itself at the king's command.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_u"><strong>The Gods</strong></span><br/>Keep in mind that none of the gods are strictly 'good' or 'evil'. They are the embodiments of their portfolios, and thus beyond concepts of good and evil, law and chaos - they act as they should, or in the case of some like Invictus, as they will. An evil person might worship Invictus for the power to inflict plague and death on his enemies, while a kindly healer could draw power from Melfia to stave off death for those whose time has yet to come. keep in mind that these six are the major deities - there are a great many lesser deities, demigods, hero-deities and minor celestials and demons descended from, spawned, or elevated by the gods.<br/><br/>The Gods of Light<br/>So called because they are led by Invictus, the gods of light are not necessarily gods of goodness, but are by and large considered much better than their counterparts the Dark Gods.<br/><br/><strong>Invictus</strong>- The king of the gods and the lord of Air, Law, Light and Life, Invictus is a powerful but haughty and incredibly vain deity who is famous for his fickle nature, and even though he is a deity of light and life he also has a wrathful side, and those who earn his wrath may well find themselves twisted into horrific forms or slain by bolts of celestial lightning or raging tempests. Unlike the other gods, Invictus has never shared his divine spark - he has no children, and his blessings are handed out sparingly, but nonetheless those who pray for the sun to rise each day and fear the storm pray fervently to him to. His clergy are rare, chosen from among only the the most powerful and beautiful, especially handsome men and women of radiant beauty.<br/><br/><strong>Melfia</strong>- The Goddess of Death, Time, and Earth, also called The Inevitable, is said to be a terrifying being born at the moment the first Primordial died and the concept of death was conceived of by those powerful beings. Melfia's countenance is said to cause terror in even the stoutest of hearts despite her ashen beauty. Those who understand death also know that it is nothing to fear. Melfia claims only those whose time has come, and many a hero has returned from her realm to fight again as an undead warrior when his life was cut unexpectedly short. Melfia has borne a great many children with her brother and sometimes-lover Teio.<br/><br/><strong>Teio</strong>- Called the Guiding Star or the Iron Hammer, Teio is the god of Fire and Fate, brother of Invictus and Melfia and the greatest craftsman and warrior of the gods. Teio is also the patron deity of adventurers, and many a hero and villain both have received some powerful weapon or magical trinket as a result of his favor. Although he is older than Invictus he is far less powerful than his radiant younger sibling and serves dutifully as his brothers right hand and the chief warrior and craftsman of the gods. Teio has even given away much of his power and his duties to other gods and even mortals- his followers are legion, and his many offspring born of both mortal and divine unions walk the earth in greater numbers than any other god except Rasmus. Of all the gods, none of them has walked the earth among mortals more often than Teio, and three separate times he has shed his godhood entirely to battle against the minions of the dark gods personally.<br/><br/>The Dark Gods<br/><br/><strong>Vara</strong>- The Queen of the Dark Gods, and the goddess of darkness, secrets, and love. Vara was once a mortal queen who won her divinity by fighting her way to the very gates of Invictus' celestial palace, where she laid siege to the holy garden with her army for three years straight, battling the forces of the gods nearly non-stop the entire time until finally proud Invictus was forced to parley with her. In exchange for ending the siege of heaven, Vara asked to be elevated to godhood herself, and she so impressed mighty Invictus with her will, tenacity, and beauty that he immediately elevated her to the status of a demigod. Vara and Teio were Invictus' left and right hand for centuries, the queen of the gods growing more and more powerful with each passing day as she received the residual divine power from her husbands worship, until she was finally raised to the status of a Lesser Deity, and then a Greater Deity not long after. Vara's power grow so great and so quickly that Invictus became jealous of his ambitious wife and sought to strip much of her power from her to ensure that she could never rival him, but the now-queen of shadows refused him - forcefully - and in an act of divine power not seen since the early days of the world, she engaged the Highest of Holies in battle and fought him to a stalemate. Invictus could brook no equals to his might and glory, but neither could he defeat Vara, so he expelled her from the celestial realm, taking with her the battle-hungry god Kruth, a bloodthirsty mortal barbarian king whom Vara had claimed as her champion and general. Ever since, Vara and Invictus have battle relentlessly against eachother, and so have the gods and hosts they command.<br/><br/><br/>Kruth and Leetha<br/>Legend has it that Kruth was a barbarian warlord who so impressed the fledgling goddess Vara with his savage, efficient brutality that she elevated him to the status of a demigod to serve as Vara's deadliest divine enforcer. Kruth gained the power of a true god, however, when he abducted leetha, the youngest daughter of teio and Melfia, and used an artifact from the dawn of the world to bind her into servitude and siphon off her divine energies, making himself into a full-fledged God in his own right and giving him the power to claim the mantle of the God of War from Teio. Suffice it to say that kruth and teio are bitter enemies, and followers of Kruth clash with those of Teio wherever they happen to meet. Leetha, enslaved by whatever primordial magic Kruth has used to bind her, is a helpless thrall of Kruth who uses her divine powers to aid her master in his destructive enterprises, keeping death's touch away from his faithful and forging them powerful weapons and engines of war.<br/><br/>Rasmus<br/>The mad god Rasmus is an enigma. No legends speak of his origins or how he wrested the domains of magic and disease from the gods. What is known is that Rasmus' power is equal to that of any other god, light or dark, and his dark experiments and mad schemes sundered a portion of the celestial sphere and plunged it into the depths of the cosmos, creating the abyss from whence sprang the first demons. Rasmus is the progenitor of many a bizarre monster, and history is rife with tales of overly-ambitious spellcasters who took his dark gifts and were later twisted into monsters themselves by the tainted offerings he gives.<br/><br/><br/><span class="bbc_u"><strong>Character Creation</strong></span>: All you need is d20pfsrd (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/) and Path of War (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/path-of-war). All the information you need is there, and anything outside of Paizo and Dreamscarred material should be run by me.  Characters will be built with 25 Point-Buy (Here's a Point-Buy calculator (http://www.tools.digitalightbulb.com/pbcalc.html)). You may choose or create a race with a maximum of 13 race points. Races that are most appropriate are Human, Elf, Half-Elf, Aasimar (descendants of gods), and Tiefling (Descendants of much darker gods and demons), but other race are allowed and encouraged with a good story. Alternate racial traits are also allowed.<br/><strong>Classes:</strong>All Paizo and Dreamscarred Press classes.<br/><strong>Traits:</strong>You may select two Traits (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits#TOC-Gaining-Traits), with the normal restriction that you cannot select two traits from the same list.<br/><strong>Starting Level:</strong>6.<br/><strong>Equipment:</strong>Don't worry about magical gear just yet; buy mundane gear, up to 5,000 Gp worth. Magical items are super-rare in the setting, but don't worry you'll get the magical bonuses you need in short order.<br/>