Franz Lohner's Chronicle - An Embarrasment of Gods

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

So here’s a funny thing. You know how we went tromping up to the Citadel of Eternity looking for the favour of the gods? (That’s the royal “we”, obviously. Franz Lohner doesn’t go tromping anywhere for nothing or nobody these days. Strictly managerial, I am.) Well, seems that we’ve drawn the eye of rather more than we expected.

Before you go getting all flustered, I’m not talking about those Chaos weirdos. While they’re still afflicting the land around the Citadel with all kinds of curses and malign manifestations, that’s more what you’d call business than personal. So far – touch wood – there’s been no indication whatsoever that the dark brothers have even noticed my lot poking around the northlands, and long may it continue.

Nor is it just the five we went a-courting. No, I’m talking about, well, pretty much every other god ever to put on a funny hat and start craving mortal worship. They’re dishing out boons and blessings as if it’s the end of the world, and they’ve a stockpile they’re wanting to blast through before the great cosmic inventory at the end of time. 

The gods of elves, dwarfs and men? Well, I guess that was to be expected. Nothing gets a god more jealous than a sibling poking meddling on their territory, so that accounts for Ulric, Ursun, Asuryan, Grimnir and the like. But some of these others? Hailing from every civilisation the light touches, or at least that’s how it feels. 

Added to the mix, we’ve got Lustrian Old Ones (which are as near to gods as makes no difference, or so Olesya says) as well as a couple of barbaric deities. The Great Maw (no relation to Morr, one assumes) is worshipped by ogres. Less a deity, that one, and more a bag of endless appetite, but what works, works. Might say the same about the Nehekharan gods, who’ve also nodded a sage animal bonce of favour in our direction a time or two. And then we’ve got a real surprise: Hashut, the dark and brooding deity of what most call Chaos Dwarfs, and about whom Bardin has nothing good to say. By most reckonings, Hashut’s a Chaos God himself – if strictly small fry – so why he’s lending a hand? Probably just likes watching things burn. You get people like that, so why not gods?

About all we’re missing at this point is the Great Horned Rat. I mean yes, technically he’s on the other team, but skaven have made treachery a bit of a sport, and I don’t imagine their god would be any different. Not that I’d want the Horned Rat pitching in. It’s not just that some victories aren’t worth the price. It’s more that it’d be proof that whatever’s going on in the world just got bigger than our little squabble with the ratmen. When the fat’s really in the fire, there are only two sides: the Chaos Gods, and everybody else. 

Seems to me it’s getting a mite warmer. I’ve a feeling it’ll get worse before it gets better.