The pantheon currently in charge of the continent of the Coil is A Certain Pantheon, loosely referred to as the Arcanas. They are made up of the Four Major Arcana, and currently have Six Minor Arcana. Learn more about them in the Deities page.
A central conceit of the Arcanas, or the pantheon, is that every god within it has their divine powers not born to them, not bestowed upon them, but earned, the hard way. It is only through being forged in one’s own personal crucible that a mortal can grasp holiness with their own hands, and in the realm of the Coil, ten individuals have. Every single one of them has been mortal at one point, pushed to the brink and then plummeting further beyond: to become not as gods but gods in truth.
The Major Arcana are described as such as they were the first of the pantheon to come into their power, to earn their godhood. The four Major Arcana were born to a time without gods from whence they chiseled themselves into being. They are the oldest and the most powerful of the pantheon, their faith the most widespread and their devotees amongst the most numerous. Read more about this in The Beginning, the Now, and the Thereafter .
The Major Arcana’s shaping of the Coil to be a slightly less inhospitable and pitiful landscape afforded the masses with their own chance at deliverance. And it is from the Coil’s populace from which any further divinity will have to be drought— for while the Major Arcana shaped the world to be as it is now, they could not (or would not) shape beings to be as they were. The trial of godhood is an undertaking for you and you alone, and none may make the load lesser, not even the gods.
The path to ascension is different for everyone. Every member of the Arcana, major or minor, new or founding, has their own journey to undertake whether they know if they’re on that journey or not. There are no definitive sources of exactly what criteria needs to be met (if there is any to begin with) or what requirements there are for ascension. Some ascend through their deeds— many surmise that To linger in your wake was a healer of great piety and dedication. It is said that The silk and the stutter started their first life, their first “verse”, as a Nobleman’s cherished Bard, among other rumors.
And while most deem it futile to live your life with the aim of divinity as your final goal, many still dedicate decades, if not their entire being to this pursuit. Most, if not all, will fail. Because while godhood is attainable, and divinity is within your grasp it does not mean that one necessarily has the strength or will to contain it. But some remain dogged in this quest, insistent that they will be the next to join the Arcanas, just as For want of all that’s verdant, the newest of the pantheon, had 500 years ago, in their Offering of the Laurels. Reaching for godhood is a fool’s errand, but a fool is what you may have to become, in order to think yourself capable of such a feat.
A god’s first life, their first “verse”, is spent as that god where the whole of the Coil comes to know of your ascension and of your existence. Attaining divinity is no quiet feat. Like the landing of a fly on the spider’s web, your arrival into the pantheon is felt by any and all who share Arcana blood— be they the gods themselves or the descendants left behind. While nothing so garish as a visual marker appears, there is something about you, something in the air in your presence that has changed, to the point that even mortals feel the difference. It is in this first life that gods cement their domain, their place in the Arcana; spent taking their first steps in wielding this newly earned power. This first life is the opening stanza to the ballads that bards will sing of you— and these years your opportunity to make something worth singing about.
These nascent decades are the often the hardest, for you become isolated in a way, from the only home you’ve known— alone in straddling the line between the mortal you were and the god you’ve come to be. People you’ve known your whole mortal life can feel like strangers, and strangers who would have never looked your way vie for your attention. Then there are those who would seek to take your divinity from you— believing if they can kill a god in the cradle so to speak, that that’s cause for their own ascension. The marvel of your first moments of godhood can sometimes pale in comparison to the dangers that follow.
In a realm where gods can be made there exists the notion (whispered in hushed tones, as if sharing a very ill begotten secret) that gods can be unmade. Is divinity, once grasped, permanent? Most believe so— at least to an extent.
When a member of the Arcanas first passes on it is seen less as a death and more like a reward, as morose as that sounds. Even the most sociable gods tire of the burden of recognition, after a time, and eventually choose to begin their lives anew. It is only after the harsh years of their first lives finally melt away, the path to reincarnation opens up to the pantheon.
Many gods choose to return to the Coil after their first verse, wearing different faces and living out different lifestyles and settling in to positions as divine; with the all important benefit of having gained control of their divinity enough to dull the sheen to mortal eyes. Of course kin will always recognize kin, but at least now they can live their second, third, fourth, and further lives without the beacon of godliness to call attention to their existence.
Most of the pantheon choose to spend their time in one form or another on the Coil, living out their umpteenth life and making the most of their divinity earned. And make no mistake, for all of their otherworldy power, at their base the Arcana were once mortal. They are plagued by the same failings and aided by the same virtues that any mortal would. The only difference being that depending on the case, the scale of what is affected by their very moral failings is very, very different. Still, for the most part, the gods exist on the Coil much the same as you and I, and live out their many many lives in a similar manner as well. Some even choose to sow their wild oats, scattering their descendants into the population of the Coil. Others make ample use of their powers, answering prayers and bolstering devotees in their wake. And there are those who go right back to what they were doing before godhood, for some people just never change.