Setting: "Chosen" - the four gods

[kaylin881]

"Chosen" is a fantasy setting focused on a country with a polytheistic religion. There are four gods corresponding to the classical elements, and each god has its own priesthood with a separate hierarchy. At the top are four people (one for each god) who were chosen at birth to be granted a fraction of the god's power. The story focuses on these figures, who are known as the Gods' Chosen. This post, on the other hand, introduces the gods themselves.

The air god is named Keah. They are associated with storms, the sky, travel, and change. Air is ever-changing. Air seeks out new experiences. Air finds its way between barriers and through cracks. No matter how you try, it cannot be contained. Air is shared in breath, in voice, in song. It is free in every sense of the word.

The earth god is named Torek. They are associated with crops and farming, with building, with the land beneath one's feet. Earth is constant, earth is still. It moves only as it is moved by others. Earth supports. Earth divides and builds walls. Earth endures. Earth remembers; earth holds and stores. Earth insulates, carves out space. Earth remains the same.

 

The fire god doesn't have a name yet. They are associated with the sun, the dry season, deserts, volcanoes, and man-made light sources. Fire is quick. It is capricious and demanding. Fire destroys, but gives warmth. Fire illuminates. Fire is harsh and uncompromising. Fire cannot be entirely tamed. If you try, it will destroy you.

 

The water god also doesn't have a name yet. They are associated with the moon, sea, tides, rivers, and rain. Water soothes. Water feeds. Water cleans. As ice, it preserves. It is both constant and ever-changing; it is purposeful and meandering. Water is patient, and finds its way through the unexpected places. It can wait still and frozen, or sweep you off your feet. Like fire, it is full of contradictions. 

 

Each element is connected to a different kind of love, and a different kind of relationship.

 

Earth is associated with marriage and commitment, with long lasting relationships. Earth is the love of an old married couple who calmly work around each other's faults and rough edges because they've accepted that there's no changing them after this long. It's the little rituals you build up after decades living together. It's the way everything crumbles when they're not there anymore. 

 

Torek is invoked at weddings and renewals of vows. Wedding-vow renewals are an established thing in this culture, and are about reaffirming your commitment to each other and to the relationship. Some people do them at regular intervals, while others will choose to renew their vows after a significant change in their lives, like their children leaving home to get married. 

 

Air is associated with friendship and the initial, transient connections you make with people you meet. Air is the way you connect with your colleagues or classmates, it's the girl at the café who remembers your usual order. Many platonic relationships start out as air-based and grow into something different. If they don't blossom and solidify into one of the other types of love, they eventually blow away in the breeze. However, air relationships are still important, despite being ephemeral. 

 

Fire is, as per the usual stereotype, associated with passion and romantic/sexual attraction, what the Greeks called eros. It burns bright but quick, and can burn out unless it's fueled with the longer-lasting firewood of earth. Fire is the energy of a new relationship, the honeymoon, the boy you have a crush on. The ideal is for a fire-and-air-based relationship to deepen and grow over the years into one based in earth and water. 

 

One way of asking to date someone in this culture is to offer them a lit candle, with the flame signifying that you would like a romantic relationship with them. The person can accept it, which means they want to date, blow it out, which means they want to be friends, or snuff it out by smothering it, which means they don't want any kind of relationship with you. A particularly hardcore rejection is to snuff out the candle with your fingers. 

 

Water is associated with childbirth and blood ties, and therefore with family relationships: the kind you maybe don't like but you love, just because of who they are to you. Water is the instant love a mother has for her baby the first time she holds it (or at least that's the ideal). Water is the bond between siblings who rub each other the wrong way half the time, but keep coming back and making up. It's the little rituals you build up from living together, channels worn into the bedrock.

 

This culture has some equivalent of a baptism ceremony involving water, which might be used exclusively for adopted children as a symbolic "birth" into their new family, or might be a way to celebrate births in general.