CANON/SOURCE: Friends at the Table
CANON POINT: after theĀ creation of the sun and prior to meeting Samot
AGE: ageless and immortal, but his human form appears comparable to a man in his early 40s
GENDER/SEXUALITY: not applicable; something abstract and ancient that can only loosely be interpreted as masculine, let alone hewing to modern human understandings of sexuality
In the beginning, there was Nothing. A yawning absence of all things that are, that live, that act.
And then, when Nothing flinched, there was Samol. From that first impulse, heĀ became materiality, his body the earth from which all things are made. Seeing what it had wrought, Nothing became regretful, and in that moment of regret bore Tristero, the lord of death, into existence. Tristero was sent to kill Samol, but as fellow beings of breath and substance the two saw a kinship in each other, and an alliance formed.
Next came Severea. Samol saw that the earth that was him - Hieron - was lonely, and brought her into the world to fill it with creatures. In that primordial shade she crafted fur and skin and scale and feather from the velvet-dark abundance, and living things proliferated across land and sea.
But Samol saw that Severeaās creatures were simple and helpless. They languished in the elements, wrestled and bled and wailed and starved like newborn things. And so from Samol sprang Samothes.
Gods are born from a shiver of intention, and the intention that birthed Samothes was ingenuity. To craft, to build. Samothes would take it upon himself to care for Severeaās creatures by giving them tools and shelter and all things necessary for survival - but never to teach them.
Samothes remembers that as in the beginning, there was Nothing, and then there was something. He blinked awake in a blaze of light and magical fire, a coalescence of minute particles of divinity and matter and meaning alight like glowing dust, settling from the air. And then he reached out his hands, and they were solid, his new skin all shimmering with the myriad colors of being. And he felt drive; he felt in the polished heat of his chest, within that novel machinery, what he was to forge for Severeaās children.
From a mountain of fire, Samothes created the sun. He bent heat and light to his will like so much clay, and with hands that shone and swam with gold he shaped from the flames the candescent thing that would guide all creatures from birthĀ ātil death. He set his creation in the sky, and there was sunlight. He also wrought himself a crown, for he was the King-God, and when he wore it he was as splendorous and warm as the fire that birthed it.
Samothes ruled with benevolence. But as there was something from Nothing, there came a glimpse of time where he began to forget, memory returned to glowing dust. When his mind became whole again, he was no longer in Hieron, but some strange, new place. We know it as the Ark.
Samothes appears as a broad, brown-skinned human man with a close-cropped beard and curly black hair, gone silvery at the temple. He has dark eyes and strong features. He is fairly tall, with wide, muscular shoulders and a powerful stance.
MORAL ALIGNMENT: lawful good
paternalistic - Samothes is genuinely well-intentioned, but his approach to helping others is to do things for them, without allowing them the tools or freedoms they need to do things themselves.
altruistic - Samothes values the greater good over his own well-being, although his estimation of what is best for others isnāt necessarily accurate.
inventive - Samothes is Ingenuity Alive, the impulse to innovate given shape.
curious - Samothes is interested in understanding how the world works and particularly in possessing knowledge, as though it were something to collect and keep for oneās self.
fatalist - Samothes is accepting of that which he views as inevitable.
unpretentious - Samothes doesnāt put on airs of being anything heās not. He is ostensibly modest in presentation and demeanor, although he sees his role in the world in a self-important way.
pragmatic - Samothes is more concerned with doing what he thinks will keep the peace in the present than with theoretical considerations. Sometimes, though, this leads him to be short-sighted and out of touch with possible consequences.
ordered - Samothes makes an effort to maintain order in the world and in himself.
assured - Samothes views himself as the savior of others and acts accordingly. He believes in his ability to decide what is right. Interestingly, he gets flustered easily.
jealous - Samothes is unwilling to relinquish control over what he regards as his domain.
SUMMARY: Samothes is the god of invention and knowledge, and he is quick to gift his creations to his people, but he is fiercely possessive of the understanding that undergirds them. The inner workings of the world, the way Samothes sees it, are for him to know and mortals to only glimpse at. As such, he can be a jealous and controlling ruler, albeit one with good intentions. Nevertheless, he takes a kindly, surprisingly unassuming approach to his direct interactions with others. Make no mistake: Samothes does view his role in the world as necessarily authoritarian, but he does not feel the need to be lavished, and does not go out of his way to perform glory. No need - Samothes is secure enough in his power that he can afford to be modest.
Samothes is more preoccupied with maintaining peace for his chosen people (through whatever means he considers necessary) and ensuring they live comfortably in the moment than with idealism about the future. He isnāt passive, but relatively fatalist about the grander machinations of fate. He exercises control over what he can, but accepts that which he cannot change. He has a certain faith in the natural order of things.
As a god, Samothes has a great breadth of knowledge about the world, but it doesnāt always map perfectly to doing what is sensible. He can be rash and short-sighted, even careless and destructive. Still, he is dedicated to doing what he believes is right for creation over what is convenient for himself. Unfortunately, he can be self-involved in a way that distorts his judgment. He thinks deeply - through a lens focused on the immediate and within the scope of his own rule.
Samothes has the ability to overwrite history through the laying down of new versions of reality atop the old, creating a stratified world in which past, divergent states exist physically and metaphysically below more current ones.
Samothes has the ability to shape all of creation and to craft powerful magical artifacts.
Samothes can communicate with others in dreams and visions.
He built the sun? Just short of omnipotent in his canon.
INVENTORY: plain clothes and a simple golden crown, curiously hot to the touch
CONTACT: cptsdwillgraham on tumblr, loxapinequeen on twitter