Overview: Golden Gods

Children of Arus, hear the names of the Five Golden Almighty. Bow your heads in reverence. Tremble beneath their pure and pitiless gaze, and offer up the gratitude owed by mortals to their masters.

Silent Exile, Divine Judge, aspect of death and destruction. Speak its name only in whispers, o children: the Exile who walks the lonely paths of the damned, warden of the Golden Paradise. Those who are worthy, it shall guide through the gates to glory. The unworthy shall be its eternal slaves in darkness.

Radiant Warrior, Divine Guardian, aspect of protection and strength. Tempt not its ceaseless blade, o children: the Warrior who stands astride the gates, defender of the Golden Bulwark. Those who are valorous, it shall protect as its flock. Those who are wicked, it shall smite without mercy.

Shining Sage, Divine Scholar, aspect of wisdom and truth. Know that its brilliance is unfathomable, o children: the Sage who knows all that is and shall be, tender of the Golden Tomes. Those who have sought truth, it shall offer the secrets of the universe. Those who spread lies shall become its mindless thralls.

Honored Mother, Divine Queen, matriarch of righteousness. Offer her your filial devotion, o children: the Mother who shows all creation the proper way, bearer of the Golden Beacon. Before her throne, all her children shall be measured, and those found wanting cast to the depths of despair.

Exalted Father, Divine King, patriarch of righteousness. Fall to your knees before his altar, o children: the Father who gazes upon all creation at his feet, wearer of the Golden Crown. Before his throne, all his children shall sing his eternal praises, and the silent will suffer the searing fires of the five hells.

—Book of Golden Divinity, opening stanzas

Arus is a planet that takes its religion very seriously. They've been worshipping the same pantheon for nearly their entire history, known as the Golden Gods. Talking to civilians, the Goldens seem to have a pretty Old Testament attitude about a lot of things. This might be because per Arusian myth, the Golden Gods didn't actually create the Arusians. They found someone else's 'flawed' creation and decided to try to improve them, but they're not against wiping out the whole project if it goes too far south. (Asking who did the creating got us chased out of two different cathedrals, but more on that in a bit.) There are five Golden Gods, and the religion seems pretty uniform. The priests we talked to looked at us like we were nuts when we asked if there were regional patron gods or anything like that.

The Exalted Father: He was described as the 'god of masculine righteousness', whatever that means. As best we can tell, he's the king of the gods and the arbiter of what a true and proper man should be. He doesn't seem to actually embody that ideal, or at least, he isn't spoken of as the ideal man that Arusians should aspire to be like. It's more like you either meet his standards or he'll smite you.

The Honored Mother: Pretty much the female version of the Exalted Father, right down to the 'goddess of feminine righteousness' part. And the 'not supposed to be a role model, but will definitely smite you if she doesn't approve of you' part.

The Shining Sage: The god of wisdom, or deity of wisdom if you prefer. (Only the Father and Mother have clear genders. The other three are referred to as 'pure avatars' and have no hints of any gender at all.) The Sage is said to know everything there is to be known, including the future choices of mortals, so there's a bit of a fortune telling cult that the priests are certain will be going straight to hell. Or if the Sage gets fed up earlier than that, they'll have their minds wiped. Basically yeah, this one'll smite you too.

The Radiant Warrior: The god/deity of… protection, justice, or battle, depending which priest you ask. It's actually the closest the Goldens get to benevolent, despite most of its images carrying around a sword bigger than its body. They say its blade can only harm the wicked or the unfaithful, and it gets kept busy enough with the wicked that it generally won't mess with the unfaithful unless ordered to.

The Silent Exile: The god/deity of death. Nobody will talk about it. At all. It took some pleading just to get the name.

The Goldens are not the only gods on Arus, but that's where things got complicated and people started chasing us out of cathedrals. We found one priest who was willing to give us a little background, as long as we swore to the Sage we were only seeking knowledge for the sake of knowledge. About three thousand years ago (lining up with the planet's major technological revolution), people stopped following the Goldens pretty abruptly. Which wouldn't be unusual for a developing civilization, except they didn't drop religion outright, they just switched to a different pantheon.

Naturally, the new pantheon is only remembered as the Usurpers, but they're also apparently the ones who were supposed to have originally created the Arusians. The priest didn't want to talk too much about them. He went right into how a few hundred years ago the Usurpers were re-overthrown by the righteous wrath of the Golden Gods in a terrible war that involved alien invaders, betrayal by a branch of the royal family, the extinction of the Arusian lion, and the near annihilation of the Arusian people by the very angry Goldens until they chose to be merciful at the last second.

There was definitely a war called the War of Golden Revival at that time, but… we think the priest was probably exaggerating the rest of it. Just a little. But in any case, the Arusians take their religion very seriously, and we formally recommend not trying to ask about the Usurpers unless you really want to see an enraged priest trying to clock you with a twenty pound gold-covered holy book.

—Scouting Report: Arus, Explorer Team 523, submitted 2371