SMITE ...Lore!!! ...Second Phase ...Part 1!!!
Welcome to the Second 'Phase', or where the 'lore proper' starts to actually develop - no longer in a muddled cloud nobody really knows what to do with.
Or, well, at least - not as much of a muddled cloud.
Initially the first arcs were very rough and feel more a 'proof of concept' that the lore could be done in-game - but one thing that it really is not (that people 'try' to say it is) is just continual upward powerscaling with God releases - there is somewhat coherant writing, and there are later antagonists that would absolutely be crushed by some of the earlier antagonists. Plus they seem to at least have their own in-house loretismo from this point onward, to make sure everything's generally non-conflicting to previous events ('generally' being the key word here).
If you are the in-house loretismo themselves, cautiously checking the haxXx0r known as "For-Chan"'s doc out - hi! I hope you've liked my desecration summarising of your work so far - I'm going to enjoy doing the next part even more!!!!!!!!~
A rough pattern can be observed in this stage, in that there's usually a fresh new Arc each year / season. This works, in that it prevents there from being that much you needed to know beforehand if you want an 'entry point' each season, since it's accessible to the point that you only really need the QRD of the current season's arc to understand roughly what's going on - however long-term story elements do seem to take more of a hit as a result (ie; many potential side-plots and writing that can take advantage of the international nature of the Pantheons isn't afforded the attention it could get).
Furthermore, to a *very* loose definition of the lore's '''''benefit''''', this approach prevents there ever being.... well... 'incidents' that have... 'blessed' the 'more complex' and 'more thought out' lore of other MOBAs (such as... *ahem* Yorick emptying his Vial *ahem*... or *ahem* Saudi investors paying for their OC self-insert Marci Sue waifu to be put in *ahem*... or *ahem* 'Netflix canon' *ahem*...) that would immediately lead to the near complete collapse and invalidation of all previous lore by one retarded cashgrabbing area of the studio sniffing around for money.
Finally, this is the phase that began to incorporate multimedia elements - so now on top of just what was written, I've gone to the lengths of summarising and seamlessly weaving in the cinematics, lore-intended art, ingame character interactions, music themes of relevant events (open any ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪'s in a new tab when you see them, ideally set them to loop until you see the next one) and anything else relevant to the lore. This multimedia-approach also included map aesthetic reworks and alterations to fit the lore - which I've added as notable 'Interludes' throughout. On the topic of lore-breakaways when relevant, I've also added 'Asides' - these act as additional mythological context linked to something brought up within the lore, but are completely skippable and irrelevant to the lore itself (they're just interesting aspects of mythos which, if a classicsfag like me found it interesting enough to note, you'll probably find interesting enough to read yourself).
While there are conflicts between these media elements at times (eg a cinematic showing a described lore-event, but set somewhere wildly different or with characters that weren't present) ... please work with me and run with it, it's just what we're working with. I'll do my best to explain what part of the cool cinematic is canon and what isn't in advance.
Oh, and I got all that shit in HD for you. Something Lo-Rez (true to their honorary title) can't seem to do for their lives. It's like they went out of their way to make it hard to find the best quality stuff at times (and in some areas, I still don't think I found the original art because it was just never released - but again, I've done my best).
Previous part https://rentry.org/smgenlorePh1
So, without further ado;
- SMITE ...Lore!!! ...Second Phase ...Part 1!!!
- Apocrypha (Discoveries / Odysseus' Journey / Land of the Rising Sun/ Celestial Voyage)
- O-O's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crus-Hades (The Odyssey / The Fall of War / Divine Uprising)
- Holding out for a Hera (Hera's Odyssey / Legend of Camelot / Council of the Gods)
- we wuz kangz n shit nigga (Battle for Olympus / Odyssey: Underworld)
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Apocrypha (Discoveries / Odysseus' Journey / Land of the Rising Sun/ Celestial Voyage)
As mentioned in Phase 1, the initial lore was scattered and disorganised to say the least. As such, the first 'lore' events for the most part were just mythological introductions to each Pantheon, that ran alongside Pantheon crossover events (eg, Norse skins / Celtic skins) and 'Adventures' which were limited time gamemode events with custom maps (ranging from Capture the Flag, Dominion, Solo Deathmatch, a Dungeon Crawler, some PvE and an actual non-April Fools Kart Racer). Yeah, we had SMITE Kart, and it was fucking amazing.
Since I'm in the business of out-doing LoRez, you can see the 'Actual Mythos' doc for a better intro to each Pantheon if you already haven't checked it out and need a refresher / top up on Classics classes;
Actual Mythos Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreclassics
Just to clarify while we're here;
- Discoveries was a purely Pantheon-based event, with a few mythological / historical facts thrown in too, and was the precursor to the yearly Odyssey events that make up the lionshare of new lore.
- Odysseus's Journey was an improvement on the previous proto-Odyssey, and was a short narrative of (The) Odysseus traveling around the world and encountering some Gods before reaching the 2016 SPL in burgerland (no real lore additions, other than Kukulkan basically sneezing near them / nearly killing them all without even realising, to punctuate the sheer power-level difference between Gods and Mortals. Otherwise, just skin advertisements).
- Land of the Rising Sun was, like Discoveries, just a mythology event for the introduction of the Japanese Pantheon to the game.
- The Lore resumed progression in late 2017 after the comics had their run and has been continuing ever since.
The Celestial Voyage event does fit in with the lore quite well however (intentional or not), depending on how you interpret it.
tl;dr The Egyptian Pantheon all at one point existed in a failed futuristic alien reality where something implied to be from the great unknown reaches of space causes the corruption of Ra, and thus global apocalypse via the Sun turning into a Red Giant star and consuming Earth. The Egyptian Gods initially are hunting down and killing humans, berzerkened by the same thing that took Ra - but when they recover their senses they continue to slaughter humanity out of mercy, so their souls and memories wouldn't be obliterated by the Sun itself. Or whatever corrupted it.
Only Thoth, or more specifically his Book, remembers these events after they reset that timeline / cycle.
Other than this, these 'Lore' events are exactly what I've named this 'arc' - Apocrypha. The 'real stuff' starts after this.
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O-O's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crus-Hades (The Odyssey / The Fall of War / Divine Uprising)
So - to kick the entire GN side of the Lore off, we begin in Jap-
WRONG.
what?
You forgot *that*.
wait what.....
uh.........
......
......
!
Oh right, yeah, *that*, right so for the last few years during Summer up until this point, all the Gods in SMITE 'semi-'canonically had a Summer vacation in Hawaii. I'm not even fucking with you right now - and this was before the introduction of the Polynesian Pantheon too, so they weren't there on inter-Pantheonic business, it was just an excuse for selling skins a divine pool party.
Owing to the events of the Pantheon War, the only attendees this year around were members of the Divine Realm who weren't involved with the whole 'Ragnarok incident' over in Europe / the Fertile Crescent; but we can consider this to be what the 'peace' period looked like before the events of the narrative. Everybody generally chilled out and happy, cute babes and hot guys doing God-things just like us mortals, except in the Divine Realm.
So, uh, yeah, back on track from Phase 1 moving into Phase 2 of the lore. The Odyssey.
Ragnarok's kicked off! And like all good Apocalypses, everybody's fighting one another for a reason they can't quite put their finger on.
We intro in on Xing Tian who has gone completely berzerk. Xing has invaded Japan and taken control of (the now actively erupting) Mt. Fuji, and has been terrorising the surrounding area essentially since Ragnarok started.
Amaterasu goes up the mountain (fresh from her Summer vacation), jobs to Xing while under the volcanic clouds because she has no connection to the Sun, before Susano-O interrupts her imminent execution and deals with Xing for her. They figure out that he's been mind-controlled by a le evil aura / a literal black cloud above his head; and so Susano-O decides to go find out what the fuck's really going on.
While it's tempting to imply this event is the same as the Adventure mode "Xing Tian's Mountain" that released as the same time, it appears the two are unrelated in terms of lore.
He heads to China, to find the coasts destroyed by a tsunami sourced from Ao Kuang's (not destroyed) Palace. He's greeted by Erlang Shen's innocent pibble 'evil cloud'-possessed dog, Erlang gets it under control, and then they chat for a bit. Erlang thinks it's Susano-O's fault (as he arrived at the same time the storms and clouds started), Susano-O dismisses his concern.
Another tsunami is about to hit, in which Erlang shows what he'd been doing for most of the ongoing apocalypse so far; turning into a big bird and using the wind-force from flpping his wings to break it up, and protect the survivors behind him. He's about to fail with this one, but Erlang swallows his pride when the two realise Wukong is nearby (not at the Norse Pantheon). Erlang asks for help, Wukong shifts into a second big bird and the tsunami is defended against as the two shapeshifters flap along together.
Happy times.
Susano-O naruto-runs westward.
Now in India, Susano-O finds Agni as a fire-vortex with another ebil cloud above his head.
Susano-O goes to intervene, Agni thinks Susano-O is there to kill him and tries to explain what he knows. Agni explains he's not turned ebil, and that the cloud is actually organic; before an unidentifiable corpse lands, showing it's a mysterious winged animal. Agni points Susano-O in the direction of Egypt / Neith for a lead on things.
Once there, Neith gives him a cute pep talk to forgive himself over his guilt for Amaterasu, and says it's probably a Death God up to no good (since the only divine entities cloud'd so far were the undead and beasts). From there, Anubis makes a spot reappearance, and explains there's a new Death God in town that's beginning to make moves for himself in the chaos, that has control over bats (leading to Susano-O to connect the dots with the winged animal corpse).
Anubis says he'll take on the new Bat-God in the West (who could it be?!), provided Susano-O sails North to check out if it's the Greek or Norse Death Gods up to no good.
En-route, Susano-O is jumped by Scylla far away from Messina, who kills half his cre- HOLY FUCKING SHIT SUSANO-O FUCKING KILLS SCYLLA WITH A HEAVY JUMPING DOWNWARD SLASH! He ain't fucking around. But alas, not without his ship sinking as a result. After a being slowed from the capsize, his bum-ass washes up in Greece and has to walk the rest of the way.
He heads through a coastal forest, is pounced by Arachne, and gets his sword ensnar- HOLY FUCKING SHIT SUSANO-O FUCKING CRUMPLES ARACHNE'S JAW WITH ONE PUNCH! It's not clear if she's actually fucking dead from that one strike, has had her jaw shattered completely or is just reeling like a high school girl who just broke a nail, but either way, flying animals overhead, he carries on.
Once he reaches the throne room of Olympus, he gets swarmed by the mystery flying cloud-animals. Cut to Susano-O doppelgangers kicking the shit out of him on the ground and making him feel really self-conscious over the 'cave incident' with Amaterasu, Hades actually comes out of hiding and then helps Susano-O by dispelling the swarm for him. Hades friendly-ly explains that Susano-O got cloud'd, and sends him North again to check on Hel to cover his own alibi with a reassuring pat on the back and a trustworthy smile.
Susano-O, now in the snow-thick Roman countryside, is severely weakened (since Cold + Inland doesn't work for a Summer Storm + Sea God out of his turf).
Susano stumbles into Sylvanus en-route. Sylvanus explains that Thor got cloud'd, and is now trying to pick a fight with Terra. Terra is on the defensive, 'trying' to mind her own business - but the two still have still completely obliterated renovated the landscape, creating a huge indentation-valley which they're fighting in. Nobody can hear a thing between the thunder and earthquakes, but Sylvanus takes Susano-O to Terra via some underground caverns. Susano-O uses some of his remaining strength to have the winds clear the sky and take the snowstorm away, which takes away Thor with it. Terra quietly nods to Susano-O in thanks, Susano-O continues to give chase, travelling to Scandinavia - now convinced it's Hel off the back of Ragnarok who's causing all this trouble.
Now at the Bifrost (the Norse Interdimensional Rainbow-Bridge), Susano-O fights Thor in Asgard proper, which as been completely obliterated by Fenrir (who still on the loose somewhere in the Norse Pantheon); leaving only a cloud'd Thor behind. Thor tears Asgard up even more in a blinded rage, Susano-O is saved at the last moment by Tyr, who gets Thor to fuck off by appealing to what little consciousness he had left. Susano-O explains it's Hel's fault, except Tyr retorts that it can't be, because it only started after she was 'dealt with' (hence, after Phase 1, she's been beaten and captured).
Thor returns, cloud'd again. Susano-O and Tyr pin him down before getting swarm'd by the cloud too. Susano-O manages to resist the doppelganger onslaught this time, before it reveals .... (?!)
Anubis, still on the run from Ares, crosses Atlantis (this location is never brought up again lol, I think they might have just been trying to say the Atlantic in an overcomplicated historically inaccurate way; given 'the Atlantic' was known as 'Atlantiko(s)' in ancient times), to reach the Mayan Pantheon.
He's ushered by some local mortals to Awilix, quickly explains the situation to her, then Awilix explains that Camazotz is taking full advantage of the havoc to go hunting and feast on easy targets, and asks for some help. Anubis looks for him in the forest, gets swarmed and scratched up by small bats, Anubis deathpulses the entire swarm and draws Camazotz out. Camazotz fucks around for a bit by speaking using bounced echoes, Anubis figures out which voice is real and gets a grip of Camazotz.
>“You underestimate me Zotzy"
>“You overestimate me Noobis"
Camazotz explains the clouds abroad aren't bats but... but crows!?
Cut back to Susano-O, and yeah, it's 'revealed' all along that it was the Morrigan just causing chaos and turning people against each other. Just because she could
No reason.
That's it.
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This isn't even the worst anticlimax in the narrative lol.
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...
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...what a bitch.
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What we do know however, is that the Morrigan, pretty much got away with it all.
How?
Why?
Because she won the swimsuit competition at the yearly vacation to Hawaii later that year, yeaaaaaaah baby, told you they were semi-canon.
Once again, all in attendance were disconnected from the conflict, (aside from The Morrigan) but with the Summer of 2017, this would be the last time such tranquility would be experienced; as the events within the following lore... would lead to the cancellation of all pool parties until further notice... unforgiveable....
ASIDE TIME! - We need to waste some time, for pacing purposes.
Hmmm..... pool parties.... sounds 3DPD to me. how about.... - a Voice Actor Aside! Surely that'll be something to chew into while you chronally process that this is a years-long conflict, both in and out of lore, and that the previous text and the following text are months apart.
The Sound of Autism: VA Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreVAs
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ The music doesn't change for a while so.... well I hope you like this one on repeat.
So now we drop on in to our local OG madman Ares (there's lots of art this time, and generally more onwards - if you're on a computer, you should be able to drag and drop the images into another tab to see them in full).
After having torn Egypt a new one, Ares is back on the trail for Anubis - and he has a lead that takes him toward the Mayans on a Bizaare Adventure of his own.
Chaac is dealing with a logistical nightmare, because he can't summon the rain (turns out some retards are making it really overcast and thunderous somewhere else on Earth, which is fucking with his own ability to control the rain winds - Divine Realm logic). He just can't get it up, he hasn't won a game in years and a riot's about to kick off, over the drought in the rainforest for the crop cycle.
Ares doesn't give a fuck what Chaac's dealing with and autistically bluntly asks where Anubis is. Chaac spares some time out of his busy schedule and helps him. Chaac points Ares West, after explaining he had to clean up Anubis's bat-bite wounds to get Anubis to fuck off - then Chaac returns his focus on the angry crowd of mortals, as he tries to help them.
Ares... is not amused.
How could you aid the enemy of Ar- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES FUCKING KILLS CHAAC AND STEALS HIS FUCKING AXE! Chaac tears up like a crying wojack, worried about that girl he got to cheat on her husband for him in-mythos - and this creates rain. Ares gets a huge local Worshippower-boost from the crowd, and is on his merry way.
After the result of the fight in Scandinavia in Phase 1, all shit's fucked. Fenrir's still on the loose, Asgard is still smashed up from cloud'd Thor's 'rennovation', now there's shadow-things are popping up all over the place - and to top things off, most of the Norse Divine Realm is now on fire (just to make things easier).
Athena gathers mortals to lead them to safety and checks in at Vigridr to ask if the Norse need and more help evacuating. Odin tells Thor to head the evac, Thor does the classic "but father - I cannot leave you!" shtick. Final stand at Asgard with Odin / Tyr / Thor vs Fenrir - the men stalling with what remains of the Norse people who are able to fight, while they wait for Athena to evacuate the weaker mortals and then move the Greek army that Ares ditched in Egypt, up Northward to reinforce their defences at Vigridr. Fenrir on the other hand, is sniffing around to bust Hel out of the pound (like how she released him), and is generally a living raid-boss.
Old Assault Aside & Ragnarok: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#old-assault-aside-ragnarok
Ares, still on his warpath, now finds himself in Japan - namely at Aokigahara / the Suicide Forest (Northwestern forest region below Mt Fuji, a well-known 'haunted forest' that many people kill themselves at, even today, in real life).
Somebody has gone and removed the Chibiki Stone that seals Yomi, now conveniently placed in Aokigahara {*ahem*} it's never made clear who did it, since it requires the strength of 1,000 men to do so (alternate translation for the Chibiki Stone being the "Rock of a Thousand Pulling"), and the Rock itself has a patron God / is a God known as Chigaeshi / Michikaeshi, whose sole purpose is to maintain the border between living and dead.... so uhhhh we'll just assume The Morrigan probably did it or something {*ahem*}, so when Ares passes by, Izanami-no-Mikoto lurches at him tied to her ribbons within Yomi, and begs him to free her for any wish.
As of writing, the existence of Yomi and Izanami's assoication with it will certainly be an unintended plothole in the future, because the writer is a mythologylet, for reasons reserved until then.
She tries to seduce Ares with her luscious half-rotten corpse-body, Ares waves her off because he's already banging the literal embodiment of beauty. (Power move.)
She tries to offer him power, Ares doesn't need power because Ares is already the most powerful thing Ares knows. (Power move.)
Ares is about to walk, Izanami's getting desperate so begs him to make a wish. He asks for Anubis's location (was that it?), Izanami jumps at the request and begs him to make a promise to free her for it.
Ares isn't gonna fall for no tricks however, Ares is a thinking man's brute who won't fall for that shit, so he ties her ribbons to his arm (like his chains) and has her lead the way.
Mini-timeskip; now in Chyna, Izanami's pulling and yapping at her leash like a middle-aged rabid chihuahua, to take Ares to Anubis and thus be freed.
Ares is blocked for a while by the Yellow River flooding, until he just asks the river why he's not allowed to pass. He Bo pops out, and says he isn't letting Izanami anywhere near his turf, but he's fine with Ares crossing at any other time. Ares looks down, Izanami is still tugging at her ribbon-leash like a dog, but is now whispering killhimkillhimkillhimkillhimnowkillhim to herself.
Ares looks up and understands where He-Bo is coming from.
He surveys the area, and figures out He-Bo is just protecting his nearby worshippers, so he threatens to use Chaac's axe (the one he stole) to fuck with the rainclouds and drought them all to death. He-Bo's stuck between a rock and a hard place, and reluctantly lets them pass, because he's a nice guy for the mortals on his turf.
Izanami's still yapping at Ares to kill him, but Ares is across the river now s- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES FUCKING PERMA-DROUGHTS CHYNA ANYWAYS JUST BECAUSE HE FUCKING COULD! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES DOOMS HE-BO TO BE FORGOTTEN AND LOSE ALL WORSHIPPOWER, TO ENSURE HE DOESN'T EVER COME BACK FROM THIS DOOMED FATE! SAVAGE!
Ares is now in India, at the gates of Ganesha's crib with Izanami yapping that Anubis is in there. Ganesha pops out and says he won't allow violence on his turf, and won't let them into his Palace of Obstacles.
Wait for it,
Ganesha explains Ares's path is flawed and vengeance won't solve anything (like Ares gives a fuck).
Izanami approves of Ares not giving a fuck, and makes a suggestion - so Ganesha's temple is set on fire and Ganesha disappears into nowhe- SIRS WE WILL NOT FRORGET THIS YOU BLOODY BSTRADS SIRS YOU WIL REGRAT THIS YOU HEAR U-. Anubis runs out, coughing, and immediately gets tackled and bodied by Ares.
Wait for it,
Anubis begs for forgiveness, and pleads that he absolutely did not kill Zeus. Honest to God Ares, Anubis, did not kill Zeus. Please, God, Ares, he didn't kill Zeus. What more can he say!!!?!
Ares tells Anubis that he doesn't care if Anubis killed Zeus or not. Ares just wanted wage war. HOLY FUCKING SHIT, ARES IMPALES ANUBIS WITH HIS SWORD! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES CRUSHES ANUBIS'S SKULL BETWEEN HIS HANDS. (I inferred that last sentence, but he really does fucking brutalise him.)
Ares, now proud of himself, lets his yapping death-demon-goddess loose as promised, ensuring the untold deaths of millions (1,000 per day, going by her mythical promise). Ares sits back, and basks in the warmth of a burning Temple of Peace, and a good day's work.
Back in Egypt, Athena is ashamed at 'her' (her, past tense) army, as they're lounging around in the spoils of war from Ares's indisputably, unquestionably successful campaign. She forces them to get off their asses and pray to Ra so he can get a Worshippower boost and use it to heal his eyes (the ones that Ares had gouged out) - ending the endless eclipse acoss the Earth.
Straight away, they mobilise to Asgard, after Ra gives her a free vision that it's doomed to fall and Hel will escape her recent confinement - at least, if they don't hurry the fuck up.
En-route, now in the Roman countryside (somehow snow-free, compared to what we recently saw of it), Athena's caravan are attacked by the shadow-monsters that were in Asgard.
Athena tries to solo an especially huge nearby Frost Giant, gets BTFO, then her Great-Aunt Nox arrives. Nox wipes out all the shadowbeasts in the area near-instantly, and uses them to *fucking solo the Frost Giant with absolute ease, like, swatting-a-bug tier* - just to punctuate their complete power-level difference. Nox then directs Athena to ditch Asgard (since it's too late for them anyways - however now for the Norse, reinforcements won't ever be coming), and instead take the army to Greece to deal with a certain someone before something more 'cataclysmic' kicks off.
Athena returns the soldiers to their families (which is an amazing idea, as you'll see much, much later on), then heads to Olympus. Ares bumps into Athena at Mt. Olympus, feeling pretty good about himself and with appropriate big dick energy, showing off his cool new axe and declaring that Anubis is dead.
Athena semi-snarkily explains again to him that Anubis didn't kill Zeus, Ares responds with something along the lines of "who mentioned anything about Zeus?". Absolute in-canon Gigachad.
Athena explained that she had to help rebuild Egypt, 'as Zeus would have wanted', Ares points out that that's just her dumb bitch point of view, and that only Zeus knows what Zeus would have wanted (who is currently absent). Athena offers a hand and asks her half-brother to help deal with Hades (goodness, he's scaring the mortals Ares!).
The War-siblings enter the the Throne Room of Olympus bickering at each other, but catch Hades with his pants down just at the end of redecorating the place with spooky scary imagery (no wonder the mortals were spooked).
Ares asks what the fuck is going on, and why Hades is making himself comfortable in his dad's office. Hades explains that he's gearing up for war, to keep the Greek people protected from an impending invasion from the other Pantheons, in light of the loss of their Pantheon-Head, and that he's now currently keeping Zeus safely sheltered in the Underworld until he's recovered from his wounds.
Athena takes this to immediately mean that Hades killed Zeus (even though from her point of view, she thinks she has absolute proof Loki did it when he had the Lightning Bolt on him), and immediately takes to the offensive. Hades offers Ares to be the defacto commander for the incoming war, and makes the point that they can push back the chaos going on everywhere else with an army immune to death. Athena *just* can't even believe what she's hearing right now, but Ares fucks her off because she was daddy Zeus's spoilt little girl (Ares is more of a mothers-boy - gigachad); and it loops back around to the initial debate of willing worship vs fear.
Athena wants the mortals to like her and willingly follow her, while Ares wants the mortals to survive the incoming Apocalypse - whether they like him at the end of it or not. And just like that,
W-W-WAR COMMENCES!!!?!?!!!
Hades, quite pleased with himself at getting his two retarded nephews to fight amongst themselves, finishes decorating the throne room with Halloween leftovers and sits back down, watching the two useful idiots take their fight outside. Ares is supplying Hades with his side of the Chaotic Greek Army, Athena is moralfagging with the other half / the Order-loyal side of the Greek army.
So now it's the time for the big reveal!
With all the dead that have been accumulating because Ragnarok-Apocalypse, Hades has grown especially powerful, and this is on top of the huge levels of Worshippower that come with being the temporary Pantheon Head. The original plan was for Hades to do this alone at his own pace, while everyone else in fighting condition was distracted with the Defence of Asgard to prevent the 'usual' start of the Apocalypse, being Hel / Fenrir - however mommy Noxxy threw the spanner in those works, and as a result, da plan needs to be hurried along a little bit, on the offchance Athena ruins everything.
Hades produces 'The Soul of Ragnarok' (lent from Hel) and something probably representing the worshippower / souls he has access to - and by combining the two then absorbing the product, Hades BECOMES.... the little girl RAGNAROK!!!!!1!!!11!!!!!
Hades supersizes, raises the dead / the Underworld to the surface, and becomes le big bad embodiment of the Apocalypse, in command of Hel's shadow-wraiths! And by God, he's gonna take over the world!
Just in time for the Season 5 redecoration of the Conquest map, taking place in the Gardens atop the Mount Olympus - the main palace controlled by Athena, as Hades retreats into his own arisen palace!
MAP INTERLUDE TIME - And it's a biggun' - in part because the new Conquest map itself *was* the lore event.
There was no written lore for Ragnarok itself, as it was 'supposed' to be that the fighting that took place on this Conquest map in-game / around the world in general (ie, the other maps - Roman Arena, Norse Assault, Chinese Joust, Egyptian Clash and Mayan Siege) was the events of the narrative, as everyone was just at each other's throats for a while. Essentially, the experience of fighting on the map was the experience that everyone had fighting during Ragnarok. Sounds great as a concept, but that doesn't change that nothing was written, and that it's confusing for people today who weren't playing in 2018.
This new Conquest map pits Athena on the Order side, against Ares on the Chaos side - Olympus vs the Underworld (which Hades had arisen to the surface itself). I don't quite understand why Hades isn't still in Olympus, but let's just roll with it.
So, to just take it from the top.
Welcome to the Season 5 version of the Conquest Map, and what the game would be played and balanced on for the most part, for the better part of the next 3 years, from the start of 2018 to the start of 2021.
A major departure from previous maps, the Season 5 map was generally most notable for having a more 'relaxed' cartoon-y / pastel-y style, a much more open jungle / boss camps, less detailed outer-map environments (bye-bye Duo-side beach...) as well as having extremely low terrain and thin vegetation to help with spectating the game for competitive play.
While the map would undergo various improvements and layout alterations throughout the years; the relaxed theme stuck with the entire game, and very little overall changed in terms of mechanics or layout. Well, aaaaaaall the way up until Season 8, which we'll touch on when we get there.
As of writing, if you wish to see Hades' castle in game (along with versions of the Gold Fury and Fire Giant pits from the S5 map), you can jump into Jungle Practice, where they still exists as backdrop.
Concept art time!
Finally, to add onto this section - we have a very interesting tale to do with one of the (current) ONLY lore-relevant / canon skins in the ENTIRE game - that being Ragnarok Hades.
Ragnarok Hades was a Tier 4.5 skin that acted as a reward for buying out 'completing' the aforementioned lore-lacking 'Ragnarok' event, that interluded between the above text (Rise of War) and the below text (Divine Uprising), complete with it's own unique 'Global' Emote which burns the skybox up for everyone in the match (great mapwide distraction btw if you can spam it).
What's interesting here, is that it alludes to multiple aspects which may give some insights into the intended lore.
First of all, the skin wasn't called Ragnarok Hades in development, and was apparently lingering in the files for some time... as 'Tartarus Hades', and from the concept art / multiple notes, appears to have at one point intended to be *the* actual God design for Tartarus (a Primordial being within the Greek Pantheon) before being finally shifted into Ragnarok Hades itself.
We may touch on Tartarus later...
Secondly, mentions of this popped far before the time when it was released, to the point it may have been a fragment of the intended lore plotline from years before even the Pantheon War comics started, possibly bouncing off of the teaser trailer plotline. Just speculation, but interesting nonetheless that Tartarus may have been intended as a final-boss tier villain in his own right, and as his own entity very early on.
This skin also debuted with the first of all the rendered cinematics on this storyline of lore, along with the first proper in-engine cinematic (the Season 5 Conquest map trailer, which is partially lore-relevant). The rendered cinematic itself wasn't much, just a 30s teaser summing up Hades plan for taking over the world and only giving half of his motivations for doing so (explained later), but it's a start nonetheless.
See above for the key frames if you want to skip over them.
Hades Cinematic: https://youtu.be/F8qUoWjgvAo
Season 5 Conquest Trailer: https://youtu.be/kJe2S8NR-c4
So... back to the chase.
The previous interlude doubling up as some better fucking pacing than the actual lore, since this bit now happens immediately after, and is over in an instant - despite apparently being months to years in-universe / irl / after the in-game Ragnarok event.
*Aren't you glad you have me? Kiss my ass / suck my dick / have my kids etc in your own time.*
Both War Gods are currently occupied, but there's a new War-kid on the block - SMITE's postergirl - Bellona - a Roman Goddess of War; most specifically War's cruel aspects of Bloodlust, Mercilessness, Savagery and Brutality (toned down to 'Tomboy' for marketing purposes).
She decides not to try make peace in the ceaseless chaos of Ragnarok, but to go to war against the concept of Ragnarok itself. Also because there were a ton of mortals asking for it (so a huge Worshippower-bounty for whoever can stop it)
So now Bellona's on a Bizarre Adventure of her own to stop Ragnarok! This bit's pretty short / weak. In part because all it was just a way to tie in the new 3 Pantheons, in part because and the 'lore' was still in it's infancy - but it's still hugely important. Have an aside on Bellona's schtick to mull you over if you want something to chew on;
Bellona Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#bellona
So we intro, mid-Ragnarok, with Bellona attacking Chernobog and his 'pet Shadow-of-Death' kinda thing in an unnamed foreign location, after he's been attacking mortals........ b-because reasons or something.
Chernobog points out her obsession for war feeds into death and darkness, and that she's (heh) BASICALLY his puppet anyways, while raising some of her men back from the dead to fight her. Bellona goes no u're ebil :(, breaks his crystals and he fucks off as fast as he arrived never to be directly seen in the narrative again... to further spread the influence of evil....
Chernobog minicinematic.... nothing to do with lore, but it's short and looks cool I guess. That, and people forget it exists.
Linkeroo: https://youtu.be/wu30uv2zqGE
Bellona quickly digs graves for her dead, reactively goes to holy fucking shit Baron Samedi's pet snake, but Baron appears and politely asks she doesn't because she's actually in 'his' graveyard (placing Bellona's location for this arc currently somewhere in the Caribbean, heading West).
Quick back and forth, he's up and about because a blurred line between living and dead isn't to his taste, she wants his help. Baron introduces her to her ex-Champion, George Floyd Antioch, now dead and complaining he can't breathe. Bellona gives him a pep talk to remember all the good times about war, Antioch finds peace and returns to his grave voluntarily. Baron asks she calm it down with the sternness (even if it is the Apocalypse) and invites her for a drink - assuring her that he's got her back and that he will be a strong, valuable and loyal ally for her in times to come at which point he's never seen with her in the narrative again....
Two images, former is the higher resolution prototype version, latter is the better looking / more polished up final version, but with some shitty border fade. The same applies for the other ones, but the difference is more pronounced here, hence why I've shown both. If only they just released the full res versions of the High-Quality polished up ones...
Offscreen, Bellona strikes a deal with Pele, and they both head on over to Greece to deal with Hades / end Ragnarok, because he's got the mcguffin Soul of Ragnarok or something. There's literally nothing noting on this, but we can assume she was in the Caribbean en-route to Hawaii to recruit her for this reason. Told you it was a short lorelet event.
Now cut straight to le final battle; Hades jobs to Bellona in less than 5 sentences (so much for all that setup - literally all the years of lore preceding this point), and she's got Pele behind her ripping Hades's power directly out of him.
-B/ If we pull that out will you die? -H\ It would be extremely painful- -B/ You're a big guy. -H\ -for Olympus.
Hades whines that he was trying to create a beautiful world with no life or death an eternal peace for the souls of mortals (HUGE MOTIVATION POINT, AND CORE REVEAL OF THE NARRATIVE FOR YEARS OF BUILDUP, GIVEN LESS THAN A FEW SENTENCES, BRA-VO), Bellona needs both life and death to have war and brutality, so Bellona doesn't care what Hades thinks, and is generally a cute tomboy throughout her victory conversation~
Hades copes and seethes.
Pele finishes ripping the Soul of Ragnarok right out of Hades, and without thinking, forces it down to the Earth's mantle where nobody can reach it again (apparently she can do that, maybe it was the magma).
Apocalypse over, Ragnarok cancelled, fresh air, everyone's happy again. Bellona's about to have a sing'n'dance and hot lesbian sex with Pele - barely even kidding with this one, it's the genuine vibe of the two Goddess's interactions lets Pele 'comfortably' lean on her shoulder, but Hades points out Netwon's 1st Law of Energy; that energy can't be destroyed, only transferred (Conservation).
...
Meaning they didn't 'end' Ragnarok; they only gave all of it's combined power to an even less responsible, completely random being.
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o fug :DDDDDD
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Needle drop moment, Hades takes solace in schadenfreude as the two dumb bitches realise they just dun' fucked up.
~
~
~
Holding out for a Hera (Hera's Odyssey / Legend of Camelot / Council of the Gods)
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ {No Music was released for this event - have this to mull you over} ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
While the previous lore was indeed somewhat light - this is the point where more detailed development begins to be put in. Essentially where the lore 'really' starts.
We begin in Olympus (timeskip of a few weeks), Hera melancholically looking over the throne room of Olympus (below), now accompanied by a group of Praetorians at all times, after *the Zeus Incident*. She tells them to stay to defend Mt. Olympus once she leaves, and not to tail her - they reluctantly agree.
She heads to a portal which has a huge, fancy marble statue showing off Zeus-'n-co. defeating Kronos, and recollects not letting the soldiers not deface Hades's visage from it after *the Hades Incident* a few weeks / months prior - as the Gods were still ultimately immortal, and had to at least try to forgive / get along with one another, for the duration of forseeable eternity.
Hera declares that she'll be assuming the Throne of Olympus in Hades's place, until Zeus returns.
Once outside and after LARPing about regality, she's tired having to manually walk down all those damn stairs of Mt Olympus (kinda like those Chinese mountain temple jokes), and inspects one of the nearby towns that were obliterated by the recent attempt at the Apocalypse. Bit of PTSD from Hera, who wasn't involved in *the Hades Incident* for the most part (Hera being quite inexperienced, naive and sheltered from the harshness of reality, by Zeus's direct order), ENTER Loki perched up high, as he mocks her for her hollow sympathy.
Loki giggles that he can't remember if it was him who destroyed the settlement (when he had the lightning bolt - that he still has uncontested), or if it was someone / something else; yet he's melancholically allowing a rebuild effort continue without mischief, because there isn't any authority figures to undermine (yet) within the rubble of the Ragnarok attempt.
He is of course just an undermining mischievous God, not a destruction God.
Hera essentially calls him a bottom feeding goat of the lowest caliber - he undeterredly brags that's it's better than her, who's nothing but a carrion feeder (using a puppet made of a skull + jaw to talk to himself) having only coming down from her Ivory Tower to look for a reason to exert her influence; after ignoring the peasantry for so long. All to take the reins of power for herself, after leaving everyone to fight in a war without her.
Loki continues to mock her, as he points out she'd been tailed for what must have been miles now by some of her men without even realising, pointing out her complete ineptitude. Hera turns back, to find some of the men she'd ordered to hold the fort were indeed behind her. After affirming their absolute loyalty she punishes them by painfully amalgamating them into her Ult a giant mechanical marble guardian and personal bodyguard, affectionately called Argus - forever tasked to look after her personal wellbeing.
Loki's psychobitch-early-warning-alert-system goes into overdrive, and he gets the fuck out of dodge... 'with a trail of blue sparks' (ie, he's still got the Lightning Bolt, and Hera just let him escape with it uncontested / without even realising) Luckily for her, it's never brought up again..
~
Cut to Hera visiting the Norse Pantheon, to find the rubble here in an even worse state than the area surrounding Olympus (remembering what Asgard was like after a previous state visit, pre-Ragnarok). One of a few of those shadow-wraith-things back from Ragnarok attacks her (the shades now implied to be something to do with Helheim, and thus Hel's doing), her and Argus deal with it. They then stumble onto somebody haggardly preparing to fight 3 Frost Giants alone, Hera proceeds to direct Argus to deal with them - at which point we get the first actual written fight scene in the entire narrative up until this point - wowie! only took them 7 years to get around to one.
tl;dr Argus fucking manhandles all three of the Jotunn; pouncing on and dragging the first Jotunn's face through a wall, spinning his head / faces into a drill to grind the second down alive with a slow headbutt and then has an internal blade spike out from his back to impale the one reaching into his cogs.
Odin (the haggard guy fighting them) thanks the two, and asks what they're doing - looking really fucking rough from all the fighting. Turns out that 'waiting on reinforcements' that are destined to never arrive for what has been years now does that to a God.
Odin explains both his Pantheon and turf are absolutely ravaged by war, and that despite being in the clean-up phase of the failed attempt at Ragnarok, the Norse are still privately dealing with Fenrir (still) on the loose and now Hel, who has not only escaped captivity, but taken the throne of Asgard for herself - so 'Ragnarok' is still ongoing, albeit in a lull for the rest of the world. Odin warns Hera that Ragnarok is a multi-phase Apocalypse (foreshadowing), and that the worst is yet to come. Hera calls him a coward (yeah, the guy who was readying to solo 3 Frost Giants before she arrived - quick reminder that just a single one can fuck up a War God and a small legion of mortal soldiers by itself), and all Odin can do is laugh at her complete stupidity naivety. He points out that he's not been letting the Apocalypse and destruction of his Pantheon go on uncontested, meanwhile she's been sat on her ass in the halls of Olympus safe and sound for the duration of the previous events.
Odin states that they'll need the help of the survivors united, and possibly the assistance of a few forgotten Pantheons (nudge nudge, wink wink) to help clean up the shitshow to come, and the mess remaining. He tells her Thor's gone off to solo Hel, Hera takes this as a cue to help them out.
~
Thor's in the middle of fighting an army of Frost Giants and Shades by himself, Hera tells Argus to brace for Titanfall being dropped in, teleporting him into the sky. Using Thor and Argus fighting as a distraction, Hera wipes the entire battlefield clean with a big spell, simple as.
Thor's pretty relaxed in their post-conversation and explains he's not too concerned for his own life yet, because he's destined to win all his fights until his prophesied fate (like the time traveller murder-suicide paradox, where if you go into the future to kill yourself, you're immortal until that day). In exchange for helping him with Hel, Thor says he'll be on board with helping Hera deal with the next stage of the Apocalypse when it arises.
Cut to the Asgardian Palace, and it's all in tatters and ruin. Thor warns Hera that Loki 'might' be nearby, Argus nearly goes full schizo and tries to split himself as each face wants to look everywhere in the Entrance Hall for the invisible man (still getting used to his collectivised body). Hera calms Argus down, and they proceed.
Moving into the throne room proper, the place is further desecrated, on top of being infested with various shades and shadow-beasts. Dark Hel is sprawled sexually casually over the throne, and makes some jokes at Thor's expense (how Odin sifts through goat intestines for prophecies, how Thor is impotently angry because he doesn't get to sit on the big chair), before she tells Hera to get the fuck out of interpantheonic business.
Hel points out Hera's hypocrisy and blind naivety to only look fondly upon 'da good guyz'; noting that while Odin got all the cool warrior souls in Valhalla as if they were 'superior', Hel was just stuck with the unremarkable and sick in Helheim for no other reason than a personal prophecy from Odin (which was her personal 'Light vs Dark' dichotomy, which had 'da good guyz' acting questionably).
While Hel didn't mind her duty helping the old / sick etc to pass on, she saw it as justice to make the passing of the dead more equal while she was imprisoned unfairly in Helheim.
Fenrir claws his way in through the wall (currently larger than in-game, but non-Ult size), Hel soothes the scars left by the chains of imprisonment, then points out that the two of them were unfairly pre-emptively punished, and only vindicated their punishment as revenge for it. Hel continues, explaining Hades was an easy mark to manipulate (because of his noble intentions for a world without life or death), and continues to monologue that "le light is blinded by itself and marches for things it can't see until it's there".... ergo the Apocalypse is all justified because fuck the light side we yin and yang niggas now and that needs balance or something-or-other.
Hel throws up Yin gang signs without moving off the throne (still sprawled), HOLY FUCKING SHIT FENRIR LEAPS ACROSS THE ROOM TO MAUL ARGUS (a little bit, just a chew), then teleprots behin u's Hera's shield bubble and it's another fight scene.
To condense; Argus goes to stop Fenrir again but gets flinged away, Fenrir tries to eat Hera but can't chew through her shield-bubble like it's some kind of dog toy, Hera turns around to use a spell but Fenrir's already gone by the time she looks. Turning back, Thor's now got his hammer forcing Fenrir's mouth open on other side of the room, Fenrir disengages, uses his 2 to roid himself up using his runes before leaping across the roo- HOLY FUCKING SHIT FENRIR CRUNCHES THROUGH ARGUS'S SHOULDER WITH A SINGLE BITE, but flies past with the momentum and hits the wall. Hera uses the opening to cast a spell on Fenrir, Thor kicks the shit out of the innocent pibble big bad wolf while it's dazed. Fenrir = KO'd.
Hel finally gets off her ass, pulls the shadows and shadow-wraiths into a cool cloak to wear and heals up + cleanses Fenrir. Hel then tries to unironically walk out on them all during the fighting - not because she wants to get away, but because she's bored and has better apocalypse-y things to do. Thor is annoyed, and ain't fucking around no more.
Fenrir Ults supersiz- HOLY FUCKING SHIT FENRIR RIPS A SUPPORTING PILLAR OUT FROM THE THRONE ROOM AND USES IT TO BAT ARGUS ACROSS THE ROOM INTO A SORRY STATE OF RUBBLE. Hera and Hel blast magic bolts at each othe- HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THOR SMASHES ALL OF FENRIR'S TEETH OUT IN A FEW BLOWS OF THE BROADSIDE OF HIS HAMMER, Hel cries out for her brothe- HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THOR SMASHES FENRIR'S SKULL INTO THE FUCKING PAVEMENT WITH MJOLNIR! Hel pounces at Thor like a bitch possessed and scratches him up a bit, but Thor headbutts her and sleeps her in one. There is no way Fenrir got out of that situation without brain damage.
Fight over.
Argus gets reformed (Hera points out how the damage he took being equal or greater to what a God would take) and Thor says Odin can rule judgement on what they do with Fenrir / Hel. Hera re-asserts her goals, and would like Thor to tag along with her to ensure conflict doesn't kick off again in the midsts of the post-Ragnarok chaos, bringing more needless suffering (since she's been told Ragnarok is still apparently ongoing). As if on cue, Loki shows up for an immediate backstab, Hera polymorphs him into a literal goat this time, and Argus sends Team Rocket blasting off again! him flying through a hole in the roof.
As they go to leave, Hera realises Loki's true presence is sat on the throne, invisible, giving her a little wave - and that 'the backstab' was nothing more than a clone to throw Thor off his lead. Hera doesn't want to ponder on it, and just leaves with Thor.
Dumb bitch doesn't realise she's leaving Fenrir and Hel's 'unconscious' not!corpses with their daddy dearest. This'll turn out well, don't we think? Just kidding, it's never brought up again.
~
So now Thor and Hera are on the road; Hera wants drop by to the near-ish Mount Olympus to reach a place that she had built while the Ragnarok was ongoing (she clearly had her priorities straight during the Apocalypse, I know, but she's very proud of it and wants to show her hubby Zeus when he's not-dead again, so at least give her that). An 'Arena' in the clouds where Gods could settle their spergouts without screwing over the mortals holy shit yeah, that is the Arena map.
Thor mjolnir's on up, Hera uses a blink rune to get there before him (just like the ones in-game!), and they head to Hera and Zeus's private suite, only for Hera to be shocked(!) - startled(!) - astonished(!) that some bozo Gods are fighting in her fucking Arena. Do they not know what it's supposed to be for?!
As mentioned, yes, the current Arena map is set at this point in the narrative - Greeks vs Romans.... Aside time!
Arena Aside: Roman Gods Designs, The Trials of Heracles and Other Arena Features: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#arena-aside
Ra flies through the wall (not the bird-flying kind either) and points the blame at Bellona, who's completely unapologetic about the fiasco.
Bellona was using the arena Hera had built to essentially beat the fight out of the Gods so they wouldn't spergout with each other any more (basically what Hera wanted to use it for anyways; except Bellona was actively starting disputes to settle future disputes, over just settling disputes as they arose). Guess that's why one side of the map is Greek and the other is Roman - now you know, eh?
Hera wants *her* Arena back because she's married to Zeus, Bellona points out Zeus is dead and that since Bellona saved the world from the Apocalypse, Bellona wants to do cleanup duty her way. Bellona looks back to her hot lesbian girlfriend ally, Pele, in the background and she gives a little wave while literally cooling off. Bellpepper's completely unphased by Hera's threats (including but not limited to glassing the sand at her feet with magic, getting Argus up in her face, and threatening to file a complaint with HR). Bolognaise asks what Hera actually wants, Hera catches her up with da plan, all the while giving Thor the help me out here eyes (which Thor doesn't realise because grug no big too think *tsk*.... men... amirite?).
Berryhonour gets bored of all this dialogue bullshit, kicks Hera down and goes to maim her, but is unaware of who or what Argus is, and promptly swatted away across the Arena.
Hera has Argus violently quieten down the Gods present within the arena for her, with a semi-major conflict (tl;dr the events of an Arena match play out, Hera's Greek side wins), after which Bolgne says she'll just roll with the punches and doesn't really care about Hera's conflict / Apocalypse prevention plans. Hera asks why, Bells Palsy shrugs with a coy smile and just says she wants to have fun and do her job as a Goddess of Tomboys War, more than she wants to pre-emptively stop another Apocalypse, and that she's confident enough in herself to deal with the next one if it comes around the corner. Or, in short, cute tomboy shit.
Hera copes and seethes and wants her Arena back after she's finished. Let's face it, it's Bellona's Arena now.
Technically this got an in-engine cinematic, but honestly it was just a trailer for the (at the time) new Arena map. The 7 seconds where Bellona attacks Hera before the not!Arena match starts is relevant / canon, and you can see exactly what happens in the right-half screenshot below - that's it.
I'd recommend skipping, I'm just linking it for posterity: https://youtu.be/ZoQORsSJ9LQ
Ra was eavesdropping however, and is on board with stopping another Apocalypse before it starts, because he too had a vision that shit was going to go down again soon. Hera and Thor have him lead the way with his all-seeing eye + a prophetic ray of light, toward a pre-emptive solution to a problem that hasn't arisen *yet*.
Look, it just works.
Thor hits on Pele before they leave, Pele turns him down because she's already having hot lesbian sex with Bellona on the reg spits the contents of her goblet on the floor in response. They all leave the floating-island Arena and head back to the Earth, but not after le ominous seas be churnin' commentary.
~
Now on Ra's sweet ride (the Solar Barge), it's time to sail the Seven Seas on an all-expenses-paid relaxed cruise, and a lull in the fighting. Argus gets shat on (literally) by some seagulls, Hera has some introspective moments about 'how far she's come' since leaving the kitchen leaving her home unironically some of the only explicit lore-only character development in the entire narrative.
Hera finally gets around to asking Thor what was meant by 'Ragnarok is a multi-stage apocalypse' (she didn't bother asking in any of the countries they passed through en-route to her Arena), Thor explains that Ragnarok only gets to end once he gets his big fight at the finale of it all but continues to refuse to namedrop the big bad, as if we don't already know it's Ratatoskr, after busting a shameless World-Nut.
More sailing, they head West out of the Mediterranean, then North (headed to INGURLAN'), before choppy waters hit. Hera sees a huge ominous figure in the water, and correctly deduces that it must have freed itself from the core of the Earth with some kind of external, immense amount of power (wonder who gave it that).
Ra tries to blind it as it begins to surfac- HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHATEVER WAS UNDER THE WATER DESTROYS RA'S SOLAR BARGE IN A SINGLE MOTION, THROWING EVERYONE ON BOARD ASIDE INTO THE OCEAN.
Hera unironically nearly lets herself drown because she just wants a break from all the 'hard work' she's been doing after her cruise holiday, but reluctantly magic-bubbles herself up to the surface and swims to the shore OF INGURLAN' to meet the other two (who just flew / floated off of the boat as it capsized, like Hera should have). Argus slowly / miserably trudges out of the water behind all of them, having sunk like a rock and needing to walk along the sea bed.
Ra doesn't care that much that his ride's destroyed, (Hera isn't even aware that Gods can regen their shit with Worshippower, she's that naive to how things work), but they carry on, the waves behind them churning much harder now.
The three Gods remark that INGURLAAAAAAND ''''the mysterious, foggy isle'''' is an absolute shithole; basically just a cold, muddy, foggy, rainy, grey, depressing, gloomy, distraught, cold (x2), rainy (x2) and generally miserable excuse for an island. Hera has a 'what would the old me think of me now, huh?' moment, before they reach the top of a cliff and realise the scope of the thing moving around under the waves.
They continue to dodge the namedrop, calling it a Sea Serpent, a Wyrm and ...a Dragon?!!!!!?!
Ra and Hera hurriedly head further into the accursed, blighted godforsaken land they beached on, guided by the same ray of light to look for whatever Ra can tell they're supposed to be after. Thor giddily stays put, getting ready to fight the big bad.
Big bad arises from the waves and declares itself as..... Smaug JORMUNGANDR?!!!!!?!
Short Jormungandr mini-cinematic / trailer! Overall, fits into the narrative just fine: https://youtu.be/yTRDk3QqQtA
~
Ra and He-Ra make a break for it - meanwhile Jormungandr blocks out almost all light in the area with his mere shadow (said shadow reaching the edges of the horizon, he's that colossal in-lore at this point). Ra assures Hera that everything will (probably) be fine if his foresight-ray-of-light is working as intended.
Back to Thor, Jormungandr gives a generic villain monologue that le gods can die too you know?! Jorm then thanks whichever retard sent him all the power of Ragnarok no-strings-attached to wake him up, and we go into a fight sequence.
Thor uses some mountain-splitter-tier lightning and hammer attacks, Jorm feels them like bonks on the head. Realizing that Jorm's passive makes him immune to CC, Thor summons all his strength for an uber-bonk that finally slams Jormungandr's head back under the waves. Mungo rises with a little smoking bruise, and an angry look, body coiling around him. HOLY FUCKING SHIT JORMUNGANDR BODYSLAMS THE SEA CLIFFS THAT THOR WAS STOOD ON, IN THE PROCESS SUBMERGING HALF OF THE VISIBLE FUCKING COASTLINE.
Luckily (for Thor), Thor is able to levitate by spinning his hammer.
Holy shit, that attack sounded big.... how big? & Sizes of SMITE!!! aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#the-heights-of-smite
After a jog through the underbrush, Hera and Ra find a a little hidden brook / lake, And on that little lake they see a little island. And on that little island, there's a little alter (what could it be?!). Hera looks for a weapon or a book on how2killmungo, but can't figure out what Ra's ray of light is trying to tell them to do.
Fight sequence continues (genuinely good part coming up), Mungo sinks even more of the SOUF coast of INGURLAAAAAND to no meaningful loss to anything remotely human.
Thor does more lightning-y shit , the feint sound of a thick cockney scum-accent screaming FAKKIN CAM ON INGULAN SKOR SAM FAKIN GOAWLS!!!! in the distance and lands directly on Mungo's head, before Thor smashes Jormungandr full-force in the eye. Mungo screams and reels heavily before recovering back to where he was, with his eye now closed. Thor bops him a bit more with his hammer-boomerang, then goes for the other eye - confident with 'it if bleeds' logic. He bolts up along the side of Mungo body that he just attacked and made into a blindspot, only for Mungo to silently reveal (!) the eye damage - ...was merely a ruse! Mungo opens the eye Thor thought he destroyed. Mungo could just see just fine, and had just closed his eye and acted in pain a little bit to bait Thor. And now Thor is without Mjolnir, and wide open in the air for a direct hit.
Clever girl Mungo.
Que Thor internally going Fuc- HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THOR GETS DISSOLVED ALIVE BY A TORRENT OF BOILING ACID!
Now, with the coastline being obliterated, Jormungandr's close to the (new) shore and he does the one fucking thing all big bads do wrong. Thor's basically fucking dead at this point, just a paralyzed, agonized, twitching mess of bubbling gore and melted skin on the floor - and Mungo lets him live. "You shall see the desruction I wrought - only then will I kill you" kind of bullshit. More hollow villain monologuing over his plans to just kill le Gods (at least Hades and Hel had some meat to theirs, as of now Jormungandr is just bragging about what he'll do).
Hera and Ra finally figure out that the alter isn't a useless pile of rocks - but a portal! Ra and Hera focus together and bend to their side while facing it and touch both index fingers and pour some kinda magic resource of some shit into it, and they open it up.
This tears a rip through space, and significantly slows time down as Mungo turns his attention away from Thor, to them.
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Holy shit, time to finally change the music from the Fall of War theme! Great!
Oh no... the music wasn't very good? And what was archived was poor quality? ...Shit!
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Original Event Theme ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ To make this one more of a serviceable listening experience, there's another (barely tangentially related) track to switch to just below.
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Completely Unrelated Track / Lorefag Alternate Recommendation ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
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Guess who comes through the portal!
After being hit by a legendary truck, in a small suburban district of Japan passing through a tear in reality...
... none other and King Arthur and Merlin isekai in arrive!
Tragic Backstory ti-
ultra tl;dr because backstories are GAAAAAY:
King Arthur didn't have a nice early life, he killed a lot of Saxons and made them shit themselves in his presence and turn to dark magic to try to beat him. Dragon comes along, destroys Camelot and all the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin warps Dragon away 'forever'. Arthur's only kid Mordred usurps to finish the Dragons job because the Dragon is 'on the way back' ??? (so, better a peaceful / honorable death in battle, than burning alive), Arthur kills Mordred. Years later they go into a portal to deal with that damn Dragon once and for all.
The End.
That's 18,547 characters in under 550, thank me later.
Also SMITE has no fucking clue what the Arthurian's deal is, and even at this point they can't give a straight answer on the Sword in the Stone or Excalibu- shhhhhhdonttalkaboutthat.
Also God, Heaven, Monotheism and Christianity exi- SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHdoNOTtalkaboutthat.
Quite a few pretty pictures here because this got a FUCKING KINO dedicated silent animation, that's honestly better than any of the above in setting the Arthurians up.
For the usual 'few things before you go in'; Arthur is implied to be a little older / gloomier than he is in-lore, the long-faced black knight is Mordred, the bit after they go through the portal with the additional Gods at Jormungandr is bullshit noncanon marketing.
Ya link: https://youtu.be/6SsowtzvXQ4
King Arthur steps on through the portal first, a little confused where he is.
He sees this smokin' hot Goddess in front of him... and naturally he gives Hera the ol' Prince Charming 'we-both-know-you-want-to-fuck-me' smoulder-smile + tut + wink on greeting, until he looks around and adjusts to where he is, then realises the current arc's embodiment of the Apocalypse is right behind him; screaming, writhing and destroying another huge stretch of coastal landmass in it's wake as it tries to reach them.
Arthur 'quickly' draws Excalibur.
Merlin arrives through their one-way-door shortly after, to confront his destiny too and slay the foul beast that once destroyed Camelot yadda yadda etcetera etcetera exceeeeeeept... it looks quite a bit different from what they remembered. And it's not breathing fire. It's almost as if it's not the original Dragon they came here to slay.
Mini-commentary - it's not entirely clear if Mungo is the exact Camelotian Dragon, if the Camelotion Dragon got warped to the world of SMITE's mantle and became Mungo after being gifted le power of Ragnarok, or if Mungo and the quadraped Camelotian Dragon depicted on the Arthurian's banner are two different entites entirely..... No refunds Arthieboy, that portal is one-way! I'll comment whenever it's brought up throughout the lore so you can make up your mind for what you think because I have no fucking clue either.
Arthur's about to pop a blood vessel when he realises he's fighting alongside somebody the foriner Saxons talked about a lot (Thor) but Merlin holds him back and advises he evaluate the situation. Ra stalls for their evac so they can plan a method of approach, then (actually) blinds Jormungandr via Pantheon-head ultra flashbang / Ra's 2 (evaporating the Lake of Broceliande in the process, lmfao get fucked Lady of the Lake if you thought you could join in) before Ra continues to distract Jormungandr by himself.
Argus carries Thor away, Arthur and Merlin cover for Hera.
Evac gang of Arthur, Merlin, Hera, Argus and Thor duck into a nearby seaside cove and recoup for a few seconds, with the time Ra bought them.
Hera tries to heal Thor from a critical condition, King Arthur nearly executes Thor there and then as he finally remembers that the name was a Saxon semi-war God his enemies would chant as they invaded his lands. Merlin telepathy's Arthur out of doing that before he does it, because they don't know what's-what yet or how shit works in this portal-world. The Solar Barge regenerates and returns, they all hop on board (Ra hurtling / crashing on board in a much less ceremonious manner) - Merlin heals up Ra, and they all sail the fuck out of dodge at on the speed-of-light-capable speedboat / cruise.
Back to the cloest Pantheon that will take them - Olympus!
At Olympus, we get a THAT'S MY SON!..... MY BOOOOYYYYYY! moment from Punished Odin cradling Thor's unconscious and critical body, Odin explains Asgard was fucking trashed by Mungo before he moved towards the North Sea / British Channel to meet Thor, and that basically everyone else linked to the Norse Pantheon is either dead or in a state of being acid'd.
King Arthur copes and seethes that there's even more Saxon Gods he's heard of present, and ragequits the fuck out of the room before he goes to kill them. Merlin gives and gets a QRD with Ra (now neither Ao or Loki are attributed as Zeus's murderer, but instead both Hel and Hades - so even more fuel for the fire of the mess of the first phase) before Merlin has an epilepic fit a mysterious, unclear vision...
He decides to think on it, and sits down with Hera and plays some not!Chess as they talk strategy on how to deal with Mungo.
Merlin loses the first few games, not knowing how the game works, then has another 'episode' another vision. Merlin decides he needs to see the full vision to understand what's going on, so heads over the Thor's still-dissolving near-carcass and takes a droplet of Jormungandr's acidic monster saliva to slurp up. King Arthur gives him the go-ahead (becuase he apparently does weird shit like this all the time), Merlin goes on a bad trip and gets the full context of Mungo.
tl;dr Ragnarok and Jormungandr have happened a few times before, acting as a Great Reset Genocide within the Divine Realm and killing off all the Gods, and also because Merlin is technically a demigod and has the blood of the satanic flowing through him, he's indirectly bore witness to it many times before, hence explaining his 'visions' again, shhh, not now Christianity.
The gameplan going forward is essentially going to be a repeat of Bellona + Pele vs UltraHades, where they separate the Soul of Ragnarok from Jormungandr, then deal with the weaker thing left over.
Except unlike UltraHades, Jormungandr is still going to put up a fight throughout the 'separation' process.
We go slightly back in time. Now, from Jormungandr's PoV.
As Jormungandr sets up his plan for solo'ing the entire Divine Realm, we get le backstory and motivation monologue. Instead of his usual mythos backstory (as a son of Loki, and Fenrir/Hel's brother - which he also has voice lines for, for some reason....), in the SMITEverse, he's a Primordial being that came bundled with reality, who was just made with the sole perogative of killing all the Gods each 'cycle', before going back to sleep and repeating later.
Once again, it's completely unclear if he's from Arthur's Universe and got tp'd in or if he's been in the SMITE Universe since the beginning.
More edgy villain monologing, that the Gods let hubris get to their heads and always turn tyrannical, which pisses him off and makes him want to do his God-culling reason-for-existence even more. Also, he always leaves mortals behind, because he feels bad for them (even though he knows they'll end up make more Gods to enslave themselves with, by passively / accidentally manufacturing Worshippower).
Jorm likes his dayjob of wiping out these apparent Demiurges, and apparently his usual trigger point is when the Gods become powerful enough to begin to rewrite reality and fuck with the fabric of the Universe itself - which somehow wakes him up. Don't ask when this happened beforehand in this 'cycle' / loop, because it hasn't - this time around he was woken up early by having 'le ragnarok energies' forced onto him, and he thought he might as well get it over and done with right now so he can go back to sleep again.
The general way things play out is that he either wipes house within a a few days (great for him), or spends literal millennia fighting with the Gods of a given genocide-period, until they give up on fighting him and pray to him that he won't kill them (then he kills them anyways lol). No matter how many times he is 'defeated', he just hides, recovers and attacks again later until he forces a win - this is a foolproof method, and he will always eventually win.
There's also a rare third possibility... but... we get onto that much, much later on. Suffice to say, in that outcome. Well. Almost everything dies - including the mortals. A near complete extinction event. Jormungandr forgets to mention that part right now, because it happens so rarely that he deems it near impossible.
If you want Jormungandr's motivations summed up, take the most extreme fedora tipping religion-hating athiest and most extreme freedom-fighter you can think of, and put them together in a incomprehensibly long force of nature.
So back to Mungo, now encircling Asgard, doing his thing, fucking all shit up for everyone present.
Apparently last murder-destruction cycle he missed a God who managed to hide their powerlevel before Mungo went back to sleep, which is who Merlin got his vision from but wait? Merlin's related to Satan? So is Satan a God from the SMITEverse? Did Satan manage to outlive the big G-O-D with Jormungandr taking down the real major big-guy-in-the-sky? And the most powerful, literal embodiment of evil conceptualised, whose sole reason for existence is to tyrannically torment and mislead mortals, was able to keep all that in his pants without pro-mortal Jormungandr noticing? Christianityfags, I understand, but not now, let's just carry on.
So yeah, somehow back he was the Arthurian Dragon, and he made a B-line towards Merlin who is somehow the same last God he missed out on while he was in Arthur's world... but somehow Arthur is also a God now? I don't get any of this shit either. He remembers getting isekai'd out and trapped into the core of the SMITEverse Earth's mantle (wait, trapped? didn't he go underground voluntarily in the last cycle of this universe, and was ported in by Merlin at the start of time?), then getting le Ragnarok energies at some point, then waking up early and freeing himself.... from the mantle-prison Merlin sent him in too... pretty sure the 'writer' doesn't get this shit either (???), feeling disgusted sensing concentrated divinity / Worshippower, at which point he pops up out of the Earth's crust near Asgard and decided to just genocide the Norse Pantheon because fuck it why not.
Mungo lets Odin run away, so he can 'rally' / round up the rest of the Gods for Mungo, making Jormungandr's the next stage of the usual job a bit easier. He then sniffs out an especially concentrated source of divinity closeby - Hera, Thor and Ra - and heads on over while he's in the relative vicinity. We're now back to present.
Mungo smugly reminisces over taking Thor down to 1% HP, then proceeds to let the gang of Gods flee, and slithers back to the emptied Norse region. Mungo has a chat with a few local mortals, and introduces them to the good word of not!Atheism.
He tips his fedora and calms their fears that the colossal leviathanic-murder-dragon-serpent-thing won't hurt them. He dissolves a statue of Odin with his spit-breath, and then slowly, the Scandinavian mortals feebly pick up fedoras of their own, to tentatively tip towards him. Mungo's heart is filled with warmth, pride and a childlike joy. By beginning to spread the good word of atheism across the globe, he is now essentially forcing the Gods to come to him, on turf they're all either foreign to or weakened in, as they lose out on worshippower to not!Athiesm - all in all, bolstering his ease-of-culling.
And so... Jormungandr waits...
MAP INTERLUDE TIME AGAIN! - The village that Jormungandr visits is the point in the narrative where the current (S6) Assault map is depicted!
Released April 2019, the Order-side of Team 'Jormungandr' is set in the nameless Norse fishing village, while the Chaos-side of Team 'literally everyone who isn't Jormungandr' moves in from the exit-station of the Bifrost. Another interesting thing is how Jormungandr's not!Athiesm is what's depicted as Order in this point, perhaps in a way how Jormungandrs represents a 'Natrual Order' / Force of Nature of sorts - while the Gods who take opposition to themselves being genocided are the Chaotic ones, for just refusing to die already.
Also, I genuinely don't know how, but the reason why the Sun is semi-eclipsed for the Norse is apparently because Fenrir took a bite out of it during his offscreen rampage. Don't ask how he got up there to chew on the lightbulb when it's Skoll's job, evidently the Fenrir/Sol pairing is more abusive than the Cerberus/Freya one. I'm thinking it was definitely more of a struggle-snuggle than Freya's willing puppy-raising, given Sol has extensive divine-wolf-fighting experience in dealing with Skoll chasing her, plus things like rape support groups or degenerate insular discord servers that would egg on willing beastiality weren't around back then.
In terms of gameplay changes that came with this map, the major introduction was the side-lane micro jungle along Mid (with a second Healing Orb there) to encourage more aggression in the earlygame instead of a staring contest. Aside from that, the map is functionally identical. It's Assault / ARAM, what did you expect (though you do have an inherant advantage if you're on Order side now, because sightlines)
For mythology on the other hand... well 'apparently' the map's set during Fimbulvinter - but I'm calling direct bullshit right now, and that it was just some name they pulled from their ass / Wikipedia (read: somebody elses ass); namely because it's not fucking snowing, there's still foliage (life) on the map, there's light and Fimbulvinter is supposed to happen before Ragnarok, not after it.
Details-wise, the most obvious one is that at the 10 minute mark, a larger version of Jormungandr will pop up in the middle of the sidelane, just next to the wreck of a grounded ship (further disproving it's set during Fimbulvinter). As such, we can assume the entire lane (or more relevantly, the hill on the right-hand-side of Chaos spawn) is where our ensuing lore-showdown is set. Also, said ship is supposedly the remains of Naglfar from the previous Assault map - and again I call bullshit because it's made of wood and is completely divorced from its previous depiction. Do you understand why I don't take LoRez at their word yet?
In terms of other details.... well Order-side is pretty barren, but the Chaos-side has a few neat touches. The runes throughout that side of the map generally translate to "The End is nigh, give me Strength' - though the grammar is all fucked up, to the point I think it was more likely the artist in question just looked up a few cool Nordic runes and threw them around, over any intended / meaningful spelt out Easter-Egg messages. Case in pont - quite a few runes are just upside down next to others that are the right way up. Direct translations are all gobbledigook.
As for 'where' this map is set, we have a hint from the large rune in the centre of the map, the most prominent feature in the mini-jungle (see the right-hand side of the second image below). This rune is not in fact a 'general' Norse rune, but clearly reminiscent of a uniquely specific Icelandic Galdrastafir - a precursor to the 'magic circles' that many occultic religions and varieties of yurop-ean witchcraft use today. In practice, they were more like track-and-trail symbols, that hikers and scouts use today to mark a path, but instead with additional magical properties. Once again, the rune in question is bullshit gobbldigook - the closest it appers to be is a partially rotated Veldismagn (a luck rune for good weather) with all the ends inverted. In all honesty... it's more than likely OC bullshit for aesthetics. The ends honestly remind me more of the spades suit within a deck of cards.
Finally, as a result of a later lore event combined with an earlier lore event, it's almost certain that the cave to the left of Chaos spawn is NOT the entrance to Fafnir's hoarde (despite being glow-y and Underground). Fafnir lives much farther North in a much more mountainous region (and also because Fafnir is Germanic-Scandinavian, not Icelandic). I'll mention it again when it's relevant - but for now, that mystery cave is just that, a mystery cave.
All in all, it's just where the current narrative is set. There aren't that many details, don't think about it too hard.
~
We close back in on a panicked and hurried Olympus - Thor is barely conscious again after days of treatment.
Ra checks in on Arthur to make sure he won't sperg out on the Norse Pantheon in the middle of the upcoming fight, since they need to work together. Meanwhile in not!Hospital, Hera checks in with Odin and Thor, since Thor immediately wants to fighting again after finding out Asgard had fallen. Thor feels the lingering acid-poison of Jormungandr as he tries to get up, then both Odin and Thor feel the lingering cultural poison of not!Athiesm begin to take hold in them, as their Worshippower is slowly reduced. Merlin calls the lot to prepare for battle, now that he's got the classic Soul-of-Ragnarok-separating-spell (that he's been working on) ready.
Arthur sharpens his blade-that-never-dulls anyways, and it's explained they don't have time to wait on nearby Pantheons sending allies not even the Romans? as the same gang as before group up in the courtyard of Olympus. Odin explains he's going to stay at Olympus and basically kill himself to summon the Bifrost so they can have a shortcut to where Jormungandr is hiding. Typical Thor: "No!!!", Odin: "Dere's no udda way...", you already know how those scenes play out.
Cue sounds of a really strained shit Odin in extreme pain as he summons the rainbow bridge with his remaining strength, Ra stabilises what they're walking on with light and they all run on over at Norse-warp-speed in a few minutes; Odin collapsing immediately and taken back into Olympus's not!Hospital.
The God-Defence-Force remark that the place they have arrived in has completely returned to monke, with nothing remotely divine left in the region. Jormungandr jumpscares them all by bursting through a fucking mountain - but despite the surprise advantage, Mungo wastes it all with more fucking monologing AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Monologue time yaaay... woohoo... - Merlin is somehow the eldest *God* present now wait wha-???, and used all the power he had from the 'last time' he was a God ??? to forge Excalibur WAIT WHAT EXCALIBUR IS A DEMON BLADE NOW? and apparently Merlin is the oldest of all Gods full stop WHA-?????? and also heavily implied to actually be the Satan God (the monotheistic one) that bore witness to the last Great Reset now, not simply having the Satan's God's blood flow through him AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA STOP FUCKING TALKING, NONE OF YOU ARE MAKING ANY SENSE AAAAAAA 1/10 -F SEE ME AFTER CLASS.
As of writing, none of this has been relevant.
Finally the Universe hears my plea to get these retards to shut the fuck up, and it's onto le fight scene.
Thor acts as cover / a distraction for Argus, using a lightning-shield to evaporate any acid sent his way; Argus goes Shadow-of-the-Colossus mode as he clambers up on a thrashing Jormungandr. Hera and Ra are the artillery, firing at Jorm from the backlines, Argus goes flying past He- HOLY FUCKING SHIT HERA GETS COMPLETELY FUCKING BODIED INTO THE DIRT BY JORMUNGANDR! but barely putting a dint in her shield, but staining her dress!
Merlin goes blurry from channeling le intenss majikul powa, King Arthur shouts for Argus throw him at Jormungandr like a living high-speed javelin.
Merlin uses le spell, rips the Soul of Ragnarok out of Jormungandr and physically shrinking Mungo (this time sending the bulk of power upwards into the sky / space instead of downwards); the- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARTHUR LODGES EXCALIBUR HALFWAY INTO JORMUNGANDR'S HIDE, IS RAGDOLLED AROUND A BIT, AND THEN USES GRAVITY TO PULL THE CUT DOWNWARDS ALONG THE LENGTH OF JORMUNGANDR'S BODY HOLY FUCKING SHIT RIP AND TEAR, HE BASICALLY USES A GIANT RAZOR TO CUT MUNGO'S STOMACH OPEN.
Jormungandr gives the roaring+reeling dragon routine as you can see in his death animation, shrinks some more and dives back into the mantle of the Earth.
Arthur goes to jump down the big hole to the Earth's mantle to finish the job since he's still high on doomguy energy, but Merlin ruin's Arthur's hype and holds him back; explaining not that he wouldn't survive it, but that Mungo was just going through a phase acting on his duty / urges, and that now it was up to Mungo again to decide for himself what to do next ('free to choose his own path without the Gods', dawwww).
...
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Ragnarok is finally over (for real this time) - yay!!!
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~
So now, a timeskip. A few weeks / months pass from when Jormungandr was sent packing.
~
Arthur and Merlin decide to stick around because everything's dead and done in their world, but Arthur's pissed that he's got to confront the fact that this world is Polytheistic, and that Merlin let Jormungandr go. For the time being, they crash at Olympus's guest bedrooms until they decide what to do next.
Ra has a big feast and a national festival to celebrate defeating the Apocalypse, and in the process, gets tons of Worshippower back for himself... but senses a disturbance in the force when he sees a hawk circling overhead. Meanwhile Thor and Odin have to deal with their completely levelled homeland, the ones who didn't make it, and their not!Athiesm-infested turf - and decide that the only way to show their strength is that they'll have to invade a neighboring territory, both to win back faith amongst their people and regain Worshippower for survival. Their hands are forced.
Hera guesses that the ruined Pantheons are going to start shit with each other soon, and most of the others unaffected Pantheons will choose isolation over helping each other, so she pre-emptively invites everybody over to Olympus before it all kicks off again. She'll be in full control and will be able to solve everything peacefully, like the distinguished stateswoman she is.
It's time for a... le "Council of the Gods!"
She spends 3 whole days welcoming each Pantheon's envoy personally (as not to imply she prefers any one) and thinking about her big grand speech - but only a few Pantheons show up (coincidentally, all the ones in the game at the time), while the rest ignore her (so XYZ Pantheon coming later won't conflict with the lore).
All now present, everybody sits somewhere in the Amphitheatre far away from each other, cautiously awaiting the... le "Council of the Gods!"
Hera explains what she thinks is going to happen now the Apocalypse is over, and that instead of fighting, peace is to everybody's best interest - confident that'll do the trick.
All the War Gods (across Pantheons, each uniting against her dumb pacifism) immediately look at each other and point out that peace isn't to *their* best interest.
Hera didn't think that far ahead and stumbles in her gay little peace-speech.
...
F...Fuck...
Thanatos interrupts to ask why Hera's let some rando mortals (Arthur and Merlin) into this apparently hugely important meeting for the wider Divine Realm, Arthur reminds them all that he's the reason everybody isn't dead, Thanatos sarcastically takes that as an affront to his career path. Thor baits King Arthur further, tensions across the room flare up, things get rowdy pretty quickly.
Hera has to beg everyone to be quiet so she can get on with her speech, but nobody listens to her and she begins to have an internal meltdown in the middle of the amphitheatre. She didn't see this coming (she *literally* cannot even right now).
Bellona steps up and cuts through the shouting, and rightfully points out that some Pantheons need some more / new Worshippers to simply survive (eg, the Norse), and that nobody is going to voluntarily weaken themselves by giving away aid as yet another Divine War is dawning on the horizon. Ra suddenly gets some intense heartburn (the only one really left who was backing Hera) and whispers that has to drop out early (the indigestion heartburn indicating some shit had started back home in Egypt).
Hera is now all alone, in the middle of the meeting place.
She's shivering like a deer in headlights.
Knees weak, arms are heavy. Argus can't get involved or it would embarrass her further. Mom's spaghetti.
Everybody - *Everybody* is shouting and screaming around her.
She's probably about to cry.
All because she has just directly facilitated the start of a Divine World War, when she just wanted everyone to be friends and not hurt each other.
ahahahaha holy shit, she's such a failure. I don't even think all the gold in Fafnir's hoarde could pay for the amount of therapy this woman is going to need. shouldn't have left the kitchen Olympus to begin with lol
Ra returns back home via portal, only to find a dead nigger Osiris on his porch throne room carpet; with the Beta-male Horus and Sigma-male Set having one of their usual family-murder-squabbles. Horus silently points the finger at Set, as if to indicate that whoever did the rhyme did the crime, Set is autistically turning his head so nobody can look him in the eye.
Ra is pretty FUCKING pissed that he's had to leave the global peace talks to deal with these two spergs.
...
Fade to black.
~
~
~
we wuz kangz n shit nigga (Battle for Olympus / Odyssey: Underworld)
Ra crosses his arms and hears out both sides of the murder-squabble. By the way, Set's a pretty fun character. He's the absolute embodiment, God even, of the Sigma Male Grindset. Unapologetic, uncaring edgeautism that's so extreme it just works.
Horus shouts that YOU CAN'T JUST KILL PEOPLE YOU DON'T LIKE. Set whispers (in a hallway) that, well, he just did, he told them all for ages he was going to do it and that the world's a better place now he's done it.
Horus declares SET WAS ONLY AFTER OSIRIS'S THRONE and that SET IS A COWARDLY BACKSTABBER TRYING TO HIDE HIS CRIMES. Set no u's him (still whispering), pointing out that Horus only thinks he deserves the throne because birthright and not because of any achievements, then re-asserts he only wanted to see change instead of stagnation under Osiris, and that anyone deserving enough can rule over Egypt for all he cares. He'll just self-centredly rule in the meantime lol. Set also points out that he hasn't at any point hidden the fact his spear is still dripping with the steaming blood of Osiris, so 'coward' really isn't the right term to use to describe him and that Horus should work on his vocabulary (he actually says this).
'So what the fuck is Set's head supposed to be' Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#so-what-the-fuck-is-sets-head-supposed-to-be
Back at the... "Council of the Gods!", and it's all going to shit (weapons are being drawn and magic is being fired etc).
Hera shouts at everyone to be quiet, and begs (BEGS) them to listen to her; this time just appealing to happy-clappy co-operation over peace. She then goes full "I HAVE, A DREAM" with tears welling up in her eyes. Everybody is in genuine shock at to what the fuck Hera is doing, and nobody knows how to respond to the display.
Bellona stands up, breaks the ice again and laughs it off - "And a dream is all that it'll ever be!".
Hera collapses onto her knees, in utter defeat and enters full-on breakdown mode (IT'S *O V E R* FOR HERA). Bellona ignores Hera's 'moment' and seizes the chance to speak to th crowd and make an appeal to reality - conflict is inevitable. Hera sobbingly interrupts and begs everybody to PLEASE not kill each other, Bellona responds that nobody needs to die.
They all just need one strong leader - and anybody is welcome to personally challenge Bellona for that very title of God King Queen of the Divine Realm (again, in Hera's own Arena). Bella smiles and winks as she leaves Hera on the ground, ready to prove her right to rule. Everybody who wants to have a fair crack at becoming the Divine God-Ruler-of-Everyone (so basically everyone present) follows out of the conference hall / amphitheatre, to challenge Bellona for that title.
And I quote myself from earlier:
"or somebody weaker than him will try, and fuck it all up, leading to a Divine conflict. Note the very subtle foreshadowing (in more ways than one)."
... told you to remember that one ;)
Back in the Throne Room, Horus can't hold his sped-rage back any more, and finally attacks Set.
Horus goes all out, yet Set effortlessly goes for deflects, because Horus is an inexperienced and naive sperg. Horus goes for a highly telegraphed, heavy final strike - Set parries, and in his first counterattack on Horus, has his spear hovered at Horus's throat. Then starts laughspamming taunting him.
Minicinematic... but it's completely irrelevant to lore events, has incorrect characterization and is even off-location (outside instead of in the throne room). Also looks like it was rendered a decade ago. I'd advise against watching it bcause of how much it mischaracterises Set to his lore counterpart - the image below gets the key frames and 'the point' across.
Link: https://youtu.be/kKxzijayR_Q
Ra, sick to death of watcing a Lawtist and a Chunni fight, breaks it up.
He reminds them that he's taking time out of an international embassary to deal with their bitching; Set takes the high ground and leaves with a final "nuthin personnel Horus, just h8d ur dad, kiddo". Ra tells Horus to let Isis Eset deal with the corpse, then scolds Horus, demanding he learn how to at least defend himself before attacking others. For the meantime, Ra tells the kid to tag along back to Olympus with him, to learn what international politics is really like.
Ra and Horus arrives at Olympus's Ampitheatre a few days later, expecting ongoing negotiations... and the place is just empty. Aside from a sad Hera, sat all by herself, all alone, who hasn't left all this time.
Hera's depressed that she fucked up everyone's one and only chance for world peace, Horus speaks up that HORUS WILL FIGHT FOR JUSTICE and HORUS WILL PROTECT THE WAY OF LIFE OF THE INNOCENT and HORUS WILL KILL SET, TO PEOPLE STOP KILLING EACH OTHER, BECAUSE KILLING EACH OTHER IS BAD. Ra and Hera ignorantly nod along as not to set his autism off, then they get back to speaking serious politics. Once again they need allies to help deal with the ensuing mess (HORUS TOO NEEDS ALLIES, TO STOP SET).
Kukulkan (entering, in the form of his Ult-avatar for style-points) interrupts them and Horus genuinely panics, because snakes scare hawks (hence Horus is ophidiophobic). Hera doesn't really want to deal with Kukulkan's bullshit right now, because apparently he's just an annoying and picky guy snake to deal with. She sighs and ask what he wants. KKK says he stuck around at Mount Olympus to get some info while abroad, then asks Ra what the deal with Egypt is, now Osiris is dead (HORUS IS INSULTED). KKK goes on to say that he sympathised with Hera's plan at it's core, but thought neither Hera or Ra were strong or assertive enough to see it through it. hahaha, if only Zeus was still arou-...
...
wait....
...
...what was that just then....
...
...
...
...that feeli-... oh nonono it's THAT time in the lore... isn't it? hahaha....ahahahahahaa....
oh boy...
Set wanders into the open of the meeting grounds (with an apparent Worshippower boost from the mortal realm, due to assuming the Throne of Egypt in the meantime), Hera uninvites him because recent incidents and because she REALLY doesn't have it in her right now to deal with him on top. Thanatos enters behind him and states they were simply making personal arrangements / business deals with each other, before mentioning Ares and Bellona are currently at war with each other off-screen (so Thanatos is a pretty busy guy right now, and his schedule's pretty full as is).
Set calms his edgeautism for a second and politically wants upheaval to the current 'Order' and gives the promise of change if he's to become the up-for-grabs Divine King (now threatening Ra too). Thanatos is in it because he's got a gripe that the Gods just get to live forever for some unmentioned reason, and that aligns with Set's campaign promise. Set politely extends a chaosfag-invite to to KKK, KKK politely declines because he thinks some fundamental things just have to have an Order to them for everything to run smoothly. Discordia comes out of invis to show herself with Set and Thanatos - she's just in it to sew discord. Hera suspects she was the one who set Bellona off against peace because Discordia was the one who introduced Bellona to kinky bisexual relations with women because the two women get along unusually well / closely.
Interestingly Hera notes that Discordia used to be called Eris in her Pantheon - validating the existence of dual-Pantheon entities. Major repercussions if so. However, this is never brought up again after this arc, and probably a poorly thought out comment lol
Now by Set, Thanatos and Discordia's powers combined - they are the NEW League of Best Friends! And their first action.... is tooooooo............... ....... attack everybody else unprovoked!
Oh nonono oh lawdy oh lawdy that moment's 'a comin'
Short timeskip of a few hours, Olympus is now in complete ruins from the fighting.
Hera Argus and Discordia are fighting, Hera accuses Discordia of ruining everything, Discordia said that as a devout opportunist / non-instigator, she did no such thing and continues to go for taunts and spamming laugh emotes all fight. Hera tries to power-word / dox Discordia with her Eris name, Discordia giggles even harder, reminds her of the start of the Trojan War (and the Golden Apple competition - which had Hera, Athena and Aphrodite striptease for Paris of Troy), then Discordia throws Argus le golden applel, turning him aginst Hera.
If you haven't yet realised why Apples are seen as forbidden fruit associated with women in all your years, cut one in half and look at it for a while
Oh nononononononoooo~
HORUS DEMANDS SET COME OUT with Ra next to him getting bored of babysitting. Set doesn't come out.
From the shadows, Set tells Horus that he's a dumb sheltered kid, meanwhile Set was born in the Chaos, moulded by it. Set distracts Horus with a few clones, as he zergrushes Ra with a shitton of sandclones. Ra holds them off with his AoE abilities and Passive, melts a few sandclones to glass with his sheer heat (honestly pretty cool), but in the distraction doesn't see Set going for a final, killing strike... only to be knocked aside by Horus.
Set still doesn't understand why Horus is being SUCH A FUCKING FAG HOLY SHIT and starts to REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE / Ult.
Oh lawd, oh man ohnononoNONONONO
Set pounces onto Horus but gets swiftly knocked aside again. Thanatos is perched, watching from above, and is initially excited to watch Set be the first God to get properly holy fucking shit'd / killed in a while... but takes the businessman approach and decides it's for the best in the long run that Set lives (Set = Better Leader = Longer Conflict = More God Deaths = ??? = *Profit*). Thanatos goes in for the open gank and disarms / silences Horus with his 3. Horus looks up (and I semi-quote);
>Horus - "YOU!!!"
>Thanatos - "...Me..."
Horus takes flight and begins to chase down Thanatos through the ruins of Olympus like it's a fighting jet simulator. Thanatos (being slighlty ahead) goes to check in on what Discordia's up to. Discordia tells him to fuck off (one target at a time, don't killsteal faggot), he sarcastically presents Horus as a new toy, as Horus turns the corner toward them. Discordia giggles and blinds him for her Thanny.
Role reversal, Thanatos is now the one chasing after a confused and panicking Horus. Thanatos flies parallel within Horus's shadow for a period (for admittedly worth-it style points) as he winds up a mid-air execution, but Kukulkan interrupts Thanatos with a Zephyr / his 1, slowing Thanatos down enough to get a real clear Ult-shot lined up on him. Kukulkan's about to holy fucking shit Thanatos (yes, kill the Reaper), but has to abandon the opportunity to use his Ult to bodyblock Argus instead... because Hera genuinely fucking forgot she was being chased by her own marble terminator and nearly got holy fucking shit'd herself.
Argus drops the apple, shudders over what he was just doing and rejoins Hera's side - then all the combatants realise they're conveniently present at the Throne of Olympus. Everybody brushes themselves off and they come together for le final teamfight - all just for killing each other's sake.
Hera and KKK in desparation make a wish, and seem to think they see a shooting sta-OHNONONONONONONO NOOOOOOOO
IT'S HAPPENING, IT'S HAPPENING, AAAHAHAHAAHAAAHAHA AH AHAHAHAHAHAHA HAH AHAHA AH HAA
AAAAA AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAAAAAA
AHA AHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OOOOOOOHHH
The funniest part of below is how little of this I actually rephrase entirely...
ha ha haaa....
ahahaha-, so yeah, so the recently widowed single mother and the long, prehensile snake look up, each feel a sexual submissive urge from deep within as 'He' descends from the heavens above the heavens. 'He' lands in perfect fashion, like the messenger of Yakub the big headed scientist himself. Hera JUST KNOWS Zeus would hold her hand while she got railed by KNEEL to this... a.... A... A BLACK GOD.
Set's entire sandclone army would rather (and do) kill themselves instead of fighting this POWERFUL BLACK GOD. Set attacks, before the same thing happens to all spergs that TAKE ON A BLACK GOD - he gets smacked the fuck out (like a nigga care abouch 'yo special needs). Everyone feels like time itself stops while the BLACK GOD is present.
wait for it, it gets better
This magnanimous BLACK GOD moves toward the Throne of Olympus in this slowed-time. Hera tries to cry out, but can't resist the power of this BLACK GOD.
Set KNEELS.
Discordia and Thanatos SCURRY back off into the shadows.
Hera knows she is powerless compared to this BLACK GOD, she knows she couldn't unite the Gods - not compared to the strength, the power, the magnificence, the omnisciece, the wisdom, the majesty, the compassion (all words actually used) ... of this adonis before her (and he's way better than Zeus too btw).
Horus, Ra and KKK BOW - INSTINCTIVELY.
The BLACK GOD sits down on the throne. Completely. Uncontested.
"I AM OLORUN." "I AM YOUR KANG."
If you don't believe me, the cinematic is completely accurate to the lore, aside from a few Gods featuring in it that shouldn't be present.
Link: https://youtu.be/9CeX99rBjoM
...
Oh, and the first words out of Hera's mouth. I kid you fucking not. She sassily flirt-taunts him.
Das rite. Olympus and all the Gods.....got BLACKED. Olorun is now the Head of the Greek Pantheon and Kang of Limpus.
Please note that Hi-Rez is an American company, and thus by Mutts Law, it's actually more shocking how they managed to go *this* long without talking about literal who Africans and handing them undeserved power on a plate - despite the attentive reader understanding the in-universe mechanics of Worshippers = Strength, and hometurfs exsiting - so definitely Set, or even say Apollo should be able to dunk on Olorun from his characterisation later. Especially given a Pantheon Head can still be killed by enough angry Gods (see: Zeus dying, or Ra / Odin getting chewed out). Oh yeah, and he's nowhere near as authoritative later on, its literally just this scene he's really calling shots and making any moves. Never mind Baron Samedi was a pristinely handled addition to the game and lore at the time already, so it's not like a black entity was new.
It's poorly 'explained' and ignored later when it conflicts with other worldbuilding, proving it was bullshit that he can do this because he's a God of the Universe, so anything under that stars if his turf(???).
Overall, quite blatent tokenization racism on their end for "le current year goodboy points". And yes, it reads exactly as jarringly shitposty-fanfic as I shortened it to.
I told you not to take the lore too seriously bro I'm genuinely sorry if you're from Greece and reading this - the level of complete, unapologetic cultural insult must be...... divine~
~
So we return, seemingly either a few weeks / months later. At a fucking divine coronation, because offscreen, Olorun is now also God-King of the entire Divine Realm.
...
...
...
...Ok!...
...
Hades shows up late outside of Mt. Olympus with our newest antagonist his wife, Persephone, and suffice to say, she is not amused.
Hades throws back his hood-cap, and is absolutely stunningly hot (what with 'age' and 'death' not really mattering to him - we'll touch on this again later; we have a design), and they question what the fuck Hera is thinking as they walk towards the coronation. Hades is happy Persephone is a loyal wife, and Persephone is happy Hades is a loyal husband, Hades jokes that he could leave the Underworld to her and she'd probably run it as well as he could - generally cutesy couple romance shit.
Apparently the other Pantheons aren't too pleased at having a diversity hire a literal who God running the entire Divine Realm either, so as is, the guestlist is a mixed bag - of the simply named ones that aren't referred to later, we've got Terra, Sylvannus, Cernunnos and Amaterasu as well as a few Persephone 'didn't know the names of' (just in case they're added in at a later date, nudgenudge winkwink).
Small intro-story, Persephone was originally a snarky and spoilt rich girl (since she was Demeter's daughter, the Goddess who took over Harvest patronage after Kronos got dealt with, and so had a reliable and huge amount of worshippower on top of her mother being one of the 12 Olympians, Persephone herself in mythology is a mythological analogy of stored grain), but after being in the Underworld for a while, then becoming Hades's wife, Persephone became really sympathetic towards the mortals - and is probably the most pro-Mortal God of all the Greek Pantheon now. She pulled a few strings with Hades, got the mortals some quality of life changes in death, then begun to really resent the tyrannical Gods. Of the mortals she sees, she treats them as... near-equals to Gods (hint hint).
So she's still a snarky bitch... but she's ready to learn and really, really nice to mortals / the dead. If she wasn't so loyal to Hades as a wife... yeah you probably could have those kind of fantasies, perv.
Minicinematic... but it's just a trailer barely mentioning Persephone's mythological backstory. No additional lore, and if anything, it confuses her backstory to imply she planned everything out from the beginning before getting married. I'd advise to skip, the frames below are basically it anyways. Just make note of the scenery.
le epik link: https://youtu.be/SZLvpNHHP6I
Entering on in, the room of guests show a notable amount atmosphere of reverence / respect towards the two of them (implied because of the Starust Crus-Hades incident) - but Persephone runs over to one of her OMGbesties (!!!), Nu Wa.
Persephone slyly asks if Olorun's from Nu Wa's turf (in what I think was either a dig at Yin/Yang or implying he's a mud-person in a genuinely-close-to-racist dig; bravo Lo-Rez). Nu Wa hasn't even heard of him either; but begrudgingly says that at least somebody's trying to run things (after Hades tried, and was toppled from being the first uniting force after Ragnarok all kicked off). Persephone takes one look at Olorun and sees he's apparently got the power to back himself up as a Pantheon Head of some place..... but also sees him judgingly look down on the other Gods (like her and Hades would look over the dead), and it pisses her off further because she doesn't remember ever asking for anybody's opinion.
Olorun is *shocked* that a good chunk of the Gods didn't bother showing up (if Set was edgeautism, Olorun's characterization now on is a Gary Stu high functioning autist with a noticeable amount of padding / pandering).
Hera, his piece on the side now-secretary, says it's to be expected, given the circumstances. Olorun is displeased with dis huwite-made shitty stiff chair he's sat on (ie the Throne of Olympus) but likes it's purpose (ie showing he's kang, and consciously making him look / act like one), before internally monologuing on that he specifically asked for Death Gods to come to his coronation, because they've got all the hot scoop on mortals, as well as...
Camazotz, stinking of bat shit, salivating on the floor and looking around the room for 'things' to eat, was the Mayan Xibalba's idea of an unironic joke-representative Death God to show their displeasement with affairs, instead of Ah Puch. Camazotz gives them the ol' end half of his wave emote on repeat when he sees Hera / Olorun looking at and talking about him, clearly enjoying being a living insult very, very much. Fun mini-fact: Camazotz is mythologically the size of a bus, and should be turnt to stone as long as he's in sunlight.
Hera bitches a bit about Persephone as the two newcomers approach (since Persephone gave up the rich-girl life and ditched the clique for 'nothing'). On the other side of the room, Hades puts his hood back up as the two approach, and he and his wife begrudgingly KNEEL before the BLACK GOD. Some back and forth, they point out nobody's even heard of him (ie, where's the Worshippower coming from?) and question the stability of his reign. He agrees, then conveniently answers neither of the very valid points, and goes on that he wants to build some divine PR. We're given no answer to this very pertinant plothole as to why Olorun is so apparently powerful, or why he only bothered intervening after the Apocalypses killed untold amounts of mortals, or why he has influence over time, which isn't something he should mythologically be able to d- oh come on, let's face it Reader, both you and I know exactly why Olorun is running things now. And it's nothing to do with what's going on in-Universe.
Both Hades and Persephone further understand (after being closer to Olorun's presence), that to take on this BLACK GOD with powers of le Universe would be suicide - and that he is easily as powerful, strong and divine (all words actually used) as both Zeus and Odin were at their prime, right now. Which is also apparently why Set didn't show up and why Bellona didn't even attempt to face him in the Arena (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge).
Olorun gives a little speech, assures everyone present that he's aware that literally nobody has fucking heard of him (and doesn't explain anything past that), then cuts straight to the chase and directly asks where the dead Gods are who were killed over the course of the Apocalypses (!!!!!!!!!!).
For a quick catchup on who has and hasn't died yet; we've definitely got Zeus, Anhur, Mercury, Scylla, Chaac, Anubis and Osiris - almost certainly He Bo too, then possibly Ao Kuang and Arachne on top.
Persephone shrugs, {camera pans} Baron shrugs, {camera pans} Camazotz shrugs, {camera pans} Anubis shrugs, {camera pans} Izanami C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER's and points out that she watched Anubis get brutalised by Ares with her own two eyes (how r u arrive, Scoobis?).
Anubis smugly shrugs and proudly says that guesses that he's just better than the other Death Gods, Olorun stops the argument before it starts.
With Olorun's black omnicience (omniggcience), he instantly knows that it's all Hades's fault (because Olorun is A BLACK GOD, completely unexplained otherwise).
Hades is about to shrug and call bluff, but Persephone takes the fall for him and snarkily REVEALS that she judged the Gods that passed into Death, and put them in a coma for all eternity because poor mortals :(
Harkening aaaaaaaaall the way back to the conflict at the veeeeeery beginning (Phase 1) that the narrative almost forgot about, all the Gods that she's put in a coma were Orderfags who were SMITE!!!!ing mortals during the Elysian Uprising, back before the Apocalypses kicked off. She then points out this is in Olorun's best interest, and that he wouldn't be holding a self-aggrandizing party and coronating himself as God-King of both the Greek Pantheon and the entire Divine Realm if he wanted Zeus back. Hera is shocked that her replacement husband (no, not that) her adoptive child refugee (not that one either) the invasive foreign fighting-age ruler (there we go) would do such a thing... and also that Persephone is somehow far more competant at politics / scheming than she is (on top of being younger too).
Olorun goes "shiiiet bitch you don't know me" (paraphrasing), demands Persephone give the Gods back so they can KNEEL for him too 'cuz he's kang, Persephone goes "lolnope" (paraphrasing slightly less), before using plant tendrils to rip up the floor, both as cover and as a distraction for Hades to use the first part of his 1; crashing the coronation and teleporting them both back to the Underworld, all in a puff of smoke.
Mini-map interlude time! - Upon the arrival of Persephone to the game, with her came an altered version of the previous meme-mode / 'Adventure', Corrupted Arena, called Persephone's Corrupted Arena (imaginative, I know).
Set on a heavily altered night-time version of the previous Roman Arena (you can see the difference in quality between the new vines and the older backdrop), the main highlights were the huge vines and flowers throughout the map, and the danger-pits that opened up on each side of the main 'lane' (a few smaller ones always available) that brought forth the jihadi kamikaze Kuzenbos / Ares's / Hercules's and pentakill Xing Tians / Cerberus's / Horus's that the mode quickly became associated with. At the end of the match, (originally from a different Arena gimmick-mode) both teams would also have a 5v5 showdown to earn bonus rewards (regardless of the winner) in a close-quarters, vined-off midsection of the map, with both pits opened up on either side.
Finally, while an ultimately minor mechanic (and not present in re-runs), there was a large meteor that would shadow a huge area of the arena and instakill anyone in it's radius when it struck.
This event ran until the end of Odyssey Underworld, and thus the end of the Persephone Arc - though it has popped up a few times in-queue afterwards. It's pretty fun, since the name of the game is almost entirely instakill CC, instead of the 'conventional' means of killing each other.
Then, halfway through the Odyssey Underworld event, Classic Joust came back with a vengence; but with a spooky scary Halloween theme this time. Classic Joust is the Map that debuted the mode all the way during the pre-release, however was phased out for Chinese Joust come S3. It returned in S5 as an Adventure meme-mode, and since has been lingering around in-and-out of queues. I'll go more in depth later, when Classic Joust returned (again), but not as a meme.
While it uses the same Persephone-thorn-root assets as Corrupted Arena (meaning you could call it Corrupted Joust), it featured no rulechanges and the Pumpkin / Seasonal theme left it known as Halloween Joust.
~
A few hours have passed since the Greek death-couple teleported back home.
Hades checks in with his pet dog, the trible pibble, tells Cerberus' bitch (pun intended), Freya to fuck off back home to the Norse Pantheon already. She's been in the kennel for weeks now and he can't tell if it's an inflation tag or a pregnancy tag any more, if all the saliva wasn't enough, and the two banter about their escapades - such as the times Aeneas or Hercules mythologically visited the Underworld. Hades gives Cerberus the heads-up (pun intended) that they might be about to be invaded by some Gods, Cerberus now is on high-alert.
Hades then goes onto twitter to report what he found. Yes, Titanforge weren't haxXx0r'd, it was just Hades posting on the wrong account.
~
A few more hours pass, and now we enter in on Olorun leading the Underworld raiding party of himself, Hera, Argus, Horus and ...Ba-Baron Samedi?...
The entrance tunnels are completely filled with sentient vine-tendrils, slowing their entrance down (the implication appearing to be that they're at where Persephone was in her intro trailer, just before the gates of the Underworld). The tendrils actually almost win until Olorun uses his 1 / Kamehameha's the entire tunnel, and blows through the gates in the process.
Baron throws Olorun some classic 'nigga-whiskey-from-the-hood' (he actually does this) and gets Olorun drunk off of cheap liqour as a pick-me up. Tailing behind, Baron and Olorun shittalk the dumb wite gurl for not kneeling hard enough (at all, even) in thanks for the Kamehameha, and Baron says he's only coincedentally there because they needed a completely random death God to check out Olorun (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge. Also ignore the fact that Baron earlier pledged himself to siding with Bellona, he's batting for her inferrable enemy now, and paradoxically somehow said to be a very loyal God for it).
At the shores of the Styx, the BLACK GODs continue to shittalk whitey's Pantheons because the souls of the Styx who have no payment have to wait in line into the afterlife, and are likewise judged in Horus's Egypt. Their Pantheons just send everyone along no questions asked because they don't have any money over there, ergo black pantheon > cracker's pantheon. Hera nods along but she explains that it's just da rulez, she doesn't make 'em.
Charon shows up (before he was added to the game as an 'official' God, so he's just a silent NPC for now), so it's time to cough up some coin. Hera pays what she owes - but Baron's a broke ass nigga. Horus flies over, meanwhile Olorun literally parts the tides with heat - opening a path to shuttle himself, Baron and Argus to walk on through. Charon looks at them all aside from Hera in a confused way, silently thinking he had a pretty clear system going. They take a while, and cross over.
Oh, and the whole 'nigga don't need an offering to go to the afterlife'? Complete bullshit. LoRez are flat wrong on this one, Yorubanism dictates a bird must be sacrificed after a death (Ritual of Adie Ihrana) to guide the spirit, and a hunter has an additional rite where their favourite game must also be sacrificed so they have something to hunt in their time in the spiritual realm, or he will instead menace hunters in the mortal world as he's bored (Ritual of Ihpa). He should have no problem with 'the lost dead', because that's exactly what happens in his Pantheon too.
Similar practices exist in Voodoo, Baron is just somebody who makes one feel both dead-and-alive, and processes the remaining stragglers who haven't had their death rituals, much like how Charon will leave souls without at the shores of the Styx for a century, but will still ultimately take them across. They've done no research here, and are making this shit up as they go along.
Cerberus is pacing back and forth on the other side of the Styx hyping himself up; pissed off and anticipating the intruders. He sees them all long before they reach the shore.
Cerberus tells them all to fuck off.
They don't fuck off.
Cue transition immediately into a hoarde-ambush fight scene, after an arrow goes straight for Hera's neck.
Cerberus 3's / jump-slams into Argus, then spooky scary skeleton soldiers begin to literally pour / burst out from all directions - out of the Underworld, holes in the floor, dropping from the cave-ceiling and from the Styx itself - just everywhere, like it's World War Z. Horus and Baron deal with the mob, Hera focuses on deflecting arrow volleys for the group. Olorun somehow thought this wouldn't happen, but in shock sends his pet chameleon, Agemo to get Shanniqua's lazy dumptruck dawg ass someone he knows down there as reinforcement.
Agemo & African Animism Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt1#agemo-animals-in-african-religion-kangz
~
~
~
And who else answers Olorun's call... well, none other than the girls from the janky-but-somewhat-charming, hit >3D >western 'anime' / web animation RBWY! shut up
THIS'LL BE THE DAY WE'VE WAI-TED FOOOOOR! THIS'LL BE THE DAY WE OPEN UP THE DOOooooor! IDONWANNAHEARYURABSOLUSHIN! IHOPE YOU'RE READY FOR A REVOLUSH-OOOON!
you better not interrupt with crossovers like this again schizolorefag. I'm warning you. The reader won't like thi-
~
Timeskip of a few hours of endless fighting. In the typical zombie action-movie fashion, the entire gang is getting overwhelmed.
Argus has been flung into the Styx and is passively being dragged further and further in by an invisible force as he helplessly tries to pull himself out, Horus has a broken wing and is fighting back-to-back with Baron (who lost his hat) (!!!) on top of a huge pile of deadx2 skeletons. Hera's isolated in her bubble with undead swarming around it, and almost breaking through.
All this time, Olorun has been dealing with Cerberus, by himself. Olorun holds back Cerberus's gnashing jaws (doesn't Cerberus....you know....have 4 sets of jaws?). Olorun gets acid-breath'd / hit by Cerb's 2, then poisoned by Cerberus's sna- HOLY FUCKING SHIT CERBERUS OVERPOWERS ALL OF OLORUN'S EFFORTS AND OLORUN IS NEARLY SINGLE-HANDEDLY FUCKING KILLED OUTRIGHT BY CERBERUS ALONE - YES, APPARENTLY THE FUCKING GOD OF THE UNIVERSE, IS SINGLEHANDEDLY PINNED DOWN AND ALMOST EXECUTED BY THE BIG DAWG, THE VALKYRIE SMITING, THE OG HELLHOUND, CERBERUS.
HOLY FUCKING. SHIT.
Pause for emphasis on what just happened...
Appreciate that for a second.
Cerberus. Large Dog.
Beats.
Olorun. Time-manipulating God-King.
...
...
...
This is also hilarious, as you'll learn if you read a later aside, because of specifically 'who' Olorun is.
...
...
I can't just let this slide without posting the copypasta. Forgive me...
THE ALPHA OF AWE. THE BRUTE OF BRAWN. THE CULTIVATOR OF CLASS. THE DUKE OF DOMINATION. THE EMPEROR OF ELOQUENCE. THE FIERCEST OF FIGHTERS. THE GREATEST OF GLORY. THE HEIGHT OF HEROISM. THE IMPERATOR OF INTELLECTUALISM. THE JARL OF JUSTICE. THE KING OF KNIGHTS. THE LORD OF LOQUACIOUSNESS. THE MASTER OF MORTALITY. THE NAYSAYER OF NOOBS. THE OVERLORD OF OBITUARIES. THE PRINCE OF PASSION. THE QUE-HAGEN OF QUIXOTE. THE RULER OF RUINATION. THE SULTAN OF SMITE. THE TASKMASTER OF TREMBLES. THE UNDERTAKER OF UBIQUITY. THE VAEYEN OF VOCIFEROUSNESS. THE WARRANTER OF WEAKLINGS. THE XENOPHOBE OF XENOGENY. THE YARDMASTER OF YESTERYEAR. THE ZHAR OF ZOROASTRIANISM.
THE INDOMITUS REX
THE ALPHA OF ALPHAS
THE KING OF KINGS
THE LORD OF LORDS
THE JUSTICIAR OF JUSTICE
CHADBERUS THE GREAT
APEXPREDATORberus the MASCULINE
GRIPberus the CRUSHING
INSURMOUNTABLEberus the UNSURPASSABLE
INDOMITABLEberus the UNYIELDING
AESTHETICberus the BEAUTIFUL
SWOLEberus the RIPPED
TANKberus the RESOLUTE
PHYSICALLYIMPOSINGberus the INTIMIDATING
GLAREberus the DOMINEERING
JUGGERNAUGHTberus the UNSTOPPABLE
DISCIPLINEDberus the ENLIGHTENED
ZENberus the SPIRITUAL
POTENTberus the VIRILE
ALMIGHTYberus the INVINCIBLE
VALORberus the DAUNTLESS
IMPERIOUSberus the DOMINATOR
INVICTUSberus the ETERNAL
MAELSTROMberus the TITANIC
QUAKEberus the SPACE-TIME SHAKING
COLOSSUSberus the LEVIATHAN
BEHEMOTHberus the MASTODONIC
MONSTERberus the TERRIFYING
LORDberus the KING
DEITYberus the CHRIST
CRIMSONberus the LEGEND
SUPERNOVAberus the TRANSIENT
CERCHAD THE BERUS
BERUSCHAD THE CER
BERUSCHAD THE CHAD
KINGCHAD THE LORDWARDEN
THE CHAD OF CHADS
BERUCHAD CHADBERUS
CHADCHAD CHADCHAD CHA CHAD
KNEEL TO YOUR NEW FUCKING CHAMPION DIVINE RULER
CER
BER
US
CERBERUS
C E R B E R U S
E
R
B
E
R
U
S
...
Continuing...onward...
Cerberus goes for the classic "pause to give a snarky line, that he offered mercy if they just left" (again... the apparent God-King of the Divine, Yoruban God of the Universe, that ended a divine conflict with his mere presence, very nearly gets slaughtered by a large dog); before the Styx conveniently gets flooded with a timely tidal wave and Yemoja surfs in, completely clearing the field for a few seconds. Obvious snarky 'took you long enough' line is obvious, Yemoja jumps in and starts fighting with the crew as the undead that weren't completely washed away into the Styx also begin to pick themselves back up and attack again.
At which point, while blaring 'Where da hood at' on Baron's loudspeaker-skull, our three thug nigga Gods kick off the heavily injured Horus off of the top of the pile of skeletons, to get a photo-op (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge, just coincedence, I'm sure), for their fight to defeat all the bone-white skeleniggas, pop a cap in dat wite bitch Persephone's ass and bring some homies back home.
'Pure coincedence', apparently.
Meanwhile, somewhere completely different, Persephone raises an army of the dead (a different one, kitted with armour this time), and wanders back out of the Underworld, completely uncontested.
All going to plan.
Hades, on the other hand, has been apathetically in his throne room all this time and just kinda watches via a crystal ball as Cerberus gets anticlimactically carried away by Yemoja's flood waters into the Styx, as the huge hoarde-fight begins to die down (pun intended). He thinks about all the HR his wife did for the underworld (flowers in the hallways, a less spooky scary throne for himself, free chilled water dispenser in the waiting room, a nice chair for herself next to his etc), then internally kneels to Olorun (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge), as he thinks to himself that he still preferred him to Zeus and just hoped his wife could have just gotten along with the new, foreign, Pantheon Head of the Greeks - Olorun (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge).
Partial plan reveal: while he wanted there to be no line between life and death by using le powers of Ragnarok for good (back then, Persephone was cheering him on then in the background honest guys, she was, despite not being in the game at the time), Persephone wants there to be no line between between God and Mortal (so Hades is cheering her plan on now, even if it comes off a little beta-y).
He gets up off his ass with a sigh, hoping to at least get 'some' time to give a potential explanation-monologue for Olorun. Or, well, more than what he got to give Bellona. The flowers hiss at him (think angry cats), indicating Persephone might be a bit more controlling than he lets on (or whatever you might wish to extrapolate - such as him not having control over everything down there, etc).
Offscreen, the hoarde-fight is now over.
Olorun doesn't care about Persephone (or even consider her to be the mastermind), and only wants to deal with Hades. Hera clings walks by his side and bitches about Persephone being, like, a toooooootally useless bitchy bitch; before Baron points out the hypocrisy.
>“I do not recall asking your opinion, Baron.”
>“And yet I give it freely. For I am a generous God – and wise.”
They all know they're walking into another trap/ambush. Poison-pollen comes up from behind, Yemoja uses the moisture in the air to push it away (isn't she just a river god?), before Olorun incinerates all the seeds in the soil by using a heat-version of Geb's Ult (Olorun can do that apparently) before the ambush can even begin. This is much longer in-text, but is pretty much inconsequential.
Looking at the Palace of Hades, it resembles a looming Black Acropolis made of Onyx (a Greek Temple-Fort, think of something like the Parthenon but more fortified / castle-y).
Entering in, Hades winces at the presence of the BLACK GODs Olorun's light (being a cave dweller himself), then just freely lets them pass into his dead nigger God storage. He pulls back his hood again (matching the art further below), walks them down the spiral staircase that appears in the floor (you know the trope) and jokes that if they actually asked instead of invading, he honestly would have just let them in; which is why only Cerberus and Persephone's defence systems really tried to stop them. He notes that Persephone does have a point about the Gods arrogance in this regard, as the invaders genuinely believed they could just wander in uncontested while the Underworld was on high alert for intruders.
Hades then explains that he had all dead Gods quickly snapped up with a posse of monsters he contracted like mercenaries on behalf of Persephone (again, why I kept that bit with Medusa in Phase 1, because it's basically seems to be what happened), but Anubis escaped capture because of regional interference / Death God rules / something / ???, and would almost certainly have been thrown into dead-God storage for what Anubis did to Hades to kick everything off to begin with (indicating that he has at least some input in da plan and this isn't all Persephone's performance - as Anubis had switched to Chaos-side in the Elysian Uprising / done what Persephone would have approved of, while Hades had remained disconnected from the conflict).
Hades lightheartedly baits Horus about Osiris, HORUS RESPONDS, Hera thinks it's a mistake to trust Hades, Hades says it's a mistake for them to even come down to the Underworld to begin with...
So, gee Hades, why do you get TWO canon lore skins?!
That's right - Hades's Prince of Darkness skin is Hades's casual sense of fashion, and what he canonically looks like under the hood when relaxed / not dabbling in advanced necromancy for dummies.
Generally, it's a far more mythologically accurate design bobblehead proportions in-game aisde, although it is missing his signature three-pronged cap / crown... Or, well the reason why that's the case is because he's wearing it in his default skin, hence why he appears as an ethereal spectre possessing a corpse, as long as he has the three-pronged cap worn in-game.
Interpreting his cap as him able to activate floorhax and possession-mode is about the best they could do with it, without turning him into a discount Loki (especially since he was a Alpha-release God); so give HiRez a pass, I'd say Hades overall depiction in SMITE is ok. WHAT I WON'T GIVE THEM A PASS FOR, HOWEVER, IS THAT THEY FORGOT TO FUCKING LINK THE 4K VERSION OF THE SKIN ART IN THE PATCH THE SKIN DROPPED IN AND I CAN'T FIND THE DAMN THING, WOWIE THANKS LOREZ, REALLY HELPING A LORENIGGA OUT.
You can also see the matching thrones in higher quality between this and Persephone's Mastery art (which I've linked below, since it's relevant).
At the antechamber to where the 'dead' Gods are, the gang walk in on Persephone's personal private garden.
Hades shrugs, because it's not like he has any control over what happens next (exemplified before, by the plants hissing at him), as the plants immediately go on the offensive against the non-Hades intruders.
Yemoja uses her bubble-bounce-burst ability, 'twigs' that all the souls / skellingtons are serving Persephone willingly, and that she's nurturing their growth exactly like a garden (which she sees parrallels of her own duty in, but only for the living). They try to wade through the foliage, but quickly get snared up. A vine goes to hang Olorun by the neck in front of a burning cross, yet Yemoja can't summon another flood like with the Styx fight... so she calls in a few orbital moonstrikes ???, straight down to pretty much the bottom of the Underworld (illogical scope of such a thing aside - do they actually know who Yemoja is in Yoruban mythology?)
All the plants fuck off and die because apparently they all have selenophobia, we see the 'death toll' of the narrative so far. Zeus, Mercury, Anhur, Ao Kuang and Chaac are chained to posts, with vines leeching off them to keep them dry, emaciated, at the precipice of death and in eternal slumber lmfao get fucked Scylla and He Bo (and maybe Arachne) they forgot you guys got holy fucking shit'd. Also Ao Kuang is dead now despite being alive for Susano-O's voyage lol
They pose for another pretty obvious forced diversity photo-op, as Yemoja re-inflates 'heals' the lot of them (by re-inflating them with water), and then they're all back on their feet and good-to-go just like that.
DAS RITE, all you far-lite alt-nazbol hyperauthoritatian-libertarian bigots; helpless Zeus was saved by da stron' 'n impoweredful blak wyman.
Checkmate, athiests~
While I am probably covering for bad writing here, let's just say Zeus stays unconscious for the short-term foreseeable future, while they're all still in the Underworld. Because 'reasons'.
Even if the other Gods well good enough to move about.
Otherwise it's a plothole.
When they all ask for Persephone's whereabouts, Hades shrugs again (he's good at that), and says she left hours ago lol, maybe they should have just asked before. Even he doesn't know where Persephone's gone now - but he trusts she can see through whatever she wants to do.
Persephone pulls a necromantic version of a singing Snow White, skipping carefree through the alternate-dimension / Norse forests of Vanaheimr (don't forget she's a nature Goddess, the skeletons just follow her willingly), and the trees themselves sing along with her. It's not schizophrenia, it's magical plant-telepathy..... 'apparently'. The happy trees are so happy, they even give her happy directions to where she wants to go!
Da plan?
Fuck around +find out with Yggdrasil (the Norse World Tree), have a chat with it, convince it / brainwash it to do whatever she wants it to do, thus control all life (and to a lesser extent reality) from the top-on-down. After having a chat with Yggdrasil from a distance, it apparently also wholeheartedly agrees with her plan to allow her to brainwash every living thing in reality (how convenient!), so she just needs a direct point of contact, for a even microsecond, so they can directly organise with each other.
it almost seems... excited even... to be fucked around with... and to be able to talk with somebody on 'the outside'... to be interacted with, by somebody who doesn't know the full context of what they're about to do... {AHEM}foreshadowing{AHEM}...
Of the three ways to get there, Asgard was far too obvious, to the point of it being suicidal (despite the still-unresolved destruction) while Helheim / Niflheim was inconvenient. The Realm of Vanaheimr on the other hand, was perfect for her!
In the trees, Ratatoskr rats out Persephone and points her out to the whitest cracker in the whitest Pantheon, Heimdallr (and thus balance was restored to the force after all those token releases). Heimdallr was expecting Hera or Bellona trying to make moves in places they didn't belong, after the Council of the Gods shitshow, but after Persephone plants herself an undead army in Vanaheimr, he only 'begins' to think she might be up to something. He doesn't properly blow the Gjallarhorn alert yet, because Asgard's already up shit creek without a paddle as is - so he drops down from an upper branch of Yggdrasil and braces for Titanfall landing (yeah, I repeated a joke, whaddaya gonna do?) before unceremoniously and unsubtley starting to RIP AND TEAR through an entire undead army by himself.
And you can watch him do it..... in his cinematic! The first 'proper' cinematic / non-intro-shot in a long time too; a full on fight scene starring Heimdallr.
As for differences to note on in advance, he jumps into what looks to be an extinct volcano instead of fighting within a sunny and vibrant Vanaheimr forest (I think just for aesthetic purposes), and the end post-credits is far less cordial between the two Gods. It doesn't 'add' much to the lore, but it's fun, well made and non-conflicting for the most part - and does it need to be anything else?
Here's yer link - lorefag *recommended* : https://youtu.be/6yv7mg7Ik_Y
After solo'ing an entire regenerating undead army by himself, he plays the brown note on his Gjallarhorn, and because skeletons can't shit themselves, they all divide by 0 and get dusted, most unable to self-resurrect. As the remaining army begins to regen (again), Persephone takes some time to greet Heimdallr and have a chat.
He bluntly tells her to fuck off, she says that *teeeeeeechnically* she's not in his turf of Asgard yet so he's got no reason to guard anything, he bluntly tells her to fuck off again, she say "lolnope, whaddaya gonna do about it huh?" (paraphrasing) and delightfully and daintily prances off toward Yggdrasil while Heimdallr has to RIP AND TEAR through a new undead army - this time with added vine-tendrils!
Persephone, mid-innocent-prance, happily thinks to herself how smoothly everything is goi- HOLY FUCKING SHIT PERSEPHONE NEARLY GETS HER SKULL SPLIT IN TWO BY A FLYING AXE FROM HEIMDALLR, who chased on her on a short-distance Bifrost shard / his 3, and is now between her and Yggdrasil.
Persephone shudders and quickly heals up the huge, gaping wound that's gored across the side of her head with her life magic or some shit; but while she shivers in pain and shock, she accidentally drops five homing-skull-borer-seeds that were supposed to help her communicate with / control Yggdrasil (ie, the seeds in-game that become her flowers). Not a huge problem - just a little bit farther away than intended. Persephone now stalls for the borer-seeds, as she resurrects all the restless undead in Vanaheimr, who all erupt up and try to drag Heimdallr down into the dirt for her. Heimdallr throws his sword out / uses his 1, but once it lands, Persephone grabs Hofud; so now it's a a sword+tendrils vs axe fight (Persephone quickly recovering from the shock and smugly remarking that she's actually pretty well trained in swordfighting).
Persephone backs up the smugness with some muscle and lasts a good while, as she continues to stall for the seeds burrowing towards Yggdrasil, with some trained swordplay. Eventually the blade gets knocked out of her hand by Heimdallr's comparative brute force, and she resorts to just using loads of vine-tendrils to completely ensnare and entangle Heimdallr (basically, she uses her Ult on him).
Heimdallr ain't going down that easily thhough, he RIPS AND TEA- HOLY FUCKING SHIT HEIMDALLR CHARGES AT PERSEPHONE, CC IMMUNE, AND ULTS HER ASS, BLASTING HER OFF, CRASHING THROUGH REALITIES AND STRAIGHT INTO EITHER MUSPELHEIM AND / OR NIFLHEIM (note that unlike in-game, Persephone does not come back to her start location - she's stuck in either Hel's plane of the dead, or not!the-surface-of-the-Sun for the forseeable).
Heimdllr actually saw the homing-skull-seeds being dropped by Persephone with his super-senses, so he RIPS AND TEARS through the dirt with his bare hands to destroy them, as his fine-tuned hearing locates them digging away under the soil. He deals with the first three just fine, stabs the fourth into the Yggdrasil itself, then has to manually RIP AND FUCKING TEAR through the bark of Yggdrasil to wretch out the fifth one that had started to burrow in as it screeches at him. He finally yanks it out, and crushes it in one hand. Like a man.
Heimdallr only at this point realises how beaten and bloodied up he is (literally dripping with and covered in his own blood), and also that he's been heavily blinded by pollen-venom as the adrenaline wears off.
He can only hope the attack on Vanaheimr didn't do too much harm to Yggdrasil, and that he did get all of the fifth skull-burrower. Else... all life on Earth may be in danger. . . since . . . nobody really understands the true extent of Yggdrasil's meaning, purpose, and influence . . .
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Continued in Phase 2, Part 1!!!!.....!..!.!!..... https://rentry.org/smgenlorePh2P2
Link back to Portal Doc. https://rentry.org/smgenloredoc