SMITE ...Lore!!! ...Second Phase ...Part 2!!!
Link back to Part 1. Again, sorry, but I have no control over the character limit. And yes, this is still quicker, more succinct, better formatted and more organized (in terms of expected images) than the main stuff, along with the additional stuff.
Previous part https://rentry.org/smgenlorePh2P1
Without further ado, since you're probably in the middle of reading all at once;
~
~
~
Cheap Chinese Knockoff Gods (Jade Corruption / Grim Omens)
So. China. On a new (Corrupted) Joust Map. Let's get down to business.
We close in on a new mortal, a GUY called Wei (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH JING WEI. DIFFERENT PEOPLE. VERY UNIMPORTANT).
HIS Chinese village is under attack by Terracotta Soldiers with Corrupted Jade growing out of them like barnacles (the Jade blighting the land and the water supply too). As they get overrun, HE and HIS other Chinese peasant-folk are trapped in a burning temple and pray for a hero to save them.
Simple right? I've just condensed a horrific 10,734 character wall of text, with barely any formatting, into under 350 characters. Thank me later.
EARLY MAP ASIDE; and this lore event is set in the reworked Joust known generally as S7 Joust, or 'Corrupted Joust' (since we already have a Chinese Joust map).
This map features these corrupted-tree monsters in the new Jungle camps (not any named entities within Chinese mythology, just tree-monster corrupted by le jade that permeates the setting that looked like evil cacti), as well as the aforementioned Terracotta Soldiers as the Chaos-side minions.
Design-wise, this is the longest and largest Joust map in SMITE, both longer than S3's Chinese Joust and wider than S1's Classic (Arthurian) Joust; and was an attempt to make it more akin to Conquest in complexity, while retaining a more streamlined feel, on top of having numerous thin walls to jump if shit ever hit the fan. It also featured many more camps to farm around the map, with a new Harpy camp and a Yellow buff camp on each team's side, surrounding the central lane.
Gameplay-wise, this map allowed Assassins to be viable and an optional Jungler 'role' to be taken up (unlike the other two maps, which require all 3 players to act as a constant deathball), yet generally favoured Tanky, Objective-focused compositions over more Aggro / PvP comps, as the increased amount of jungle camps allowed them to maintain level-pace while playing less aggressively, and then just use Bull Demon King to take Structures for free, outlasting with increased sustain. Unlike the S1 Joust map however, Phoenixes was not enclosed, and thus game times were still relatively quick without devolving into Phoenix staring competitions. If it's not in the default queue, you can check it out in custom matches.
Mulan rides on in, as swift as a coursing river to smash a few Terracotta Soldiers up, but the horse she stole was riding bolts on her after seeing fire, as it wasn't trained for war. Thank le heavens that her father fully trained her for combat and she'd already been in a war etcetc blahblahblah you already know about Mulan, this takes place after what you see in the movies.
She smashes a few more Terracotta Soldiers up, by going for heavy, blunt blows with all the force of a great typhoon to their head/torso - going for shatters, and noting that it's the only way to 'kill' them (with one picking itself back up with a spear lodged in it's abdomen to make that clear).
Her peasant militia runs in after her, and starts helping smash up the Terracotta Soldiers. Mulan goes on to explain they were from the surrounding area, and she quickly trained them with all the strength of a raging fire (in that basic strategy and teamwork was all that was really needed to beat the Terracotta Soldiers). She then goes on to explain that her posse is the only one of it's kind in the region, and that while she wasn't happy about it, she didn't really expect the Gods to intervene too much.
Finally, she notes that her peasant-army are looking up to her a bit too much for comfort...
The shard-remains of the Terracotta Soldiers that still have Corrupted Jade in them creepily watch and shuffle around after her, and jade-infected carrion birds circle the town. She notes that they're growing in number, so she thinks she might be getting closer to the scourge source.
Further in the village, the Terracotta Soldiers start using bows and basic strategy against her (they're starting to think?!); so she tells her main force to stay back, as she guns for the temple that the Terracotta Soldiers are trying to break into (in this context, the prominent structure behind the Order side of the map). As in, the Terracotta Soldiers are literally breaking into the place - they're ripping away at the walls / beams like in a zombie movie.
Despite telling the peasants to stay back, she unknowingly leads a charge, smashes the Terracotta soldiers up, saves the temple .... but begins glowing - mysterious as the dark side of the moon! The peasants, now prostrating before her in gratitude.
Oh shit, she's a God now. ... ... wait what ...
:T
... ...why? ... ...
... Ok? Oops?...
The narrative takes a shock twist, as the Chinese Communist Party begins to mass produce Gods (your favourites, like Zoose, Berrona and Fhor!) and export them to undermine the Western God economies!!!
China WILL grow larger!
Mulan is sat by a fire, now on night watch, learning how to get her new Worshippower factor under control. Stereotypical wise old Chinese man hobbles over, calls him her sister. She tells him to fucks off, he pulls le chinese old man master-in-disguise trick, and goes to strike her neck with his polearm. She deflects, then he reveals himself to be none other than GUAN YU?!!!!?!?! (hmm yresh, no mewe mortaw could hav shtopped my brade....)
She stands to attention, he says she can relax. Guan explains that her peasant army made a God out of her, then after she asks him what the fuck the Gods have been doing this entire time. Guan explains that shit's been busy since the last timeskip and that there is great imbalance in the force across the world. In China the typically healing Jade has gone corrupt, in Greece the oracles and prophets have HOLY FUCKING SHIT RIPPED AND CLAWED THEIR EYES OUT and in Scandinavia all the animals have gone completely feral and hostile to human life.
Guan pulls the ol' "chaotic visions of the future in the fire" shtick, then asks her to help him out with an incident at Yggdrasil.
In Valhalla, Ratatoskr (in tune with / LARPing as his inner squirrel) is doing his usual scurrying around, before Odin calls him into his chamber for a situation report. Ratatoskr says that at the surface everything's looks fine with Yggdrasil - but both of them know something has happened to it in some way to cause all the current shit happening. Even Odin's runes are acting up, they start speaking in foreign tongues that neither of them know of before lmfao killing themselves.
Ratatoskr backtracks a bit and says maybe something's up with Yggdrasil, a very tired Odin says that something's definitely fucking with le divine realm, so they both go off to fix it.
Now to Baba Yaga. She's alone in the woods doing her thing / speaking to herself (probably a schizo), and knows exactly what's happening, but her only divine 'rule' means she isn't allowed to help or hinder anyone unless they ask her. 'Somethings' getting restless though.
She talks to the shadows that her prized lines of skulls cast (definitely a schizo), observing they're nice and obedient for now (implying at some point they weren't before). Baba indirectly tells us that she found the mindbroken husk of Persephone (post-commune with Yggdrasil and 'delicate' banishment via Heimdallr), put her back on her feet and with a jolly pat on the back, sent her to the Far East for a favor (a bit more humble than when she arrived). Lucky for Persephone, Persephone evidently got sent to chilly Sea-of-Mists Niflheim and not to instadeath Sea-of-Flames Muspelheim.
Baba then tells her chicken-house to take herself East, towards Mulan, in hopes she might ask the right questions and listen to the right answers (since 'new' Gods are apparently usually less headstrong than established Gods).
Baba got a fancy rendered cinematic! The first from the new animation studio too! Sure, it's irrelevant to the lore and does nothing... but hey, it looks pretty!
Link to the Baba Yaga Cinematic: https://youtu.be/2ugbgCABl_0
Back in-game, it's at this point that Conquest received a skybox change (and I think the Fog of War was also made more dense), to mirror the foreboding fuckery going on with Yggdrasil.
The first real attempt at an 'evolution' of the Conquest map over time, Yggdrasil was added to be visible from Duo lane side of the skybox, and over the weeks that the lore event ran for, would slowly wither away to mirror the 'decay' Yggdrasil was undergoing in-lore. Otherwise the sky just got more grey with some EXTRA ominous clouds, and the Jungle Fog-of-War was increased in density for increased mystery / paranoia - but this is still the point where the Conquest map 'starts' to be used more in connection to the lore and capitalised on appropriately ...given it's still been in Stardust Crus-Hades mode all the way up until this point. In allowing for lore-related evolutions, it also gave HiRez / Titanforge an excuse to artfully test out new mechanics and gimmicks in-engine (expanded upon later, when it became a staple come S8).
Mulan is now overseeing the rebuild of the Corrupted Joust village - but is conflicted with following Guan's advice to go to Yggdrasil, as she'd be abandoning her peasants. She thinks on it while doing a few combat exercises, and via Worshippower-empathy/telepathy realises her followers are scared shitless about the foreboding stuff that's about to go down.
ENTER a very shellshocked / mindraped Persephone in a stereotypical 'mysterious cloak'. Mulan 'recognises' her, but at the same time has never met her before and can't even see her face, Guan Yu approaches the two and explains that even if they're not in the same Pantheon, just by sensing Worshippower, the Gods can understand who else is divine and who isn't (which is how Mulan 'knows' about Persephone, even if she never heard of her and presumably how they actually understand each other's language). PTSDsephone shakily directs them to see Baba Yaga instead of Yggdrasil, Guan chokes on his breath in the mere shock of hearing the name of Babushka - and as fast as Persephone arrived, they're all reluctantly off.
Baba gets a bit giddy, then is reminded by her skull-shadows that that fabric of reality is getting weak (again, implying it's happened before), before a small explanation that (her) older / more chaotic wild magic = stronger than conventional but focused and consistant magic (generally the same concept applied to the Gods / Pantheons).
Persephone pops up out of the ground outside Baba's chickenhut, along with Mulan and Guan Yu, after taking a personal underground plant-bullet-train. PTSDsephone desperately looks for approval from the two Chinese acquaintances and is promptly stonewalled. Guan explains to Mulan that with the feint smell of cheap vodka in the air, and Cheeki Breeki Hardbass Anthem playing in the distance, they must be in the Slavic territory now.
Baba greets them, laughs Persephone's 'debt' off, basically tells Guan Yu to fuck off and pulls 'le crone putting her arm around le young girl' trope with Mulan. Persephone demands Baba Yaga's strongest potions the apparent information on how to fix Yggdrasil as part of her deal, Baba retorts that her strongest potions would kill a God, let alone a beast, that Yggdrasil can't handle Baba's strongest potions she only ever implied Persephone might hear the answer on what to do, not that she'd be given a tutorial.
Mulan does the one thing you don't ever do with Baba, asks for Baba to name a damn price for the info already, then quickly gets pulled to the side for le deal.
Baba shows off her skull collection (*very* proud) and Baba wants a new skull from a nearby heroes skellington as obliged payment (deliberately EZPZ, but for some reason Baba can't do it herself).
Mulan agrees and gets teleported by Baba's cauldron-smoke into a dark clearing.
Cue the bodies of all the peasants Mulan couldn't save lurching at her, Mulan gets pulled into the ground, before Persephone pulls her back out (but she can't control these skellingtons for some reason). Guan Yu uses his Ult to get in on the fight and clears a wave of skellingtons for Mulan, PTSDsephone also has to confront the consequences of her actions and all the innocent people her fuckup ended up killing (worse, considering she's very pro-mortal). Swordfight of Mulan vs hero skellington, she breaks Mr Bones's old sword and decapitates the fucker, picking up the payment for Baba.
Back in the hut, Baba's a bit let down Mulan got help for what was supposed to be a one-man-task, on top of the worn & torn condition of the skull, whines a little bit (PTSDsephone begins to recover, and laughs at her for a change) then Baba nonchalantly throws the skull over her shoulder. Baba coos Mulan over and gives her a le great prophecy!!! that I've corrected the grammar and punctuation for, for your reading pleasure~
Chaotic smoke billows from her cauldron....!
!!! READ CAREFULLY?! !!!
The Beginning and Ending, the Spoke of the Great Wheel, which turns forever – or did. But now, the Spoke is cracked and the Wheel tips. The Dark Sea rises, drowning the World. Without the Tree, the Sea will consume All...
Persephone tries to cut to the chase, and asks what part of that has anything to do with what's currently going on. Baba shrugs as to what that was supposed to mean either, and then tells the group she has absolutely now idea how to fix Yggdrasil, and just wanted to meet Mulan, as she begins shooing them all out of her hut (lole).
Before Mulan leaves last however, Baba tells her that she might want to get to... "the root of the problem”...
Now at the underground tunnels surrounding Yggdrasil's roots, we've enter on Ratatoskr scurrying around, only to find that Nidhoggr has abandoned his post and that other unsettling things are going on...
Nidhoggr & The Beasts of Yggdrasil aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#nidhoggr-the-ecosystem-of-yggdrasil
Ratatoskr's beginning to have a squirrel-panic-attack as he swears he see something else in the mists around him. Major tremors reverberate through the tree and Ratatoskr is almost thrown down into the lake which Nidhoggr should be in, but Heimdallr grabs him just before he falls and playfully ragdolls him around a bit, shaking the sense back into him.
Introductions in on our new gang of Heimdallr, Hera (Argus), Olorun ... and none other than ya main man Zeus after a few weeks of a timeskip since being freed from the Persephone incident.
Zeus is pretty damn happy that Ratatoskr seems to actually remember who he is, treats him with the respect he deserves - unlike some 'others' present. Ratatoskr explains he's Odins replacement-representative on Yggdrasil-related matters while Odin is looking into other things, Zeus chuckles at the absurdity of it all (character biopic time; Zeus seems like a genuinely great guy, but is easy to anger - and is absolutely seething / grimacing in purely repressed rage as of now). Ratatoskr interrupts to points out that Nidhoggr is just... gone.... Pretty sure the implication here is that Nidhoggr has been HOLY FUCKING SHIT'd by something. He's not 'gone', he's dead.
Zeus gets into a spat with Olorun, Olorun says 'well i'm kang of limpus now and you can't have it back nuh-uh', Zeus internally seethes more that Hera is backing him up because she dated him behind Zeus's back, when only Zeus is allowed to do that in this relationship because of 'peace efforts' after the Ragnarok incident. Zeus wants to just focus on taking his anger out on Persephone for now, or he'll fucking lose it, but gets into yet another argument with Hera. Olorun internally notes that he's been getting weaker as of late, and instead of being a BLACK GOD, he's only a BLACK God now, and is cautious of losing more capital letters. As the group agree that they're starting to see things too, Persephone arrives via plant with her gang.
Mulan is mentally overwhelmed by the presence of the BLACK God, Heim and Zeus both instinctively go to kill Persephone, Olorun pauses time with his BLACK God powers.
Mulan instinctively submits her body to him and catches Olorun up with her side of the story so far. Olorun has apparently heard of Baba Yaga too; then un-freezes time, showing he couldn't stop it entirely, only restrain the Gods that were about to kill each other (so at least everyone has now heard everything, and is all caught up with each other). They go on to realise that the whispers they're hearing are prayers for somebody who ain't one of /theirs/, (what could it be?!).
Cue another major groaning tremor above the lake and throughout the tree.
Snippet of the Oracle of Delphi screaming over a vision, under a jade-green sky.....
The Gods start to get uneasy as the nu-followers speak in some kind of foreign language, and the whispers drown out the Worshippower connection they have to their own followers. Zeus notes it's like back before Kronos got the boot, and said he was hearing shit like this during his coma. Word is that Poseidon was talking about how his oceans were getting especially fucked around with, shortly before they arrived (who could it be?!), Ratatoskr says that they're at the source of all the oceans, and that ominous whispers alone wouldn't be enough for Nidhoggr to 'flee'.
They ask Persephone what she actually did to the damn fuckin tree, so she goes on that she only realised how out of her depth she was once she spoke to Yggdrasil proper, and in doing so left a vulnerability that 'something' else was now exploiting (what could it be?!).
Snippet of Egil shouting at an old man as they try to decipher runes, only for the old man to go blind and cry blood.
Egil could be a few Norse figures, but most likely the semi-famous Norse hero who married then chased after a Valkyrie who herself searched for battle. Was most famous for the 'shooting the arrow off the top of a chieftain sons head, and saving the second arrow for the cheiftan in case he failed' story.
imo I think they only named him because his wife was called Olrun, and she would have been much more famous / popped up more when they were looking for miscellaneous shit to dig up for ol' literal-fucking-who Olorun.
Olorun considers leaving Yggdrasil to speak to Odin about what he's looking into, before even more violent tremors shake the tree as 'something' is clearly trying to break free (what could it be?!). Yggdrasil itself starts physically convulsing, the roots gaining sentience and trying to move themselves away from the Lake of Hvergelmir. Guan catches Mulan before she falls in, Zeus saves Hera and gets her under Argus; everybody lodges themselves onto the tree with what they can.
The waters begin to drain and recede beneath them with a green-jade glow...
Poseidon interruption!
It's been long enough in lore, but finally, the third major Olympian brother FINALLY GETS HIS TIME TO SHINE BABY!!!
Poseidon's been on the search for what's been going disrupting the aquatic wildlife (shoals of deepwater fish have been trying to escape the surface itself, loads of whales have beached themselves, and populations of coastal fishing villages have been entirely wandering into the depths - 'presumably' drowning themselves). Along with new, foreign and jagged coral reefs rising, he can only assume that a new city is physically rising from the depths. Oh, and unlike the other Gods, CHADsideon isn't scared or unnerved one bit - but he is fucking livid that he can't do anything about it for now.
that's it. sorry poseidonfags, just another snippet. least relevant brother lol btfo
*Wait......no...nono...aaaaAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII NO, NO N-N- B-BBB-BB-B-BAKANA?! TH-THIS WASN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?!?!
THE- THE IMPOSSIBLE HAPPENS.....
Olorun KNEELS as his eyes go jade green, clutching his head and hearing the stars scream (not the Transformer, that bit comes later).
Hera pushes Zeus away to go help Olorun, Zeus tells her to fucking leave the bastard to just die off already, as what is an obviously a larger threat begins to surface from the Lake of Hvergelmir. Zeus physically flexes on Olorun and does other miscellaneous warm-up stretches and calisthenics unphased, to get warmed up for a fight with what's rising, as the others tremble in shock.
Mulan's way too young for this shit, sees something?! (what could it be?!) pitch-black now break the surface of the water, with Yggdrasil's roots thrashing around and heavily recoiling from it in absolute repulsion. All the other Gods hide behind stand behind Zeus, weapons trembling, shitting themselves as Zeus casually cricks his neck and stretches some more with a grin on his face. Hera leaves Olorun to be proteced by Argus, and runs to Zeus's side, but is still freaking out. HOLY FUCKING SHIT, ZEUS IS STILL COMPLETELY UNPHASED WHATSOEVER AND IS FUCKING DARING IT TO COME AT HIM, BRO. AN UNDERGROUND THUNDERSTORM VS THE THING FROM THE DEEP - FIGHT!
Zeus bolts at the pitch-black creature from below, who doesn't really acknowledge his presence. Mulan (and presumably the others) don't move an inch as they get mindfucked by le alien imagery and dread, of le incomprehensible things that had and will surely come and all that shit - Zeus however is completely immune to the mental onslaught (a neat detail related to his mythology, as the exact same thing happened in Zeus's conflict with Typhon during Typhonomachia - the only other in the Pantheon being immune was Pan, God of Sheparding, who in of himself was immune to such effects due to his ability to literally Panic others on demand - the etymological root of the same word).
The figure from below analyzes them all in under a few seconds, then dismisses them, fading away in the blink of an eye.
And in the blink of the eye, Yggdrasil is completely withered and greyed out / dead, while Persephone is instantly shifted from 'recovering snarky-bitchsephone' back into 'PTSDsephone' and cradled by Mulan. Zeus (almost disappointedly) shouts 'where'd it go?', still in fight-mode, Olorun explains in the now-silent chamber that 'it' wasn't the real one, just an echo / avatar / shadow of the real one.
Finishing up, we're now back at Baba's place. She gets her pet inanimate skulls back under control (too much rattling bones, 2spooky4u), and sighs because the saltwater rain and gangrenous skies indicate that 'it' really had woken up because of Persephone's fuckup. What a shame.
She decides to go full innawoods (in divine terms at least) and decides head into the far North to bunker it all out somewhere that's apparently being kept safe. As Baba and her house begin to pack up, she gives a bit of exposition while she works on a few new spells / potions, that she'd been around before this 'loop' and that all the Gods and the like were nothing more than in a peaceful period while it slept and had a nice dream. And now it'd just got loose again.
What is 'it?!' you say? As if you didn't already know.
ENTER.
CTHULHU.
~
~
~
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA NIGGERMAN SAVE MEEEEEEEE (New Moon / Odyssey: Reckoning / SMITE Friends / Dawn of Babylon)
So, remember all the way back in one of the earlier arcs, when Athena led all the Greek soldiers back home? All of them? Well now there's an Eldritch being nearby, that can infect people with brainwashing insanity and undying Worshippower-stealing allegiance - just by simply looking into the eyes of somebody already afflicted.
Guess what happened next.
It's cinematic time again - and it's completely in line with the lore. No inconsistencies at all; all is according to what's written, aside from the end - Cthulhu and Zeus initially miss each other by a few days, consider it a later scene presented slightly early, for a conflict yet to come.
Well... there's the uhh... . . . 'other' cinematic... but we just don't talk about that one. Don't. Don't talk about the other one. At all. Ever. Don't. unironic anal vore warning at 1:12.
Link to the Cthulhu Cinematic: https://youtu.be/uOtHkM8TZRA
Link to the.... 'other'... Cthulhu Cinematic: https://youtu.be/mJ_ZH-5iXCU
So yeah, literally the entire Greek Army is turned against their own Pantheon, and their stolen worshippower helps break some more of the power-limiter chains on Cthulhu. Smart move, putting all your eggs in one basket, Mrs. Goddess of Wisdom and Strategy.
Map InterLOLEde time! This was the point in which the Arena map had it's Roman / Chaos side switched to a Lovecraftian theme for a while, with the map being known as 'Underwater Arena' to match the apparent widescale flooding within the narrative ignore the part where Hera's Arena is a floating island in the sky.
Order side was mostly the same, aside from a few tendrils spewing from the lion statues at spawn, while Chaos was a heavily 'overgrown'(?) / tendrilled version of the Roman side, completely sunken down. The side-camps, Minotaurs and audience got visual modifications to make them look more corrupt-y / tendrilled / evil, but otherwise gameplay was exactly the same with no unique gimmicks. It was much darker in concept, but the final product it was more colourful, matching a coral reef theme moreso than a fully horror-eldritch one.
It was of course the Arena map itself, not a meme-mode.
Now we cut back in on Zeus a few days later just as the Yggdrasil gang get back home, and he's fucking pissed.
He's at the Acropolis in Athens, watching some mortals pray to a definitely-not-Greek God while the city burns with some weird indescribably-coloured flames that cling to stone (way to go on not understanding The Colour Out of Space, Lo-Rez / Titanforge).
Naturally, Zeus goes to ...SMITE!!! them.
Olorun unawaredly holds him back, Zeus is about to go completely fucking ballistic on Olorun for trying to interfere with him, on his turf, until Athena comes in as says that technically Athens is more-turfier for her or whatever it is and that she reserves the best homefield advantage in Athens alone. Zeus boils down a bit for his favourite daughter, but is still visibly coping and seething.
Apparently Zeus and the gang had only returned after Cthulhu had finished up fighting and left Athens in ruins, with a huge offscreen conflict of (the real) Cthulhu vs Poseidon / Athena / Nike.
Athena / Poseidon were utterly BTFO and Nike is so BTFO that they haven't even found her body in the jagged coral-laced rubble yet. Now in a sorry and ragged state, Athena mediates between the two, telling daddy Zeus it's her turf, but then shifting some blame on Olorun for being a shitty kang who wasn't present to defend his apparent wider-turf and realm. Talking gameplan, Zeus says the Greeks are probably the strongest Pantheon bar perhaps the Norse punctuated with the sounds of angry pajeet keyboard clacking, and that they should chase Cthulhu as a mob, owing from his previous monster-slaying experience. Olorun and Athena rule it out, wanting strategy over bruteforcing, Zeus points out how that 'strategic warfare' just went.
Heimdallr bifrosts on in, carrying... well, 'what's left' of Nike (if Athena was roughed up a bit with some nasty open wounds, Nike's one step away from a burnt corpse, in a 'Tags: Face Down, Presenting, Used Goods' position), and states that all of Athens, most of Greece and now most of Scandinavia have all gone AAAAAAAAAA I'VE GONE INSANE and are sending their Worshippower toward Cthulhu.
Olorun says "not for long", as if that's supposed to mean anything. Hey - at least he's got a good plan, right?
We now activate Zeus's cope-vision for a while, and get some insight into how he feels about what happened while he was gone. Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
First, he's looking forward to tearing Hades a new one for 'the incident' (Zeus's assassination) and 'the bit after the incident' (Hades assuming temporary Throne of Olympus), preceding 'the bit after the bit after the incident' (Hades assuming actual control of the Throne of Olympus), followed by 'the bit after the bit after the bit after the incident' (Hades setting the Greek Pantheon against itself, and in the Chaos trying to become a supreme God, regardless of intent) and then finally 'the bit after the bit after the bit after the bit after the incident' (Zeus's detainment in Hades basement, being leeched off of by plants, forceably keeping Zeus out of potential-Apocalypse affairs).
Zeus is almost giddy at paying Hades a visit, even. Hades has no clue about the scope of the complete divine shitstorm that is about to come his way once this is all over, as Zeus salivates and vividly fantasizes about singlehandedly kicking down the gates of the Underworld to just kill and brutalise his brother a few times until Hades gets the message. Happy thoughts.
Second, he genuinely thinks Hera must have gone insane before the current narrative to put Olorun on the throne.
No, literally.
He would have been angry / annoyed but accepting if she coronated herself as Queen in his absence without appropriately looking for him - but resorts to liquidifed copium, as he can only conceptualise that Hera was so mad with all-consuming grief in her love for Zeus that she literally went insane, and let anybody who wanted to follow through on his plan for a divine peace treaty to take the Throne of Olympus, to the point the dumb bitch let a literal who take his place. High off his copium, Zeus is happy Hera is such a madly devoted wife (probably because any other answer would make him obliterate the first living thing in sight). Happy thoughts.
Finally, he looks at Olorun, and (like Persephone saw), sees him judging and looking down on him. Zeus gets Titan-vibes from Olorun, and begins to look forward to buck breaking Olorun, for Olorun's blatant hubris and lack of understanding of consequences. Happy thoughts.
Back in the Gardens of Olympus, we're now with the Japanese Embassy, stationed with everybody's favorite Japanese businesswoman, Amaterasu, as she overlooks the tattered and broken Greek (and nearby Roman) Pantheons. She notes she's developing a work-related headache / migraine whenever she looks at the insanity-inducing stars, but we get a state-of-things recap from Susano-O.
The Chinese are once again resorting to historic tradition at this point, and killing each other en masse having a civil war within the Heavenly Court (the whole Cthulhu thing making people less rational / more irritable in general), while the Mayan Death Gods were already apparently having a major uprising from way before Cthulhu (with them sending Camazotz with an embassy of anti-Xibalbans to Hera's failure of a "Council of the Gods!", also doubling up as a strategic way to get most of their internal enemies out of the way for a cheap price in manpower). Of the remaining Mayans, Chaac was completely alone left to deal with Cthulhu as he freshly awoke and emerged from the ocean, making landbreak on the East coast of South America. In the Solo lane matchup, it was a freshly rested Eldritch Pantheon-solo'er vs a single God who hasn't won a game in years. It wasn't pretty for Chaac at all. Suffice to say, Chaac will be unable to walk in a straight line for years, and his therapist has told him never to look his own name up on porn sites in case videos of the rape have been circulated.
Hachiman enters to say that of the non-Japanese-embassy, Kuzenbo is prioritising keeping his subjects safe and is pulling a Baba Yaga by bunkering in peace and quiet for the storm ahead (Izanami is unaccounted for however), meanwhile Egypt is in full self-destruction mode - tl;dr HORUS WILL FIND SET AND WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING TO SAVE EVERYONE, NOW WITH ANGERY RA HELPING!!! as Set scratches his ass in his own NEET-cave hiding spot to wait out the current apocalypse. Finally of the Japanese embassy, Raijin shows up to explain the Norse are still licking their severe wounds from the Jormunandr / Yggdrasil incidents, and are in hiding, but waiting to capitalise on any opportunity. The Hindu Pantheon doesn't exist. Don't even provoke them.
Finally, Cthulhu's kinda just wandering randomly around Earth, and none of the Gods can figure out what his endgame is other than spread reality-shifting insanity and do book signings at any major nearby Cthulhu cult at any given time.
Raijin is a loud moron for a bit, Amaterasu realises that 'le creeping madness' in the background makes her sound more aggressive than she'd like to come across - but before anybody can react to it happening, cuts a shuriken in half with her sword as it goes for Raijin's neck.
A very broody, EXTREMELY angsty new villain autist (yes, I did cross the correct one out out) flicks the light switch off for the Japanese embassy-members. Raijin loudly assumes 8man was the one threw the shuriken, Susano-O gets ready to back up 8man because he's itching for a fight becuase background insanity, Ama2 overrules them all and directly tells them to calm their autism.
For all you who aren't on my #anime_expertise# level (over 9,000 btw), 'hachi' means 8 in Nippon so Hachiman=8man, while 'terasu' sounds a bit like 2rasu, and they're also easier for me to type fuck off I don't speak chickenscratch moonrunes.
Tsukuyomi hehs to himself, as he picks apart to himself how much of a fool Ama2 is, atop a statue of Demeter. He clacks his ...tonfa? (Dear Lo-Rez / Titanforge, Tonfa are blunt weapons that are used to strike, protect the forearms and are spun for centripetal striking power. Any blade on them would defeat the point, as it'd create places they'd snag - you've just done the equivalent of saying a sword and a club are the same thing. Tsukuyomi uses Arm-Blades, don't overcomplicate things by using cool-sounding words you don't know the meaning of, you fucking morons E- see me after class) together, before reminding himself that Shingetsu and Mangetsu (his arm blades) are his only friends in the whole wide world and that all the other Gods are Worshippower attentionwhores who just don't get him.
Tsukuyomi wanders out of le shadows, and asks why his bitch sister Ama2 didn't invite him to her birthday party international embassy. Ama2 fucks him off because he's always been an untrustworthy self-centred autismo than nobody likes being around, and that he isn't as cool or calculated as he thinks he is. He almost stutters and takes extreme autism-offence from these statements, but keeps his cool and tries to trip Susano-O up instead by calling him a scruffy hobo.
Susano-O doesn't even register it as an insult.
Tsukuyomi then states his intent, that he wants the entire Japanese Pantheon to subordinate under him and give him their worshippers, so he can solo Cthulhu for everybody all by himself (because he's just that good).
Fight breaks out, Tsukuyomi effortlessly calls out all their attacks before they do them (sooo pwediktabuw), showing that while autistic, he is actually skilled in combat. Tsukuyomi complains they all unfairly ganged up on him, then (tries to) deflect blame of instigation to them. Ama2 points out this is exactly why nobody likes working with him (because of his ego, because he can't ever accept responsibility and because he's a cunt), Tsukuyomi is verbally tripped this time and can't think of a snarky comeback, so he just reminds her of the cave incident - which for the tone of the garden at that point in time was basically the equivalent of making a dead baby joke to a woman who had a miscarriage. Everybody (everybody), gives him the 'dude, what the fuck?' face.
Ama2 pauses in hurt, but rises above it. She sighs and just tells him to fuck off, or she'll see him off.
Tsukuyomi then obviously attacks her before anyone can react, confidently internally monologuing to himself that he can deal with / kill Ama2, then the Japanese Pantheon won't have a leader....obviously making HIM the leader!!!!! AND THEY'LL FINALLY 'GET' HIM AND THEY'LL KNEEL TO HIM AND THEN HE'LL SOLO CTHULHU BECAUSE HE'S AWESOMECOOL AND THE GREATEST ANd Ama2 manages to keep up with parrying his attacks. Ama2's earlygame is shit, so Tsukuyomi takes advantage of this and uses his superior AS to burn her down and then disarm her, kicking her to the ground.
Tsukuyomi then brags on that he's going to steal aaaaaall her Worshippower and doom her to the irrelevance-method of God permadeath (like Ares did to He Bo - who is still dead btw). Aaaaaall because she's a bitchy sister and a TRAITOR to him and so 'high and mighty' and just doesn't understand what it's like and she has a job now and responsibilities and shit and can't play with him any more and she used to be so nice to him and they're such attentionwhores and he misses when they were kids and that she's such a traitor to the Japanese Pantheon and he didn't ask to be so lonel- ...before Susano-O reminds him who the autist traitor to the Japanese in the room is (putting a spanner in Tsukuyomi's happy-smug-autism vibe he had going).
The rest of the Japanese Panthon calmly go to help Ama2 to her feet - it wasn't her fault for being ambushed, and they genuinely don't look down on her for losing. They then point out that you can't 'just' solo Cthulhu, that you need to work together more than ever. Basically don't pick fights while the Apocalypse is ongoing.
Tsukuyomi huffs and doesn't fancy another Xv1; swears his vengeance (and say's the moon's totally cooler than the sun btw) (unironically) before poofing off in a shadow.
We need another timeskip now - week are passing by.
Hmmmmm...... how to pad this out...... ! {Demeter Statue!} {I've heard that name or something before! That's one of those 'other Gods' that haven't been released yet, isn't it!}
Why why, yes indeed schizolorefag - and what an appropriate was to segue into the names you have, and have not seen in-game! This one's a big fuckin Aside.
NPC and Unreleased Designs Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreNPCs/
If you think picrelated above looks weird, as I saw people shitting on it when gathering it, I'll defend Titanforge here and say unironically that this one is on you; it's actually quite a good stylistic take on traditional Japanese woodblock pieces.
Back to the non-weeb East-Asians, Mulan sharpens her sword at the Taihang Mountains (just South East of Beijing) and is met by Persephone.
Hades locked the doors to the Underworld to everyone (possibly sensing the divine shitstorm coming his way, possibly to stop Cthulhu from reaching the huge amount of vulnerable dead and making the situation exponentially worse, similar to his motives that kicked everything off with Anubis at the Elysian Uprising), so she can't go back home for now. Obviously, that means that it's girltalk time.
PTSDsephone explains Yggdrasil is fucked beyond the scope of her plant-healing powers, Mulan explains that the Heavenly Court is still infighting (no namedrops), but otherwise we leave the scene with them chatting to one another and becoming friendlier.
At Olympus, Zeus is (literally stated to be) seething at the living nightmare of having to sit on a cuck-y camping stool to the left of his Throne that Olorun is sat in. He's happy for a change that Hera looks equally annoyed at the situation (though it's not for the reason he thinks - she's looking down on Zeus for picking fights during the Apocalpyse).
Olorun clears his throat and explains to the various embassies within the room that Athens (Greek capital, Athena's capital), Hermopolis (Egyptian temple city to Thoth) and Yax Mutal (Mayan city complex, also better known as Tikal) have all fallen to Cthulhu and associated Cthulhu cultists, while Bubastis (Major Egyptian city, named for Bastet) is under siege, under lockdown.
Rama (yes, that Rama, the Hindus have finally shown up again, last appearence being Ganesha in the Ares arc SIR STOP IGNORING OUR PANTHEON AND OUR CALL YOU WILL HEAR FROM LAWYER SIR YU MUST DO THE NEEDFU- stfu india, you won't do shit) asks what da plan is - alluding to a few apparent offscreen battles where Bellona and Hou Yi each tried to solo Cthulhu (oh and Chaac's excuse for a uhhh... well '''''battle''''' too). Anhur just wants Persephone dead and out of the equation early in case Cthulhu has any more influence over her, past her waking him up (Zeus happily nodding along in agreement), while Nu Wa sticks up for Persephone. Zeus says they'll deal with Persephone later, Olorun remembers he's supposed to be the head of this meeting and states he wants to talk things thr- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS PUNCHES THROUGH A TABLE MADE OF YGGDRASIL WOOD WITH HIS BARE FIST because Olorun *almost* interrupted Zeus leading the discussion for a second.
Ignoring what just happened, Zeus says that strategy won't work (like how he explained to Athena, after Athens fell), and they'd need to bruteforce Cthulhu like he did with the Titans - suggesting himself, Odin, Cabrakan and Pele as his chosen Cthulhu-killteam.
Heimdallr compliments Zeus on this idea and Zeus smiles, with it being pretty much the first time since being woken up from death that somebody treated him with the respect he ought to command. Olorun tries to snarkily call out Zeus's prid- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS STARTS TO IMMEDIATELY FUCKING CHOKE A NIGGER OUT IN A FLASH OF LIGHTNING, OLORUN GENUINELY PANICKING FOR HIS LIFE AND CAUGHT OFF GUARD.
Hera tells her husband (both Zeus and Olorun look at her) (yeah, ok shut the fuck up Lo-Rez / Titanforge) to "goodness gracious, calm down, you're scaring the Gods!". Zeus calls all the Gods present weak bitches if that scared them, but thinks Hera is still being irrational over his death (yeah, that cope) and just trying to keep the peace between everyone. He doesn't want to deal with her shit right now, and reluctantly fucks off to just gather his killsquad all by himself, if the room isn't going to do as he says, with an angry huff.
Olorun, breathless, gives a sigh of relief (being able to breathe again), bitches about Zeus for a bit to Hera, then we get his loose gameplan - essentially to go on the offensive and take out the various Cthulhu cults to retain the Worshippower of the Divine Realm - stopping them from being weakened further and also to buy time for more reinforcement-embassies to arrive, rather than face Cthulhu head on with what they have.
Olorun does have a Plan B, but we'll get to that later.
Timeskip of a few days / weeks and we're back to Tsukuyomi. He's at Usa Jingu (a major temple in Southern Japan to Hachiman, considered the 2nd most royally prestigious after Amaterasu's Ise Jingu, South of Kyoto) overlooking it being overrun by loads of AAAAAAAAAA I'VE GONE INSANE Cthultists. Ama2 is being treated for her near-fatal slashes cuts and bruises at Olympus, back from when he attacked her, but otherwise Mr. Chunni here is being chased down by the most of the remaining Japanese Embassy who were there.
Tsukuyomi takes out a bunch of Cthultists with his Ult, then gets all the Patrons of the temple to pledge to himself in absolute devotion as payment - stealing 8man's Worshippower for himself and slavedriving the mortals into even more efficient Worshippower-factories for himself.
Back at the basement level of Olympus, we cut to Olorun and Hera heading down to find Ares, who'd been holed up in a literal pitch-black NEETcave since his Stardust Crus-Hades adventures.
The sheer madman factor of it all got to him, and being subservient to Hades could have been viewed a kind of a bitch-move in his own head, so he's just been sitting a few arcs out in a dark room to make up for it (kinda like when you're more cautious of bad luck, in 'payment' of having a good luck streak) and has totally changed up his armour because of his redesign. Olorun re-declares himself Kang of Limpus, asks him to come out, Ares shrugs and asks what's been going on (his Worshippower factor feels weird, given the current conflict is tainted by Cthulhu or some shit) and he's been in the dark about it.
Hera and Olorun explain, offscreen.
Amaterasu, now healed up and back in Japan, has a chat with Susano-O about the state of things.
Both are disappointed that Tsukuyomi learnt absolutely nothing while in exhile, and just seems to be copycatting Loki / Set's previous plans of taking advantage of a chaotic situation at a surface level - but with none of the nuance, reasoning or actual advantages the previous examples had for their instigators. Right now, all the Japanese Pantheon are in genuine danger of being wiped out as Tsukuyomi / Cthulhu leech away their Worshippower (?! UHHHH woooaaah seems a bit more important than a passing comment?!...) - and all the while they're all slowly going AAAAAAAAA INSANE from the growing insanitystars-headache.
Ama2 decides that if they temporarily amalgamate and redirect their Worshippower under her (the acting Pantheon Head), she might be able to deal with her autistic brother and at least stop one part of the Worshippower leeching, promising to give it back once she's done with it.
Now after another timeskip, we rejoin our acting madman, Zeus, for a great little part of the narrative. He's had an offscreen bizaare adventure of his own, but to little success.
Pele + Chernobog each pass on Zeus's plan to bruteforce Cthulhu (each wanting to just defend their own turf) meanwhile Cabrakan had already had a crack at soloing Cthulhu at Tajumulco (Tallest mountain / volcano in Central America, in South Guatemala) before Zeus arrived - and unlike the other Gods who tried to solo Cthulhu and who got AAAAAAAA INSANE'd / PTSD'd in the process, Cabrakan's location was unknown since he was buried in the rubble... of the fucking mountain range he tore up and dropped on Cthulhu before Cthulhu could even get some breathing room or the chance to fuck with his mentals.
Zeus is now at his last stop of Asgard, looking for his best drinking buddy-bro from another Pantheon, Odin. Nobody had really heard anything from the Norse after the Yggdrasil incident, with only Heimdallr being known of (since Odin sent Ratatoskr as his rep to check in on Nidhoggr, but disappeared shortly after), and this is the first Zeus has even seen of all the damage the Norse Pantheon had sustained during the previous events / Ragnarok 1 and 2.
Zeus wanders in on the empty and ruined halls, and shouts for his ol' fren, Odin.
Nobody answers.
Loki pounces Zeus, tries to (again lol) backsta- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS MELTS THE BLADES OUT OF LOKI'S HANDS WITH PURE LIGHTNING-PLASMA HEAT! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS CHOKI'S LOKI! Zeus chuckles with a totally-fucking-lost-it-now smile, saying his burning hatred for Loki was one of the things that kept him sane during the Persephone treatment. Loki spits in his face and hisses "You're welcome bitch", HOLY FUCKING SHIT LOKI GOES TO STAB ZEUS IN THE EYE WITH A SPARE BLADE HE HAD HIDDEN IN HIS SLEEVE, ASSASSINS-CREED STYLE! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS BREAKS LOKI'S ARM BACKWARD WITH ONE HAND! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS CHOKESLAMS LOKI INTO THE STONE FLOOR, CRACKING APART IT WITH THE FORCE ALONE! HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS PICKS LOKI UP BY THE COLLAR AND LAUNCHES LOKI ACROSS THE ROOM WITH SUCH FORCE HE SPLINTERS THROUGH A HUGE WOODEN FEASTING TABLE!
Loki's crumpled, bloodied, broken remains of a 'body' begs for Zeus to hear him out, Zeus chuckles and says he won't be giving Loki any final-moments monologue way out of this, as he walks over, which ironically was just the milliseconds of time Loki needed to dodge out of the way o- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS THREW A FUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT AT LOKI'S FACE.
Loki, now giggling that he escaped, taunts an extremely pissed off Zeus, as Zeus 'renovates'... well, what's left of the sorry few ruins of Asgard, while chasing after Loki's voices. Loki explains he's got a brand new League of Best Friends and that Zeus isn't invi- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS ALMOST KILLED LOKI AGAIN BY HEARING WHERE THE VOICE CAME FROM AND THROWING A LIGHTNING BOLT AT IT. Zeus DEMANDS to be let in on the new League of Best Friends for anti-Cthulhu efforts, Loki tells him to fuck off and that he blew his only chance of being his friend, before mocking that he really is perfect for his dumb-bitch wife Hera (who's totally been cheating on him btw looooool).
Loki poofs away with a giggle; Zeus copes and seethes alone, over the clear lies of the Trickster God, and having been held up for too long by the effects of Persephone's 'scheme' to have been able to assemble his ideal killsquad to deal with Cthulhu (and stop a preventable Apocalypse). Zeus spergs out and proceeds to basically finish off levelling whatever was left of Asgard at this point, in a partially-insanity-driven temper tantrum. Now there is nothing left but tattered, hollow ruins and frozen, wind-blown wilderness where the once-great Asgard stood. Annhilation.
So Zeus is REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF now. And what's the best thing to vent all that anger out on - other than Zeus's very own attempt to solo Cthulhu? Which is now Zeus's plan.
Shock breakaway time, and yes, despite being one of the more fun to read, aesthetically interesting and conceptually appealing scenes in the entire narrative, this scene got no art or depiction whatsoever. And because nobody reads the lore but me, nobody has even made fanart of it.
being a lorefag really is suffering some times...
Madlad Ares is back on the scene, and with a new redesign set of armour, meanwhile Poseidon got chained to a rock within R'lyeh after his defeat (R'lyeh being Cthulhu's sea-risen city of worship, located in the Southwestern region of the Pacific, like a huge multicultural music festival but with even more insane fans).
Poseidon has to hear his corrupted nymphs and worshippers talk endless shit about him, but manages to block it out because he's just too based to listen to the haters. Ares shows up with the Stymphalian birds, casually solo's all of R'lyeh (as you do) and goes to free his uncle while catching him up on recent events.
Poseidon points out the (obvious) flaw in Olorun's plan, in that Cthulhu is completely unreliant on Worshippo- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT, ARES JUST WANTS TO PISS OFF CTHULHU BY GENOCIDING HIS FOLLOWERS. HOLY FUCKING SHIT, ARES HAS ALREADY GENOCIDED A THIRD OF CTHULHU'S CTHULTISTS ACROSS THE GLOBE (AS YOU DO), EASILY TENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES CALM THE FUCK DOWN. HOLY FUCKING SHIT R'LYEH WAS JUST A SIDE OBJECTIVE TO HIM, HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARES WAS THE ONE TO EASILY CLEAN OUT ATHENS WHERE ATHENA UTTERLY FAILED. MADLAD. IS. BACK.
Olorun and Hera overlook from Olympus, impressed with Ares's work, along with a ton of gathered Gods for the Cthulhu showdown.
Yemoja uses her river sight don't ask, and gives them both a quick rundown on general whereabouts. King Arthur's off gathering and uniting the Celtic Gods to defend the FAKIN INGERLISH / FEKIN IYRISH / BLOODI BRI'ISH isles, Amaterasu is at Ise Grand Shrine, Baba is at the Black Sea, and meanwhile the League of Best Friends (Loki, Set, Discordia, Thanatos and Bellona) are converging on the Erythraean Sea (an old name for the North-Western half of the Indian Ocean - technically the strech between the Horn of Africa and India, surrounding Arabia, aka the Gulf of Persia).
Zeus bolts i- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS GOES IMMEDIATELY GOES TO LYNCH KILL OLORUN!
After seeing Chernobog protect his shrine to Gadget Hackwrench that all the allies he wanted to align with were too busy defending their own home turf, it brought Zeus to the revelation that he should have been doing the same all this time, and that he was going to retake the Greek Pantheon for himself right here, right now.
Heimdallr signals from a distance with his horn that Cthulhu's finally showed up; Zeus continues to try to kill Olorun (with the present embassies split on either hiding away from the the two Pantheon-Heads fighting, or shouting support for one of the other spergs before the nu-Apocalypse shows up to kill them all). Zeus is completely beating the fucking shit out of Olorun, until Olorun flashbangs him, pauses time then slogs Zeus once in the jaw - Hera only then breaking up the fight using Argus the moment her pathetic african affair finally scored a hit against her husband lol, because Cthulhu's on the horizon and they just wasted all their prep time.
Zeus and Olorun have another verbal spat (Olorun silently acknowledging he's even weaker now, only a Black God) and they agree to postpone their conflict until after Cthulhu is dead - but Zeus won't even work with Olympus's dumbshit 'plan' until he's recognised as the rightful ruler of the Greek Pantheon again. HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS LEAVES TO HAVE A CRACK AT DEALING CTHULHU ALONE BEFORE CTHULHU DESCENDS ON OLYMPUS PROPER.
Cthulhu is very, very pissed off at having his fanclubs genocided, and arrives in his supersized Ult-form, leading into the cover art of the season (below).
Rolling back in on the B-Plot, and we're at Ise Grand Shrine with the Japanese again - Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi having yet another squabble.
Ama2 is now Tsukuyomi's equal in Worshippower now she has the EXP rest of the Pantheon lent her (all of them honestly trusting her), and thus is the only one left able to challenge and try to stop Tsukuyomi's rampage spergrage. Ama2 is still trying to be a working woman who is trying to keep her corporation Pantheon together, Tsukuyomi is still being an egotistical autist chunni; they have a fight for who's going to lead honorabu Nippon.
I've gone to the liberty of stitching the entire fight together for you, as it disjointedly takes place over two cinematics otherwise. Only thing to note is that it's just off-location - they're supposed to be indoors inside a traditional Japanese Shine-hall, not a coolness-factor endless lake. Does look cool though.
*Here's ya link to the stitched cinematic: Here *
....and Tsukuyomi wins! Just like that!
To give you the sparknotes on their fight for those who didn't watch it, Tsukuyomi initiates with his 1 (Triple Shadow Shurikens), Ama2 is really fucking cute for a few frames (it's the one everybody uses screenshots of; Lo-Rez put their best waifu-creators on her for that scene, and to great success shame her in-game model wasn't updated for it lol), Ama2 destroys the shurikens / silences the ability by using her 3 (Dash). Tsuku blocks her by crossing his Arm-Blades and pushes her back; Amaterasu chains this into her Ult (but doesn't capitalise on the stun, dumb baka Ama2!). Tsukuyomi uses his 2 (Kusarigama) to chain up Ama2's sword, disarms her, roots her, then HOLY FUCKING SHIT TSUKUYOMI KILLS AMATERASU WITH HIS ULT (the killing blow being offscreened).
The result of this isn't like Ra getting his eyes popped resulting in an endless eclipse, but instead the Sun begins to flare up uncontrollably for a bit, before an empowered Moon now gives endless full-moon twilight over Japan.
It was so easy in fact, Tsukuyomi's egotistical autism now feels hollow about the victory. It's as if he didn't get what he really wanted in the end, despite winning.
He stares at the burning Ise Shrine and smugly (yet emptily) chuckles that his bitchy older sister won't be able to stop his autism plans now with her annoying co-workers... and how he's... like.... totally going to solo Cthulhu... after Olympus weakens Cthulhu for him... or something...
From a nearby rafter, Danzaburou drunkenly calls him a huge dumb faggot an offers him a drink. Tsukuyomi reactively goes to kill him with a shuriken just because he's there (LEAVE NO DISRESPECT UNANSWERED FOR!), but only hits a statue; before Danzaburou pledges allegiance to Tsukuyomi from behind said statue.
Danza and Tsukuyomi then have a drink of sake (tl;dr Japanese beer) at the end of the world. Danza gives some sage advice to Tsukuyomi, that one does not simply defeat Cthulhu, and he should sit back and just enjoy the time he has left with company, instead of getting into fights with his siblings (even though.... well, they're all inferrably dead right now). Perhaps even, if things recover, he should appreciate what little time and offerings others can spare some for him (God and Mortal alike), instead of scorning them for the time they're unable to give him. Tsukuyomi evidently takes heed of this wisdom and grows from the experience (for now), as his spergout ends here, his Worshippower-thieving not spreading to the rest of the world.
You wouldn't know this *slightly important* side-arc finale 'offscreen' detail if you were just reading the lore via GN and watching the cutscenes... because much of it was in Danza's fucking design breakdown. This is how scattered the lore is, you can thank me later. In fact, I'm genuinely convinced that unironically only 1/3rd of the Smite FRIENDS lore was actually released and that there may have been other things going on; given it's event was in a similar coding format to the later Yuletide 'Minor Event' that ran alongside the next arc's Odyssey - for which likewise, far more Lore was datamined as oppose to actually released. Believe you me, I've scraped through everywhere you can think of to find what could possibly remain; but we can blame dogshit coding and nobody caring about the lore at the time as for why it's installments were never released. And, you can't datamine something that isn't in the game any more.
Accompanying his release, there was also a nice animation explaining Danzaburou's pre-story / schtick of him being a door salesman scammer, with Danzaburou scamming Kuzenbo with leaves disguised as alcohol. Nothing to do with the lore whatsoever. Aside from that, and my speculation above, the lore was pretty anemic for a few months. Have an aside instead, to pad out the time a bit for pacing's sake. Maybe a drink break too? Grab some beer.... or some sake?! Eh? Get it? Beer = Sake, but for sakes's sa- I'll stop now.
Tanuki & Robin Hood Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#tanuki-robin-hood
We finally arrive back on the refomed League of Best Friends. This time Set, Thanatos and Discordia have new play-pals; Bellona and Loki! Yay!
Set led the gang to the crumbling '''first-ever temple created''', along the shore of the Erythraean Sea. They go full Indiana-Jones and walk through the crumbling ruins of the ancient remains, into a big room with an indoor pool that hasn't been cleaned out in so long, nobody realised it's actually become the last remaining entrance to the Abyss / Ginnungagap on Earth's surface (Abyss being the void-reality-extension of Chaos, the first Greek Primordial, Ginnungagap being the deep-space of the Norse Pantheon, where Muspelheim and Niflheim drifted and met within, and which now surrounds the boundaries outside of Yggdrasil / the known Universe, a la Chaos geographically supposed to be at the Gulf between Greenland and Canada / the Davis Strait, though at the time it was just used to describe the ends of the known Norse Earth).
Discordia is on torchlight duty while Bellona is getting bored with all the walking and is considering trying to solo Cthulhu (a second time, after barely surviving the first). Set scolds Loki for playing games come the Apocalypse 2.0 and not being able to convince Zeus to come on board (unaware of how it actually went down at Asgard) - since they apparently needed a Pantheon-head to send a bright light out for them into the Abyss to wake 'something' up for them all. Both bind Cthulhu and start more Chaos for them (CHAOS.... WITHIN CHAOS!). Thanatos has no lines in the temple past them entering. I assume he's just listening to Linkin Park on his headphones while in the corner, sorting his corporate business schedule.
Luckily for Loki's fuckup however, Set's got a Plan B - and as if on cue - HORUS HAS ARRIVED TO PUT SET DOWN, ONCE AND FOR ALL (FT. ANGERY RA)!!!!!!!
Where's dat temple at and the Locations of SMITE - SMITE!!! Geography Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#smite-geography
We now see the last stand of Olympus... but only 6 Pantheons showed up.
Olorun is afk all fight, much to the extreme stress of Hera (who initially tries to wake him up, but gives up on the useless african import-worker).
Meanwhile, the clear MVP of this fight is Zeus - who despite telling everyone to fuck off, managed to actually fight Cthulhu alone as it approached Mt. Olympus, and stalled Cthulhu through the city below Olympus long enough to buy back all the time he wasted for everyone (while still keeping pace throughout, not just fighting on the backfoot). Alas, he was slowly pushed back into Olympus, and found himself incidentally fighting alongside the other Gods, as Cthulhu continued to zone him out.
Let's review how things went from here.
*ahem*
Of all the Gods that are explictily stated to have jobbed to Cthulhu, walking toward them ...menacingly! :
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ATHENA GETS OFFSCREEN'D
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ARGUS IS REDUCED TO RUBBLE
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT NIKE HAS A REPEAT OF THE ATHENS TREATMENT AND IS A SMOULDERING PILE OF FLESH ON THE FLOOR
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT ANHUR IS ALSO A SMOULDERING PILE OF FLESH ON THE FLOOR
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT RAMA AAAAAAAAAAAAA GOES INSA-(YOU BLOODY BASTARD SIR FACK YUU NO BLOODY BASTARD NO RAMA WOUL PIERCE THROUGH THE HIDE OF CTHULHU AND STRIKE HIM OUT IN A SINGLE SHOT THROU THE HEART OF HEART AND THE ARROWWOUL LOOP AROUND AND STRIKE THE DEVA INT THE BRAINN THERE IS NOT A SINGLE TARGET HE CAN MISS OUR LORD RAMA IS THE MOST PERFECT YOU BLOODY YOU ARE LISTENING NO I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL DESTROY YU BLOOD FACKING BASTARD SIR!!! YOU WILL REGRET THIS YOU FUCKING HEER!!!!!!!!!!! MAKR MY WERDS!!!!!!!!! india, fuck off we've established you won't do sh-{̸̨̹̈́*c̸͇͋̑̕r̵̢̽̏a̴̖̙̒̌̊c̷̱͚̐̀̿ǩ̵ͅĺ̸͕͚̺͜͝ĕ̵̻͎̎*}̶̡̤͍̉̑
- HOLY FUCKING SHIT HEIMDALLR AAAAAAAAAAAAA GOES INSANE AAAAAAAAAAAA
While it might seem like I'm skimming a lot of possible written fighting here, the whole hyped up and anticipated fight is covered extremely quickly and I've really not got much else to tell you. The 'fight' between Zeus and the Shadow of Cthulhu back in Yggdrasil is given more action, and even that was short on top of being cut short. Overall, this was just a huge waste of writing potential, -E see me after class Lo-Rez.
There's a nice little snippet where Zeus and Hera have completely reconciled and desperately fight side by side as a married couple, in the ultimate last stand of Olympus, each trying to protect the other one more than themselves... but sadly Cthulhu's health and CC immunity during his Ult is too much for the two, and they too get HOLY FUCKING SHIT BTFO'd in the end.
Olorun is the final God remaining at Olympus (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge), and actually wasn't afk, but was calling upon the power of the le star screamings (not the Transformer, that bit comes later), and so floats upward to do a superpowered version of his 1.
Yeah, it turns out his Plan B all along was to get all the other Gods to die / stall for him without telling them, so he could unironically just nuke Earth with a really big Kamehameha and hope it's fine afterwards. Cthulhu effortlessly self-heals up all the scars and burns on it's octupus-skin that it had endured from the Gods that fought it, and rasps out a 'le incomprehensible laugh', as it can break the 4th wall and read the metanarrative (plot twist, I'm Cthulhu, writing up this summary), recognising what a fucking stupid plan Olorun had all along at the direct expense of everyone around him.
Quick reminder this is the same Olorun who lost to an oversized dog (when he was apparently less-weakened), that now thinks he can Hiroshima all of Earth. And considering Hades is apparently sat snug in Hades, safe from Eldritch encroachment, it's my headcanon that Cerberus is indeed more of a threat to Cthulhu.
Cthulhu uses his 3 to dash / lurch at Olorun and ....?!!!!!!!!!!
~
Cumbling Ancient Temple with the League of Best Friends vs the Bird Bros at the end of the world. Set does the same thing he did to Horus back at the Throne Room of Egypt, and dunks on him a bit with some effortless dodges and deflects. He baton-passes over to Thanatos and Discordia to tard-wrangle Horus's sperging, and tells Bellona and Loki to move berserk-Ra closer to the stinky paddling pool.
Turns out Set's plan was to essentially let the AAAAAAAAA INSANE Ra follow them on a wild goose chase as a backup until Loki came back with Zeus. Apparently Horus is AAAAAAAAAAA INSANE too, but he doesn't act any differently to how he's written beforehand, so I just think this is Horus's default and Set's looking down too kindly at his nephew.
Horus uses his tardstrength to nearly overpower the Discordia and Thanatos, but Set trusts the plan and leaves him to them.
When Ra is in place, Set Ults and autistically claws up Ra (the bite of '87...), th- HOLY FUCKING SHIT SET IMPALES RA THROUGH THE FUCKING CHEST! Ra uses a supercharged version of his 2 to blind everyone in the room bef- HOLY FUCKING SHIT SET FINISHES OFF RA WITH A THIS IS SPARTA KICK!, sending Ra falling into the endless dirty paddling pool spacial Abyss below. Set sees Ra falling endlessly, burning up and fading away like a exploding star, and immediately gets on his knees to finish the ritual to Lovecraft's cat, the only being that could possibly save anybody from a Lovecraftian, Eldritch abomination like Cthulhu.
You may recite the following hymn (Titled 'Fuck Off LoRez lol') with with me and Set :
*Ahem*
{*Compose yourself; Clap your hands*}
ooooooOOOOOOOOOooooo the mythos.....or some say, the mythosm...mmmm... oooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!
{*Pause; then clench your head and begin violently writhing on the floor*}
AAAAAAAAAAAAAA NIGGERMAN WHERE ARE YOU AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA NIGGERMAN SAVE MEEEEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII AAAAAAAAAAAAAA I'M GOING INSANE SAVE ME NIGGERMAN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA THE CTH'USSY IS TOO WET AND TIGHT AND SLOPPY I'M GOING INSANE AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA NIGGERMAN I FEEL MY MIND SLIPPING AWAY, SAVE MEEEEE AAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AAAAAAA MY MIND CANNOT COMPREHEND SCHRODINGERS NIGGERMAN, ARE YOU THERE NIGGERMAN HELP MEEEEE AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAA HELP ME NIGGERMAN, PLEEEeeeeEEEEEEEEEASE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
{*Compose yourself; Clap your hands*}
Amen.
The prayer works flawlessly, and Set giddily jumps up and down like a Victorian scientist screaming 'IT'S ALIVE!' once he sees a shadow murmur within the Abyss. The ancient temple shudders... then caves in on everyone present.
The last thing we see is....
that... wait, that's not Niggerman!
It's Tiamat, Primodial Goddess of the Babylonian Panthon!
Evidently Lo-Rez/Titanforge are saving the Niggerman-saviour arc for 2034, when Azathoth needs defeating. Smart move replacing him with a small fry like Tiamat.
Tiamat suffice to say, is very groggy, and very pissed off with all the loud noises and bright lights going on above her. She's an older woman-dragon, give her a break.
She very nearly ditches Earth and wider reality to just fucking collapse it on itself (Mondays, amirite?), but gets off her ass, puts on her reading glasses with a sigh and starts rewriting reality to something she can bear to live with, because apparently she has access to the command line of the Universe down there in the darkest depths of the dirty paddling pool Abyssal Primordial Waters of Existence or some shit. She states to herself as she's at her Abyss-computer, coding, that all the other Gods are big smelly phoneys who rely on Worshippower, and that she's essentially the only God that matters, and all their creation storys are big smelly lies.
She completely floods all of Earth and Reality with dirty paddling pool water / Abyssal Water, and once she's destroyed literally everything, she rewrites it all back to factory settings with a back up save in a direct command line reboot that lasts less than a second - saving any personal changes she might want to do for later. Cthulhu gets vored into the centre of the nu-Earth because Tiamat doesn't like astral intruders that don't belong on her Earth (so Cthulhu isn't dead or defeated, it just imprisoned again) - then she thinks to herself that Olorun is equally alien and that he could probably solo her at full power WAIT WHAT? yet gives Olorun a free pass and chucks him back down to Earth because ....? WAIT. WAIT, WH-WH-... WHAT???!
...
...
...
.....
.......
???
Profit.
Cthulhu is gone - yay! Apocalpyse over.
How 2 beat a Cthulhu aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#wat-is-an-how-2-beat-a-cthulhu
We cut back to Ares RIPPING AND TEARING through the remaining Cthultists; meanwhile Poseidon's just old and exhausted with the fighting and is kinda trailing behind his young'un nephew.
It's raining literal blood, the sky is red, innumerable people are screaming and Ares (quite happy with himself) is gleefully about to finish up fucking obliterating R'yleh all by himself, before he really does go on to have a good crack at soloing Cthulhu with dad (or enjoy dying trying). Ares has saved the best malformed froggy-fishy people until last, right at the gates of Cthulhu's main temple / Cthulhu's old bedroom (see the pic at the end of the last Arc that Cthulhu emerges from). The remaining Cthulists surround him in a phlanx, he dares them to come at him bro (making them panic in his mere presence, to Ares delight) and he giddily charges at them... but then there's a Blue-Screen-of-Death for a few seconds.
Ares blinks past the blinding BSOD and lag in his game, and all the Cthultists are already dusted before he crashes into them. The island-city of R'yleh is almost completely dusted in an instant too, rapidly crumbling away. Ares's arms drop to his sides in disappointment. Genuinely insulted by the absolute bonerkiller moment he just had, he seethingly informs Poseidon that he's going to absolutely fucking destroy whatever the fuck just gave him blue balls with that blue screen, as he begins to make his way back home.
Back at Olympus, everything is reset. Everything. All the Gods feel completely refreshed / rejuvenated, and Zeus personally goes over to Olorun, to give him a pat on the back for defeating Cthulhu wait, what?, saying he's happy to delay the Kang of Olympus dispute until later WAIT, WHAT?.
Complete 180' aside, Olorun tries to explain he didn't do shit, but Zeus just ignores him since he still doesn't give a fuck about what Olorun has to say. Olorun keeps the blurred details of the figure he saw look at him within the Abyss to himself, but also remembers that he saw visions of a dude running through a cedar forest while passed out. Ares and Poseidon are coming back home, meanwhile Heimdallr gets a note from Odin saying that Yggdrasil is completely A-OK again (and that the timeframe since Persephone fucked with it, it's been a few months in-Universe).
As Olorun ponders what happened, a colossal mountain rumbles up and emerges a moderate distance away in front of Olympus, big enough that it literally casts shade on Olympus.
And on top, there's a very suspect Ziggurat.
Tiamat flys on over to say "Hi" to her new neighbours, almost blows out everybody's eardrums with her voice alone (since she's not adjusted her volume in milennia), then curiously inspects Zeus before reminding herself how young everyone is in comparison. She shrugs and goes "Cthulhu, what happened there, amirite guys?" to cordially break the ice.
Olorun on behalf of the Divine Realm (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge) apologises and asks who she is, Tiamat explains she's the OG realest creator (lmfao get fucked Ymir / Pangu / Chaos etc), and that while she has many names, her friends call her Tiamat. She dumps / drops off Ra's unconscious body on the floor, Olorun has Yemoja rush to Ra's aid, then she says in passing that Olympus is a pretty mediocre / modest divine palace, all things considered - pissing off Zeus to no end - as she indicates the huge Babylonian Hanging Gardens that she rose up in front of Olympus is just a temporary structure while she plans out and builds her main abode in her homeland.
Tiamat waves everyone off with a smile, then makes a friendly exit - and Zeus suddenly gets dragon-slaying urges again.
~
~
~
The Gamer Girl Great Reset (Talons of Tyranny / Court of Midnight / Odyssey: Perilous Seas / Yuletide)
BUT WAIT: WE'RE STARTING WITH MAP INTERLUDE TIME LOL, and FINALLY, we have a brand new Conquest Map!
With Season 8 and the Tiamat Arc, the Conquest Map was shifted from Olympus vs Stardust Crus-Hades (all the way back from S5) into Olympus vs Babylon. As previously mentioned, we were in the Gardens of Olympus before, but now everything's been reset (including Hades's surface-Palace being cleaned up), the Conquest map now takes place on the arisen land conjoining Olympus and Tiamat's Summer House.
Basically, we're just on the other side of Mt. Olympus, the Gardens are out of sight on the opposite side of the Order Base. From the Gardens of the Greeks, to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
While there's not much to talk of in terms of details relevant to the Mythos, the Babylonian Ziggurat and Chaos-side base was architecturally themed after the Ishtar Gate, the real inner gate within Babylon, that acted as an minor kind-of-portcullis to the Cloud Rich District of Babylon, and would likely have been accurate to the style that both the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the Tower of Babel would have been modelled after in real life.
Slight issue with this however - it was about a milennias-worth of time after the time Tiamat would have been worshipped (literally the equivalent of comparing Wattle and Daub to Skyscrapers), given that it was built on-commission by the same Nebuchadrezzar II of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, that features in various Abrahamic religions. Props and credits where it's due however, there's very little in terms of surviving Babylonian or general Mesopotamian archetecture to go off (not the Christians or le jooz this time around - this one's on the Muzzies smashing up / destroying stuff, and in a far more systematic manner, owing to their more enforced cultural rule against false idols). The fact HiRez/Titanforge went with the Ishtar Gate to begin with, combined with general understandings of Ziggurats is basically as far as one could reasonably go in a scenario like this, and as a result does make for a relatively accurate Babylonian half of the map.
Also, yes, Nebuchadrezzar is the correct spelling; Nebuchadnezzar (the spelling you find the Torah / Bible) is a petty insult and deliberate spelling mistake of his name (basically calling him a donkey) taken as God-ordaned 'fact', because he completely fucking BTFO the Jews harder than Hadrian or Hitler. In that sense, I guess we know what side of the JQ Tiamat stands on, given her choice in architectural inspiration. Bet you wouldn't have been able to think of, let alone infer that without my historic FACTS AND KNOWLEDGE aiding you, thank me later for the entertaining read as your twisted little mind associates Tiamat with everything that comes to mind about Hitl- I mean Nebuchadrezzar II from her choice in building-style.
Yeah, I'm just kinda stalling at this point so it's just a complete wall of concept art. Shut the fuck up, it looks cool. One thing to note / as you can see in this concept art, there were plans to make the map more akin to it's competition-MOBA's, adding a river connecting each lane, as well as inferrably a new Hydra-boss in the Duo line (of which the creature likely recieved it's internal design rework around this time). The other named creatures (Minotaur, Basilisk, Drake etc) seem to simply be early ideas for what they wanted to do with buff camps.
Furthemore there were multiple new mechanics during this season, as this map would 'evolve' and be slighly remodelled over this arc to fit a variety of themes as the lore progressed, which I'll touch shortly on each time they happen.
For the first map of Season 8, the three major additions were Base-gates, and the Greater / Lesser Scorpions. Yep, up until this point, there wasn't exit points from your base into the Jungle.
Scorpions may have shared a name, but did completely different things. Greater Scorpions served as Team-sided Jungle Bosses. They first spawned in the contested space on top of the Gold Fury and Fire Giant, and would need to be killed to 'enable' the major Jungle Boss there to spawn. Upon defeat, they would augment / double the effect of every Jungle Buff on the allied quarter of the map for a short time, and Greater Scorpions would then alternatingly spawn on each team's side from there on out. Junglers would want to maintain the Greater Scorpion buff for their side of the map, on top of their usual duties, but would often be helped by the Mid or Support after the first, due to the substantial reward as a 'mini-Jungle-Boss'. Invading the enemy Greater Scorpion was also a common tactic during Fire Giant dances, to bait out the enemy into taking a bad engagement, and to deny them buff-augments. In Season 9 they would be simplified to only exist on the Fire Giant side of the map, no longer preventing the Major Bosses from spawning in, and would augment every buff on their half of the map (rather than each quarter), until their timely removal in S10.
Lesser Scorpions on the other hand were much more earlygame-focused, and would take a small healthbar, but also 3 Basic Attacks to kill once downed (similar to Kumbha Passive). One spawned in the middle of the Solo lane, and two of them (one near each tower) in the Duo lane, all three on the outer-wall. These acted as contested objectives, offering a minor reward, but also 'activated' a healing station in their radius, giving the team to kill them some sustain, to the tune of a free Green Potion if you sat in it for the entire duration. These lasted for the duration of S8, but were put on leave after S8 ended, appearing as 'basic' Jungle Monsters from S10 onwards.
The most notable detail to me however (aside from, well, you know, the complete map rework), is that various map entities are representations of Tiamat's 11 Poison Dragons! Which.... I go into more detail in a tangential, optional Aside!
Details, Dragons & Old Gods aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#babylonian-details-and-the-urreligion
So we enter back into the narrative once again at the Taihang Mountains, once again with Mulan and Persephone meeting up (presumedly picking up where they left off, while the Cthulhu incident was ongoing). Persephone's no longer locked out of her house / the Underworld, the two have a chat about how Tiamat's cleaned everything up, but how the Gods are now wary of her overwhelming strength. Conveniently, the Norse Pantheon and Yggdrasil are now completely fine, China's clean of opium Corrupted Jade and everyone feels at peace for the first time in years.
Baba walks on in to speak with the girls. Snarky-bitchsephone derides her, saying her prophecy was not only useless (ha!), but wrong on top (haha!), since Cthulhu got BTFO without needing it's help at all (hahaha!). Baba nonchalently responds that the prophecy wasn't about Cthulhu; and that Cthulhu can in no way be described as 'the dark sea' itself (since Cthulhu got consumed by the sea), followed by a cheeki breeki slavic "YEAH YOU THOUGHT, BITCH".
Mulan has to explain to Persephone that if you readcarefully, the doomsday prophecy was a bait-and-switch about Tiamat, not Cthulhu.
Nice one there LoRez/Titanforge, genuinely well played.
Cut back to Olympus, and the Yorubans are getting ticked off that Tiamat's Ziggurat is in literal terms casting shade on their Olympus that they're squatting in. Yemoja notes the rivers ain't telling her shit about Tiamat either, as if they're afraid of Tiamat (?).
The two head into the usual God-meeting spot, to find Hemidallr and the newly remodelled Sobek having a spat in front of the remaining embassies. The Norse Pantheon are pro-Tiamat, since she basically jannied up their entire ultrafucked ruins of a Pantheon for free (intentional or not), while Sobek's getting bad vibes from her - especially since Set of all the Gods was the one to wake her up (who, coincedentally, has been completely absent since the temple collapsed on him). Zeus wants to ...SMITE!!! the Ziggurat for getting in the way of Olympus but Hera just wants to enjoy the peace while it lasts. Sobek relays that the entire Egyptian Pantheon (bar Set) wants to strike while the anvil is hot, and deal with Tiamat quickly while she's still possibly vulnerable.
Like Set, the League of Best Friends are all still unaccounted for. Ares says they should be the number one priority, so he can get info on how to kill Tiamat, ignoring everyone else present. Chaac waddles over (one thing not restored by Tiamat's Great Reset being his pride and the anal rupture) and relays that the Kukulkan and the Mayans don't care about the League of Best Friends, and just want to wait it out to see what Tiamat's first move is.
Finally, Arthur, on behalf of his new frens with the Celts, gives his deep and insightful point of view, that dragons = bad news >:(
After being given each Pantheon's insight and the intriguing worldbuilding about the ongoing geopolitical events, Olorun ignores all of them anyways, because he already decided he'd accept an invite from Tiamat. Amazing writing.
Timeskip, Tiamat's lounging around on the top of her Ziggurat, spots the divine embassy; and notes to herself that (HOLY FUCKING SHIT) she has the ability to instakill any God of her choice by just severing their connection to reality this is never brought up again.
Characterwise, she's basically a bipolar schizo - her nature is just to be a primitive, wild animal and to act on instinct, however she's desparately (and semi-successfully) trying to contain her autism and present herself as an elegant / supreme absolute-Goddess-ruler. Treat her like you would an intelligent hand-reared chimp in a suit - on one hand she's semi-integrated into sapient life, on the other hand, if you eat some birthday cake without her, she'll tear your face off.
It's in this time we also get her motive...s?... Depending on your source material, we have two completely different motives - both of which fit, since they're never brought up again.
- Going by the GN, Tiamat sees that the world has grown chaotic in her absence like an untended garden, and that there's simply too many Gods - thus a cull is in order, just to simplify deism back to what she was used to. She sits back and lets the Gods filter themselves as to who would follow her, and who would go against her (simplifying her cull). Furthermore, there's a pang of pain / self-preservational interest back from the last time she had her own divine war and got utterly BTFO'd, and so would prefer not to have a repeat of that again if possible.
- Meanwhile in the in-engine Season 8 Conquest trailer (the one with somehow more detail, mind you - and don't forget these are equally canon sources when called upon), Tiamat's motive is to bring an absolute truth back to the world - in essence to cut the bullshit with the lies / blind belief and be a bit more pro-mortal. She is the only God that can back up her actions with power, since all the other Gods struggled with Cthulhu (betraying the trust of the mortals when they needed the Gods the most), she is generally independant of Worshippower - and thus she is the only 'true' God - if the Divine Realm are ok with that, they can live, if they challenge her, they can die. It's no biggie to her.
Either ways, Tiamat is a unique entity in this universe. Nothing outclasses her. Y̷͙͉̏O̴͈̗͗̔U̴̯̅ ̷͕̂͝B̸̖̞̂̾L̷̨̰̽A̵̻̠͊D̸̺͑̄I̴͓̼̽͝ ̷̪̓̾F̵̫͗U̷͖͊͐C̶̘̕Ķ̵̫̐Ï̵͜N̵̳͈̍̈́G̸̝͐ ̷̰̃͗B̴̮̽̆A̵̜̕ͅS̷̖̊T̴̢̈̆Á̷̟͕Ṛ̵͎͑͗ ̷̯̞̓͌Ý̵͈͓Ú̸̜O̶̢̍̊ ̷̲̖͒͠B̷̭́R̵̡͍̋A̶̛̼͍H̸͕̾M̵̺̾͘A̷̡͝ ̶̰̃͘A̸͚͑̄͜N̴̳̄D̴͚̼͗̃ ̷͙̳̅̓V̶̗͐̋ͅI̵͎̕Ș̵́̈́H̴̙̤̃N̸͚͓̑Ȗ̶̦ ̸̢̽͠C̸̙̯̄͛O̷͚͝Ú̷̬͍͗L̸͎̾D̷̠̕ ̴̱̯̚S̴̮͒̽O̶̡̪̽͝Ļ̴͉͛͑Ǒ̸̻̏ ̸̱͕̇͑H̸̢̛̋ͅĔ̷͓͊R̵̬̈́ ̷̩̩̾̀Ẇ̵͚I̴̤̠͌̀T̸̺͚͒Ȟ̶̥͋ ̷̨̓Ḯ̷̼Y̵̨͓͌̑S̸̜̼͂ ̶̩͠C̶̳̈́L̴̟͂̄O̵̞͎̿̎Ṣ̶͑̽È̸͍͕͐ ̷̨̲̕Ỳ̵̘̌Ö̶̟́Ù̵̻͖̀ ̷͚̽̏F̸̧̐̔Ů̶̮̜͘C̵̛̩K̵̖͑̚I̵̗̿͝Ǹ̵̼̝G̷̱̏ ̷̗͌̇P̸̨̲̓͘E̷͔̿̕È̷̥̤̇S̶͕͚͝ ̷̭̙̀̓O̵̯̹̒́F̷͍͎͘ ̷̧̲̓S̷̞̊Ḧ̶̝̇ wh- how did you get here india? I wasn't even talking about you.... just... just shut up. You don't exist in-lore, end of story.
So to sum up - Death of the Author exists, it's up to you. Neither is particularly vital info as Tiamat's treated like a big bad regardless; the lore intern GN is 'the lore', however marketing team seems to have had more thought behind it and is more in line with the established rules of the Universe - if you want to find a throughline with both motives past Tiamat seeing herself as le almighty creator, more power to you, but then you're in headcanon territory. Both media forms / team(s?) have numerous flaws, plotholes and illogicalities to their overall media, so both could equally be incorrect - and I won't give my opinion as if to sway you to one side or another.
One thing I say now - the pre-rendered 3D cinematics? Ignore those in regards to lore here on out it seems, they basically work on their own version of events for coolness-factor over actual lore - and while it does work and makes for amazing marketing material, the same can't be said for keeping eveything in a tidy plotline.
Of the Olympus embassy at the bridge-entrance to Tiamat's Ziggurat - we've got Zeus, Hera, Sobek and Ares. Oh yeah, and Olorun, who is still Divine Kang without contention. Tiamat warmly welcomes them, successfully hiding that she's equally cautious of them.
Sobek is wary, and is only there to relay a partial thanks for saving Ra on behalf of the Egyptian pantheon. Ares is there because, while everybody else is being cautious / pussied out, Ares ain't no bitch and he's there to quietly scope the place out for weak spots, come a potential conflict. For opinions, Hera likes Tiamat's grrrrlpower huuuuuge Ziggurat, Zeus thinks it's a bit tacky and that Olympus is... like... way better bro...it's not the size that counts... fuckin bitch tiamat showing him up... (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge)
Greetings aside, Tiamat cuts to the chase and asks the question on everybody's minds - why the fuck Olorun is still lingering around and not back up in space where he belongs 'n shiet?
She points out that she's ended all the conflicts, fixed up all the Pantheons and shut down Cthulhu - he is now objectively lingering around for no reason. This is a very good question, and as w-OH MY GOD LOOK IT'S GILGAMESH & BELLONA WOWIEE LOOKS LIKE WE WON'T GET AN ANSWER TO THAT ONE, KANG OLORUN IS HERE TO STAY FOR A BIT LONGER HOW CONVENIENT FOR LO-REZ / TITANFORGE WHOOPSIEDOODLE
Bellona and Gilgamesh aggro onto Tiamat; Tiamat (expectedly, almost relievedly even) drops the 'civility' act and responds ferally in turn. Zeus giddily goes off to join them - because Zeus doesn't really care what Olorun thinks about embassies and Zeus'll just do whatever the fuck Zeus wants because Zeus is Zeus (Olorun now aware of the... 'consequences' of interrupting Zeus). Ares starts to get excited too and almost joins in on the fun, but his mother dearest is just sighing to herself and facepalming over daddy Zeus, so he decides to be a good boy and bide his time for more advantageous conditions - sitting back just to review how things go on from afar.
I genuinely think they forgot Sobek was supposed to be in this scene.
Tiamat presses the button under her desk and releases the hounds on them, Gilgamesh roars like a prize-fighter / bro-wrestler as thousands of shadow-dogs spill out of the Ziggurat at him. Bellona is equally entertained. Turns out all this time he's been scrounging around in the Babylonian Netherworld while Tiamat was in the Abyss (as such, the SMITE version events picks up from the shakily 'canon' 12th tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh) and as a final task for muh immortality, he's gotta stop Tiamat herself from rising to power again, on behalf of the Anunnaki. Bellona deals with Tiamat's Flying Ult 1 Lizards (since she's a basic attacking God anyways), and gives the heads up for Gilgamesh to run ahead at the hounds.
After a hard fought fight through the complex Gilgamesh reaches the top of the Ziggurat. Tiamat, awaiting him... immediately attacks!
Once again, this fight is split across cinematics - which is where I come in {bane voice} for (You)! Don't you love me?
*Link to the stitched Tiamat Cinematic Fight, Here *
To give you the sparknotes again; Gilgamesh starts his fight with a 1 (Fire Sword), Tiamat grounds herself, then somehow he knocks her off the Ziggurat, using her as a cushion to land.
Fall damage doesn't exist in Smite outside of enemy ability usage, Gilgamesh slashes her underbelly with his sword, following with his 3 (Leap) immediately into his 2 (Dropkick). Tiamat uses her grounded 2 to CC Gilgamesh before going for her grounded 1 (Roar), but in doing so gets close enough to get caught on the outside of Gilgamesh's Ult (in-cinematic, less based off a sand-storm, and more accurately based off a light-storm, given Shamash was the God of the Sun).
Tiamat uses her 3 offscreen to disengage and return to flying stance, Bellona and Zeus join up with Gilgamesh again, Tiamat fucks off back to the top of her Ziggurat and roars... menacingly!
~
BUT THE FIGHT AIN'T OVER YET!
We return now after a micro-timeskip, with Gilgamesh attempting to reach the top of the Ziggurat again in chase - but Tiamat's playing the smart game now. Instead of attacking him head-on before, she's just using the vegetation within the Hanging Gardens to overrun the Gods, with similar vine / thorn tendrils that Persephone used (evidently the most powerful weapon in-universe...).
Tiamat's no longer taking the bait and is back in her sapient-schizo mode (instead of feral animal), so Bellona and Zeus call for a retreat as more Poision Dragons are spew forth out of the Ziggurat, to the point of potential overrun.
Suffice to say, while Tiamat kept her spergery in check after getting Gilgamesh Ulted (that shit was broken at Gilgamesh's release) she's absolutely seething that the old Babylonian Gods / Anunnaki + Igigi are still kicking around and still trying to kill her. She's still seething so hard after a few hours from when the intruders left, that a heavy thunderstorm has unconsciously started brewing above her. This. Is. Foreshadowing. Remember this.
She doesn't want to go to war with the new Gods just yet - but the Anunnaki? The Anunnaki have signed their deathwish.
In her pure seethe, she doesn't notice Neith coming up from behind her - no longer characterized Mercury's teen crush (all the way back from the Pantheon War Arc), but instead is now some kind of ditzy shadow-mastermind - Neith being the one who told Set to wake Tiamat up in the first place. Neith's motive being, to have Tiamat help fix the broken weave within le Universe caused by Persephone / Cthulhu's fucking around, and the general disruptions from the Gods.
Neith then introduces the buddies she brought along, which include Terra, Geb, Sylvannus and Cernunnos each of which don't get a single line of dialogue and are treated more like cameos. Also Persephone's here! Persephone tells Tiamat she's got others who are drifting to her side, Tiamat thus anticipates that lines are slowly being drawn in the sand, for an ensuing conflict she'd wishes she could have avoided - but is inevitable now.
CONQUEST MAP INTERLUDE 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO LOL* - and, as I said before, the Conquest map would 'evolve' over the course of this Arc - this was the first instance of that. The... RISING STORM!!!?!!!.... update.
As a result of pissing Tiamat off, the skybox got a change from a calm morning, to heavy thunder and lightning cast over the Chaos-side Ziggurat (see above), set against an angry purple sky, which was a really nice contrasting darker palette for the map.
While there were a few minor thorny additions to the foliage of the map, to match the overgrowth-theme of Tiamat's fight, the key addition this time around was the introduction of Vine-Walls around the centre regions of the map, which acted as regrowing entities that would require one basic attack to be broken, and would 'regrow' after a short while. These were placed on the external sides of the Gold Fury and Fire Giant (making stealing the objective more difficult, as there was no line-of-sight), but also blocked off the jungle-entrances to the Mid-lane harpies, making Mid generally more secure / isolated. Aside from the destruction/regrowth mechanic, the vine walls were functionally identical to normal walls, with the exception that the Ghost Walk relic / Osiris's passive let the player move through them freely.
They didn't last though, and were removed after this round of 'evolution' :(
Back at Olympus and it's raining. Pretty. Fucking. Hard.
Fore. Shadowing.
The Norse / Chinese have finally arrived; quite displeased at the actions taken in their absence. Zeus has unilaterally decided to let Gilgamesh into Olympus (again, what's the point of keeping Olorun as Kang of Olympus at this point Lo-Rez, fucking retards), Heimdallr and the Norse want to hand Gilgamesh over as a peace tithing. Opinions are otherwise generally the same as before. Painstakingly reiterated in full.
Olorun has taken Gilgamesh to one side to scream him for starting a new divine war for no real reason, Gilgamesh is too absorbed by the ALPHA BRO grindset to give a fuck what Olorun thinks. Like Zeus, great minds think alike. Hercules and Arthur have a friendly chat at the door, but Arthur is concerned that Tiamat chose recreate Camelot for him, yet not isekai in / create anybody to live in it, for whatever reason.
Heimdallr STORMS (foreshadowing) out of the meeting toom, declaring the Norse will be siding with Tiamat, to the extent of owing her for rebuilding their Pantheon. Gilgamesh states that letting Tiamat recover after the Cthulhu reboot will only mean she'll recreate the world a second time, this time with all the Gods bar herself deleted from it; which the Roman pantheon backs him up on. The Chinese pantheon are pissed they had no say in proceedings, Zeus doesn't give a fuck and backs up his new bro regardless.
Athena and Ares find some rare common ground, and declare that they'll need to prepare for a siege (no, not the gamemode) on Olympus. If anybody wants to leave, Tiamat will probably leave any Pantheons that clear out of Olympus alone.... for now. The dice are finally cast - it's war.
It's shortly after this point in the narrative, as Olympus gears up for a not!Siege of Divine proportions, that a remaining tear from Cthulhu's rampage opens up, bringing with it an invasion of Demogorgons!!! shut up
BOOPI DOOBI DEEBI DOOBO BOOPI DOOBI DEEBI DOOBO BOOPI DOOBI DEEBI DOOBO BOOPI DOOBI DEEBI DOOBO {inhale} WAAAAAAAH PSHH WAAAH PSHH WAAAH PSHH WAAAH PSHH
As an additional note, for the duration of the Stranger Things Pass, the Arena map got a remodel - from it's Underwater iteration, into one themed after Stranger Things. Key differences being there was a huge Mindflayer overlooking the Arena and the Portals were clogged up with roots (along with fairy lights draped across the map). Again, no gameplay differences, because it was a remodel of the default Arena mode.
After the pass ended, it returned to it's default S5 Greeks vs Romans rather than the Underwater Arena map; given Cthulhu was already dealt with at this point, and the world had narratively been reset.
Elsewhere, we drop in on THE NEWEST GOD?! Morgan le Fay slinking around under a cloak of illusion; generally just casting shitstirring spells. Turns out that when Arthur / Merlin ditched what remained of INGURLAND in their isekai-reality, there was a huge power vaccuum that she seized immediately - so that's Queen Morgan le Fay to you now, peasant reader.
The takeover was....
.... peaceful.
After she assumed control of Camelot Castle (image of which below), she quickly found Merlin's basement (evidently without getting hit by the false door-trap) and blindly wandered into the SMITEverse. However - when she found herself unable to escape back to her Camelot - well, obviously it's all Merlin's fault she can't escape.
Apparently she'd found her way in some time around the Cthulhu arc, and was waiting on the sidelines of the Arthurian / Celtic defence just in case she could help - but was only mentioned in-narrative now.
tl;dr I'm going to refer to Morgana by her correct name from here on out, because the Arthurian Pantheon is English, not surrendermonkey French.
It's still *heavily* (*HEAVILY*) (AS IN, MAYBE IT'S RAINING, A WHOLE FUCKING LOT GUYS) (AS IN, FORESHADOWING) raining, but in the Gardens of Olympus, Morgana finds Arthur and Merlin at last. She stays hidden while the two of them discuss what to do with the false-Camelot that's appeared. Arthur wants to use his sway with the Celtic neighbours to reserve the land for himself and have Tiamat restore the place fully - Merlin thinks the place isn't 'the real' Camelot and that since he doesn't understand how Tiamat works, he'd rather steer clear of her.
When Morgana arrives properly / reveals herself, she's a bit less confrontational than her cinematic implies; and explains what's happened back home, before putting forth the idea that they all just appeal to Tiamat to go back home. Mind you, where she's currently the reigning Queen - but minor details, minor details. Arthur's still too shaky about the whole 'Tiamat = a Dragon' thing, Merlin is still shaky that he doesn't understand Tiamat.
Morgana asks then, how Merlin knew how to deal with Jormungandr to begin with (in the cinematic she also taunts / reminds Arthur that Merlin is Satanic demonic not this shit again), at which point Merlin aggros on her, trying to shut her up and shut it down. He freezes the rain above her (Ice Stance 2), Morgana has her sword spin above her a la a Helicopter to act as an umbrella; Merlin immediately goes for a killshot with a fire-beam (Fire Stance 1) to which Morgana flings herself back ready to take Merlin's hot load (the elegant-maiden T-Pose showing her palms; you know the one).
Arthur bodyblocks for her as she anticipted, and she smugly looks at Merlin over Arthur's shoulder.
Morgana begins to waltz out of the place, but not before Gilgamesh interrupts, and cautions her that Tiamat isn't known to be generous. Gilgamesh (poorly) tries to force what he thinks a smile looks like, before calling Arthur over for a King-to-King chat as Morgana exits into her invis again.
It kills me inside to say this... but the cinematic is barely lore-relevant.
Morgana's completely off-character, Arthur's off-character, they're all doing the wrong thing, it's a sunny day instead of a rainy night, they're in Camelot and not Olympus and they're all far to aggressive with each other.... all that's really right is Morgana taunting about Merlin....
look, at least it was great for marketing Morgana... oh man and these were so good to reference before...
sad link for posterity, but just... ignore it :(
Cut to the gardens of Olympus again, now at night, and the rain's getting even more torrential...foreeeshaaaaadoooowiiiiiing.....
Olorun is frustrated they're even having to prepare for another war to begin with, Hera makes an emasculation joke comparing Tiamat's big storm to Zeus's little storms while alone with Olorun (yeah, ok Lo-Rez / Titanforge) before discussing the preparations.
Ares and Athena are doing their thing in regards to defences, while Gilgamesh has offscreened his way into leading a relatively large pack of Gods into the anti-Tiamat camp. Olorun (the guy who lost to the tribble pibble) then declares that he could probably solo Tiamat by himself if he went for another Cthulhu kamehameha to nuke Earth (the same one that wasn't actually big as he planned when he fired it off, but he doesn't remember because Cthulhu essentially killed him before Tiamat reset everything) (sure thing, Lo-Rez / Titanforge) however 'he still feels disconnected from muh stars' so he's not quite at full strength as long as he's on Earth (sure thing, Lo-Rez / Titanforge).
Morgana emerges from her cloak of shitstirring invis, Olorun quickly copes that he could see her all along and just didn't acknowledge her presence, she sighs, cuts the shit and tells them to be cautious of Merlin and to join Tiamat - with the exact same non-backed reasoning that Merlin gave to be cautious of Morgana and not join Tiamat (deliberately the same, but flipped, just to sew discord).
Merlin catches up to her after chasing her through Olympus, (still seething at her smugness from before) and tries to kill her with a fire beam again, but noe Olorun forceably stops him from casting his magic because - despite losing capital letters due to his prolonged stay on Earth - he's still a Black God.
Morgana is once again smug, knows that she's smug and doesn't hide that she's smug. She then repeats the same Demon-Merlin schtick as she did before to King Arthur, but now to Hera / Olorun - this time adding the idea that Merlin deliberately isekai'd in the Camelotian JormunDragon-mess-of-writing-thing to create an opportunity to be a saviour and cement himself in the politics of the SMITE!!!verse, thus bring his idealistic version Camelot to fruition.
.....I don't get it either.
Apparently the Arthurian bros have also been more pushy post-Cthulhu offscreen, so after seeing the existence of not!Camelot, Hera and Olorun treat the idea with some credibility. Morgana then shoots herself in the foot, saying not to trust either Merlin or Arthur on whatever they have to say about Gilgamesh - of which Arthur and Gilgamesh were standing behind her, listening unimpressed. Gilgamesh repeats his Tiamat = selfish meanie >:( bit again. Olorun finally 'sayz hiz peece' and apparently is now against Tiamat - because to him remaking the reality in her image counts as destroying the world, which his what he wants stop, so reasons?
Morgana smugly shrugs (content that just making her point was enough) then opens a portal with her sword and fucks off for good.
I don't know why we're supposed to give so much of a fuck about what the Arthurian nonPantheon thinks while Tiamat is prepping a nu-Apocalpyse, but this took up months of lore potential, so I guess Lo-Rez/Titanforge think they're somehow powerplayers at Olympus.
Immediately we follow Morgana through the portal, straight into the upper reaches of Tiamat's Ziggurat.
While it wasn't present in the Conquest remodel, Tiamat has fully covered over all the windows with thick vines and thorns, so she doesn't have to look at the huge, bellowing thunderstorm outside - so the inside is now nearly pitch black darkness. Tiamat immediately is aware of Morgana and stalks her down; Morgana pledges herself in return for a unnamed favor. Tiamat finds this both hilarious and insulting that Morgana (a mortal) seeks to bargain (when all of Tiamat's other allies came free), but Morgana grovels a bit and gets to keep her life.
After a back and forth that Tiamat ain't afraid of no Gilgamesh (thus Arthur), Tiamat cracks open a Monster Energy, sighs contentedly and puts on some nu-age boomercore tunes declares that she's already got a contingency plan that she was just about to put into action, that she should have done a long time ago....now she's back operating at full power again......!.....
Ohhhhhh shit son!!!!!..... we're fucking cashing in on that fooooooooore-shadowing!......
THE GRAND THUNDERSTORM THAT'S BEEN BREWING FOR 4.5 MONTHS IRL IS COMING TO FRUITION! OH-OH MY FUCKING GOD, DO WE HAVE A REAL TRUE AND PROPER HOLY FUCKING SHIT MOMENT FINALLY INCOMING AGAIN?!
THE SAME TIAMAT THAT REWROTE REALITY ITSELF WITHIN A SPLIT SECOND, HAS RECOVERED ALL HER POWER, AND IS INTENDING ON DOING IT AGAIN - NOW SHE KNOWS WHO TO 'LEAVE OUT' OF HER SUBSERVIANT WORLD!
THE WAVES INSTANTLY REACH TYPHONIC (he's not in yet) BIBLICAL LEVELS, AND BEGIN TO ENCROACH INLAND! WHIRLPOOLS AND TWISTERS MANIFEST ACROSS THE SHORES OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET, AND THE STORM BEGINS TO PELT DOWN LIKE GATLING FIRE, DAMAGING ANY SEMBLENCE OF MAN-MADE (OR GOD-MADE) STRUCTURE!
FORE!
TIAMAT IS THE STORM THAT IS APPROOOOOOACHIIIIIIING, PROVOOOOOOKING DI-VINE CLOUDS IN EYE-SOL-AYY-SHOOOOOOOOON. SHE IS RECLAIMER OF HER NAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAME. BORN IN CHAOS, SHE HAD BEEN BLESSED, YET HER PANTHEON'S CREST WAS. THE. CAUSE. OF. HER. DEATH!
FOOOORSAAAAAKEEEEN, SHE WAAAAAS AWAKEEEEEEENED, BY EGYPT'S ASH IN DARK ABYYYYYYYSS. DE-SCEN-DING MISERRRRYYYYYYYYYY. NEITHRESTORING THREADS OF TIIIIIIIIIIIME. DIS-AAAAAPPEAR INTO THE NE-THER, LOST SHADOWS LEFT BEHIIIIIIIiiiiIIIIIND. OB-SE-SSION'S FUELLING HEEEEEEER.
RAGING, SHE'S COME TO TAKE WHAT'S HEEEEeeeeeEEEEERS!
HOLY.
{Pause}
FUCKING.
{Pause}
SHIT.
{Pause}
TIAMAT. IS DROWNING. THE ENTIRETY OF EARTH. AND THE DIVINE REALM. IN AN APOCALYPSE FLOOD LIKE NO OTHER. TO REMAKE REALITY. IN. HER. IMAGE.
(THE LAST ONE IN THE BABYLONIAN PANTHEON BEING THE SAME ONE THAT FEATURES IN THE BIBLE)
AS TSUNAMIS. BEGIN TO FORM. ACROSS THE WORLD.
HER DIVINE TYPHOON. STARTS TO DRAG THE SHORELINE. BEHIND OCEAN SHELVES.
AS WATERFALLS. TORRENT AND CASCADE BETWEEN. THE PILLARS OF OLYMPUS.
HER SALTWATER DOMAIN. WILL REACH. THE PEAKS OF MOUNTAINS.
SHE WILL DO. IN A BUTTERFLIES BREATH. IN A CLENCH OF HER HAND. IN LESS THAN A SECOND. WHAT IT TOOK. JORMUNDANGR AND CTHULHU. WEEKS. TO EVEN ATTEMPT.
BRINGING FORTH. AN APOCALYPSE. OF HER OWN COMMAND.
CLEANSING AND PURGING AL-
flood's over lol
Zeus, Susano-O and Ao Kuang each clenching their buttcheeks and staring really hard at the rising tides was just enough to cancel it out. It's still heavily raining and the seas are rowdy against world shorelines, just not enough to bring forth le aplopcalypso. With time, they're slowly overpowering Tiamat's flood-force. They didn't even need Poseidon / Nu Wa / Thor etc lol.
Turns out that while ridiculously powerful, without direct access to the previous commandline to the Universe (via the Abyss / Primordial Waters, whose last / only entrance left closed itself off when the temple crumbled in on itself) she's been dragged down to the shitter-level of the younger-Gods and is losing due to inexperience with power limits. She's still a step above Pantheon Heads, but it's like comparing the accuracy + power of a pistol vs a cannonball (Tiamat being immensely powerful, but unfocused). Chaac was also apparently there, but as we know, Chaac is Chaac, and thus likely contributed a sum total of essentially nothing; being the in- and out-universe ultrajobber of the game. Don't think he had much of anything to 'clench' either, given previous events too.
Also nice to see Zeus and Ao Kuang at least tolerate one another now without needing to make up - given Ao Kuang was one of the members of the previous League of Best Friends that holy fucking shit'd Zeus to begin with, and was in both accounts of Phase 1, caught red handed. Maybe Zeus didn't realise maybe it's bad writing.
~
Short timeskip - the megaflood's been ongoing for some days / weeks, but is now definitely under some definition of control. Widespread flooding, coastlines have been demolished - but it's not creeping inland any more.
Quick back and forth between Bellona and Gilgamesh, Bellona apologises for helping the League of Best Freinds (who are still missing...) and is generally a cute postergirl tomboy, setting up a Tomboy-Dudebro 'Tombro' Power-Freindship. Gilgamesh knows Tiamat will seethe so much about being blown the fuck out, that she'll try to make a full on assault on Olympus regardless of rationale - which is why they've got both Ares and Athena working together as another power-duo, prepping for a siege (again, not the gamemode). In the back of his head, Gilgamesh has been interested in why Arthur and Mulan get to be Proto-Gods / Immortal (or more importantly, why he isn't immortal like they are), and thinks to himself that it might just be easier to say sorry to Tiamat and try her route instead (since he might get backstabbed by the Anunnaki).
He shakes it off though, and reinforces to himself that Tiamat needs dealing with anyways. He reminds himself about his his dead bro Enkidu, then reaffirms his wariness when dealing with the divine in future.
Now it's clear the biblical flood ain't gonna cut it, Tiamat and her Gamer Girl Gang of Neith, Morgana & Persephone (literally) cope and hiss and seethe on the top of the Ziggurat, because their ultimate Exodia trump card just got discarded on the first turn it was played - by the equivalent of a Man-Eater Bug, no less.
Bit of meaningless girltalk about events, then Persephone tries to buy some time for other Gods to change their mind. Tiamat ain't having it however, and is one step away from charging at Olympus (alone even) and going full chimpout mode there with how completely pissed off she is.
Persephone tries a different approach in dealing with Tiamat, and 'suggests' to Tiamat to play the smart game like a sapient fucking creature and out-politic Gilgamesh, thus take down most of the problem in one fell swoop. Tiamat, out of her element and not wanting to look undignified / like a chimp-queen in front of her new gamer girl group of female friends and besties (goodness, you know how mean women can be to each other some times...), decides to play along with Persephone's plan.
So new plan: Zeus is the only one really vouching for Gilgamesh and pushing for conflict, so if they can #metoo (or kill) Zeus, they can take the wind out of most of the enemy sails.
And Persephone just happens to know of a case when Zeus did something ~very~ naughty, to a ~very~ little girl boy child that would surely #cancel him in an instant...
CONQUEST MAP INTERLUDE 3: CABIN FEVER LOL - Unlike the wet fart in-narrative (or at least 'reinforcing' how much of a wet fart it was in-narrative, given it's apparent scope) this round of evolution after the apparent flood saw Conquest's biggest layout alteration of the 'evolving map' cycle for Season 8, along with it's own dedicated trailer.
In essence, the entire map was levelled, leaving ruins and broken trees everywhere.
The vine walls and additional foliage were removed from the map scenery, and the external sides of Solo and Duo lane were olbiterated away by the apparent tidal waves that ravaged the coasts of the world. Solo lane lost almost all nearby vegetation, all the way from the outside of the lane to just before the Jungle, and the walls next to the Totem of Ku were replaced by moored, broken up greek ships. The skybox itself was changed from the thunderstorm set against a purple sky, to a stormy vortex swirling around the Ziggurat, in generally a grey / navy blue palatte.
The more notable changes however were within Duo lane, with the addition / return of the mini side-lane jungle, along with the large side-harpy camp being 'destroyed' and thus split up into two single-harpy camps.
In place of what used to be a small tomb just out from of the centre of Duo lane, there was now a small rocky area, apparently formed after the flood washed it away (and an oddly out-of-place rotting Ichythosaur corpse washed up on the Chaos-side as the seeming culprit for what collided with / destroyed the outcrop). The resultant gameplay feature of the new side-lane jungle was the addition of the Draugr boss - acting as a strategic defensive buff if killed, that reinforced all towers on the killers side of the map with a stacking structure DR buff depending on how many players were under the structure.
Oh, and while we're here - I'll throw you an optional aside, within a pacing interlude.
'Interludeception'...
On Draugrs and Great Floods - An Aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#on-draugrs-and-great-floods
Under the sea. under the sea! Everythings better, when it is wetter, take it from me! at Messina, Tiamat dives down to the ocean floor and crawls her way into the mouth of a lava tube (atype of extinct horizontal / vertical volcanic tunnels, forming miles-long caves. ...Though there aren't any lava tubes in the Strait of Messina, only just South of it on the Sicilian side, closer to Mount Etna).
We all know who lives in the Strait of Messina.
Scylla is protecting something and tells her to fuck off, unphased at the in-lore x100 size difference. Scylla's dog-heads snarl at Tiamat - Tiamat shuts them all the fuck up by superheating / crackling the water around her wings and snarling much, much louder back Scylla seems to be alive and well after being fucking slaughtered by Susano-O and reset back into existence years later; they seem to have forgotten about that.
Tiamat promises they can 'get back at Zeus' if they 'play along' with her. Grooming aside, out from the depths of the cave, comes another small child shuffling out, with a huge shackle wrapped around her leg, interested in the proposition.
It's the ugly boy cute girl stinkin' monster, Charybdis!
~
Timeski-H O L Y. F U C K I N G. S H I T. CALM DOWN, WAIT, WAIT, WHAT (?!!!)
SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS HAVE KILLED SUCH AN INCOMPREHENSIBLY HUGE AMOUNT OF MORTALS BY THEMSELVES WAIT, WHAT (?!!!), THAT IT WAS STARTING TO DIRECTLY FUCKING AFFECT THE TOTAL WORSHIPPOWER OF THE ENTIRE FUCKING DIVINE REALM (AKA THE JORMUNGANDR METHOD OF DRAGGING TO GODS TO YOU, BUT WITH MORE ACTUAL GENOCIDE). WAI-WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK (?!!!) WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM?
Looks like we did get a major fucking happening, this arc after all.
...
...
...
O_O
So... {woah, just a second, I'm still trying to take that in}
...
So. These two prepubescent brats spent the last few weeks teleporting bread mercilessly slaughtering an innumerable, incomprehensible amount of innocents (for the scope indicated, by the lore's own admission - easily tens of millions, if not more - 7, digits - XX,XXX,XXX dead by Scylla and Charybdis's personal action) along various ruined and flooded coastlines - *basically uncontested* - right under the noses of the Divine Realm, while the Gods cautiously waited to siege out Tiamat's attack.
See, the two girls girl and Charybdis 'claim' to have been trying to bait Zeus out into the open for Tiamat (and themselves) to deal with, but I mean, holy fucking shit calm down - because as of now, Danger-Duo right here easily have the shared highest killcount in the entire narrative so far as of writing - the two far more than likely that not, out-killing Ares when he was deliberately genociding cthultists. Ares was just killing off one figure's followers to piss it off - Scylla and Charybdis did the same... but for everyone.
...
I guess that's what happens when you have nuke-Ults that reset on a kill, vs things that are extremely easy to kill.
Scylla, Charybdis & the Strait of Messina aside: https://rentry.org/smgenloreasidespt2#scylla-charybdis-the-strait-of-messina
...
Oh, and to top it all off - the Gods only reacted *after* they all got hit by the hugely weakened Worshippower factor. The mortals just had to fucking deal with it.
...so yeah...
...a genocide of innocents just took place...
...
...
didn't think HiRez had it in them...
...based...
So uhhh... ye-yeah, back to... uhhhh back to, back to pro-pr-proceedings...
Gilgamesh, Poseidon, Bellona, Mercury, Mulan, King Arthur, Merlin, Yemoja and Susano-O (9v2) have all been dragged in to deal with Scylla & Charybdis's little 'rampage' / temper tantrum genocide, while the majority of the Gods otherwise are still awaiting a major siege (insert stale gamemode joke) / attack from Tiamat.
Alone, the two kids would definitely be easy enough to deal with (Susano-O should know), but with them fighting together and compounded with Tiamat's ongoing storm conditions and while they're still fucking killing mortals as the Gods arrive to deal with them can they not stop for one second?, it's divine double-trouble. They cover each others weaknesses perfectly, and play to each other's strengths - on optimal terrain, with functional hostages.
We intro with a full on naval battle, with the cleanup crew closing in on the girls girl and Charybdis in the Ionian Sea (the area between Greece and Italy; aka the boundaries being northmost at the tip of the boots heel, southmost being the line between the bottom of Sicily and southwest Greece).
Mercury's running on top of the water to catch people thrown overboard and move them to the shore; Gilgamesh, Mulan and Arthur are helping the mortals out and ordering an evac inland for a nearby mortal fishing village, Yemoja and Susano-O are controlling the storm within the localised area, while Bellona and Poseidon are on brat-containment duty.
Mercury is violently flung away to the shore by Charydis's 2 (Wave Pulse), Gilgamesh reacts just in time to see and react to Charybdis, before being dommed to the floor by her 1 (Water Shot). Yaranaika. Gilgamesh goes to attack after deflecting a throwing dagger, Poseidon uses his 1 (Tidal Wave) to separate the two and reminds Gilgamesh he's not God-tier yet, telling him to focus on evac'ing the mortals. Bellona, meanwhile, dashes up a capsized and sinking ship to go for Scylla, who's perched at the top, taking potshots at everyone with her Ult as she giggles in delight because she gets to kill innocents.
Poseidon mournfully catches Gilgamesh up with Charybdis's mythology (except implying he was the one who ordered her to try to flood the land); before using another Tidal Wave / 1 to force Bellona away from Scylla, then activating his 2 so he can speed off to deal with Scylla himself. Bellona quickly swims over wet cheerful tomboy... to Gilgamesh to complain a bit, then check on the status of the evac, before Mulan gives them a gay-ass lecture on how it's all their fault and the mortals are going to have to deal with the consequences of having fucked up fishing boats / being fucking dead etc.
Bellona just ignores her because she can't help being based, Gilgamesh feels a little bad for kicking it all off.
All this time Arthur was on the shoreline, spamming his non-combo 1 (the sword-shockwave) to break up the mega-waves and any debris before it can pose a threat to the village evacuating behind him - too busy actually saving lives to give a shit what anybody else is whining about, too busy to even care about wherever Merlin had wandered off to.
Cinematic time... and yet again...*{sigh}*
They didn't even give Scylla a model.
At least it doesn't outright conflict with the lore... it's just, kind of a cool intro, likely set around the start of the evac, when there were more mortals on the ships - before the events above. The start's kinda gay doesn't even rhyme lole and the >american_voice_actor accents are painful to listen to - but hey, it looks pretty good after that.
Watch it if you want, I've timestamped it to skip the cringey non-cinematic 'intro'.
Mini-timeskip.
Now that there's no hostages who need catching; Mercury is running across the water trying to use some magical chain to lock down Charybdis again.
Fearing for her chastisy freedom, the little tomboy loli backtracks, and is forced back-to-back to make a final stand on the waters surface with Scylla (who isn't really paying attention, and is still just enjoying herself). Turns out they weren't being 'completely' indiscriminate with their unapologetic genocide (again, quick reminder they killed so many people it forced the collective Divine Realm to pay attention them), and were focusing on Zeus-loyal mortals (and presumably any Gods who sided with him) to specifically weaken him. The two manage to knock the magic chain out of Mercury's hand, and it starts to sink down into the sea.
As for where they are then, while Zeus was widely worshipped simply as Pantheon-head around Greece and in other incarnations around the Mediterranean, few areas specifically focused on him, as he was just presumed to be important enough just not need a temple / oracle (passively worshipped at all temples). Of the places located near the coast of the Ionian Sea that actually focused on his worship; the two major ones would be Epirus, his only Oracle in Ancient Greece, located at the northermost point of the Ionian Sea at modern day south Albania / near Corfu
OR
Olympia, where the Olymp-ics were held in honor of him - along with an accompanying Acropolis / pillared temple-fort to him and Hera, located just at the centre coast of the large landmass of Peloponnesia on the southeast end of the Ionian.
I don't think Lo-Rez knew of, or intended this - but we're better than them, aren't we now, dear reader
Mercury points up at something to 'distract' Charybdis, Charydbis almost calls bluff but looks up anyways,
before Zeus bolts on in top of th- HOLY FUCKING SHIT, ZEUS BRUTALLY PELTS A LIGHTNING BOLT STRAIGHT INTO SCYLLA'S RIBCAGE BEFORE ANYBODY COULD EVEN REACT, KNOCKING HER OUT COLD. HOLY FUCKING SHIT ZEUS STARTS DRAGGING SCYLLA'S UNCONSCIOUS BODY AROUND BY THE COLLAR ATOP THE WAVES!
Charybdis is scared, tries to walk backwards away from him, and tears up. She He Charybdis tries to hide the tears welling up and stutters that Zeus was a weak coward for needing all the other Gods to tire out some little girls for him. Zeus smugly laughs straight in her face chuckles and gives her the middle finger corrects that to "a uhhh winning coward".
Charybdis copes, seethes and nearly cry-lates about this, on top of facing that she's going to have to go back to solitary confinement, on top of the fact that she's a bullied orphan that'll never be loved lol, all is well and true in the SMITEverse too it seems.
Poseidon has his trident pointing into the back of Charybdis's neck, and gloomily says she shouldn't have gone after innocents. Mercury manages to pick up the chain again, Zeus smugly points and laughs at the orphan even mo- HOLY FUCKING SHIT POSEIDON SLAMS THE POLESIDE OF HIS TRIDENT INTO ZEUS'S SIDE (BETRAYAL!), AND USES TWO MEGAWAVES TO FLING MERCURY AWAY AND DRAG DOWN ZEUS UNDER THE SURFACE. Charybdis is frozen in genuine shock, both that her deadbeat dad managed to grow some balls and then actually use said balls to stick up for her for once. Poseidon tells her they need to GTFO before Zeus recovers and fucking ...SMITE!!!'s them both. To punctuate that notion, there's a very intense lightning storm under the surface of the sea, as Zeus dials his anger up to 11 over what was supposed to be his stress relief orphan-bullying session.
Charybdis has to remind him to pick up Scylla's unconscious body lol, Poseidon pauses for far longer than he should have like the deadbeat he is lol x2 and considers ditching Scylla (his daughters only friend) anyways, despite being barely a few paces away lol x3 before he cradles the two in his arms and blasts off underwater, towards Tiamat's Ziggurat to seek sanctuary.
~
It's shortly after this point in the narrative, after the mass genocide of most of coastal Europe / Northern Africa / Middle East that Earth itself came under a new threat.... from the stars! After Merlin directed the energy of Ragnarok upwards post Holding Out for a Hera, Cybertron saw it as a beacon, and the Decepticons followed shortly after, chased by Optimus Prime!!! shut up
TRANS-FORMERS, MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE! AUTOBOTS WAGE THEIR BAT-TLE-TO-DES-TROY THE EEE-VIL FOR-CES OFTHEDECEPTICONS!
~
Off in the distance, Merlin's skulking around using the same illusion-invis-cloak Morgana previously used to simply observe the fight, not feeling like he needs to intervene and steal any of Arthur's hero-spotlight, and not really seeing how helping otherwise would be to his interest.
He proudly watches Arthur explode a projectile-boat with the partially-charged Ult projectile-thing and save more innocents (pretty badass), but is glum that 'Camelot' is now proto-Britannia (the implication that now they're time travellers, and not dimension-travellers...? the fuck..) and thus just a hollow and primitive imitation of their home. Morgana casually walks up next to him as if he wasn't even invisible (to Merlin's slightly autistic embarrassment) and explains that she told-you-so'd Tiamat that it'd end up like this, in that Scylla / Charybdis wouldn't make a B-line towards Olympus and would instead go on a mortal-slaying rampage.
Merlin calmly says her expertise is wasted on Tiamat, and she should help out at King Arthur with Olympus instead. Morgana disagrees again, and thinks Merlin isn't doing the best thing possible for King Arthur. Things nearly get heated at the King Arthur fanclub meeting, until they both explain they're both only there to try to ask Cliodhna some questions on current events, who herself has been drawn out of hiding over the recent genocide, and is now wandering / floating around the coastline of the Mediterranean, following the two little darling sea monsters who enticed her out.
Cliodhna's just got a thing for spooking the basically-dead in their final moments; no real evident reason, she's just a tormenting piece of shit. Like, she has her own spectral reality with locks on the doors for the mortals to try to protect themselves with, and this bitch just passes through the door. In the cinematic she's going after a father whose daughter died - just, no standards whatsoever.
Though, if you've been wandering the Earth as a bored ghost for milennia, can you blame her? I mean, I'd probably do the same.
Once again, God cinematic with nothing to do with the progression of the lore. Even the bit in the sky doesn't happen - Zeus never directly confronts Scylla & Charybdis in battle.
Watch it or ignore it. It's just how she's entertaining herself, not anything plot-significant.
Morgana asks why Merlin didn't chat with Cliodhna back when Cthulhu was having his little incident and Cliodhna was active then, Merlin explains that at the time he was searching for Jormungandr, resident Destroyer of Lore, so he could get chummy with Jorm as a trump card to deal with Cthulhu.
...
...
...
Morgana bursts out laughing.
Merlin embarassedly says he couldn't find Mungo anyways, s-so it didn't matter if she knew his plan or not - Morgana happily explains she did her own research on Mungo and that post-Hera-arc, Mungo sulked on over to Fafnir's mountian, kicked Fafnir out of his own house (+ implied badass dragon fight offscreen why can't they just write these things...) and has been squatting in not!Smaug-mountain ever since (Fafnir utterly S E E T H I N G - mortals rejoicing). Furthermore, for the low-low price of one cow a month, Mungo also singlehandedly fucked off all Cthultists that came their way and blessed the nearby lands with Athiesm, clearing the mortals minds of insanity - with facts and logic (I think this is also implied to be the location Baba Yaga intended on fucking off to when Cthulhu woke up).
Mid-conversation, Cliodhna shows up, hovering above the nearby waves, so they ditch the conversation for later.
Now, (apparently) the Arthurians are neither time travellers or isekai'd in, but are from a different repetition of this universe (what the fuck are they doing with the Arthurians, it's not that fucking hard to just stick to one story), of which Cliodhna and the wider Tuatha De Danann (spelt incorrectly in-lore with an extra -an / Danannan) are aware of the existence of.
Cliodhna goes on to state she understands that le natural cycle of universal loops were indeed interrupted by Jormungandr being defeated (in which the Universe subconsciously tried to self-correct the intended God-genocide with Set's revolt, escalating into Persephone leading to Cthulhu's rise and now escalating into Tiamat's awakening) but that fundamentally, the cycle of God-resets isn't broken - only delayed - like a clock that's trying to tick and building up pressure for a more violent continuation, as another metaphorical dragon will just come along and be the end of all metaphysical things (if not Tiamat, something even bigger yet again...).
Morgana is confused at what that's supposed to mean, since Tiamat has no stated intent for mindless destruction, only rulership. Cliodhna points out intent =/= results.
Merlin asks if there's any way to end the painful cycle outright; Cliodhna says that the Gods and Worshippower are like flames burning on semi-finite resources - you can't make it last forever, only temper and extend it so that the flame burns at the same rate as the fuel replenishes. Which inferrably means if 'some' of the Divine Realm wants to survive this loop (instead of Jormungandr just killing them all equally)... well a divine cull is still in order. These are da rulez - you can't get around them. They are the set-in-stone laws of this fictional narrative. No workarounds. We're gonna have some niggas dead by the end of this.
Morgana faints as she catches up to Merlins train of thought (the two almost cordially friendly again), before Merlin suggests they need to get Tiamat in on this.
Clever monkey, HiRez / Titanforge, with this whole 'cycle' thing, you've figured out how to artfully explain the previous powerscaling bullshit faggotry, while setting a path for possible future powerscaling bullshit if needed. Genuinely smart move, give whichever intern came up with that one a cookie on my behalf.
CONQUEST MAP INTERLUDE 4: CHRISTMAS SPECIAL LOL - For the final change of the living Conquest map during Season 8 aside from the usual custom SPL additions in the last patch of the season, this alteration saw the entirety of the Conquest covered in a blanket of snow, with an accompanying overcast snowstorm acting as the skybox.
Lorewise, this was said to mirror Winter / Christmas of 2021 the fact that the Divine-realm / Tiamat conflict had apparently begun to be drawn out ???, in-narrative it's barely been a few days / weeks it seems, just poor communication between the lore intern and the rest of the team - it they wanted more realistic bullshit, it'd be better to say it matches the shift in lore-setting from the warm Mediterranean to to the Polar Norse, along with the release of Cliodhna, who would haunt the aptly named 'Winter Deadwoods' of the update's namesake.
The Draugr and newly added Duo lane side-jungle remained - however the new addition for this alteration were Winter Lanterns, placed at various chokes around the map (not the Bloodborne 'oh fuck' moments, just actual stone standing-lanterns). If hit by a single basic attack, these would spill out smoke functionally identical to stationary Nu Wa invisibility clouds, offering invis to any who entered, but breaking invis if the player attacked, was revealed by a ward or if an enemy also entered the mist. Naturally, this resulted in ebin 1v5 jumpscares as entire teams would sit inside the Mid Winter Lantern on the Gold Fury side and wait for some unlukcy soul to pass by unaware. Without needing to be told to do so.
While these were a neat gameplay idea as a substitute for mid-lane Stealth Grass as seen in other MOBAs, their locations throughout the map functionally meant they were almost never used for ambushes / escapes, aside from the three around Mid (two mirrored on the outer wall of the Red Buff, in the corridor between Mid and the Gold Fury, which saw quite a bit of traffic; the other one being on the opposite side of the Pyomancer's wall, overlooking a harpy camp). The rest were either hidden in low-traffic areas of the Jungle, too close to a wall nobody would choose to path near, or right next to one of the bases (yet too far away to be used while pushing Phoenixes).
For a provisional addition though, they were generally well-recieved, and perhaps might return in more aggressive positioning within a lane itself in a later patch. (Next time they should place roaming Bloodborne Winter Lantern enemies around the map, maybe for the next Great Old One release, just to see how it plays out lole. It'd be funny to imagine that Junglers are no longer the only things that can oneshot you in the jungle)
Aside from that, the map was genuinely beuatiful and comfy to just play around on. Top-tier, easily the best and cleanest state the Conquest map has been in, to both look at and play on, especially with how the palatte naturally contrasts with the red enemy outlines and overlays, while not burning your eyes out with bright white.
Fuck, I miss this map.
Timeskip of a few weeks / months, and we intro back in onto Tiamat and Merlin sat down next to each other atop a snowy mountain, as they quietly watch a small Norse village do it's thing before them.
I meantioned a while before, but no, this isn't set in Assault - this is Fafnir's Mountain, which featured in it's own map for his dedicated Adventure mode, years ago (as in, before the Lore event got going). While easy to pass off as a reach, the description aligns perfectly, the setting is clearly more polar / mountainous than Assault and overall it does feel like it was intended to be set here.
Ignore the Christmas wreath and Xing Tian under a beach umbrella... that.... uhhhhhh.... w-was the..... uhhh.. the... th-the Adventure event.
Tiamat asks what Merlin's deal is, casually looking for any reason whatsoever to kill him. Merlin responds he's just as trustworthy as Morgana and that if Jormungandr gives them some answers on le cycles, they might be able to get a peace treaty out of Olorun and the wider Divine Realm - so instead of subverting Zeus and thus Gilgamesh thus the Anunnaki, just going over their heads entirely. Merlin isn't particularly self-serving, just self-interested - he's got his reasons for doing things, but prefers it when everyone benefits on top of himself. In this case, he only wishes to fix what his actions have unknowingly interfered with, in hopes that it doesn't impact his own plans in the future. Tiamat pokes him like a Rothschild pokes a President or a member of a Royal Family and reminds him they're not frens (yet); unlike Poseidon (who she became quite fond of, stemming from recent events).
Tiamat seems to find it quite darkly funny how Merlin is able to get away with saying 'kill-me-where-I-stand' words (and that's the nature of their relationship), and then asks where the fuck Mungo's supposed to be.
Nice little bit I thought to lift from the source, for you;
>Merlin rubbed his chest.
>“Yes, well, one should know better than to trust the wisdom of monsters.” He hesitated. “Present company excluded, obviously.”
>“Obviously,” Tiamat said, in an amused growl.
As if on que, Mungo shakes off all the snow on the mountain (which he's fully coiled around), and raises his head, announcing he was there all along. Props to LoRez/Titanforge at the very least for not making Mungo just a villain of the week, now lets see how they further convolute the universe and shoot themselves in the foot / fuck up the lore.
Tiamat and Mungo get into a pissing contest (proverbially - I have to say this because I know one of you degenerates got no downpayment at Big Bill Hell's) over which of the two is bigger / more dangerous / did more for the Universe; Mungo blowing Tiamat off as he had to deal with tending to Earth / the Universe for hundreds of millennia while she slept doing nothing, Tiamat reminding him who actually made him to begin with (now going down the Mungo = Universal Mechanism line of logic, no longer imported in by Merlin).
Both are genuinely about to fucking kill each other (Mungo uses his laugh emote, then his his 2 / Bellow-Roar; Tiamat uses her Ground 1 / Roar before charing her Aerial 1 / wings) - but to the readers disappointment... while Merlin is also tempted to watch a badass dragon fight at Mt. not!Smaug (and see what happens next if Tiamat is by-chance taken out by Mungo); Merlin sees Cliodhna getting ready for some spooking nearby and doesn't want to risk another genocide event - so he breaks it up and apologises for getting in Mungo's way.
Merlin then asks what they need to do to fix le cycle for this loop.
Mungo sighs, and explains to Merlin that this cycle isn't the first one that skipped a beat and defeated Jormungandr for good - but in the few times he would occasionally fail and couldn't manage to recover in time, the remaining Gods would end up getting into a conflict with each other, doing some shit they didn't understand and then tearing open a hole in reality / to the outer reaches of Chaos, outside of the known Universe - at which point something aka a Great Old One would slip on in and somehow genocide all the Gods in Mungo's place anyways, on top of nearly all the mortals. ie - The Third Outcome. While cruel, Jormungandr was doing the Gods (and more importantly to Mungo, the mortals affected) a favor by initiating divine culls before this happened; preventing the Divine Realm from even getting to the point they could accidentally let a new Great Old One in.
Those few times he ever was totally defeated by the Gods of that loop and the Third Outcome occurred, Mungo would flee & lay low under the Earth's surface (like he did previously); then he'd begin dealing with whatever Eldritch being was left over each time - hiding out of reach under the crust each time, resting up and repeating any fight in this method until he eventually won against the the Eldritch Being and sealed it away (yes - at one point Jormungandr and Cthulhu had a badass fight offscreen in a very early loop, which led to Mungo not only defeating Cthulhu, but seeing to it that Cthulhu was completely and near-eternally imprisoned in sleep - despite being a snake with no hands).
My internal screams as the lore once again sticks it's head up it's ass in what would have been another potentially amazing writing opportunity for a written fight wasted, aside (also don't forget Mungo is still apparently just the Arthurian Dragon, and was happy to attack mortal settlements in the Arthurian reality / timeline / loop + job to King Arthur in his default forme); Mungo chuckles to himself, proud of his life's work, and goes on that there is still far more powerful Great Old Ones he's had to deal with beforehand than just Cthulhu, all lurking around in the reaches of the unknown (foreshadowing...) beyond the boundaries of reality / within outer Chaos. Cthulhu was just the equivalent of an outreach guy / door salesman that Mungo stuffed under the floorboards and tried to forget about, until he figured out how to get rid of it properly.
At which point Tiamat and Merlin cut to the chase, to ask how best to do 'what they need to do' in Mungo's place...
There's a few walls of text I could sum up here - but you know what, it's completely fucking irrelevant, fucks the pacing and is a complete waste of ~1-2 months of lore. tl;dr Gilgamesh and some Gods walks in on the Ziggurat, Neith ain't telling them shit, Morgana switches sides then they all decide to head to Mt. Fafnir to mediate peace talks.
This is irrelevant because they'll miss Tiamat and Merlin by a scope of days anyways, Mungo shouldn't tell them where he sent them as it runs against his interests (as this group plan to see that the cycle remains disrupted) and what happens next completely invalidates it all regardless.
12k characters in under 500. Thank me later.
Merlin and Tiamat arrive at a divine-only VIP area of a certain titular mountain range in Northwest Africa (Merlin, now a dragonrider), under a cool looking meteor shower, to find the titanic Atlas doing his thing - holding up the Cosmic Astrolabe, generally keeping outer space bound together in relation to the Earth.
They did ask Mungo to tag along, but he was too depressed to bother trying to help reset the cycle (since on the scope of his personal timescale, he'd only just recently taken the L from Arthur and co.), so it's just these two uneasy 'allies' again.
Cinematic - nothing lore-related here BUUUUT, you could infer this act is him taking on a new burden each cycle, as he's apparently been a constant entity that Jormungandr doesn't really fuck with.
Atlas is completely motionless, but strains some responses as Tiamat asks him some questions atop the closest mountain. Atlas assumes Zeus had been deposed by Poseidon / Hades / Typhon for them to be here (in this cycle? it's unclear what he's getting at, if the Gods are the same each cycle or not), and goes on that he otherwise doesn't really care what goes on around him, as he's too busy focusing on holding the cosmos aloft (only noticing minor blips in how heavy it is whenever Jormungandr kicks off the usual Divine Genocides, and that the one he's expecting 'round about now is stalling again). Slightly major plot issue - it's implied Zeus still punished him with carrying the Astrolabe....but also that Atlas is a being from cycles beyond Zeus's.... look, just sigh and carry on like I did....
Tiamat tells him to drop it then, and let the cycle fix itself; at which point Atlas gloomily explains it's suicide / mutually assured destruction for himself, as the world would just reset to the chaotic Primordial Sea, and reverting everything else with it.
Tiamat nods along, because that's exactly the plan now - instead of appealing to Olorun and the other Gods, why not just start out from 0 again, back when she had complete unrestricted admin access to the commandline of the Universe, especially now that she's experienced in coding with it? She can't get back in via her previous collapsed temple, so this is the only way for her to get back in the coding seat. Merlin senses Cliodhna is nearby awaiting a new genocide, and then accepts his fate and nods along with Tiamat, in encouragement of Atlas ending the Universe itself.
Atlas hasn't got anything else better to do, so nonchalently puts down his astrolabe (no capital letters holy-fucking-shit this time, it's deliberately intended to be underwhelming), and immediately reality begins to slowly tear and rend itself apart... just, slowly.
Tiamat asks what the fuck just happened, why the Universe didn't end there and then and why the writing is allowing this why "things that aren't her" are still alive, Atlas shugged and says along the lines of everything in this reality is fucked now, permanently. NOBODY is picking that Astrolabe back up, and even if they did, the damage is done.
Tiamat and Merlin look at each other in bewilderment as he wanders off, scratching his ass (probably towards his Golden Orchard / Daughters). Atlas bellows out from above the clouds that the concept of time itself is already fucked beyond repair hold onto this thought; and that in a few minutes space, then the sky / atmosphere, then the Earth will break up. You've just gotta let it run through the motions and do it's own thing before everything returns to the factory settings of the Primordial Sea and Chaos everywhere.
He calls out that he's going to get some stretching and general R&R done until his next burden arrives come the next Universal Loop, and since he's got some free time to himself while the Apocalypse occurs. Maybe grab some snacks too.
Tiamat and Merlin shrug in bewilderment and sit down next to each other, as they quietly watch the Apocalypse unfold before them at dusk, Cliodhna furiously masturbating nearby over the deaths of billions to trillions of lifeforms (or more). It's distracting, but the scenery is cooler, so it's easy to ignore. Meteor showers begin to scar the sky, the stars collapse inward to Earth before fading out; and slowly all light fades away to nothing.
In the final darkness, all that's left is Merlin and Tiamat, until Merlin bids his final goodbye and the two end on good terms - leaving things to Tiamat. Merlin feels himself absorbed by the silent, abyssal darkness - and so all that's left is Tiamat, once again.
Tiamat cracks her knuckles, and gets to business - time to make Utopia.
And with that - this Universe. This loop. Has ended.
Fin~
That's it.
Tiamat. Wins.
The 'villain', actually wins.
The cycle of rebirth is restored, and Tiamat will remake reality again in her image from the beginning, without contention, perhaps with facets set aside those who allied with her. A full year of setup, with a pristine and logical; yet still somewhat surprising conclusion.
Merlin / Morgana might get Camelot back, Poseidon might live in a seaside cottage with his two daughterfu's of Scylla and Charybdis as a big happy family, Persephone might oversee the dead with a hotter and hunkier CHades in an equalist and sympathetic approach, Geb might be reunited with Nut, Neith / Terra / Cernunnos / Sylvannus... might do their... uhh 'thing', Atlas might get to live the rest of his days a free man and Jormungandr might even open up a small church of athiesm in the USA to keep an eye on them darn remaining rascal Gods.
Everything turned out better than expected.
~
~
~
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
why did you have to look at the scroll bar....
.
readerbro.... please.... I'm trying to give you a peaceful way out...
a satisfying conclusion...
.
you trust me, right?....
don't do this to yourself.....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
please...
please..........
I'm running out of linebreaks to stall you with here.....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
eugh....
Well....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Yeah, having an abrupt ending where the semi-nuanced 'villain' 'wins' would be too interesting now, wouldn't it.
.
And a false-reality artificial Universe created by Tiamat, where the remaining Gods have to remember who was lost along the way, as a perfect way to introduce new Gods going forward, after over a year of narrative setup with a strong, consolidated and nuanced main antagonist?
.
Yeah, that would require writing skill. Or well, not shooting yourself in the foot. Or, well, not doing the LoRez special.
.
.
.
You'd think 'time being broken' the moment Atlas dropped his weight means that it's not really ticking that much. But... *{sigh}* alas...
We do have a fun scene however, where Olympus implodes and Olorun gets anally vored away into nothing because the lights in space went out before reality proper blew up. Oh, and of course Hera rushes to his side as everything breaks apart, instead of looking for Zeus. Because mature and mythologically respectful characterization.
.
.
.
Keep that last sentence in mind.
.
.
.
.
.
.
'mature and mythologically respectful characterization'
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
{sigh}
Lets just leave things here, you don't want to read the ne- wait, wh- wha'ts going o.
*{̸̩̈S̴̜͘ọ̴̿ü̴̪n̸͕͝d̵̫̈ ̷̱̅o̴̫͐f̷̩͊ ̶̙́c̶͉͠r̴̛̞a̸̼̐c̶̤͊k̸̬̆l̴̘̅į̶̍n̸̢̅g̸͇̓ ̴̧̈́s̶̥̀t̸̜̂a̸̘̔t̸̠͝i̸̝̎c̶̘͗}̸͔͑*
.
.
.
.
.
*{̸̩̈S̶̈́ͅt̴̚ͅa̷͍͗ṫ̴̙i̷̦̚c̵̪̉}̸̶͉̘́͗}̸͔͑*
.
.
.
.
*{̸̩̈S̵̹̃t̷̞̃̈a̴͎̮̔t̸̜́̕ȉ̷̪͌c̷̘̒̅}̸̶̘̘̀͗̕}̸͔͑*
.
.
.
*{̸̩̈i̵s̸ ̶r̴e̷a̵d̷e̷r̸ ̴c̴a̸n̶ ̸h̶ea̷r̴ ̶t̴his?̷̶̘͗}̸͔͑*
*{t̸hey̵ ̴c̴an hear?̴ ̷yes ye̵s,̶ ̵v̷ery good very good}*
{Ahem}
BLOODY BASTARD YOU HOW DARE YOU IMLY TIAMATI COULD VERY MUCH DEFEAT THE UNIVERSE THAT IS RONG SIRS WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ARE CALLS AND NOT DO THE NEEDFULL ALREAD......
NO. NO. WE HAVE HAD MOST ENOUGH.
RANJESH? {muffled 'Y̸e̵s̵ ̸s̶i̷r̸s̸?'} RANJESH IT IS 2022, WE HAVE BEEN SUPERPOWER FOR 2 FACKING YEARS AND IT IS TIME TO DO A SUPERPOWER. RANJESH DO THE NEEDFUL AND FIRE UP THE HYDROSHITLECTRIC GANGES LASER... AND AIM IT AT LORES!!! {muffled 'V̸e̵r̸y̷ ̴m̷u̴c̵h̵ ̷i̷n̸d̶e̵e̵d̶'} YOU WILL ALL RUE THE DAY YOU LAUGH AT THE HINDU, WE WILLL FACK YUOR SHIDT UP!!!
Yes, all those SCREAMING pajeets outside of the lore has reached an absolute crochendo; and just like how Ares sat out a few arcs to bide up his influence on the narrative, the pajeets have bided their time for the entire fucking lore so far. FROM OUT OF NOWHERE (no foreshadowing, no build up, not even as much as a prior mention), these fuckers are taking over and derailing the lore to fit their interests.
And we're just in it for the ride now.
Oh, and this cinematic here? ? *Literally* nothing canon about it. Conflicts with everything put forward. May as well be fanfic. Ignore it entirely. I'm not even going to format this like the other cinematic mininterludes, in the genuine hope you skip over it for a better lore experience.
So, Ganesha, God of cockblocks Obstructions, hobble-runs though a large flower field like he just shat himself fitting, to do what all Gods of Obstruction do best - summon an obstruction.
If an elephant could dab, Ganesha has just done that to the entire narrative - with both pairs of arms.
Whatever Ganesha did, I'm sure LoRez's 'cultural advisor' isn't going to give half a flying fuck about the lore, and feed the lore intern with bullshit that MUST HAPPEN VERY MUCH which contradicts the logic of this Universe for an overpowered last-minute deus-ex-machina. In a poetic irony, the flowers Ganesha is running through are Spotted Snapweeds, an Indian flower whose latin name is Impatiens Balsamina. 'Impatient', just like the 'end' we're about to get and the setup beforehand.
:T
Back at the end of reality, Atlas is reclining against a mountain, quite happy with himself jumbo-bucket of Golden-Apple popcorn and everything.
Merlin breaks the ice at the Apocalypse, and asks what happens next, Atlas informs them that the reaches of the Universe are collapsing in like a tsunami, and.... well.. it's not strictly the strongest that survives - just the last one standing that gets to remake reality in their image - and with infinite time to see to it. Apparently, he just knows this. Don't ask, because I don't know either.
Tiamat and Merlin both realise exactly what this means, look at each other with a shit-eating-grin - immediately backstabbing and turning on each other for some... reason.
Nothing to lose, eh?
At this point also Morgana, King Arthur, Gilgamesh, Mulan, Persephone and Bellona all unironically step through a plot-convenience portal to 'crash the party'. You'd think Jorm would never let anybody interfere, so this group of nobodys wouldn't know where Tiamat / Merlin are, and yet here they are. And you know what? They unironically do fuck all in the scene except lecture and pander that everyone should get along (they don't even know about last-one-standing rule, they're just a fucking interruption). Complete waste of time and with way too many characters; they shouldn't be here both from a time-is-broken standpoint and from a metanarrative standpoint.
Hell, Bellona has absolutely nothing to do with the scene, it's obvious she's been forced in as postergirl especially when she's already been established to not give a fuck about the Apocalypse, and just only wants to have fun in war (see Hera).
How do plot conveience portals work to the extent of moving 6 people around, when everything is breaking?
Mulan too? What's she got to do with this arc?
We can ignore them, they're unironically irrelevant to what happens anyways.
Tiamat semi-nervously tells Merlin to fuck off, seriously, fuck off, of all times not now - unsure if she will be able to recreate things ideally for everyone if he, by some tiny chance, manages to actually injure her. There's timing, and then there's petty power grabs when the fabric of reality is on the line. She doesn't trust he can remake reality anywhere near as capably as she can, and if he fucks it up, Merlin has essentially just guaranteed a needless genocide-apocalpyse. As is, he's already becoming a dangerously irresponsible distraction, which could lead to major fuckups when she remakes things.
Merlin... doesn't care about the health of the Universe for some reason any more, and switches to pure-self-serving greed despite his previous morality and motivation to fix what he broke. If he wins, he wins, if he dies, he's already dead. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, nuthin personnell kiddo.
Reality itself is dissoluting, to the point everything's beginnning to look like a watercolor canvas as particles fade apart.
Tiamat punctuates this by grabbing a handful of rock and running it through her claws like it's wet sand, and reminds Merlin that he's being a real fucking piece of shit right now. Atlas chuckles, Tiamat growls at him not to start with his own powergrab either don't ask why he doesn't, despite the rules he's set out and his ridiculous size + strength advantage, because I don't know either - very pissed off - but Atlas is just enjoying the show. At which point Atlas chomps down on his Golden-Apple popcorn, and points at the big, loud don't ask, because I don't know how she didn't 'hear' it either thing that's been going on behind Tiamat all this time, that Tiamat didn't notice because Merlin was playing games.
Tiamat's head darts around, and sees that Shiva (who's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing) has already started destroying and re-creating the UnivefffffFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKK
It seems Shiva basically / somehow got into the Primordial Sea commandline before Tiamat could (fuck knows how - since they got Atlas to drop the Astrolabe so Tiamat could reach it after the Universe collapses in on itself, and there's no other way to reach it), and with every step of his jive, a new middle finger points at Tiamat's face. And Tiamat *is not* having it.
After the atmosphere is destroyed (and thus any ability to make sound), all the other Gods bar Tiamat begin to also be deconstructed at the atomic level. Cliodhna begins screaming like an aroused cheerleader in joy / worship of the mega-genocide (the only thing left audiable over Shiva's beat), as the deaths of millions / billions of mortals occur across the world. The Primordial Sea has now completely deluged the reaches of space, and is now beginning to wash over Earth.
Even Tiamat, albeit after everyone else, begins to slowly dissolute - since right now, Shiva's at the commandline, not her. And she's gotta die if he's to remake things in his image. Tiamat begins to break down, both physically and... mentally.
...
...
...
It's over bros...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But not for Tiamat.
HOLY. FUCKING. SHIT.
TIAMAT FINALLY SNAPS.
TIAMAT CHIMPS OUT.
TIAMAT IS TOO ANGRY TO DIE.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT - HER PURE, UNADULTERATED, ANIMALISTIC, SEETHING RAGE AND HATRED AT HAVING HER PLAN DISRUPTED YET AGAIN IS SINGLEHANDEDLY BINDING HER TOGETHER AT THE SUB-ATOMIC LEVEL AS SHE CHARGES FOR SHIVA, TRYING TO KILL THE BASTARD PAJEET FOR GETTING IN HER WAY. HER LIVID ROARING ITSELF IS TRANSCENDING SPACETIME, AND IS THE ONLY THING HEARD OVER THE LOUD, STEADY BEAT OF SHIVA'S JIVE AND THE SCREAM OF CLIODHNA'S ULTRAGENOCIDE-WAIL.
TIAMAT IS A LITERAL ONE-GOD PANTHEON, IGNORANT OF EVERYTHING AROUND IT, DETERMINED TO REMAKE THE UNIVERSE IN HER IMAGE. SHE CHARGES SHIVA DOWN AS FAST AS THE BOUNDARY OF REALITY ITSELF IS COLLAPSING IN ON THEM.
Shiva doesn't even notice her, because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing. the out-of-lore pajeet's rage.... finally sated....for now.
With nothing else to lose (most being dead), and reality itself being over for everything bar Tiamat and Shiva, the entire Divine Realm ethereally manifest behind Tiamat in their helpless fight against the true Apocalypse, and offer their belief in a continued future to Tiamat (essentially Worshippower coming from the Gods themselves, all directed towards their belief in the concept of surviving the Apocalypse, and thus redirected to Tiamat's defiance). All their actions, united at the end of the Apocalypse in an ethereal / spiritual mass, under the rallying cry of Tiamat against Shiva.
Initially Tiamat is too distracted in her unbridled fury to even notice what's being offered, but looks back for a second after hearing their cry of help. After some apprehension (having been backstabbed so many times), she reluctantly allows them to work with her.
She is no longer a One-God-Pantheon, but a One-God-Divine-Realm. She currently represents... everything.
All that's left is getting apocalypse tech support, sat in her coding seat Shiva's attention; and so with a singular empowered roar, Tiamat (and the entire Divine Realm) screams at him to FUCK OFF already - finally getting a noise over the racket from Shiva / Cliodhna's party.
Tiamat is now dragging her quickly obliterating, colossal form forward, held together by her raw determination and the combined vestiges of all of divinity. She finally claws her way to melee distance to Shiva - now a final showdown between the two beings in the last seconds of the Universe. Tiamat musters what's left of her strength, and goes to snap at Shiva, to kill him in one crunch of her jaws.
But.... fails and is finally obliterated before she can deliver the attack, fading away into the particles that surround Shiva. Tiamat is the last thing to be obliterated, washed away along with reality.
Finally, everything is obliterated, at the atomic-level. The Primordial Sea has washed in, and all is in Chaos all surrounding Shiva. The combined strength of literally every single God in the SMITEverse wasn't enough to overcome Shiva at the commandline - who was introduced no less than a few paragraphs ago.
And with that - this Universe has ended.
Fin~
That's it.
Shiva wins.
Shiva actually fucking beat the entire narrative, no less than a few paragraphs after he was as much as mentioned for the first time.
Fuck worshippower btw lol, Shiva gets to do this because he's Shiva and because the pajeets would probably bomb Lorez studios if he couldn't. Or at least start another lawsuit.
And just think - this was all because Shiva had to be the one to win, because whining. Tiamat can't just destroy everything and chat with him in the post-Universe before she recreates things, to have everything flow better. Shiva had to be the one to win. Shiva had to be perfect. Because fuck you reader, Shiva does this in Hindu religion, so Shiva must do it in-lore.
I kid you not, current year LoRez got in a 'lore advisor' for Shiva for 'mature and mythologically respectful characterization', and it's clear all they've done is hire a shaivist who told LoRez to make Shiva the most overpowered, least fallible concept possible in truly blind dogmatic form. Even in-game, he released completely fucking bustedly OP, with a hugely bloated kit.
While it probably sounded good in their heads, all it did was lay bare blatent favoritism and open up a path of validation for other practicing religions to whine why their Gods aren't perfect and infallible. I wonder where their loyalty will lie when the Chinese start asking where the Yellow Emperor would match up gainst the Hindus - given the two cultures are nearly in an open, hot conflict with each other, and the Hindu Trinity vs Yellow Emperor is a literal metaphor for the racial origins of the two peoples. At least by having the Babylonians / Lovecraftians as the in-Universe top dogs because of age, they're non-practiced (one being dead and actively desecrated in Muzzieland + generally disliked anyways by the Abrahamics, the other being fiction-based) and thus ran no risk of indicating favoritism.
But anyways...
The cycle of rebirth is restored, and Shiva will remake reality again in his ideal image, from the beginning, without contention, all word-for-word according to Hindu scripture.
Everything turned out better than expected... for the pajeets. Not really as well for any of the other Pantheons. Either ways, lore's over lads, go become hindu irl or some shit if you want a continuation.
~
~
~
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
...
Well.
.
.
.
Yeah, I did the same thing twice, whaddaya gonna do - how else am I gonna put across the narrative blue balls that the lore was at this point. Don't forget, these loredrops are over the course of months. Frustrating doesn't quite cut it.
So yeah, continuing on...
What everyone didn't realise, was that this was actually all according to keikakku [TL: keikakku means plan] for Shiva (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing).
With their combined seethe at Shiva's innate superiority (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing), all the Gods were finally forced to be united in creation against destruction - Shiva's entire schtick. Now that the Universe is completely destroyed and it's only him left, Shiva silently smirks mid-dance (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing), switches his stance on his passive and decides to let their souls / memories all continue into the next Universal cycle (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing).
For everybody who gets to skip the queue into the next Universe, it feels like a moment of tranquility after taking in the perfect and cool and infallible and amazing image of Shiva, at which point they all have a moment of deep introspection after taking in the perfect and cool and infallible and amazing image of Shiva (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing). Then they forget everything.
And just like that, *poof*, all the Gods are happy doing their own thing again in a new Universal cycle. Mega-arc over. For a quick rundown of where everybody is in Universal Cycle ???.5 (in in-game filter order);
- Bellona and Discordia are running though an unnamed temple,
playing tagtrying to kill each other. - Odin and Ratatoskr are having a friendly chat in Valhalla.
- Mulan's getting a powerup training arc sparring with Sun Wukong, Guan keeping an eye on those crazy kids.
- Shiva is, well, here, at the Atlas mountains still, still being perfect and cool and infallible and amazing. Meanwhile Ganesha's still meditating at the shrine to Shiva (because Shiva is just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing).
- Zeus and Hera are once again Rulers of Olympus
about time, while Hades and Persephone are in Hades finally having some lovey-dovey-sweetheart-couple-time together in their throne roomnot sex, you pervert, doing their jobs and sorting the dead again. - Horus and Set are once again having a spat along the banks of the River Nile.
- Literally fucking nothing is going on at the Maya's place
new god never lmfao, but Camazotz is silently watching an intruder enter into the watery caves of the Xibalba. - Tsukuyomi and Susano-O are having a spat, meanwhile Kuzenbo's getting
attacked bya surprise visit from Charybdisshe killed so many, and got away with it all... - Cliodhna's wails died down for a while (pun intended).
- Baba's hosting Morgana for a tea party, as they have some girltalk over magic.
- Baron's sat in his graveyard... d-doing his thing, as you do
new god never lmfao - Olorun is going down to Xibalba pay the Xibalba a visit
Cerberus 2.0 incoming, CAM ON CAMAZOTZ, SKOR SAM FAKIN GOLES - Arthur and Merlin are at a 'Circular Table'
durrr what could that be....., waiting on 'somebody'. - Gilgamesh and Tiamat are having a chat in her (now-completed) Mega-Ziggurat. Tiamat has lost all motive to rewrite reality in her image because she looked at Shiva (because he's just so perfect and cool and infallible and amazing) and her arc is done because they said so. The previous Ziggurat got abandoned
JUST IN TIME FOR THE S9 MAP!!!I'll cover that next part when it's evolution is done.
The. End. Don't question any of it.
not!Post-credits time and it's just monologuing between Shiva and Atlas.
tl;dr Apparently all this time, the issue was that the Gods were wrong because they were working to their own end to 'fix things' as they thought things were broken, and this was wrong because reasons.
Shiva fixing everything by the way he sees things is fine because reasons, because he is correct and morally justified because reasons. Shiva is somehow more powerful than the Worshippower-independant Tiamat and Cthulhu (the Primordial and the Outer-Being pre-Primordial) despite him or his Pantheon never being as much as alluded to, because reasons. Shiva being more powerful than literally the entire Divine Realm's collective and combined Worshippower is just because reasons. Shiva reaching the commandline / Abyssal Waters before everyone else is never explained, but he got there because reasons. The part where things were actually broken on a 'Da Rulez' level (you know, limited Worshippower, increasing amount of Gods) doesn't matter because reasons, but they've got a full new tank of fuel now because reasons. Everyone is somehow on the same line to not destroy the Universe because reasons, and this means they'll work together to keep le balance because reasons (Loki won't want to undermine Shiva's assumed superiority, The Morrigan won't weave another grand conflict, Fenrir / Hel / Jormungandr don't want to kill everything, Apophis / Cthulhu / other potential future Apocalypse deities are ???) - because reasons.
Everybody loves Raymond Shiva because reasons.
Kali didn't show up to the Hindu Apocalypse because reasons. No more major wars (because reasons), but there will still be minor conflicts because apparently they're inevitable (because reasons), which won't get too big (......because reasons). Apparently there's going to be new threats that weren't around before because reasons the game is still getting updates, and new Gods are pretty obviously inevitable, but they won't be *too* bad or Universe-threatening because reasons. When another Great Old One inevitably shows up as the game gets updates (despite Cthulhu being a scrub in their internal scope of power-levels), it somehow won't be enough to challenge Shiva's statement here on things never bubbling up to Apocalypse-tier events again because - you guessed it - reasons.
Because reasons.
tl;tl;dr they're giving up because they're fucking retards who in true lorez fashion, can leave no opportunity squandered. Because they didn't capitalise on the lore appropriately, they're just going to keep it smaller-scale. Apparently they're 'giving up' because the lore was a mess - except it wasn't at all - the writing and centralization / coordination was (hence this doc existing), which is still going to be presently 'a mess' going forward. The writing and narrative itself was.. admittedly at least coherant enough to hold your attention.
Well, at least they'll give up until they look at the lore of other MOBAs and remember the fukkin ca$h money they could be making and decide to retcon this and kick off another apocalypse. The Hindu's won't be able to pay attention forever, their internet connection is limited as is, just give it time and Shiva's statement here will mean jack shit.
It's also said;
>"The fate of this world does not rest in the hand of a single god"
So, grammar error on 'God' aside, and ignoring the blatent hypocrisy of Shiva deciding everything's fates, way to go piss off the monotheists LoRez, I can see your fedoratipping from here. Not exactly subtle or nuanced - but if you needed any a more clear statement on that one, they're never getting in.
We end this lore saga with a conversation between Atlas and Shiva - both of which retaining memories of the last Universal cycle, and discussing how things might play out in this loop. It's not explained why Atlas gets to keep his memories, while everyone else has to be amnesia'd. Atlas still has to hold up his weight, but isn't too fussed about it. Atlas and Shiva both also metaphorically declare the lore is apprently moving to shorter, more contained mini-stories agree that, even if the Gods fight, it should no longer get to a boiling point, now that everyone's apparently making sure it doesn't reach boiling point again.
Yeah, sure, there's just as many metaphorical flames as before eating away at the fabric of reality until they're culled down, but hey, we're all fully fuelled up on Worshippower-resource to burn through for a while, and nobody is really arguing in any major way right now, so no more Apocalypses because reasons.
Well at least... no more Apocalypses any time soon.
>Shiva looked up at the Titan and smiled. “Whatever comes next will be interesting, if nothing else.”
'Fin~'
That's it. For real this time. Lore's over 'for now'. Not over as in 'complete', just over as in 'its not been written yet'.
Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed uhhh... 'Lorefagging', I guess.
Check out the Asides / Gallery now if you're interested, the effort's been put in for them. Why, what a great segue into one of them right now to put a bow on things!
The Final Aside (until Part 3) - The Critic's Review~: https://rentry.co/smgenloreReview
[Phase 3 / Phase 2 Part 3 Link will go here~] [WIP]
Link back to Portal Doc. https://rentry.org/smgenloredoc
~
~
~
Ahhh. All the Pantheons are accounted for.
Hey, maybe they'll start those pool parties everybody liked again.
>implying current year LoRez would allow for a bikini event, inshallah, cover those whores up.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Well...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
All the Pantheons, except two one...
fuck off polynesians, you're getting Maui in a short bit
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Something got in.
And unlike Cthulhu, it's not making itself known.