Introductory Notes
Foreword (Skippable)
Within these summary docs, I've shortened over a decade of Lore to less than 1/10th of it's 'actual' length - both to trim the fat and to speed up your reading experience, while adding various optional mythological and historical tidbits you may find interesting. The result of this should be that if you are to get into lore discussion - this is both the highest quality and most time-efficient way of doing so, while missing minimal detail as reasonable, and optionally learning more 'actual' stuff related to mythology if it interests you.
Yes, that is right; the aim of this loredoc is to be an objectively better read about the lore, than the lore itself. A tall task, but one I've endeavored to do for you nonetheless.
Throughout I've also added additional items of note, not present within the raw lore itself, to further make this an objectively superior reading experience than the conventional method - namely notes in reference to non-written aspects of the lore to compound the whole narrative (such as when cinematics, maps or Voice Lines were based on lore - which often times were key in the storytelling for a given arc) and commentary when I feel it's appropriate (generally in italics and in brackets, so you can tell it's me, such as right now). This is done partially to connect the dots in regards to offscreen implications, partially for some characterization / indirect character motivations you'd otherwise miss by reading a summary (very little is actually relevant to the lore), partially to explain that I am aware of various plotholes / point out spelling errors when they happened, partially to explain some references here and there.... and finally partially in some places just as general personal commentary because if I have to spend collective weeks looking into the annals of history of SMITE lore that barely anybody bothered archiving, then typing this thing out for you, and write it out super duper srs bsnss like without reserving a few fun joke-y lines myself (to hopefully amuse you, my darling reader~)... I'm honestly just going to fucking kill myself.
I'll try not to be too forced / overbearing, not only because it's poor literary form, but also because it'd obviously completely invalidate the point of this if I went too far into adding my own ecksde forced Milhouse ememey narration. If you want the srs-bsnss-no-pictures longform walls of text, it's not that hard to find the raws. Or at least, 'most' of the raw narrative... long story short, you'll understand it when we get to it.... it's not easy to find it 'all', to say the least.
It's as condensed as it's going to get, and still ~x10 shorter, minimum, (even shorter in some parts) than reading the longform lore... and confidently better writing and formatting quality in some parts to boot.
HiRez should hire me...
Furthermore, I've gone to generally great lengths to compile highest definition pieces of art I could find where relevant, both in terms of default God art and actual lore-art - since there really isn't one place it's all contained in, and what is usually linked to as the 'lore art' is some variation of a trash-quality, cropped thumbnail with a border that overlays half the piece.
Some art might be 'out of place' or 'not related to that bit' - but this is because I've placed the art in as coherantly as possible (ie, where they fit the best, which at some parts is in different places than where they're 'supposed' to be - trust me, I'm not going out of my way to make it bad, it just works). While I've also added pieces that weren't linked directly to the lore where relevant too, I've ensured it's all official, LoRez-related stuff (tl;dr no fanart that could confuse things, not that there's all that much of efforted fanart related to the lore to begin with, sadly :( ).
This is in combination with the Gallery (in the Mythology introductions aside), which has the highest quality / UHD splash art for each God currently in the game (along with concept art, promotional material and other interesting key art), all in one place.
Because nobody had done it, and it was annoying me.
Autists Artists looking for references, thank me later.
On the topic of *myself*, (since the authour is a pretty big part in terms of potential biases) while I'll remain Anonymous (>where do you think you are), I will say that I've studied Classics, Mythology & Ancient History at a University level for a while now, to the point I would say I am certainly more knowledgeable than average - and exponentially better than the majority of Wiki-onlies that braggardly speak on things they don't know shit about, and plague the internet as a whole (though not an appeal to authority because that's real faggot shit, hopefully just an assurance of accuracy on the mythology side... well, at least as far as >believing things on the internet goes).
I don't have any favouritism to any Pantheon, I mock all cultures and peoples equally and I'm from somewhere you'll probably have heard of, but wouldn't be able to place on a map; though I'm not ESL (or any E_L after that - English is my first language).
Religiously, I'm "apatheistically agnostic, leaning towards the existence of greater beings, that respects the role of religion to many."
tl;dr I believe that a conceptual 'higher existence' or 'a' 'God' can logically be proven to exist via the dimensionality model, of which science will never be able to comprehend other than acknowledge - however - we certainly hold no influence over it as much as we hold no influence over each other, it's influences would be out of our control and we should not seek to understand it, unless it's a deliberate exercise in meniality. Don't blame or attribute anything to anything, but don't fedoratip or blindly preach just because you don't agree with somebody, as many people who are explicitly non-religious heavily underestimate how all-encompassingly influential religion can be to the worldview of those who genuinely practice it - they don't call them literal 'beliefs' based on 'faith' for no reason, regardless of how 'silly' you might think it be, and it would be wise to skim their texts to understand what they think of you. Just keep on keeping on, and let a man be judged based on his objective actions and not his beliefs. If these beliefs of mine warrant an equivalent to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory for me in a potential afterlife - then so be it - I'll stoically take what I'm served and I won't complain.
tl;tl;dr an autistic mouthful
So I've not got a horse in anybody's game. My main interest in the field has always been in etymology and the origin of concepts (which often relates back to religion / mythology) - for no other reason than I find it interesting. That should be enough to keep me Anonymous while laying out my biases (or lack thereof) at the very least.
Aside from that, in terms of 'opinions' within the field, my main defining differentiation from the wider scientific / historic / archeological field is that I ascribe myself moreso to David Rohl's New Chronology than the 'wider understood chronology', which functionally / essentially just means I think the 'Anatolian / Greek Dark Age' void era after the Bronze Age Collapse / Apocalypse didn't actually happen, that events such as the Trojan War or Moses were very much based on the (real) events described, and that the wider field needs to stop fellating itself because just can't find any direct evidence regarding it. In short, I believe the 'mythical era' actually happened, and that much of the 'made up stories' that make up the Greek, Near-East and Abrahamic canon were actual events that actually happened in actuality.
We're not Physicians discussing the Laws of the Universe and the existence of Dark Matter, the fact it's a theory with minimal current field-wide backing does not mean it's impossible and illogical. A lot of opposition to the New Chronology are either the usual wastes of space clogging up Universities who are just trying to get an easy qualification by pandering to the prevailing opinion like their textbooks tell them to, or are Christfags / Jooz / Muzzies being faggots, because ironically, historic dates / civilisational interactions / events lining up with biblical events in many ways discredits the divine nature of the basis of much of Abrahamic understanding.
Sure, the New Chronology has some flaws (it's only been around for 27 years, compared to the centuries of assuming a Little Dark Age syth noises start playing happened) - but in my personal determination, it makes more overall sense compared to the assumption that no findings = nobody made anything (and if people stopped shitting on it because new=bad, they'd probably find the 'issues' still align much better with what we understand, overall).
Other than that, I'll point out if / when my speculation differs from the wider field. This isn't really relevant to be honest, I just don't want to see whining in-thread about it, as if to imply I'm a bullshit merchant.
Oh and obviously, I've GOT to include my position on the Christfag vs Paganfag shit that commonly springs up over this general topic. These happen a lot on imageboards it seems, especially in /pol/ and /christian/ spheres. I'm in >inb4 mode, I may as well cover it.
I don't care if Odin drank semen and Loki was a tranny that got pregnant from horse-sex (because lets face it, the argument is primarily directed at the Norse Pantheon, because /pol/ stormniggers think germany is the pinnacle promised-land centre of the world), or if Christ was a dead jew on a stick to the jew-god - both of you are mordernly irrelevant and de-fanged shadows of your former selves who conveniently ignore your own scripture at best and are openly heretical at worst. Neither of you present any meaning social, political or cultural threat as of today (as in 'right now', 'the present', 'as of writing' and other such synonyms - nobody cares how big you were before anyone was born); and I write both you groups of faggots off as such. Anyone who seriously gets up in arms over the endless whine is LARPing as something they're not. It's not kayfabe or DnC shilling, it's an observation of reality. Get over yourselves.
That said.
I would prefer to see a more diverse world where people are actually knowledgeable and literate about their own heritage (all their heritage - both when they were monotheistic and polytheistic). I dunno, something inside of me dies when I see an foreigner who know nothing about their own people's millennia-old practices because they want to latch wholly onto a foreign culture (be it a different religion, or just general Westernisation / consumerism). Just feels wrong, pitiful even, nothing more. Curse my cold, dead, empathetic heart.
That, and the Abrahamicfags really haven't done me any favours in terms of the field, what with them usually being the culprits in destroying artifacts and monuments. Whether it's Christfags obliterating the Celtic and Mesoamerican cultures, the Muzzies blowing up Mesopotamian / Egyptian monuments and attacking Hindus, or da Jooz organised destruction of Slavic cultures, the remains of the Roman Empire and of course, [dogwhistle]. And the many, many other Abrahamicfag organised desecrations. I might not care about the theological debate, but it's fucking annoying nonetheless from a Classical and Historical point of view.
tl;dr Surprise surprise, the Anon doesn't like censorship, who'da thunk.
Finally, on my prose, I try to write chiefly in proper English, simply because I think it looks aesthetically better and is etymologically more accurate, as oppose to Americanised Mongrelised English (created courtesy of a Websters marketing campaign in the 1800's). This isn't a statement of who I am, just personal tastes.
It's good form in general, try it yourself.
Seriously though, Death to America... though that's not really a controversial statement outside of America. How the fuck do you find a way to fuck up a language of all things?
And no - this will not be safe for the advertisers.
I will be using XXXTREME Gamer Words liberally when appropriate NIGGER oops, there's the first one; purely so progressive little LoRez cannot use my doc as a way to publicly cover their ass with the lore, the same way they abuse the shitty web 3.0 wikia as a happenstance archive.
Ajax, I'm looking at you here you can't just 'ignore 4chan' forever Ajax, we're one of the largest communities for your game on the internet, and we generally align on behalf with the other 'based-gamerword-using', international imageboards.
Our bones rattle in your closet Ajax.
sneeeeeeeeeeed
ooooOOOOOooooo!!!!!.
Oh, and also so a ledditoid can't steal a link and use it for cheap upboats either, or if they do try to look at it, I'd imagine their eyes would core out in hellfire like that scene in the Raiders of the Lost Ark and they'd scream in agony at having to look at a contradicting point of view they're unable to censor / downboat. Or gamer words in general.
And yes, that is exactly something that either would do. Lurk moar if you don't think this is the case.
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What is and is not canon? (Skippable)
tl;dr nothing and everything, in that order.
To preface, I will (insultingly) refer to the 'authour' of the lore of SMITE at various points as the nebulous "The Lore Intern" - namely because it's quite clear storytelling has been shattered across multiple authours and teams that, and from multiple early dev blogs, they were quite open that the interns and assistants were often the ones to gather the mythological stuff for the creative / development teams, so I think it's more logical to assume that they're the ones who've consistently had some of, if not the most involvement in the lore. Once you've lurked anonymous sites as long as I have, you also generally develop a unique autistic and schizophrenic 6th sense for when writing styles and formatting slightly alters in various ways, indicating a new narrator - this happens quite a lot.
While their work is not credited at any point, I would estimate that, on top of the Comic / Cinematic teams, there has been no less than ~5-7+ different in-house penmen that have worked on the current timeline of lore in a focused way over the years; which given the turnover rate, huge variance in effort / wordcount, overall amateur prose, writing quality, various 'you-just-got-that-word-from-a-thesaurus' moments and glaring mistakes in areas would make sense if LoRez just left something with such huge potential for an intern to do over the weekend. I've heard the 'main' guy had something to do with Warhammer writing, but I've found nothing when chasing that lead up. Apparently LoRezAjax has some say in the lore too, but he's also on record with objectively incorrect lore-statements, which from the types of errors he makes seem to imply he's more of a supervisory role (perhaps the connection between the rest of the team and the lore intern/s) over being a key contributor. Don't go too hard on Ajax though, he's probably one of the last non..... 'completely' pozzed devs at LoRez, and they don't need to have a repeat of when they dropped Holt. He seems to know what he's on about for the most part, and just has to play up to the fact he's a wagie at a company in the current year.
All in all, I don't trust a word any *singular* LoRez member says to be as absolute fact (as if the Paladins lore shitshow wasn't enough RIP /palg/ NotepadAnon, an attempt was made). I will assume that The Lore Intern is a shared pseudonym, that all released lore statements are correct unless provable otherwise, that retcons are as equally subjective as the statement retconned and the 'truth' is the culmination of the most agreed on and logically succinct statements. tl;dr death of the author
Contextually, this is Lo-Rez we're talking about (am I repeating this enough to get through to you?), squandering potential to fund bad ideas is their bread and butter.
SMITE's lore has been told through a variety of formats, with the predominant format being the written text (henceforth the GN or Game Novel; since it's neither an LN / Light Novel or a WN / Web Novel). It incorporates some elements from cinematics in areas, and has previously had a stretch of comic book releases, on top of various loredrops coming from voice lines, interviews, design notes, social media posts and community posts. There have also been key narrative elements... almost... 'hidden' away in places one would least expect.
All of them contradict each other on the details. To a noticeable degree - to the point a case can be made for each form being it's own line of canon. This is why you'll be stumped if you take everyhing at face value.
What they don't contradict on, however, is the overarching narrative.
For the most part contradictions are menial (eg, a God that's not present in a scene within the GN will appear in the background of the relevant cinematic) - however there are at times quite blatant contradictions that do affect the storyline. In this case, I've patched up as best and possible (usually with an associated note to signal when I've had to). It's quite clear there's little (or at minimum, poor) overall coordination direction in terms of the lore, and as such I'll be operating (and reiterating throughout) that I'll work on an unless-narratively-contradicted basis. There have been times when definitively-canon events / concepts are treated as false, and times when something related to the lore has implied something happened that,... well, certainly did not happen. I'll try to trim off as little as possible and sew it all together to be as succinct as possible. If you're wondering why you'll see characters out of setting in some images - this is why.
Again - I'm not going out of my way just to make this some shitty fanfic, I'm just trying to give the most coherant version of events provided, and will tell you when it's more of an issue than usual.
tl;dr Don't believe their lies.
~
General Setting / Da Rulez (Skippable)
I've defined Lore in summary, between the 'First Phase' - which had many of the Gods from the Alpha / Beta / Pre-launch duke it out (also including the initial attempts of the lore); and the 'Second Phase' - which has been general interconnections and introductions for each God released afterwards or since 2017, within an ongoing narrative. There may yet be a 'Third Phase' indicated recently... but it's not been written yet, so I can't comment on if it's really different or not. All are the same line of canon, a 'new Phase' of the narrative is just when a notably different writing style or set of events happens.
While there have been a few different ways they've thought of taking it; as for now, the Lore has stuck it out within the 'Second Phase', and there doesn't seem to be any outright reboot on the horizon that would indicate a new canon entirely. We can reserve that for when the 2029 Netflix adaptation of SMITE makes Zeus a gay 4 pay drag queen, makes Pele a transvestite, makes Artio and Morgan le Fay black and sets up 'le regressive Neo-Furry Catholic Church' as le big bad conservative enemies.
The approach to the Universe is that each God presides over their own geographic region, and that Followers / Worship are the lifeblood of the Gods continued existence. This is referred to in a few ways - such as their 'Divinity', or their 'Favor', or their 'Patronage' or whatever other words match that 'vibe' within a Thesaurus it gets confusing switching between them all, to say the least.
Henceforth I'll be simply calling it "Worshippower", since it's nice and self-descriptive for people who skip this part, and we'll be using it a lot to understand how things 'work'.
If enough mortals believe something to be divine - it will either manifest itself into existence (the Gods / Monsters) or can gain the ability to perform feats to the extent that the mortals believe it can (Ascendant / Deified Mortal). There are a few outliers that we'll get into shortly, and magic does exist as an independent concept - but this is how most of entities in-narrative 'work'.
Oh, and this must be on a relatively huge scale for anything to happen. It's not a case where a small village can manifest their own local deities or quickly ascend a guardsman to cover their asses (though they can start working on it, and encourage others to believe in them) - it takes roughly a cities-worth of coordinated belief to see any kind of change in regards to the Divine Realm, and a nation-worth of collective / subconscious recognition to really 'create' new entities. While you can infer that more barren / wilderness areas with less overall mortals may manifest entities easier - there's yet to be any example of this.
Worshippower as a conceptual force appears to be indiscriminate and beneficial to anything that has it, and an actual invisible manipulable resource - to the point it can be bolstered, drained or even stored. There does however there appears to be a secondary factor - where by, the strength sourced from Worshippower 'scales' by an invisible multiplier, and is internally distributed in accordance to how powerful a given God is perceived, as well as what the God actually represents.
This creates variable strengths of Gods - for example, 'a minor War God with less Worshippower' will still overpower 'a major non-War-God with more Worshippower' in direct combat - however the additional Worshippower of the major God may allow for more powerful magic, or abilities which would level the overall playing field after a given point (so War Gods don't just rule the world). Likewise, Chief Concept Deities and Heads of Pantheons are innately far more powerful than a 'common God', owing to their prestige and rulership - but they aren't untouchable.
As a result of their Worshippower, there's a subconscious urge to not only remain closer to their personal source of Worshippower, but also to act in a way they are percieved. For example, if a happy mortal ascended to the Divine, but was assumed to be gloomy by their source of Worshippower, then they would begin to subconsciously act gloomy until they are miserable.
Worshippower does seem to require being 'accepted', but this can be as loose as simply seeing oneself in any kind of vein that the mortals see them in - in this example, a mortal can't be involuntarily 'turned' into a hideous monster or a shining hero by Worshippower, but if they too see themselves as a monster / hero, they will slowly and subconsciously accept the Worshippower offered. Furthermore for this example, 'Manifest Beings' cannot reject all sources of Worshippower - since they're essentially made out of belief, and thus must have at least 'something' that they do. The tradeoff - Manifest Beings are generally much stronger than Ascendant Beings.
Finally, all aesthetic changes verge back to the mean. If a God is injured, or just wears different clothes for a given day, slowly they will return back to looking how they're perceived to look - a very slow, but infinite version of regeneration. Basically, a slower version of in-game HP5. Might take months, but losing a limb would be more of a painful inconvenience than anything, as it'd slowly fade back. Well, unless their Worshippers also think they lost that limb - in that case, it ain't coming back.
Likewise, Death is yet another inconvenience to the Divine - though usually accompanied by a teleport to the place 'their dead' go, a much longer delay before they 'wake up' and some short-term amnesia surrounding the events of their 'death'. As such, killing each other is a foolish method of punishment / dispute resolution within the Divine Realm.
Instead the equivalents of 'True Death' to a Divine Being in this Universe would either be eternal and inescapable imprisonment OR any action in which they are forgotten - be it forceable brainwashing..... or just genociding anybody who believes in them, until nobody is aware they even existed to begin with (overall, just how Ernest Hemingway describes the Two Deaths not banksy you fucking underage sperg)
The apparent common conflicts stemming from all of this usually arise from how the (now self-conscious) collective Divine Realm wants to deal with mortals - Gods are exponentially stronger than any mortal due to this Worshippower... but they need patronage otherwise they'll become forgotten to time and die off.
The previously mentioned outlier of this ruleset are the Eldest Primordials and the Great Old Ones (Primordials arguably being in the same vein as Great Old Ones), who are actual 'creatures' that operate completely independent of Worshippower, but are empowered by it, and can be influenced by it nonetheless (much like how a human can become an Ascendant God with sufficient worship, these creatures too in their ridiculous power level can gain benefits, and become even more powerful). These Primordials either overlook concepts fundamental to reality (such as the Laws of Physics) or have been around since 'things' have been around. It's (for quite obvious out-of-lore reasons) unclear as to who the real 'head honcho' of everything is, but the only thing you need to know is that 'True' Primordial creatures operate on their own rulesets, way above everything else, just like how Gods and Mortals have their own rulesets.
There aren't that many of these types of beings.
Geographically, entities can choose to leave their home turf for periods - and if they get followers abroad, they can make comfortable enclaves for themselves externally. They don't live in the mortal world either (unless specified - so for example, Scylla and Charybdis canonically do occupy the Strait of Messina), instead getting a fancy Divine Realm modeled after their believers perception of the God's Realm (the Heavenly Court, Asgard etc), which either acts as a different dimension entirely or as a blurred line of reality in the real world.
As for spatial matters; the SMITEverse interestingly appears to operates off of (a possibly Heliocentric) version of a Platonic-Yggdrasil hybrid model.
Which, if you don't speak autist - in short means that the Solar System exists within a closed capacity; however there are no reaches of space inbetween bodies, as much as there's layers of Aether (the initially assumed 'Fifth Element'), that variably thickens the further outward you go from the 'centre of the Universe' (which in SMITE's case, seems to be Yggdrasil, the Norse Interdimensional Tree of Life, making up a central core of this Universe). Each planet is embedded within a sphere of Aether and rotates around the central body in a generally fixed way (so not via gravitational pull, but more a physical rotation mechanism); and the rest of the stars are embedded in the outermost sphere (as if studded on the inside of a globe).
If it doesn't intentionally operate this way, then nothing makes sense whatsoever because they just made up shit as they went along. Honestly, they can thank me later for filling the gap in here.
Dimensions are conversely, handled to be functionally limitless, provided enough Worshippers believe in it. The overarching model appears to be the Norse understanding, wherein the are 9 Worlds (which we can assume to be 9 Ptolemaic models) all orbit and are loosely connected to a semi-physical Yggdrasil; and there are various interdimensional routes that can be taken, each of which works less like a physical bridge, and more like a fold in reality that allows for near-instant movement (the most obvious of which being the Bifrost, but other mechanisms such as the river Styx and various other rivers).
Underworld realities such as Yomi, Hades, Tartarus, the Nether / Netherworld and Xibalba all appear to exist within this model regardless - possibly within one of the established 9 Worlds, possibly as their own 'World' outright within a different orbit, somewhere else within the model (for example, assumedly there is some mechanism that allows for the Celtic Otherworld to influence Earth, perhaps a mirror orbit on the opposite side of Yggdrasil). The space between the 9 Worlds within the Yggdrasil model is given as both the Abyss and remnants of the Primordial Waters of Creation at the same time - and outside of the edges of the Yggdrasil Model is the boundaries of Chaos (much like our own understanding of the Universal model, albeit without it expanding at the speed of light). Past that boundary, into the Unknown is namely where the Great Old Ones and other Older-Than-Universe creatures lurk...
There (as of yet) has been no mention of the World Elephants / Tortoises (likely because they require a flat-Earth model as a prerequisite, which doesn't work with the innately international nature of the Pantheons), so this invalidates the mythological Universal models for the Chinese / Hindu at the very least.
In short, it's the Greek model combined with the Norse model. Pre-Ptolomeic Greek on the 'micro' scale, Norse on the macro scale (and everybody else's realities existing somewhere along or inbetween the 9 Worlds) Lovecraftian outside of all that.
Have a diagram if your head's hurting, because in literal terms it is applied mythology-based theoretical astrophysics.
"Or, lorefag, they're just fuckin' bullshitting their way through and making it up as they go along" - You, just now.
~ ~ ~ Link back: