The Gods of the Special Region differ from any Earthly religion in that they are entities that are demonstrably extant, and capable of directly interacting with people within the Special Region by manipulating factors associated with their area.
Known Gods
12 Major Gods of Falmart
- Emroy: God of Darkness, War, Death, Violence, and Insanity.
- Hardy: Goddess of the Underworld
- Zufmuut: God of Light and Order
- Wareharun: Goddess of Trees and Forests
- Flare: God of the Sun
- Ral/La: Goddess of Learning, twin of Elange
- Elange: God of Knowledge, twin of Ral/La
- Duncan: God of Blacksmithing
- Miritta: Goddess of Fertility
- Palapon: God of Revenge
- Deldort: God of Covenants
- Lunaryur: God of Music
Minor Gods Specific to the Avion and Kundoran Seas
- Apliu - Goddess of the ocean
- Eulo - Wind god of one of the four cardinal directions. (Either North or East)
- Zevullah - Wind god of one of the four cardinal directions. (Either West or South)
- Notos - Wind god of one of the four cardinal directions. (Either West or South)
- Vorey - Wind god of one of the four cardinal directions. (Either North or East)
Abilities and Nature
The Gods of the Special Region tend to use their respective abilities of their proscribed domain to grant benefits to their followers; For instance, Miritta grants her followers protection from death in childbirth, and its is possible that La & Elange grants a greater ability to learn and retain knowledge, given how quickly Lelei La Lelena is capable of learning the Japanese language and other information. Followers often include the first part of the name of their god as their middle name, as seen for Yao Haa Dushi who changed her name to Yao Ro Dushi after she switched from Hardy to Rory.
Little is known about the true nature of the gods of the Special Region save that, according to Rory, the gods are considered "the gardeners of the Special Region, that they can be considered a 'tree', where the deities 'cut the branches that have grown too big.'" The gods, with the exception of Hardy who resides in the "Underworld", live in their own realm called "Heaven". It is religiously believed that Heaven is a province that is literally located above the clouds but this is proven to be a fallacy as it is confirmed by Rory that this is not the case.
The gods of the Special Region do not appear to be capable of directly affecting the mortal realm as they no longer possess physical bodies unless they choose to take the bodies of their followers which would ultimately destroy most of the followers' minds who cannot cope with the divine possession.
It is not known how many of the gods of the Special Region were once mortal apostles who ascended to divinity; However, it is known that Wareharun is a forest of sapient trees that literally evolved to the point of obtaining godlike power, suggesting some of the deities may in fact be humanoid lifeforms which have reached a pinnacle of evolution.
Unlike Earth, the Special Region doesn't have multiple gods for a specific aspects since there are no multiple mythologies in Special Region. Therefore, Apostle and Gods from Special Region finds it is strange that Earth has multiple deities for one specific aspect (Hades, Yama and Anubis are gods of the underworld). Some gods even call this phenomenon messy.
Apostles
The Gods are capable of choosing people as apostles, who in return gain demi-godhood and superhuman strength and durability. Apostles of the gods are capable of ascending to to godhood after a period of service, which would usually last for about a thousand years, and take on a role in the pantheon of the Special Region.
There are six active Apostles at the time that the Gate opens.
- Rory Mercury - Human Apostle to Emroy
- Giselle - Draconian Apostle to Hardy
- Mabel Forn - Human Apostle to Zufmuut
- Motor Mabuchis - Dwarf Apostle to Duncan
- Granham Hortek - Elvish Apostle to Flare
- Warehalun - Techincally the Goddess herself, manifested in the form of a mobile fruit or dryad, meaning no Apostle for her is needed.
Magical, Scientific And Technological Regression of Mortals
See also: International Convention for the Protection of Indigenous Cultures
The Gods of the Special Region understand newtonian, quantum, and the high-order physics called Magic. However, they let the mortal world figure these things out for themselves. The rationale, as they explain it to the Japanese, is that the Special Region has its own values, culture and mindset, and rapid changes in them are not a good thing. Therefore, they feel that technology should be introduced gradually, and the rapid addition of new technological ideas should be throttled.
As a result, the Gods have a practice of monitoring any mage or scholar that is involved in researching the natural world. If the scholar gets too close to exposing a scientific truth about physics, chemistry, or biology that could result in technological upheaval, then the scholar is visited by an apostle and assigned 'homework'. This homework takes the form of some form of busywork quest designed to answer a historical question that the Gods already know the answer to, and is intended to give the scholar something else to sink their time into that isn't science. If the scholar refuses, they are executed. The prime example is that Hardy threatens Lelei with death if she tries to practice or share her knowledge about her improved magic that Lelei gained from her research into the science form Earth or Rory states that she will have to kill her if she ever utters the concept of nuclear fusion. However, despite the circumstances, they still allow mortals, like the Sages of in Rondel to research and understand science and nature as long as it doesn't create or discovery anything they consider to be revolutionary.
Whether this is an act of benevolence or tyranny is questionable, as it means that the Special Region is technologically regressed compared to the amount of time its civilizations have existed. This is only highlighted when Japanese forces pass through the Gate and begin investigating why such stagnation occurred. Indeed the Japanese are told first subtly and later not so subtly that the introduction of new technology and science is unacceptable, and Japanese policy is required to pivot in response.
By the time Gate Season 2 occurs, the Gods have come to an agreement with Earth regarding how technology can be shared with the residents of the special region. These rules are also formalized in a UN convention with similar aims. Essentially, Earth is allowed to the transfer to the Special Region completed, non-destructuve technology provided that they do not explain to the locals how such technology is manufactured or functions. This is why when Cannons and Handguns suddenly appear in the Avion Sea, they dispatch the Apostles to hunt down the suppliers and purge them when they are found.
Apocryph, Prophesied End of the World
According to Rory, it is apocalyptic prophesied that tens, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of millions of years later, the gods will leave and humans will vanish from the Special Region. At that point the fog of the void will swallow the world and return it to primal chaos. The name of the fog is called the Apocryph.
The Gods of the Special Region is bound by their planet in which if the planet where the Special Region is located is destroyed. The Gods will perish. Furthermore, it is known that the Gods cannot escape to another planet. As the result, most of the Gods in the Special Region amazes to find that people from Earth can travel through space in which they can escape their extinction in the future.
Relationship between Gods
The relationship between Gods are not always in good term due to their contradictory ideologies and aspects, causing them to indirectly fight against each others in either bidding their Apostles in a fight or even stealing with one another. For example, Emroy and Zufmuut are mortal enemies since Emroy is the god of darkness and chaos while Zufmuut is god of order and light or Hardy used to snatch Emroy's Amazonian souls without his permission.
Despite their disagreement, they always agree in the common term in controlling mortals and preventing them from advancing in science, knowledge and technology as Hardy and Emroy agree that the JSDF is not allow to spread the knowledge and usage of advanced technologies to the Special Region.
Notes & Trivia
- The Gods of the Special Region seem to be closely based, or inspired by the the Deities that are part of the Dungeons & Dragons games, in how they interact and affect their world / domains.
- It is seems that the Gods treat the Special Region like their own personal petting zoo.
- The Japanese government refuses to accept Gods exist; since the existence of monsters and demihumans has already shocked the world, proof that there is deities would only make religious people more radicalized and even inspire terrorists that their faith would be rewarded.
- Rory outright confirms every universe has gods, but which ones are real on earth are not known; its possible that there is only a single one for each aspects, but they choose to use multiple identites.
