Betrayer Gods

Holy Symbols of the Betrayer Gods, by Claudio Pozas.

The Betrayer Gods are the Creator deities who chose not to fight against the Primordials during the Founding, and gods who aligned with them; the Chained Oblivion and Vecna are typically grouped with the Betrayer Gods, despite not being Creators.

History

The Founding

The gods who brought life to Exandria are called Creators. When the Primordials came to retake the world during the Founding, the gods disagreed on their course of action. Those who would later become the Prime Deities wished to fight back against these forces. The Betrayer Gods preferred instead to let the world fall into chaos so they could start again elsewhere and left their creations behind. The Prime Deities gifted the people of the world with arcane magic so they could protect themselves without the direct aid of the gods. With this gift, the people of Exandria not only destroyed the Primordials but banished the Betrayer Gods to other planes that would serve as their prisons.

The Age of Arcanum

The prevalence of arcane magic gave rise to the Age of Arcanum, during which the people of Exandria became arrogant and challenged the gods. Inspired by the Raven Queen's ascension, archmage Vespin Chloras of Vasselheim attempted an elaborate ritual suspected to be inspired by the Ritual of Seeding, but different and riskier, apparently directed at dethroning one of the Betrayer Gods. The attempt went badly awry, and Vespin, reduced to a puppet of the Lord of the Hells, helped release the Betrayer Gods from their prisons. The long imprisonment had twisted the deities who had once helped build the world, and they now sought to corrupt and destroy it. They built the dark city of Ghor Dranas from which they could wage war on Exandria. They began with a brutal attack on Vasselheim, which survived, albeit with heavy casualties, thanks to the intervention of the Prime Deities. However, the damage was much more far-reaching; seeing the destruction in Vasselheim, the people of Exandria began building weapons and magical items that could kill gods and went to war.

The Calamity and the Divergence

The Calamity was a war between the Prime Deities and Betrayer Gods, and many of their mortal creations perished in battle. The world they had once created together was permanently scarred, and only a third of the population survived.

During the first century of the conflict the entire main pantheon accepted a truce to deal with Aeor and its anti-divine technology, and following a complex plan, several gods agreed to incarnate as mortal avatars to infiltrate the flying city; however, some of the Betrayers that did so ended up abandoning the plan and didn't reach Aeor. Despite their initial collaboration and the Prime Deities' attempt to neutralize the Factorum Malleus without dooming all the Aeorians, the Lord of the Hells secretly manipulated them by replacing the Knowing Mentor's avatar and conspiring with the archmages and rebel servants of the gods so he could take control of the machine and use it against the Primes; the avatars of both the Spider Queen and the Ruiner seemed to be aware of the plan, but it was stopped by the Prime avatars, and after the Lord of the Hells left, the other Betrayers (including the avatar of the Crawling King, who was separated from the others) lost their mortal forms in the blast of energy after the weapon was destroyed. However, the consequences of this conspiracy made the destruction of the entire city inevitable.

Eventually the Betrayer Gods were banished again to their realms, one by one:

• The Spider Queen was the first to be defeated, being impaled against a cliff by the Stormlord's thunderspear, after which she was sealed away in the Abyss. Although she lacked the ability to communicate with her armies, she retained enough connection to Exandria to be able to send a mortal avatar, Umleta.
• The Cloaked Serpent and the Wildmother fought in the Lushgut Forest at some point during the conflict, with many losses among both their followers. He isn't mentioned in subsequent battles, and ended up in the Astral Plane.
• The Crawling King remained active until the end of the Calamity, and his forces were part of the Battle of the Barbed Fields, but eventually he was lured to a trap created by the Moonweaver and the All-Hammer, which allowed the Dawnfather and the Everlight to defeat him and banish him to a sliver of the Far Realm.
• The Ruiner sought vengeance against the Arch Heart, and after the Battle of the Barbed Fields he targeted a utopian Marquesian civilization where orcs and elves lived in harmony under the Arch Heart's protection. However, the Ruiner's strike, intended to destroy all of Marquet, was foiled at the last moment by Alyxian the Apotheon, and, as reported across the sea in Rybad-Kol weeks before the Divergence, he was soon defeated and banished to Acheron.
• The Strife Emperor was defeated by the Wildmother and her Free Children near Rybad-Kol, shortly after the Ruiner's defeat, and he was also banished to the same plane.
• The Chained Oblivion, powerful but isolated from the remaining Betrayer Gods, was baited to attack the Knowing Mentor in her central temple, and it almost destroyed her. However, multiple Prime Deities—principally the Dawnfather—fought the Chained Oblivion with the aid of the Changebringer's blessing and the All-Hammer's Prime Trammels, to defeat the Elder Evil; the Dawnfather then chased it to Gatshadow Mountain, where he finally sealed the mad god, sending it to the Abyss.
• The Scaled Tyrant remained active and in loose alliance with her fellow Betrayer Gods until the Battle of Ghor Dranas, in which she and the Lord of the Hells were both banished to the Nine Hells of Baator.
• The Lord of the Hells, even after being sent to Nessus, made one last attempt to return to the Material Plane, intending to use a cursed Vestige and the body of Timothy Callister to walk Exandria as a mortal again. He was stopped by a group of adventurers who faced his fiendish forces in a small chapel in Vasselheim, and a brief intervention of the Moonweaver sent the archdevil back to the Nine Hells and closed the rift between his realm and the Material Plane.

Even though the Prime Deities won the war, they chose to leave as well, believing their involvement on Exandria had been a precipitating factor. They implemented the Divine Gate, which prevented all of the Creators, Betrayer and Prime alike, from physically entering the Material Plane. This event would later be known as the Divergence.

In the centuries following the creation of the Divine Gate a humanoid conflict, the Scattered War, caused the Strife Emperor to empower Neminar Drassig and his armies through a pact, which made the other Betrayer Gods realize even they could still grant power to their followers from afar, the same way Bane was doing.

Vecna

Main article: Vecna

Vecna was a mortal archmage who became a lich during the Age of Arcanum. He and his traitorous lieutenant Kas the Bloody-Handed slew each other in battle prior to the Calamity, destroying all but a couple of fragments of Vecna. For centuries, Vecna's followers plotted his return, and he ascended to godhood during the time of Vox Machina. Vox Machina sealed him behind the Divine Gate shortly afterward. Decades later, his symbol was magically included among those of the other Betrayer Gods in Betrayers' Rise.

The return of Predathos

During the apogee solstice of 843 PD, Ludinus Da'leth's plan to release Predathos from its prison culminated with the activation of his Malleus Key, releasing a beam of energy that started damaging the magical cage around Ruidus. While the process was very slow (possibly thanks to the sabotages made by Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett and Bells Hells), this raised deep concern among all the deities. One of the Betrayer Gods, the Lord of the Hells, sent at least one of his champions, Teven Klask, to Exandria, in order to help the gods' cause, even helping the followers of the Prime Deities if necessary. This devilish warrior confirmed that all the main gods of the Exandrian pantheon had declared a partial truce to deal with the common threat posed by the Red End.

When Fresh Cut Grass asked Evontra'vir about a possible future in which the gods faced the worst outcome, the Great Tree of Atrophy showed them a vision of a lattice shattering and beings made of shadow and light (the Betrayer Gods and the Prime Deities, presumably) being chased away by the red light of Predathos.

When summoned by the Raven Queen and Bells Hells, both sides of the pantheon attended a meeting in which they discussed the possibility of using the newly created Rites of Catatheosis to turn themselves into mortals to avoid Predathos. Although there was tension and hesitation (partially because of the Chained Oblivion, although the Matron quickly clarified it would remain sealed), and some of the Betrayers wondered if they should leave or kill Imogen Temult and her friends, they were persuaded to accept the idea; Bells Hells suggested that by living in the world and being reborn several times, the distinction between deities and the enmities of the past would eventually be left behind. After that they all shattered the Divine Gate, and disappeared to be reborn as soon as the Raven Queen finished the ritual.

Deities

All of the Betrayer Gods are evil-aligned.

Name	Epithet	Alignment	Description	Plane
Asmodeus	The Lord of the Nine Hells	Lawful Evil	Devil god of domination, and ruler of the Nine Hells.	Nessus, Nine Hells
Bane	The Strife Emperor	Lawful Evil	God of war and conquest.	Banehold, Acheron
Gruumsh	The Ruiner	Chaotic Evil	God of slaughter.	Nishrek, Acheron
Lolth	The Spider Queen	Chaotic Evil	Goddess of deceit, shadows, and spiders.	The Demonweb, Abyss
Tharizdun	The Chained Oblivion	Chaotic Evil	Elder Evil and mad deity of destruction.	Abyss
Tiamat	The Scaled Tyrant	Lawful Evil	Queen of the chromatic dragons and goddess of greed, envy, hoarded wealth, and evil-aligned dragons.	Avernus, Nine Hells
Torog	The Crawling King	Neutral Evil	God of torture and enslavement.	Far Realm
Vecna	The Whispered One	Neutral Evil	Ascended god of secrets and necromancy.	None
Zehir	The Cloaked Serpent	Chaotic Evil	God of poisons, assassins, and darkness.	Towers of Night, Astral Plane

Allies of the Betrayers

Beyond the main group of the Betrayer Gods are a number of lesser deities, demigods, and idols that are connected to their cause:

• Archdevils, who despite having their own individual agendas are under the service of the Lord of the Nine Hells
• Demon lords, who despite their differences made alliances to fight the Prime Deities during the Calamity
  • Orcus, the Demon Prince and god of undeath, usually called a servant of the Betrayer Gods but sometimes identified as a Betrayer God himself
• Desirat, a fiendish phoenix that acted as mount for the Lord of the Hells
• Quajath, a fiendish giant worm that acted as scout for its creator, the Crawling King
• Vesh, the Bloody Siren, occasionally connected with the Betrayer Gods or even considered one of them

Trivia

• The Pantheon of Exandria is taken from the Dawn War Deities, with the addition of Sarenrae, a Pathfinder deity. The Betrayer Gods are the evil-aligned deities from this pantheon.
• The lesser deities allied with the main Betrayers are sometimes called Betrayer Gods themselves.
• Since their cults are not as widespread in mortal societies, the Betrayer Gods are even more eager to have champions of their own to help them influence Exandria in a more direct and active way.
• During the Calamity the followers of the Betrayer Gods used propaganda to encourage their people, telling them that different members of the Prime Deities had been killed, even though it wasn't true.
  • During the same period, the areas under the administrative control of a Betrayer God (such as the Strife Emperor ruling over southern Gwessar) were called "Betrayer Kingdoms".
• Other Dungeons & Dragons settings feature a cave goddess named Luthic who is allied with Gruumsh the Ruiner and whose lore is wrapped up in that of orogs. While orogs, a type of orc created by her influence, do live on Exandria and appear in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, neither Luthic nor any similar relationship for the Ruiner have ever been mentioned.

References

Art: