The pantheon

Every god the books have named, by tier. The full pantheon page adds the family graph, the sponsors and the mythology.

The pantheon

Grull war · first named book 1 — Driven by the Maestro, who therefore cannot play Faction Wars; worshipped by the mantaur guards in blue paint; Carl a friend of his church, to his puzzlement.
Eris chaos · first named book 1 — The goddess of chaos: half-sister of Taranis by her card, who calls Apito 'our mom' in the arena, and walked free at level 250 when her pilot died on the ninth floor and sits on a meat cart in Hungry Eyes at 251, unsponsorable, 'summoned by <Error>', with a toy Uzi Jesus climbing her dress. She wants Carl's true devotion rather than his worship, spits a five-sided coin whose fifth side tattoos his palm, vouches for Akuma's way out, and in the arena swaps every inventory, tells Taranis that four of their mother's five pieces are watching him, and shows her true form on a thousand snake tails: 'I don’t need you to worship me. You are chaos incarnate.'
Apito the oak; mother of all gods · first named book 2 — The Oak Mother, mother of all gods — in Rosetta's telling Nekhebit's daughter, whose children expelled the old gods; mother — and, by Hellik's word, sister — of Hellik and Emberus; Taranis's mother and wife, Yarilo's grandmother and stepmother; not dead but in pieces. Eris says four of her five pieces are in the arena, and Taranis takes two, Krakaren and Samantha, to his temple to make her whole.
Mana Genita lost children · first named book 3 — 'A pretty obscure one' — the goddess of Donut's Enchanted Tiara of Mana Genita, made 'in honor of all the lost children of the world', which removes the automatic hostility of her worshippers. Mordecai has never met her: 'There's thousands of them. Gods, I mean.'
Nekhebit vultures; the scavenger mother · first named book 3 — The Scavenger Mother of Mothers, once a life and protector deity depicted as a vulture, who in the dungeon myth bore three children — a son, a daughter and a centipede: Apito and Scolopendra among them. Donut is her Champion; Odette drives her among the Ascendency's contenders.
Taranis thunder · first named book 3 — God of thunder and lightning, regent to the Celestial Throne, big brother of Emberus and Hellik and, by Carl's count, of Eris (her card says half-sister), and husband of Apito, 'who was also his mom'; in book 8 the protector of a level-5 sow cursed so that he loves her. He kills his brother Emberus for burning her, tears Krakaren apart and takes her and Samantha as pieces of Apito, and steals Apito's memorial crystal from Prepotente's neck.
Pawna peace · first named book 4 — The goddess of peace, Grull's sister and arch-enemy, known by her potions: Pawna's Tears, five levels to any skill, and Pawna's Cries, three, with a shelf life — both spent on the sixth floor raising Donut's stripping spell to fifteen for a god. An ursine cleric swears by her; Samantha slanders her.
Hellik sun and life · first named book 4 — Emberus's twin, the red sun who catches Taranis at the Red Equinox, alibied for Geyrun's murder by the council, and Carl's second god-quest to kill. On the ninth floor he tells Carl through burning skin that he did not kill his brother's son, that their mother Apito is corrupted and Nekhebit behind it, and names Carl a friend of his church. On the tenth Carl calls him the most normal of the gods he has met, weighs the quest in Hungry Eyes — 'My choices were to kill Hellik. Not kill Hellik. Remove myself from Emberus as a worshipper. Or kill Emberus.' — and never fights him: he leaves the faith, and Taranis kills Emberus instead.
Algos pain · first named book 4 — The god of pain, chosen for Maggie My by a Skull Empire scroll because her race cannot worship Grull; the god her Celestial Grenade would have summoned on Carl. 'He would kill everyone in town in seconds.'
Enyo — · first named book 4 — 'an unhinged goddess of war', worshipped by the female mantaurs where the males worship Grull; the Lady Dominators are hers.
Emberus sun and ash; fire · first named book 4 — God of Sun and Ash, level 250, youngest brother of Taranis and twin of Hellik: blind since he plucked out his own eyes when his favourite son Geyrun was murdered, 'one of the most unhinged of all the pantheon', a locked god no sponsor may buy this season. He walks through the Lacuna shouting for his dead son's puppy, and becomes, by Carl's choice on a falling biplane, Carl's god.
Geyrun — · first named book 4 — Emberus's murdered son, whose killer Carl names to his father's face in the arena — Khepri, then himself — knowing neither is the answer: 'one of the key details of the whole mystery was a lie'.
Kuraokami — · first named book 4 — The goddess Crawler Sinjin worshipped — 'Worst decision ever' — sponsored by a male soother who treated the worship as his own; Sinjin's Cookbook note on missed devotions, debuffs and smiting comes from her.
Ysalte hopelessness and insanity; once dirt, then tears · first named book 4 — Goddess of Hopelessness and Insanity, level 250, once of the Dirt, then of Tears; the Semeru dwarves' only goddess, patron of outcasts and bards, half-sister and niece of her former lover Taranis, threatened with the Nothing by Apito and fled to Sheol; Amayon's ex and mother of his child. Sponsored by Pontifex Shine of the Nebular Balance and not driven, she arrives through Sister Ines's corpse as a young dwarf with a pickaxe and a flickering scream, turns every potion to vinegar, enslaves a Demon Prince — and is beheaded by her own totem. A memorial crystal waits on a future floor.
Theia light; prospects as motes · first named book 4 — A goddess of light who turns prospective worshippers into pocketable motes and woos them for weeks in a temple no viewer can see — never sponsored, because of her Ascendency history, until this season, when an agent of the Pacifist network sponsors her on Carl's behalf: she is Samantha's mother, and she tore Slit in half. Samantha finds a male skyfowl wearing her.
Hehaka — · first named book 5 — Named once, as the god who uses the beaver god Capa as a hat. A throwaway from Samantha that sits beside the book's central mechanic — a god worn over a driver — and shows gods doing it to each other.
Diwata trees, squirrels and forest rats · first named book 5 — Still marked for Carl's death; in a Club Vanquisher hallway of vines, having sex with and fighting Vertumnus.
Inpewt the undead; Children of Inpewt · first named book 5 — A god whose name the squished bear: mortals crushed by an arriving city become undead Children of Inpewt.
Eileithyia childbirth and female pain · first named book 5 — A name in Samantha's half-remembered account of where Diwata came from — 'Something to do with the Vinegar Bitch and Eileithyia' — after which, sniffing at Katia, Samantha tells her she has her scent.
Dodola storms · first named book 6 — A storm goddess of the prologue's tenth floor, the smaller of two raised from a summoning cube, sponsored season after season by Huanxin Jinx: forced by the Dart of Ophiotaurus into Uzzi's body inside a Circle of Containment, she shatters the exit puzzle into a key, ricochets her own lightning and dies — and Huanxin is banned from her.
Adad storms · first named book 6 — The larger of the two storm deities raised by a summoning cube on the prologue's tenth floor, AI-controlled rather than sponsored, who pours sizzling acid rain over the puzzle field until Dodola stabs something into his leg and teleports him away.
Ogun blacksmithery and armour · first named book 6 — God of Blacksmithery and Armor, level 250, an outsider from an obscure, dissipated pantheon who toils at a celestial anvil making armour for four-legged beasts, unsponsored and 'a strong contender for the celestial throne'. He answers his worshippers' failure in the Thorn Room in person: crushes Anton's head, burns Paz permanent, spares Carl for Emberus's sake. 'Now tell my sister I said' — ‘Welcome Back.’
Yemaya rivers · first named book 6 — Eileithyia's retainer, who looks like the Starbucks logo and white-listed Carl; Katia is invited to serve beside her.
Semiramis — · first named book 6 — A name in a system message — 'the Goddess Semiramis has re-ascended. She is welcomed into the family by all' — the sixth or seventh such message, which tells Carl other squads are waking gods for the players on the twelfth floor.
Wakinyan turkeys · first named book 6 — The Great Wild Turkey, a god tossed into the Nothing who escaped only to be killed by a goat; his bereft shaman Tom and congregation, rudderless, take an ogre witch's protection for a daily sacrifice. 'The death of a god can be devastating to those who worship him.'
Áine — · first named book 6 — The goddess a Wisp in Club Vanquisher worships: 'This Wisp worships the goddess Áine.' Nothing else.
Ibeji — · first named book 6 — A temple on the grounds of the Havana church, beside Kuraokami's; 'whom I'd never heard of'.
Issitoq the Watch; a truce · first named book 7 — The god whose High Cleric of the Watch must grant Emberus permission to break the truce between gods and demons; Hellik treats with him on Emberus's behalf and the peace is breached. Carl is a friend of his church.
Donar the Harii's god · first named book 7 — Jurgen's god of thunder and lightning — 'much the same as Thor. But manlier' — unsponsored, and the reason Jurgen cannot go to the Pineapple Cabaret.
Hapanzi a god; Shi Maria's husband · first named book 7 — Shi Maria's husband, a male spider and then a man and then a god, whom she killed and devoured sobbing in a dream and who returned: 'I have her now, son […] She is good and trapped' He gives Carl control of the eye and one summoning, and speaks, on the adjutants' screen, with Asojano's accent — 'Worry not, my children.'
Mazu — · first named book 7 — A goddess the Viceroys summoned six seasons ago, who razed the ring outside Larracos and buried the last temple entrance — the season the Sultana never appeared.
Khepri rebirth and the sunrise · first named book 7 — The beetle-headed god of the endless temple in Club Vanquisher, level 250, retainer of Adrasteia since Khnum died, whose death cult breaks the game in the tenth floor's L'Engle Building, turning its scarabs on the racers and costing the AI the gate boss it meant to build from them. Carl names him Geyrun's killer to Emberus's face and summons him with the quest prize for ninety seconds of invulnerability — 'Poor bug-headed Khepri. He had nothing to do with this' — and he leaves the arena pointing at Carl and Donut when Taranis says 'Begone!'
The Dagda weather and masculinity · first named book 7 — A weather-and-masculinity god of bearded fighter clerics, usually sponsored by a self-help guru (whether this season, Tipid cannot say), whose ninth-floor temple is a stew shack in Shanty Town that hides the outside entrance to Club Vanquisher; his cleric boils himself in his own stew under Li Na's dread.
Khnum Khepri's former master, one of a sub-pantheon whose gods dropped dead · first named book 7 — The god Khepri once served, who 'mysteriously dropped dead a few days back' like several others of his sub-pantheon; someone on the twelfth floor is killing them.
Adrasteia Khepri's protector · first named book 7 — The goddess Khepri serves for protection since Khnum dropped dead; 'his boss', with an outside shot at the Ascendent throne.
Vertumnus a god of vines · first named book 7 — A god having sex with and fighting Diwata in a Club Vanquisher hallway that fills with vines.
Kina the sea; a sea urchin · first named book 7 — A weird, horny sea-urchin sea goddess whose eyelashes make Katia's Enchanted Spiked Knee Pads — damage reflect, water-breathing, Iron Stomach and Eater of the Dead — worn by Donut against Huanxin Jinx.
Bast a god the changelings touched · first named book 7 — A god one of Juice Box's changelings touched in Club Vanquisher, and died before she could escape.
Harpocrates silence · first named book 7 — The god of silence, who hears a fly's heartbeat from half a planet away and smashes anything loud; summoned by Meatus, the gremlin who stole his member, he chases it across the ninth floor, is stopped at a threshold by two changelings in the form of the golden ogre guards who worship Taranis, is conscripted by Li Na into the Princess Posse at level 250, beats Yarilo to death with the ball, and, not mute at all, swears the Champion of Nekhebit will pay for his beloved cock.
Wepwawet the Court of Nekhebit · first named book 7 — A god of the Court of Nekhebit from whom Donut's tattooed spell Bijanbi — once called Heel — descends; she may worship him now.
Resheph a god of the twelfth floor · first named book 7 — A god of the Court whose entire convent of nuns was splattered when Larracos landed in the cotton fields; he is losing his mind, says Huanxin.
Maw-Loo — · first named book 8 — Named only in a curse: the Touch of Maw-Loo, 'Also known as the Snowdrop Curse', a stray spell from a succubus storyline on an unused seventh floor, which makes certain NPCs fall helplessly in love with the pig it struck.
Tupa Team Flamengo's god · first named book 8 — The god Osvaldo and Filipe worship, whom Carl had never heard of: he calls two memorial crystals 'wrong' and sets a quest to learn why, and is newly sponsored 'by some rich asshole'.
Chalchiuhtlicue childbirth, water, fire and harvests · first named book 8 — 'Chachi' — a catch-all goddess of childbirth and women, water, fire and harvests, never sponsored as far as Rosetta remembers, weak in the Ascendency, whose words Lucia relays at a finish line and is in the cold with the children; Samantha knows her as one who preaches saving children and sacrifices them.
Gula — · first named book 8 — The god Grigori the Placid worships — 'a new one', filed away.
Lamashtu a subjugated goddess · first named book 8 — A level-125 donkey with crow talons: a mortal, subjugated god — subjugated by the system AI, her level halved for having no worshippers — ridden by Chaco as the parade's pacemaker; Samantha's friend Lammy.

Minor and banished deities 9

Samantha a minor deity · first named book 4 — Psamathe, a minor deity banished to the Nothing by her father for bearing a king's child, half of whom escaped into the nearest naiad vessel — a sex doll of the fictional bard Lika — and now lives as a talking, immobile, latex head with fangs, a barrette reading 'Wet for you', and one refrain: 'I'm going to kill your mother.' Hired as the personal space's trainer. Her child is a sand ooze; her mother is a god.
Yarilo lust · first named book 4 — The feral god of lust, Emberus's nephew or cousin or half-brother in Carl's uncertain count, banished to the Nothing for ruining one of Apito's masquerades — the god Samantha impersonated to escape the Nothing, who hates her for it. Born of the Gate's last opening on the ninth floor, conscripted by a war mage's potion, and beaten to death with Meatus by Harpocrates: 'Not my face.' His death angers the gods.
Capa beavers · first named book 5 — 'There’s a beaver god in the Nothing […] Capa or something. He’s a fuck.' Another god, Hehaka, wears him as a hat, which he dislikes and can do nothing about, so he is always crying. The whole of what the book says about him.
Asojano disease; the orishas · first named book 6 — 'Also known as the Lord of Smallpox, Asojano is one of the most respected and feared of the Orishas, a former god made flesh upon the rise of the Ascendency' — disease incarnate, who kills and heals, wears a reed hat that makes him bump into things, and came back to a small town in Miami to look at what he once had; his presence drives the ghommids mad. Shrine five of the Thorn Room: repairing it wins the quest and nothing else, 'He's already proven he's too much of a dangerous asshole to let back into the Halls of Ascendency.' Carl flags him as he dies and he becomes a card, then, fused with Uzi Jesus, a golden one. Yemaya's brother.
Oshun charm; the orishas · first named book 6 — Shrine four of the Thorn Room: a beautiful dark-skinned woman in a dress of yellow light, whose charisma Carl feels 'like it was a physical thing' and who whispers into his ear from across a room — protection from the next five fatal blows, a charisma boost and Heal Party if repaired, and she would ascend. Anton loses half his fingers trying to repair her. Legba's sister.
Legba crossroads; the orishas · first named book 6 — Shrine two: a ghost with a pet rooster — a fifty per cent chance to avoid all future smites and the spell Confusing Fog if repaired, and he would ascend. 'Ogun don't need his shrine fixed, man. If you fix mine, I'll protect you from his wrath. I'll get you laid, too.' Paz and Anton knock his sign over trying to prop it up. Oshun's brother.
Shango lightning; the orishas · first named book 6 — Shrine three: 'He's a little shy.' A level-15 Lightning spell, trainable to 20, 'Hint, hint that spell might come in handy later', and he would ascend. Not chosen.
Inle healing, once; the orishas · first named book 6 — Shrine six: 'One of only two of the Orishas to have spent time in the Nothing, the deaf and mute Inle isn't all there' — once a healing god, immunity from health-seeping conditions and fifty per cent constitution if repaired, and he would not ascend but go back to the Nothing without knowing it. An ethereal sea serpent twists around him. He whispers in Carl's left ear about the canyon in his head.
Makara sushi; the Nothing · first named book 6 — Samantha's goddess in the Nothing 'who looks a lot like you' — crocodile head, fish body — who makes sushi rolls of her own innards, which grow back, and sells them at a little stand. 'It tastes terrible.' Samantha is unsure of the name.

Demigods outside the pantheon 1

The Night Wyrm suffering · first named book 3 — A name on a ring: the Enchanted Night Wyrm's Ring of Divine Suffering, Frank Q's revenge, 'for the discerning Crawler Killer', whose owners, Mordecai says, are the first the sixth-floor hunters track down.

The feral gods 3

The feral gods the beasts from before · first named book 4 — 'The gods from before. The immortal beasts who roamed the heavens before the pantheon banished them into the Nothing and created the world. Their banishment has driven them mad.' A closing Gate lets one through on the opening side; other gods hate them, and each has a two-in-three chance of drawing a real god after it. The party's first opening, from the ocean floor to Pandinus, let Geyrun's puppy Orthrus out of the Nothing; fifteen hundred escapes loosed more.
Meatus a stolen member; song · first named book 7 — A feral god summoned by the Gate: a walking penis who wraps himself around Eris, is caught in Donut's ball, and dies under the Astral Paw crying 'Daddy, help me! I just wanted to sing!' Harpocrates's, it turns out.
Sekhmet a feral goddess · first named book 8 — 'The Great and Feral Sekhmet', whose assassin Donut becomes by a class tied to her deity titles; a veil that makes her hostile to Sekhmet's enemies, which Mordecai reads as Odette's.

Demons 4

Kimaris a demon · first named book 2 — One of the brothers of Sheol, Carl's stuffed figure with a summon time of 'the remainder of the floor'; Samantha remembers him as a best friend who gave her the potion that put her baby in her — and cannot say why she forgot.
Slit a feral minor demon · first named book 4 — Level 200, 'one of the many demons captured and tossed into the Nothing during the original Ascendency', a harem demon who wanted no part of the royal drama and took Samantha's talk of her king to be about hers; her sister is Gash. She comes through the decoy gate in the sand and is torn in two by Psamathe's mother.
Jarmagog a demon · first named book 6 — A name over a flopping zombie sea bass during Cuba's Demon Eviction — 'Jarmagog Comes' — one of the evicted demons taking whatever body is nearest.
Amayon a prince of Sheol · first named book 6 — One of the four crown princes of Sheol — the youngest, Samantha thinks — level 250, betrayed by a brother and expelled upward into the body of a zombie sea serpent during the eighth floor's Demon Eviction: a centaur-pig body, lava skin, a deer's head with four steaming horns and a beak of fire. He wants only to go home; the tithe is a world of souls. Ysalte, his former lover and the mother of his child, enslaves him; a crab, a martyr's steps and a beheading free him. He witnessed the deal that killed Geyrun, and will tell Emberus for the price of three brothers.

Creatures of the pantheon 2

Cerberus gate guardian · first named book 2 — The three-headed dog said to guard one of the stairwell exits on the twelfth floor; Orthrus's grumpy older brother. First named in a system joke about gate guardians of history and myth.
Orthrus juvenile gate guardian · first named book 4 — Geyrun's two-headed puppy, Cerberus's kid brother, 'the universe's goodest boy', sucked into the Nothing the day his master was murdered and loosed into bubble 543 at level 10; a world quest put a million gold on him. Returned to Emberus by Carl and Donut, which is how Carl gets a god.

Figures of doctrine and stage 3

The Oak Fell Apito's antichrist · first named book 2 — The elves' tree goddess and her antichrist. Three separate stories about angels, an oakwood anklet from a dead crawler, and a cat with an award-winning derriere become, in the minds of nine city elves, the end of days. Mordecai says this is twelfth-floor stuff.
Lika a fictional bard · first named book 4 — A half-naiad trobairitz — a bard cleric under a vow of celibacy — the heroine of a series of Larracos stage plays, never real, 'very loosely based on a minor deity'. Ghazi loved her; the sex doll made in her image is where half of Psamathe now lives.
The Midnight Epicure the Caprid Who Devours the Sky · first named book 5 — A fable used to terrify children across the universe — eat your dinner, or the Midnight Epicure will come and eat it, and every child — whose symbol, a caricature of an adult caprid, became a ward against night evils; a patch on Carl's jacket.