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The Wolf and the Lost Ember

The Wolf and the Lost Ember, Divine Guides of those Barred from the Afterlife (Kalani and Atevo)

^{Atevo and Kalani's spirits} 

• Lesser God (the Wolf), Quasideity (the Lost Ember)
• Symbol: A circle with a triangle on the bottom sector pointing toward the center
• Theme Song: "Come Back Home", "Your Light", "All That You Are"
• Alignment: Chaotic Good for the Wolf, Lawful Neutral for the Lost Ember
• Portfolio:
  • Both: Prevented from entering the City of Light, piecing together who they were in their past lives through exploring the ruins of a lost Inca-inspired civilization and turning out to be father and daughter, being on equally destructive sides of a revolution, holding on to the amulets of lost loved ones and performing funerals for them, blaming each other for their actions, terrible realizations of what they've done and trying to make things right
  • The Wolf/Kalani: Having a strong bond with animals, reincarnating as a wolf, "soul wandering" by possessing other animals, sparking a revolution to avenge a loved one but ending up destroying everything, having a white mark on her fur as a sign of her power, guiding the lost ember to the afterlife, only communicating through howling and body language as a wolf
  • The Lost Ember/Atevo: Forgetting who he was and reducing to a point of light, providing context and commentary, was a former member of the emperor's guard with his loyalty blinding him to his own faults and wider suffering, killing his own daughter and the woman she loved, finding his own skeleton without realizing it
• Domains: Wolves, Spirits, Family, Nature, Travel, Death
• Allies: The Guardians of the Northern Lights, The ABZU Diver, The Robed Figure, Amaterasu, Stella and Daffodil, Jim Raynor (mostly Kalani), Rook and Alette (mostly Atevo)
• Enemies: Arcturus Mengsk, Cruella De Vil
• Respects: Kuzco
• Pities: Captain Martin Walker
• Complicated Relationship: The House of Beast
• Yanrana custom states that those that are true to their beliefs and undergo a Viking Funeral will go to the City of Light. Those that don't are reborn as wild beasts. One day, a wolf is woken up by a ball of red light, asking for her help dislodging an amulet from a skeleton. She ends up summoning the spirit of Kalani, who tasks the wolf, her reincarnation, with helping the Lost Ember reach the City of Light. As they travel through the ruins of the Yanren civilization, they piece together Kalani's past through reconstructing her memories. Driven by famine and oppression, Kalani turned to banditry and led a protest against the emperor's forces, but at her father Atevo's order, her home was burned down with her lover Weyla inside. With nothing left to lose, Kalani and her followers infiltrated the capital city of Quilotasi and incited a revolution, but it failed and burned down the city. The spirit was furious but the two pressed forward, following Kalani through a desert and to even more ancient ruins with Atevo in hot pursuit. The spirit then learned he was Atevo and that he accidentally killed Kalani by pushing her off a ledge. Kalani was leading him along to open his eyes to how he blindly follows orders and it cost him everything. After admitting that he was equally at fault for what happened, Atevo was finally free to join Kalani in the City of Light, with the wolf joining them in due time.
• When the wolf finally entered the City of Light, it was just as beautiful as Atevo had described, and filled with more than just Yanrana. Other deities were quick to notice a black, white-faced wolf bouncing between animals and swiftly directed her to Kalani and Atevo, mere worshippers in the House of Life and Death. The latter was especially delighted to be rejoined by his guide. With the arrival of the animal that brought Atevo to the afterlife and the final piece of Kalani's spirit returned, they finalized their ascension to a position representative of their journey to understand why they were barred from the afterlife.
• Their temple is a recreation of the Grand Temple of Quilotasi sans wolf-fighting ring, complete with a sanctuary of a pyramid against a golden disk representing the sun. While Kalani disliked having such a structure built, having destroyed the sanctuary during her revolution and opposing the oppression the Yanren empire represented to her, Atevo maintained that it holds important sentimental value to him and represents them now. Kalani is more content with a simple mountain hut like the one she used to live in and spends her time distributing food to the needy.
• Most gods are still debating about the wolf's true relationship with Kalani. Some theorize that the wolf is the whole Kalani reborn, some say she is an aspect of her, and some even say it is just an ordinary wolf given her memories. While Kalani did indeed task the wolf with teaching her father a final lesson, she refuses to comment further and the two are rarely seen at the same time.
• The wolf generally is not content with staying in the temple, and goes out looking for trinkets, memories, and other lost souls to guide to the afterlife. Naturally, she spends most of her time in the House of Beast, often accompanied by Atevo in the form of a point of light to speak for her when needed. While some of the gods there don't like the wolf temporarily taking over their followers, and especially since she tried taking over some gods to add to her "legendary" collection, at least the wolf doesn't intend any harm and promptly leaves them once she's done. She now knows to not bother deities and especially anything that could talk. They are far more amicable with Kalani, given her empathy with animals.
• The wolf's journey to help Atevo reach the afterlife endeared her to the other psychopomps in the House of Life and Death, but the ones they have most interacted with were Stella and Daffodil. One time, they found themselves on Spiritfarer's ferry with Stella thinking the wolf was another one of her clients. A quick talk with her spirit companion cleared up any misunderstandings and the two pairs became fast friends. While Stella specializes in calming the dead in preparation in their journey to the afterlife, the wolf fills a slightly different niche in helping spirits who have lost their memories or have mental blocks preventing them from moving on. Their help is sometimes requested for more stubborn passengers and the wolf drops by using a bird.
• Kalani was originally wary of Kuzco, seeing parallels between him and the emperor she tried to overthrow, but upon learning that he became a lot more wise and humble after his time as a llama and in the company of a peasant, he earned her respect. Atevo was more immediately accommodating, but both agreed that Atevo's blind devotion wasn't something either needed.
• The two tried to help Sayo Aisaka recall the memories of her past life, but without another set of memories to explore it indirectly, they haven't had a lot of success. Sayo doesn't really fault them for trying and is one of the ghosts they are really good friends with. Despite being a wild animal, the wolf readily accepts pets from her, even if her touch isn't exactly tangible when not through her doll.
• Exploring the top of a mountain, the wolf and her companion spotted two foxes running on the sky with an aurora trailing behind them. Intrigued by the sight, she jumped into a condor and flew after them. After some initial caution (being a larger predator and all), the Guardians of the Northern Lights turned out to have similar stories and quickly went to introduce her to the Robed Figure and the Diver. The Diver was especially surprised to see the wolf following her underwater as a fish. When exchanging stories through journeying through their worlds (the spirit was incredibly talkative compared to everyone else), the others grew concerned that the wolf had an active role in the downfall of her civilization in her previous life compared to the rest of them just being explorers of the aftermath. However, they acknowledge that that was long ago and the wolf and Atevo became better people since then. The Robed Figure also chimed happily upon learning that the wolf had rescued a cloth creature on her adventure.
• Like many other gods, the two were disgusted at Martin Walker's actions and desire to be a hero, but found a kindred spirit in how their convictions blinded them and put them on a path to destruction. Walker especially respects Kalani for coming to her senses and trying to make things right, an option he didn't realize he had until the very end.
• Two of Atevo's friends he doesn't share with Kalani are Rook and Alette, who appreciate him giving Kalani as close to a proper Viking Funeral as he could and paving her way to enter the City of Light. Kalani herself doesn't believe in the ritual, thinking that one's entry to the afterlife is more than just how their body is disposed of, but it was important to Atevo and he believes that such preparation allowed her to go to the City of Light in the first place.
• Kalani's revolution was more of a peasant uprising and ultimately failed to create a better society, but her efforts still put her in the company of Jim Raynor. He insisted that what she did was justifiable and while it might not work out, it is still worth it to change even one person's mind. Better that than Arcturus Mengsk, who overthrew his previous government only to institute an even worse tyranny.
• The Nature Uprising has sent out feelers to employ the wolf's abilities for intelligence gathering and infiltration, especially since the wolf had come a background where nature had overgrown a civilization that fell due to overexploiting nature to the point of famine. San, being associated with wolves herself, was tasked to recruit her and the three travelled through a polluted area that reminded the wolf and Atevo of the destruction of Quilotasi. So far the pair have declined membership in the Nature Uprising, citing how restoring nature is not exactly in her skillset and Atevo's presence needed to use her abilities would just give her away.
• As the Yanrana worshiped the sun, Amaterasu was also concerned that since Kalani wrecked their most sacred symbol during her revolution, she might come for the sun goddess next. Of course, Kalani was never going to stand a chance and once things cooled off, Ammy became fond of the soul-wandering wolf and Kalani's rescue of a wolf pup allowed her to get close to Chibiterasu, though he's still more than a bit to handle himself.
• Cruella De Vil has taken an interest in the wolf, thinking her black and white pelt would make a striking article. However, the wolf proved to be an extremely slippery mark with a companion for situational awareness. Any hunter she hires would be stuck trying to pick the soul-wandering wolf out of a crowd of identical animals if it hadn't given them the slip already. Jumping into another animal would make her pelt inaccessible as well.

Sergey Taboritsky

Sergey Vladimirovich Taboritsky's eyes snapped open as morning light streamed in through the study windows. Was he in hell? It was far too bright to be. Was the Tsarevich not revealed to be bones and dust and scraps of cloth, all of his efforts, sins and atrocities for naught? Yet there was no sign of Alexei, or even any sound at all echoing in the palace. In the palace grounds outside, strange beings lurked and shifted behind the various hedges and statues, their presence betrayed their colors and glows as they advanced. Some even floated, eyes fixed to the windows in cautious curiosity. They were powerful beings, gods and demons both, telling whoever lurked within the palace to reveal themselves. If it was true that he had come to the land of the gods, then perhaps his Blessed Tsarevich is here as well, ready to be found and take the throne. He steadied himself on the corner of his desk and shakily rose to his feet. With renewed purpose, he picked up the phone and contacted any commanders he could. None answered. In this world, he was alone, but it was no matter. God had given him a second chance, another challenge to prove that he and Russia were truly worthy of Alexei's rule. A grin crept across Taboritsky's face, the first in a long while, silently laughing at how he could ever doubt the survival of the Tsarevich.

There is much to be done.

Sergey Vladimirovich Taboritsky, Unholy Regent of Self-Destructive Repression (Sergius von Taboritzki, The Blessed Regent, Tabby, Taburet, funni clock man)

Flag of the Holy Russian Empire

Potential House: Manners of Authority; Villainous Success and Failure;

• Demigod
• Symbol: The flag of the Holy Russian Empire
• Theme song: "Verify Your Clock"
• Alignment: Chaotic Evil (belives himself to be Lawful Neutral)
• Portfolio: Alternate-History Nazi Victory, Evil Reactionary, Completely Bathsit Crazy, guided by the will of the Skein, Breakout Character, Historical Villain Upgrade, Believes Alexei Romanov Is Hiding and Purging Everyone In Russia Deemed Impure Will Bring Him Back, Deadly Gas, Absolute Xenophobe, Being A Member Of The Nazi Party Despite Having A Jewish mother, The Theocracy, Allohistorical Allusion, Elevated From A Political Nobody To Being The Reunifier And Ruiner Of Russia, Turning Russia Into A Living Nightmare Tainted With Chemical Weapons, Kill the Poor, Academics, And Anyone Who Has Ever Committed A Crime, Dystopia Is Hard, Clocks of Control, His Sanity Being Represented By Clocks and Dies If They Hit Midnight upon realizing Alexei is never coming back and Russia falls into chaos soon afterward, The Schizophrenia Conspiracy
• Domains: Royalty, Evil, Insanity, Pollution, Sterilization, Death
• Herald: Viktor Larionov
• Allies: None. While some evil deities like The Joker rival him in insanity, he is so completely detached from reality that he is impossible to work with or even steer in a particular direction.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork with: Lysandre, Caesar Clown
• Rivals: Big Brother, Imran Zahkhaev, Vladimir Makarov and Nikita Dragovich, Aryan Brotherhood, Konrad von Carstein
• Has the favor of: Nurgle, Khorne, Delirium, Kefka Palazzo, Hexxus
• Enemies: Every good-aligned, Jewish and Russian deity, but especially Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, Rasputin and Georgy Zhukov, all his rivals for that matter, the God-Emperor of Mankind, the GUAE Trollkaiger, Johann Schmidt/Red Skull, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Team Metal, Judge Dredd, the Hall of Disguises, the House of Royalty
• Opposed By: Most Nazi Deities like Deathshead
• Pitied by: Anyone who can see through his reign of terror and see the incredibly mentally ill man inside. Mostly at a distance...and shockingly enough, Zamasu
• Tolerated by: The Grand United Alliance of Law (barely)
• The world the Blessed Regent hails from is a bleak one, but marked with paths that could turn it to the light. This is not one of them. The Soviet Union had been shattered after Operation Barbarossa and again after the West Russian War. Taboritsky, a Russian emigre living in Berlin, was the one-time assassin of Vladimir Nabokov's father and faked a Russian German noble ancestry to join the NSDAP. He was originally affiliated with Vladimir II’s invasion during the West Russian War, but since dismissed his claim as that of a imposter and left Vladimir’s fiefdom for the Komi Republic, a Disaster Democracy that turned into a haven for extremists at all ends of the political spectrum. A fringe monarchist in the far-right Passionaryy Organization, Taboritsky believes that Alexei Romanov is still alive despite being dead for nearly fifty years. After somehow maneuvering his way into control of Komi and reunifying West Russia, he unveiled his true intentions: he would create a Holy and Pure Russia in order for the Tsarevich to return. To do so, he models his government on an extremist faction of the Nazis and conquers the rest of the country with terrible purges and poison gas. What’s left of his mental state continues to crumble as the constant massacres and total oppression still fail to bring the Tsarevich back. When the clocks hit midnight, Alexei seemingly appears to Taboritsky in his office, only to immediately disintegrate into a child’s skeleton. The Blessed Regent dies screaming and Russia collapses into a charnel house of death and extremism.
  • Other memories have seeped into the Regent's mind as a consequence of the many paths he could have taken. One where he disappeared into the woods on the way to the Aryan Brotherhood, one where he was voted out of the Passionaryy and left calmly composed, and one where he immolated himself in a chapel. The visions of every path ending in failure or death have shaken him, but he can't allow his resolve to falter.
  • Commentators and analysts in the Pantheon are simultaneously dreading and eagerly anticipating a rematch between Taboritsky's HRE and the Aryan Brotherhood. In some timelines the two warlord states never met, and even when they did their insane goals are fundamentally irreconcilable despite their ideological similarities. Taboritsky and Vagner are aware of each other's existence in the pantheon, and the authorities are gearing up for a massive spillover of violence potentially involving chemical weapons.
• One midnight in the Pantheon, the clocks striking twelve were punctuated by a set of discordant pianos and whistles. An opulent mansion, not that different from the more opulent temples, appeared on a vacant lot, with screaming heard inside. Out of an abundance of caution, an MTF from the SCP Foundation was dispatched to investigate, but were soon overtaken by a toxic gas that melted them into goop and began streaming out of the palace. The substance was identified as Taborite, a chemical agent similar to Nova-6, triggering alarm that such a potent weapon could fall into Nazi hands once more. With help from the GOC and other forces, the temple was sealed off from the main house, but with Taborite unable to be safely neutralized at the moment, the temple lay unbreached. No one has any idea what’s going on inside except for a looping radio broadcast:
  Remain calm.
  The Regent endures.
  Alexei lives.
  The Holy Russian Empire shall endure.
  There is much to be done.
• Despite the strict quarantine placed on Taboritsky's palace, propaganda extolling the Regent, the "Holy Russian Empire", and the promised Tsarevich, as well as various criminal activities determined to be in support of him, have been reported all over. Whoever dares follow him are still obscure and not much of a threat, confined mostly to Pantheon's underground political fringes, but efforts are ongoing to uncover what support base Taboritsky is building.
• Only Alexei is fit for the throne and the sight of another Romanov in the pantheon - Anastasia - was enough to send the regent into a rage. He is currently trying to find ways to kill her but ruled out all cooperation with Rasputin, considering him a demonic wizard who threatened the entire Romanov family and his blessed Alexei. Anastasia herself was only made aware of the Mad Regent when she was kidnapped and interrogated about her brother's whereabouts. Having been separated from the rest of the family and suffering from amnesia during the revolution, Anastasia could not provide any answers to the Regent's severe dissatisfaction. Luckily, she was rescued in time by Team Metal and is now under much stricter security.
• Taboritsky's ascension confused most Nazi deities in the pantheon, first him being a Russian member of the Nazi party, and the second being that he's secretly Jewish. While he shares most of their beliefs, they take offense with how his lunacy exaggerates if not outright parodies how destructive and doomed to failure their ideology is, and his methods were denounced as counter-productive and too excessive even for them. However, they can't disavow him as a pretender as he has the paperwork to prove his membership in the historical NSDAP, offering him more legitimacy than even Johann Schmidt, who disgusted by what he sees as a perversion of Nazi ideology. Steve Rogers naturally thinks Taboritsky is yet more proof about how inherently vile fascism and Nazism is.
• Deathshead is even more perplexed that the Nazi Germany of Taboritsky's timeline won World War II at all. The Reich conquered most of Europe, shattered the USSR, nuked Pearl Harbor, put a man on the moon, and even constructed Atlantropa (even the Wolfenstein world had to settle for a bridge) but then collapsed into economic depression and then civil war due to their own ineptitude. While willing to concede that they were able to do so without incredible leaps in technology, the sheer inefficiency of Taboritsky’s timeline’s fascists annoys him to no end, leading him to conclude that the only reason they could have succeeded was if they were put on training wheels through the war after which they were promptly removed.
• Imran Zahkhaev, Vladimir Makarov and Nikita Dragovich despise Taboritsky for what he had done to Russia as a card-carrying fascist and Nazi, even though their own use of WMDs barely makes them any better. They could at least say they did it out of patriotism, not a monarchist delusion. In response, Taboritsky denounced them as "Judeo-Bolshevik puppets" for their dedication to the Soviet Union. However he's more concerned about Georgy Zhukov, somehow still alive despite the West Russian Revolutionary Front being defeated in Taboritsky's bloody path to reunification. The People's Marshal himself leaned that his incarnation in Taboritsky's timeline is one of the leaders of the WRRF and one of the better unifiers of Russia. While pleased that he kept fighting the good fight, he could only hope that his counterpart succeeded in the timelines where Taboritsky never came to power given the multitude of other factions in the former USSR, good and bad. Zhukov has since recruited Dimitri Petrenko, Viktor Reznov and other Soviet soldiers to form an All-Russian resistance to oppose the mad regent like all other fascists.
• The God-Emperor of Mankind was disappointed to find the Regent basically acting like another one of his priests, with Taboritsky enacting policies declaring "suffer not the mutant". He took no pleasure in such acts of cruelty to keep humanity from falling to Chaos, but Taboritsky's empire performing similar acts out of a complete delusion to bring back a long-dead monarch sickens him. It certainly doesn't help that Taboritsky favors the insane tyranny the Imperium can and has devolved into; Taboritsky's standards are so high even dropping tools is a death sentence, and the House of Law and Justice has only seen his kind of zealousness exceeded by the Dark Judges; Judge Dredd proved just as appalled as the Emperor. Nurgle and Khorne, however, relish in the self-inflicted suffering by a man thinking he is serving God. Due to the small scale of Taboritsky's activities compared to other struggles in the Pantheon, none have been conclusively proven to have intervened.
• Given how absolutely insane he is, among the larger alliances it was more a question of "who, if anyone, would be stuck with him". The closest anyone has come to controlling Sergey Taboritsky is probably the GUAL, who manipulate his religious fervor into him thinking God, Alexei and the will of the Skein is talking to him. However he's treated as nothing but a mad dog who's destructive regime works as a deterrent at best, and more realistically so his madness isn't directed at them. The only member of the GUAL who actually likes Taboritsky is Lysandre, as he also believes in a mass purge and genocide to purify the world and preserve its beauty. Also while Lysandre isn't racist per-say, they're both highly elitist. However this only goes so far due to Taboritsky's sheer detachment from reality, as he's liable to consider Lysandre a friend and a subversive in one sitting.
• His discovery of alternate worlds and timelines was not good for his mental health, and he briefly fixated on finding a world where Alexei survived. He even personally broke into the Locations and Settings to acquire such means for himself and he found just what he was looking for: a portal gun used to travel to other dimensions. However, said device was owned by a certain Rick Sanchez who then proceeded to thoroughly kick his ass and dump him back in his temple. While enraged, Taboritsky felt it would be a waste of energy to go after him and issued a decree banning pickles. Anyone found in possession of them would be assumed to associated with Rick and undermining the HRE, thus punishable by execution. His limited resources to enforce that outside of his tiny zone of control led to it mostly being laughed at.
• For the love of every god, do not try to impersonate Alexei; you will fail miserably in trying to manipulate him. Sergey Taboritsky wishes to usher a chemical holocaust on the Hall of Disguises for making the idea of impersonating his precious Alexei even possible. He's interested in the Deadly Gas Caesar Clown has access to. Horrifyingly Caesar was crazy enough and so bereft of moral standards to sell poison gas and other weapons to the insane regent...just from a clear distance. Hexxus loved this as he's amused by the Polluted Wasteland Taboritsky is turning Russia into in an attempt to "purify" it. However it's important to remember Taboritsky is too irrational to consistently appease. For further proof, the man plans to tear through the House of Royalty to exterminate anyone who could remotely be considered a pretender to the Russian throne.
• Alexander Rovias considers Taboritsky an interesting subject with regards to his sanity meter, the clockworks. However, he wasn't that mentally stable to begin with and is understandably not that interested in conversation. The horrors of his regime match that of her most stressful experiences, but being made by humans, isn't enough to truly scare her. Because of his very fragile psyche, the Blessed Regent is easily baited by the Trollkaiger who like to take the piss out of him with memes such as calling him "funni clock man" and saying he invented loli due to his IRL self killing the father of Vladimir Nabokov, eventually leading him to write Lolita. He can't stand them pointing out he has a Jewish mother either. Eric Cartman initially thought he could use Taboritsky's hatred against Jews and as as his bio-father is ginger he's also Boomerang Bigot, but Taboritsky was too insane for him.
• Amazingly he might be the one mortal Zamasu feels sympathy for, if a purely vain sympathy; like him Sergey Taboritsky is a deranged Knight Templar who wants to see his world become beautiful, even when the way of doing so is so genocidal and xenophobic it's basically apocalyptic. Far saner/more moral gods do pity him even if they can't stand what he's done since it's clear that he's a very mentally damaged person who needs help...but given his position, trying to proscribe it to him is met with a gruesome death. It's said that Delirium watches over him, and Kefka understands him. The latter is more evil than insane and thinks what he's doing is hilarious, so take it with a grain of salt. The Blessed Regent naturally has no idea why people are making the comparisons.
• Could be considered a Foil to Big Brother and the Party; if the Holy Russian Party is how tyranny is self-destructive Oceania is how tyranny can forever sustain itself. In both cases it's still a hellish Dystopia, and INGSOC prides itself on being well aware of that fact when Taboritsky is FAR from self-aware. In fact the chaotic Holy Russian Empire is something they see as a potential pawn/enemy to further strengthen their hold on the Proles. Sergey just screamed at alleged "subversiveness" going "I AM NOT A JEW, I AM NOT A CAIN".
• The utter batshittery of Sergey Taboritsky has been compared to Aerys II Targaryen and Luca Blight. To everyone's relief Taboritsky's prior contempt for the House of Royalty and complete disconnect from reality prevents him from trying to strike a chord with them over their madness. Indeed, Taboritsky is so utterly insane even those like Annie Wilkes who are obsessively mad themselves are too afraid of him to try and bond. There was at least one god who made Taboritsky even partially resemble normal and halfway competent at leading, though: Konrad von Carstein. While people like to compare the two, Taboritsky regards him as a bloodlusted beast. As hypocritical as it sounds, he does have a point; because of how broken he is calling Taboritsky a monster is a bit unfair as his delusions prevent him from realizing what he's doing is wrong. Even if Carstein was sane, he would be no less a monster because he was always a genuinely horrid person and his madness doesn't impact that.
  • He considers the Crimson Court as perverted and degenerate. He's completely right, though not in his reasoning; Taboritsky may be a terrible ruler but assuming he was even aware of it, he'd pride himself on wanting to do the right thing. The Crimson Court are just a bunch of sociopathic hedonists who use their blue-blooded status as an excuse to be bastards.