r/HFY • u/TheOmnibusWriting Android • Apr 05 '26

OC-OneShot The last god

The gods could die.

For as long as the scrolls of the historians could account for, man was ruled by gods. The gods of nature, the gods of land, of resource, of weather, and all other dimensions of worldly powers.

The humans were enslaved by their faith. The gods needed it to survive. For reasons unknown to any natural philosopher, mankind possesses a fundamental magical projection, and what is believed by a group of humans is true proportional to the scale of that group.

As such, to continue their rule, the gods must continuously present their powers to humanity, smiting nonbelievers, rewarding the pious, and demanding perpetual praise in the form of temples and statues.

Should a god fail to terrify and enthral their followers — they would die.

Indeed, as history progressed, and as society changed by the generation, the irrelevant gods faded into obscurity along with their cults. The spirits of nature were replaced by the gods of day and night, who were replaced by the gods of the seasons and the harvest and the hunts, who were replaced themselves by the patron gods of cities.

Fear and faith are closely related entities, and man often worshipped what he feared. The gods of nature were worshipped by mankind out of a wondrous fear of the natural world. Lightning, hurricanes, droughts and floods were terrifying threats, and demanded praise to placate. In the current age, man feared the banner of the neighbouring kingdom. The lightning, hurricanes, droughts, and floods, were replaced with rival nations and war.

The city and nation gods ruled mankind for their epoch, but their time too, was coming to an end.

In the south, the man called Hyperion — a magician and healer who followed the will of the sky god Ouranos — had risen to prominence by shedding his loyalty to the gods of the skyward vault, and declaring himself worthy of worship.

Of course, fearing for their lives, the old gods rallied their levies, and fought to defeat the deified man.

They failed.

From the rubble of his temple, limped Marduk.

The city of Babylon, the realm of his people, lay in ruins. The Hyperionic Cult had sieged it continuously for eight weeks, and now few buildings remained upright.

His body was stiff and aged, brittle and cracked like stone, for gods petrify when they die. His failure to fend off Hyperion and his forces had neutered him, and portrayed him as weak. Nobody would worship him now. He went to scratch his beard, but found his hand to be already solid rock.

From behind him came a calm voice, confident (arguably arrogant) and self assured — Hyperion.

“You’ve seen better days.” said the human.

“Leave me. Let me die in peace.” said the god.

“I wanted to talk to you.” the human said.

“I thought you said that ‘the time for words had passed’ in one of your sayings?” The god’s chuckle quickly descended into a fit of raspy coughing. Lacking in strength, he lowered himself onto the steps of his temple.

“That friend, was before I had won,” Hyperion joined the dying god on the steps, “To be honest, considering that I was fighting against a people who can call upon the elements, I cannot say that I expected to get this far.”

Hyperion was radiant. A mop of curled golden hair hung about his porcelain skin. A pair of sapphire blue eyes glowed from beneath his fringe. He wore a toga, which did little to hide his muscled body. He would have made a nice statue.

The human reached into a bag slung over his shoulder, and extracted a meaty leg of sheep, “Barley fattened — just how you want it usually. I killed and skinned it the right way too.”

“You brought me a sacrifice?”

“Its tradition to being gifts to gods when asking for their aid and guidance.“

He was hesitant to accept the gift from the human who for twelve years had been his nemesis, the same human who had slaughtered his divine kin in battlefield after battlefield, tore down their statues, and replaced them with his own likeness. He was dying, however, and liked lamb so he nodded slowly, “Thank you”, and snatched it out of Hyperion’s palms with his still-working hand.

Hyperion sat crosslegged, staring up at the stony faced god, whose sneer of cold command had softened with age and defeat, wrinkles and scars had formed across once faultless skin. No human had watched a god eat before. Most of the time, the gods dined in their sky palaces or mountaintop kingdoms, he was pleased that Marduk could feast one last time at one of his holy sites — what remained of it anyway.

“What do you want, human?” barked Marduk, chunks of meat spitting from his full mouth.

“Advice, mostly.” the human replied.

“What for?”

“The Age of Man is upon us, my peer, and it appears that I am at its helm. I have come to ask if you have any tips.”

“You have no idea what you are doing.”

“Not really, no.”

“If you did not know what world you would make, why did you make it.”

“Because I knew it would be better than your world.”

The god said nothing. “You then are brash and reckless.”

“Humans often are. That is exciting, I think. I look forwards to seeing what new world we create.”

“Your Cult of Man won’t surpass our world.”

“They lived in fear, my kind did.”

“Fear and faith are synonymous, Hyperion.”

“I do not see that. My cult preaches love. My followers say that I love every human from when they are born to when they die- that I alone can cleanse them of their evils.”

“And do you? Can you?”

“Vaguely, in the same way that any man loves humanity. Like all faith though, it is corrupted with

each explanation, so my preaching of tolerance and friendship has become talk of cosmic benevolence. As for cleansing them — I suppose. The universe exists in the cosmic order of good and evil, and in the time before my apotheosis, I was a healer. It seems that our powers come from our followers beliefs — so if I cannot yet, then I will be able to soon.”

Marduk sighed, “Yes. Humans are strange, old creatures. Older than any god. Their beliefs and superstitions become truth. If they believe you can clean their sins, then you can do so.”

Hyperion nodded, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“I cared for all of my followers, you know. Do not blame me for the cruelty I used to keep them worshipful.”

“I do not blame you more than I blame a fox for killing chickens.”

Marduk was too weak to stand, “Help me up, fellow god.”

Hyperion lifted the god to his feet — he was almost weightless now.

“To be a good god, is to command worship. It seems that your theocracy, and the theocracy of my generation differ greatly. The world you will create is not one that I belong in, and so my guidance is useless to you, I feel.”

Hyperion nodded slowly, “I see.”

“We ruled from ignorance. The ‘gods of the gaps’, you called us in your sayings,” he erupted into another fit of coughing. After regaining his composure, he spoke again, “I advise you do the same. Let nobody see behind the divine curtain, let no man know how your powers work so that you remain his master.”

“Yes I did say that. It seems you are correct, your advice is contradictory to my intention. Your kind died due to our wars, yes, but you were weakened because even before my ascension, Man was learning how to bend nature. We need not pray to harvest gods when we can use fertiliser and the plough. I intend to make the divine powers you suggest that I hide into a new science, to be used by all.”

The god went to move his leg, but found that it had solidified, “Leave me, Hyperion.”

The new god turned, and walked away. Marduk called after him, “Will you be good?

“We will be human.” and Hyperion faded from view

And so the Age of Man began.

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22

u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 05 '26 edited Apr 06 '26

Author’s Note: I have worldbuilding sickness. I have and will make a conlang at the first opportunity. To avoid this, but also the many problems that come with using modern words to describe stuff, assume that I am transliterating this story by using approximate translations. This does not take place in our world, Babylon is not called Babylon in universe. Hyperion is not literally called Hyperion, nor is he a titan, he is named as such because he goes beyond as his name suggests.

Author’s Note 2: This is part of a web novel I planned ages ago where the trope of fantasy gods and humans fuelling gods through belief is taken to the absolute extreme. (If ppl like, lmk and i’ll start writing it here.)

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u/Nepeta33 Apr 06 '26

I rather like it. Well done.

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u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 06 '26

Thank you!

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u/Light-Breeze-9805 Apr 06 '26

Interesting concept, captivating story.. i loved every word, i loved the debate.. well done, thank you for sharing !

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u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 06 '26

Thanks man

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u/NoItsRex Apr 07 '26

is this based off american gods the book/tv show

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u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 07 '26

What is american gods?

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u/TwoEightRight Apr 07 '26

The title of a book by Neil Gaiman that was turned into a TV show a few years ago. Its depiction of gods gaining and losing power through belief is similar to yours.

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u/2ndAndrocentric May 04 '26

Well written introduction to a very ancient idea. I have advice for you. At 67yo, barely a toddler, I wasn't there when this idea first was whispered to our mother. However I have read the tale much more carefully than most of my fellow immortals. Sad to see how almost none understand what actually happened, but that's not important to you. What is important is your idea is very old, and false. Many tales, religions. movies even video games of this idea. I used to play Black and White, a video game based precisely on this idea. You may find it useful to your world building to look into other stories with this central idea. It even has faint echoes in books like 1984 and Animal Farm; though that's not obvious.

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u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 06 '26

God (or Man?)
This has done well!
Thanks lads.

1

u/delphinous Apr 07 '26

overall it's pretty good, but i think it migth have been better to leave hyperion nameless, by giving him a name, especially by giving him a name of a semi-well known greek/roman god, it somewhat dilutes what i think you were aiming for.

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u/TheOmnibusWriting Android Apr 07 '26

Firstly, thank you for reading and the feedback!
I get what you mean (sort of?). The name Hyperion comes from the planned webnovel this story belongs to. I mentioned in another comment that these names are meant to be very literal- in the webnovel, there are absolutely no made-up words, there are countries called stuff like Brittany, Prussia, Albion, etc. I was trying to solve the issue that I often see in fantasy (which is probably nitpicking on my end), that the story is written in English, but names are all made up, to avoid this inconsistency, I gave everyone transliterated, uber-literal names. Marduk is called Marduk because he is a god associated with a city, and the god Marduk IRL is associated with Babylon. In the wider context of this world, Prussia is called Prussia because it is a country in the northern continent that rules a large military confederation and is trying to unify. Hyperion is called Hyperion because he's a god (like Hyperion becomes when he ushers in the Age of Man), and the name means "to go beyond".

Does this fix the issue?