Oplath Daigono Shar

Description

Oplath Daigono Shar is the God of Natural Flight, whose purview encompasses all things which travel the skies by natural means… he is not the god of birds nor Aerwhals nor any such specific things, but of their acts of flying.

Oplath Daigono Shar appears as a cloud of feathers and skin flaps, in all manner of shades and colours, flapping furiously as he moves. Once, he spoke with a clear, sharp voice, but time has seen it grow thin and reedy, as wind whistling through hollow bones.

During the Prehistoric Age and the Primordial War

In ancient times, Oplath Daigono Shar was a powerful god indeed, for he was the God of Flight, and even the movements of the mighty Primordials through the air fell into his purview. When war came between the progenitors of Creation and the Exalted, Oplath Daigono Shar was torn, for the little humans were flightless creatures and he did not wish to be lessened. Nevertheless, like most of the divine spirits he stood with the Incarnae in biased neutrality, worries calmed by the promise of Autochthon that humans would take flight on forged wings.

Oplath Daigono Shar was to be sorely disappointed in the result. Before the Primordial War was through, the Solar Exalted had already begun to forge means of taking to the skies, these artificial contraptions granted a god of their own, Vanileth the god of Kites, one of Oplath Daigono Shar’s minor subordinates.

Vanileth was a fervent and vocal supporter of the War against the Primordials, and thus of the Exalted, and at war’s end when purviews and positions in the Celestial Bureaucracy were shifted and shuffled he was rewarded for his energies with a great boon: the Incarnae and the Primordials declared Flight to be not one monolith but two distinct and separate purviews: Natural and Artificial. The loyal Vanileth was granted the Artificial, the neutral Oplath Daigono Shar stripped down to the Natural.

Oplath Daigono Shar accepted the change without complaint, for his remained the larger, and he had seen the fate of those who dared decry the post-War rulings of the Incarnae: branded traitors and torn asunder by the fists of the Exalted, their corpses girding the Chosen of the Maidens as they strode through the Heavenly City as warning to the rest of the divines. But he was certainly far from happy, thirsting for revenge against the god who had usurped him.

During the First Age

Alas for Oplath Daigono Shar, the conflict for the purview of Flight was far from over, and his foe had seized the political high ground. As the Incarnae and Primordial survivors withdrew from authority, Vanileth spent his time not in the Heavenly Courts but in Meru, amongst the Solar Exalted, whispering to them of the things that could be. Humanity flourished, and in so doing wiped out many flying species which had been much loved by Oplath Daigono Shar, while the factory-cathedrals of the Exalted pumped out flying machine after flying machine, spreading them across Creation. None of this was acciodental, for Vanileth knew well the Solars, and what whispers were needed to turn them to his ends, and they in turn knew well Vanileth and felt his purview to suit their own ambitions.

Oplath Daigono Shar had some friends amongst the Lunar Exalted, who embraced the flying creatures of his purview and took to the air alongside them on natural wings, but these could not stand against the mechanical marvels of their Solar mates. Indeed, some amongst the Solar Exalts began to push active pogroms of extermination against flying creatures, who seemed vulnerable to scratching the paint or clogging the engines of flying machines when they crossed paths.

Oplath Daigono Shar came at last to face knowledge of his certain doom when the People of Air first took wing. Humans, winged and flying, a glorious thing… but Vanileth had outmaneuvered him once more, for the Solar Deliberative declared, with blessings of Heaven, the birth of a ‘new artificial race, gifted with artificial flight’.

Oplath Daigono Shar withdrew from the social circles of Yu shan then, to his sanctum nest amidst the tallest trees of the Northeast, certain that it would not be long before they came to render him into metal and steal away the last of his purview. Whether his thoughts of doom were to be true or not shall be forever unknown, for though he remained a recluse for some time, no assault ever came against him, and the rule of the Solar Exalted was brought to an end by the Usurpation.

During the Usurpation and Shogunate

Though he was too distant for involvement directly, Oplath Daigono Shar favoured the Usurpation, like many gods whose purviews and survival were threatened by the power of the Solar Exalted and their most fervent divine supporters. He watched with glee as the Chosen of the Sun were cast down and their artificial creations fell along with them. Where the Solars sought to flee, Oplath Daigono Shar’s flighted creatures would pass warning on to the Usurpers… though they also appeared occasionally to offer up hearts’ blood to Lunar Exalted who were in need of wings to reach safety.

The time of the Shogunate was one where the Dragonblooded needed little assistance in destroying their own flying machines, but Oplath Daigono Shar was a god, and gods are petty spirits indeed: flocks of birds plagued the intakes of skyremes and violated the sanctity of Aviary factory-cathedrals to speed their departure from Creation, while Lunars were aided where he could in taking flight, demanding further skyships move to their doom at Creation’s edges. The Dragonblooded lacked the power of Solars to exterminate the flying creatures which troubled them, nor to trace the origin of the interference, and the Sidereal Exalted found Oplath Daigono Shar a more acceptable annoyance to bear by far than Vanileth, permitting his excesses with little interference, and as the God of Artificial Flight withdrew from Heaven, so did the God of Natural Flight return to roost in Yu-shan, a fixture once more in divine politics.

The Present Day

Oplath Daigono Shar remains an enemy of Vanileth and of Artificial Flight to this day, having come to see it not as a part of his purview stolen… rather he considers it not ‘true’ Flight but an aberration which must be purged from Creation so that genuine natural flight might flourish. In this he continues to find alliance with some amongst the Lunar Exalted, though the return of the Solar Exalted has returned his mind to thoughts of the doom he once imagined awaiting him on the horizon.

As Vanileth has emerged patron of the Haslanti League and its airboats, Oplath Daigono Shar too has reached out to the North, to those tribes around the White Sea threatened by Haslanti expansion. These tribes find their hunting prowess buoyed by godblooded Strix to aid them in the hunt and war with civilized encroachment, though religious strictures see them take kills only from amongst flightless creatures. Oplath Daigono Shar was also amongst the gods who led the effort to capture breeding pairs of the Wyld-tainted Aerwhal and introduce it into Creation, a new flying beast to fill the skies and plague those who seek flight through artificially inflating gas bladders.

Though it is no longer recognized by Heaven, he continues to use his ancient title Shogun of Flight in personal correspondence.