Felos Evershine

Felos Evershine: The Radiant Tyrant

Origins of Felos Evershine

Long before the mortal races rose to prominence, Felos was a god of pure, unyielding order. In the early days, he walked among the celestial courts as a deity of radiant knowledge, a patron of scholars and sages. His radiance was unparalleled, and his pursuit of enlightenment inspired devotion across the realms. However, Felos was not content with mere worship—he sought dominion over the natural world, believing that chaos and wildness must be subdued under the rule of absolute intellect.

Felos began twisting the forces of nature, subjugating its creatures and reshaping its landscapes to reflect his rigid ideals. He wove his influence into the great forests, turning them into perfectly symmetrical groves, and controlled the rivers to flow in unyielding straight lines. His followers called him "Evershine," for his presence bathed all he touched in an eternal, golden glow.

Yet, the other gods saw his methods as tyrannical. They accused him of turning life into a cold, joyless machine. Felos argued that only through control and discipline could the world achieve perfection. When his peers tried to stop him, Felos revealed his darker nature—an uncompromising will and a ruthless determination to bend reality to his design. Thus, Felos became a pariah among the gods, banished to the fringes of divinity.

The Doctrine of Felos

Felos's doctrine teaches that nature is not to be revered in its wild, untamed state. Instead, it must be mastered and made to serve the higher cause of order and knowledge. He preaches that ignorance and chaos are the roots of all suffering and that through control, understanding, and ruthless efficiency, one can achieve a perfect world.

His followers, known as the Illumined, include scholars, judges, and those who seek power through manipulation of the natural world. They believe that morality is irrelevant in the pursuit of order—if the ends justify the means, so be it. Felos encourages them to study nature's secrets, only to exploit and control them. This makes him a paradoxical figure: a god of nature who sees its untamed aspects as a flaw to be corrected.

Manifestations and Worship

Felos appears to his followers as a figure of stark beauty: a tall, luminous being clad in robes of gold and black, with glowing eyes that pierce the soul. His presence is both awe-inspiring and suffocating, for his radiance feels more like a prison than a light of salvation.

His holy sites are rigidly designed temples built in the heart of controlled wilderness—forests tamed into perfect symmetry, gardens arranged with mathematical precision. These sites serve as centers of study and indoctrination, where knowledge is hoarded and nature is reshaped.

Rituals to Felos often involve the offering of rare books, intricate maps, or creatures captured from the wild to demonstrate mastery over the untamed. His clergy are often draped in robes of green and gold, their heads adorned with circlets shaped like the sun entangled in vines.

Legends and Influence

The Binding of the Wildfire Lord: In one tale, Felos faced off against a primordial entity of chaos known as the Wildfire Lord, who sought to incinerate all of creation in an orgy of destruction. Felos subdued the Wildfire Lord not through brute force but by binding him with knowledge and ritual, trapping the chaotic entity in an eternal prison of glass and flame. To this day, Felos uses the imprisoned spirit to power his golden citadel in the Astral Plane.

The Sundering of Sylvascale Forest: The mortal realm bears scars of Felos's ambition. One of the most infamous is the Sylvascale Forest, once a haven of druidic magic. Felos’s clergy waged a decades-long campaign to reshape the forest, turning its wild groves into orderly plantations. The druids fought back, but in the end, the forest was reduced to a shadow of its former glory—a chilling monument to Felos's ideals.

The Mask of Verity: One of Felos's sacred artifacts is the Mask of Verity, a golden mask that grants the wearer the ability to see through all illusions, including lies and deceptions. However, it also forces the wearer to speak only harsh truths, regardless of the consequences. Those who wield it often become feared and isolated, for they reveal uncomfortable truths about those around them.

The Duality of Knowledge and Nature

Though Felos is reviled by many for his tyranny, there is a dark allure to his teachings. His followers argue that his methods, though ruthless, bring results: diseases cured, crops that never fail, and chaos kept at bay. Yet, the price is steep—freedom, spontaneity, and the untamed beauty of life are sacrificed on the altar of control.

Adventurers who encounter Felos's cults often find themselves torn. Do they destroy the rigid order Felos has imposed, risking the chaos that follows? Or do they accept the oppressive stability for the sake of peace? Such moral quandaries are the true test of those who face the Radiant Tyrant's influence.

Felos Evershine stands as a symbol of the perilous balance between knowledge and control, a deity who challenges mortals to question whether perfection is worth the price of freedom.