The Old Powers
The Old Powers were the first gods of mankind and our related species (the Neanderthals and Denisovans). They should have been the guides and protectors of early humanity but were instead corrupted into nightmarish forms by the influence of the Ichthultu. The Old Powers had to be defeated and imprisoned by the Celestial Powers of New Genesis to prevent their alliance with Darkseid’s forces during the Universe War.
The concept of a pre-existing generation of gods is prevalent in many religions, such as the Greek Titans, the Norse Jotnar, and the Biblical Nephilim. This theme also has parallels in comic books. In one of the earliest Justice League stories, the Demons Three were powerful beings that ruled the early Earth until the Timeless Ones imprisoned them. In a later Aquaman storyline, the Dark Titans were monstrous entities sealed away by four columns created by Arion and sorcerers from various civilizations.
The Pantheon of Old Powers
Known Old Powers include:
- Kronos – Kronos was the father of Dyeus Pitr, the leader of the Lansinarians, through a human mother from Lansinar. When Kronos discovered that his son and other children were working against the gods, he attempted to destroy them. However, Dyeus acted first, incapacitating Kronos and casting him down into the Great Abyssal Pit beneath the world.
- The Prometheon – Possibly the greatest of the Old Powers, the Prometheon is a bronze-coloured giant that parasitically leeches energy from the life around it, even from the Earth itself. The Celestials found it virtually impossible to defeat until General Kesel of New Genesis sacrificed his life to trigger a massive explosion known as the Toba Eruption, which hurled the Prometheon into orbit. The other New Celestials could then bind it to an asteroid and cast it into deep space. However, the asteroid’s orbit continues to intersect the Earth’s path, with each return causing ominous weather, strange occurrences, and mutating meteorites.
- The Abyssal Dark – The Abyssal Dark was originally a nameless Old Power which found itself consumed by the blood and ichor left over from Orin Atlaneas’s battle with Ichthultu. It was transformed into a shadow demon and bound, in some manner, to the Elemental Plane of Shadow. It has repeated attacked the ruling families of Atlantis.
History
Origin
When Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other early humans first began grappling with abstract concepts, they started imprinting their thoughts and beliefs onto the Platonic field—that ethereal realm where pure ideas take form. By all natural laws, this awakening should have caused the emergence of new thought forms: the Powers and gods that would arise from humanity’s first philosophical stirrings.
However, in that primordial age, the imprisoned Elder Thing known as Ichthultu slumbered beneath the earth’s crust, its baneful dreams seeping into the collective unconscious of these emerging peoples. Instead, what should have been a flowering of protective and nurturing deities became twisted and corrupted. The gods that should have emerged to guide and shelter these young species were transformed into nightmarish, predatory horrors – reflections not of humanity’s hopes and dreams but of Ichthultu’s alien madness.
Containment
The Celestials of New Genesis led a crusade to defeat or imprison the worst of the Old Powers. They feared that they might ally themselves with Apokolips, becoming an even more dangerous threat. Those that could not be destroyed outright were either entombed or imprisoned, each bound in a unique and appropriate confinement.
The last of the major Old Powers to be sealed away was the Prometheon, a bronze-coloured giant that parasitically leeched life energy from whatever ground it stood upon. While rooted to the Earth, it remained virtually undefeatable. All attempts to lift it were either swatted away or proved fatal for those who dared attack it.
In desperation, the Celestials devised a final plan: to generate an explosion powerful enough to hurl the giant into orbit. The first attempt failed. The plan was only salvaged when a faction of New Genesis warriors made the ultimate sacrifice, triggering a volcanic super-eruption in present-day Indonesia. The colossal explosion tore the Prometheom from the ground and launched it into low orbit, where other Celestials swiftly captured it. Bound to an asteroid, it was cast into the depths of space.
Legacy
As later civilizations arose and developed their true pantheons of gods, these primal horrors were remembered in myth and legend as an earlier, darker generation of beings. They became the Titans, who were overthrown by the Olympians; the Nephilim, who walked the earth before the Flood; the savage Giants of Norse mythology, who warred with the Aesir; and the innumerable evil spirits and demons that haunt humanity’s oldest stories.
Every culture remembered them differently, yet they remained essentially the same in each telling: primordial entities of terrible power who had ruled and terrorized the world before being cast down by younger, more benevolent deities. But their influence lingered like a half-remembered nightmare in humanity’s collective memory even in defeat.
Timeline for The Old Powers
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Birth of the Old Powers
Humanity’s cousins, the Neanderthals and their kin conceive of the divine for the first time. A new pantheon of powers is called forth via the Platonic Field. However, their presence causes an incremental awakening of the imprisoned Ichthultu. Even while dreaming, its dread call is enough to corrupt these nascent gods into a host of misformed monsters. These aborted gods become known as the Old Powers, the Titans, or Nephilim. Chief amongst them are the mountain-sized Prometheon and the Demon’s Three (Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast).
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The Timeless Ones battles Daemons
The Timeless Ones (New Celestials) do battle with the corrupted Old Powers. A War Phalanx of New Genesis warriors arrives on Earth led by Rao, Lonar, and Gideon to do battle with the greatest of the Old Powers. They are unable to kill many of the Titans. The Demon’s Three are banished, their will bound to the sound of a bell, the turn of a wheel, and the smell of the calythos plant.
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Pseudo-Historical Kesel chains the Prometheon
The Celestial Kesel, leader of the War Phalanx of New Genesis, battles the parasitic titan called the Prometheon on pre-historic Earth. The Prometheon is undefeatable whilst rooted to the Earth itself, so Kesel sacrifices his life to detonate the supervolcano beneath the future Lake Toba, Indonesia. The Prometheon is thrown into orbit, captured by the other Celestials, and bound to an asteroid that is thrown into deep space. One bystander is killed in the battle, the first human to be killed in a battle between Celestials/Powers. The echo of him in the Platonic Field will eventually form the basis of the persona of the Unseen One.
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Atlantean Chronicles The Castration of Kronus
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Atlantean Chronicles The 666 Monsters of Chaos awaken
160 year of March of the Atlanteans:
In this year the Star of Lanis is seen again in the sky. That which was chained is awakened; the 666 Monsters of Chaos do roam.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles. The passing of Farmer’s Star seemed to have awakened some of the imprisoned Old Powers. These and the remaining free ones are the 666 Monsters of Chaos. Aurakles (470), the champion of Lansinar, would spend the next millennium battling the monsters on and off. -
Atlantean Chronicles Binding of the Old God; Foundation of Old Atlantis
The Great Battle is fought upon the slopes of Mount Evanor. Orin the First (2150) clad in the Orcihalcum Regalia, Aurakles (2167) with the Imperishable Treasures, Ko'an of Far-World Red, and Yaketdor of the Lantern Corps do battle with the Old God. The four are victorious, but the Lantern falls; the monster is bound with the Seal of the Oneiromancer.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles Ichthultu is almost impossible to kill and ultimately ends up bound back into slumber. In this case, Orin was able to weave a web of leylines tethered to thirteen Zodiac Keys. The Old God was caught in that matrix and left to slumber within a great subterranean “Zodiac Vault”. Kronus, who had taught the Cult of the Old God how to awaken it, is buried alive in a landslide and misses the defeat.The Binding of the Old God fixes the mutable lands.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles. Before this time, the lands of Atlantis had been ill-defined. Distances were not fixed; mountains and even forests waxed and waned with the Moon’s passing because it existed simultaneously in the Innerlands and the Outer Earth. By binding the Old God, Orin pulled the continent of Atlantis into semi-permanence in the Outer Earth. But that effort was so bound up with the Zodiac Vault that it would only remain so for as long as the Old God remained bound.Orin, First Prince among Princes, is proclaimed Orin Atlaneas, King of the Atlanteans, Lord of the Secured Lands. Second of the fabled Sorcerer-Kings.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles Atlan, Orin’s father, was retroactively proclaimed the first Sorcerer King and the First King of the Atlanteans. In Orin’s time, Atlan was known as the Dead King to separate him from Orin and reinforce the legitimacy of Orin’s succession.Orin Atlaneas called for a great city to be built upon the site of his victory. Great Atlans-i-nar, is founded. The Orichalcum Age is Proclaimed.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles Atlantean history is dated from this moment, the Foundation of Atlans-i-nar, Old Atlantis or the Old City as it is latterly known.One unseen side effect of the battle was the formation of the Abyssal Dark from the alien ichor and blood left behind after the battle.
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Atlantean Chronicles The Dual of Calculha and Majistra
3418 year of reign of Orin Atlaneas:
The Star of Lanis is seen again. The Duel of Calculha (791) and Majistra; together, they escape the Abyssal Dark.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles. The Abyssal Dark was one of the few surviving Old Powers, a shadow-like demon that prowled the edge of Shadowlands. Early Atlanteans called this penumbra the Darkworld and believed that it was where the souls of their rulers went after death. This belief would mutate so that later Atlanteans considered it the Realm of the Gods rather than the worthy afterlife. -
Atlantean Chronicles The betrayal of Garn'nuth
1619 year of reign of Calculha:
In this year, the Star of Lanis is seen again. The betrayal of Garn'nuth (551) the White.
— Atlantean Proto-Chronicles. Later legend holds that Garn’nuth became under the sway of the Abyssal Dark and rebelled against his sister Ahri'ahn (668), the Red, and their father (2553). Their mother Majistra refused to abandon Garn, which led to a one-hundred-and-forty-year split between Calculha and her. -
Apocrypha Exile of Lilitu
Lilitu (37) of the Lion Tribe, having learnt something of Adakaa’s veneration of the Old Powers, continually refused to lie with him and grant him more sons. She is exiled into the wilderness, but survives on her wits and the patronage of the Old Powers. The exile of Lilith from Jewish mythology.
| The Old Powers | |
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| Emergence | 80000 YA |
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