The Crimson Serenity

God of Victory

The Crimson Serenity is an Ascendant demigod and possible Duskscape Regent of rage, competition and martial supremacy. It is also known as the Ogre, the Mad Monk, the Supreme Niou and the Wolverine God. It is a roving and ascetic thing, disdainful of possessions or connections, driven only by a monomaniacal desire to achieve Supremacy of the Self. In pursuit of this it seeks worthy enemies to fight and destroy. It will tirelessly pursue quarry that escapes it and has spent decades on a single foe.

Its alignment is Chaotic Evil.

Appearance & Heraldry

See also: The Crimson Serenity Image Gallery (External)

Portrayals of the Ogre vary between a unkempt but otherwise humanoid warrior—often carrying his famed ōdachi greatsword, the Kongōkokuretsuzan—to a monstrous giant with firey red skin, a mess of fangs and tusks and four arms. He is sometimes also represented as a massive, serpentine Empyreal Dragon.

Worship

Worshippers of The Ogre (the being has no known organized churches) are historically called Niou, and often colloquially called The Mad Monks. They share a fundamental similarity to cults of Asphodel in their monomaniacal focus on the maximal realization of the Self, but the similarities end there. Where Asphodel’s Culminants achieve supremacy through guile and charm, the Mad Monks of the Crimson Serenity are concerned only with mastering the Self through physical combat. They believe the false enlightenments of charisma and intellect are illusions, and that ultimately the assertion of one’s "Selfness" can only be with one’s own fist.

Followers of the Supreme Niou are ruthless and morally simple creatures. Barriers are to be overcome whether they’re living, dead or conceptual. Strength is to be cultivated above all else, lest one’s sovereignty be stolen by an indifferent universe. Weakness is to be shunned as it binds one’s wings.

Monsters though they are, they are one of the least dangerous of the Cenobite “churches”. Greed is, arguably, the greatest cause of strife in Waking Societies, and yet the Mad Monks lack material ambition, regarding possessions as inconveniences. Anyone who shows signs of fear or weakness to a Niou are shunned rather than bullied. Indeed, there are scattered stories across Materia portraying Niou as occasional heroes, attacking and killing local villains due to perceived slights or challenges. One obscure piece of writing from a First Age Iyōan warrior-poet describes the Crimson Serenity as "The Demonslayer Who is Itself a Demon". At least two sects of the Yamabushi of the Ashina and Morō clans of Marai describe it as one of the Great Wisdom Lords who acknowledge the ultimate imperceptibility of True Reality (as seen by The Overbeings) and reject the false dogmas of man which arise from fear of the Unknown (though his is an especially violent expression of this enlightenment, to be sure).

Domains

The Crimson Serenity's primary Domain is Might. Its secondary domains are Perfection, Destruction, Glory, Confidence, Wyrmkin and Kung Fu.

Favoured Weapons

The Ogre's favoured weapons are the ōdachi (curved greatsword) and unarmed/Kung Fu. Its Relic ōdachi is known as the Kongōkokuretsuzan.

It is the Divine Grandmaster of a martial art is known as Ansantsuken, Bajiquan, or Assassination Fist. It is a potent style that focuses on sudden, powerful, decisive strikes, causing maximal damage as efficiently as possible. This style is especially popular among the Raan, Matsunagayama and Morō clans of Marai.

History

Even outside the reach of the Insurgent Gods, other heroes would rise to challenge the theo-military empires of the Lichlords. The Kingdom of Iyō, behind the quiet and indomitable march of Lichlord Io'a, spread east from the towering cities of Alanthan'aravaut through the Emerald Expanse, eventually facing a tenacious resistance from the native Umeki and Naru peoples of what is now modern Marai. Under the leadership of an old, one-eyed monk generally referred to as Hanabira-no-Kishi ("The Knight of Petals"), the resistance forced Iyō into its first major string of defeats.

Things only turned around for the Empire due to a betrayal by an equally brilliant, equally skilled young Umeki warrior who betrayed and killed Hanabira-no-Kishi, thus assimilating some fraction of the resistance into his own, personal army. It is said his only reason for doing this was to test his strength, by being on the losing side. Both the Betrayer and the Knight of Petals would eventually ascend, becoming the the Crimson Serenity and The Field Marshal respectively.

The "Fourth" Wyrmkin God

The Crimson Serenity is known to take the form of a giant, red-and-white Void Dragon, occasionally seen gracing the dawn sky on days where an important or storied fight was to take place. This corroborates several versions of the Supreme Niou’s genesis story, which maintain be brokered a deal with such a creature to survive the wounds he incurred in his duel with The Field Marshal, Hanabira-no-Kishi.