Deities

(You may want to look at the description of this picture first: nattikay.deviantart.com/art/Wh… )

Made-up mythology time!

Also, one quick thing to mention before I continue: the deities in this world's mythology are immortal when it comes to aging, but they can be slain. Granted, that it a difficult task because they are incredibly powerful, but it can happen. Hint hint, that's important.

Ok, so the first guy you need to concern yourselves with here is the old lion on the far right--a new addition as far as actually having any sort of design goes and doesn't yet have an official name, so we'll just call him the Lion. Many, many eons ago, he was the sole ruler/deity of a world dominated by felines. However, it was a stressful job to hold on his own, so using his divine power, he Created a second, lesser deity--a tiger (not pictured)--to assist him. Though he lacked the Lion's spiritual power, the Tiger was very strong physically and was able to help the Lion run the feline world.

At some point in this world's history, a neighboring world--one of canines--was declining in strength due to multiple causes (exact causes haven't been thought out just yet). Their deity had long since been slain and their world was crumbling. The Lion took compassion on them and invited the remaining parts of their civilization to live in his world with the felines. The canines graciously accepted and began to set up their own new culture in this new world. Unfortunately, the dogs struggled with life in a this environment. It simply lacked what canines need, as it was dominated by and ruled by felines. Seeing this, the Lion Created another deity--a wolf, shown in the middle (who we later learn goes by the name of Malaya when needs be.) This is why, despite holding equal roles, the Lion appears so much older than the Wolf.

Previously, the Lion had controlled all of the celestial bodies, but he now gave the moon and its responsibilities to the Wolf while he retained responsibility of the sun. Unlike the Tiger, the Lion equipped the Wolf with a spiritual ability equal to his own, except for the ability to Create from scratch. He also Created an assistant for her, much like his own Tiger: the Fox (also not pictured). However, because the Fox was so much smaller than the Tiger and therefore lacked the Tiger's physical strength, he split the Fox into two very clever beings. What the foxes lacked in strength, they made up for in collaborative work and intelligence. The Lion and the Wolf shared a mutual respect for each other and ruled together over this joint-species world, creating a new balance and beginning the world as its inhabitants know it. They reigned for thousands of years in a long era of prosperity and peace between the cats and the dogs. 

Unfortunately, this did not last. The Wolf began to favor one of her Foxes for his outstanding hard work. This did not go unnoticed by the other, who felt cheated because he couldn't seem to match up to the work ethic and abilities of his brother. He couldn't do anything to his brother directly; because they were once the same Fox, destroying one would in turn destroy the other. This jealousy did plant a drop of darkness in his heart, however, and his bitterness grew. After festering dark feelings for many years and being unable to direct them towards his brother, the now-Dark Fox's bitterness turned towards the Felines. In his twisting mind, he began to think that perhaps if the felines were rid of, he may have a role to fill. And thus, he began to scheme. 

Eventually, it was the Dark Fox that took down both the Lion and the Tiger (exact details, again, are yet to be thought out). Filled with grief for her Creator, partner, and friend, the Wolf considers killing the Dark Fox, but is stopped when she remembers that to kill the Dark Fox would mean she would also have to kill her trusted Good Fox, so she instead used her spiritual power to banish the Dark Fox from the heavens. 

With the Lion and Tiger gone, the world began to fall out of balance. The Wolf did the best she could to manage both sun and moon as the Lion had once done before her creation, but as the canines had struggled in a solely Lion-ruled world, the felines began to struggle in a solely Wolf-ruled world. To make matters worse, the Dark Fox wasn't quite finished with his work. After having been banned from the heavens, the Dark Fox fell to earth as a manipulative shadow who possessed the earthly ruler of the canines. Under his influence, the dogs declared war on the cats, and without the Lion and the Tiger, the cats were loosing--badly. Many feline cities fell into poverty. The two civilizations that had once been so peaceful were now full of hate and malice towards one another. 

The Wolf was extremely saddened by this downfall of her world and knew that she needed to do something to restore a feline deity to the world and rebuild the balance it had once possessed. She knew that she could not Create from scratch as the Lion had Created her, but she wondered if--perhaps--she could build on something that was already there. And so, she took the last sliver of remaining power that the Lion had left behind and sent in down to Earth to possess whomever it felt was worthy to be crafted into the next Lion deity, asking for the telltale sign of a mane gold as the sun 

Wait...golden mane? That sounds a bit like...yup! This is where the second lion in the picture comes in. It's also where the "wolf of Berlin" story starts.

The Lion's magic chose a kitten soon to be born. The pale kitten, despite being colored differently from the rest of his family, with a tawny pelt and beautiful golden hair, was brought up as a normal cat...named Bryn. Yup. In his childhood, he met Malaya, the great wolf, who very slowly and steadily reveals to him his destiny as the next ruling Lion deity in the world. It is also his destiny to put and end to the Dark Fox without harming the Good Fox 

Aaaaaaaand that's all I'm going to say for now. The rest of the details are the storyline. Except for that last paragraph, this is background info. XD

 Oh, and I should also mention...these fellas normally wear robes and cloaks and the like, but I was experimenting with body structures in this particular drawing.

(c) me.