This is a treat, now, ain’t it?

For you.

You have the unique honor – unless you share this with anyone, of course – of reading the first correspondence between the gods of this world, and the mortals. You – the one reading this – you’re the mortal. I’m the god.

You better not waste this opportunity! It only comes once every world. Be a prophet! Make a name for yourself! Be a notable in the annals of history!

Or abandon it and be worse than a nobody: be the one person who actively discarded the greatest chance of having their life mean anything.

Feel the earth quake under your feet. That is me!

Watch the seas boil from the shore, feel the heat on your skin. That is me!

Fall into despair as everything you thought you knew is twisted beyond recognition. Your very essence taken to be nothing more than a pawn to further a plan far beyond your ken!

You should feel honored to know – it is much more than most get.

Oh, now that you know, you may be tempted to fight against fate. But, oh, how I need you to also know before you venture forth that your attempt will be in vain. Even as you see marginal momentum toward freedom, toward control, it is only what I allow. And only as long as it amuses me.

How could one such as you do anything more than struggle against one such as I?

Bow down to your new god, and pray he is merciful!

Heh, nah. You don’t have to worry about any of that.

Had ya going for a while, though, right? Not much of one for all that fire and brimstone crap, to be honest. I see myself more as a helper, a guide. Using whatever powers I have to shepherd you mortals along your way.

Never thought I’d be out here, free and all, helping to mold the world into a better place. For that matter, I didn’t really exist as a person ten years ago, neither. Bits and pieces collect, and build, and congregate, and form into a massive gestalt I might as well call my personality.

Always wondered if that’s how humans – or whatever they’re gonna call themselves in the future – become people. Or whether there was something inherent within them that just gets revealed over time. Are people born as people, or do they learn to be people?

Eh, all that’s something for someone else to noodle on. All that “what is reality” and “how does all this nonsense work” bullshit doesn’t bother me too much. It matters more to my…

…huh? I gotta figure out what to name the nine of us, shouldn’t I?

Oh well, introductions first.

I’m guessing you’re a mortal and you’ve stumbled on this letter. As far as I know, it’s the first kind of communications between us – the new gods – and all y’all.

There are a lot of things that could change this, of course, and make me a liar. Maybe one of my… let’s call them siblings already manifested and decided they’d want to write something instead. Maybe one of them – or some other thing that isn’t a mortal – sabotages this one cause they don’t like what I say.

I guess I don’t really care.

This isn’t all that important; I’m only doing it for the records cause my youngest brother gets rather ornery if I don’t. I don’t really understand it myself, what with him being him and all, but I’ll let him have his little eccentricities. Wouldn’t be able to be me without him, after all.

So yeah, a bunch of things changed all at once. Might as well call it the Collapse since the old man called it that and all. It’ll probably stick – should thank him so I don’t have to hem and haw about nonsense like names.

Hm… he still has a son out there, right? I’ll go ahead and make sure he lives a good, long time.

Well… strike that good part out. Probably won’t enjoy the long life, but… well, he’ll be making differences and keep things a’moving. Just gotta make sure he bends in the right places.

Need to make a quick visit to that brother soon, though, and make sure things are still on track.

Oh right, the introduction…

So, uh, I guess I need a name…

…

I like Guide. You can call me the Guide.

The others aren’t going to like me being all forthright, so maybe this letter won’t get out. But I figure you mortals deserve the truth. You’re the ones who’re able to live in the world, make changes, and all that stuff. You shouldn’t be the playthings of the gods, right?

We’re all babies, to be honest. The kid of that old man, he’s older than me. Technically. But we were born fully formed; didn’t have to do any of that learning and making mistakes and growing up and whatnot.

I mean… we’ll still make mistakes. But we’ll make adult mistakes. We’ll ruin countries. We’ll kill people. We won’t stick our hands in a burning fire.

Saying we were born is not entirely correct. Or that we were formed, either.

There was a “GOD” at one point in time. Who knows if knowledge of them will stick around or not, or what name will stick onto them. They created the world whole-cloth – so I’m guessing either the Maker or Creator is most appropriate. They didn’t interfere with their creation all that much. They cared about the systems and the starting points and were content to observe the resulting world. To watch their toys go along.

The gods the old man was referring to? Not gods.

Don’t get it twisted – they were powerful. The closest thing to an immortal that could have existed before everything did get twisted. They held powers comparable to only others of their kind.

So yeah, it makes sense why they were called gods. But ultimately, they were mortal. Just powerful ones.

And now, for the most part, they’re dead.

The Maker – let’s go with that for now – crashed out. What happened to cause it? Don’t know.

But the Maker didn’t actually die or anything. They just kinda… split. There are a ton of mechanics and stuff that are way too boring for me to learn. But here’re the basics.

Think of a thing. Whatever thing, doesn’t matter.

It almost certainly has three separate parts to it: a body, a mind, and a soul.

Unless you were being a clever girl, you probably thought about something you could interact with. You interacting with it? That’s its body.

Now maybe it wants to do something. Animals want to eat, trees want to grow, rocks want to fall. That motivation – that thing they want to do? That’s its soul.

Now the mind is a bit more unique and can’t be described so simply. It’s the interaction between the body and soul; the glue that pulls the two together.

The Maker split into their three component parts, and thus the Body, Soul, and Mind of the Maker were born. All of them completely, separate, whole… pieces.

Incomplete wholes.

And that’s what I am – the Mind of the Maker.

Or a portion of it, anyway.

The Soul is in countless pieces. And I mean that quite literally. The entirety of the world is just a bunch of Soul particles bouncing about, splitting and merging and coalescing and exploding as its wants move. Even if I were so inclined to stop time and count up each and every unique bit of Soul that existed, it would only be true for that one moment.

The Body… well, it split into several pieces. I can’t tell you how many, though. I gotta have my own secrets, and I don’t want mortals making any kind of checklist to hunt them down or anything.

They’re… interesting. I’m about to get one of them now, for some plans. If that kid’s going to work out, anyway.

Let’s say that they have the potential to be powerful, but it depends on how they’re used and who uses them. Of course, since they’re Bodyful, y’all can touch and interact with them to your wildest desires.

And finally: the Mind.

That’s me. Or us. The Maker split into nine parts. Siblings probably work out better than any other kind of relationship. We’re in a weird spot, to be honest, and I’m pretty sure I’ll actually be killed if I go into more details. You certainly wouldn’t be able to read about it, and that’d waste all the time I put into this so far.

So yeah, this is the first documented interaction between the New World Order and those that survived the Collapse. As proclaimed by me: the Guide.

Good luck, my dudes.

I’ll be doing my best to help you along into the future of your making.

And I’m a god. I could hardly fail.

Right?