Set

Chaotic, volatile, and an incorrigible trickster—all these and more have been used to describe Set, the goddess of deserts, storms, and trickery. The younger sister of Osiris, patron of the earth's abundance, Set was as fickle as her brother was stoic. Among their many conflicts, one would change the face of the pantheon forever. The red soil of Urzyma was barren and dry, in contrast with the fertile black soil upon which the first humans built their civilizations. Osiris and his wife Aesys watched over them, cementing their status as symbols of nature, and left the scorching desert sands to Set. Unhappy with this arrangement, Set confronted Osiris, but his cold remark about her inability to govern the land she was given cut deep into her pride. In a fit of envious rage, Set mangled Osiris with her threads of darkness, leaving his body strewn along the riverbanks. It was said that on that day, her Sha—her totemic animal—howled the first storm into existence. Though Osiris would subsequently be reborn as the Lord of the netherworld Duat thanks to his wife's devotion, Set did not show up for his ceremony, and over the years slowly withdrew her attendance from their court. Shunned by her divine brethren, Set chose to slink through the lands of her undying brother instead, garnering widespread yet clandestine worship from those who skulk in the darkness as she does. Only Thoth, the goddess of knowledge, remains impartial to the entire affair—for reality, even for gods, is never black and white. In several of her scribes' inscriptions dismissed (and later, destroyed) by Osiris' Priests of Silence as blasphemy, the vagabond followers of Set's benighted path attest that the Lord of Life's murder in the physical realm was necessary. Without an immortal figure to watch over the passing of mortal souls, the underworld would be a lawless realm, fit to one day overturn the Balance of the world. Chaos, while an inherently dark and destructive force, served as a counterbalance—the Shadow of the Sun. When the marked mortal known as the God-King rose to infamy, several of the gods assumed treachery on her part. Suspicion deepened as the Deceiver herself vanished from court, and it was only Thoth's intervention and the relative silence of Ptah that prevented the pantheon from mounting a god-hunt. Few, however, know of Set's ultimate role in this spiral of darkness. Where even the Architect obeyed Order without question, Set dared to challenge the wheels of fate herself. Indeed, there may be a seed of truth in the inscriptions the Priests of Silence refused to acknowledge: that Set, for all her capriciousness, had bestowed upon mortals that most human of traits—defiance. As the patron of rogues, thieves, and assassins, worship of Set is generally frowned upon, but scribes—especially those of Thoth—advise their kings to be tolerant of her cult according to an ancient adage: there can be no Light without Darkness.