Achenar: the lion-headed god of war and vengeance.

Achenar is a lion-headed god with silver fur, cerulean eyes, and a roar like peals of thunder. He was once a wild storm god of fire and the forge. He was a weaponsmith to the other gods. He could pull lightning from thin air and shape it with his hammer. The thunderous roar of his hammer reverberates across the land, lightning singing from the beaten steel, water from his quenching drum raining down.

He was perfectly happy being a weaponsmith until his contention with another god turned to his heart towards war and vengeance. He fell in love with a a half-human demigoddess named Evani. They eloped against the wishes of her divine father, a lunar god of fertility and agriculture named Ketsukon. Evani was Ketsukon's only child. She was his heart, and he didn't want to lose his only child to an Elder God. And when Evani died giving birth, Ketsukon blamed Achenar for her death.

Wanting Achenar to feel his pain, Ketsukon condemned Endellion to die screaming in childbirth like her mother. Achenar dismissed the Ascendant God's threats as the empty words of a grieving father. Surely, Ketsukon wouldn't curse his own grandchild.

But as Endellion grew, so did Achenar's worry. Which each passing year, Ketsukon grew more and more bitter. He became a dark and demanding god. He punished those who didn't worship him to his satisfaction by rendering them infertile or plaguing their crops.

When Endellion eventually married and grew heavy with a child of her own, Achenar begged Ketsukon to spare her, offering his life to Ketsukon in her place. Ketsukon laughed and declined. He plunged a dagger into Achenar's outstretched hand and left his granddaughter to her fate. After Endellion died in blood and pain while giving birth to a stillborn child, the weaponsmith went to war.

Achenar's first sentinels were called Tempests. They were playful and mercurial, roaming the skies and bringing lightning and fallen metal to their god's forge. But when Achenar hardened his heart and steeled himself for battle, he made new sentinels. He wanted soldiers, warriors. He wanted Furies. Forged from cold fire and tempered steel to be the instruments of his vengeance.

Achenar sent his Furies to tear their way through Ketsukon's own army of sentinels. The Furies were wild and violent, possessing a ferocity that surprised even Achenar. They weren't particularly obedient, but they threw themselves at their god's enemies with abandon. Their battles shook the netherworld. The heavens raged and rained blood as Achenar's Furies slashed and scorched their way through Ketsukon's own sentinel army, without restraint and regardless of their own safety. Their battle-fueled rage literally set their blood on fire, producing cerulean flames that burned cold. It was uncontrollable, cremating anything organic in its path and leaving the rest untouched.

With the path clear, Achenar faced Ketsukon alone. Even if he hadn't been fueled by rage, Ketsukon was no match for an Elder God. Although Achenar was victorious, he felt no satisfaction. Even as he lay dying, Ketsukon crowed, his eyes shining with a feverish madness. He bragged that the dagger he used on Achenar's hand was coated with the blood of a Royal Demon. How Ketsukon got his hands on the blood from a Royal Demon, no one knows, but it explained why the wound in Achenar's hand wouldn't heal, and why his blood had turned orange, like that of demon spawns, the mixed-breed offspring of demons and mortals. (Full blooded demons have toxic yellow blood.)

And then to add insult to injury, Ketsukon cursed Achenar's bloodline with his final breath. Every woman with even a drop of Achenar's blood in their veins would meet the same fate as Ketsukon's daughter, Evani. (Although he no doubt meant to target only Achenar's offspring and direct descendants, the curse also affects Achenar's sentinels.)

Between Ketsukon's Curse and the potent demon blood flowing through his veins, Achenar's bloodline was thoroughly tainted. The demon blood in his system also explain why his Furies were so different from his Tempests. But Achenar's Furies were never normal, not from the moment he quickened them to life with his mutated blood. Normally, gods know exactly where their sentinels are, as aware of their sentinels as they are of their own limbs. His Furies were independent, even defiant. And as time went on, it became harder and harder for him to sense them. Eventually, as the demon blood in his own system continued to change him, he couldn't sense them at all.

He suspected his Furies were abnormal from the start, but they were also unbelievably effective warriors. They were cunning and unyielding, and they reveled in battle. Achenar was too focused on his rage at Ketsukon to question their existence. Until Ketsukon's final declaration, that is. Afraid he had created abomination when he unknowingly infused divine sentinels with demon-tainted blood, Achenar destroyed every one of his remaining sentinels he could find. When he realized the Furies had orange blood too, he was convinced he was taking the right course. Not even his uncontaminated Tempests were spared. He wanted to wipe away any trace of himself.

However, unbeknownst to Achenar, a few of his Furies managed to escape his wrath. Without the ability to sense his own sentinels, he could only only track them, like any other quarry. Not that many of them were particularly hard to find, anyway. The Furies had scattered after the war with Ketsukon, bored with their god. But after Achenar slaughtered the first few, the others came looking for him, only happy for a challenge. Although their ferocity presented a challenge for even Achenar, they were still not equal to the task.

A wise handful decided to stay out of the fight altogether. They traveled through the Veil into the mortal realm, deciding to following their own paths. No other sentinels before or since were able to abandon their god without Falling. They were careful not to draw too much attention to themselves, though, unwilling take the risk an Elder God couldn't breach the Veil should he learn there were survivors.

Once he thought he had exterminated the last of his sentinels, Achenar banished himself to the twelves hells. He turned his back on the rest of the netherworld, a self-imposed exile to punish himself the sin of failing to protect his family. Although the moniker is wildly naccurate, he became known as the Demon God. Some call him the Bleeding God, which is much more accurate since the wound on his hand never did heal, still oozing orange blood to this day. There is something about the once light-hearted god that discomforts demons and other gods alike, something unnatural and predatory. Staring into his eyes is like staring into the Abyss, it makes anyone feel incredibly small.