Sometimes I take a look around and think, "There just aren't enough gods on this rock. It'd be cool to have more gods."
I know you agree. Whatever you believe, you stay up at night wishing that your single god were actually part of a gang, and that your gang would go out into the world to find other gangs and lay the smack down.
In the west, we haven't done polygod in a long time. Same for the east, really. While Hinduism has a sort of pseudo-polylord thing going on, it's my understanding that it's not really polylordal. I don't know the details. Alls I know is I'm right. I taught myself all this stuff. I'm autoditerydactal like that. Or whatever the word is.
The Mesopotamians were all about having tons of gods. It was like a status symbol. Didn't do much good given that Mesopotamia was the cradle of civilization and they didn't have anybody to show off to except for some fish or maybe trees.
But those fish were impressed. The trees were all, "Bravo! Encore!"
Then there were the Greeks. The Romans. Some other people.
Forgive me if I've left you out if you're one of the four billion people in this world who belong to a religion I haven't mentioned. Let's consider it read that your religion probably has one (1) god, and that this is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Well, I'm bringin' it all back for a boutique religion. I want gods - lots of 'em.
And I'm starting with these...
Rory the Magnificent and Very Good Looking - God of Gods
Bio: Rory is the head honcho of the gods here. He's the terminal god. He is also the first god. He is everything and nothing. Light and dark. Coke and Pepsi. And you shall bow before him. You shall also hit your knees with small hammers until they bleed. Rory the Magnificent and Very Good Looking says that this gives you twenty Afterlife PointsTM. Afterlife PointsTM may be used to enter the Afterlife, but only if you've got enough, and you don't.
Personal quote: "We really pounded the other guys. Who did they say they were? Buddhists?"
Height: Infinity inches.
Stats: Intelligence: 99. Wisdom: 99. Ranged attack: 99. Melee attack: 99. Wrath: 99. Armor: 99. Dexterity: 99. Lock picking: 99. Counting: 99. Pestilence: 99.
Special abilities: Eats lightning at god parties.
Likes: Porn.
Dislikes: Not-porn.
The Unicorn Demon - God of Petty Anger and Random Acts of Violence
Bio: Born in Iowa at the end of a rainbow on Friday the thirteenth on the day of a full moon with a comet streaming portent across the sky just as Mr. and Mrs. Mulberry's pristine 1976 Cadillac El Dorado suffered a flat tire, The Unicorn Demon is a single-corn (uni + corn) killing machine who mows down the unworthy, the weak, the diseased, and cutely decorated cupcakes. Though A Neopoleon Religion is currently auditioning bicorns (and a few tricorns) to take the place of the perhaps-a-little-too-surly-even-for-an-evil-god Unicorn Demon, we haven't found a single replacement corn beast with a personality we like. The Unicorn Demon it is, then. Forever and ever. Until we find something better.
Personal quote: [The Unicorn Demon doesn't speak. However, you may imagine the sound of a public square of innocent people being gutted instead. Don't forget the women and children! The Unicorn Demon leaves no soul unmauled. More accurately, the body in which the soul resides.]
Height: Average height for a Unicorn Demon.
Stats: Morals: 12. Intelligence: 8. Having four legs: 99. Willful ignorance and the execution of orders: 99. Death: 99. Apologizing: 0. Making ice-cream: 25.
Special abilities: Will disembowel you in five seconds without a trial or a warrant. Good poker face. Does this funny trick where he makes it look like his corn is coming out of his ear (sort of) and it's SO funny and, no, I thought it sounded dumb when I first heard about it, but, OH, man, you won't believe it when he... when he... uh... oh, you just have to see it for yourself.
Likes: Evil, blood, skulls, snakes, corn polish, vulnerable people with trusting natures, and Scrabble. Also, riding shotgun in Mazda Miatas.
Dislikes: Chocolate. Forgiveness. When he gets bodies stuck on his corn.
Francis - God of Majorly Ordinary Stuff
Bio: Francis was born in a suburb of LA called "Seattle." His childhood home was a house in a gated community inside a gated community surrounded by a moat inside a gated community. The moat was filled with World War II undersea mines, some of which were live, and some of which weren't. It was usually some nosy outsider in a kayak who alerted everyone to the discovery of a live mine by running into it, blowing up, and scattering himself across the community. The children of the neighborhood loved it when this happened, calling it a "Surprise Meat Storm." They expressed their joy by picking up all the body parts and then marching around with them in a darling parade. Mommy's little angels.
His place in this pantheon might seem useless, but he operates as a liaison between the gods and the common man. When something goes wrong upstairs, we pin it on him. He's our patsy.
Personal quote: "There's too many carbs in that. I think Friends is on tonight. And we should switch to Geico."
Height: Shorter than you. No matter how small you are, Francis is shorter than you are. Always.
Stats: Bill paying: 50. Cable TV watching: 50. Interest in TV sports: 50. Capacity to tolerate Peter Gabriel and anything written by Sting after 1984: 50. Likelihood that he'll use phrases like "...it begs the question" and "...it's a slippery slope" without having any idea at all as to what they mean: 99. Thinks his children were brought by the stork: 99.
Likes: Severely watered down orange juice from concentrate to put a little bounce in his step. Pleated trousers even though he isn't overweight. To drive to work the same way everyday. Elevator music renditions of popular Christmas carols. The new Star Wars movies.
Dislikes: Manual transmissions. The way French people treat him. Blinky lights. Carbs.
Dr. McJerk - God of Health and Malpractice
Bio: Even the gods need someone to patch them up after a good fight. For our crew, that distinction goes to none other than Dr. McJerk. The reason it goes to none other than Dr. McJerk is that we hired him before checking all his references, and now because of some eternal administrative keeping-of-the-light bullshit, we're stuck with him. Nothing would please us more than to be able to say that the distinction of being The God of Health and Malpractice goes to anybody at all other than Dr. McJerk, but it doesn't.
It goes to Dr. McJerk.
Because he's so effing dangerous, we've decided to just wing it up above the clouds with health issues, and we've sent McJerk down below to work on "sick" people brought to him by Francis.
Personal quote: "Let me check... OK. Yep. That's an arm. I think it's yours. Is it yours? It is? Oh, hey - it's attached to the rest of your body. I've never seen this before. I'll have to amputate your body to save the arm."
Height: Unsettling.
Stats: Bedside manner: 3. Likelihood of remembering his glasses to work: 7. Ability to sew your lower lip to your bellybutton: 99. Capacity for knowing when it's appropriate to use a chest tube to drain blood and fluids from the lungs: Not much. Ability to plunge a chest tube into your intestines to save a fetus that you don't have because you're a guy: 99. Likelihood that he'll shave your nose off "just in case": 80.
Likes: Malpractice insurance. The limits that have been put on malpractice awards. Committing malpractice.
Dislikes: Patients learning his name. That uncomfortable moment when the patient wakes up despite having been shocked with everything the paddles had to offer. The gratuitous use of antibiotics in patients who have a touch of necrosis. The way patients decide to cure their headaches with aspirin when a good old fashioned trepanning would do.
Grimace - God of WTF Mascots
Bio: Grimace doesn't really have a bio. Nobody knows where it comes from. Theories abound, but the object on this planet Grimace resembles most is eggplant. Aside from the obvious similarities, you'll notice that one of the differences between Grimace and eggplant is that eggplant isn't on TV pimping burgers. At least not around here.
As the most identity lacking mascot in our universe, Grimace holds the distinction of representing the voices of all mascots who cause us to wonder: WTF?
Personal quote: "You should buy a Big Mac because I'm an eggplant."
Height: Roughly equivalent to eight stacked eggplants.
Stats: Blinking: 0. Having arms that are way too short for the body to which they're attached: 99. Looking kind of like a purple potato that's been dropped from a balcony to the concrete below, leaving the undercarriage of this beast somewhat flattened while the upper body looks like its usual species-ambiguous self: 99. Being a sentient eggplant: 99. Tasting like eggplant: Let's find out!
Likes: Selling hamburgers. Hanging out with Ronald after wrapping up a video shoot. Being able to go everywhere naked because of a lack of private parts (we don't even know where they'd go).
Dislikes: Falling over 'cause it's really hard to get back up with those little arms. Pushups. Trying to fit in its Lotus Elise.
Brian Greene - God of Dodgy Science
Bio: A good religion has a touch of the unfathomable to it. When it comes to String Theory, a most unfathomable topic, few people can match Brian Greene in the I-get-this-but-you-won't and it's-true-because-nobody-can-prove-it departments. Greene and his cohorts have put a lot of effort into pushing a set of theories based on roughly the same concept, but with silly little details (like the number of dimensions we're dealing with) in conflict. Fortunately, because only 2.5 people in the world even get the math, nobody's in danger of being wrong anytime soon.
That's why A Neopoleon Religion hired Brian Greene as the God of Dodgy Science. An assumption about the universe based on a premise which may very well be false, and which describes the fabric of the cosmos through the use of obscure math and something that not only hasn't been tested, but might always be untestable regardless of advances in science?
Sign us up!
Personal quote: "The universe is made up of strings. You know; strings. Like, strings. Little tiny strings. What's that? You want to know what the strings are made of? That'd be strings. Yep. Strings. As opposed to Yarn Theory which is a load of horseshit."
Height: Strings.
Stats: Dedicating his life to something that will do less for the world than the much revered Fearless Deep Sea Kraken-Harpooning Mice of Bermuda: 99. Being exposed to sunlight: 12.
Likes: Talking about String Theory.
Dislikes: Being asked to explain it.
You like that? The greatest thing is that you don't even have to quit your current faith to sign up with this one. Our gods would love it if yours came over sometime to enjoy ambrosia and chat about things like the many modern takes on things like Good vs. Evil and how it all relates to pro wrestling and violence in video games.
Once I really have the ball rolling, I plan to hire new gods all the time. This time next year, A Neopoleon Religion is going to have more gods than any other religion in the history of religion.
GUARANTEED.
If you find a religion with as many gods, my promise to you is that I will immediately open headcount for as many gods as it would take to defeat the other religion. Once headcount is filled, my gods will head over to whatever neighborhood the other gods are living in, and they'll take that turf back Westside Story style. No survivors.
GUARANTEED.
Also, if you feel that A Neopoleon Religion is lacking in a god suited to a particular domain - like The God of Empty Swimming Pools or whatever - then I will either hire a new god and train it to take this task, or I'll repurpose an existing god who's looking for a change of scenery.
A Neopoleon Religion is flexible, modern, and sophisticated. Every last one of my gods has prior work in the industry. For example, I've been putting the final touches on Ned: God of Fishsticks, and some of you short, hairy, bearded, chilly northern Europeans might remember him as the god formerly known as Thor.
The Greeks also left behind a family of gods, all of whom were replaced with a very familiar looking set of gods by the Romans. Basically, the Romans bought the rights to the Greek pantheon, kept the characters, but changed their names and a few other details. Happens all the time. No big tragedy. Especially for A Neopoleon Religion, as it's almost like getting two sets of gods for the price of one.
Basically, although this is a new religion, it's a sturdy religion. I've built in redundancies and contingency plans to ensure smooth operations through everything from a light downpour to armageddon. I'm even getting into charity by making my gods available once a week to pick up litter along the freeway. They're even more enthusiastic than I am. When I first mentioned the project, they all got together and said they were going to form a union! I don't know what that is, but it sounds like they're going to work on this as a team! Warm fuzzies!
Teamwork: That's how I spell "What my gods are doing in response to my plan to lend them out to pick up litter along the freeway."
I hope you're as excited as I am as we all push on through to the future. Who knows what surprises are in store for us! One that I thought of is that all my gods could turn evil all at once and stamp us out of existence. See what you can come up with!
Thank you for spending a little time with me today to learn about this great opportunity.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a religion to run...