[Academy Rp] Guthheimr - The Council of the Gods

[Guthheimr]

     A man stood at a pulpit in an expansive room lit by warm candlelight and hearth. Fifty-foot stone columns rose to support the stave church’s balcony. The columns were decorated in the loving fashion of the stave churches of old and their old wooden posts. Now the serpents knotted around indomitable stone that would withstand even one of Thor’s wrathful episodes. The man at the pulpit preached to a mass of people sitting at long tables, though it was more of a celebration than a solemn sermon. 

    “Is it not wisdom to visit often a friend who ye trust well, lest the path between you become grown with grass and brush. And my people, the path to these halls have been tread into stone!” he thumped the pulpit and the crowds of people lifted cups to cheer, “Did I not overthrow the coup of the Thursian cults with the friendships that I cultivated? I stand before you proof that not even a god can stand alone so say I-” He was interrupted by a young man running up the stairs wearing a blue waist-length shirt and black pants. He wore a cap with a gleaming silver raven pinned upon it. The man listened to the boy's message and clapped his hands, “Feast well my friends, the council of the gods calls for my duty to be fulfilled. Let your merriment rise to the very gates of Asgard!” The man stepped down from the pulpit and shouldered his ceremonial cloak. The fur was the same gray white as his beard and shoulder length hair. He was additionally armed with a handgun, and a rifle hidden in a compartment of the cloak. The Wanderer donned a wide brimmed hat and stepped out into the cold where he snapped his fingers and whistled, two wolf hounds followed him from a kennel to an armored car emblazoned with the Runic word for ‘Sleipnir’. Above them two trained ravens followed them as they drove from the city center to the Council of the Gods. 

     He strode forth through the hundred-foot-tall brass doors and up the red carpet to a high throne, flanked by his wolf hounds and the ravens that slipped inside. To his right, seated on the throne, were thirty desks, one of which was empty. To his left were ten other desks each with its own council member. This was the council of the thirty Aesir and the ten Vanir. When placing votes, one Vanir vote was counted for three. Each council member was recorded as the incarnation of an Aesir or a Vanir, and each handled affairs within Guthheimr as director. The man picked up a ceremonial spear from beside the throne and thumped it into the floor three timers, “The council of the Gods is now in session by Odin All father. Let all unworthy who interrupt it be faced with the penalty of death,” And such was governmental business handled within Guthheimr. 

 

     Within a home of the typical Guthan, a middle-aged man clicked through some pictures on his computer. His wife would shake him out of his reverie and scold him, “The children miss their father, you’ve relaxed at the computer long enough,” and the man would spend his evening watching television with his children and pretending to be a furious Jotunn giant that chased them through the house, clunking his head on the wooden runic charms that hung from the ceiling of the kitchen. Laws rarely changed in Guthheimr, and those that did were often paid for their bending with blood and political violence. Men like he lived in faith of the gods that counseled for their people. Men like he would also very rarely be called to arms under the banner of his district’s god in defense of their ideals from other gods. But such bloodshed was rare during civilized times. Tomorrow he would go to work in a terraced skyscraper covered in flora to give the office workers the needed greenspace to stave off depression and burnout. He would pray to Thor that the weather would be favorable for his commute.