clare_dragonfly asked: How/why did all of these gods end up returning at around the same time, anyway?

The exact thought process moving those that we call the Returned Gods cannot easily be divined, because those that were questioned often chose to die or lie rather than divulge too much.

However, what can be determined is as thus:

When the Gods Above All chose to lock themselves in Ellehem with many of their wayward children, they did so quite against the wishes of those children. The children liked Earth; they liked worship; they liked having all those humans to serve them.

And so they fought, in a long and bloody war that lasted nearly a thousand years. When they were done, they had killed several of the Gods Above – as enough humans can take down an Ellehemaei, if they know the right weapons, so can enough Ellehemaei take down one of their forbears. They had imprisoned several others. And they had lost many, many of their own, as well, in numbers equivalent to the loss of human life during the time of the departed gods’ return.

It took them time to lick their wounds, to restore their numbers, to fight to a holding point between themselves and the Gods Above All. It took centuries – millennia – all the time telling themselves and their children and grand-children how wonderful the world would be, when they could return.

It took all of that, and another battle, a battle not directly against the Gods Above All (although there was quite a distractionary battle going on at the time, between the recalcitrant children and the Gods Above All), but between those who would return and the wards themselves. But in mid-2011, on the day of solstice, which was a day of strong belief, they manage to burst the wards and, all over the world, old gates between the worlds opened up.

Losing track of terms? Check them all out here

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Next: http://www.lynthornealder.com/2017/11/30/the-children-of-the-gods/