Mildred

In The Heartland, the home island of the humans, in the province of Ach Nees, there is a small but fundamentalist group of atheists. This group refuse to acknowledge the existence of any gods, and they do not practice any magic.

There are more radical groups who refuse to speak English, the common language of every race on All-That-Is, and are so convinced that they are right that they perform terrorist acts, murdering anyone with a different belief to theirs. These radical athiests are known as Evolutionists, and should be killed on sight, as they'll surely do the same to you.

But the less murderous groups are simple called the Fundamentalist Atheists, or the Fundamentalists.

These two groups are in perfect accord on one main issue: that the world was not created by a god or group of gods, rather that All-That-Is evolved naturally from smaller animals.

The rest of All-That-Is look down upon these two groups, and with good reason. The presence of gods in the world is extremely well documented, and magic is an everyday occurance. However the issue concerning the rest of the world is which god created everything. Worshippers of Targ, the God of Pirates insists that one day he drank too much, and urinated all the oceans of the world. Having done that, he created land to give pirates somewhere to rest, and all land-dwellers have grown from pirates who simply weren't good enough to cut it on the high seas.

Worshippers of Sexlia, God of Love, read from her holy script, the Calming Sutra, which tells of how she spent eons sitting still, full of love, until one day her heart overflowed, and All-That-Is was created from the excess love which even she couldn't contain.

Worshippers of Yashel, the God of Gold insist that their God created the world as well, but in order to find out how, you have to be a Yashel Level 5 member, and it costs a lot of gold to rise that high in their church.

Asking a Nakira priest won't do you much good, as those who follow the God of Lies will rarely give you a straight answer, and even if they do, you won't be able to tell whether or not it's a lie. Nakira's holy text itself has over 13 different accounts of how the world started, and each of them is highly dubious. Those outside the church are rarely (if ever) able to tell the difference between a Nakira lie and the truth, and even those within the church have their doubts. So most non-worshippers simply accept the first tale in the book, which is that All-That-Is was created from a lie that went horribly wrong.

But perhaps the most intriguing account of how everything started lies within Mildred's gospel. The God of Librarians, rather than claiming that she was the one behind the creation of All-That-Is, encourages you to instead read all of the other gospels, and try to work out what actually happen. She insists that behind all of the conflicting accounts, there are enough actual similarities and clues to determine what actually happened.

There are over 80 major gods, and thousands of minor gods besides, so very few people have the patience to actually read through all of those holy texts (especially since she specifically recommends the scripture of Marge Inn, the God of Dragons, a god who no longer has any worshippers or temples, and thus has an incredibly rare and hard to find gospel.) and even fewer who care enough to do so in the first place.

Mildred is a unique God in this respect: her advice is rarely straightforward (unlike other gods, such as Geoff, the God of Biscuits, whose advice to almost everything involves baking and then immediately eating biscuits.) and even when followed, it doesn't always provide the expected results. But those who do worship her claim to find it an enormously fulfilling experience, constantly learning and finding things out for themselves rather than simply being told what to do at all times.

Unfortunately, due to her lack of easy answers and fast results, she has very few worshippers indeed. (unlike Roth, the God of Lightning, one of the more popular Gods, whose temples are easily recognisable by their tattered appearance from regular lightning strikes)

Perhaps another deterrant is her lack of social life. Inter-god relationships are common, and there are several daily scrolloids in major cities which do nothing but record and report these. Roth (God of Lightning) and Suze (God of Thunder) are constantly on again, off again, a fact which draws thousands to their temples. But other than the fact she is known to be close friends with Solomon, the God of Wisdom, Mildred's social life is quiet indeed.

Despite having a rather small world-wide following of a few thousand, the community of Mildred's worshippers is strong. Veracious readers, they tend to be slightly quirky or a-social, however when they do come together, they have millions of shared scrolls to discuss, and theories on the real origin of All-That-Is is one of the most popular topics.

So if you're considering a God to worship, and you're not after flashy powers like the ability to make your gold grow overnight, or turn rocks into diamonds, then why not consider Mildred: The God of Librarians. You'll have friends in every city of the world, and you'll never be short of something to think about.

Mildred. The God for You?