The Sentinels of Saturnia
Within Saturnia, the Sentinels of Saturnia are the main pantheon which most creatures revere! Some worship them alongside local spirits though the distinction between them and these minor gods is usually overemphasized. Some may worship one, a few or all thirteen!
The Sentinels are said to be the origin of Saturnia’s Elemental magic. Most Saturnians born in the land are born with an Elemental alignment, said to been gifted personally by the Sentinel it matches. Many will place their patron Sentinel higher than the others, even creating shrines or offering shrines. It’s thought that Saturnians join their patron in the afterlife upon death. Interpretations vary though there is a most common depiction for each. They’re mostly referred with neutral gender terms but some’s popular interpretations lean more one way than another.
The popular explanation for where they came from is somewhere over the sea. They traveled to then barren Saturnia which they transformed into its current state with their magic. Believers of the Sentinels will tell you Saturnia was merely that but skeptics whisper Saturnia had been stolen by them from another figure, whether some enigmatic and unknown god or even, the Serpent of Balance.
The popular origin story goes like this: the Sentinels arrived to Saturnia and transformed it but soon fell intro petty squabbles. Soon, it escalated to outright warring which destroyed the land. This summoned the Serpent of Balance which scolded them and told them to do better before he retired to make his own few creations. The Sentinels started anew but grew mistrustful of the Serpent. When this mistrust reached its peak, they banded together and used their powers to banish the Serpent. The Serpent left them with one final warning and prophecy: their own conflict had introduced it into the land and the land would never be peaceful again. When one of the Sentinels rejected their own child, like they had the Serpent, he would return from exile.
The popular ending of this posits the Serpent was actually malevolent and that it desired to defeat the Sentinels and steal Saturnia, making the Sentinels’ exile of it just. But the shapeshifters believe otherwise. According to them, the exile was an action fueled by paranoia and that the Serpent was completely innocent.
Soon after, the Sentinels created the Kitsunes, to watch over Saturnia, appointed the Elemental Monarchs and the first order of 13 Knights, both to guide and protect Saturnia in their stead. It’s also said sometime before they went into hibernation they planned to drive out and kill The Great Old Spirits, obscure and esoteric spirits that existed in Saturnia in the early mythic age, but Sapphidel successfully prevented this.
