A God For Hire
Chanticleer, Lord of Storms, arrived on the mortal plane with a crash of thunder and flash of lightning. He shifted his forked staff to his left hand and rummaged through his robes. The thunder god brought out a newspaper and flipped to the classifieds.
Deity of Light: Medium-sized mostly human congregation in up-and-coming dimension. Great magical power preferred - no necromancy. Experience fighting evil, especially demons and undead, a must. Full benefits, no human sacrifice.
Chanticleer shrugged, stroking his beard. He supposed he fit the bill - no real skeletons in his closet. His last war against Mephistopol the Great should qualify as experience fighting evil. And he hadn't been gaining many new worshippers lately, so it was time to go knocking on some doors.
He looked up from the newspaper to the building before him. It was simple whitewashed brick, with a golden star above the door, the sigil of worship of a god of good. A sign on the lawn read Church of Jaal, Godsend (Reformed), but the god's name had been hastily been scribbled through with red paint.
Chanticleer chuckled. Jaal, God of Justice, had been caught in a rather sordid affair with a mortal woman in some other dimension. The halls of Olympus were buzzing with rumors of a paternity suit. As a result, Jaal's churches across the multiverse were dropping him as a patron.
Things weren't like they were in the old days. Not more than a few thousand years ago, Zeus fathered dozens of illegitimate children, and the Greeks hadn't said boo. Now, one half-mortal godling and you could find yourself out of a job. Should've practiced safe sex, Jaal, Chanticleer thought.
A balding priest in white robes stepped outside, probably wondering what all the racket was about. He spotted Chanticleer and fussily asked, "May I help you?"
Chanticleer drew himself up and struck his most lordly pose. "Yes," he said grandly. "I, Chanticleer the Thunderer, have arrived. You may show me to my church."
The priest blinked. "You're here about the god position, then?"
The Thunderer frowned. "Of course."
The priest opened the door. "Yes, well, come inside and get in line with the others."
"The - others?"
The priest rolled his eyes. "Yes, the others."
Chanticleer shrugged and followed the man inside. A line of gods of all manner that fell under the loose description of 'good' snaked from the front door to a table that had been set up in the vestibule. The Thunderer sighed and queued up behind a god with the head of an ibis.
"Hey, you gotchyer résumé?"
Chanticleer patted down the pockets of his robe. "Hmm...I seem to have forgotten it." He snapped his fingers, and a lesser air elemental appeared, bringing with it the necessary document. "Thank you," Chanticleer rumbled, dismissing his servant.
"Pleased t' meetcha," the bird-headed god said. "Name's Thoth." He extended his hand.
The other god shook it. "Chanticleer the Th-"
"The Thunderer, yeah," Thoth finished. "We heard it in here."
Chanticleer sighed.
"Hey, listen kid, a word of advice - this bunch of mortals don't seem ta like all that regal stuff in their gods. Too formal, ya know?"
The Thunderer frowned. "Why's that?"
Thoth shrugged. "These days they're too arrogant for us to be that way with 'em."
Chanticleer stroked his beard. "Have we really sunk this far?" he murmured.
"Guess we have," Thoth said. "Mortals nowadays think they run everything. They don't think they need us anymore."
The Thunderer nodded. "True."
"They ain't even dedicated to us anymore - no faith," Thoth rambled on. "This thing with Jaal and that kid - man, back in the old days they'd chalk it up to gods being gods. Back then, we were themselves writ large. Now, it's like they expect us t' be some kinda perfect."
Again, Chanticleer nodded. He'd been thinking something along those lines earlier. The line moved slowly forward as Thoth ranted.
"Not that I'm complainin' about Jaal, mind you. I've been out of work since the pharaohs died out."
"I suppose so," Chanticleer mumbled noncommittally.
"I'm tellin' you, everything used to be better back in the old days. If you told a mortal to kill himself, he'd do it. By crackie, that was faith. Now he'd just up and go worship someone else."
The Thunderer buried his face in his hand. He'd been hearing complaints like that from other gods for centuries. Come to think of it, he'd made more than a few complaints like that himself.
"Used to be wars - real, bloody wars - about what god somebody followed. Now you'd be lucky if you got two of 'em in a room without 'em converting each other," Thoth rambled on. "Why, I used ta be the Lord of Knowledge. People'd come before me when they died, and I'd judge 'em on their Maat, and tell 'em where to stick it. Now they won't even let me judge a state fair."
Chanticleer cleared his throat and pointed behind Thoth. Thoth spun around to find himself at the front of the line.
"Résumé, Your Worship?" a bored-sounding junior priest - more clerk than cleric - asked. Growling under his breath, the former Lord of Knowledge thumped his résumé down on the desk. Taking no notice of the god's ire, the priest pointed to a bench. "Have a seat, Your Worship. The Patriarch will be with you shortly."
Chanticleer followed suit, setting his résumé on the stack on top of Thoth's. He found a place on the bench beside the god of knowledge. The bench was none too comfortable; it seemed that the church wasn't willing to spend a copper more than they had to on their gods. "So, what happened?" the Thunderer asked.
"What?"
"You were the Lord of Knowledge. What happened with that?" In spite of himself, Chanticleer had gotten interested in the crotchety god's story. Besides, it passed the time, and Thoth was certainly more interesting conversation than the mortals. In addition to getting more arrogant over the centuries, they'd also gotten more boring in Chanticleer's book.
"Ah, I got lazy. Too much bookkeeping, ya know?" Thoth said bitterly. "Took a few bribes, let some folks into the Offering Fields that I shouldn't have. Cooked the books ta make it look like fewer folks were going to Hell. Ra got mad about that one when he found out.”
“I can imagine.” Chanticleer nodded. The head of the Egyptian pantheon wasn't known for liking accounting fraud. But then, with the exception of Mammon, most gods weren't, either.
“So, Ra says to me, 'Thoth, yer fired'. But it wasn't a big deal; about that time, the Egyptians were falling apart anyway, so we were all outta work before long.” Thoth shrugged, cocking his bird head to one side. “Now, I'm trying to get myself some work in a Hee-Haw dimension like this, and Ra's flipping burgers at Lenin's Diner in Hades.”
Chanticleer wouldn't have quite called this a backwater dimension. It had a fairly large population of humans - well, so some of them were none too bright, but you got that anywhere - with a smattering of dwarves, orcs, and other races thrown in as leavening. The village of Godsend wasn't exactly a bustling metropolis, but at least it had three taverns and two livery stables, and - most importantly - no churches dedicated to other gods within city limits, which meant you had a monopoly on worship here. Not a bad place to be a god, all things considered.
Another white-robed junior priest - Didn't they ever wear anything else? Why did priests of light have to dress so dully? - stuck his head out of the office door. He looked down at a clipboard in his hand. "Thoth, Lord of Knowledge?" he called hesitantly.
The ibis-headed god looked up. "The Patriarch will see you now."
"Well, wish me luck," Thoth said as he left the bench for his interview.
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