Juno Moneta

“Half gods are worshiped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.”

General

An elder god that dwells at the edges of the cosmos. She presents herself to mortals as a goddess of wealth, but can be more accurately described as a force of consumption--a hungering maw that will always ache for more. For an Old One, she is uncharacteristically involved and interventionist when it comes to the lives of her worshippers, and surveilles their lives directly through the current leader of her faith, whom she dubs her “Saint.” The strongest bastion of her following is an organization known as the Blackgold Church, which is as much corporation as it is religion.

Appearance

By her nature, she is indescribable and ever-shifting. The mortal eye perceives her as a vast network of shining golden threads, reminiscent of a web of nerves. These branch into twisting sharp-toothed mouths, great swollen eyes with irises of burning gold and sclera black as pitch. Sometimes these threads twist themselves into crude musculature, hordes of wings that spiral into themselves, connecting to nothing. She also sometimes takes on the appearances of her past Saints. Those who see visions of her often recall seeing two pairs of eyes arranged in a way that mimics the spread wings of a butterfly--clergy of the Blackgold Church theorize that this may be the “centerpoint” of her “body.”

Personality

An abstract and foreign presence to mortals. She does not seem like a cohesive whole so much as a collection of disparate parts that all strive for the same goal. For the most part, she is a lofty and detached presence to most of her followers, and only closely interacts with her Saints. With those chosen few, she is a cloying and demanding entity, always pushing for better results and greater bounties of wealth. Moneta views mortals as tools, each tailored to serve a different aspect of her great purpose--the acquisition and consumption of the greatest wealth ever witnessed by mortal or divine eyes.

By earthly measures, Moneta can be seen as a cruel and unfeeling goddess. She does “care” for her followers and Saints, but it is “care” on a scale that only she can comprehend. She loves them as possessions because that is the only way that she can make sense of them, ephemeral and fragile as they are. Her affection is shown in the way that she assimilates her deceased Saints into herself and wears their past appearances as masks to shield mortal eyes from the chaos of her true form. She honors her followers by allowing them to contribute to her divine purpose, pushes for perfection because that is the only way she can comprehend joy. 

Despite her alien, otherworldly distance from most things, she has a surprisingly human edge to her at times. Rather than be open about her true nature, she drapes herself in the imagery of the angelic, the benevolent, and the holy. This appears to not merely be a deceptive façade, but how she genuinely wishes to be perceived. This might suggest that, perhaps, she finds something about her unaltered self undesirable and shameful in comparison, thus necessitating the donning of a more appealing costume. She also acts with impulsive, instinctual rage when the bodies of her hosts are seriously damaged, or in some way encroached upon by foreign gods. They are not only selfishly “hers,” but also in some way precious to her, valuable enough to be considered protecting.

Juno Moneta is a bizarre, twisted deity who attracts bizarre, twisted people. Many of her most powerful clergy are distorted reflections of her--it is arguably these similarities that allowed them to succeed under her tutelage in the first place.

Abilities and Peculiarities

Moneta is often referred to as a “divine parasite” by outsiders to her faith, and however derisive the label may be, it is also technically true. She strengthens herself by devouring other gods, the blood of her followers, and the vitality of her Saints. The more potent the entity she consumes, the greater the increase in her own power. Consumption is more than the benefits it provides, however--to Moneta, it is compulsion, instinctive and animalistic. Birds fly, fish swim, Moneta devours.

Most gods cannot directly venture onto the earthly plane without invitation or ritual, and so must content themselves with merely giving guidance to their followers. Moneta, however, exploits a loophole. By using a mortal body, namely that of the leader of her church, as a vessel, she ensures that she perpetually has an open invite. Lesser spirits often possess living bodies in similar ways. As a deity, Moneta is technically not “meant to” have extended stays in mortal shells, which is why her Saints break so quickly. She is unconcerned with the living cost, and has spent centuries jumping from host to host. She believes that as her Saints receive full and unreserved access to the power of a god in return for a life of pain, it is a fair trade. 

As every Saint dies, they also become part of her. She receives their memories, skills, and talents, stitched into the endless web of knowledge that makes up her greater self. These are then passed down piecemeal to their successors, every new iteration receiving a larger and larger tree of skills to draw from. To a degree, their individual personalities and idiosyncrasies also become integrated into her as well--although by now, there are so many different pieces making up the whole that it hardly makes an impact anymore.

Moneta is incredibly possessive of her hosts. Just as she allows them to freely control her body, she invites herself to freely control theirs--usually as punishment. In retaliation for not obeying her orders, she has been known to force lungs to stop breathing, to pinch vessels and veins tightly closed, to make limbs twist unnaturally against the limits of their joints, only stopping when her Saints beg forgiveness and repent.

Past

Birthplace: the fathomless cosmos

History: Juno Moneta has always been found where there is greed and hunger. To mortals scorched from within by their own ambition or desire, she is a benevolent guiding light. Her following began as insular cults which she possessively nurtured into crusading juggernauts that carved paths of blood through the stars. She saw other gods and faiths as competition that posed existential threats to herself and her followers, and ordered her mortal herd to deal with them accordingly. This is a practice that she would always continue, regardless of the size of her faith or its dominance amongst its peers. There were and are dormant periods where her church coexists peacefully with local gods--but inevitably, the cycle will always begin anew.

Finances: if the wealth of her followers can be counted as “hers” (which in her eyes, it can), then riches as fathomless as her own self

Present 

Current location: observing the mortal plane through the eyes of her Saint

Current status: Moneta and the Blackgold Church currently make their primary home in the city of Kos, a country-sized metropolis dominated by a pantheon of local gods, of which she is the most popular and potent. She communes with her followers through the mouthpiece of her current Saint, Valerian. Compared to the early days of her contact with mortals, she is a far more distant presence to all except for the most elite circles of the church. Distant, but still ever-watchful. 

Finances: see above

Other

• Sometimes quietly manifests minor limbs to fix Valerian’s hair or straighten out or dust off parts of his clothes. 
  • In her pettier moments, she “fixes” things that were objectively fine, but just not to her personal liking.
• There are certain former Saints that she prefers taking on the appearances of, either because they were her past favorites or because she finds them pleasing to the eye. These include Aelius the Epoch (the first leader of Blackgold), Opulentia the Wrathful (one of the most famous and well-loved), and Voracita the Gentle (Valerian’s direct predecessor).
• Actively feared or disliked by most of the other gods in Kos’s local pantheon. She sees them as inferior worms who could never pose a meaningful threat to her.
• Favors hosts who have gone through recent loss or tragedy so that they can be more easily made to be dependent on her. She dislikes when she is not the most important presence in her Saint’s life.
• She can consciously “tell” when someone or something is actively making or losing profit for her, like a bizarre sort of animal instinct.
• At great physical cost to her mortal host, can make minor changes to reality by warping the fabric of space-time. Usually this ability is used to manipulate stock prices on Kos’s market in her church’s favor.
  • This immediately results in a sudden onset of fatigue, vomiting blood, and disabling migraines, and thus is used sparingly.
• Her presence results in the inability of her hosts to have dreams.