Mot

"nO EsCAPE nO HOPE yoU wiLL soon BE MINE YoUR deaTH iS inevITabLE"

- Mot

Mot is one of the central figures of The Banished Pantheon in the M.M.O. City of Heroes. It seeks to devour all mortal souls. It is an Incarnate, a being of interdimensional/divine power similar to the game's signature hero, Statesman, and signature villain, Lord Recluse, but as a full Incarnate, and one free and fully manifested, it is much, much grander in scale and power than even they.

Tielekku vs the Banished Patheon
According to Circle of Thorns and Mu records the Goddess Tielekku was once the supreme ruler of the first gods. By the time the planet earth was created mortals began to worship the gods, endearing themselves to them. Tielekku took a liking to mortals but, like all deities saw them as weak and inferior, so she decided to change that. Tielekku invented the concept of magic and gave it to mortals. Other gods were outraged, as magic even if weak compared to the gods could break the set limitations that kept mortals as supplicants. The evil gods attacked Tielekku and those willing to stand by her. Continents were divided on multiple realities from the sheer onslaught of the war, but in the end the evil gods lost and Tielekku banished them to the neither-world, that existed between life and death. The war in combination with exorcising a Pantheon of evil gods drained Tielekku and she went into a deep sleep, leaving Ermeeth god of knowledge as ruler of the remaining gods.*

Regardless of the finer points of the divine politics at play, Tielekku fought the eviler gods who objected to mortals having magic and banished them Among those banished evil gods was Mot, one of the stronger crueler ones. Ironicly what the Banished Pantheon fought against was what saved them, mortal magic. Diviners exploring the nether-world eventually encountered the Banished Pantheon and were so awe-struck to encounter actual gods that they worshiped them fully. As time went on more and more magi had similar experiences and ended up bowing down to the pantheon - they would pass down their rights to commune with them and thus the cult of The Banished Pantheon was formed.

Dark Astoria
The cult of The Banished Pantheon has existed for years but received a sudden boom in the 1910s when a man called Marcus Cole, later to be called Statesman, and his friend Stefan Richter, later Lord Recluse, opened Pandora's box after gaining their powers at the legendary Well of the Furies. Opening the box caused several butterfly-effects across the world, among them a major increase in magical phenomena, and with it, the cult climbed from dozens world-wide to hundreds which soon all concentrated on Paragon City, home of the two men. The Banished Pantheon cult were not called to Paragon because of Marcus and Stefan, but rather because they sensed the greatest of their pantheon Mot, buried just below the surface of a section of the city, clawing at reality to get out. The place was Astoria, a section of the city with a mass graveyard and with more and more dying daily with super-humans walking the world and in Paragon City especially, Astoria's Moth Cemetery kept growing faster and faster, shooting up a few years later with World War II as Paragon veterans were laid to rest back home. The massive intake of deaths combined with Paragon becoming the Mecca of super-powers had roused Mot from the netherworld. It clawed and tore at the fabric of reality in Moth but Tielekku's magic held fast.

The cult heard their masters' calling though and spent the better part of the century attempting to weaken the fabric of reality within Astoria. In 2004 an alien invasion via The Rikiti would occur, The Rikiti War touched down in Paragon and Earth's fate was fought for in the massive town. During this time every able-bodied law-enforcer, solider and meta-human gathered together to fight off the Rikiti threat. The cult of The Banished Pantheon though gathered in Astoria ready to take advantage of the Rikiti War. The Banished Pantheon violated the cemetery and rose the corpses of the many war veterans as soldiers to unleash a zombie plague on Astoria. With the Rikti invasion to worry about, officials shut off Astoria, leaving it to the Pantheon, a few miracle survivors managed to get out even after the gates were closed but most died to the Banished Pantheon's city-sized army of zombies. The Banished Pantheon began to marinate their new section of the city in necromantic energies, with intent to merge it and the netherworld completely, thus was Astoria renamed as "Dark Astoria". The cult summoned avatars of their gods, creating totems for them to possess and even summoned the fierce lesser god Adamastor, yet still this was no enough. The Banished Pantheon's ultimate goal was to free Mot, who, dwelt just below the surface, waiting for it's cult to scratch through the last of Tielekku's barriers and be free again.

Return
In 2012 the game's Going Rogue addition, came out and Dark Astoria was once more changed. Moth Cemetery irrupted, the ground splitting and then warping as Mot re-manifested. The Banished Pantheon cultists swarmed to their god, the ghosts of the civilians, still getting by in the literal ghost-town, were all drawn into Mot's gaping maw, barbed tentacles in-circled the remnants of the mausoleums, crushing most of them, and the grave statues were warped to the point they actually appeared to weep. Mot had returned. All Paragon's mystics martialed their forces to contain the area, the good and the evil. The Mu mystically had a shared vision of doom and warned Lord Recluse, who in-turn issued orders for his military, Arachnos, to send his best mystics to the area. The Circle of Thorns, who had been combing the area for ghosts to experiment on for years, started setting up re-enforced portals to and from the Rogue and Dark Astoria. The gang of Hmong ninja mystics, The Tsoo, start swarming the cemetery, putting up massive wards, just barely holding back Mot's power from escaping the cemetery walls. The ye-old secret society of wizards dedicated to using magic constructively, The Midnight Squad, arrive to arrange portals between Paragon City and Dark Astoria that only heroes can walk through. The society of militant magi, The Legacy Chain quickly arrive to fight off any Banished Pantheon that would try to seize the landing area. The Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation, M.A.G.I. quickly rally all the registered magic origined super-heroes they can find. Mot only stirs slightly from the masses rumbling. Instead of bursting out, Mot gorges it-self on the dead, revitalizing it's strength. This redefined version of Dark Astoria becomes only accessible at level 50 of the game+ The highest official level, minus bonus Incarnate levels. When arriving players, hero AND villain must fight the freed dread god and it's minions in order to prevent every single soul on the planet from being devoured.

Trivia

 * According to Circle of Thorns lore Tielekku willingly appointed Ermeeth as her successor. According to the Mu, Ermeeth believed only a select few mortals should have magic but did not fight her and instead fled into the sea and so was not banished. Ermeeth is the central deity of The Circle of Thorns, while their ancient foes, the Mu, claim their central goddess, Hequat, was the right-hand of Tielekku so both accounts are biased.