Chinese Gods

  The Xian or Gods of China are a race of superhumanly powerful humanoid beings who were once worshipped in the Ancient Chinese Empire from around 2000 BC when the empire first came to power to 1911 when the Empire was dissolved in favor of a new Communist regime. They still have worshippers today, but some of the Chinese gods are worshipped from behind new roles under Buddhism and under modern Taoism.

The Xian dwell in the other-dimensional realm of Ta-Lo, a collective series of inter-connected worlds in inter-dimensional space adjacent to Earth; an interdimensional nexus between Ta-Lo and Earth exists somewhere on Mount K'un L'un in Western China. Mount K'un L'un is also the home of a small colony of humanoid aliens of extra-terrestrial origin who crashed on Earth in prehistoric times and who live in a city out of phase with the Earth's dimension. Several of the Xian and the K'un L'uns share common names, suggesting that they might have served as representatives of the gods or that the Ancient Chinese merely confused then with their gods. The exact relationship and connection between the Xian and the K'un L'uns is as yet unrevealed.

The precise origin of the Chinese gods, like that of all of Earth's pantheons of gods, is unrevealed and often contradictory with the numerous stories developed by their worshippers existing separately in several regions on earth isolated by topographic boundaries. According to ancient myths, the Xian are descended from the primordial giant Pan-Ku, who was born from a great cosmic egg conceived by Yin and Yang, the female and male principles of the universe. It is believed that Yin, the female principle, was actually Gaea, the primordial earth mother who had survived the destruction of the Elder Gods, the first sentient beings to coalesce out of the rich biosphere of the planet.

Many of the Elder Gods were destroyed by Atum, who had been born from Gaea after mating with the Demiurge, the sentient biosphere of the planet. As the Demogorge, Atum slew many of the Elder Gods although many of them escaped into other dimensions. Hou-Tu, the primordial earth-mother who mated with Pan-Ku to give birth to the gods of China, is also credited with being another form of Gaea.

According to ancient Chinese myths, Pan-Ku was assisted by a number of divine creatures in forming the land that would be modern-day China. These creatures resembled normal animals but had divine functions; taking the appearance of a tortoise, a phoenix, a dragon and and unicorn, later becoming images of symbolic importance to the Chinese people. Pan-Ku meanwhile grew so massive after several years that he could no longer hold a human form and became a being of pure energy and departed his physical body, dying as a result. In his more advanced form, his body became one with earth and the land of China while his head became one with the heavens, his eyes represented by the sun and the moon.

Before his departure from earth, Pan-Ku had divided the heavens evenly between his progeny, but they soon began to envy the attributes of domains of their siblings and developed the art of war to try and seize power from one another. Hu, Emperor of the North, and Shu, Emperor of the South, after years of senseless conflict trying to gain dominion over the other eventually met each other on the neutral property of Hundun, their brother, Emperor of the Center. Hundun was most hospitable as he arbitrated a truce between his brothers and brought a truce to their war. According to legend, Hundun lacked any of the traditional orifices in his body for hearing, eating and breathing and existed solely by mystical means. Shu and Hu out of gratitude to their brother for his hospitality tried to bore the correct holes into him, but accidentally killed him as a result.

Gong-Gung, Emperor of the ocean to the East, meanwhile sought to overthrow all his brothers and went to war with Ju-Rong, the god of fire and Emperor of the West. Their war lasted for several centuries with neither brother gaining an advantage over the other  During the conflagration, Gong Gung shattered Mount Buzhou which supported the heavens. The destruction of the mountain tipped the cosmic axis and resulted in a flood that devastated China during the reign of Emperor Yao, a descendant of Hundun, Emperor of Central China.

Of the first rulers of China, the original Emperors were all immortal and descended from Pan-Ku, but their exact ancestry is undefined. The first recorded Emperors were the San Huang, or "Three August Ones," beginning with Fu-Xi or Fu-Hsing, an earth-god, who was also one of the San Hsing, three gods of fortune. His brothers were Lu-Hsing and Shou-Hsing, other gods of fortune and good luck. Fu-Xi was possibly a descendant of Shu, Emperor of the South, but this is unconfirmed. Ruling around 2950 BC, Fu-Xi apparently united all of China under his reign, but instead of leaving his throne to one of his progeny, he was succeeded by Shen-Nung, the Chinese god of farming, who brought great prosperity to China, but as Shen-Nong's son, Chi-Yu, the war-god, tried to seize the throne, he was challenged by Yu Huang, the god of sky. Yu Huang had been raised as a mortal, but after defeating Chi-Yu, Yu-Huang placed his mortal brother, Yen-Ti, on the throne of China and went into self-imposed exile to achieve mental and physical perfection. Yen-Ti was the last of the San Huang, and after his death, he was allowed dominance of the underworld as Yen-lo Wang, the god of the dead.

Yu Huang was the ancestor of the following dynasty of China, and became sovereign of the Gods of China afterward. He chose the hero, Chuan Hsiun, to briefly rule China when he eventually departed earth. Chuan-Hsiun was followed by Gun (Kun), the grandson of Yu-Huang. (Some sources erroneously claim Gun was the son instead of the grandson of Yu-Huang.) Chuan-Hsiun was also the brother-in-law of Gun, and Yao, who followed Gun, was his nephew. It is during the reign of Yao that the flood occurred, and Gun saved China by stealing a spell from heaven to fortify the canals and dams he created to protect China. Shun, the adopted mortal son of Yao ruled China afterward. Having married Yao's daughters, he had several sons with godly attributes who descended to earth to dry the earth. Each son had the powers of the sun, but their power was so great that they scorched the earth and withered the crops of China. Yi, one of Shun's sons, slew his brothers to save the earth, but was stripped of his immortality as penance for their deaths. His wife, Cheng-O, the moon-goddess, also suffered his punishment. All the later Emperors of China were mortal as a result, although Yi and Cheng-O regained partial immortality afterward. 

The mortal descendants of the Xian revered their ancestors as gods centuries afterward and a few chosen mortals such as Guan-Di and Kwannon were deified into gods as well. Although an edict by the Third Host of the Celestials forbade the Chinese Gods with trafficking with mortals, worship of the Chinese gods, or Taoism, continued well into modern times. During the encounter with the Celestials, Yu Huang had met with the rulers of the other pantheons of earth and became a member of the Council of Godheads. As per a pact with Odin, Chieftain of the Asgardian gods, Yu Huang donated the necessary life-energies to Thor to restore the Gods of Asgard to life after the Fourth Host of the Celestials.

Gradually, Taoism and worship of the Chinese Gods was overwhelmed by other local religions in China such as Buddhism and Confucianism. The multitude of the Chinese gods have remained outwardly unaffected by the change, embracing the few worshippers they have. Yu Huang still visits earth from time to time, and Yi still presides on earth, living a mortal life as a farmer.

 
 
Powers and Abilities: They all have superhuman strength, speed, agility, and stamina. Like the Olympians, they are one of the six pantheons(Olympian, Annunaki, Deva, Xian, Kami, Anasazi)who possesses immortality