Characters / Kubera God Realm

Main Character Index | Human Realm | Sura Realm (Sura Realm First Half | Sura Realm Second Half) | God Realm

Main characters are bolded.

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God Realm

Gods in General

• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: Played with. Their Resurrective Immortality means they don't have any real issue with killing each other. However, they do take the destruction of one's jurisdiction (i.e. permanent death) seriously: the author notes that when they eliminated the ancient human race, they avoided going down the easy route of just blowing up their planets, as doing so would kill the gods of those planets as well.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: In a different vein from the suras. As gods, they operate on a universal scale, making their values rather different from humans'. In particular, this is why they're far more likely to put The Needs of the Many first, compared to the other races, and when they know that the soul lives on and circulates, they can be rather callous towards the idea of death.
  • This even comes up among themselves, as they don't always understand each other's values. For instance, Surya cares about humanity but doesn't extend the same thoughtfulness towards the suras, which confuses Indra who doesn't see why humans should be weighed more heavily on the scales and, if anything, considers the life of a single nastika to be worth more than several humans'.
• Can't Argue with Elves: Well, gods; but yeah as a general rule the modern human race tends to take this stance about gods, and whatever they say goes, this is discussed by Siera who mentions that before the Cataclysm humans consulted and followed god's judgement without questioning it, and it concerned that they fall back into this habit so quickly once Agni reveals himself.
• Complete Immortality: As long as a god's jurisdiction exists, they will regenerate and come back from the dead as many times they need. Averted in the case of smaller-scale gods whose jurisdictions only encompass a single planet: If their planet is gone, they are gone too.
• Crippling Overspecialization: The strongest gods - save for the primeval ones - have a single source attribute. Suras, in turn, always have at least two. If Indra were to face a Garuda, for instance, he'd be in trouble, as their clan attribute is the same as his, Sky. A possible way to overcome this is to win by raw power, but they then run into another problem as the average nastika overpowers the average god.
• Death Is Cheap: As per their Resurrective Immortality mentioned above, they behave like this. In fact, they find it funny when Agni goes berserk and kills them all. When it comes to humanity, their mentality is the same; that's why it took them so long to finally decide to do something about Gandharva. It was only when he began destroying the souls of those he killed that they decided to do something.
• Fallen Hero: To varying degrees. It eventually becomes clear that however flawed or outright callous the fifth zen gods are, they're inherently screwed over by a system that makes compassion and/or active heroism impossible, unless one wants to live with an eternity of regrets. Even gods who started off the universe as conventionally kind and pure lost that over time, whether due to the burden of immortal life or by having to leave behind those sentiments at the top. Agni is generally the one exception, and even his own faults became magnified through constant tragedy.
• God Is Flawed: Essentially, their main issue. They're neither saints nor evil. They complain about work, want vacations, get jealous over each other's cool toys, have people they like, have people they don't like, etc. As Brahma puts it (after observing Agni and Yama's quarrel), you'd never believe these are enlightened beings.
• God Is Neutral: The stance many of them take, provided the universe itself isn't threatened. They don't go out of their way to be dicks, most of the time, but if it doesn't bother them, then whatever.
• Handicapped Badass: Summoned gods are bound by the strength of their human summoner, meaning that post-Cataclysm, in practice they pale in comparison to what they could do before.
• Informed Attribute: While the gods are established to generally be Jerkass Gods, most of the ones we see are comparatively good; partially this is because the better gods are presumably more likely to answer summons.
• Inhumanly Beautiful Race: They are gods, after all. They can even adjust aspects of their appearances (although only a select few can change their gender.)
• Jerkass Gods: Boy howdy, are they ever. Most gods wouldn't spare a thought if nastikas go around destroying entire planets for kicks (like a certain nastika king (*cough* Gandharva *cough*) used to do), and only move their collective ass when they think it's getting threatened - see Opportunistic Bastards below. Agni, being an exception to this rule, feels like an outcast among his own.
• Lack of Empathy: When gods reach enlightenment, they lose all worldly attachment... which is a problem for beings who make up the universe. As a result, they're forced to leave behind memories and the like at the "top" and drag themselves back down with an altered personality—whatever allows them to remain in the universe. Unsurprisingly, though, literally getting rid of parts of their being has dealt serious blows to their capacity for empathy, especially when it can also be abused to ease their suffering. Visnu (or at least implied to be) acknowledges that the system was probably a mistake.
• Ludd Was Right: As planets with human population who advance quickly are quickly noticed by nastikas and get destroyed for that, many gods hold this view about why humans should just stick to living a primitive way of life, this being the gods, though it comes across as victim-blaming though.
• The Mole: While their morals, reasons and methods vary greatly, with the exception of Kali, the stated purpose of gods is to maintain the universe, avoid its destruction and make it last as long as possible... except that among the gods there's is five of them who are actually rooting for its destruction, they even have the ability to hide their identities with a cloaking that makes it impossible to be recognized and can even be summoned in this secret form to protect their secret, so far the only confirmed one among them is God Kubera, although there are lots of hints pointing at Brahma as well.
• Moral Myopia: They almost base their whole actions on this principle, whatever they do it's for the sake of maintaining the universe or balance or any nebulous concept their realm is, but with the exception of Agni and maybe Vayu, most of them don't show the same consideration to either humans or suras and are quick to condemn them for the slightest mistakes.
• No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: How many of them framed and justified the annihilation of the ancient human race and the reason many of them didn't want Agni's betrothed soul to continue existing, and even before then, human souls who held grudges weren't allowed to reincarnate, instead they were grounded and used as "fertilizer" for the universe.
• Opportunistic Bastard: It's becoming clearer and clearer that the divide between suras and gods is not nearly as clear-cut as they would have you believe. This, specially, comes into play: They initially let suras attack humanity so that the humans' souls could nourish the universe. However, this backfired when humanity's accumulated grudge against the suras began to decrease the universe's lifespan, and so the gods turned on them and allied with the suras to wipe them out.
• Resurrective Immortality: So long as the aspect they embody exists, they will resurrect. Agni, for instance, was once napping at a star when Gandharva swallowed it whole. It killed him, but he simply resurrected.
• Time Abyss: The natural gods were born at the dawn of the universe. That's not to say they're the only ones; all gods are born as their jurisdiction comes into being.
• Unscrupulous Hero: What generally makes them A Lighter Shade of Grey than the suras. While they have no issue with overlooking the suras' penchant for destruction, they're less prone to that tendency for rampant slaughter. Ultimately, they're devoted to their duty—it's just that their duty is to the universe, not to humans.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Their end goal is always to extend the universe and its lifespan. Unfortunately for everyone else, their means of doing so can be morally dubious. It's implied that it's for this reason that few gods—if any among the fifth-zen besides Agni and potentially Yama—still have the right to enter Paradise, given the sins they've gained in the process.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: There are shades of this in their mentality, given that they combine immortality with also near perfect memory. Kubera feels doomed to spend eternity with his regrets, and Agni's not much different in that regard. Even Chandra, for all of his seeming callousness, implies that he's at heart exhausted with everything.

Primeval Gods

All Primeval Gods in General

• Complete Immortality: Even when compared to the other gods. They will outlive the universe. Death is simply not a possibility for them. Even 5th-stage gods can be killed permanently if their jurisdictions are completely destroyed (however, that would be impossible; to kill Agni, for instance, you would have to destroy all fire in the universe), but there is simply no way in absolute to destroy primeval gods. Even if they lose their corporeal form, they only have to wait a bit to recover it.
• Divine Conflict: It's Kali against the others.
• God Is Neutral: Brahma and Shiva take the explicit stance that, unlike Visnu, they won't try and extend the universe's lifespan once they're done creating it.
• Hypocrite: They criticized Menaka for falling for Kali's lies, but they're not so infallible to her deception either.
• Nonindicative Name: Zigzagged. They are called "gods" and have jurisdictions and worshippers, not unlike the proper gods themselves, but they are a completely different type of being altogether.
• The Old Gods: They are older than the universe. In fact, they created it.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Downplayed. Even the Primeval Gods don't necessarily possess memories of previous timelines—none of them recall the original iteration of the universe before Ananta reset it from the beginning—but it's mentioned that when the universe ends, they regain all of those memories.
• Team Switzerland: As a whole, the primeval gods do not take a side in the gods vs sura conflict. Except for Kali, who adopted a nastika name and rule a sura clan herself, but Kali is an exception to many things. Subverted. They actually do have agendas, but those agendas are so far reaching and elusive to the humans, and even lesser Gods and Nastikas that most characters aren't aware of it. But the majority of the conflict in the series can be traced in one way or another to the four Primervals pushing their differing agendas onto the universe they created.
• Time Abyss: Again, they are older than the universe.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Of sorts. If you think about it, they are kind of responsible for the extinction of the first human race. Why? Since they retained the memories of their past lives in their souls, suras saw them as a threat as it meant humans took suras killing any of them badly, and the gods feared humans would one day rule the universe. Said concern is justified in the sense that, as per Shess' flashback, humans were already working on weaponry aimed at destroying nastikas. What the primeval gods have to do with all this? Well, they could have prevented the situation from going this far if they wanted. Kubera calls them out on this, noting that they should've molded the universe to suit the ancient human race, rather than expect them to mold themselves to the new universe.
  • On the other hand, while it's unknown how the others felt, Brahma is revealed to have disliked them, so it's doubtful she even had any inclination to prevent this. she's in fact the main reason their genocide happened, pushing Astikas and Nastikas to cooperate for this goal and doing what she could to make sure Ananta, the only one who could have stopped it at the time, would let it happen.

Brahma

Brahma

Jurisdiction: Creation, Source Attribute: Creation + Unknown

^{Click to see Brahma pre-timeskip}

Goddess of Creation, known for being extremely neutral on the subject of fighting the sura.

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• A Million Is a Statistic: Gives precisely zero fucks about the state of the universe. If Kali wants to destroy it, so be it. She'll just create another one anyway. She wasn't always this way; at the beginning of it, she was still willing to help Visnu out.
• Arch-Enemy: Maybe not to the same extent as Visnu, but Brahma doesn't seem at all to be fond of Kali. She deeply resented the fact that humans allied with her in the past universe, and seems more worried about keeping her sealed than about the state of the universe itself. Of course, the latter may be because she simply gave up on the current one.
• Armor-Piercing Response: When the Primeval Gods brought up as a hypothetical to Ananta that his mate wasn't necessarily a good person and he protested, Brahma then pointed out that the way he saw her must be akin to the way Sagara saw him.
  Brahma: This world's Sagara would probably also never ever imagine that you turned back 10 billion years because you denied her existence.
• Hidden Depths: Despite her own ruthless and aloof personality, she appears to value compassion as a quality in others, and once considered the human race to be the greatest of her creations for this reason before they disappointed her.
• Jerkass Gods: While Brahma used to be a more proactive force in maintaining the universe, she now considers it to be unsalvageable and is mainly just waiting for it to end so she can get started on the next one.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Agni wonders if that is the case. After discovering that Menaka had made a deal with Kali, she told her to focus on Gandharva's redemption as much as possible. However, a few millions of years later, she gave Agni a sword meant to kill him without much protest. Menaka believed that Brahma had simply given up on the universe entirely, and thus didn't care anymore about what happened to it.
• Neutral No Longer: Implied. If she was the one who gave Laila her new weapon, then her reputation as a neutral goddess is put under question. It doesn't help that she gave Agni the Sword of Hellfire and created a weapon for Kinnara to take away Airavata's name. Of course, she could just be balancing both sides...
  • Official as of 3-159/444:
  Brahma: I'm going to the sura realm. Looks like the playing field is too unlevel for me to just sit back chewing gum.
  • Heavily subverted. She was actually never neutral. from the Finite chapters: From her perspective, the entire current universe is a waste and a delay, with her favored creations, the Ancient Human Race, being persuaded by Kali and thus deemed unfit by Brahma. She engineered their destruction, and no longer has any interest in the universe. However, outright acting for its destruction would have been considered a breach of the "game rules" by Vishnu and Shiva, which she did not want to risk, so she used less overt means...but now both are out of the picture. Due to having primerval insight, powers, and the loyalty of many 5th-Zen Astikas, she is actually one of the most dangerous forces pushing for the current universe's destruction).
  • Even her seeming support of Laila is misleading. She most likely supports a vengeful candidate that would likely bring about the quickest end to this universe. And her favoring Laila due to compassion towards Claude? that might as well be due to reminding her of the Ancient Human Race, and thus hoping for some small ideological victory if Lailah remains the last one standing.
• No Hero to His Valet: A pissed off and overworked Yama has no qualms about yelling at her. Agni himself also doesn't have that high of an opinion on her either, and Chandra doesn't hide his contempt over her inaction when the universe is in peril.
• The Power of Creation: The source of it, specifically.
• Sins of Our Fathers: The more it's revealed about her, the clearer it becomes that Brahma has not forgiven humanity for allying with Kali in the past universe. God Kubera claims that they were the former universe's "victors", and that she should have created an universe to suit them, as they had earned that right. Brahma isn't having any of it - victors or not, she never forgave it, and thus didn't stop the gods and nastikas when they decided to wipe out the original human race. One wonders if her decision to remake them weak as they are now (and thus being indirectly responsible for them becoming the suras' punching bag) wasn't a form of vengeance.
• Team Switzerland: Maintains neutrality at all times. She set up the barrier system so that humans would be protected against sura attacks, but made the barriers dependent on humans so that the sura would have a chance to attack. This may or may not be changing. Turns out to have been an act at best. She was always pushing her agenda, that agenda just had little to do with the common good of either Sura, created Gods or humans, and thus looked like neutrality.
• Those Two Guys: Frequently seen helping Yama out with the Underworld's massive amount of paperwork. his trust in her is implied to have allowed her to secretly manipulate the lifespan of select individuals she made use of, such as Claude, as even primeval powers cannot easily defy the laws of human death in the universe.
• Torment by Annoyance: Most gods get her to make what they want using this trope.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: She's expressed to Visnu that she's tired of constantly repeating time and time again, failed universe after failed universe.

Visnu

Visnu

Jurisdiction: Resurrection, Source Attributes: Resurrection + Unknown

The God of Preservation, he is most known for his ability to see the future. He was also largely friendly to everyone and everything he met. It was thanks to his protection that humanity was able to fend off the sura. He separated the realms during the Cataclysm, and then disappeared along with Shiva.

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• A Million Is a Statistic: When Asha asked him to save Carte. He claimed that he had witnessed the death of universes and asked why Carte deserved be saved.
  • He displayed the same behavior towards Menaka in the past. When she begged him to help her stop Gandharva's senseless destruction (not only because of the sheer brutality of his actions, but also because she knew very well that it all would backfire on him eventually), Visnu refused. After all, Gandharva was never supposed to hold so much power; it should have gone to Menaka instead. Gandharva's slaughters were, as far as Visnu was concerned, all fine and good: as long as kept doing it, he would end up dying at some point, and then Menaka would become king, just as he had planned. It were just some trillions of souls, after all.
  • Visnu worries about the universe as a whole; everything in it can be sacrificed to ensure the survival of the universe itself.
• Arch-Enemy: Kali's, somewhat, although we never see any of them show any enmity towards the other aside from Kali once referring to him as "that blasted Visnu". It's more of a natural thing: Kali always works to destroy the universe, Visnu is the sole of the primeval gods that works to ensure its survival.
• Armor-Piercing Question/Armor-Piercing Response: Delivered both to Menaka in the same breath. When she begged him to help her stop Gandharva's slaughters, he refuses, as Gandharva would end up dying at that pace, which would make Menaka king, thus giving them a chance of defeating Kali if Menaka achieved enlightement some day. Menaka disagrees with his reasoning:
  Menaka: Does it not matter to you how many are sacrificed... For the sake of extending the life of the universe...?
  Visnu: Do you call that a question? There is no "part" which is more important than the "whole", Menaka.
• The Chessmaster: It certainly helps your cause when you can see all potential outcomes. The sole piece he can't control on the board is Kali, as even his insight has trouble with seeing futures related to her. And boy, does she milk this for all it is worth or what.
• The Corruptor: Specifically saved Asha from the death of her planet and harshly trained her with toxic tests of loyalty for the sole purpose of turning her into a vicious Serial Killer who would tangentially help his plans.
• Exact Words:
  • He told Gandharva to wait as an ocean would be created for his clan one day. It's still pretty much a lie by deliberate misdirection, but he never specified that he (or Varuna) would lend a hand. Eventually, an ocean is created - by Gandharva, upon realizing no help is ever coming.
  • Another Gandharva-related instance that involves a bit of Foreshadowing. In a flashback, Gandharva and Visnu are talking to each other, and the nastika complains about the pressures of kingship. He wonders what would have happened if the name Gandharva hadn't gone to him. Visnu points out that Menaka would still be Gandharva's wife, except that said "Gandharva" wouldn't be the one we know. Because it would be Menaka herself. She was supposed to have received the name "Gandharva" at the beginning of the universe; through undisclosed means, the Gandharva we know and love stole this name, and that's one of the reasons Visnu hated him so much. So yes, a nastika named "Menaka" would marry another called "Gandharva", who would be the one we know as Menaka.
• Eyes Out of Sight: His eyes are always covered by his hair. Considering his eyes are called an indescribable, ever-changing color in The Finite, this makes some sense.
• False Friend: It's later revealed that he actually hated Gandharva and merely pretended to be his friend because Gandharva's existence was necessary for the best future. May or may not explain the whole lie about making an ocean for his clan.
• The Gadfly: His interactions with Taksaka in the finite mainly consist of him trolling the latter at every possible opportunity.
• Have You Seen My God?: He disappeared before the start of the story, leaving many things unfinished. Said disappearance happened during the Cataclysm, or so it is believed by many; other believe that the very fact that Visnu and Shiva went missing was the Cataclysm itself, so great was their influence.
• Kick the Dog: To Asha on Carte. When she loses an arm after disobeying him, he tells her he could fix it, but she disobeyed him so he won't.
  • To the human race as a whole in the past, and to Menaka at the same time. As per A Million Is a Statistic above, he refused her pleas to help with the Gandharva situation simply because it would better fit his plans.
• Mad God: Chandra calls him one, though he's a bit unhinged himself.
• Manipulative Bastard: He manipulated everyone for his own ends, but it's not clear what those ends are. At this point, characters wise to his true nature know that if he tells you anything at all, it's probably some kind of manipulation.
• No Hero to His Valet: Due to his easygoing nature, many suras treated him rather casually despite him being the creator of the universe. More negatively, Chandra has little respect for him at this point; while the other gods believe that the Primeval Gods have the universe's best interests at heart and would be straightforward if they did or didn't want the gods to do something (e.g. kill Ananta), Chandra's more willing to suspect manipulation at play.
• Not So Omniscient After All: While Visnu's Insight is incredibly potent, he doesn't actually control the future. Kali in particular is a massive blind spot.
• The Omniscient: Is treated as this thanks to his ability to see all possible futures.
• Omniscient Morality License: He may or may not be in ownership of one, but he at least behaves like he does. Almost every major action he has taken has resulted in suffering for the main characters (in particular, the deal he made with Asha basically destroyed both Asha and Leez' lives, which had a domino effect of causing lots of other horrible things to happen as well), but according to him it is all to ensure the preservation of the universe.
• Oracular Urchin: His preferred appearance is that of a child and he has a potent ability to see the future.
• The Old Gods: Even more so than the other Primeval Gods, as he can remember past universes.
• Parental Substitute: To Kalavinka. Being Garuda's close friend, he was entrusted with raising one of his kids to take them away from the dangers of the Power of the Name (whatever this means). He also briefly acted as one to Kasak, when there was a real fear he'd be killed under Taksaka's care.
• The Plan: One that spans multiple universes. Vishnu's primary goal seems to be creating universes where the different races cooperate. It's unclear if he wants this as a one time result, if he needs it as part of some larger goal, or if he simply wants to see it happen in as many universes as possible, but all his aims seem to be directed towards this result. This could why the Ancient Humans, with their heavy bias towards kind heartedness, or Menaka, with her pacifistic tendencies and ability to avoid violence from others, were held so highly in his eyes.
• Shipper on Deck: Deliberately orchestrated Taksaka and Ian coming together, as means of quelling Taksaka's temper.
• Time Abyss: Primeval Gods exist regardless of the current universe. Visnu, however, is a special case: he alone can remember the past universes.
• Time Master: But if he does it too much, he loses his material form.

Shiva

Shiva

Jurisdiction: Destruction, Source Attribute: Destruction + Unknown

The God of Destruction. He disappeared during the Cataclysm.

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• Armor-Piercing Response: After the primeval gods find out about Menaka's deal with "Visnu" (actually Kali in disguise), Shiva asks her if she regrets it, since she will die. She says that it's okay as long as she can change Gandharva. Because poor Menaka can't catch a break with this, Shiva promptly says the following in the bluntest way possible:
  Shiva: You won't even be able to change him completely. You will die before you can.
• The Faceless: He's only shown in silhouette, or with Hidden Eyes.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: The little we see of him suggests that he wasn't the calmest individual compared to Brahma or Visnu, as he's seen being easily riled up and dishing out death threats.
• Have You Seen My God?: He vanished during the Cataclysm along with Visnu.
• Large and in Charge: Subverted. Shiva is very tall and a primeval god, but he doesn't give two shits about the universe as a whole, just like Brahma.
• Minor Major Character: He's a Priveval God and one of the greatest forces in the universe; he's also completely irrelevant to the narrative's main conflict.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: None of the Primeval Gods exactly like each other, but Shiva seems to hold Brahma and Visnu's scheming natures with some level of disdain even as he cooperates with them.

Kali

Kali

Jurisdiction: Entropy, Source Attributes: Chaos + Unknown

The Goddess of Chaos, considered mad by the rest, and for good reason. She's Yuta's original mother. She created Taraka to protect him in her absence.

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• Abusive Parent: Oh, where to start? Pretty much everything that went wrong in Yuta's life can be traced back to Kali somehow. He even calls her out on it in one of her monologues, claiming she knew very well that he would end up being miserable.

  Kali: My son would never want to see me. I'm sure all he remembers of me is abuse of all kinds.

• Arch-Enemy: Visnu's. He tries to keep the universe functioning, she wants to destroy it.
• Ax-Crazy: Kali may be a character of many mysteries, but one thing was never in question: she's completely off the rocker. In a dangerous way.
• Beauty Is Bad: Look at her. Now look at the rest of her tropes.
• Berserk Button: She's very offended by Leez "changing" Yuta's name, reacting violently and ripping the offending party limb to limb.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: According to Yuta, she doesn't believe that doing bad things is wrong. She even lampshades it, noting that no one will ever understand her idea of justice.
• Comes Great Insanity: She's a primeval goddess and madder than a hatter. Or maybe not: see the trope above. Kali may be the literal embodiment of chaos but she has a moral code of her own, as confusing as it may be, and she follows it. It's implied that the whole destroy-the-universe thing is part of it, not just something done for fun. On the other hand, some of her actions, like creating the Taraka clan out of names that were dangerous and/or defective, can hardly be explained as stable.
• Complete Immortality: Kali's a primeval goddess, meaning that her jurisdiction - and thus herself - can never be destroyed.
• Consummate Liar: She regularly lies about her Insights. She was also able to convince the other gods about her innocence of giving Gandharva the power to destroy souls, claiming he had stolen it. No one doubted her.
• The Corrupter: She has a persuasion skill that makes her able to do this to anyone, as shown with what she did to Siera.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: She wipes the floor with Leez in Konchez. She even lampshades it, noting that it wasn't even using her true body, but Yuta's double.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Implied. In her conversation with Leez in Konchez, she remarks that she knows very well the dangers of love, and that giving her son a loveless life was the greatest gift she could present him with.
• Deal with the Devil: Offered this to Menaka, taking Visnu's form. She would allow Menaka to bear Gandharva's sins, thus ensuring his redemption, in exchange for Menaka's remaining time. When Menaka died, she was turned into Kali into an entity designed to protect her son - Taraka herself.
  • She also offered this to Leez, promising her a name that would allow her to stand above everyone else. It fails, as Leez has no interest in power.
• Determinator: Say what you want about Kali, but she'll stick to her goals. Billions of years and countless sealings haven't done anything to threaten her convictions.
• Didn't See That Coming: She thought Leez would choose to kill Asha instead of Maruna when she sent her to the past.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Implied. When God Kubera addresses her as "Primeval Goddess Kali", she remarks that no one had been so respectful in a long time. Trying to destroy the universe several times will do that to you.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Hard to say. One could construe her relationship with Yuta as one of love - that is, Kali's brand of love. She did create a caretaker for him in the shape of Taraka, which makes sense as Yuta is a fundamental part of her plans, but she did give Taraka her own face, that only Yuta could see. She seems genuinely impressed by how Leez worried more about Yuta's feelings than about her own survival during their confrontation at Konchez. She considers love to be evil and dangerous, possibly because of personal trauma, and thus made sure that Yuta would never be able to love anything. So, if not love, one can say that, to some level and in a very, very alien way, she does care about him.
• Evil Is Petty: Delivers the above mentioned curbstomping to Leez because she dared to give Yuta another name, despite the fact that she remarked herself that Leez's interference would amount to no more than a small detour in her plans.
• Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Boy howdy, no. She wants Yuta to be a merciless king that will know no love and care for no one. But, like pretty much everything else regarding Kali herself, this is quite complicated, starting with the fact that she doesn't consider herself evil. Yes, she wants her own son to be a universe destroyer, but, to Kali, the universe is evil - as is love, as is honour, as is everything else that is part of it. So, does she want Yuta to fit the conventionall view of good? Absolutely not. Does she want him to fit her own view of good? Yes.
• The Dreaded: In-universe, anything regarding her is bad news. While she's worshipped by humans, the few records about her aren't exactly praising her kindness.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Kali only seems to be this, and In-Universe too. Most characters only see her as a batshit insane goddess that wants to destroy the universe because that's her nature as a Chaos being. Yuta, however, says that his mother is guided by her own sense of justice, as weird as it may be, and that this is the reason behind her actions; a flashback of her supports this. Even if no one ever understands her sense of justice, Kali keeps fighting for it anyway. It just so happens to entail the end of everything.
  Leez: ...What do you define as evil?
  Kali: I don't know, many things... starting with that blasted Visnu... a world that should not exist, all the creatures of that world, and the values those creatures pursue throughout their entire lives. Their ideals, justice, honor, pride, relationships, and... 'love,' for instance.
• Grand Theft Me: On Konchez, she takes over Yuta's remote body.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The more we learn of her, the clearer it becomes that she's this. She created the Taraka clan, the ones responsible for all the shit that's going down in season three. Yuta's birth seems to have happened as a result of one of her plans as well, given how linked he is to them, and how she went out of her way to have a caretaker for him in the form of Taraka. She may not have had anything to do with Ananta's death, and therefore the whole conflict of the first two seasons - or so it seems. As Sagara remarks, the Taraka clan allied themselves with the gods to attack the Ananta clan, which ended up with the nastika king dead. If Kali had anything to do with it (which seems likely), then she definitely fits this trope, given that Ananta's death screwed over the whole universe, as without him the best possible future was no longer possible.
  • She's also this to Gandharva. As it turns out, there was a nastika created with the goal of killing her: Menaka, Gandharva's wife. Kali tricked Menaka into making a deal with her, and, as a consequence, Menaka eventually passed away. The role of being Kali's bane then fell onto Gandharva. Furthermost, Menaka is Taraka herself - and the Taraka clan attack was the main factor behind Gandharva being separated from Shakuntala.
• Hated by All: No one likes Kali, not even her own son. Note that Yuta has expressed several times his love for Taraka, dangerous and insane as she may be; Kali is just that much of a bitch. It also helps that she left him when Yuta was very young.
• Have You Seen My God?: She disappeared long before the Cataclysm, shortly after giving birth to Yuta. She's been sealed away by the gods and nastikas.
• Hot Goddess: Kali may be many things, but ugly she is not. Lampshaded: Taraka's fake beauty was based on Kali's own appearance.
• It's All About Me: The reason she's so set on ending the universe? She cannot stand the existence of any beings stronger than her. Or so it seems; see Comes Great Insanity above.
• Jerkass Goddess: As Leez puts it:
  Kali: What is your honest impression of me?
  Leez: ...You are childish, petty, arrogant and cruel.
• Karma Houdini: She's a primeval goddess; in other words, she's basically unkillable - even if she destroys the universe, there isn't really any way to punish her, except sealing, but even that never lasts: she has escaped sealing several times already.
• Love Is a Weakness: And evil, according to Kali. It's one of the reasons why she wants to destroy the universe, among many other things. She even claims to have created Yuta simply to eradicate all the things she finds 'evil'. Although this strong dislike of love is implied to be because she knows the pain of love from personal experience.
  Kali: (to Leez) A life without love is the greatest blessing... I know too well the harms of love, and I wanted my son to be free of it.
• Mad God: According to Gandharva, she's so bad she's had to be sealed over a hundred times over the history of the universe. And that's coming from the guy that used to destroy planets for kicks.
• Manipulative Bastard: She took advantage of Menaka's compassion - as someone who could eventually become her bane - to orchestrate her ultimate death.
  • She also showed her manipulative skills millions of years in the past during the Gandharva situation. God Kubera convinced her to give Gandharva a name that would allow him to destroy souls so as to convince the gods to finally deal with him for good, and then kill someone who was stronger than her (her ultimate goal). When they asked her if she had been the one to give him said power, she remarked that no, of course it wasn't me, I don't like beings stronger than I am, why would I empower one of them even more? And they fell hook, line and sinker.
• Missing Mom: To Yuta. At least she left him a simalucrum to act as his mother in her stead, who is... completely... crazy... okay, maybe not a good thing. Yuta even says she knew he would be miserable. Seems like she did it on purpose in order to shape her son.
• Mysterious Parent: Yuta's. Although he does seem to know more about her than most, he's still in the dark regarding several of her plans.
• Occult Blue Eyes: A marvelous pair of turquoise eyes that appear to indicate the use of Insight.
• Omnicidal Maniac: She's considered one In-Universe.
• Playing Both Sides: She would neglect to nullify some skills and then sit back and watch as other destroyed themselves with them.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: A particularly ineffectual example, as she was sealed and then escaped sealing more than a hundred times since the beginning of the universe. Her latest disappearance happened because she was sealed once again; she remains as such even now, and seems to have given up on getting her physical form out.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: When God Kubera comes to talk to her about Gandharva, she's completely naked.
• Shipper on Deck: Completely inverted. She considers love to be a disease, and thus she's made sure to give Yuta a compulsion to eat anything he loves.
• Spanner in the Works: To Visnu, as his insight is imperfect when it comes to her, meaning that she can mess up his plans.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The universe has beings stronger than her? Just destroy it all.
• Villain Respect: Kali is moved by Leez's thoughts concerning Yuta's fate, and decides to give Leez the "prize" of an opportunity to kill either Asha or Maruna in the past. Somewhat downplayed in the sense that her "prize" was one that would end in no losses for Kali herself. It's possible that her respect was genuine regardless.
• We Will Meet Again: Inverted; the last time Yuta saw her, she told him they would never meet again.

Fifth Zen Gods

Kubera

Kubera

Jurisdiction: Nature, Source Attribute: Earth

^{Click to see Kubera's child form}

The God of Earth, and the god whose name Leez bears; his domains also encompass gravity, wealth, and strength.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: Not to Agni's extent, but he's also considered one of the troublemaking gods prone to causing dissent.
• The Atoner: His current motivation seems to be to atone for killing of Ananta, although he is clearly increasingly conflicted.
• Big Damn Heroes: He shows up to save Leez during the Test of the Sword - from his own ally, no less. Sagara is not pleased.
• Black Cloak: In N5, he he wore a hooded one to conceal his identity, while acting as the god Jibril summoned through dubious means. Amusingly, he's shocked when Maruna is able to recognize him, to which the sura points that Kubera is always dressed like this so of course he would.
• Bling of War: He has a set of golden armour associated with him.
• Broken Pedestal: More like shattered. After coming back from the sura realm, Leez doesn't seem to be on good terms with any god (save for Agni and maybe Vayu), but given how personal their relationship was, it seems she has it particularly bad with him. It is subtly implied that the memories she recovered have something to do with this as well.
• The Champion: In the past, he declared that he would be this to Ananta, knowing how much the latter suffered.
• The Chooser of the One: In a play on this, he, unable to decide, puts the choice in the hands of someone else. However, he doesn't explain the full consequences of the choice.
• The Comically Serious: Much of the humour in his and Leez's antics come from how utterly straight-faced Kubera remains throughout them all.
• Death Seeker: An alternate interpretation of what he's up to can be summarised as "the universe's most convoluted, indirect suicide attempt" — Agni, for one, worries this is the case. Sagara, too, picks this vibe up... and, just doesn't care: as long as he doesn't peg it until she's finished with him, she's fine with it.
• Foil:
  • To Ananta. See his entry.
  • To Sagara as well.
    • Let's see, what do they have in common? Well, both have an Earth attribute. Both have a deep personal history with Ananta that heavily influences how they behave and are working to bring him back, and are similarly willing to take drastic measures to strengthen their firepower. Both will work with people that would normally be considered their enemies to achieve bigger goals.
    • But that's about it. Compared to other nastikas, Sagara is weak, whereas Kubera is one of the only seven gods to ever achieve 5th-zen, and is considered an Ace among his peers. Sagara is pure emotion, Kubera rarely shows what he thinks. Sagara loved Ananta more than anything in the world, and is willing to damn everyone and everything to bring him back - Kubera betrayed the king's trust and had him killed. Sagara is a Pintsized Powerhouse, Kubera is Large and in Charge. She harbours no doubts about her plan, despite being repeatedly told that she should. As time goes on, he becomes more and more conflicted towards the same thing. Both have personal relationships with people far younger than them; however, Sagara has a The Men First attitude towards the rakshasas under her command. Kubera, on the other hand, willingly allows Leez to join fights she doesn't even understand. And yet, he seems to care about her, not unlike how Sagara cares about her own underlings.
• Godzilla Threshold: You know that Onion headline, "Man Always Carries Gun In Case He Needs To Escalate Situation"? That's his troubleshooting process in a nutshell. In the past, when Gandharva was out of control slaughtering humans left, right and center, he and Agni were the only two gods that cared about the lives lost and tried to do anything about the situation. After Agni's attempt of appealing to the other gods' compassion fails (miserably), God Kubera decides that he will make the problem so big that even they will care for it. His solution? To ask Kali to give Gandharva a name that allows him to destroy the souls he kills, thus creating a situation so dire that even the gods themselves will feel the need to step in. As he puts it himself in chapter 3-56/341:
  Kubera: The reason they are doing nothing is because the situation causes them no direct harm. So... The problem has to be exacerbated until they feel threatened.
• Good Is Not Nice: ...Maybe so? Neither "good" nor "evil" are the right way to characterize him. As of now, what he is truly up to is a complete mystery; it seems he's trying to make up for what he did to Ananta, but it's hard to tell. In the past, at least, he was this: just as taciturn as he is now, and willing to let Gandharva destroy trillions so that he may not cause even more destruction in the future.
• Gravity Master: He is the god of Earth and wealth, after all.
• The Heavy: Averted from a point of view, played straight from another. Yes, he's the one behind Sagara's scheme to kill humans with his name and brought in suras to assist with that, the one that gave Leez most of her items, and implied to have been the god that she summoned to boot. Besides, he was the one behind Ananta's death, thus kickstarting the whole plot. But, as Sagara complains in season two, he's not very cooperative. Despite enabling the others, he does very little to actually support their actions or even intervene with the plot, instead letting others do the actual work. His importance on the plot is undeniable, but most of the time he seems to not be sure whether of not he wants said influence to grow.
• Limited Wardrobe: His choice of outfit hasn't changed at all since the beginning of the universe.
• Manipulative Bastard: He's prone to behaving this way around others.
  • Both Gandharva and Maruna eventually acknowledge that Kubera will dangle whatever he needs to in front of their faces to get them to act, but has never truly made good on any of his promises to them.
  • He is behind the sura searching for Leez... as well as the one who gave her his name in the first place. Not to mention also saving her hide, just to complicate everything in the process and shorten her life expectancy in the long run. Yay?
  • When he approaches her regarding Gandharva's slaughters, Kali even lampshades it. Your manipulation game must be at another level to have a primeval god remarking on it.
  • During the time travel arc, he serves as an ominous and somewhat overbearing Stealth Mentor to Maruna, who half-seeks him out, knowing Kubera is his ticket home, and half-grows annoyed at the way Kubera keeps setting up moral dilemmas for him to arguably fail.
  • While it turns out that some of the above cases weren't actually him but Manasvin, it doesn't negate the fact that Kubera is still prone to this behavior. In general, the time travel arc reveals that in almost every significant event in history, Kubera had his hands in some kind of pie there, even by the standards of a god.
• Master of the Mixed Message: Everybody who deals with him for any length of time winds up complaining about this. Agni, Gandharva, Sagara, Leez, every recorded Priest of Earth who spent quality time with him or his objects...
  • During the Test of the Sword, afte he tells her to simply go back to the sura realm and forget everything, Sagara even lampshades it:
    Sagara: HEY!!!!!!!! Have you gone mad? You have a split personality or something? You're the one who opened the door and called for me!
  • It turns out there's a good reason for this behavior: many of his appearances weren't actually him, but Manasvin in his form.
• Mr. Exposition: When not being mysterious, he's often the one left to explain things (to Leez, especially) due to knowing more than most about what's going on.
• My Greatest Failure: It's implied that he deeply regrets his killing of Ananta; he specifically warns Leez not to repeat his mistakes, and to stand by those who give her their trust.
• Lap Pillow: Although the gesture is not appreciated due to feeling like a "wooden pillow" he serves as one to Leez after saving her from a brutal battle with Sagara. He claims that she had crawled on to his lap when she asks why...
• Pass the Popcorn: He quite literally did this. Perhaps a bit of Early-Installment Weirdness was at play here, but way back to their first meeting, he makes Leez face a group of suras in order to see if she can learn how to use the Golden Knight bracelet, Leez tries to convince him to help, instead when she turns to look at him, he's moved far away, with a bag of popcorn, ready to watch the "spectacle".
• Pet the Dog: To animals and Leez.
• Power Dyes Your Hair: His normally white-ish hair turns gold at night, along with his eyes.
• Significant White Hair, Dark Skin: He has noticeably darker skin than most of the cast with his iconic white hair, and the title of the series seems to be as much about him as it is about Leez.
• The Stoic: Agni notes that he's never seen him smile, and thinks he's lonely. Leez kinda-almost gets a smile out of him on a few occasions, but... there are the ever-present caveats attached.
• Take Away Their Name: It's implied he literally gave his name to Leez. He told her father to name his child Kubera, and from then on refused to use it for himself. He tells Leez that she can only call him 'mister', and even then, only if she doesn't attach any particular significance to it as a name.
• The Unreveal: After the Cataclysm, gods of all kinds were secluded in their own realm, and could only inhabit the human realm if they were summoned by a human. If that is so... who summoned him?
  • Season 3 heavily implies it was Leez.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: He has a monologue in which he suggest that the saddest being in the world is a god, unable to ever forget or die to escape their regrets—a clear reference to him.

Agni

Agni/Babo Kim

Jurisdiction: Nature, Source Attribute: Fire

The incomparably silly God of Fire, summoned by Brilith when she was a child. His easy-going nature is largely an act, meant to reduce the strain on her.

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• All of the Other Reindeer: He's regarded as an outsider among the gods due to his emotional nature.
• Being Good Sucks: Both Menaka and Shakuntala made their Last Request to him to not lose faith in Gandharva, knowing that Agni is his only chance for redemption. Thus, Agni does his best to honour that wish, but he knows it costs him a lot of goodwill from his allies and Brilith, and Gandharva constantly letting him down wears on him. Also, not killing Gandharva when he had the chance ultimately leads to Agni giving up his right to enter Paradise.
• Berserk Button: When Gandharva claims he killed a certain woman, he immediately goes white fire (10,000+ degrees), nearly killing Brilith in the process. The other gods even refer to his "ex" as a button they can press to make him mad.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Brilith notes that she's never seen him mad in all the years she's known him, and likewise his fellow gods find him difficult to anger (Berserk Button aside). Actually pissing him off, though, is a bad idea.
• Big Eater: It helps when food just burns up inside of him. During a meeting, he suggests they get something to eat, to which Brilith points out they just had lunch.
• Birds of a Feather: He was friends with Menaka, which is unsurprising when you consider their similar personalities and positions among their kind.
• Butt-Monkey: Among the gods. When Death Is Cheap, they treat pushing him until he snaps and kills them as a joke.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Despite being obviously head over heels for Brilith, the complications of a god-human romance prevent him from making it explicit. Also, the millions of years' worth of baggage. He ultimately loses his chance.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: He's stated to be rather popular among the goddesses, but notices none of them due to his Single-Target Sexuality.
• Covert Pervert: The books he likes to read in his spare time, Desperate Witches and its sequel Desperate Priestess, are implied to be of... explicit nature.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Subverted. It might seem this is his reason for driving away all of Brilith's suitors, but it has more to do with her being cursed with misfortune. Past experience has likely shown that any relationship will only go poorly for her.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: On one hand, his alias literally means "idiot" and he acts the part. On the other hand, a Physical God.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He proper debuts as Agni later in that same chapter, but you can catch an early glimpse of him as Babo Kim when Brilith is looking out at the crowd.
• Elemental Hair Colors: He's the fire power and he's got orange hair.
• Endearingly Dorky: Despite being a god, he's a giant dork, both in human guise and out of it.
  • One of the greatest examples would be when he fakes being one of Brilith's fans and asks for an autograph. He's later shown truly saddened by the fact that he accidentally burned it.
  • In the special chapter "I Love You, I Love You Not", Brilith's past life as Nameless makes it more explicit, thinking about how his jokes aren't really funny but he's so earnest about trying to cheer her up that she can't help but be endeared.
• Fan Boy: His initial disguise when the temple guards find him is to pretend to be Brilith's fanboy. Turns out it wasn't completely an act; he's very disappointed when he accidentally incinerates her autograph a few minutes later.
• Fiery Redhead: In the literal sense. Figuratively, it's actually inverted, as his anger is more likely to manifest itself as Tranquil Fury.
• The Fog of Ages: He implies he doesn't even remember his childhood, he's so old.
• Foil: To Gandharva:
  • Both are among the oldest and most powerful members of their kind. This allows them to occupy top spots in their respective species' social scale, but neither feels this is much consolation for all they have to endure.
  • Agni is the strongest god with a fire attribute, Gandharva is the strongest nastika with the water clan attribute.
  • Both are considered physically attractive by other characters, but as stated below, Agni is mostly unaware of how his appearance is perceived, while Gandharva has no qualms in exploiting it for his sake.
  • Both deeply loved a woman for a very long period of time. However, the ways their relationship with said people developed are starkly contrasted: Gandharva and Menaka started with Belligerent Sexual Tension and eventually became Happily Married. Agni and Brilith, on the other hand, had an initially positive relationship that soured as time passed.
  • Both were once outcasts among his own, but for very different reasons. Agni, as the sole god to not play the Jerkass God card straight, kept being driven apart from his fellow deities, while Gandharva, as a murderous tyrant, was once feared even by other Gandharva nastikas.
  • The relationship each of them has with God Kubera can also be described as completely opposite. Agni and Kubera were once the two sole gods to give a damn about human suffering, and seem to be on mostly good terms even if they aren't quite friends. Gandharva, on the other hand, is used and abused by Kubera, knows it, hates it, and can't do a single thing about it.
  • Both were once close to Menaka, but in different ways. Agni and Menaka were Birds of a Feather, while Gandharva was once the very opposite of Menaka's kind personality. They also respected her enough to try to follow her wishes even long after her death - but while Agni kept his promise to give Gandharva an opportunity to redeem himself because he came to truly understand what Menaka wanted for him, Gandharva followed Menaka's words without giving them much thought, and never understood the spirit of her wishes as much as the letter.
  • The ways they behaved in regards to humanity are also sharply contrasted. Agni is the most compassionate of all gods, and tries his hardest to shield humans from as much suffering as possible. Gandharva, on the other hand, is only now beginning to truly understand Menaka's lessons about compassion, and is having a very hard time at it. Interestingly, being what he is only makes Agni's life worse; Gandharva, on the other hand, is currently going through his own Trauma Conga Line in no small part due to how he behaved in the past.
  • Speaking of humanity, both have a complicated relationship with a human priestess that went from positive to negative when said women discovered the ways they had been dishonest^note Teo came to despise Gandharva after the whole Kalibloom debacle, whereas Agni's relationship with Brilith went downhill after she discovered about insight. The death of said women is a sensitive enough issue for them to drive both ballistic.
• Foreshadowing: As stated above, Agni's so old he doesn't even remember his childhood. But, as a god created when the universe began, he shouldn't have had a childhood, right? Except that apparently he did. It seems Agni, as well as God Kubera and possibly others, survived the destruction of the past universe. Siera implies that God Kubera wasn't a god originally; if the same can be said about Agni, than it makes perfect sense for him to have been a child once, whatever he was, and also for him to not remember much about it. After all, save for Visnu, even the primeval gods have trouble remembering about past universes.
• Go and Sin No More: It never actually happens, but for most of the first two seasons he's trying to do this to Gandharva. He's not very cooperative.
• God Is Good: Out of all the gods, he seems to be the only one actively dedicated to protecting humans, such as (ironically) being the only one in the past who cared about Gandharva's slaughters. When he tried (and failed) to protect a small, remote planet from him, the local god even thanked him for bothering to look out for a relative speck in the universe he oversees. In the present, once he reveals himself to the populace, he takes a proactive role in helping them out.
  • Also deconstructed: Agni is one of the very few (and we mean very few) deities in the Kubera universe to not play the Jerkass God card straight, but at the end of the day, this only makes his life worse, as he worries for things that no other god gives a shit about. And it limits his effectiveness, too: How can he protect a whole universe worthy of human beings from a species of Cthulhu-esque beings (that are, as a general rule, more powerful than him) on his own, when his brothers and sisters don't bother with even trying to do the same?
• God of Light: The solar version of this, as he's capable of wielding The Power of the Sun and regarded as one of the strongest gods in terms of (pun unintended) firepower.
• Good Is Not Dumb: Don't be fooled by his Obfuscating Stupidity. As Agni outright states to Gandharva, he's no idiot, and he won't give people the benefit of the doubt for no reason. He may also be far more soft-hearted and sentimental than the cold and ruthless Chandra, but that doesn't necessarily make his actions less reasonable. He knows what he's doing, for the most part, and is simply willing to take the harder route to achieve it.
• Good Is Not Soft: A sane enemy would rather face Agni than Chandra, but at the end of the day, Agni's duty is to protect the universe and he'll put that above just about anything else—and it would be unwise to forget that.
• Honor Before Reason: He often refuses to go along with anything that goes against his sense of fairness (e.g. holding The Dreaded's child hostage). It's noted that he's sometimes left out of plans because of this, and that if the others knew just how much Agni's let the enemy walk free, he'd probably be straight up imprisoned.
  • A very clear example of him doing this was in regards to Menaka and Gandharva. He refused to kill the latter, even after going through countless years worth of trouble to find out a way to do it, because he promised the former that he would. And he's still keeping this promise, even centuries after she died. Gandharva is getting his shit together now (well, trying), but even before he decided to be Agni's ally, the God of Fire still kept his promise.
• Hot God: More than one person's first reaction to Agni is to ogle him. Brilith even asks that he wear his "weird glasses" to a meeting at one point, so that Ruche's squealing doesn't disrupt it.
• Hot Wings: He can manifest wings of fire to fly around during combat.
• I Have Many Names: Played for Laughs. Babo Kim is one that's stuck, to the extent that even the other gods and the nastika use it at times, but he also comes up with nicknames at random that are Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Good-Eyes Kim, Artistic Kim, etc...
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Played straight and subverted from time to time. He kept his engagement with Brilith's soul, leading her to reincarnate over and over again, despite the fact that the memories from all of her previous lives were too much for her to bear. At the same time, he doesn't stop her when she wants to die after receiving her traumatic past life memories. Even then, he does not respect her final wish- to never see or meet him ever again.
  Brilith: As always, my last wish... is never to be involved with you again.
  • That's possibly not his fault. After all the other gods decided to curse her, one of the very few blessings Brilith's soul received was to meet Agni as often as possible. She was cursed to meet misfortune in all of her lives; it's possible that Agni believes that he's the sole thing standing between Brilith and everlasting doom, and it's not unlikely that he is right.
  • Ultimately, it's implied that the heart of Brilith's wish is more specifically not to be in a relationship with Agni again, and he honours that by never actually accepting her feelings. As he tells Gandharva, doing so would answer her buried desire but mean breaking his promise to her.
• Jerkass Gods: Averted, for what little good it does him.
• King Incognito: Babo Kim is Agni's alter ego for when he wants to go around Atera unnoticed.
• Lady and Knight: The Knight to Brilith's Lady. As with most things in this series, this eventually gets torn apart.
• Limited Wardrobe: Not quite as severely as Kubera, but his fashion has remained constant since the beginning of the universe. He pretty much sticks to the one outfit (two, counting his persona as Babo Kim).
• Locked Out of the Loop: He was the one fifth-zen god who wasn't informed of their decision to wipe out the old human race, as he would've undoubtedly put up a fight. Chandra actually felt guilty over this, while Indra was of the opinion that Agni would just have to learn to suck it up.
• Lonely at the Top: When Gandharva laments that as a king and enemy to the gods, there's no one he can look to for support, Agni silently wonders who Gandharva thinks a god looks to, in that case. As a whole, Agni doesn't really seem to have any friends, given that Yama was the last one he could openly talk to and they lost that friendship long, long ago.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: More of a Hunk than the usual example, but more than one fan reported swooning when he showed up in a flashback with his long hair in a ponytail.
• The Lost Lenore: Long ago, there was a human woman he loved. However, he hesitated to start a relationship with her, and she died before he could resolve himself. Not so lost, as it turns out, because she's Brilith. The woman referred her is one of her past incarnations.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Inverted. As Laila tells Brilith, her relationship with Agni can surpass any human one she has, as Brilith never has to worry that one wrong word will ruin things. After all, Agni has already heard her most private (and not always flattering) thoughts without judgment, so he's hardly about to take offence to what goes through her mind now.
• Morality Pet: A bit of one to Gandharva, who tries to repay Agni's sincerity with sincerity when he can. As of the Frozen Tears arc, his main motivation now that he accepts Shakuntala as dead is to be worthy of the right to fight by his side.
• Nice Guy: Gandharva notes that he's the only decent god. In an universe where pretty much every one is one type of Jerkass or another, Agni stands out as someone who's well and truly nice.
• Night and Day Duo: With Chandra, with Agni being the day side as the God of Fire and Chandra as the night side, being the God of Darkness; fittingly, the two of them are polar opposites in virtually every way.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Not all of it's faked, but every once in a while he drops the mask and you remember he is very, very old and unspeakably powerful.
  • He makes it clear that more of it is faked than you might expect at first after Gandharva interferes with his confrontation with Sagara — although he seemed to have been completely taken in by Sagara's sob-story, his conversation with Gandharva, who he views as more of an equal, is much colder and makes it clear he wasn't actually buying any of it.
  • It's eventually implied this is how he remains in control of his power. He burns up when he's serious, so he plays the fool both to not overexert Brilith and so that he doesn't accidentally destroy anything in a fit of rage.
• Obliviously Beautiful: As a Foil to Gandharva, who takes advantage of his pretty appearance, Agni's a Hunk but doesn't seem to realize that women tend to swoon in his presence (at the very least, it's not intentional).
• Odd Friendship: With Chandra. Agni a tall, handsome Nice Guy that tries his best to be kind and understanding to his summoner, greatly values human life and tries to solve conflcits with diplomacy before appealing to violence. Chandra is short, looks like a 14-year-old vampire, is completely willing to maim his summoner if she becomes a problem (as he has advised Agni several times to do with Brilith), doesn't give a shit about humanity (or at least not about individual lives) and has an attack-first-ask-second approach to conflict, particularly if it involves suras. Even their fighting styles mirror each other's: Agni is offense-based, Chandra's powers are mostly of the support kind. Despite all this, Agni is shown at the beginning of season three to hang out around Chandra and Laila when his relationship with Brilith goes south. They also have a fairly good amount of teamwork and seem to respect each other's opinions, even if they disagree about (many) things.
• One True Love: With Brilith, though with a lot of complicated feelings involved. See her section for more details.
• Only Friend: Not that either of them could actually call each other a friend, given their different stations as a god and a human, but he was Brilith's only real companion for a large part of her life.
• Only Sane Man: He's just about the only player who doesn't have a major grudge and/or isn't completely dismissive of one side, and therefore tends to act as mediator. As soon as he's out of the picture, expect arguments to break out.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: With hand drawn swirlies.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: He's known as a "bum" among the gods, and several afterwords by the author mention that he literally has nothing to do in the god realm but this is his own fault because he's too honorable when there's a fight against nastikas no one ever includes him in their plans anymore since the incident where he gave his daughter back to Gandharva when a couple of gods kidnapped her as a trap for him.
• Playing with Fire: He is the God of fire.
• Power Incontinence: At the beginning of the universe, he was initially kept locked away in Hell until he learned to keep his powers under control, as he couldn't even touch another living being without burning them. It still comes up from time to time; it's why he plays the fool, so as to keep himself calm.
• The Prankster: He's fond of playing jokes on people.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As a god, Agni could do whatever he wanted and no one would be allowed to complain. Because this is Agni, though, he tries to be as fair as possible and avoids jumping straight to distrusting or using people, in sharp contrast to Chandra. It's little wonder Leez despises Chandra but has no issue cooperating with Agni.
• Redemption Equals Death: It damn doesn't. Gandharva can't wait for the moment that Agni finally runs out of good will and ends his suffering for good. However, Agni refuses to do so - after killing so many people, does Gandharva really thinks that simply dying will be enough? After the whole Taraka-Siera business (chapter 3-59/344), he even begs for death, to which Agni answers:
  Agni: Don't use death as an escape. Instead, think about how you will atone for your sins. Dying is the ultimate sin for you, now.
• Rescue Romance: His first encounter with Brilith('s past incarnation) was when he saved her from having her soul obliterated by the other gods' decree.
• Resurrective Immortality: As a god, he has this. He's died at least a few times by Gandharva's hands in the past.
• The Scapegoat: Knowing that Leez will be pissed to realize she's going on an expedition with Maruna, Agni offers to take responsibility for the decision, so that she won't hate Yuta who actually suggested it. Yuta, who's trying to put some distance between him and Leez, declines.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: When he used insight on her, Agni saw some major shit going down in Leez's future. However, she remains unaware of the fact. When Chandra asks him about it, he simply says that it would be better for him to remain in the dark.
  • Yuta claims at some point that Agni "thinks about [Leez] a lot". One wonders if this is why.
• See You in Hell: Played straight and inverted. It's meant literally: Agni hangs out in Hell often, so if he says you'll see him there, you know he means it. However, it's common for Agni to tell people the opposite—that they'll never see him again after their death—therefore blessing them with the knowledge that they're not going to Hell.
• Single-Target Sexuality: He's "betrothed" to a human, meaning that her soul will constantly be reincarnated—currently in the form of Brilith. This has been a constant source of grief, seeing as how it never ends well for either of them, but he still can't let go of her. Note that this only will only keep happening as long as both sides still love each other; if remaining in love with someone for billions of years doesn't make you this, nothing does.
• Terrible Artist: Despite his claims of greatness, he's so bad at art that even the nastika know he sucks at it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: While Agni likes all food, he's most often seen eating dried persimmons.
• Tragic Bromance: What his relationship with Gandharva was shaping up to be, at least at first. Him being a god and Gandharva being a nastika - and a king, at that - made it difficult for said bromance to even exist at first. Their allegiances at the present time also put them at odds, no matter how clear it is that neither wants things to be the way they are. Gandharva finally making up his mind in season three may put them on the road to avert it, if he manages to truly earn Agni's trust.
  • Backstory-wise, them being leading members of enemy species was not even the cherry of the cake. Season 3 flashbacks reveal that Agni despised Gandharva the most of all the gods, and only gave up on killing him for Menaka's sake. It seems his hatred calmed down at some point before the current time, which only makes his current conflict with Gandharva even more tragic to behold: despite the fact that Agni decided to spare his life and to stick to this decision even after Menaka passed away, despite the fact that Gandharva truly respects him, despite them not wanting it, he and Gandharva still end up opposing each other.
• Unwitting Pawn: It's implied that he, personally, was the force that wiped out ancient humanity, though not by his own decision or consciousness—likely why it doesn't appear to have counted as a sin against him.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In his human guise, he wears a hooded sweatshirt. In his more "godly" attire, he instead wears an open robe (sometimes forgoing the top entirely).
• Worthy Opponent: To Gandharva. It got into some really convoluted and complex frenemy territory maaaaaany centuries ago, and just keeps getting more... solid.

Varuna

Varuna

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Water

The God of Water. She is known for her extreme ruthlessness against the sura.

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• Action Girl: A Fifth-Zen goddess who battled and killed many suras.
• Celibate Hero: Mentioned in the author's afterword that she has no interest in dating.
• The Dragonslayer: Although it was due to elemental advantage (as she's the Goddess of Water and the Vritra clan has Fire as their shared attribute), Varuna once managed to kill a Vritra nastika all on her own.
• Elemental Hair Colors: Blue, for water.
• Fantastic Racism: She has killed the most sura out of all the gods.
• Gender Bender: According to the author, Varuna is one of the gods capable of this; however, her gender identity and preferred form is female.
• Jerkass Gods: Among the gods seen mocking Agni for empathizing with humans in flashbacks.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even though she is someone who killed off the most suras and was described unfavorably by Makara, she was one of the few gods who actively went against Gandharva's many killings and annihilations of humans along with Agni and Kubera.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Is usually shown wearing a tiered dress. As some flashbacks suggest, this doesn't seem to stop her from wearing them to battle.
  • Somewhat downplayed as the dress in question appears ripped in an implied battle scene as well (although this was in silhouette). Also, she usually wears armor on top of these outfits.
• Making a Splash: Varuna-attribute magic allows one to control and freeze water. One wonders why.
• Neutral No Longer: Although she was initially indifferent to the suffering of humans, when Gandharva started annihilating human souls, Varuna began to speak up against it. When her offered solution was argued over by the gods, Varuna, along with Agni and Kubera, began pushing for the death of Gandharva.
• Noodle Incident: Five centuries ago, when the battle for Ananta's life was being fought, Varuna came close to killing Vasuki before Taksaka rescued him, and may have been responsible for the wound that incapacitated him for combat for the remainder of the battle. Her reaction to Taksaka's interference is one of deep annoyance; if she simply hates Vasuki as much as any other nastika or if she has some particular grievance against him is unknown.
• Smurfette Principle: She is the only female 5th Zen god.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: In nearly every appearance she makes in a flashback, she has long hair tied into a ponytail.
• Unlimited Wardrobe: Can change into any outfit she pleases, as she's a god. However, Varuna generally prefers to wear hanbok-like clothing, and when in combat, wears armor.

Vayu

Vayu

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Wind

The God of Wind. Currently helping the Kinnara Clan against the Tarakas in the Sura realm.

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• Blow You Away: His element.
• Catchphrase: "There is always a reason for the misfortune we must bear."
• Energy Bow: The god-level item he created (the Neutral Bow) is this.
• God Is Good: He answered a relatively recent summon to save the people of Carte, is used as an example of a lenient god who's okay with people modifying his items, gave Rao (who by all accounts was a good guy) the Neutral Bow, and is willing to assist reasonable sura such as the Kinnara Clan (and as soon as he finished with that, he asked which human planets needed help). He's also one of the few gods who tried to bless Brilith's soul as the Sole Survivor of the ancient human race, rather than curse it like most gods.
• Heartbroken Badass: He was the first god to be betrothed, but had to let go of his love when the other gods decided to annihilate the ancient human race. Despite what Vayu had left behind at the top, it's clear that losing her still destroyed him inside.
• Hidden Depths: While traveling through time, Ran and Maruna meet Vayu in a Bad Future where he was summoned, in which Maruna concludes that the gods (i.e. Vayu and Chandra) have no idea that this universe is about to end, or else they'd probably be panicking for their own lives. He's wrong, however; Vayu, and presumably Chandra as well, simply chose to keep fighting to the bitter end as is their duty, demonstrating that the gods aren't so selfish as Maruna and Ran might believe.
• Immortals Fear Death: In the Bad Future of an Alternate Timeline, this is subverted, despite Maruna's assumptions.
• The Mentor: Implied to be one for Leez. Apparently he taught her much about fighting and even earth silent magic while she was in the sura realm, and even gave her a bit of life advice. It's unclear how close the relationship was, however.
• Not So Stoic: Despite appearing unflappable, he can show outbursts of emotion, particularly where his betrothed was concerned.
• Sensor Character: He's the expert in detecting others' presence, among the gods.
• The Stoic: He's not very emotive, which can contribute to him coming across as cold.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: While hardly cruel—compared to most of the other gods, he's still rather nice—Vayu's personality changed after becoming enlightened and leaving behind what he needed to at the top. Thus, he went from a pure-hearted god to one who operates by the ideal of "responsibility", and can come across as perhaps overly stoic at times. This is what ultimately drove a rift between him and his betrothed, who feared this happening.

Indra

Indra

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Sky

The God of Sky. He was appointed to be the king of the gods by the Primeval Gods.

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• Broken Pedestal:
  • Very downplayed among humans, but here. Indra was previously seen as benevolent, but refused to answer a single summon since the Cataclysm. He's still the second most popular god, just behind Visnu, though.
  • During the incident that caused humans to forsake Fiendish magic, the other gods find out he was responsible for destroying eleven planets - one of them with a full population of humans - and then lying to them about it while trying to frame Ananta. This causes almost all of them to lose faith in him to some degree, though Surya, Asvins, and Yama take it the hardest.
• The Chessmaster: One of the most manipulative among the gods. It's implied he meddled with ancient humanity's weapon that caused Agni to go out of control, and he annulled Vayu's betrothal behind his back to ensure that Vayu's partner could be eradicated, on top of trying to lure a special sura out via using Raltara as bait—all three of these basically happening concurrently. That's not getting into the Fiendish magic incident, which he orchestrated behind the scenes.
• The Dreaded: Suras are rightfully afraid of Indra especially, given his position as the king of the gods and his sadistic tendencies.
• Faux Affably Evil: Despite Indra's complete Lack of Empathy, he can at least act friendly, even cheerfully reminding Surya he forgot his spear and throwing it back at him after Surya had stabbed him with it.
• Foil: To Chandra, as the fact that they have much in common—being the most ruthless and cold-hearted among the fifth zen gods—makes it very noteworthy when they disagree, highlighting the core differences in them: Indra who will actively commit atrocities for his goals (e.g. took the lead in cursing the soul of Agni's betrothed), is completely subservient to the Primeval Gods, and discarded his conscience, versus Chandra who is more passive in his own sins/less prone to going out of his way (e.g. though he didn't argue against it, it's implied he actually didn't participate in cursing the aforementioned soul either), has chosen to defy Visnu, and lives with his guilt. Their conversation in the bonus chapter Dawn of the Gods sums it up:
  Chandra: You have to take responsibility for the mindset you created like that. Don't make excuses blaming the top or regret your actions even in the future.
  Indra: Right back at you. Don't regret not doing as I did earlier.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: To an extent. While Indra's popular among humans, who don't know his true nature, the other gods' opinion of him tend to range from contempt to a cautious respect mixed with discomfort at best.
• God of Light: The day/sky version of this, with a cheerful (however shallow) attitude to go with it.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: In contrast to Agni, Indra is noted to anger easily but is also much easier to calm down.
• Hypocrite: At least according to Manasvin.
• Jerkass Gods: As the leader of the astikas, he's the spearhead of many of their atrocities or questionable acts, such as exterminating the old human race and then cursing Brilith's soul, or murdering an entire planet of humans and then framing the Sura to provoke the Fiendish magic incident. What pushes him further ahead is that he tends to be rather self-righteous, if even cruel about it; tellingly, even Chandra, for all of his faults and involvement in Indra's plans, looks better next to him. He can be a Jerkass to his fellow gods as well, as by his own admission, he doesn't get along with Agni, and he dismisses Chandra's suspicions about the Primeval Gods as silly conspiracy theories to the other god's face.
• Lack of Empathy: A literal case, as it's all but said that he deliberately discarded his compassion and the like at the top, meaning that he's genuinely incapable of those things now.
• Light Is Not Good: The God of Lightning is one of the worst Jerkass Gods in a story that goes out of its way to portray how almost every god is a jerkass.
• Love Is a Weakness: When Indra comments on the suras' loveless lives and Chandra calls him out on discarding his own love, Indra's response is that it would only get in the way at this point.
• Necessarily Evil: How he views the gods' role. He accepts that in the process of extending the universe, they'll be weighed down by the sins of their actions, but that's part of their duty.
• Puppet King: As per Word of God, this seems to be the case, the primevals may have given him the title of king to dump all their paperwork on him. On a less humorous side of this, several hints and comments suggest that he's completely subservient the primevals ^note or least one of them, heavily hinted to be Brahma and pushes their agenda among the gods through his position as king, including the annihilation of the ancient humans and possibly the fiendish magic incident as well, if Kubera's suspicions are proven true.
• Really Gets Around: Implied, as he's infamous for his love scandals among the gods.
• Shock and Awe: Indra-attribute magic is electricity-based. No wonder, as he's the God of Lightning.
• Stepford Smiler: Almost always smiling, though it rarely means anything good for the other party.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Implied. It's never specified if he was ever exactly kind, but Vayu states that leaving behind what he did at the top twisted Indra into someone very different.
• Top God: He's the king of the gods. (Although it's possible the Primeval Gods dubbed him such just as an excuse to dump work onto him.)
• You Didn't Ask: Due to the nature of Raltara's existence, Indra eventually forgets about her after capturing her, not noticing when she's rescued by the sura he was trying to lure. When he finally realizes millennia later, he asks why Chandra didn't let him know, to which Chandra replies with the fact that Indra had clearly been doing fine without recalling any of this.

Surya

Surya

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Light

The God of Light. During the Cataclysm, he provided Saha On with an oracle. The contents of the oracle are currently unknown.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: Surya surprises everyone by being the first god to retaliate against Indra after the latter confirms being the culprit behind the Fiendish magic incident, stabbing him immediately with the spear.
• God Is Good: At the very least, based off flashbacks and mentions of him, he's one of the only gods who sympathizes with Agni's compassion and believes in humanity's autonomy:
  • Like Vayu, he is one of the few gods to bless Brilith's soul rather than curse it.
  • During the Fiendish magic incident, he straight-up refused to listen to Indra's excuses for why he had murdered an entire planet of humans, then lied to the rest of the gods about it and tried to frame the Sura. He even impales Indra with his spear on the way out.
  • However, he refused Saha's three attempts at summoning; having Surya around could probably be of great help, even more with Saha as his summoner. Had Surya accepted, who knows if Saha would have even died. So yeah, Surya is no Kali, but he's no Agni, either.
• God of Light: The most straightforward version of this, being the god of the literal light element.
• Good Is Not Soft: You know the device Laila received in season three? He created it. And used it to hand Chandra his ass. The catch? Said device deals damage based on how much the target repents their sins. Agni even calls it unreasonable. To this day, merely seeing it makes Chandra afraid. Surya may be nice (for a god), but he's not to be trifled with.
• Heroic Neutral: Refused to take part in killing the ancient human race.
• Light Is Good: The God of Light seems to be a pretty nice guy. He's certainly no Kali.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Long hair and very easy on the eyes.
• Odd Friendship: Apparently gets along quite well with Chandra, his polar opposite.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives Indra one during the Fiendish Magic incident after running him through with his spear and seeing that it does no harm, stating that someone like Indra who lacks the courage to carry guilt has no right to speak of greater causes.
• Refusal of the Call: Answered none of Saha's summons. It's never explained why, although his belief that humans should be self-autonomous may play a part.

Chandra

Chandra

Jurisdiction: Nature, Source Attribute: Darkness

The God of Darkness. He was summoned during the Cataclysm, but accidentally killed his summoner by using up their lifespan because the rules of summoning had changed.

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• Accomplice by Inaction: Inverted. Accidentally killing humans through collateral damage is a sin but failing to save them isn't, making Chandra hesitant to act as he fears being further blocked from Paradise.
• Ambiguous Situation: We never really learn if he was among the deities that cursed Brilith's soul. The way it was portrayed makes it seem that he didn't, but, considering Chandra's personality and the reason the others did it in the first place, it's far from unlikely. Later reveals that he feels guilty for his sins only muddle the water further.
• Bad Boss: Played for Laughs as he tends to be physically rough with Ran (a Running Gag is Ran thinking something he doesn't like and him blasting Ran for seemingly no reason, given that Ran doesn't know about insight), though it's mentioned in the afterword that he wouldn't be so violent with someone that his attacks would do real harm to.
• Boring, but Practical: Gandharva can turn into a giant shrimp-looking thing that dwarfs planets, Agni can literally banish any being into nothingness, Sagara can destroy mountains with a movement of her wrist... Chandra creates magical amplifiers with his darkness. And they're damn effective. Any attack that's amplified by his powers increases manifold.
• Butt-Monkey: Ultimately, Chandra doesn't get much more dignity than Agni, both deserved and undeserved. Agni and Laila often make fun of or undermine him, half of the Primeval Gods are against him, it's implied that the other gods regularly dismiss him as a silly conspiracy theorist, and him being more of a Support Party Member renders him defenseless when his peers threaten to kill him. To top it off, another character even describes him as someone who will essentially always lose, and he's one of the few major characters to die in present day.
• Casting a Shadow: As the God of Darkness.
• Chuunibyou: Implied with his decision to appear as a 14/15-year-old (i.e. the age of a second-year), which the author did as a joke, combined with his Immortal Immaturity.
• Cold Equation: Oh, yes. Chandra very much upholds this mentality, which is one of the reasons he's so unpleasant; he's very much willing to sacrifice the few to save the many. Case in point, when Shess goes berserk due to a psychological transcendental in season three, he's completely fine with letting Leny die to bring him back, as an out-of-control stage four Rakshasa in the middle of a human city isn't quite great.
• Creepy Good: Face it, few of the people he's defending would volunteer to spend a whole hour near him without other reasons, god or not. Chandra. Is. Creepy.
• Creepy Shadowed Under Eyes: Guy looks like somebody who doesn't know the meaning of the word "sleep".
• Crippling Overspecialization: Gods of darkness specialize primarily in transcendentals and he's no exception... which makes things awkward whenever he's up against Tarakas.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The God of Darkness may be an utterly insufferable ass, but he's not evil. Most of his more questionable acts were not out of malice but rather out of a ruthless sense of pragmatism, and, ultimately, he's still out to do what will benefit the majority.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: He's rather frustrated that Laila doesn't treat him like a god, whereas even Agni gets respect. It completely flies over his head that her treatment of him is very much a result of his treatment of her (and everybody else).
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Eerie to the point of downright creepy.
• Establishing Character Moment: Seen (implied to be) kissing Laila, shirt unbuttoned, approximately 5 minutes after she summoned him. When Claude interrupts them, he calls him a "lower life form" and threatens him. All of this happens within three panels.
• Everyone Has Standards: The infamously cold-hearted Chandra, at the beginning of the universe, was unnerved by how much Indra left behind at the top. In general, while Chandra typically goes along with Indra's plans, he's often seen trying to temper them somewhat.
• Face Death with Dignity: Despite the fact that he could easily overpower Laila, he lets her kill him, accepting that she's found a better card to play and no longer needs him—as well as the fact that she hates him, letting go of his denial.
• Foil: He's introduced to be Agni's opposite, with the two of them being the main summoned gods on Willarv for a large part of the story. Their fighting styles complement each other (firepower vs. support abilities), while Chandra also counteracts Agni's kind, easygoing nature by being callous and authoritative; in other words, they're practically good-cop-bad-cop in god form.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: While he has plenty of worshipers, among the main cast (who actually have to interact with him and work with him), only Agni is actually friendly with him.
• God of Darkness: The literal edition, of The Sacred Darkness vein—while there is a gloomy association with darkness, with even Chandra acknowledging the Temple of Darkness as "cheerless" and his lack of popularity, he's not regarded as any less significant or worthy as a god.
• Handicapped Badass: Visnu sealed away his most powerful transcendentals, but he's still quite useful in a fight.
• Hated by All: Chandra is a god, which means he has worshippers (and even then, he's noted to be less popular than a lot of gods). But out of those that know him personally, Agni is the only one that shows him any kind of respect that isn't forced to do so. Face it, Chandra is a bitch - an opinion Leez doesn't even bother hiding. The worse case of this is probably Laila herself, that only shows him a modicum of respect (and he refuses to see that this is what their relationship is based upon).
• Heroic Sacrifice: Downplayed, what with being a god (since that means he cannot die permanently as long as his domain exists), but he uses one of Kali's fragments to defeat Kadru and save what's left of Atera, knowing that this act could very well end with his death—and it does.
• Hidden Depths:
  • When Laila obtains a weapon that harms those who feel guilt over their sins, Chandra of all people is notably afraid. Eventually, it becomes clear that Chandra isn't unfeeling, as so much that he puts up a front that he is.
  • He was also the first astika to reach enlightment. Take that as you may. It's shown in full force when Kadru attempts to devour him. Kadru initially brushes off enlightenment as overrated... before he finds himself overpowered by what he finds, proving that no matter how immature Chandra may act, he does in fact deserve his position as a god.
  • As with Vayu above: a time-traveling Ran meets Chandra in a Bad Future and swiftly becomes furious at Chandra's usual patronizing Jerkass behaviour, while Maruna thinks about how the gods don't realize that this universe is doomed as there's no way they'd stay calm in the face of impending erasure. Except they do know, implying Chandra of said timeline chose duty to the very end, rather than try to save himself, and putting a new light on his earlier lecture to Ran.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: When the chips are down and Chandra listens to his heart over his head, he can be capable of surprising altruism, such as defending Atera, a city he logically considers insignificant, to the very end.
  Agni: You're an idiot too, Chandra.
• Hypocrite:
  • How dare Laila not swoon over him when all he did was to kill her mentor and not even blink about it. And of course he has the right to despise Gandharva for killing humans and not giving a shit about it.
  • On a lesser note, Chandra wastes no opportunity to criticise Agni for being too lenient towards his summoner and actually caring about her opinons, when Chandra himself is completely in denial over how much Laila despises him.
  • He doesn't spare two fucks about individual human lives, but dislikes Leez for not being "pious enough"; keep in mind that she only adopted said stance after seeing this very attitude in several gods and nastikas.
  • Fugue-state Leez also calls out his Cold Equation thinking by asking him if he would be willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good the same way he sacrifices others. He doesn't have an answer.
  • On the positive side of things, he's constantly criticizing Agni for being soft-hearted, but he himself isn't always as ruthless as he tries to be. Agni calls him out on it; see Hidden Heart of Gold.
• Immortal Immaturity: For all that Chandra likes to act like he's the sole adult in the room, there's more than a bit of this to him. He becomes fixated with favorite "toys" despite his best judgement, dismisses and belittles others like he's telling them the hour of the day, and thinks he's completely right about all things all the time. The way he treated Laila's mentor, too, is very reminiscent of a child discarding a broken toy. Besides, his constant complaints about Laila not treating him like she should treat a god, despite the fact that he treats her like shit, has much in common with a child being pissed that they won't be treated as an adult because of their own immaturity.
• Immortals Fear Death: Like with Vayu, it's implied that he subverts this in the other timeline Ran and Maruna encounter.
• Jerkass Gods: Chandra embodies everything that people (those who know, at least) hate about gods: callous, unempathetic, and believes A Million Is a Statistic. He's even a jerk to his summoner, although less in comparison to others. It must be said, however, that compared to a few (namely, Brahma) that don't even try to stall the universe's end, Chandra is almost a saint. That alone should tell you all you need to know about gods in the Kubera universe.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Chandra has a tendency to piss everyone off with his attitude and understandably so from their side, but ultimately, his point is less to be antagonistic and more of a blunt truth.
  • His Cold Equation thinking often has shades of this. Sacrificing Leny to stop a berserk Shess is horrifying, but he's completely correct that more people will die if they don't act fast, and nobody else has any better ideas.
  • When he calls out Ruche's bragging, he points out that Saha should have been protected.
    Chandra: So basically you want me to see you as a hero for saving people? (Beat) I appreciate your efforts, but you failed to protect the most important thing...
  • He calls Parr and co. out for enabling Leez's delusions, stating that although they think they're being considerate, they're only dragging her psyche further into insanity. Considering that at the end of the day even Leez seems to be aware that she can't live in her delusions forever, the series seems to be more on his side for this than not.
  • While Chandra's not exactly acting in good faith, Leez has no rebuttal when he points out that since her return from Konchez, she hasn't done much to contribute to the group at large and anyone could go around giving a Death Glare to people they don't like as she has.
• Kick the Dog: In a series where many characters try their hardest to kick as many dogs as possible, Chandra is close to being the utter king of this trope. The worst instance can be argued to have happened around the time of the Cataclysm, when Laila's mentor summoned him to deal with a horde of suras attacking Rindhallow - Chandra had her killed due to using too much power, and, upon seeing what he had done, badmouthed the dead woman in front of her crying disciple, claiming that the then young Laila would one day end up summoning him as well. He did this for no reason. Though with the later reveal that thanks to Visnu he already knew for a fact that she would summon him and one day kill him, the scene takes on a new light in hindsight, as he may have been trying to essentially provoke Laila to see how things turned out.
• Lack of Empathy: He thinks Laila should just "get over" the fact he accidentally killed her mentor during the Cataclysm. He also suggests that Agni should just let Brilith die and get a new summoner. It reaches a near boiling point in the Enemy arc, where an alternate timeline Chandra pisses Ran off so badly with how little he cares over the latter's children's deaths that Ran starts entertaining thoughts of revenge.
• Mad God: He's a bit unhinged. Compared to others in the setting (looking at you, Kali), however, he's as good as you get of a god. Agni is, after all, the exception to the rule.
• Necessarily Evil: His exchange with Indra implies that, much like with Indra, this is how he views his role by now. After defeating Kadru, all Chandra can do is tiredly declare that to be "another beast" he has to carry.
• The Needs of the Many: Chandra operates hard by this principle; his focus is on how to save the largest amount of lives in the long run, even if the price in the moment would be horrifying to anyone else. It's why he clashes with the Primeval Gods, as he disagrees with the way Visnu prioritizes protecting a single "chosen" universe at the expense of sacrificing countless other junctions.
• Night and Day Duo: With Agni. One case can be seen when Chandra extinguishes all the fires in Kalibloom—he's doing it to prevent Agni from arriving quickly, but the oblivious humans wonder if Chandra just needs it to be dark for his own element, for whatever reason.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: He's hesitant to protect people as he might cause collateral damage and add to his sins? Of course his Heroic Sacrifice, as his single most noble action in the present, does exactly that. And as Taksaka observes, he'll be blamed and resented for those deaths, even though realistically those people—and far more—would've died by Kadru's hands anyway had Chandra not done what he did.
• Not So Above It All: As is noted, he tries to be The Spock and usually succeeds, but he loses sight of this whenever something catches his interest (e.g. Laila, as he's in denial over her true feelings towards him).
• Odd Friendship:
  • With Agni. See his entry.
  • A Q&A mentions that he and Surya are friends, despite their extremely different outlooks on life and a history of Surya apparently thrashing him.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Well, okay, the warning he gave Laila (to never tell anyone she's a Kubera) when she was a child could be seen this way. He seems to genuinely care about her to a certain level, especially considering Visnu warned him long ago that she would end up killing him.
  • In a low-key example, one bonus story has him send out various characters on an expedition, giving them receiving three options in a letter on the basis that their free will is respected: 1) to go to the Land of Neverending Winter, 2) to go to the South Pole, or 3) to tell him to f*ck off in person. Considering the options and how much of a slavedriver Chandra is known to be, the bit about "free will" seems like a poor joke, as the series lampshades... but it turns out Tilda chose option 3 and Chandra actually accepted her refusal, so the expedition members surprisingly did have the freedom of choice.
• Properly Paranoid: The other gods are dismissive of his concerns about Visnu, but Chandra is so wary of the Primeval God in question (along with "Time" in general) that he made a god-level item to detect if time travel was happening. As the reader knows by this point, however, he was completely correct to assume that this was a possibility.
• Puny Earthlings: He considers humans to be lower lifeforms. Said attitude is the root for Leez's despisal of him (and every god or sura that holds the same opinion). Interestingly, this may not apply to the ancient humans, as when Kadru criticizes the gods for looking down on nastikas, Chandra's response is that only ancient humanity has the right to judge the gods.
• Rage Against the Heavens: He's long since grown disillusioned with the Primeval Gods and even told Visnu that he might one day turn against him. It's why, unlike Agni, Chandra doesn't care about aiming for the "best" future foretold by Visnu, as he disagrees with the latter's Omniscient Morality License.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Downplayed. He's a jerk, but he's not evil.
• The Spock: Motivated by cold logic, unlike the more sentimental Agni. Or so it seems; Chandra's no robot, and has feelings of his own that sometimes guides his decisions - he only accepted Laila's summoning because she interests him, after all.
• Support Party Member: While he does have offensive transcendentals of his own, it's more effective if he amplifies others'.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • With Agni, at times. For the most part, Agni doesn't mind Chandra, but they're on opposite ends of the empathy spectrum and it shows. Also, Chandra kind of ruined his life and is unapologetic about it, so there's that. However, they are also friends of a kind; see Agni's entry under Odd Friendship.
  • With Laila, who loathes him utterly for killing her mentor.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Utterly ruthless and unpleasant, but there's no denying that at the end of the day, he's out to do his duty.
• Walking Spoiler: That he has a role at all reveals that Laila ends up summoning him.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He's okay with letting Samphati nuke Atera out of existence if it means killing her, as a Fifth Stage Garuda Rakshasa could prove to be a pain in the ass in the future. Chandra is this to the max, although he's more of the "roll with what he's given" kind than of the "plans atrocities for a good goal" kind. That's one of the things that make him such a bitch.
• Would Hurt a Child: Or rather, Would Guilt-trip a Child into Allowing Herself to Be Killed For The Greater Good, as poor Leny found out. That's not to say that Chandra wouldn't hurt children personally - or anyone else. Chandra has a goal in mind, and that goal is protecting the universe and the biggest amount of lives possible; if he has to kill children, adults, the elderly, or literally whatever else to do it, you can bet he'll hardly give the matter a second thought.

Yama

Yama

Jurisdiction: Death, Source Attribute: Death

The God of Death. He holds final dominion over all mortal souls; not even the Primeval Gods can oppose him.

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• Butt-Monkey: Most of the times he was shown, he was being this. He's normally so overworked that it leaves him almost permanently stressed out. Agni recently beat his ass to get him to do something that his conscience would never allow him to do normally. Other gods that do agree to help him with his work frequently end up leaving due to some distraction. In the past, they kept asking him to sever Agni's connection to Brilith. The recent Taraka attack caused his already high amount of work to skyrocket, and he's being constantly pestered by summonings that he refuses to accept. Instead of spending his time in the beautiful god realm, he's mostly in the very unpleasant Underworld. The very nature of his job means that he can't allow himself to be as compassionate as Agni is. No wonder he's almost perpetually irritated; being Yama is not easy.
• By-the-Book Cop: Other gods are constantly harassing him to extend the lives of favored mortals, and he is constantly denying them. It's not that he's cruel, he just wants everyone to follow the rules.
• Death Takes a Holiday: After Agni beats him up to extend Brilith's lifespan, he goes on strike, forcing his assistants to work extra hard.
• Everybody Hates Hades: Averted. Yama is stern and unfriendly but treated with no less respect than the others (aside from his job perhaps being a thankless one) and is portrayed sympathetically. It's clear he has compassion and that's exactly why he's so strict: it'd be painfully unfair to favour one human over another in his case.
• God Is Good: He was very much this in the past, being one of the few gods who was willing to place compassion and understanding over cold, ruthless logic about The Needs of the Many—God Kubera even notes his respect for Yama for this reason. He eventually hardened his heart and can come across as the opposite now, but he's still overall one of the most conventionally ethical gods, and his Hidden Heart of Gold still crops up.
• Heroic Neutral: Refused to take part in killing the ancient human race.
• Jerkass Gods: To a much lesser extent than some other gods we know of^note Yes, it's Chandra, who else?, but Yama eventually decided to let go of most of his feelings (including compassion), which Agni criticizes him for. However, Yama verbally deconstructs this to the Fire God: He's the God of Death. If he cared so much about individual lives like Agni does, he would have gone insane eons ago. If he wasn't this, how would he manage to do his job?
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Grumpy and strict, but takes his job seriously compared to the more hedonistic lifestyle of the other gods (and he's one of the few who doesn't use the "top" to make his life easier). His By-the-Book Cop attitude also means that although the other gods want him to break Agni and Brilith's betrothal, as he's the only one other than the two who can do so, he refuses even though he seems to disapprove of the relationship nowadays.
• Loophole Abuse: While he's generally a By-the-Book Cop, he's not above doing this when he thinks it's necessary, Most notably, during the lead-up to the incident where humanity forsook Fiendish Magic, Indra murdered an entire planet of humans and framed the sura for it; he knew Yama would be able to eventually find out he was responsible by interrogating the souls of the dead, but assumed the processing beforehand would take so long that it would be too late. Yama, suspicious about what was going on, was able to identify him almost immediately by skipping the processing step entirely and condemning every human who had died in the incident to Hell so he could interrogate them immediately.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His decision to release the grudge-bearing souls of (old) humanity, rather than eradicate them, was well-intentioned but ultimately led to the entire race's descent into madness, which in turn was why the gods wiped them out. With that said, Kubera still praises his choice and thinks highly of Yama for making the ethical decision in the moment, rather than being concerned with only the bigger picture like most other gods.
• Red Herring: He's not the god Claude made a deal with, though that should have been obvious taking into account Yama's personality, as said deal went against everything he stands for.
• Refusal of the Call: Never answers a single summon. As he puts it, he can't weigh one human's plea against another, and so if he can't answer all of their calls, then he might as well answer none of them.
• Shipper on Deck: Of sorts. Despite his current exasperated attitude towards Agni and Brilith, he was the one who tried to bless Brilith's soul so that she could at least be reunited with Agni as often as possible.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the past. He used to be more openly compassionate, but grew cold to cope with his job. Agni admits that he can't fault Yama for it, but also can't help but lament losing the last person who understood how he felt.
• Tranquil Fury: He doesn't outright show it, but he is pissed about Indra killing the lives of 11 whole planets, including one populated by humans, and although nothing about his outward demeanor changes, he never stops glaring at him and in one panel, you can see how tight he's clenching his fist.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Agni used to be good friends, but as Yama hardened his heart to deal with his job, they seemed to have drifted apart.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Time in his residence travels much slower than in the human realm.

Fourth Zen Gods

Asvins

Asvins

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Resurrection

The God of Restoration. She filled in for Visnu after his disappearance during the Cataclysm.

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• God Is Good: Like Surya, she refused to hear Indra’s excuses for destroying an entire planet of humans as well as several sura planets and framing Ananta.
• Healing Hands: Hoti Asvins restores people and objects to their 'optimal state'.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Wears a very open shirt, exposing her torso all the way down to her navel.
• Power Nullifier: Bhavati Asvins seals transcendental skills.

Marut

Marut

Jurisdiction: Unknown, Source Attribute: Destruction

The God of Decay. She filled in for Shiva after his disappearance during the Cataclysm.

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• Cute and Psycho: Seems to look and act like a Genki Girl from what we see of her, but she has the same enthusiasm towards the idea of dying and all of the spells associated with her are notably unpleasant.
• Girlish Pigtails: Has these at the beginning of the universe. Apparently, they're something of an old shame for her now.
• Hidden Depths: The first sign that she's not solely Cute and Psycho is when Indra throws Surya's spear back at him—the moment is somewhat Played for Laughs, but Marut freaks out when it almost touches her, indicating that she feels guilt over her sins.
• Jerkass Gods: She and Chandra are among the most outspoken against Agni's attitude. Though, just like Chandra, she proves to be capable of surprising compassion when the situation calls for it.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In contrast to her seemingly remorseless attitude at the beginning of the universe, the present shows a more thoughtful, conflicted side to her—though this was implied as far back as the Fiendish Magic incident, where she was uncomfortable over internal discord among the gods and feared Surya's spear. In the current day, she even defies the other gods to help Leez and co., despite her evident terror.

Ushas

Ushas

Jurisdiction: Dawn, Source Attribute: Sky + Light + Fire

The Goddess of Dawn.

• God Is Good: One of the few gods who blessed Brilith's soul rather than cursing it like most other gods.
• God of Light: The dawn version, born as a byproduct of various other light-associated gods (i.e. fire, sky, and light).
• Heroic Sacrifice: While she didn't die, she gave up most of her power to save Maruna when he died as a child, reducing her to a useless baby-like chibi form for as long as he lives.
• Light Is Good: The Goddess of Dawn, and blessed Brilith's soul instead of cursing it like most gods.
• Literal Split Personality: While she's born from Indra, Agni, and Surya—dawn from sky, fire, and light—it's heavily implied that she's also the embodiment of what Indra left behind at the top.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: It's hinted that when "young", she tried to be this, as she actively wanted to meet each god but lost interest in the callous Indra and in Agni once he found happiness with his betrothed—while Yama, as the resident grump, continuously retained her attention.
• Morality Pet: She's the only person who can pick a fight with Indra and get away with it, and he'll usually make some effort to not upset her and her alone.
• Night and Day Duo: Is literally this with Ratri, the Goddess of the Night.
• Pimped-Out Dress: Is seen wearing a decently layered strapless dress, accompanied by large earrings.

Ratri

Ratri

Jurisdiction: Night, Source Attribute: Darkness

The Goddess of the Night.

• Dark Is Not Evil: Despite being the Goddess of the Night, and having a rather sinister and mostly hidden appearance, she is one of the few gods who took pity on Brilith's soul and blessed it.
• God of Darkness: The night edition, who possesses the Darkness attribute.
• God Is Good: One of the few gods who blessed Brilith's soul rather than cursing it like most other gods.
• In the Hood: Is seen wearing a hood and mask in a flashback. Fitting, seeing as she's the goddess of the night.
• Night and Day Duo: Is literally this with Ushas, the Goddess of Dawn.