The Warring Gods is a planned series by Gabriela Romero Lacruz.
Set in a fantasy world based on post-colonial Latin America, where the two nations of Fedria and Venazia ousted the empire of Segol from their continent.
The series follows Reina Duvianos and Eva Kesaré de Galeno; Reina a half nozariel girl who grew up on the streets before she sets out to her never-before grandmother, a witch serving the noble Águila family after receiving a letter from her, urging her to come. Eva meanwhile is the bastard quarter valco daughter in the noble Kesaré family, treated as a monster for her valco blood by them, and fearing she will turn to dark magic.
The first book, The Sun and the Void was released on July 25, 2023.
The Warring Gods contains examples of the following tropes:
- Burn the Witch!: After Doña Rosa's father passes away, he can no longer protect her and so she's dragged off by the archbishop for being a witch and is later burned alive for it.
- Deity of Human Origin: It is stated that Rahmagut might've once been an ordinary man until he was able to use a large amount of iridio to become the god of the void.
- Demonic Possession: Javier was cursed by Doña Laurel to slowly turn into a tinieblas and now there is one inside of him, growing and capable of taking control of his body at times, especially whenever he uses magic.
- Dying Race: The valcos are slowly dying out, while they might be stronger and faster than the other races they have lower fertility rates and now there are no pure-blooded valcos left, all of the remaining are hybrids.
- Fantastic Racism:
- Nozariels are hated and oppressed everywhere, treated like animals whose lives are worth less than that of any human or valco, if they're worth anything at all. They were enslaved under the reign of Segol and while after Segol was ousted they were freed from slavery they're banned entirely from Venazia (with a few exceptions, such as being related to a noble family) from Venazia, while in Fedria they're used as cheap labor and the few who do climb up the social ladder hide all of their nozariel traits, while most nozariel cut off their tails as a child to help fit into human society. There is a common myth that are actually demons who escape from the Void.
- While valcos were never enslaved by humans they're mostly feared by Penitents as being "demonic". Meanwhile several valcos consider themselves better than humans for being faster and stronger and think they should be the top race.
- Gruesome Grandparent:
- Reina's grandmother, Doña Ursulina is a cruel and abusive towards her, treating her as a minion while demanding endless gratitude for saving Reina's life once, even if the cost was making her reliant on her. After Celeste runs off to try to stop them from summoning Rahmagut, Ursulina takes the ore Reina needs to survive out of her chest to force her to find Celeste in time or she'll die. When Reina turns against her and tries to stop her from summoning Rahmagut she has no problem mind controlling her to try to help anyway.
- Eva's grandmother Doña Dulce treats Eva like she's a monster, constantly demanding she be perfect to "redeem" herself for being born from an illegitimate relationship and acts like she'll start summoning demons if she so much shows any interest in anything different.
- Horned Humanoid: All valcos have stag-like antlers on their heads, there is correlation of how much valco blood they have to the size of the antlers, with the purer the blood the larger they are with Celeste and Eva having much smaller antlers than Enrique and Javier.
- Magic Knight: Javier is a mighty warrior, capable of easily taking on multiple men at once by himself and he is also a skilled at geomancia, capable of using his magic to enhance his already considerable strength, cast defenses or healing magic, though he doesn't use offensive magic, saying he doesn't need it since his sword is good enough to kill someone already.
- Our Demons Are Different: Tinieblas are cruel, animalistic abominations made of mixed animals that are created by Rahmagut and unleashed upon the world, they're all The Heartless and seek out human hearts to eat them. Their bites can also corrupt a person, and if that corruption reaches the heart is it almost always fatal.
- Uneven Hybrid: Eva and Celeste are both one-quarter valco since their fathers are both half-valco while their mothers are both pure human.
- Would Hurt a Child: Doña Ursulina's method of determining a girl is a Dama del Vacío is to have them bless a baby and have Reina leaving the baby out in the mountains to see if the tinieblas eat the baby's heart or not, and her only concern if the baby is eaten is that she has to keep searching.
