Quote Originally Posted by avr View Post
Why would people throw out their powerful (if nasty) gods? The idea I have is that someone offered them an apparently better deal. Maybe some archmage(s) or demigod (possibly a trickster) offered to do the same job of protection without the human sacrifices, and they did ... then they died or went mad and the protection stopped.
I've wrangled over this issue quite a lot, and I'm still not satisfied with my own answers. Main thing I've settled on is the notion that the overthrow was done by a few powerful heroes and wasn't necessarily the will of the majority, no matter how much the current establishment spins it as such.

It's really hard. As I've mentioned, security is a huge thing. But also, people really don't seem to like being ruled by foreign powers, for some reason. I've never really considered independence in and of itself a good causus belli, but there's wars all across human history for it. Perhaps I should combine the two - the rule of the Old Gods was harsh, and over time humanity grew more and more secure and felt less threatened by the creatures of their world.

As for your suggestion, I kinda feel like it adds an unneccessary layer to the history, like they swap the old protectors for new protectors, and then the new protectors fade. Either the new protectors are going to be another faction I'll have to deal with, or they won't come up at all. It does, however, give me an idea - perhaps the ancient mages created powerful artifacts to protect the world from the Beyond, but over time people forgot how to maintain them, and even forgot their true purpose... and perhaps the cost of operating them was catastrophic in its own way.