#Like a pantheon with dozens of gods will probably have more than one solar deity but might have only one that presides specifically

[prolibytherium]

There's a LOT of things people do wrong when constructing fantasy beliefs in pantheons of gods, but one of the more specific is having only one god related to fertility and it kind of being just a horny sex thing.

Like you'll have one in the entire bunch whose sphere is listed as fertility and it's basically like Yeah this is the sex one. She's always depicted naked (but not TOO naked because censorship and/or the writer's own skittishness). She's going to have the exact body type epitomized in contemporary western beauty standards and there's usually no chance in hell that she's gonna be fat (unless MAYBE they're referencing 'venus' figurines). Her thing is fertility, which means having sex and making babies. Might be a goddess of beauty or love or marriage too, because these are kinda sex things, but that's probably it. And yeah that sort of thing is virtually nonexistent in real life.

Like the concept of fertility is so fundamentally important to the function of most societies in human history in ways that it is just Not in industrialized imperial core countries. Most people are getting food from stores, and not having to worry about harvesting crops or breeding livestock or foraging for food or having enough animals to hunt, so fertility only really comes up as a concern if you're trying to have kids (and there is certainly societal pressure to have children, but your wellbeing and survival is rarely going to Depend on it). And I think writing only from that perspective and not even trying to learn about WHY fertility is so conceptually important is why you see this trend.

There's no absolute universal statement about how people believe in gods but it's broadly accurate that systems with many deities will Usually have more than one deity associated with fertility, and these associations will certainly include human reproduction but also the fertility of livestock/hunted animals, plants, the land itself.

Some fertility deities may also be heavily associated with seasonal changes or environmental factors that agriculture or foraging is dependent on (spring/summer/fall, seasonal rains, seasonal flooding, rain itself, sunlight, good soil, rivers, wetlands, etc). Some certainly might be related to love, marriage, sex, and beauty, but that's VERY RARELY going to be the sole way the concept of fertility is embodied. And they'll often will have other associations not directly about fertility, or related to fertility in culturally specific ways.

[twitchesandstitches]

Pokemon in Crossthicc - The Other Teams

In general the most relevant ones here are probably Team Rocket (a big, spanning criminal empire secretly allied to the Ringers) and Team Skull, who are part of the Endowed Fleet. Because, really. It’s Team Skull. They’re too adorable and harmless to be bad! Let them wind up with the punk MILFs where they belong

Team Rocket: Associated with the Imperial Commonwealth of Humanity. Aristocrats hold all the power in the Commonwealth, and Giovanni Rocetto’s family is quite old indeed, predating the Commonwealth all the way back to the human homeworld itself, or so he claims. Blessed with powerful psionics, he found a way to forcibly dominate the minds of the feral Pokemon and bind them to himself, and taught others how to use this skill. He founded the Rockets as a military organization of monster hunters that took down Pokemon and broke them into obedience, and they remain a thorn in the side of the Fleet. The Rockets are very big and powerful now, constituting three hundred noble families in a complex web of marriages and rivalries, all vying for Giovanni’s favor, and have earned governorship over three dozen solar systems. As Giovanni cares nothing for the anti-nonhuman attitudes of the Commonwealth in favor of his own dreams of imperial glory, he is planning to secede entirely and, in time, conquer the Commonwealth itself.

These ambitions eventually caused him to notice certain trends within the Commonwealth’s political practices, indications of outside influence, and no sooner had he figured this out than representatives of the Ringers came to him, making him an offer: join the Ringers and ensure humanity’s survival and his own prosperity, or perish when the inevitable war came. He accepted and is now a member in major standing, and one of the more influential humans. Humanity’s weakness if something of a major problem for him, and he is constantly trying to make humans more competitive, so to speak.

The modern Team Rocket is a military juggernaut, using its enslaved monsters as living forces of nature to wipe all their enemies before them. They are justly feared and dreaded. BUT.

But, every bad batch has a few dumplings that are inexplicably good for all rottenness they came from.

This is where Jessie and James come in.

They were both originally from Team Skull, but it was a desperate life and, innocent of Rocket’s true nature, Jessie and James joined Team Rocket largely to get out of that life. Among other things, both of them are secretly descended from incredibly influential human houses of ancient days, and while this does them no good, it does give whoever control them a lot of clout among human societies that put stock in that kind of thing, which intrigued Giovanni. They found a clever cat Pokemon, curing him of his corruption with the power of their genuine friendship, and as the Meowth was freed, he learned to speak human language without even having to assume a humanoid form. Jessie, James and Meowth became inseparable, and joined the Cobalts after being dissatisfied with the Rocket’s general malignancy following a chance encounter and an unlikely incident involving a heist, an ancient human religious urn, two and a half dumplings and a very one-sided bet.

Jessie is hyper curvy, with extremely prehensile hair powers, and while she’s not especially powerful, she is a LOT bigger than you’d expect, and can often be at least twenty five feet tall at full power, with breasts swelling out over even her stomach. James and Meowth often ride in her cleavage. She’s known to adopt her Arbok’s tail for a naga-style body, the huge tongue of a Likitung, Dustox wings, Gourgeist shell, and a Wobbuffet's super bouncy, defensive body.

Teams Aqua and Magma: Two rival organizations that were originally the same one, and even following a split in ideology, had the same overall goal; repairing the destruction to the worlds of the multiverse. A noble goal, to be sure. However they split apart into two religious groups opposed to each other: one, Magma, revering the earth titan Groudon, thought it would be best to physically construct new worlds and terraform dead planets, and was led by the charismatic preacher Maxie. The other, Aqua, worshiped the sea goddess Kyogre and had the radical idea of adapting living beings to live in the realms of magic permanently by removing the barriers between those worlds entirely. They were led by a famous pirate and conservationist, Archie. Aqua took to piracy to fund their experiments, while Magma put on the appearance of a sainty religious organization and used the profits from its patrons to do the same.

The groups managed to call forth their deities, but discovered that the slumbering avatars of the Legendaries were not immune to the madness afflicting all Pokemon in the mortal realms, and Kyogre and Groudon ravaged many worlds in their corruption before the summoning of Rayquaza allowed Maxie and Archie to find their gods and personally bond with them, taming them somewhat and at least stabilizing their obsessive drives to terraform things without concern for the squishies.

Since then, Aqua has signed up with the Cobalts full time, finding a common aesthetic theme, a similar attitude, and freedom to do pretty much as they like. They care for many of the monsters and attack beasts of the Cobalts, and have pioneered many magical technologies; Aqua iconography has become a major part of the Stinger’s look, and their taste in water-themed powers has proven quite popular. Shelly has become the new Admiral from their ranks, and Archie has named her his successor.

Team Magma, surprisingly, has gravitated towards the Fleet. It’s unclear why, exactly, but it seems that their interest in terraforming struck a chord with Magma. Mountain Priestess Courtney/Kagari has succeeded Maxie as leader.

TEAM GALACTIC

A deeply mysterious organization and one that is still extant. In canon, they sought to remake the Pokemon universe. Here, they intended to alter the multiverse in their image by breaking down the barriers between all planes, believing this would allow them to impose their will upon the magical nature of the cosmos permanently. The culmination of countless eons of patient work, this vast conspiracy predates even the cataclysm. While their current leader, Cyrus, was foiled and brought to justice, the organization itself remains and are undoubtedly continuing their grand plan.

If Galactic’s efforts are allowed to continue, the results will be unspeakably catastrophic. The mortal universes are a soap bubble floating upon the multiverse, and would likely not survive the weight of all the other planes crashing down upon them, and then burst. This doesn't even include the dangers of sharing space with actual infernal hellscapes, or the alien beauty of heavens too intense for mortals to see. Mortalkind would likely cease to exist following the fulfillment of Galactic’s plans.

Of greater interest is how they arrived to this plan, more than the why or when they started it. This implies a great deal of knowledge about the makeup of the multiverse and fundamental understanding that presently eludes modern scholars. Those in the know greatly wish to find Galactic’s research and find out what they know; such precious knowledge is more invaluable than their extensive infrastructure.

Galactic heavily deals with many extranormal forces and summoning entities from across the planes. Accordingly, they can show up any when, any place, and have a very wide reach. Few of them are human, due to their sheer scope, and any alien species can have members of them. It is possible that the Crossthicc incarnations of its leadership are alien races infamous for being ancient: Cyrus might be an ancient Transformer, for example, with the others being Gems, Protheans, and so on.

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TEAM PLASMA

An extensive organization that deals heavily with the rights and concerns of magical entities of all sorts, from the smallest magical pets to the greatest summon beasts across the realms… or at least that is the image they wish to present. In reality, while the vast majority of their membership is a non-denominational religion that reveres magical entities as being emanations of a vast pantheon (among other details), their leadership are not believers but cold manipulators who are attempting to use the tenets of this belief system to their advantage: by taking direct control of as many magical entities as possible and using them to empower themselves in a process similar to what the MILF Fleet has learned to do with their own created magical powers.

As of Crossthicc’s ‘canon’, Plasma has yet to interact with any other faction in a significant way. Their leader, Ghetsis, an old and wily salarian with dreams of power, has a idealistic boy named N raised to believe himself as the liberator of the Pokemon form their current sad state, as a precursor to freeing all magical creatures from similar fates. N is a Transformer, but a rare human-sized one known as a Pretender, and can take on the form of any alien being within his size range in order to live life as they do, and this has afforded him a rare perspective that threatens to tear the Plasma organization apart between those loyal to him, and those loyal to the old guard.

Their name appears to come from the fact that their military forces are traditionally chosen from beings with the power to manipulate plasma in some fashion. It is common to make use of Pokemon with power over electricity and fire as a sign of prestige for the same reason.

Should Plasma do the thing and split, there would likely start a divide between the true believers who follow N, and those who are not genuine followers of the faith. They would likely be a force for good, if perhaps prone to conflicts of interest with others, while the remainder would become soldiers of conquest and fulfill Ghestis’ orders in a more straightforward fashion.

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Team Flare

Outwardly a corporate world (originating from a world called Flare, which gave them their name), Team Flare is led by the man Lysandre who had claimed to rediscover ancient terraforming technology and, in conjunction with the Pokemon he was able to commune with, his organization reshaped worlds into incredibly beautiful ones that would be difficult to find in natural circumstance. Worlds of solid diamond glittered in the sky, planets where the continent formed beautiful artwork, and more.

However, Team Flare’s true goal was a beautiful universe… of themselves, alone. The descendants of many eons of genetic alteration geared towards beautification, the many species had been changed to function as a single one, interbreeding into one specifically designed to be beautiful and physically more capable than their baseline counterparts. Lysandre, afraid for the resources consumed by potential rivals, sought to use his Pokemon and technology to end his universe and leave only a canvas from which he could reshape it all. Empty worlds he could design to his artistic requirements, and to be repopulated by his perfected kindred, and cared little for the deaths of all other beings in their universe. Unexpectedly, the Cobalts caught wind of this plot and stopped it, as it was too evil for them to allow. Besides, they wanted real estate in that universe and they didn’t want to get killed doing that. The Cobalts defeated Lysandre, taking over his organization and adopting his Pokemon and his more moral subordinates, using the technology to make their worlds super fancy as that universe praised them as heroes.

The organization as a whole is still out there, and may still present a threat; Lysandre has the knowing of recreating his technology, and all he requires is a means to scale it up enough. Additionally, this version of him has recently become a vampire, and is turning the most beautiful and, in his view, morally gifted mortals into his new clan, a new Team Flare. (I’m not saying they’re Ventrue from Vampire: The Masquerade but if the blue blood fits, ya slurp it if you’re a vampire!)

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TEAM SKULL

Not even slightly really villainous, but driven to acts of crime in order to survive. Team Skull were, whatever their species, a massive family of outcasts who are the survivors of civilizations, now living aboard a massive planet-sized space station, that managed to just barely hold onto spaceworthy ability after the cataclysm… but only just. They then faced grave misfortune as new warlords, thugs who were ecstatic at the breakdown of society to do as they pleased, and fiends drawn into the material world by so much suffering came upon them at once. For thousands of years, these survivors suffered, often dying in droves and forced to fight tooth and nail and still being drained dead, living in massive ships clinging to life support.

They became a sprawling clan; since everyone they met kept trying to kill them, they decided that if all the multiverse would be their enemy, they would fight it with all they had, and protect each other and take care of one another, since no one else would. And for ages, that was enough. But in modern times, as warlords sought to conquer their home, a charismatic leader named Guzma rallied his people and called out to the Pokemon, eldritch entities though they were, pleading for help.

They answered. Wicke was saved by Skull, hurt and barely alive after struggling to stay alive following her departure from the Aether Foundation, and she became a very influential part of their group, officially called the Big Skull Mom, and she began a romantic relationship with Guzma (and mentoring him as well), finding it a chance to start over.

Team Skull was born not long after, fusing with a wild resurgence of Pokemon that were drawn by their love for one another, and their habitat-station became a ship, fused partly with a massive horde of Pokemon so that it was able to move. Mistrustful of everyone outside their family, they regarded anyone not in Skull as an enemy. But they weren’t malicious, just hurt and desperately trying to stay alive, held together by Guzma’s sheer charisma and restrained by Wicke’s moderation, effectively becoming a bunch of looters and scavengers.

This changed when they met the Endowed Fleet.

At the time, the Rockets were expanding into Skull territory, wiping out everything they’d built and harrying them as lowly space scum, and the Skulls responded with frenzied rage, their bonds to their Pokemon vastly outscoring the Rocket’s own skills. The Endowed Fleet became involved at this point, and both groups had many close calls and conflicts until a chance meeting with Guzma and several Fleet heroines, exploring their people’s origin, caused them to realize that they had much in common. As both groups had to work together to fend of the Rockets, they worked together, and Skull eventually thought of the Fleet not as a potential enemy, but as friends.

And once the Rockets were repelled, the Skulls didn’t want to see them go, and joined the Fleet entirely. Their spaceship station has since been remodeled into a living ship, the Pokemon comprising it already freed from corruption by the presence of the Skulls, and the Skulls are happy members of the Fleet, with many of them becoming Endowed and parents to many children. Guzma in particular is a good friend to Sierra and one of her many boyfriends and sidekicks, and Skull Grunts comprise a large number of the Fleet’s ground forces in average fights. The big sister of Skull, Plumeria, is a big name in the Fleet now, and she is Endowed as well, becoming a hyper MILF giantess with poison-themed powers: among other things, her hair transforms into toxic substances when she fully powers up, and she likes to use the traits of Muk (slimy absorbing body), Crobat (bat wings, health absorbing bites), Toxapex (hard shell) and Salazzle (big sharp teeth, reptile tail). Plumeria is essentially an administrator in the Fleet and an organizer, and thinks of everyone else that isn’t Endowed as being an adorably helpless goofball that needs her; she’s friendly but hides it beneath a teasing demeanor.

Skulls tendency for torn up grunge-y outfits, skull imagery, goofy attempts to look spooky, and scavenger attire are a big influence on the Fleet’s fashion! Imagine Borderlands fused with Team Skull, and you have the aesthetic of the Fleet down.

TEAM CIPHER/SNAGEM

There are many worlds of perilous wastelands in the multiverse, lands where corrupt warlords dominate with lost technology, powerful techno-artifacts, and sorcerous techniques kept among their dynasties. Cipher and its military division, Snagem, descended from one such dynasty and one of such influence that it dominated several solar systems of inhabitable planets (if only barely livable ones) that had been reduced to apocalyptic wastelands even all these eons after the cataclysm.

A man named Gonzap was the first of his dynasty to really take the techniques and magical abilities passed down by his ancestors into industrialized quality: through the use of technological armaments and specialized techniques, they had learned how to summon forth spirits and chain them to the will of a summoner without the usual two-way relationship that a true summoning entails. This wound up making the summoning quite weak, as a normal summoning grants strange to both as their relationship progresses, but it was also quite easy to maintain, allowing his ancestors to summon thousands of spiritual entities as cannon fodder. Gonzap and his advisors worked out a way to make this easy for their ordinary soldiers to use without being able to rework the technique, making use of special gauntlets; in time, they turned their attention to Pokemon, chaining those wild and lost powers to their own uses. Snagem developed as the ones to capture new Pokemon, and in time, the ones who fielded them. Cipher developed into a proto-aristocracy.

Cipher expanded very quickly, dominating a respectable amount of space; as much as possible, given the limits that pre-FTL travel imposes on the ability to organize any kind of extrasolar space travel. And, amazingly, they even managed to find a corrupted avatar of Lugia, which was single-handedly responsible for conquering several worlds… and annihilating many others before they managed to get even a small sliver of control over it.

Cipher was ultimately foiled, though, when Gonzap’s heir (a man named Wes) revolted against the dynasty and went on the run with a powerful psionic woman named Rui, and along with a young apprentice of Wes’ own, they went on the run and determiend how to properly bond with Pokemon and free them of corruption, which they used to great effect and won the corrupted Pokemon of Cipher and Snagem to their side, even the Lugia avatar. As Wes’ crew started a short and brutal war against Cipher, other rival empires moved in and attacked; Cipher still exists, but is a shadow of its former power.

Cipher was, in its day, absolutely brutal towards its captive Pokemon and spirits in a way unequaled by even the most ruthless members of Rocket; accordingly, those who work with Pokemon gravely dislike them, and Pokemon themselves generally have sworn oaths of vengeance against them for their crimes against Pokemonkind. Cipher, even so, is working to regain its former power and are likely to be antagonists or enemy mercenaries; their soldiers will hire themselves out to anyone, for loot and experience.

Wes and his crew are still around, independent heroes for hire in an adventure guild that mostly consists of the Pokemon the crew helped in the old days. Wes himself is likely a mentor figure to the likes of Ash and the other trainers, and a inspirational story to those who fear that relation to evil forces means you are doomed to evil yourself.