By 1855 AEP, the imperial government decided to officially link itself to a new slate of deities, ones whose divine support promised to revive the empire. The new pantheon centered around ten very powerful deities (“the Ten”) who were served by seventeen—or more—lesser gods (“the Seventeen”). Theological cynics could and did note that many of these ‘new’ gods resembled the most popular of the ‘aspects’ of the old pantheon, but the official position is that the Ten are distinct from the Twelve.