The story goes that during the primordial chaos preceding the World, the giant Pangu was born inside the cosmic egg. When it hatched into heaven and earth, Pangu held them apart with his expanding body. When he died, his body became the 10,000 things, and the insects who lived on him became the first humans. The really interesting part, though, came with the formation of the pantheon as we know it. The Jade Emperor, one of the Three Pure Ones who set Heaven and Earth in motion, organized all the Shén into a proper imperial court, which soon evolved into a sprawling, massive bureaucracy encompassing every Chinese spirit. Some pantheons are gangs, some pantheons are families, some are even royal courts; but the Shen organize like they plan to run the World.
While Shén may argue amongst themselves over political philosophy, who ought to be in charge, and what everyone’s responsibilities really ought to be, they firmly believe the whole World will be better off as part of the same system, even if that system is bloated, spread thin, and occasionally corrupt. But the World’s other pantheons are more than a little concerned that the Shén believe defeated Titans ought not to be destroyed, but rather converted and rehabilitated with productive jobs within the bureaucracy.