The Gods are actually Gods for real. Kind of. Actually, the real Gods are the Sky and the Earth. They had a daughter (the tree near the closed door in elf's capital) who created the animals and the plants. Then they had 3 sons who created the giants. But then the main God put them in some version of afterlife (hell) where no one else is sent. Finally, they got another 5 offsprings and they are:
Turin/Malcolm/Kile/The Invisible Hand/Erebus - he is actually the God of the main religion in Riyria, as we already knew. He created the Goblins.
Trilos/The Ancient One/Esra's teacher.
Ferrol - she (yes a she) is the God of Elfs.
Drome - she twin brother of Ferrol - the god of dwarfs.
Mari - she (yes, Maribor is a she), the god of humans.
Turin has also a daughter. You guessed it, Muriel aka the Teklin Witch. So far, so good, we already knew this. Now comes the big shock.
While they are powerful wizards, they kind of are not real Gods. They have power, and can predict the future, but are not immortal. Except for Turin, who kind of is, after he ate some fruit from his sister (the tree). He also shared the fruit with Muriel. And he became so arrogant, that he declared himself King, and made Erebus his capital. Rex Uberlin (Uberlin is the god of goblins according to the religion, and the son of Erebus and Muriel, after Erebus betrayed Muriel). As a king, he became a total dictator and started fights. He killed his brother Trilos when he realized that he is in love with Muriel. The other three siblings left, and then wars happened. He defeated and executed Ferrol and Drome, followed by making genocide on elfs and dwarfs. Then he went to Mari's city. Mari surrendered in return for Turin sparing her people (humans). At that stage Turin had gone insane, though he loved Mari. Still, he killed her, but kept the promise of not killing her people (main reason why humans are more in numbers). He then wanted to defeat the Sky, but considering that it is impossible he fails to do so, and wants to die (especially when he sees that his older sister that everyone loved and whom gave the immortality to him, has been transformed to a tree. It is only after he talks to his mum, when he says that he is evil and wants to die, that she advices him that he can still redeem himself. All he has to do is to find someone who hates him with every fiber of her body, and convince her to love again (this is obviously Muriel). This is what Malcolm calls by the 'breaking of the world'.
Now, when people die, they do not die for sure. They actually go in underearth, which actually is alright. And the 3 siblings quickly make it their domain. Mari's place is essentially a paradise of sort, where heroes (like Raithe go). Ferror (who is evil) is a place where the ambitious go, and it is mostly a place of never-ending wars (though it is more games than wars). And Drome's kingdom is boring, and most people go there.
What happened with Trilos though? Well, he was determined to escape the afterlife. So, he went to that hell (gods of giants), and tried to escape. That was impossible, you have to let something go (sacrifice something big). The only thing he has is his love for Muriel. Considering that he can see in the future, he saw Brin writing. So, he learned to write, and wrote in stone all the love he had for Muriel. Finally, he let it go, totally forgetting about Muriel, and escapes that part. Eventually, he tricks the dwarfs and is able to escape. Since then, he is determined to find and kill Turin, and cares only about the vengeance. He thinks that Turin is totally evil, and the only reason why he is doing good things, is that he is afraid to die cause everyone in afterlife hates him. So by doing good deeds, the afterlife will be filled with his sympathizers. There are hints that this might be correct.
So, what happened then? Without the leaders, the races became divided. Humans without Mari are numerous but ignorant, elfs are in never-ending wars, goblins become totally evil. So, Malcolm gives to Fale (the original faine) the horn and establishes the way of choosing a new leader, while banning elfs killing each other. The Ferrol's law is actually Turin's law. Of course, Trilos eventually gives magic to elfs, to spread division between them (we see how the mage tribe see themselves higher than the others). Then when the elf fane destroys dwarfs, it is Turin who convinces her to not kill them all.
Later, obviously, Turin is behind the war between humans and elfs, with the goal of making Nephron emperor (as we see later, that happens). While Trilos has its own plans (you can deduct who is behing Mawyndyle and the killing of the emperor and then hounding its descendetns until Royce).
So, Turin does good things to fix the world, while Trilos does bad things to force Turin to show himself.
Oh, and the legend of Muriel is totally true. Turin makes a dead with her that he will do good deeds, in order for her to forgive him from breaking the world, and killing her boyfriend. We saw 3000 years later, him still doing that.
The final thing, near the end of the books, it becomes clear that it is Brin who was the main character. Persephone, Nephron etc were important, but most of the story is around Brin. The book of Brin (which is a bastardized version of her real book) becomes the main book of the new religion (which to humans is still in place after 3000 years).
Mostly, it had a decent conclusion without many questions answered.
