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I'll start by saying this campaign is heavily, heavily based off Judeo-Christian "mythology", but is in no way intended to offend or mock anyone's beliefs. I'm a rather devout Christian myself, but tend to take things regarding my religion with a pinch of salt and so I'm generally unsure what may offend other believers. If I cause any offence with a topic so close to home, you have my absolute sincerest apologies. :)
The basic set-up is angels living and training in Heaven, working on Earth to guide mortals to a greater destiny and protecting them against demons.
There are numerous plot points in the history of my campaign's world, secrets and links that will need to be discovered by the PCs. I know they can be linked together in a nice tapestry of divine deceit, I'm not just sure how. So:
-The Lex Infernus: A contract that Satan signed with the angels allowing him possession of evil souls, evil being defined by consistently committing the Seven Deadly Sins without any remorse. Turned out to be a trick, and Satan had rebuilt his realm into one of relentless suffering, "Hell", and was corrupting mortals on Earth to bring them to Hell. (Straight-up Pact Primeval steal from Golarion.)
Now, part of this deal, is that after the birth of Jesus (it's a Judeo-Christian setting, He has to be in there somewhere. ;D), the Lex was renegotiated and the battles between demons and angels on Earth would remain unseen by mankind, a sort of perception filter deal. I thought this is a cool way to explain why miracles and epic events "happened" in the past, yet nowadays so few occur.
My questions:
*Why did Satan and the devils accept this change in terms? I mean, it's great for them, more fear and bloody devastation = more happy demons. :3
*How is the birth of Jesus involved with this?
-Heaven's Dark Secret- Inspired by the Seventh Accord in Golarion's setting. A really, really evil thing very high-up angels did. My thought was along the lines of this: After Satan offered to take evil souls away from the angels, God refused to let him possess neutral souls. God then created, far from sight, just beyond the horizon as seen from the peak of the Mountain of Heaven, a new land for reborn mortal souls. Here they would toil, sustain themselves and explore, living in as much peace as they themselves chose. There was one condition, however: they must not interact with Heaven, nor go further than their northern borders. For a while both sides were content, until the largest Hellmouth ever known cracked open, destroyed their civilisations and turned the land into what is essentially the Worldwound. The angels reacted quickly and placed wardstones to prevent the demons and daemons from encroaching further on the rest of the Empyrean. Since then they have been fighting a great war, attempting to reach the Hellmouth and close it. All expeditions have thus far failed. Mendevian Crusades yeah! ;D
The dark secret of the angels, I thought, was that the angels opened that Hellmouth on purpose, signing a pact with the infernal dukes to destroy the civilisation. The devils would gain delicious, delicious souls, and the angels would remove the threat of this civilisation, as a few powerful leaders had been demanding, after 2,000 years, entry into the celestial realms.
My questions:
*Is this believable? I was thinking it could be more of a trick on the devils' part, saying they would destroy the civilisation but neglecting to mention they would stay in the land and turn into a blasted, twisted waste. Then again, is that believable? Are the angels really going to fall for another "should have read the fine print"? Maybe tying this further with the Lex Infernus would be nice, I just have no idea how to. :/
*If the above idea doesn't work at all, which I totally get, any other ideas for terrible deals/things the "righteous" may have done? :) Really looking forward to hearing ideas on that one!
-The Order of the Primeval- In Heaven, there are seven churches, or orders, all basically allied, representing a different aspect of God. So, the Ordo Regis (Order of the King) leads Heaven's battles and helps mortals on Earth who wish to fight for righteous ideals. Or the Ordo Viridis (Order of the Green), helping mortals who protect nature.
These are all written up and defined, except for the Order of the Primeval, for which I like the flavour and the domains membership grants, but don't really see a point in it.
Basically it represents everything base and primal about the universe, how existence was before and just after God created the heavens and the earth. It grants domains of the four elements, the void, scalykind, chaos, darkness, sun and luck.
My question:
*But really, why does this exist? What purpose can this Order possibly serve on Earth, when their time is, almost by definition, passed?
Thank you for reading all that; I know it's a lot. Looking forward to hearing any ideas or pointers to other sources of inspiration. Just say if you need me to provide any more information regarding the setting. :)
Did the hellmouth open on Earth or is the other realm sort of a demiplane? Its not particulary clear to me.
Did the hellmouth open on Earth or is the other realm sort of a demiplane? Its not particulary clear to me.
Sorry, should have been clearer. :)
The Empyrean is a catch-all term for all the celestial lands, which include the mountain of Heaven, Fields of Elysium, a volcano region etc. This is where different races of angels and the spirits of good mortals live.
God created, far away from Heaven, out of sight, but on the same plane of reality, the lands for the neutral souls. So it's not considered part of the Empyrean at all. This is where the Hellmouth opened. So the angels can travel there without going to Earth at all, it's just a bit (a lot) of a trek. :)
Hellmouths do open on Earth and /can/ open in the Empyrean, it's just extremely difficult because of all the Good energy.
Is that any clearer?
Not to derail, but just fyi, this isn't based on judeo-christian "mythology", just christian "mythology." There's nothing wrong with that, but between your description of Satan as a source of evil (And any significance of Jesus) I'm not seeing anything Jewish here, just Christian. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a personal peeve when Christian beliefs are portrayed as "judeo-christian."
Ah, no, thanks a lot for telling me that. I admit I'm terribly ignorant about the Jewish faith, and I just sort of assumed that "Not Jesus" = Judaism, which I know is incredibly stupid of me. Cheers!
Ok, derail over, now to try and help:
Maybe jesus's birth was the angel's/good side's attempt at cheating/playing with the fine print. The rules of the contract limit what angels/god can do in the mortal world, but jesus was a mortal avatar of god, so wasn't limited, but still was untemptable and divinely powerful. Realizing the threat this posed, the demons agree to changes in the contract in the good side's favor in order to ban any future avatar's from direct intereference.The order primeval represents the building blocks of reality. Without it, nothing new can be created. Other forces can modify existing things, but primeval is the only essence out of which truely new things can be created.
Just a few suggestions.
Aha! I really like that idea, the birth of Jesus is directly connected to the fight, but has to remain as a teacher rather than a warrior figure.
I suppose that raises the question of what else the angels may have demanded, if they had such a powerful bargaining tool. Perhaps before Jesus, the angels were forbidden from directly fighting on Earth, and instead had to inspire and empower mortal heroes, meaning I can introduce other cultures' mythologies like the Greeks'. Now they were permitted to act directly on Earth, though Satan responded by launching more demon attacks.So I think I just need a reason why the angels didn't just demand that Satan and his demons stop wreaking havoc on the world full stop. Any thoughts, good people? :)
And thank you for the Order of the Primeval idea! Perfect.
Yes thank you. As for why the angels dont demand they stop wreaking havoc you can go one of two ways.
Either they did demand and the demons and Satan agreed, but indvidual or even small groups of demons ignore the treaties, still slipping out of Hell to cause corruption and devastation. Satan may covertly support these groups, but still officially denounce them as pactbreakers, sort of like how terrorist friendly governments act today.
The other option is to break out the aeons. Their ruling entity/philosophy the Monad is a Christian Gnostic concept I believe. They are all about balance, maybe have them as sort of a neutral force that is as old as god, but not ruled by him. They ensure balance in the universe, at the expense of good and evil and law and chaos.
Hope that helps
-The Lex Infernus: A contract that Satan signed with the angels allowing him possession of evil souls, evil being defined by consistently committing the Seven Deadly Sins without any remorse. Turned out to be a trick, and Satan had rebuilt his realm into one of relentless suffering, "Hell", and was corrupting mortals on Earth to bring them to Hell. (Straight-up Pact Primeval steal from Golarion.)
Now, part of this deal, is that after the birth of Jesus (it's a Judeo-Christian setting, He has to be in there somewhere. ;D), the Lex was renegotiated and the battles between demons and angels on Earth would remain unseen by mankind, a sort of perception filter deal. I thought this is a cool way to explain why miracles and epic events "happened" in the past, yet nowadays so few occur.
My questions:
*Why did Satan and the devils accept this change in terms? I mean, it's great for them, more fear and bloody devastation = more happy demons. :3
*How is the birth of Jesus involved with this?
The birth of Jesus was prophesied to bring about a great battle of good vs. evil, with Earth as its battlefield, with the fate of the balance hinging on him, when he turned (enter age). The battle turned out to be so devastating that mortal life itself was in danger of ending. When mortals stop procreating, Satan's rate of recruitment drops to 0. So, to ensure Mortals would forever have a healthy rate of birth/death (until the time was right), Satan agreed to keep the conflict of Angels and Demons a hidden one, untouched and unseen by Mortals.
Bruno, Cuup, thank you so much. I have the Lex and Jesus' birth nailed perfectly now, I can't thank you enough!
All I have left (somehow forgot about this) is the Seventh Accord thing/ "Worldwound". Any ideas on those would be very much appreciated, though Lord knows I've been given enough help already. ;D
I will adress those two questions!
There are more forces at work in the outer planes than those of fiends and celestials. Eons ago, the great deceiver set to creating war between the Aesir and the Vanir, thus weakening their combined strength. He was successful in this and all the worlds connected by Yggdrasil were set into a time of conflict that culminated in the near destruction of the Bifrost.
Satan was now free to move his attention to earth. The events described in your history took place and he grew powerful. However, far away and over many centuries, the Aesit and Vanir made peace and set to rebuilding the Bifrost. He was forced to once again turn his gaze upon them. In triggering the events of Ragnarok to defeat them, Satan was forced to violate a clause of the Lex Infernus. Having does so, the pact was regotiated.
But Hoenir managed to survive the apocolypse, in a manner of speaking. When the Bifrost is permantly destroyed, his divine essense is drawn through the gate, drifts through the planes for a time, and finally inhabits the newborn human form on Earth.
For your worldwound, exactly how much of the Empyrean is currently a demon infested warzone? Are said demons and other hellspawn contained or can they pillage and raid at will if they break through angel/neutral petitioner lines? If they are contained how so? Wardstones, angel might, perhaps a secret agreement by the archangels with the demonic commanders to not overstep certain bounds?
Also on the subject, who is leading either side?
Also very off topic, but do the psychopomps exist in your homebrew? I just have a hard time imagining angels and demons trusting each other to not harvest souls meant for the other side. Youd almost have to have a third party in charge of soul bureaucracy.
What's Satan's motivation? Make that more clear and it should help you figure out why Satan would re-negotiate the pact. Spreading fear and devastation doesn't really sound like the Satan in the Bible. Satan was more like a tempter or a corrupter. His modus operandi involved making himself look like a good guy. He paints God as a corrupt deity that forces humanity to follow his rules. So having his devils go on a killing spree and wage a massive war doesn't make any sense. The war needs a reason to exist.