This is going nowhere fast... I haven't forgotten this, though I always seem more interested in developing the world behind this story then actually writing it (it's not that I don't enjoy writing, mainly just procrastination and, "but... but... video games!"). So why not use this thread to put my ideas out there and maybe you guys can help make it better. So, where to start...
Warning: long post is looooooooooong. And not proofread.
Many, many eons ago, a pantheon of several gods, known later as "The Elder Gods," (Not an intended rip from H.P.Lovecraft, I used the name because it fits and sounds cool) were created by forces unknown, even to them. These gods were born into an empty void, which they soon filled with a plethora of worlds and other creations. Their creations were many and varied, from rich, heavenly paradises, to the most nightmarish and degenerate of hells, which even they feared. They continued to create in blissful ignorance of real conflict, until one day a powerful god from another universe entered theirs.
This new god declared this universe his, and attempted to destroy the Elder Gods. However, it was not long before both the new god and the Elder Gods realized that the pantheon could not be destroyed, that they had been, upon birth, interwoven so deeply with the universe they were born in that neither could exist without the other. The new god, not wishing to destroy this universe, instead banished the Elder Gods to a new dimension of oblivion to exist in eternal limbo.
Now with free reign upon the universe, the new god destroyed many of the Elder Gods' creations, replacing or corrupting them into new forms. The Elder Gods, from their dimension of oblivion, were helpless to stop this, falling into a deep, crushing depression. It was not long before this depression turned to hate, then rage, then a slowly growing bloodlust, fed by their eternal imprisonment and the desecration and everything they had ever done since conception. They began to claw away at their prison, attempting to re-weave the laws which bound them to it, trying to find any cracks, faults, or loopholes which may allow them to free themselves. Though many eons passed before they were able to, they eventually broke from their prison and, through the sheer bloodlust and hate which only a god could conceive, subdued their captor, imprisoned him within his own dimension, and forced him to watch the destruction of all his creations before annihilating him completely.
The Elder Gods then celebrated their triumph and once more were free to create within their universe, now with the knowledge of their own immortality. However, not long after this, another pantheon came from beyond the edge of their universe, and again, though they fought long and hard, the Elder Gods were imprisoned and forced to watch their creations be destroyed before them. However, again, through much the same process, though this time faster due to them having more knowledge of such things, they broke out of their prison and drove back the invading pantheon.
As these gods were driven out of the universe, the Elder Gods were able to glimpse the near-infinite universes beyond theirs, and they realized that almost all of them had gods which would, if given the opportunity, likely attempt to take their universe just like the others before them. It was also then that the Elder Gods learned just how vulnerable their universe was to invasion, and began attempting to fortify it. These early attempts were frail, and several times they were again defeated before they were able to make a defense worthy of hampering another god. Each time they were cast down, they became more and more cynical, their creations more corrupt and twisted, and their methods more devious, effective, and, in some cases, torturous. After many eons of trial and error, they were able to successfully defend themselves from another invasion.
As for how this is relevant to the story, the world of the humans and elves is actually the creation of one these invading pantheons, which managed to defeat and imprison the Elder Gods and take the universe for themselves. The hellish realm which the army is marooned is the Elder God's attempt to take it back, and the army itself an attempt by the invading pantheon to stop it. I'd like the main characters of the novel, which have so far only just been introduced, to learn of this conflict and their role within it, primarily through the crazy, cursed elf which they found in that hand-crafted 'cave'.
As for who the main characters actually are and how they fit into the plot, here is what I have so far:
Brom, the leader of that scouting party I mentioned near the end, is supposed to be the primary protagonist who, along with the group of 20 or so soldiers, is separated from the main army by a group of freakish slavers for a degenerate circus in a massive demonic city, the actual name of which is supposed to be unexpressable in any human tongue, though I refer to it as "the City of the Damned" (I do not intend to use that name in the story itself). At this circus, Brom and the other soldiers are all horribly tortured and forced to commit incredibly degenerate acts for the amusement of the city's corrupt citizens. Many of them go mad or are killed, though Brom and a few others manage to eventually escape and attempt to find a way out of this city, which they soon find is even worse then the circus. They eventually manage to escape through the sewers, though not without casualty. Once they're out of the city, they find themselves on the great wastelands created by the "Lord of Gluttony" (I'll explain him later) and attempt to find some meaning to their hopeless wandering across the land. They eventually find this meaning when the cursed elf from earlier finds them and explains the curse which afflicts him, his belief that some greater powers are at work here, how he believes that these powers are in conflict, and explains what he believes to be Brom's, his, and the rest of the few survivor's purpose in this conflict. Acting upon this belief, the elf leads Brom and his tattered band of survivors to what is left of the army, which is in chaos as the soldiers have abandoned all hope and are in constant mutiny. There, Brom gives a great speech, very similar to what the elf had told him and explaining what had happened to him and his companions, which unites the army under him and the others. They then set about attempting to destroy this invasion, gradually learning more and more about it (and loosing more and more of their number) as they venture across this (figurative) plane of hell. Somewhat near the end of the story, Brom is corrupted into a half-demon, which allows him to work magic and understand more about the chaotic nature of the realm he is in, though also makes him partially insane. At the end of the story, he is the last survivor, managing to reach the central portal which started this invasion and destroys his soul to close it.
There's also that crazy elf, who I haven't named yet (I think I'll have his true name remain unknown, though everyone else will have to refer to him somehow). When the demons marched across the elven lands, they spared him so that they could curse him with two abilities, the first of which is immortality, the other is the ability to sense everything touched by the chaotic, ambient energies of the Elder Gods' realm. This torrent of new information would've completely fried his brain if it was not for his curse of immortality, though as it was he lost the ability to process anything besides the torrent of information now flooding his mind. This left him as little more then a vegetable, and the demons which cursed him as such would've left him behind as a failure if they hadn't already put so much effort into his existing curses. Instead, they added a magical extension to his brain to allow him to process this information and process and perform simple commands and queries. However, the magical nature of this extension meant that, whenever he was exposed to unusually strong flows of magic, such as the magical tendrils which undulate through the hellish lands, his extension's cognitive abilities would increase, often allowing him to perform more sentient abilities, such as thought, logic, self-preservation, and free will. This allowed him to eventually escape from the demons and wander the lands, following the magical tendrils flowing through the land, his new faculty allowing him to sense the waning and waxing of magic through the entire land and he soon learned how to predict, to the best one can predict such chaotic things, when and where these undulations would occur. Before the start of the story, he saw in a vision (not his curse's sense, but a kind of 'divine inspiration' type thing) the marooning of the human army, so he went to where this vision would take place and, with his immortal flesh, carved out an indentation just deep enough to be seen as a cave in the hopes that the army would find him. The magic which sustained his sanity didn't stay with him, and when he is found by the army it is just before one of those great waves of magic comes over their peninsula.
There will also be another survivor, which will occasionally pop up as a bunch of journal entries dispersed throughout the beginning of the story, though how exactly he'll be relevant has not been completely decided yet. He'll either a) be discovered and picked up by Brom, b) be discovered but not picked up by Brom, then a small splinter-group from the army discovers him by chance and they start a little settlement in a cottage he found, or c) he is never discovered by anyone but the splinter group, and founds the little settlement. This settlement could provide either additional story material which will be happening at the same time as all the other stuff in the story, something to base a squeal off of, or both.
There's also Jaehye (don't know if I spelled that right, and don't feel like checking), who's a human wizard which came with the army to keep the men in line and for extra firepower, and all the others which I've mentioned so far in the story.
One of the main things I'd like to develop is the land itself, specifically its ecosystems and the other deans of hell (I'll explain those in a sec) and how, if at all, they'll be story-relevant.
As for the deans, the gods broke out of their prison with the help of a small group of cultists (I'll go into more depth with that later), and the cultists which assisted in the ritual which did this were transformed into unique and powerful demons. These now-demon cultists then each lead an army of lesser demons across the elven lands and began corrupting the land according to their own imaginings and agendas. I call these greater demons the "Deans of Hell" because they 'own' the land, and it's kind of residual from earlier versions of this world. I've only been able to think of a few so far, and I'd like to have 9 in total, maybe a bit more. The ones I have so far are thus:
'The Lord of Gluttony'; A massively bloated and grotesque figure, whose humongous girth has expanded to be large enough to fit a large village into it with room to spare. At the beginning and through most of the story, he is the ruler of the 'City of the Damned' and exerts his will upon the populous with a small, elite army of super-soldiers, each individually capable of taking on a small army. His main goal is to feed himself as much as he can, until his enormous girth extends from one side of the universe to the other. In keeping with this goal, his land is the most hospitable, (though is still very hostile) which allows him to grow the food he needs to... well, grow, and he has the largest number of followers of all the other deans. His realm is also quite large, though he mainly concerns himself with his city.
'Levichanos'; Levichanos was originally a massive, lumbering machine which lead and manufactured a large army of machine-demon hybrids. Now, his army strip mines his realm for anything and everything of any value, leaving the land a massive wasteland choked in a constant fog created by the exhaust of both his army and factories, giving his realm the name, "The Steam Wastes". Levichanos himself has also since been transformed into a massive fortress, floating above a bottomless pit where magic flows outward in great amounts. His realm is the largest of all the deans, and his goal is to create a hivemind of machines and strip the universe bare.
'Lord of Horror'; The Lord of Horror is the second most powerful of all the deans and the most demented and chaotic. He is also the only dean which did not lead an army, and thus has the smallest realm of all the deans, though his is also the most feared. The Lord of Horror has no known true form, instead he takes control of the surrounding area, and that becomes his from, which is one of the reasons he is so powerful. Soon after taking his realm, the Lord of Horror created for himself a 'heart', which would allow him to control the entirety of his realm though at the cost of giving him a corporeal form, and thus making him vulnerable to destruction. However, any who would wish to destroy him would first have to somehow travel through his realm, which is a sea of chaos, where nothing is adamant, including your existence. Most things which enter eventually end up either within the massive, immaterial fortress which houses his 'heart' or at some random location within the hellish realms.
'Lord of Death'; The most powerful dean of them all, the Lord of Death's realm is a huge twisted forest, where nothing which enters from the outside ever comes back out. He does not have a definite form, though typically takes on a form similar to the grim reaper (cliche, I know. If you have a better idea, go ahead and suggest). He also guards the only pass into the crater of the first cultist's portal. Has the second smallest realm of all the deans.
And these are some of the ideas I've had for the other deans, which need fleshing out or abandonment:
'Lord of Fire'; Rules over volcanoes or something, has a very volcanic realm.
'Lord of Madness'; Cthulu, basically. Very watery realm, causes madness but almost everything he does is illusionary. Also called the 'Lord of Illusions'
Unnamed; Only dean with a successful hivemind, essentially a giant organism. Which consumes stuff. Basically, Zerg or Tyranids but more like a giant blob of flesh then a horde of all-consuming bugs.
That's all of them I can remember right now.
As for the ecosystem... I think I'll cover that in another post.
I's also like to develop the main elven religion a bit more, this is what I have for it so far:
The primary elven religion is the belief in a single god-like entity called the "Seer", which was created with the world long ago and has the ability to see everything in all the possible pasts, all the possible presents, and all the possible futures and has the ability to manipulate all of these at will. Seen as a god of fate, and they believe nothing happens without his consent. They also believe that souls are his children born long ago, which spread throughout the land and surrounded themselves with living, physical forms as a form of play.
I guess that's enough for one spoiler, I have a lot more to add though. I'll put more in another spoiler later, either in another post or editted in here.
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Topic: Through Hell (Read 5540 times)