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look at her! she is ready to rock 🦇⚔️

As they say, better late than never, so we finally drew Marrow in this stunning outfit. Perhaps it can be called modern AU? Astarion's precious bat knight

#BG3 #baldur's gate 3 #ocs #art #inspiration

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#sonic #perfection #this is canon to me

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Hell and Demons

BTS Series: ⬅ Table of Contents - Purgatory➡ Also available on Neocities! P&J Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @auroblaze@zeenimf @vacantgodling @foxys-fantasy-tales Banner art by @auroblaze

I couldn’t have a post about Heaven without a follow-up about Hell, so here we are! For this world-building post, I’ll be discussing how Pride & Justice’s version of Hell functions and how demon powers work.

The Structure of Hell

When Lucifer and his fellow revolutionaries were cast from Heaven, with their wings torn from them and their halos broken, a river of fire awaited them. As the first fallen angels screamed and burned and boiled alive, the strength of Lucifer’s rage alone was enough to transform them all, and the realm God doomed them to wander. Using the last of the power Heaven granted him, the former archangel molded himself to the fabric of the wasteland dimension, bent it to his will, and proclaimed a new kingdom—the Kingdom of Hell. And proclaimed himself its new God.

Empowered from the fresh spring of energy, Lucifer granted his followers gifts that compared to God’s blessings. He preached a new way of life, away from the tyranny they’d all risen up against. No more would they be abandoned for the fleeting affection of a new creation. Any who were unworthy in Heaven would be welcomed with open arms in Hell—to be among their true siblings, where all were powerful, and all were heard.

In time, however, Lucifer’s grand promises were proven less than the sum of their parts. Festering in pain and anger and pride, he encouraged other fallen angels—demons—do the same. To let the anger for Heaven and God fuel them the same way he’d done to create their new home, and to take the name of their sin. He taught them to show no mercy, accept no compromises, and always, always fight when slighted. Under his rule, the Kingdom of Hell had only one law: survival of the fittest. The demons within became ruthlessly cutthroat and transactional. Whereas Heaven is a well-oiled machine, Hell is an army of gears with nothing to power but their own fury.

The one thing all demons could agree on was that they had all been abandoned, and one day their rage would be so great that God Himself would tremble.

Demons

Though they were once angels, demons have very little in common with their holy cousins. When an angel is banished to Hell, their wings are cut off to forbid a return to Heaven. Their halos are broken, and the halves are driven into their skulls, creating horns that eternally spark and smoke. As they fall, the blinding speed and remainder of their holy flame create comet-trails that grow tails from their backs. And when they land in Hell at last, they spend ages and ages burning alive, in agony.

Lucifer encourages newly fallen demons to use their rage to transform themselves permanently, pitching it as the same gift God gives His Realized angels. This second change is limited, but it’s enough for most demons to applaud Lucifer for his awesome power. Part of this change comes in their true forms—the transformation from the lack of wings, halo, and pain mutates their Nameless forms. Instead of great rings of fire, they become enormous beasts, and no two are the same. They can be animalistic, nothing more than sludge, or anything in between.

Like angels can embody any virtue, demons can embody any sin. Sloth, wrath, greed, gluttony, lust, and pride, often an inverse of the virtue they served in Heaven, though not always. While temperance can easily become sloth, it is just as easy for it to become wrath. Love or passion have the easiest path to lust, but also have quick tracks to greed or pride. Assuming a demon’s past virtue based on the sin that caused their fall is flawed—and a useless practice. There are few demons who acknowledge they were ever angels, devoted wholly to their new purpose.

Powers

Like angels, a demon’s powers in Hell are only as relevant as any other demon they happen to cross paths with. As fighting and displays of strength are far more common in Hell, the use of sheer brutal strength is the most common “power” wielded amongst other demons. But, again like angels, when they travel to Earth their powers become exceedingly potent.

Many demons despise humans, especially those who fell in Lucifer’s rebellion. For this reason, they might refuse to interact with Earth and humanity altogether, satisfied with prowling in the fire and shadows of Hell with other demons. Other demons who desire power whenever they can get it, or whose animosity is particularly twisted, rise to Earth in an attempt to condemn others to their same fate.

Similarly to an angel, a demon can’t remain at their full power on Earth forever, as it will drain without access to Hell, and they’ll become trapped as humans. However, very few demons come to Earth with the intent to use their full power in the first place—humans aren’t worth such an expense. Instead, demons sniff out humans that have the potential for sin, and earnestly push a small handful of them in the direction of damnation. Where angels cause miracles, demons cause adversity.

“Sniff” is almost literal in this case. Whereas angels can sense human’s pain, when a demon changes, as do their powers. After their transformation, demons can taste potential and active sin, with the strength of the flavor increasing the closer they are to the source. Most demons can only taste, and therefore influence, the sin of their origin—demons of gluttony can only taste the potential for gluttony, for example—with one notable exception. Pride, the root of all sin, has the power to detect all kinds of sin.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I forgot to mention it, but the sin of pride has special extra powers because Lucifer, who fell for his pride, is, like, really self-centered.

The way a demon pushes a human toward sin is a matter of infiltration. If a human doesn’t act upon their potential for sin, the mere thought doesn’t make them sinful. It’s only counted as a strike against them if the sin is acted upon, and tangibly hurts another. A demon’s purpose for coming to Earth is to seek out these potential sinners, and goad them in that direction. They directly use their powers as influence, to convince a human to act on that thought, and damn themselves. Whether or not the demon succeeds is up to the strength of the human to resist the suggestion, their personal willingness to harm another, and how much pushing the demon has to do.

Like an angel’s wings, a demon becomes invisible if they reveal their horns and tail, visible only to the human they’re currently engaged with. Once the demon disappears, the human will forget them entirely, convinced that they made up their minds all on their own.

The classic “deal with the devil” can’t be forgotten, of course. Demons rarely stick around on Earth disguised as humans, but those that do intend to get a little more out of their causing of sin than sick satisfaction. Taking possession of a soul means more than simply adding a tally on Hell’s population count—it’s a mark of status among demons, to have successfully claimed a soul. Demons make deals with each other as well as humans, forming brief alliances to defeat a common enemy—as long as one has something the other is willing to pay them with. Those that fail to complete their contracts or break them early—whether for a human or another demon—are hunted for the display of weakness.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Slight change here! When demons break or fail their contracts, they die. When they make contracts, with humans or each other, they necessarily tie their own soul to the completion of it. That’s another reason why it’s a status symbol—only the most badass of demons would risk their eternal lives for an ego boost. Most demons will intentionally make sure they have the maximum amount of time or infinite chances to complete the contract to wiggle out of that unfortunate side effect, but not everything can be snuck out of that way. If a demon with a contract bound to their soul were to, say, stay on Earth long enough that they lose their powers and become human, they’d die the instant their power fully left, or when the contract can’t be completed, whichever comes first.

The Sinful

But what of humanity? What of the sinful humans who aren’t permitted to enter God’s Kingdom?

While Lucifer boasted Hell as a place where all would be heard, none would be cast out, and any found unworthy by God were welcome, privately he still seethed at what he blamed as the reason for his downfall: humanity. The puny creatures that stole God’s love from him, and caused him to be cast out for simply asking what he was due.

When the first humans rejected by God turned up at his doorstep, Lucifer quickly changed his tune. If the Kingdom of Hell was to be like the Kingdom of Heaven, this meant there would inevitably be an unworthy class. After all, if it’s good enough for God, it’s good enough for them.

The sinful spend the rest of their eternal lives tormented by, or in service to, the demons that populate Hell. They truly are the lowest class of the universe. Heaven won’t help them, and Purgatory may have already failed them. Not even other demons, abandoned by God and intimately aware of their plight, feel sympathy for them, consumed eternally by bitterness and vengeance.

Well, here we are! This one got long, but I had a lot I wanted to talk about regarding demons. I thought about it a lot, since the protagonist is a demon, and I’m really excited to hear what everyone thinks!

Thanks for your generous support, as always!

— Annika

#ink-flavored #precious people #original writing #original fiction #Pride and Justice #P&J #the LORE...

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auroblaze · 9 days

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#AAAA!!!#clapping my hands so fast this is so GOOD #sonic #sonic 06 #blazey

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“the arts and sciences are completely separate fields that should be pitted against each other” the overlap of the arts and sciences make up our entire perceivable reality they r fucking on the couch

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Magnet Monday Week 34: Green

this one's a bit short because i had to fly out to a wedding this past weekend! i hope you enjoy it anyway!

If you’re interested in being able to choose the topic of the next poem, make sure to vote in the weekly Magnet Monday polls! Or if you want a commission just like it, check out my pricing sheet!

Transcript under the cut!

[Ko-Fi] [Magnet Monday]

Magnet Monday Taglist (Check out my Google form to get added): @elegant-paper-collection @polyphonetic @qelizhus @liv-is @maxdamax @auroblaze

Green

the green feeds the stream

flower to fish

then cloud to tree

life and future

giving sky to skin

what peace for the world

do you bring?

#ink-flavored #precious people #magnet mondays #poetry