Satan's Gambit (The Barrier War Book 3)
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Cherub/Cherubim – Angels who have not yet attained sufficient strength to Awaken will generally do so once they ascend to the Choir of Cherubim. A Cherub without a name is considered a rarity, almost as uncommon as a Parasim or Sarim who has one. Cherubim are the first ranks of the elite warriors of Heaven, and as such they garb themselves in armor made from true metal at the Anvil of Heaven. This offers them a tremendous protective advantage in combat against lesser immortals and is virtually a requirement to survive a battle against a stronger one. Metallic weapons offer similar advantages when on the offensive. Most Cherubim choose to craft their own weapons and armor by hand, under the guidance of the Dominion blacksmith Dem and his assistants. The most popular style of armor among Cherubim consists of form-fitting platemail with minimal protection at the joints to prevent restricting their motions. Cherubim are rarely found without a bow, but there is little consistency in their choice of close-quarters weaponry.
Erelim – Erelim (and some Parasim) are typically the aerial warriors of Heaven and as such are almost never to be found without their wings asolved. Some have even expressed a preference for flight over any land-based movement and will only set foot on the ground of Heaven when absolutely necessary. Erelim appear mostly as winged humans garbed in tightly fitted folds of white cloth, occasionally with flowing, colored tabards that may be discarded during combat. While close-quarters aerial combat is almost inevitable in a war among immortals, Erelim are typically armed with bows and take advantage of the freedom offered by the skies to attack from great distances. When hand-to-hand combat is required, they resort to a variety of swords, daggers, axes, and other bladed weapons that are easily wielded in flight.
Parasim – Augmented by the ranks of the Sarim, Parasim make up the bulk of the ground-based soldiers in battle. Beyond their general choice for weaponry, there is physically little to distinguish Parasim from their Erelim brethren. Like Erelim they are humanoid and rarely seen with their wings dekinted, but Parasim often opt to appear with leathery armor and arm themselves with long swords, spears, and other polearms they create from their own āyus.
Sarim – Weakest of the angelic Choirs, Sarim are conversely generally among the strongest healers. There are notable healers amidst the higher Choirs, to be sure, but a Sarim of only middling strength will have greater healing abilities than any higher angel who has not made such healing a focus. Indeed, most of the best healers among higher Choirs were originally Sarim who ascended. Their combat skills are rudimentary compared to their higher brethren, and their primary role in battle (aside from healing) is akin to what mortal commanders refer to as “cannon fodder”. Sarim typically appear as slender humanoids, often almost elven in appearance, garbed in flowing white robes and armed with close-range weapons they create from their own āyus. The presence or absence of wings seems to be mostly an afterthought unless specifically ordered one way or another by a ranking angel.
IV. Hell
There are many different species of demons found in Hell, not all of which have been catalogued in Heaven. Many simply don’t have a large enough population to have been taken note of, others are recent creations resulting from shared adaptations amidst a population of an existing species. Unlike angels, demons do not rank themselves socially into formal hierarchies, but they rely wholly on strength to enforce discipline (or at least obedience) among their ranks. The cutthroat nature of demonic culture ensures a high attrition rate in nearly every aspect of their society, which helps account for the relative scarcity of demons who attain sufficient strength to Awaken. Lesser demons are forced to genese replacements for those destroyed in squabbles between various factions, and many who rise too quickly are seen as threats by their superiors and subsequently eliminated.
There are few variations in appearance between members of the same species beyond skin tone and the occasional inclusion or absence of wings and other trivialities, and few demons, except the most powerful, arm themselves with any sort of weapon or armor, relying instead on hide, tooth, and claw in battle.
Demon Princes/Lords – Demon princes were already the most powerful demons in Pleroma at the moment of their awakening at the dawn of existence. Their appearances vary greatly, from humanoid to monstrous, small to gargantuan, but each is wholly devoted to his own survival and the attainment of further power. Demon lords began their existence as lesser demons and attained sufficient strength that they forced the demon princes to acknowledge them as equals. Most demon lords retain some physical traits of their origins, but more than one has cast aside all vestiges of its heritage as though loath to accept such common beginnings.
Daemelans – Though few in number, daemelans are among the most powerful demons in Hell. An unknown flaw in their species has prevented all but one from fully Awakening. (Bau was not only the sole daemelan to Awaken, he simultaneously achieved the rank of Demon Lord, a rare accomplishment in itself.) Daemelans stand between ten to twelve feet tall, with a four-armed humanoid torso atop a scaled, equine-like body with cloven hooves. Unlike most demons, daemelans arm themselves with massive weapons forged from steel, from eight-foot hammers to swords with foot-wide blades. The few dozen daemelans that survived the Great Schism serve exclusively as personal bodyguards to the King of Demons, and their population has been kept under strict control to keep them in line.
Balrogs – Balrogs typically serve in positions of authority in demonic forces and keep demons and damned souls alike in-line through brute force. The horned demons are heavily muscled, nearly always winged, and arm themselves with whips woven from leather cut from the flesh of the damned, or else from another demon. (Some even cut the flesh from their own bodies.)
Drolkuls – These four-armed demons serve as the lowest level of authority in most demonic forces and are ubiquitous throughout the infernal plane. They are capable of tunneling through solid rock at speeds the finest dwarven miners can only dream of.
Childris – Childris are among the most-feared of all demon species due to their speed and ruthlessness in battle. They closely resemble the Lokkan creature known as the praying mantis, though they are as tall as an average human. Their thick, chitinous armor protects every inch of their bodies, and they commonly carry short spears made from the same substance that are thrown into battle before they close to attack with sword-like upper limbs.
Bloodhawks – Bloodhawks are minor demons that form the bulk of any aerial forces. They breed prodigiously and fly in vast swarms, overpowering their foes through sheer numerical advantage. Their wings are featherless and covered in the same leathery skin that coats their bodies. Bloodhawks are approximately the size of a Lokkan deer, with short hind legs and long tails used in combat and flight. Foreclaws are optional and may be created or removed at need.
Gremlins – As gnomes are the creative builders in the mortal world, so are gremlins the engineers and mechanical minds of the demon realm, as well as its janitors and jailers. They sometimes act as minor overseers for bloodhawks, but more often they build structures at the behest of more powerful demons, create and maintain mechanical constructs of war, and ensure the smooth functions of all aspects of demonic society. Due to their relative intelligence, they are more reliable than the bloodthirsty drolkuls for certain responsibilities, though their comparative weakness makes them ill-suited for commanding any but the weakest of demons in battle.
Hellhounds – The hounds of Hell are among the least intelligent of all demons and are little better than the true mortal canines they resemble. Hellhounds run in packs led by an alpha demon, which is usually smarter and/or more powerful than its subordinates, and hellhounds will only follow an alpha raised from their own pack. Pack mates are virtually identical, but the physical traits from one pack to another may vary greatly. The differences between packs are significant enough that Heavenly scholars have speculated they might qualify as distinct subspecies. Most hellhounds are the size of Lokkan greyhounds or retrievers, but it is not unknown for one (particularly the pack’s alpha) to
grow as large as a pony.
Imps – Imps are minor demons that act as the scavengers of Hell. The small demons are virtually mindless and feed off the lingering bodies of other demons and souls cast aside by more powerful creatures. They have cat-like faces with crimson eyes and leathery skin, and bat-like wings extend down from small, clawed hands. No known imp has ever reached the point of individual awareness and personality to Awaken.
Appendix E
The Great Schism
I. Dawn of the Immortals
II. Pleroma
III. War of the Immortals
IV. The Sundering
I. Dawn of the Immortals
Research into the origins of the immortal angels and demons is a difficult prospect at best. Not only has time immeasurable passed since their creation, but there is no childhood or early life to examine. They were not, and then in an instant, they were – this moment is known as The Awakening. Some vague memories possessed by the oldest and most powerful angels indicate they simply became aware of their existence and the presence of God. Likewise, it is worth noting that the first demons to Awaken did so in the presence of Satan.
In the early times of their awareness, the immortals were disembodied entities of pure will, or āyus, and existed in harmony. Angels and demons, as they are now known, had not yet embraced the eternal enmity that now defines their relationship. Time itself, as it is measured on Lokka, was not a material concern to the immortals, so there is no definitive way of knowing how long their peaceful coexistence lasted.
The relative strength of the immortals varied greatly, and groups began to coalesce as those of similar strength banded together in commonality. The stronger an immortal’s āyus, the more likely they become to develop an individual personality and take their own name (referred to as Awakening, in honor of the original moment of their creation), and in some cases ascend to a higher state of existence. Only a few angels and demons began their existence with sufficient āyus to immediately Awaken, and these became the first Seraphim and a few Dominions and Powers among the angels, and among the demons they declared themselves princes and chief lieutenants.
The societies of angels and demons are fundamentally different due to one primary factor. All angels are considered to be of the same basic species, but rank themselves based on strength. The Choirs, as these ranks are known, have certain physical characteristics common to most of their members, but these features are malleable and are entirely at the whim of the individual (more likely among the higher Choirs than the lower). An angel of a lower Choir may rise to a higher rank if he gains both sufficient strength and chooses to ascend. Demons, however, exist in a wide variety of species and may gain strength as a member of that breed, but unless they ascend to the rank of demon lord, they will always be considered to be a member of their origin species.[42]
The manner in which immortals gain in strength has always been something of a mystery. To be sure, it is possible for one immortal to absorb some of the strength of another immortal he slays (some few have even been able to absorb strength from a lesser entity without first destroying it, as a form of vampirism), and indeed this discovery is part of what touched off the Great Schism. But angelic scholars have theorized that many avenues of empowerment exist, with possibilities raised from the mundane to the bizarre. Immortals may temporarily lose power as they expend their strength (typically through combat), but this seems to be quickly replenished to its former level. The most certain method of permanently lessening one’s power seems to be genesing, in which one immortal splits off a piece of his āyus to create another immortal.
There are conflicting reports of who was the first immortal to genese another. Nearly every text found in Medina that addresses this moment indicates it was Yariel, one of the first Powers to Awaken. One text, however, claims that it was actually Gabriel himself, leader of the Seraphim and the most powerful of all angels, who genesed the first immortal offspring. [43] As both Yariel and Gabriel were slain during the Great Schism, only second-hand accounts from distant memories remain to tell the truth of this moment, and history seems to have settled on Yariel. For certain, there was some debate as to whether genesing more angels was a proper course of action, so the first such occasion was the cause of much discussion and dissent.
At some point before recorded history began, the immortals all felt the undeniable impulse to take on corporeal form. The demon princes assumed unique forms in keeping with their more evolved status and individual identities, while the lesser demons were drawn to craft common shapes based on their emerging species. Gremlins, bloodhawks, childris, daemelans, hellhounds, drolkuls, balrogs, and many other species of demons coalesced around common physical forms.
By contrast, angels uniformly took the form of winged humanoids and chose to differentiate their Choirs on relatively simple differences in appearance. Seraphim all have six wings, while Dominions and sometimes Powers typically have four, and the other Choirs normally only have one pair.[44]
II. Pleroma
At the dawn of time, the immortal plane came into being. None truly know whether it was created concurrently with the immortals or if, as some have theorized, its existence predates even the divine. For certain, when the first immortals became aware of their surroundings, the landscape stretched out before them infinitely in all directions, and as far as any have been able to determine, there were indeed no boundaries to the size and scope of the immortal plane.
When they came into being, the name of their realm was already known to all immortals: Pleroma. Translated simply into the human tongue, the word means “fullness” – as with most of the immortal language, however, the actual meaning goes far beyond the literal word. A better translation would be a “fullness of divine existence, power, and presence,” but even that lacks the depth and vibrancy embodied in the original word as spoken by an immortal.
Perhaps the most astounding fact about Pleroma is that its appearance tended to vary based on who was viewing it. Different individuals could look at the same portion of the land and see completely different things, and each would be absolutely convinced his perception of their reality was the correct one. Over time, lesser immortals came to view Pleroma from the same perspective as their more powerful brethren, and indeed many accounts confirm that a lesser angel’s vision of Pleroma would change simply by being in close proximity to a Seraph or Dominion. More and more, the angels came to view their realm as a cloud-like landscape littered with crystalline pillars and gleaming white stone mountains. The few accounts on-record from demons indicate they came to view their realm as a barren landscape of cracked, desiccated rock and harsh, unforgiving wastelands.
III. War of the Immortals
Over time, the differing natures of the immortals began to strain what had for a time been peaceful coexistence. Words such as “good” and “evil” had long since come into being, but were originally abstract concepts to be bandied about by immortals still testing the limits of their existence. Eventually, however, animosities built among various factions that ultimately coalesced into outright hostility between angels and demons.
Most of the demons rallied to the call of the most powerful among them, the demon known as Mephistopheles, self-proclaimed King of Demons. Mephistopheles slowly began to dominate the wills of his followers, subtly at first, then more openly later as the demon lords and princes who might have challenged him fell under his sway. The only two demons known to have stood openly against him were Abdiel and Kaelus.
The Great Schism officially began with a singular event – the destruction of the Seraph Gabriel. This not only marked the beginning of open warfare, it is also the first known instance of a demon slaying an angel, or vice versa. (Some demons had been slain by their brethren as they explored the potential for absorbing each other’s power, but open combat was still unknown at that time.) A trap was set by several of the demon lords and princes, foremost among them being Aesthma, a demon lord raised from the ranks of the childris.
The demon prince Abdiel spoke against Mephistopheles’s aggression and attempted to break the demon king’s hold on enough of his followers to forestall open warfare, but instead his brethren tore him apart and destroyed him on the spot. His close companion, Kaelus, held back and left his own objections unvoiced for fear of sharing Abdiel’s fate.