H. E. L. P.

Hell, Earth, Limuria, Paradise

We know how the story starts. An angel revolts. His army falls. Hell begins to boil. Humanity is corrupted and cast out of Eden. And yet... things haven't gone quite the same way as they did for us. Eden collapsed into an unfinished version of Earth, the sequence of events of its natural history left unpolished. Humans gaining access to powers that should never have been possible due to holes in the laws of physics. In heaven, angels straining to keep their existence a secret and, failing that, keeping demonic forces from meddling any more than they already have. Risen souls wondering what the purpose of all of this is. Damned souls wondering if it just goes on forever. Imps wondering if the only reason they're alive is because they were forgotten. Demons wondering if there's a way to kill a God.

And the Father of all staying blissfully silent.

The idea behind this is exploring the age-old concept of an army of "evil demons" against an army of "good angels" and pursuing this idea outside of real religious and cultural influence. That is to say- the setting here is not the Earth as we know it, and I tried to stay away from references of any real world events to focus entirely on the drama and politics between characters in an otherwise fantastical setting. (Or more simply- I wanted to play dolls with angels and demons and try not to think about the horrors committed in the name of Christianity too much.) Stripped of the symbolic trappings of Abrahamic religion, what would the individuals making up these armies be like? What would their motivations be? What are the complexities of the relationships of their peers? How do they relate to individuals outside of their conflicts? What are the mechanics of their powers and biology? Given their circumstances, what would the societies they live in look like? And what are the wide-reaching effects of this conflict on the world around them? These are the questions I wanted to answer with this setting. The themes include but are not limited to: The limits one must go to to obtain freedom, the consequences of uncomfortable free will versus comfortable servitude, the meaning of redemption, reaching out across borders, and some weird worldbuilding about soulless husks and tiny demons.

This setting is intended to make reference to aspects of religion that many people are familiar with (ie, Americans, sorry anyone who doesn't live in a culturally Christian society.), but is not meant to be "accurate" to any particular religion. Instead, it takes aspects that I thought sounded like fun from multiple different sources of Christian Mythology. I have done my best to avoid using anything that's strictly (ie the only mentions of it) from non-Christian texts from religions that still exist today such as Judaism, Islam, Gnosticism, and Mandaeism, though there's a lot of cross communication between Abrahamic religions so sometimes my research comes out to "This is probably fine". I assure you, no disrespect was meant by any part of this setting and I am well aware of the issues of cultural appropriation against Judaism and Islam in the modern day.

So, without further ado; feel free to check out the links on the left to explore this setting and the characters therein! As it stands, this is a worldbuilding project only. I do not intend to tell any stories in this universe at this time, though I may change my mind at some point.