36 replies to this topic

[Vortigern]

So do I, but I don't consider it a virtue. I live with two vegetarians and I don't consider them to have a vice, either. Unless you were planning to make a pun on the word turkey, because that could be hilarious.

[Rafv Nin IV]

No; I was actually referencing an essay I wrote for English, in which I sarcastically blasted the Venetians for being animal-rights activists (the essay was supposed to be about the importance of cultural context or some such thing). It's in the Writer's Guild somewhere.

[some_weirdGuy]

((oppoligies in advance for the wealth of spelling mistakes i will no doubt make, im not on my normal computer))

Anyway, hopefully that's put you in your place. tongue.gif

you should now me well enough by now to knwo that nothing could really put me in my place if i become very determined

Vort, that long list telling me what each of those are is kinda pointless, as i already know all of that stuff and more.

Also, Set and Seth are both perfectly acceptable spelling, seen as the pronouciation of the t in his name was so similar to th that it was spelt that way, along with various other spellings you could choose from
Same with Sokar(no i was not refering to the stargate character, although it was him that originally brought me to research him so long ago), who has various different spellings and is not just a process in mumification, but became associated as a god, depicted as a mummified human who was falcon-headed, and had green skin.

Egyptian legends say that Seker's domain resided in the ever-shifting sands outside of Memphis. Unlike Osiris' kingdom (which was reserved for the blessed, consisted of fields and flowing water), Seker's domain was reserved for the wicked, and was shrouded in impenetrable blackness. It was populated with terrible serpents and other reptiles of "terrifying aspect". These creatures sometimes had two, or even three heads. They were meant to keep order in Seker's domain and keep his image. This was because Seker did not reside necessarily in his own domain, but in his hidden chambers deep into the earth. He rarely came up, so there was little desire for his cult members to want to reside there.

sounds quite similar to the devil. ruled the place where the wicked would go when they died, he had terrifying creatures as his servanets(demons), and even though it is different to the christian religion, in that this form of 'hell' is not located underground, he himself lived deep within the earth.

Anubis was the god of Embalming, and weighed the hearts of men. If you did not measure up you were thrown out to be eaten by a crocdile-lion-hippo thing i think. So yes techinically he isn't a 'devil', as there was no evil intent behind his actions.

As for lucifer, satan, devil and diablo. They are exactly what i said they were, which is other names for the devil, like i said.

Hel is a ruler of a 'cold hell' where those that died of old age and sickness were sent. She was a half decompossed woman(upper half normal, lower half rotten) who resided over a place called Hel (thats where the christians got the name from) full of suffering and depression and whatnot, and she wouldn't let people leave, i dont think.

and 'Mephisto isn't real'... thats a rather silly argument seen as i could say no religious symbol is real, including ones given a new name in a book(like mephisto). So i hardly dug my own grave at all.

And you are going under a very narrow minded view of: 'the devil is the christian form of the devil and all his 'counterparts' must be exactly him or they dont count'

If you are under that view then The Christian Devil is the only 'Devil' then yes, all those other beings/names are not the devil. But as i have already said, they represent the same sort of role as a malevolent being, ruler of the damned/hell-like place, etc etc.

Here, look up the devil for yourself and it even talks about all the ones i have said and more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil

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And no, the being to which Zhar is enslaved is not the Lord of all Demons, or anything like that. He's a powerful entity, certainly, but he is not in charge. The Eternal is in charge, and represents both sides, being good and evil and indeed everything in between. So yeah, the Eternal is both God and the Devil here. Your 'demon' does not fill the role of overseer of the damned, or anything like that.

Here's the thing: there are no 'demons', as such. There is just the Eternal. What you think are demons are merely the immortal enchained remains of history's most powerful magi. It's one of them who has Zhar in thrall, not the Eternal. I hope that settles this.

See, you keep saying that the Lord of the Demons isn't the devil, but then you line him up so he is in the exact same position.
The Eternal(aka God) is ruler over all, with the Lord of Hell(aka devil) being like a tempter and malevolent being. Just like in the Christian Religion God is the ruler of all, and no matter weather the 'devil' likes it or not, he was always be second to him.

Exact same thing going on here, it seems to me.
Why would the Eternal want to rule over everything anyway? it would make sense that like a king has barons which rule over various estates for him, the Eternal would have various beings underneath him which rule over different things(like 'hell' for example) but are all answerable to him.

I dont think i quite understand the 'no demons' last part.

Anyway, How i saw the Story behind the Demon lord and whatnot is like this:

Hell is a place where the damned go. In hell there are beings which naturally reside there (the Demons). Amoung these demons there are the more Powerful demons ruling over the less powerful. One of these demons was particularly powerful, and took on the role as King to all demons. Underneath him he had his various lords and whatnot.

If you wanted there could be a Heaven vs Hell type thing going on, whatever. Somehow the Demon Lord got sealed away by the mighty Dwarven Paladins (i was thinking maybe a bit of betrayal by his fellow demons, maybe also the Angels might have had something to do with it, maybe also giving the Dawrves great power in this golden opertunaty to capture the lord of hell).

So he gets sealed away. While he is gone internal struggle in hell and then a new ruler comes along (or whatever, doesn't really matter).
Then Zhar the very powerful mage after years of fruitlessly seeking immortality, finds out about the lord of hells prison. A 'godly' being of such power would surely be able to grant him his wish.

So he goes to the secret prision of the lord of hell, fights his way past the dwarvern paldins and gets to the Lord of Hell. The demon demands freedom, but Zhar says only if he grants Zhar immortality. The demon agrees and Zhar releases him. Then Zhar gets turned into what he is now(minus the crazyness) with the demon lords gift turning out to be a curse. The Lord fo Hell Returns and siezes back control over his dominion.

Zhar is then stuck as a servant not only without perminent immortality, but also feeling like crap all the time with the no happiness and slowly going mad and turning even more evil, and knowing when his time is up the lord of Hell plans to take him to hell for eternal damnation.

If you remember i Pm'd you an idea where the group could end up fighting the lord of hell, which would have involved alot of epicness and awesomeness. Anyway, so is that story ok(not the fighting Lord of hell, but about the demon lord)?

The Eternal is above the lord of hell even, but for the most part doesn't really care about what happens below him (?) (except for now where he seems to be doing a bit of manipulation and the like)
but i'll change the age... how 'old' is aresencia suppose to be? would 1337 years be to long ago for zhar to really be around?

[Vortigern]

Arsencia has easily been around for ten thousand years at this point, so age is not really an issue. Anyway, I'm putting a stop to this now. I appreciate that the Christian image of the devil is not the only one, but it is the one I had in mind, what with your constant referral to 'the devil'. It's a tad hard to avoid. Zhar cannot have anything to do with the number 666, that is absolutely final. Nor with the number 1337. I will ban you if you try that.

The 'no demons' thing, as you put it, is simple. There are no such things as demons. However, there are powerful magi who have not quite died and created a kind of afterlife, though they had to lose their souls to get it. This is a far higher form of magic than is common, or even still known in Arsencia. Not even Zhar or Winter Vayu could do this kind of magic. This was magic strong enough to create a whole extra dimension for souls to dwell in, but it's still not even close to the might of the Eternal. All magi can do is alter a tiny bit of the universe at a time, whereas the Eternal could redesign the entirety of existence in a moment. The only reason the Eternal allows this Arsencian hell to exist is because it doesn't really care. That's all there is to it. There were no dwarves involved. You will, fairly soon indeed, find out why the Eternal has suddenly begun meddling in the affairs of the world, and I assure you it is solid.

So here we are, at the finale of our debate, and I will admit you seem to have me beat on tip-of-the-tongue knowledge about demons, though I'm sure I could take you on Greek, Roman or Norse mythology. You played the game well, but I won because I'm in charge. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have some breakfast before the Grand Prix starts without me. Vettel for the win!

[some_weirdGuy]

You ban all the good numbers
(i was even going to include a little reference at some point to the language of the demons, 'they speak leet, the most evil language ever conceived, mwhahaha' )

Fine, i will pick some other number.

Anyway:

@the hell dimension
Vayu had a dimension thingy...
remember, whats where we sorta killed him.


And so they are humans who have turned into demons pretty much, which was another thing i was thinking about when it came to 'the damned' (where i was thinking that it could be that the damned slowly become demonic themselves after resided in hell for long enough, completely changing if left there long enough)

So... is there a heaven? or Angels?

And what do you mean there was no dwarves involved. The demon needed to be locked away by someone for zhar to free him and gain his curse. If it wasn't holy dwarvern paladins, then it would have to have been the eternal or something, in which case 1. why would he lock away the lord of hell? 2. why would he then let him be freed by zhar?

though I'm sure I could take you on Greek, Roman or Norse mythology.

lol, it could be a game. The great debate, where we try and outsmart each other in one thing or another

[Vortigern]

Winter Vayu's little extra dimensions were tiny. He used various little tricks to make the whole place appear larger, and I would remind you that he is indeed the most powerful mage in centuries. He just got caught by surprise when Arngrim killed him, otherwise he totally could have taken all of us out with very fw problems. The hell dimensions are titanic. Imagine all the people ever in the history of the world, then divide roughly by two for a good/bad split. By my estimate that puts the number inhabitants of hell at around 20 billion or so. Hell's a pretty big place.

And yes, there is a heaven, but nobody we know is nice enough to have gone there. I'm struggling to find a way to bring it in.

OK, maybe the dwarves could have done something to lock him up. I thought Zhar just made a deal with him, immortality in return for service. That doesn't require anyone to have been locked up at any point.

Heh, I shall now go and create a Mythology Challenge topic. I shall pose you the first question, and no cheating!

[Copaman]

The best (and yet most cliche) means to bring in heaven: some kind of redemption for someone.

[Vortigern]

Hell no. If anything it's getting invaded at some point, by robots dressed as pirates with massive harpoons! Or maybe I'll think of something else along the way. Meh, I've got time. We've got at least Chapters 2, 3 and 4 sorted already, so there's no hurry.

[Copaman]

Or you could throw in a John Constantine-esque character. Oh, wait, Tom's only a few steps away from that one, isn't he?

[some_weirdGuy]

Winter Vayu's little extra dimensions were tiny. He used various little tricks to make the whole place appear larger, and I would remind you that he is indeed the most powerful mage in centuries. He just got caught by surprise when Arngrim killed him, otherwise he totally could have taken all of us out with very fw problems. The hell dimensions are titanic. Imagine all the people ever in the history of the world, then divide roughly by two for a good/bad split. By my estimate that puts the number inhabitants of hell at around 20 billion or so. Hell's a pretty big place.

yeah, i was thinking that, or Vayu went and set up shop in some else's already created dimension (it would be alot easier to renovate then to create from scratch, i should think)

And no way, Zhar is heaps better then Vayu! he's all awesome and has much more magical knowledge and also... he's an undead demon-iser, so you know he has to be awesome.

And yes, i should think the hell dimension is quite large. And as to dividing by two... i only just came up with a furthering of the concept behind the damned turning into demons.
What if in hell you started going like Zhar, all crazy with multiple personalities. Then after long enough these personalities could take on a physical form, separating from you. Just like Zhar's most would be twisted and evil, with only a small minority being good.

The bad ones would then become demons over time, and if the good ones escaped(weren't destroyed by the bad ones or whatever) maybe they would become angels? meaning that demons outnumber angels, but because there is a lot of internal conflict amoungst the demons they never put there heads together to destroy the angels.
(maybe thats why the lord of hell gets imprisoned. He sort of succeeds in uniting the demons, [becoming king of all demons]. He then is planning an attack on the angels, ready to destroy them once and for all. But he is interrupted[maybe a bit of sabotage by angels even] when some of the other demons gang up on him in a civil war, angels also causing him trouble [he is fighting on to many fronts], he is then kicked out. Maybe kicked out to the mortal realm, but however he gets there, he ends up being imprisoned by the paladins after they are given 'super powers' by the angels)

Some personalities would become (comparatively)'weak' lesser demons, while the very strongest would rise up to become greater demons. The most powerful of all would become demonic lords like the lord of hell, but he is an extreme case as he is the most powerful demon.

You could bring heaven into it in that story suggestion i made a long time ago, about the group fighting the lord of hell (thats how our group gets the awesomeness to be able to go into hell and hold our own, from angels giving everyone special powers and weapons and whatnot)


And no, Zhar didn't trade immortality for service. The demon lord would care little for a (non-demon) servant. No, Zhar is tricked and so has to do whatever the demon lord says when it is demanded of him(which isn't very often, just occasionally, for the most part the demon lord cares little for what happens on the 'mortal realm'). And a story about an imprisoned lord of the demons is cooler then just dialing D for demon and striking a bargain.

[Vortigern]

If you want a war between heaven and hell, go play Salvation's Anemia. Such a storyline will not be present in Arsencia unless I get a bit desperate in the future.

I would have thought the demon would care quite a lot about Zhar, what with Zhar being one of the few links the demon has with the real world. I haven't really given it too much thought beyond that, to be honest. Zhar is a slave to the demon, the demon who is not the Lord of Hell because such a thing does not exist, and Zhar will soon be free, apparently. Where baby demons come from is not the issue and not something with which I intend to concern myself. I think we've taken this far enough off-topic already, to be honest.

[some_weirdGuy]

Its not off topic, its all related

And whatever, no heaven hell war. It really doesn't make that much of a difference, its just a cooler storyline that way.
And the demon wouldn't reall need any links to the 'real world', i mean, we dont need any thinks to heaven or hell, why would they need links to us?
Besides, with my storyline he would be more worried about sementing his control over hell once more, and getting 'back in the loop'.

And why would there not be a lord of hell? Humans have rulers and kings(who gain power through force or other ways), why wouldn't hell?
(especially if they were once humans like you say)

And who says Zhar will soon be free? If you are referring to the twelve years, then i hardly call being damned for an eternity 'freedom'...

As you so often shoved in my face in the new Worlds of War, its my brain child, you can't force me to change it!

Come on, its a cool storyline, why cant it stick? when i was PMing you ideas and stuff you expressed no objections to this stuff, now you are suddenly full of them. What gives?

[Vortigern]

I'm allowed to change my mind. Maybe I was OK with it before, but now I have a more definite idea of where I would like this to go and what sort of degree of fantasy I want to include, and a heaven/hell war and the lord of hell does not fit in with that idea. I'm going to explain the Eternal at some point, too.

I also have a plan for Zhar, of which I'm certain you'll approve, but I don't want to ruin the surprise. You'll probably guess it sooner or later anyway, but let me suffice to say that eternal damnation is not quite what we have in mind for Zhar Cadavok.

Let's leave it as hell has leaders among equals, but no outright overlord. There's no definitive command structure, because there would be little point to having one. Nobody's going to invade hell, or stage a rebellion from within (everyone's busy with eternal torment, either inflicting or receiving) and, basically, it's all about the sadism, and the demons don't need anyone to tell them how to go about that.

And the reason the demons want links to the real world is so that they can corrupt it. Duh. If they can lead people into temptation, old school style, then they got more people to torture later on, which is fun for them. It's like an investment. It's true I can't force you to change your brainchild, but I can influence it in a certain direction, and I fully intend to push Zhar along that path. As has been noted by the times I've godmodded Zhar in the storyline, I think I've pretty much got his number, though I haven't ruled out the possibility of something highly surprising.

By the way, I'm going to do Zhar a big favour in the storyline soon, or at least soonish. As Ash has most definitely left Arsencia, I've claimed intellectual rights to Arngrim too, and he's making a comeback. I'm sure Zhar won't have forgotten quite how pissed off he is at that kill-stealing bastard.

[some_weirdGuy]

I pm'd you my plan for Zhars end, thats how i wanted it. So it better be a damn good end to outdo what i had made up (which if you remember was quite 'epic')

And i always thought of hell as being ruled by a bunch of demon warlords and stuff, and that the lord of hell was just the strongest who went about uniting them by force(with his bigger army). Tormenting was more of a side sport, with hell itself being pretty tormenting on its own(what with fire and brimstone and whatnot). Also many of the demons i imagined as being animal-like in that they lack any great intelligence, and are just vicious little buggers.
(and when they start ripping you apart and eating you you cant die so you are left in great pain as they eat away)

Anyway, whatever. Just shoot my whole awesome storyline and possible later chapter idea out of the sky why dont you :(
(oh well, i'll see where this goes, i guess zhar can still pretty much be the same either way)

[Vortigern]

Yes, and having just re-read all the PMs, it seems like I turned it down then too, or at least put it off until something else had happened, but now I've figured out the details and I'm afraid your plan, grand though it was, won't be happening. Furthermore, it doesn't agree with the kind of Arsencia I wanted, so it's off the table. Don't worry, you'll still have plenty of opportunity to be hilarious and extremely powerful with Zhar.

Anyway, enough of this. We fixed Zhar's age issue and now we've got everything else fixed. Excellent.

[Fire Ze Missiles!]

Yeah, interesting as all this would be, Arsencia doesn't need another metaphysical storyline when there are already several perfectly material ones planned out and ready to roll.

[some_weirdGuy]

Yeah, whatever.
I'll see where this goes.
I want to ask though. You know how some of the other RP'ers were making posts about their kinds of magics and stuff(for example rav made a post on gnome mind magic, and vit made a post on his mind magic, and copa made those posts about the deathknevles stuff)

Could i make one about the demons, flashing out their background a bit (all within your guidelines, ofcoarse).
Like how they were those mages long ago, and they made 'hell', and then slowly turned into demons.


EDIT: For some reason i 'do not have permission' to reply to the mythology challenge topic, or the OOC topic, and at a guess i think i probably cant reply to any of those topics. Can this be fixed, am i the only one with this problem, and is it something to do with the April fools joke? (like maybe you didn't unlock the topics properly?)
((FZEDIT: I didn't unlock the topics at all ))

Edited by Fire Ze Missiles!, 02 April 2009 - 10:00 PM.