![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
World Building- Overiew
The world was created millions of years ago by an entity known only as The Great Creator, a being who remains a mystery to everyone. For the most part, the GC would use as little direct influence as possible- preferring to set events in motion that would eventually give the result desired. They however directly created a number of creatures, called World Beasts, who were designed to take instinctively actions that would mould the planet. In contrast, Heaven, the high tech orbital base that serves as one of the moons, was personally crafted by the GC. Once sapient life began to emerge, they required more in-depth guidance than the World Beasts could offer to develop according to the GC's wishes. As such, the Divine Ones were created. Highly intelligent social engineers, they guided early societies to take on the values the GC wished. The Divine Ones administrated the afterlife and reincarnation systems as well. Eventually, the GC left Terra in the Divine One's hands, ordered to observe from afar. GC's last creation, the Destiny Emblem, was left behind to protect it the world from disaster.
Things changed when Terra was visited by Apollyon. An entity as mysterious as the GC, Apollyon came from 'The Furthest Land.' Referring to himself as a travelling philosopher, Apollyon roamed the planet having discussions with its residents. His escort was a Divine One named Jedidiah. It was through these discussions that free will emerged, spreading like a virus through people. Jedidiah, in particular, became enamoured with the idea of freedom and considered himself Apollyon's friend. In response to the spread of free will, the Divine Ones attempted to eliminate Apollyon. Jedidiah was ordered to betray his friend and caved to the pressure by luring Apollyon into a trap. The resulting battle created the bizarre landmass known as the Cursed Continent, later to be the home of the seat of the Demon Empire, Hell. Apollyon, however, was immortal. The best the Divine Ones could do was to seal his body in the centre of the planet, separating his soul. The soul was imprisoned in Heaven. Jedidiah, consumed by regret, tossed himself into the dirt of the Cursed Continent and planned to stay there forever. He was presumed dead in the battle. The fact that Apollyon could have just been asked to leave was never addressed.
An unintended consequence of Apollyon's imprisonment was that his immortal body continued to seek life. Deep in the ground, his body produced slime, which eventually oozed to the surface. This slime began to take on various forms as it sought life- that is the origin of monsters. Jedidiah, seeing an opportunity to avenge and rescue his friend, began to raise and experiment with monsters in the depths of the Cursed Continent where the forces of Heaven could not see his work. He took up the alias Sorrowman and in a way could be considered a monster counterpart to the Hero Medal- he is the one that chooses the demon lords and sets them against humanity. By encouraging conflict with humans, more demons arise from monsters. His goal is to produce an army of demons capable of invading Heaven. Since demons cannot be killed conventionally, most demon lords are sealed away upon defeat. As such, when enough are ready, Sorrowman will revive them all at once. Again, the idea of just asking Heaven to free Apollyon is not addressed.
These details of the world's creation, the origin of monsters and even the existence of The Great Creator, Apollyon and Sorrowman are not common knowledge. Endless religions and hypothesises are present to try and explain such things, all of them are wrong.
The history of the world of Terra has thus primarily revolved around the conflict between humanity and monsters, and by extension heroes vs demon lords. While other intelligent races exist, humans and monsters are by far the most prolific. Their ability to reproduce rapidly and survive in almost all environments have made them the most influential of species.
Overall, at least until the Cataclysm War, humanity has had a growing advantage over time. The human inclination to progressively advanced infrastructure and societal unification lead to them slowly reaching a dominant position. Though often set back by conflict with monsters, it would always be two steps forward and one step back. By the time of the Cataclysm War humanity had become technologically more advanced than the modern-day of the real world. The cycle was usually that a demon lord would rise, threaten humanity and conflict would become more active, a hero would counter them, and the increased period of aggression would wane.
This all changed with the hero Folio Foster and the demon lady Beelzebub. Had any other hero faced any other demon, the cycle would likely have continued. But because the pair were a perfect match, nothing less than soul mates, they bonded over their shared despair upon the battlefield and couldn't bear to fight any further. The two began to negotiate peace between their species, a challenging prospect, but their astounding charisma came close to success. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Not because of the natures of humans and monsters, but due to the interference of the third party who had been manipulating monsters from the start- Sorrowman deceived Beelzebub into betraying humanity and seizing the Hero Medal, repeating his own torment. Her loyalty to her race won out though she would spend the rest of her life regretting her actions. After witnessing ten years of the horror of the Cataclysm War Beelzebub stole back the Hero Medal and placed it in the care of Khan, an elf who had been a member of Folio's party, in the hopes it would bring the war to an end. The medal, however, did not select another hero. Profoundly depressed and unresponsive, the medal would not choose a hero until five hundred years later- that being Rex Arany.
As a result, humanity and monsterdom entered into a total war which would theoretically not end until one side was extinct. Very few species were able to remain neutral in the war, with many faring worse than humans and monsters. There is no exact length of the war as, technically, it never ended, and neither side recognised the other as a legitimate state, meaning there was no one to declare the end of the war to. It merely reached a point where the populations of the participants were so low war was impossible or at the least, meaningless. Both sides considered non-combatants valid targets while simultaneously being horrified by attacks on their own. This attitude eventually progressed to the point in which the concept of enemy non-combatants became nonsensical, a stance which continued far into the future. By Rex's time, the idea of a monster not being an active enemy to humanity would be as confusing as the idea that right was left.
The fiercest fighting of the war continued for seven human generations and eventually reached a point where enemies were so few and far between it took more time and resources to find them than fight them. With the collapse of the Global State and monster leadership forced to retreat to Hell, the remnants of both sides began to focus more on survival than battle. Due to the enormous damage to human infrastructure and the faster recovery of monsterkind, the post-war world placed them on equal ground. In the modern-day, most humans live either in autonomous settlements or city-states with there being relatively few countries (but still numbering in the hundreds). Monsters are in a similar situation, living in small settlements usually concealed in the wilderness.
In the last 60 years or so, the Demon Empire (secretly backed by Sorrowman) has been making attempts to reunify monsters with little success. Monsters were more interested in survival than ideological wars. Sorrowman tried to force conflict by spreading a number of fake hero medals, few achieved much. It wasn't until about 20 years ago that independent monsters have been more likely to join with the empire. The death of Cerberus at the hands of Helen Arany acted as a unifying factor. Cerberus was an extremely popular figure in monster culture, revered the world over. The type of monster that arose from the slime of his body, Hell Hounds, proved to be charismatic figures and the Sons of Cerberus have been able to convince monsters around the globe to increase their aggression.
Things changed when Terra was visited by Apollyon. An entity as mysterious as the GC, Apollyon came from 'The Furthest Land.' Referring to himself as a travelling philosopher, Apollyon roamed the planet having discussions with its residents. His escort was a Divine One named Jedidiah. It was through these discussions that free will emerged, spreading like a virus through people. Jedidiah, in particular, became enamoured with the idea of freedom and considered himself Apollyon's friend. In response to the spread of free will, the Divine Ones attempted to eliminate Apollyon. Jedidiah was ordered to betray his friend and caved to the pressure by luring Apollyon into a trap. The resulting battle created the bizarre landmass known as the Cursed Continent, later to be the home of the seat of the Demon Empire, Hell. Apollyon, however, was immortal. The best the Divine Ones could do was to seal his body in the centre of the planet, separating his soul. The soul was imprisoned in Heaven. Jedidiah, consumed by regret, tossed himself into the dirt of the Cursed Continent and planned to stay there forever. He was presumed dead in the battle. The fact that Apollyon could have just been asked to leave was never addressed.
An unintended consequence of Apollyon's imprisonment was that his immortal body continued to seek life. Deep in the ground, his body produced slime, which eventually oozed to the surface. This slime began to take on various forms as it sought life- that is the origin of monsters. Jedidiah, seeing an opportunity to avenge and rescue his friend, began to raise and experiment with monsters in the depths of the Cursed Continent where the forces of Heaven could not see his work. He took up the alias Sorrowman and in a way could be considered a monster counterpart to the Hero Medal- he is the one that chooses the demon lords and sets them against humanity. By encouraging conflict with humans, more demons arise from monsters. His goal is to produce an army of demons capable of invading Heaven. Since demons cannot be killed conventionally, most demon lords are sealed away upon defeat. As such, when enough are ready, Sorrowman will revive them all at once. Again, the idea of just asking Heaven to free Apollyon is not addressed.
These details of the world's creation, the origin of monsters and even the existence of The Great Creator, Apollyon and Sorrowman are not common knowledge. Endless religions and hypothesises are present to try and explain such things, all of them are wrong.
The history of the world of Terra has thus primarily revolved around the conflict between humanity and monsters, and by extension heroes vs demon lords. While other intelligent races exist, humans and monsters are by far the most prolific. Their ability to reproduce rapidly and survive in almost all environments have made them the most influential of species.
Overall, at least until the Cataclysm War, humanity has had a growing advantage over time. The human inclination to progressively advanced infrastructure and societal unification lead to them slowly reaching a dominant position. Though often set back by conflict with monsters, it would always be two steps forward and one step back. By the time of the Cataclysm War humanity had become technologically more advanced than the modern-day of the real world. The cycle was usually that a demon lord would rise, threaten humanity and conflict would become more active, a hero would counter them, and the increased period of aggression would wane.
This all changed with the hero Folio Foster and the demon lady Beelzebub. Had any other hero faced any other demon, the cycle would likely have continued. But because the pair were a perfect match, nothing less than soul mates, they bonded over their shared despair upon the battlefield and couldn't bear to fight any further. The two began to negotiate peace between their species, a challenging prospect, but their astounding charisma came close to success. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Not because of the natures of humans and monsters, but due to the interference of the third party who had been manipulating monsters from the start- Sorrowman deceived Beelzebub into betraying humanity and seizing the Hero Medal, repeating his own torment. Her loyalty to her race won out though she would spend the rest of her life regretting her actions. After witnessing ten years of the horror of the Cataclysm War Beelzebub stole back the Hero Medal and placed it in the care of Khan, an elf who had been a member of Folio's party, in the hopes it would bring the war to an end. The medal, however, did not select another hero. Profoundly depressed and unresponsive, the medal would not choose a hero until five hundred years later- that being Rex Arany.
As a result, humanity and monsterdom entered into a total war which would theoretically not end until one side was extinct. Very few species were able to remain neutral in the war, with many faring worse than humans and monsters. There is no exact length of the war as, technically, it never ended, and neither side recognised the other as a legitimate state, meaning there was no one to declare the end of the war to. It merely reached a point where the populations of the participants were so low war was impossible or at the least, meaningless. Both sides considered non-combatants valid targets while simultaneously being horrified by attacks on their own. This attitude eventually progressed to the point in which the concept of enemy non-combatants became nonsensical, a stance which continued far into the future. By Rex's time, the idea of a monster not being an active enemy to humanity would be as confusing as the idea that right was left.
The fiercest fighting of the war continued for seven human generations and eventually reached a point where enemies were so few and far between it took more time and resources to find them than fight them. With the collapse of the Global State and monster leadership forced to retreat to Hell, the remnants of both sides began to focus more on survival than battle. Due to the enormous damage to human infrastructure and the faster recovery of monsterkind, the post-war world placed them on equal ground. In the modern-day, most humans live either in autonomous settlements or city-states with there being relatively few countries (but still numbering in the hundreds). Monsters are in a similar situation, living in small settlements usually concealed in the wilderness.
In the last 60 years or so, the Demon Empire (secretly backed by Sorrowman) has been making attempts to reunify monsters with little success. Monsters were more interested in survival than ideological wars. Sorrowman tried to force conflict by spreading a number of fake hero medals, few achieved much. It wasn't until about 20 years ago that independent monsters have been more likely to join with the empire. The death of Cerberus at the hands of Helen Arany acted as a unifying factor. Cerberus was an extremely popular figure in monster culture, revered the world over. The type of monster that arose from the slime of his body, Hell Hounds, proved to be charismatic figures and the Sons of Cerberus have been able to convince monsters around the globe to increase their aggression.