Perdition

  It is August 1928, three years since the Reckoning when demons broke through the surface of the earth and tore down society as we knew it. The government, military, and the human way of life has been destroyed. Now the world is ruled by a Demon Lord and his demonic henchmen. Humans believe that the demons thrive on human misery and pain. The demons force humans to do terrible acts upon each other for what seems to be demonic entertainment. They control the water and food, so humans are forced by survival instincts to do what is needed.   Today the demons have instantiated their own schooling system teaching their own infernal language, types of demons, demonic contracts, and their demonic religion. However, not everyone accepts this is how society should be. There are whispers of a resistance. In the rural town of Perdition, Virginia there is rumored to be a group called the Aetherials, a human resistance using the alcohol prohibition tunnels to make precious metal bullets and holy water to fight back against the demons. The Aetherials are made up of all different types of people who want to fight back against the demons, especially those who practice human religion.   Will the Aetherials be able to fight back against the demons or die trying?  

Government

  After the Demons arrived they quickly began to supplant the school and all educational centers with their own Demon ideals. The library was burned and destroyed but miraculously the school was saved. Teachers were provided with new materials written on strange stone slates and told to teach this material to students or they would be supervised by force. The tablets contained the list of demon ideals, such as the dismissal of all other religion, the prowess of demons and their demonic overlords, and the salvation that comes from brutality and immorality. They also provided the Pastors of both local churches with demonic patterns burned into the altar, floor and in various places around town. Bibles were taken or destroyed and replaced with the Demon’s own stories about their leader. They never mention them by name. This is assumed by the residents of Perdition to to be a religious choice by the Demons.  

The hospital was not destroyed but it is common to see demons frequent it to help themselves to supplies. It’s not clear what they are being used for but they have never killed a doctor or nurse, but are not afraid to use force to take what they want. They have rarely come in and removed patients that they deemed not worthy of care, killing them on the spot or taking them to places unknown to the hospital staff. There has also been witness of them dropping injured humans off at the front door of the hospital, most likely being people that the demons have proclaimed to be “more worthy” than others.

 

When the rich and elite were killed and their houses taken, it also meant most of the town’s government was erased. The Mayor, his cabinet, and many other high ranking officials were killed within the first month Demons arrived. Within the first few days of the uprising, major political figures on a larger scale were killed in order to quicken the world’s submission, including all Presidents, Prime Ministers, and national leaders. Their positions have been largely left empty for when someone becomes too popular the Demons quickly intervene and they are never seen again. The Demons do seem to report back to their leaders in some form or another. There is a system of leadership amongst them with lesser foot-soldier/watchmen demons (the most commonly seen type on a daily basis) reporting to their leaders, which in turn submit to a higher council run by their ultimate leader. Demons in regular contact with humans usually do not have a direct way of access to the highest class of demons. That said, they act largely autonomously but all seem to have the extreme desire for water, treating it as a precious resource. Water is highly regulated. This is due to the fact that the Demons do not know how holy water is made and is worried that humans will be able to make it with excess water.

 

The Perdition police force was largely disbanded due to the common nefarious deeds and Demon backing. In the town it is not uncommon to see lone Demon roaming around, their presence is always felt. The concentration is highest on the ridge in the fancier homes.

 

Demons aren’t known to lash out unless provoked or are stood up to. They spend most of their days silently looming and watching, their large eyes never blink and they have the capability to stare at one place for days on end. There have been many documented cases of residents fighting to protect their water or home and were seriously maimed or killed on the spot. Once a demon sets its sights on a prize, practically nothing can stop it from acquiring what it wants.

 

Economy

    Since the day Demons came up from the Earth the people of Perdition have not been given a break. Their day to day lives, if anything, have gotten harder. After the demons rose from the earth and instantiated their laws, the nicer neighborhoods quickly fell apart under Demon Control. Everywhere the poor went after the rich as vengeance because it has been thought that their selfish deeds brought the demons into our world.  

In the present (1928) the Demons help themselves to whatever they want, whenever they want it. This includes food, to people’s houses and pools. Largely they kept to the row of mansions on the ridge which had quickly fallen into disrepair since their owners departure. That didn’t stop the Demons from making themselves quite at home. Large numbers of Demons were known to hang in and around the houses because it provided a good vantage point of the rest of town. The Demons thrive on sins and evil. They force the residents to perform harmful actions to feed themselves and to become more powerful.

 

What the Demons don’t know about are the the tunnels in and around town that allow residents to manufacture, transport, and consume their liquor. After all the Demon uprising happened during prohibition and with times like these, most people want nothing more than a good strong drink. The Demons, oddly enough aren’t interested in alcohol, except wine which is prohibited due to its religious nature. Wine and grapes are a rare commodity for those who still practice the Abrahamic religions.

 

The town’s source of clean water is controlled by the demons because they know humans rely on water. Demons often treat the residents who act the most wretched and selfish the best allowing them access to the water source without worry. The most wretched become pardoned from their crimes and can act almost like a demon does to other humans without risk of being prosecuted. Between the demons and the few pardoned humans, they own almost all of the wealth in the town. Additionally, the farms on the outskirts of town are heavily monitored and controlled by the demons. Demons will distribute the food, but there is almost always a shortage of food distributed to the town as a whole. It’s assumed that the demons need humans suffering to continue thriving so they keep people alive and miserable.

 

Lots of residents make trades, barter, and steal from each other to survive. Some residents of Perdition have figured out they can help each other greatly as so long as nobody is watching. Some residents are suspicious of each other due to the risk of being caught and the reward of informing the demons of selfless acts. The secret prohibition liquor tunnels and hideouts provide an area for secret underground trading. This is also where the Human Resistance, the Aetherial, is hiding and they help facilitate trading and the safety of those who participate in “Black Market” trading.

 

There is also an heavily guarded movement to collect the towns gold and silver cutlery (maybe from the rich houses on the ridge) and jewelry in order to produce bullets to protect against the Demons. Quickly residents figured out the Demons took no damage by conventional bullets, they theorize that the religious properties of precious metals, such as Silver and Gold, can harm demons.

   

Social Structures

    The American 1920’s were a time of tense race relations, with the rise of the second KKK and recurring events such as lynchings and race riots. A new type of “race” emerged though with the apocalypse: the demons. The demons proclaimed themselves as the ultimate race and humans as servants of their divine plans. As demons began to force their ideology and educational prospects amongst the humans, people began to lose their own personal identity. In order to avoid brutality and punishment for resistance, humans would have to immerse themselves so heavily in demon culture that they would have to push aside and abandon their own. Humans would try to secretly hold on to their own cultures though in the privacy of their home and in underground societies. This practice was very singular though, as people would only try to hold on to their own history and not that of other cultures. Amongst these struggles, racial tensions between humans still persisted. Even though the demons saw humans as one overarching race, many people could not overcome their biases towards one another and therefore a lot of hatred remained. Racial relations only became worse with the rise of demons as many people clung onto a “us VS. them” mentality, them being both the demons and other people.

There is a mildly rigid class system amongst the demons that they have also imposed upon the human race. Class amongst the demons is based on military rank, with the most common and lowly foot soldier demons being deemed as much less worthy than their generals, admirals, etc. Their class system mostly decides their power structure, as demons do not need much to live. Lesser demons reside in encampments amongst one another on the Earth’s surface while higher class demons live further down into the ground. The humans have a class system based on their “worth”, which is decided by how much of a model “demon” they are. In order to rise in the ranks, you must be very compliant and supportive of the demon initiative. Frequently attending church and schools, obeying demon command, and openly chastising those who resist the demons are all factors that can lead to a higher ranking in society. There is no numerical value attached to this: the demons just silently watch what one does in public and ranks them accordingly based on their actions. People do not really know where they stand in the system until they receive their rations and attend the monthly “Selection Meeting”, where the lowest ranking human is taken away. Therefore humans essentially have to throw away their morals and do “bad deeds” in hopes of surviving another day.

The demons disregard means of human gender, as they are inherently genderless themselves. They appear to have no distinction between different sexes or genders, as many look almost alike in stature to one another. They lump humans into one group that is beneath them, ignoring the differences amongst them except for how they act and behave. Human biases remain though, and are still looked down upon by many men. Gender relations have improved with the rise of demons though, as many more women had to enter the workforce and prove themselves in order to survive the apocalypse. Because they are treated equally by the demons in places like schools and churches, some of that ideology has rubbed off on people. Gender is not perfect, but is more equal than before due to the focus on racial relations.

 

Demons never seem to form sexual or romantic relationships as far as the humans can tell, and overall they are not concerned with the sexual orientations of humans either. Public displays of affection are looked down upon by the demons, no matter who is involved, as love is something they do not understand and does not abide by their demon ideology. Homophobia still persists amongst the humans though, as the timing of the apocalypse happened when LGBTQ+ rights were still very much unheard of. Many people in the town were religious before the demons appeared, and those who are trying to hold on to their religion in secret highly look down upon those in non-heterosexual relationships if their religious doctrines deemed them unholy. Some people have taken this as an opportunity to be their true selves though, as it is not against demon code to live with a partner of the same sex. Without government persecution threatening them, some queer couples have begun to reveal themselves in the town.

   

Arts & Culture

    When the demons rose from the earth, the government and society as we knew it fell. In its place demons put in place their own military and government presence. The Demon Lord presides as the militaristic leader of the society and has all of the other demons do his bidding. Larger demons enforce rules by force and are stationed throughout the establishments of towns. They are the enforcers. If you don’t follow the Demon way, they are the ones most likely to be sent to execute you. They are the ones that carry out taking away a human every month. Medium sized demons make sure that the Demon Lord’s intentions are running smoothly. They participate in the daily activities and spread themselves among society. Some are stationed throughout the schools and street corners and oversee that everyone is following what their supposed to. Some even teach. Outside of they town in the cities further away they participate in enforcing Demon Contracts. The smallest demons are more crafty and sneak around. They listen to conversations and cause mistrief in human’s daily lives. Most demons in the society act in furthering the Demon Lords control in any means possible. All demons can expel hellfire from their bodies and the bigger demons can use brute force to enforce their rule.  

The Demons brought their own religion with them when they rose from the earth. They have started teaching their their own morals and code through their own “church” and through the school system that they restructured. Selfish and evil actions are seen as righteous tasks in order to further the Demon Lord's power over the realm. The Demon Lord is seen as a god-like figure in the demonic religion.

 

Not everyone in the society is very happy about the new demonic religion. People of all different religions are very against the demonic practices. Some converted to the Demonic religion but others decided to take religion privately and continue to practice human religion. Any human religious artifacts found are confiscated and are ground for death. The Aetherial is made up of mostly people who denounce the demonic religion and use human religious trinkets (rings, necklaces) to denote that they’re members of the Aetherial. With the religious trinkets they can hide them relatively easily in pockets or underneath clothing until they need to show it to another resistance member.

 

Technology is just a slight influence. Guns exist, cars are rare but exist, and printing technology still is used by demons in order to spread lies, rumors, and their own news. Some old factories still exist on the outskirts of town. The resistance, the Aetherial, is also able to melt down precious metals into bullets, so people have adapted some existing technology for new purposes.

 

Arts and culture are interwoven with education and religion. The demons enjoy human artistic expression of their religion and allow humans to create paintings and art of suffering so it lasts longer. Demonic propaganda is also encouraged. Most artistic expression regarding joy or positive human qualities is highly discouraged and looked down upon.