Lucifer and his allies were before the High Council in enchanted chains, charged with heresy and blasphemy of the foulest order. A deep resentment toward the loyalists swelled in Lucifer's heart, and his brother, Yahweh, likewise felt a consuming hatred for his brother’s betrayal. Yahweh ordered that Gabriel use the divine tome to create for the Luciferian separatists their very own continent to live upon. It was a hell-scape upon the world. A place of boiling rivers, scorching wastes and hot-springs of noxious fumes. This was ancient Ragnarok. Lucifer and his separatists were cast from the High Heavens while the rest of his followers were forced into slavery. As they fell, Yahweh wrought a terrible curse that would, over time, strip them of their angelic forms. Eventually, Lucifer’s mighty archangels became the mountain-folk. His cherubim became the diminutive imps, and his seraphim became demons.
The lives of demon-kind are often wrought with mistrust, rumor, prejudice, and insult from other races, as they tend to have an unsettling air about them, and most people are uncomfortable around them, whether or not they are aware of their benign nature. This is their lot outside of their homelands of
Ragnarok and is often why the societies of demon-kind prefer an isolationist approach to outside nations.
The races of demon-kind tend to view themselves as superior to most other races. To a degree, this is not without merit; demons and imps have a natural aptitude for
Magic that many others do not, while mountain-folk tower over all other mortal races with equally unrivaled strength, save for the giants of the distant past. The civilized societies of demon-kind today are a flourishing ecosystem of commerce, magi-technological advances, and military might.
A Long History
The origins of demon-kind reach back hundreds of thousands of years and they are some of the oldest races in the world, second-most to its oldest native inhabitants: the
kobolds and
dragons.
After the four great
elemental titans imprisoned the
old gods in the
Realm of Insanity and ordered the world, the High Heavens descended from the skies, having chased the old gods across the stars. Though the old gods had been imprisoned by the titans, they were vulnerable to the Gods’ corruption while the angels of the High Heavens were not. This spurred the
Primordial War between angels and elementals.
Great cataclysmic forces clashed, but eventually,
Gabriel, Archon of faith and the High Heaven’s greatest sorcerer, unleashed a catastrophic spell from the
Infinus Divinititum, a divine tome of creation and destruction, that destroyed the titans’ physical forms, severing their spirits from their bodies. Their souls fled into the magical ley-lines that grew beneath the world’s surface. Victorious, the angels created the
nephilim, four equally enormous beings constructed of flesh and elemental power who were loyal to High Heavens. Their purpose was to fill the void left by the titans.
Divine Civil War & Lucifer's Curse
The genocide of the titans sparked outrage in the Heavens. This dissenting movement was led by
Yahweh's brother,
Lucifer. They questioned the ethics of such an event and the wisdom of Yahweh's leadership. This infuriated Yahweh, sparking the Divine Civil War. Vast swathes of the High Heavens were turned to ash during the fighting until the Luciferians were eventually defeated.
Gabriel, under the command of Yahweh, used the
Infinus Divinititum, a great divine tome of creation and destruction, to rip an entire continent from the sea. Ragnarok; a volcanic wasteland that Yahweh intended to be the separatist’s prison. In one last insult, he cursed the rebellious angels with a curse named after his defiant brother, transforming them into demons over hundreds of years.
A New Life
Lucifer channeled his bitterness and sorrow into a desire to keep his people alive during these dark times.
In the burgeoning days of demon-kind's civilization, Lucifer established the
Dominion of Torment, demon-kind's military nation, created to fend off both the monstrous creatures of ancient Ragnarok and any incursions wrought by the heavens.
After Lucifer’s disappearance during a cataclysmic battle with Gabriel,
Casmia, Lucifer's companion, founded the
Dominion of Doubt to research magic, both to benefit demon-kind as a whole and as a way to find out what happened to the love of her life that day.
During this time, small groups of demons began to tend to the burned forests, allowing them to grow green once more through the usage of early druidism. They would eventually isolate themselves, becoming the reclusive satyrs.
Patricia and the Rebirth
During the centuries that followed, the constellation known as The Matron’s Hand, a series of stars orbiting a colossal astral shard left over from the early birth of the universe, came into alignment, bathing the world in pure astral ley-line magic. It was during this time that an expectant demon mother went into labor while gathering snow for water atop a mountain swollen with crystalline ley-line roots. The magic surged through both her body and that of her unborn child. This child was named
Patricia.
In her adulthood, Patricia fully realized her natural powers. She far surpassed any mage from the Dominion of Doubt and its newly established Polymath College. Before her passing, Patricia's mother gave her daughter visions of the Infinus Divinititum. The book used to raise Ragnarok from the oceans. If Patricia could acquire the book herself, she could transform Ragnarok into a lush paradise for her people.
After a long period of diplomacy and discussion, representatives of the Dominion of Torment allowed her to train a regiment of battle-magi. She used her experience and power to educate this specialized force in the arcane arts, a new form of magic that imitated her own innate gifts. With her special force of arcane battle-mages at her side, she infiltrated the High Heavens and stole the Infinus Divinititum.
When Patricia channeled her magic through the book, she discovered she was able to create wonders beyond comprehension. She summoned great storm clouds and rained pure ley-line magic down upon the continent, imbuing Ragnarok with new life. This event turned most of Ragnarok into a verdant paradise. This event is what many historians refer to as the
Rebirth of Ragnarok. With it came the founding of the
Dominion of Indulgence, the cultural hub, and eventually the capital of Ragnarok and demon-kind as a whole.
In her later years, Patricia was assassinated on her deathbed by Gabriel with intent to recover the book, but it was hidden away, never to be seen or used again. The secrets of its location died with her that day.
The Triad Council and the Three Dominions
Since their founding, the three dominions have developed distinct cultures. Each dominion governs and operates independently from one another as three separate nations, but they are tied together by a loose confederation wherein all three dominions benefit from each other's accomplishments and services to work towards the betterment of all demon-kind. This confederation of nation-states is organized and directed in times of crisis by the
Triad Council.
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