The Age of Creation

The Age of Dissent

The Age of Fear

The First Incursion

The Age of Freedom

The Age of Revelations

The First Age of Betrayal

The Age of Creation

In the Beginning, there was nothing but the void. And then in the next instant, there was the separation of that which would be, and that which was...

From the depths of the void came God, the all-father. Then came Yves, the first soul who is now called the Archangel of Destiny. God and Yves spoke for a time, and then God decided to set things in motion.

And then there was Light.

More precisely, then were the first seven celestials created - Lucifer, Michael, Baal, David, Eli, Uriel and Gabriel. In the time since the beginning there has been some contention about whether Lucifer or Michael was actually the Firstborn, but the answer has never been clear, even to those who rank among the Archangels. Most consider the question academic, considering the events that would later unfold.

From the Void came the Voice of God, known to mortal men and the Host as Metatron. Metatron laid down the wishes of God as it related to the creation of the corporeal realm, as well as the place now known as Heaven.

And the work began.

Time passed - ages unfolded as the Firstborn were joined by others, and as the celestials learned to create others of their kind to help them. The concept of Words, which had always been present but had yet to be understood, was codified and expanded to fit those celestials who had been created by the Firstborn. Other creatures were born as well on the corporeal plane, giving rise to the first corporeals.

Elsewhere, Blandine and Beleth (both Archangels) began to explore an area which is now known as The Marches. To this day, no one knows whether it was part of the creations of the Firstborn or whether it had existed before.

And for another age, the creation of the world progressed.

The Age of Dissent

In the beginning, there had been the First Soul known as Yves, the First celestials who would set the World in motion, and one other. The Being known as Metatron, who was neither celestial nor corporeal, began to speak in the name of God, carrying the directives of the Divine to the celestials. Most of the Host accepted this with grace and humility.

But not all.

Lucifer, the Archangel of Light, was beginning to show the first signs of dislike for Metatron. Metatron and Lucifer spoke often in the beginning, but as time passed the rift between Lucifer and Metatron grew. This came to a head when both Yves and Metatron spoke to the celestials, informing them that the corporeals known as humans were not to be interfered with and to be served by celestials. Lucifer questioned the wisdom of this openly, and suggested that an experiment be done to determine the best course of action, to which God agreed, and The Garden of Eden was created.

Then the two humans who would serve as the crux of the experiment were created, now known to us as Adam and Lilith. God, through Metatron, explained the situation to the two of them, and explained how they would decide the course of humanity. Then came the first of many unexpected events as Lilith looked into the eyes of Metatron and told him that she would not serve him, and walked away. Unperturbed, Metatron set to work, and another female named Eve was created. And the Experiment was begun.

To this day, what precisely happened in Eden is unclear, since its location has been lost to the ravages of time, but the consensus is that a celestial interfered with its natural course, driving the two humans to failure. Lucifer was certain that this proved his point - that humans should not rule over the corporeal. However, Metatron said that the opposite was true, and that it only proved that celestials could not help but interfere with humanity for even a short time. Metatron and Lucifer argued about this for a long time, with neither side budging. The argument finally ended, but Lucifer was not convinced. Many others among the Host who had heard the arguments of Metatron and Lucifer found that they were not convinced as well.

Lucifer and certain others began to speak to each other, trying to figure out a way to convince God of the certain failure of the humans. During this time, Lucifer and Metatron spoke less and less, each time their words growing more heated. Finally, the Archangel of Light came up with a solution - Michael, as Archangel of War (which was not truly understood at the time, and translated more as conflict) had taken to using conflict as a form of settling differences between Seraphim. The idea was simple - if one side fought against another, each holding on to their version of the truth, the side which came out victorious had the greater Truth, and there must be a position which the loser had not yet seen.

Thus was the idea of the first revolution born. But before it came to blows, Lucifer decided to try and convince God to use reason one last time, and went to Metatron. The two of them argued for hours upon hours, but neither one could convince the other. Finally, Lucifer saw that there was no other way left open to him but Michael's. It is said that both Lucifer and Metatron wept as they both drew their weapons, but in that instant, Lucifer grew enraged at Metatron and what would have been a contest became a battle.

Thus began The Fall.

The Age of Fear

After a time, Lucifer and his forces realized that they could not continue the battle and survive. Withdrawal from Heaven was necessary in order to continue and fight another day. Lucifer gathered his strongest supporters and started on the long journey into the farther Celestial Realms. The Archangel of War continued to harry them, wishing to see the conflict come to a decisive end rather than drag on for eternity. Then came yet another unexpected development...

Its name was Bran, and it was the Darkness that hid the Light.

An entity wrapped in swirling purple robes appeared in the midst of Lucifer's armies and began to invoke powerful wards and songs which had never been heard before, masking the location of the former Archangel of Light and his fellow conspirators. Never striking a blow, this purple-robed being kept the forces of War at bay, always teleporting people away or causing them to become lost in the spaces between the Realms, which we now know as Limbo.

Finally, Lucifer led his people into a Realm that was burned and blackened, twisted and dead, with great iron gates at its entrance. Lucifer ordered everyone inside and closed the gates behind them, walling themselves off from the forces of Heaven. Everyone complied with the Lightbringer's orders, but the being known as Bran was not to be found. Lucifer immediately called a council of his greatest supporters and gave them Words. He then decreed that all other Celestials had 24 hours to bind themselves to a Superior's service or be destroyed. All but the most foolish did so. The rest died.

For the next three days and three nights, all the armies of the Fallen waited by the Gates as Lucifer stayed in council with his "Princes". All the while, noises of all kinds beset them - there was a wailing and howling the likes of which chilled even the most hardened of warriors. On the dawn of the fourth day, Lucifer and the Princes left their council, and formed up at the front of the army. With them was Bran, who had not been seen those three days before, but was now at the Lightbringer's side. Astaroth, Lucifer's firstborn son and the newly-crowned Prince of Starlight, took a token step forward and drew Lucifer's sigil into the dust.

And there was silence for a moment. And then the first wave hit them. In an instant, it became clear to everyone that the Realm that they had just walked into was apparently inhabited by things the likes of which could not be described. As the roiling mass of creatures and things came at the nascent Horde, the Symphony slammed shut around them, and a concept that has been echoed by countless Corporeals since then entered the minds and souls of a million knowing Celestials...

Welcome to Hell.

The First Incursion

The Age of Freedom

Thousands of years passed by. Civilizations rose and fell, generations lived and died, and still there had been no sign of the forces of Lucifer. In Heaven, the Seraphim Council was becoming more and more concerned. Expeditions had been sent by both the Archangel of War and the Archangel of Purity into the area now called Hell. Upon arrival, their Hearts first grew black and shriveled, and then finally shattered. Many thought that this meant that Hell was impossible to live in at first. Yves, however, continued to believe that sooner or later, Lucifer's forces would show themselves on the Corporeal plane.

In response to this potential threat, a new choir of angels was formed with the ability to hear disturbances in the Symphony far more clearly than other Celestials. The Grigori as they were called had a very simple mission - live among the humans, keeping quiet until they were needed, and to keep watch for outside influences. They took to this task quickly and adeptly, and were soon rooting out pockets of Ethereal interference. However, they were still not finding the influences of the Diabolical, and no one knew whether this was a sign that the enemy was gone, or still deep in hiding. Still, so much time had passed...

Six thousand years, in fact. The year was 16,000 BC, and things were about to change.

Lilith, the original woman from the Eden Experiment, had spent the time walking among humanity and the Grigori, watching as the Host slowly molded civilization towards something more to their liking. As she walked among them, she realized that the Host was beginning to lose respect for her race, becoming absentee overseerers and subtle manipulators of humans. The free will that was supposedly theirs was being taken out of their hands ever so slowly, even if it was 'for their own good'. As she became more and more upset by the way events were turning, she remembered the one Celestial still alive that had always respected her wishes and her free will. She remembered the Morningstar.

Where the Heavenly Host had always looked for outward signs that Lucifer was still alive, searching in The Marches and on the Corporeal plane, their sense of outrage about what had transpired had kept them from doing the one thing that Lilith chose to do. She decided to contact Lucifer directly through songs that she had discovered. At first, Lucifer was quite surprised to hear from her and not a little appalled that a _human_ of all things had chosen to contact him, but after the initial shock wore off, Lucifer and Lilith began to speak more often. They would sometimes speak for hours, conveying what had happened in their respective realms. While Lucifer was often evasive when speaking about Hell, Lilith soon realized two very important things - the first being that things in Hell were much worse than anyone among the Host could possibly imagine.

The second was that Lucifer was trapped there.

One day after a very long conversation, Lilith thought about what Lucifer had said to her. She knew what it would be like to be a prisoner - Metatron had nearly done that to her back in the days of the Eden Experiment. She could imagine living under a set of rules not of your choosing, with your back to the wall and no choices but to live in submission or to simply not live. She'd been able to choose to walk away, but had Lucifer and the other Archangels not been watching the experiment so closely, there was no telling what Metatron would have done. And when she thought of Lucifer, trapped behind walls for six thousand years with an army that was fighting a losing battle to unspeakable things because he had chosen to do things differently than God would have wished...

God had said that he wanted her to have free will, to do with however she pleased. It was time for her to see just how far that went. And in the depths of Hell, a loud roar ripped through the air as the Symphony rushed into Hell for the first time in six thousand years. As the Council of Princes looked on in awe, they were rocked by something that hadn't been seen by any of them in millennia - a break in the eternal cloud cover in Hell which revealed a ray of sunshine streaming down into the crystal dome of Lucifer's Infernal Cathedral before refracting into a thousand different shades of color...

That was the image that the assembled Princes saw on the day the first Tether to Freedom appeared in Hell. The monsters that had assaulted the Horde for millennia also remember it as well, for at sight of it Baal and Astaroth led a combined charge which served to drive them out of what is now known as Dis. And though in reality it was Lilith, The Giver of Freedom and the Mother of Lilim who carried that day, in the hearts and souls of every Demon in Hell, it served to reaffirm their faith in their chosen leader.

Let there be Light.

The Age of Revelations

As the armies of the Morningstar began to open operations of the Corporeal plane, the Host was forced to oppose them more and more openly. This caused widespread destruction among the human populace of the world as war bands and even small armies banked by either the Infernal or the Divine battled each other, with normal people often caught in the crossfire. The body count on both sides rose steadily, but as it did, certain information was beginning to reach Heaven that was not easily discounted.

The first redemptions from Hell brought horrifying stories along with them. When the rebel army locked itself into Hell, they were almost immediately set upon by monsters that practically defied description and whose appearances and actions made even the Lady of Nightmares cringe. All of the attempts by the rebels to identify these beasts had failed, and it had since been assumed that they were in fact native to Hell. While none of them were considered particularly intelligent, they had a certain amount of cunning that made them extremely dangerous. The City of Dis had been heavily reinforced with thick wall and powerful wards to act as a defense against them, but even with those protections there were still parts of Dis that one did not go into alone...

At first, certain members of the Host were said to have commented that Lucifer was being punished by God for his transgressions, and there was some quiet satisfaction at knowing that Lucifer was suffering. This opinion began to change when Eli received his first redemption. Upon hearing about these things, he paled somewhat and quietly called for an Archangels-only meeting of the Seraphim council, at which his redemption retold his tales and even showed images of the beasts using songs of Ethereal Light. Once the redemption was done, he was asked to leave and to not speak of what he had seen. Once the council chamber had been cleared, Eli took the podium.

Standing next to the images of the beasts, he stated something that troubled everyone - that these beasts were not anything he had ever seen, nor were they things that he, as Archangel of Creation, could explain. He went further to state that they could not be native to the Marches or to Hell for that matter. Upon closer examination certain beasts had showed signs of having been consciously engineered in a fashion that he found repugnant and downright disturbing. But most disturbing of all was this - while almost anything known could be said to fall under the auspices of Creation, these creatures specifically did not and he would quite happily assist in putting them down. As unthinkable as words such as that were, they were quickly echoed by similar statements from the Archangel of Dreams and the Archangel of Animals

As more time passed, the reports continued to stream in, both from redemptions and increasingly from intelligence gathered on the Corporeal plane. Many of the demons on Corporeal detail were heard speaking to each other about experiences in fighting 'the Outsiders'. It was clear that while the redemptions had spoken the truth, the scope of the problem was worse than had believed. Stories of Infernals that had been somehow changed were surfacing more and more, as well as stories of monsters than showed active intelligence and understanding of tactics.

Finally, Dominic was forced to admit that he had opened a file regarding the name of an 'Outsider' that was appearing in more and more Infernal debriefings and was whispered in the most hushed tones by even hardened servitors of The War. Although the contents of this file were classified material and would not be shared with people outside of Judgment, the Archangel of Judgment was willing to divulge the name under investigation.

Its name was Leviathan, and it was the Queen of the Beasts.

The First Age of Betrayal

While Heaven began their inquiries into the nature of the 'Outsiders', Hell was beginning to recover from the thousands of years of battle. The Outsiders had been pushed beyond the boundaries of Dis, albeit at a very high cost. The Badlands of Hell - the area that surrounded the 'Principalities' of Hell that had been secured - were still a veritable no man's land where the beasts still swarmed, but from the relative safety of the Great Wall, most demons could look forward to a future of _productive_ combat against the real enemy.

With Hell relatively secured, the Princes began moving on the Corporeal plane, working to establish beachheads among the humans. This was somewhat difficult to do, as the creation and mechanics of Tethers were still not clearly understood, but like all things, given enough time and enough effort, the Horde was successful. Lust, Greed, Factions and Nightmares quickly gain ground in the minds of humanity, but soon face reprisals from the Host. Many humans start to realize the nature of the combatants around them, and begin looking for ways to gain power for themselves.

One of the other major powers in Hell comes into play at this point - Astaroth, the Prince of Starlight and Lucifer's first born son. Astaroth's word begins to encompass the search for knowledge that can not face being revealed, and he quickly begins to support humans who would learn methods of gaining forbidden power. Soon, Astaroth's Corporeal organization is almost exclusively human - people who have sold their souls in exchange for hidden means of power and influence. Unknown to the Host and most of the Horde as well, Astaroth has also learned the (still unknown) secrets of Necromancy and Sorcery, as well as the secrets of creating Constructs. With these powers at his command, his soldiers begin making great advances among the human communities, along with his allies Gebbeleth and Beelzebub.

With the majority of his Celestial forces free to act, Astaroth initiated a campaign of expansion in Hell, expanding the borders of Dis further into the Badlands of Hell. His armies, all veterans of the war to take Hell, moved further and further out into the uncharted areas, giving the Morningstar additional information about the nature of the Outsiders and the disposition of their forces. As the campaign continued, the Lightbringer's progeny would take great lengths to capture Outsider beasts and bring them back to Hell proper for exhibition and execution in the gladiatorial arenas of Dis and Gehenna. This brought greater and greater prestige to both Astaroth and the Lightbringer.

As Astaroth's power grew, fewer and fewer people opposed him, as he had the favor of Lucifer and while he was arrogant and boastful, he got results. While none of the Princes were willing to act openly against him, there were those among the Horde who were beginning to become nervous about the tendencies they saw in the Prince of Starlight. Ultimately, two Princes, Asmodeus and Belial, directed servitors to covertly keep watch on Astaroth in case there was potential for a problem later on. Though those servants (a Calabite of Fire named Damon, and an Impudite of the Game named Raschagal) never found any evidence of treachery during their investigations, both the Princes and their servitors were convinced that Astaroth needed to be watched.

As the scope of Astaroth's victories grew, he took a step that caused further concern to his enemies, but increased his esteem within the general populace of Hell. After slaying a major servitor of the Outsider Leviathan, he moved his Cathedral into the Badlands to rest on top of the lair of the Beast and declared that he would not move his Cathedral back to Hell proper until he had defeated all of his enemies. It was at this point that Lilith began to grow nervous, for while the others saw only bravado and glory-lust, she saw something deeper - a powerful Need for greater and greater victories. But the most overwhelming Need that she could see in his eyes was the Need for a victory so great that he would be declared the Greatest of the Balseraph, even greater than his father, the Morningstar.

Lilith, after much thought, brought this to the attention of the Morningstar. After a short time, he decided to inform Asmodeus that he wanted Astaroth brought in to be checked by Asmodeus personally. There could be no one who was exempt from the Game, not even Astaroth. Asmodeus agreed and began to assemble a small force to take with him for the trek to Astaroth's Cathedral when Fate, as it were, decided to answer the question of Astaroth's loyalty to the Lightbringer. All around Dis, sirens began to wail as a horde of beasts came over the horizon. Asmodeus, Baal and Lucifer all ran to the Great Wall, preparing to send a force outward towards the Cathedral of Astaroth to reinforce his position.

As they reached the wall, what they saw hardened even the Heart of Asmodeus - instead of throwing themselves at the walls of Astaroth's tower, they were charging around it towards the Great Wall. As they looked out on the Badlands, they could see the form of Astaroth standing on the top parapets of his Cathedral, looking back towards them. And doing nothing. In a state of shock and disbelief, Lucifer ordered Baal to withdraw his forces from earth and retake their positions on the Great Wall until the Game had finished going over the state of security, and until Asmodeus had personally beheaded every servitor of Starlight that still remained inside the borders of the Principalities.

It is said that the propensity for betrayal runs in family lines - if that is true, then Lucifer should have seen this coming, but for whatever reason realization came literally a day late and a dollar short. In any event, it is also said that Asmodeus has yet to be completely forgiven by Lucifer for not stopping his son from turning on him. Dominic and Asmodeus have spoken to each other about this before, but neither one speaks about the irony of the situation. No one needs to.

Finally, it's said that every now and again on quiet nights in Hell, Lucifer and Lilith can be seen together on the great wall, silently looking outward towards an obsidian dome in the distance with flecks of quartz in it. If anyone has ever seen or heard one of those moments, no one has ever been willing to admit to it...

Who wishes to see the tears of the Morningstar?