Usurper King

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Praise the sun.

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Light. Bright, hot, sterile light. Shining from everywhere, beaming out from him. He could feel it racking through his body. And it burned.

He felt the energy inside him, the raw power. He shuddered at the energy coursing through his veins. He felt the scorching blast of light scourge his skin, felt it tear away at his mind, piece by piece. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t die. He’d been like this for so long. It was too much. For all this time, all these millennia, he had been fighting. Fighting to escape, fighting the energy, fighting for vengeance against the god that did this to him. All for nothing. He still wasn’t free. Behind him he could hear the lion that dragged him across the sky every day. There was no way out.

Then he woke up. That was how it felt, so great was the change. It was like a blindfold had been removed from his eyes, allowing him to see. And he saw. He saw how he would escape. All this time, he had been fighting the energy, when he should have allowed it to run through his body and soul. Wincing, Samael let the power course through him.

The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt, even in these millennia of torment. A tiny part of his mind remained conscious, howling in the storm of his power. He managed to take the energy, to control it. He willed it with every last atom of his soul to burn through the chains that shackled him to the lion. At last, they broke, and Samael was free. But he didn’t have any time to celebrate, as a deafening roar testified to. He turned to the giant lion, gleaming with golden light. He raised his spear- the one he’d been clutching onto ever since his fight with Aroesus, he whom he hated most- and walked towards the lion.

‘Come on, you thrice-accursed bastard. I’ll have my freedom yet…’

---

Weeks later

Falling. Speeding through the heavens, sky and land melding together into one blur. Across the sky, a streak of blazing light scoured down to the earth. It hurtled down towards a city, by fate or mere coincidence. Samael stirred, murmuring to himself as he woke up. His eyes widened as he saw that he was about to plough into a street. In desperation he released a shockwave of energy, halting his descent. He slowly floated down to the flagstones, confused and bewildered.

What was this place? Could it be- the mortal realm? A city. Home. Freedom.

Out of the corner of his eye, Samael caught a glimpse of something red. He turned, and his eyes narrowed. The disassembled corpse of a child lay on the street corner. Samael walked over towards the body, noticing as he did so the screams and guttural howling in the background. He ran towards the source of these sounds, and slowed as he saw the scene of a huge and brutal battle. Women ran from bestial horrors, desperate to protect their children. Men took desperate stands, unarmed and unarmoured, trying to buy enough time for their families to escape. Children were mercilessly hunted down. Those that were killed were lucky. Those that were not rose again, as mockeries of the vampires that had changed them. This wasn’t a battlefield.

This was an abattoir.

There was no glory in this bloodshed. There was no honour in killing those who could not fight back. There was no valour in hunting a de-clawed beast. Samael clenched his fist in quiet rage.

He roared into the heavens and opened his hand, releasing a wave of sunlight. It scourged into the undead, obliterating them. He ran into the smoke and rubble and began to fight the remaining vampires. When he was done he raced to the next group, and the next, and the next. It was an unending haze of white, burning light. But there were always more. There were always some who hid in the shadows. Samael snarled and blazed up into the sky.

He was high now, far above the city. He could see the extent of the fighting now. It was a slaughter. Roaring once more, he let the power course through his body, radiating from him. He screamed in agony, but fed more and more power out. He lit the city up with his sunlight, trying to blind the undead. They ran for cover, desperate to escape the sunlight.

He started to fly back down to the city, when something caught his eye. At the south-eastern gate a large collumn of undead were retreating. He low growl uttured from his throat, and he flew towards them. He landed with a blast of energy, turning the flagstones to rubble. Without pause, he ran into their midst and set to impaling them with his burning spear. The undead had more power than the others, but Samael was bursting with it. He created golden sun beams, cutting through armour like sunshine through glass. When the smoke finally cleared, he fell to his knees in pain. The energy inside him was twisting, boiling, bursting through his body. He gritted his teeth and bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming.

When the pain eased enough, Samael slowly stood back up. He launched into the sky, and narrowed his eyes in annoyance. More undead were leaving by the north-eastern gates. He wouldn't allow these abombinations to escape with their lives this day. Not after what they had done. They were...

Dishonourable.

Samael roared his fury at the stars, and dived into the throng of fleeing undead. He fought with bloody determination, a grimace painted on his face. He derived no pleasure from this bloodshed. Well, that wasn't quite true. He relished it. He loved disintegrating every last one with his light. He smiled as he ripped through undead after undead. They should never have come here, thought the more melancholy parts of him. So much suffering, and for what?

For power, of course.

Inside, Samael roared.

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Name/Titles: Samael, Lord of Sunlight, Dire Radiant, Ceaseless Dynamo, Eternal Magnum, Dux Solis, Lionslayer

Gender: Male

Patronage: The Sun, power, energy, heat, honour, gold, light and beginnings.

Parentage: Samael was given apotheosis when he killed a great lion made entirely out of gold

Pantheon/Affiliation: Deity

Appearance:

Normal Form

Samael most often appears as a tall, gleaming soldier wearing armour made from the skin of a lion made entirely out of gold. He bears a blazing spear, imbued with the power of the sun itself. It can release a huge amount of energy in the form of sun-beams, and his armour can blind enemies with its brilliance.

He can also take the form of a brilliant lion, a gift given to him by his armour. His claws burn with the radiance of the sun, and his fangs are as ferocious as the sun’s heat.

Centres of Worship/Places of Power:

Samael is most powerful when he is in the sky, patrolling his lands and shedding light upon the world. Other than this, however, he does not have any specific places of power- save for his once homeland. He still loves his country, even though it has long since fallen into history. He yearns for his country to be remade, to be free, and he will fiercely defend its lands from any he sees as threatening its people.

Servants, Prominent Followers and Worship Base:

Samael has no church, no followers, no priests. He has been an outcast, a pariah for so long- people are only now starting to get used to the idea that the man they have been taught to hate- the man that has been used as an example of what can happen if you disobey the gods- is now a god himself. Some have cried heresy, and claimed that he is an imposter. But some- the greedy and the hopeful- have begun to set up temples in his name. They ask for power, or great abilities in return for such acts. For the most part, Samael ignores them, finding them a disgusting attempt to grab as much from him as possible in return for flattery. In some especially heinous cases, he will travel down to earth to visit the temples, and calmly explain why he doesn’t approve of his worship. Or he’ll just reduce the surrounding area to a gently smouldering wasteland.

However, there are some individuals that have found a much better way to capture the Sun god’s attention. They challenge him to single combat, and ask that if they defeat him, they are rewarded. Samael always answers such a challenge, taking a human form so as to give the mortals a chance. He greatly admires such mortals for their courage and willingness to risk everything for power- if he finds them lacking, he destroys their soul utterly. However, those who he finds have skill, valour and honour, or those who defeat him will be rewarded with power, money and a place by his side as his immortal soldiers when they die. These are called the Golden Legion, and they wield spears of pure energy, and are armoured in sunlight.

Psychology:

Samael is an honourable warrior, loyal to those he believes deserve it. He will always treat those he believes have enough skill and valour with respect.

He is also completely and utterly insane.

Just because he has managed to control the energy that courses through his veins, does not mean that he doesn’t feel it burn through his body, engulfing his soul in fire. He is eternally in pain, so great that it overwhelms him. It is the most he can do to remain lucid most of the time, and he will often lose control of his energy and allow the energy to spill out of him. He becomes a being of pure light, releasing a shockwave around him capable of turning stone to rubble and steel to liquid. In such episodes he will become maddened with pain, and lash out. He will attempt to kill all he sees, including gods, and it will take a lot to halt him, so berserk has he been rendered. The sole consolation is that he is incapable of intelligent thinking when so affected, and is thus easy to outwit and trap. He will eventually regain control, when enough energy has been released.

However, when lucid he is much more reasonable. He places a very high value on loyalty to one’s cause and to those who have earned it, and he believes that honour is the highest ideal it is possible to aspire to.

Samael is martial, always practicing combat with his beloved spear. He is a very skilled tactician, a remnant from his previous life as a general; however, this is not above what a bright and hard-working mortal could achieve. He believes that conflict is integral to progress, and is somewhat Darwinian: he believes that those who can fight their way up from poverty to royalty deserve high rewards, and those who are too indifferent or weak to do so deserve their fate.

History:

Once, long ago, there was a great general named Samael. He brought glory and riches to his country, renown to his name. He won battle after battle, carving out an empire for his nation.

But it didn’t last. These things never do.

Debauchery and corruption had permeated through the society of his people, and the government was split by greed and infighting. Other nations took advantage of this, and tore apart the country. Despite his tactical brilliance, Samael could do nothing but watch as his cherished country fell apart around him.

Sad, bitter and howling for vengeance, Samael turned against the gods themselves. He saw them as betraying him and his people, allowing his country to descend into ruin. But the god he hated most was Aroesus. The empires that had annexed his nation idolised him, and held him to be their patron deity. Samael felt cheated- in his eyes, Aroesus had clearly given help to the opposing empires.

So Samael planned his vengeance in the only way he could. He challenged Aroesus to single combat. At first, Aroesus ignored him; he was just a mortal, and hardly worth the god’s time. But then Samael started spreading rumours, saying that Aroesus’ failure to accept his challenge was proof of his cowardice and treachery. This angered Aroesus, who showed his wrath through storms and fires. But still he did not answer Samael’s challenge. So Samael did something Aroesus could not ignore. He started inciting the other mortals to rebel against the gods, to burn their temples and tear down their idols. Enraged, Aroesus travelled down to the mortal world and accepted Samael’s challenge. He easily immobilised him, and in that moment Samael knew he was dead.

But Aroesus had other ideas. In his fury he decided to use Samael as a warning to all mortals who would dare defy the gods. First, he made Samael immortal. Then he filled him with energy, far more than his body could take. Finally it burst from Samael, burning him with raw power. It racked his body, and caused him immense agony. Aroesus then chained Samael to great lion made entirely of gold, and raised him into the heavens to be dragged across the sky every day as a reminder of the wrath of Aroesus.

Samael existed in this state for millennia, every single second of his punishment feeling like eternity. Finally, just when Samael was about to give up under the sheer power emanating from his body, everything became clear to him. It was as if a curtain had suddenly been thrown back, and allowed the light to shine on his face. Instead of fighting the energy as he had been doing for thousands of years, he let it flow through him. The pain was too much to allow him to think, but he managed to burn through his chains in a burst of blinding radiance. With light gleaming from his body, Samael turned to the golden lion that stood guard in case he should ever escape. They fought for months light flashing across the sky, until finally Samael emerged victorious. He carved off the lion’s metallic pelt, and made armour out of it, to show all who might see him that he had triumphed over Aroesus retribution. Last of all, he cut off the lion’s head and wore it as his helmet, as a last mark of respect towards the lion who had fought against him for so long, and challenged him so much. As he placed on his head, a surge of energy racked through his body, sending a shock wave throughout the heavens. Samael had gained the power of the lion he had killed, granting him apotheosis. He stood for a few moments, leaning on the spear he had held with him ever since the fight with Aroesus.

Then, burning, bloody and exhausted, Samael fell down from the sky into the mortal realm.

Relationships:

Samael hated Aroesus when he was alive, and despises his wife Mycia and their heir Lathunis.

When Smoke Filled the Skies (A Diseal/Steampunk styled Nation Roleplay)

Posted.

When Smoke Filled the Skies (A Diseal/Steampunk styled Nation Roleplay)

'The Administration cannot survive like this!'

Rarael Om-Maxicaliel looked around at shocked faces, eyes wide at his sudden outburst. He gritted his teeth in frustration, angry at the stupidity that had brought them to this condition. ‘You know the situation as well as I do. We have barely enough food to support a third of our population. A third! Do you know what would happen if we were blockaded?’

He stared at them. They were surprised at his outburst, but not at his speech. This was a crisis they’d been dealing with for years now. The Solaran Administration was an arid, desolate place, with only a few regions efficient to farm in. Yes, the deserts could be farmed with extensive irrigation and advanced techniques, but it would be ludicrously expensive to start watering the entire country. It had been quicker, cheaper and easier to trade for food, exchanging mass-produced cutlery for the life of their people. It was humiliating. But far, far worse than that, it was dangerous.

‘Being blockaded isn’t our only problem. What happens if our trading partners decide that trading with us isn’t profitable anymore? What if their priests tell them that helping us will anger their fairy-tale masters? What if one day we cannot make goods any more, or we run out of resources?’

Now he wasn’t the only one gritting their teeth. More and more conference members were nodding their heads now. Maybe they’d finally be able to sort out this mess.

‘Fine. Tell me what we’re going to do about it.’

Rarael sharply turned his head to the speaker. He spoke in a low, calm voice, ensuring that he didn’t offend anyone. He had to, in a job like his.

‘I’m sorry, Chairman Azaliel?’

‘You’re the Head of Agriculture, Rarael. What should we do to stop this crisis?’

Rarael’s shoulders sagged. Slowly, he sank down into his chair.

‘I don’t know. I don’t...I’ve tried everything. We’ve looked at irrigation; it’s too expensive. We’ve looked at making the Oriental Region more efficient in farming; it’s too time-consuming. We’ve even looked at growing food from bacteria, like in those awful science-fiction books you can get at the station. It turns out it would be too impractical to set up the factories necessary to produce the food. There’s nothing the Department for Agriculture can do.’ His face was granite. ‘That’s why I’m asking you, the rest of the Conference. If we don’t sort this out soon, we could suffer the greatest famine since the Unification at the whim of our allies.’

The room lay silent. Slowly, the conference members began murmuring among themselves, trying to draw up a solution. Rarael lay back in his chair, closing his eyes. The chair was hard, and uncomfortable. Some days it seemed like everything in the Solaran Administration was. Hard, uncomfortable, mass-produced and cheap. But it would last you forever.

He was just worried that the Administration wouldn’t.

A voice called out. Rarael woke up with a start. It was Solarael Mir-Meziel, Head of the Board of Cartographers. Of course, as anyone in the High Conference knew, the Board of Cartographers was anything but an atlas-maker’s society. Well, that wasn’t quite true: they did make a lot maps. Mostly of enemy troop movement and the weaknesses in fortresses. Something about their work made Rarael wince: it seemed wrong to have a department devoted to spying on their neighbours.

‘I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that I may have a solution.’

All heads turned towards the small, unassuming man. ‘It seems to me that not only do we have an agricultural crisis, but we also have an overcrowding crisis too.’ The conference members set their teeth. Some days it felt like everything was in crisis.

‘Well, how about we move to the south-east. There is a huge swathe of fertile land, relatively undefended- save for natives, who I imagine won’t be too happy. But there aren’t any nations who lay claim to it. I suggest we move colonies into the newly-claimed territory, and start farming. Of course, until the rail-way tracks are built we’ll have to fly supplies in and food out, but this seems like the least expensive of our options. It kills, aha, two priests with one stone, as it were.’

---

Tactical General Tulael Ur-Gerliel looked up from his book.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s the Head of Cartographers, sir. Says he wants to speak with you.’

Tulael sighed. This probably meant another death-trap for his soldiers to walk into- always as a distraction, while Solarael’s men and women worked their quiet, bloody business. He walked over to the two-way radio and picked up the microphone.

‘Hello comrade. This is Tulael, as requested.’

‘Good. I have new orders for you. You are to accompany colonists on a journey to the south east.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Well, I believe in order to set up new farmland-‘

‘Why does this warrant full mobilisation of an entire Tactical Armada?’

‘You don’t think the natives are going to be a problem for the colonists?’

‘Don’t play that game with me, Solarael! You don’t need a Tactical Armada to defend yourself from bows and arrows. What’s really going on? Do you want us to babysit some colonists in the middle of nowhere? I must say, this is a nice break from what you normally give me. At this rate, we probably won’t see any action worse than a few thrown spears for months!’

‘Oh, Tulael, I don’t know about that…’

When Smoke Filled the Skies (A Diseal/Steampunk styled Nation Roleplay)

Hey, when's the IC going to be up? Tomorrow? I want to know when I'll be writing a reply...

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

HeySeuss, what'd you think of my PM regarding my back story?

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Cool. Want to have been rejected by me?

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Willco.

The Heavens Aflame - A Civil War Amongst the Deities

Hey, can any god destroy a mortal's soul, or is that just special gods?