At the dawn of time, Aton existed, omnipotent and omnipresent. Seeing the empty world, only ocean in every direction, it created land, valleys, and mountains. It created flora and fauna to fill this new landmass. Still not satisfied, it created mankind to populate its world. But humans were not mere animals; the souls they required demanded sacrifice, and so Aton made them from itself, each human carrying a part of its consciousness.
Perhaps it did not know the consequences of such an act, or perhaps it did, but went ahead anyway. But the fissure created by the departure of a part of its own life force grew. Aton was not a single individual mind, being the agglomeration of an infinite number of individual consciousnesses. It was ripped apart, its very existence erased from the world, replaced instead by a handful of beings… the
Children of Aton.
These will be your characters.
But what’s a Child of Aton?
Essentially, the supernatural. They can range from man-eating witches, to valiant knights, to Cthulu. They range in power from that of a mere mortal to... Cthulu. The only things they all have in common are that a)they share a common "life" with humanity, and so more humans = weaker children and less humans = stronger children, and that b)they can't ever die for good, always coming back to life centuries after being "slain" by valiant heroes. Some are good, some are evil, and some are just plain crazy.
The Children possess resurrective immortality. When they are slain, their corpses crumble to dust, and their souls are forced to roam the world, unable to influence the world, save by appearing in dreams of mortals. To return in physical form, they must find and embed themselves in a mortal close to themselves in soul, though the mortal need not be willing. The time this takes can vary greatly: some Children have re-awakened after only a few short years, while others have gone half a millenium before returning. In any case, once a mortal is possessed in such a way, they are in the course of a month slowly twisted into the shape of the Child, their free will sapping as their consciousness gradually melds into that of the demigod.
The story continues
For centuries, the Children played their games and bickered in century-long feuds, using mortals as pawns. The world was devastated again and again by the Wars of the Children. The main conflict, which divided the immortals into two warring factions, was the question of what to do with mortals: whether to dominate, exterminate, or liberate them. The camps that arose were the Demons, a grim alliance of those who sought to enslave or wipe out mankind, and the Angels, those who fought to give humanity its own future. There were Children who refused to take a side, of course, but they quickly found themselves targeted by both sides as a foe, and eventually leaned one way or the other.
A thousand years this war raged, neither side giving ground or mercy. Countless mortals died, and great cities of antiquity burned, but the slain Children always just rose again, returning into the fray with renewed vigor. Eventually, however, the tide turned in favor of the Angels, led by Eyra the Seer. A cunning sorceress, she devised a prison, The Pit, in which the demons could be locked away; thus left alive, they would be unable to resurrect and cause further mischief. The Pit was built into the primordial caverns from which the Children first emerged from the earth, and was imbued magically by the granted life force of the Angels.
One by one, the Demons were vanquished and locked away deep beneath the earth. The Angels had won. Seeing the need to assure they would not molest the mortals any further, The Seer gathered her comrades to their siblings' dungeon. She presented them with a bowl. If they pooled their blood in it, she claimed, it would form a binding pact, that they would seek no conflict with each other, nor inflict suffering on mankind. The Angels did as they were bid, having no reason to doubt her wisdom.
Thus, the trap was sprung.
In reality, the ritual forced them to surrender their power to The Pit. They were defenseless as she turned against them, her mortal followers locking them in the same prison as the Demons, imprisoned by their own life-force. Eyra appointed her most loyal human followers as the Pit Guard, founding the ancient order which was given the solemn duty of keeping vigil over The Pit and the imprisoned immortals within.
Needless to say, the fall of both the Angels and the Demons turned the world upside down. The tribes, which had previously been controlled and kept unified each by a Child, turned on each other in an orgy of chaos. What was left of civilization collapsed as petty warlords took advantage of the power vacuum and founded their own personal kingdoms. After several centuries, the world began to consolidate once again under a number of growing local powers.
Notable among these was the Etruscan Republic, a deceptively-named powerhouse ruled by none other than the Seer herself, who was revered as a living goddess by the people. Supreme power was firmly in her hands, the Senate being a mere figurehead. Her immortal patience and gift of prophecy enabled her to grow what was originally a backwater farming town into the greatest city in the world. Time not being an object for her, she was able methodically annex land over centuries, piece by piece. Two hundred years ago, in year 912 after the fall of the Children, Takako, the last independent stronghold in the world, fell to her legions, its walls smashed to pieces by Etruscan cannons.
For two hundred years, The Seer has ruled unchallenged over all of mankind, revered by the church as a goddess, the mother of humanity. The official doctrine is that the Angels and Demons are all dead, slain long ago by the Godmother. She keeps herself confined to her palace in the golden city of Analos, capital of the Republic, from where she rules over some 40 million subjects. The world was at peace.
Little did the people suspect that, deep in the bowels of The Pit, chains snapped and bars broke, power flooding back into Angels and Demons alike. After a thousand years of solitude in the bleakest dungeon in existence, they were free.
Nightwing95
