[PLOT AND TIMELINE]

[Lazarus Carter]

P L O T

A R C :: I
ENTER THE DEMON :: THE SLUMBERING GIANT

Belphegor's slothful and millennial sleep grows to be an irritation for Overlord Lucifer. He sits and watches from his tower as the leaderless Entropic Chasm is engulfed in a power struggle - he was not made for direct tyranny, but simply as the ruler of this entire realm. He has mystical affairs to deal with - not pitiful physical affairs of demon anarchy and human invasion. He'd much rather simply just... cull them all with a nice, short, thousand-year flame purge.

The Demon Hunters, ever since their founding after that perplexing Messiah business a couple of thousand years ago, have grown ever-disorganised: they begun as vigilantes, organised, regimented, structured, and now, though their power has welled significantly, they appear to have been splintered and scattered all over the world, disconnected from their heritage, from their brothers and sisters.

Lucifer and the Archdemons have felt the weight of the Templars for a while now: and things have become settled, but they have truly become concentrated in the past couple of thousand years. Their agents seem to have recently developed the technology to be able to enter Inferis, Lucifer watching from afar.

The Ritualist scum - aside from the odd intellectual - are still all those pitiful satanists who serve as a rather surprisingly large pool of fresh prey and contemptible morons whose souls can be feasted upon and whose bodies can be possessed. The occasional one crosses over or has his or her life prolonged by "symbiosis" as they're calling it, instead of black-and-white possession, but that's not truly a problem.

Finally, the Demon populace and Archdemons are as obedient as ever. Aside from the odd territorial disputes over the Chasm - rightfully Belphegor's territory - all are ruling adequately. In the kingdom and land of chaos and despair, for once, things are all going harmoniously, and seem to be in order. For the first time in millennia... but things are quiet.

Too quiet.

Lucifer can feel it swirling in the air, crackling upon the winds, and suspended as he watches the crackling tension of the humans' pitiful political structures. A battle is coming. All the stage is set, the actors ready, the props primed and the weapons readied. Sooner or later, it will all culminate: it will all come to a head... and in his Godlike arrogance the Overlord of Inferis has chosen to ignore the potential for this a threat, instead overridden by his curiosity.

He just wants to see what'll happen next.

A R C :: II
A HOST OF ANGELS :: THE AFTERLIFE WAR

The Crystals worked; they drew Demons all over the spheres where they were tested as they should. For what they represented; for what they in actuality were forged of; pure Soul Energy. They were amplifiers; they were crystal power. But Belphegor slumbered still; yet Lucifer made arrangements concerning the Entropic Chasm. From his own boredom in guarding over the once-anarchic sphere he had been since the slumber had began testing; testing Demons far and wide in trials by combat. But none so much as raised a blade to him.

Until one did.

Suggested to him by Asmodeus the Lustful, the Demon Vlad III Tepes took up arms when instructed to, and for the Devil's early forfeit won his prize; a single boon of his asking, within Satan's omnipotence - which was no small credit. But what came with this victory was far more daunting; something that the Lord of the Nosferatu could have never expected. Stewardship. It was announced that the Entropic Chasm was his; non-negotiable, the lands of Belphegor belonged now to the first Demon who proved himself to Lucifer. The vampire had. He was fit to wear the mantle of a tyrant.

At the dinner, the congregate, celebrating the official announcement of this Stewardship, however, after a set of great and triumphant speeches, there appeared a sly visitor at the end of the table. White hair. Blue eyes. Almost a mirror-image of Lucifer himself were it not for that he wore red, not black; Mortal Form to Mortal Form, this was Michael, Angel of Protection, and leader of the great seven Archangels: perhaps Gabriel was the Revelator, but for their purposes, Michael had been the Emissary. God had grown tired of watching Lucifer play in his realm it seemed; grown suspicious of his power, his plots, his schemes, the fluctuation in a celestial balance. And on his directive Michael announced one thing: an invasion. His seven and a majority of the Host would soon arrive; and when they did, Hell would no longer be safe for Demons.

As it was. On the first of March in the year of 2012, exactly twenty-nine days, to the hour, after the appearance of Michael, seven floating citadels appeared in the misty, obfuscated skies above seven of Inferis' ten spheres. The Archangels had come; and their Skyhavens hung now in Inferis, abhorrent divine reminders of from whence the Archdemons had come, and that their time would be at hand. But for now, their appearance is the start of what will inevitably a long war and a bloody war; the holy castellans dwell in their respective keeps and wait for the call - Angels have already flown on the lands of Inferis, tearing the Demons, the inferior, the servants of Lucifer limb from limb in a glow of righteous judgment. But how long will it be til they target an Archdemon? And when they do, will they succeed?

[Lazarus Carter]

T I M E L I N E

PRE-HUMAN HISTORY

• ~7,500,000,000 B.C. - An unnamed challenges God for his position, displaying the first, oldest, ancient Cardinal sin of pride.
  
• ~7,000,000,000 B.C. - The angel falls from Heaven, shortly followed by his nine top lieutenants. God tears their wings off for their sins.
  
• ~7,000,000,000 B.C. - The angel's impact splits the ground of his falling-place into ten segments.
  
• ~6,500,000,000 B.C. - The angel assigns each of his lieutenants new names, and new positions. He retitles himself "the Devil", but keeps his old name to remind him of the travesties of Heaven.
  
• ~6,000,000,000 B.C. - Years go by as each of the fallen angels, or as they now call themselves, demons, conquer territorial disputes and discover their new, twisted powers, simultaneously blessings and curses.
  
• ~5,000,000,000 B.C. - Lucifer assumes reign over all nine of his lieutenants and with ancient, vengeful animosity, looks every evening above towards the heavens.
  
• ~4,600,000,000 B.C. - Meanwhile, God creates an alternate, grounded dimension, and follows on with creating a universe around this planet for life which he then creates to later discover and explore.
  

HUMAN HISTORY

• ~4,600,000,000 B.C. - Creationist/Genesis stories mark God creating the Earth in seven days, before leaving a delay when he creates humanity.
  
• ~5,000,000 B.C. - Mankind begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer as a serpentine form tempting Eve with the forbidden fruit - the Apple of Eden as it would later become to be known.
  
• ~5,000,000 B.C. - God forsakes Adam and Eve, turning them to primitive ape-like beings, and, by extension, humanity, knowing that he has created something ignorant in its nature and definition.
  
• ~5,000,000 B.C. - God destroys the Garden of Eden and turns his back on humanity, exiling them to survive in the harsh wastes of Pangaea he created without his guidance or support.
  
• ~230,000 B.C. - "Humanity" reaches and settles what we now know to be the Africas.
  
• ~200,000 B.C. - Humanity reaches anatomical modernity.
  
• ~100,000 B.C. - Humanity reaches and settles Eurasia.
  
• ~47,000 B.C. - Humanity reaches behavioural modernity.
  
• ~37,000 B.C. - Humanity reaches and settles Australia.
  
• ~13,000 B.C. - Humanity reaches and settles the Americas.
  
• ~3,100 B.C. - Emergence of Ancient Egyptian civilization.
  
• ~1,894 B.C. - Foundation of Babylon.
  
• ~1,391 B.C. - Supposed birth of Moses.
  
• ~1,271 B.C. - Supposed death of Moses.
  
• ~1,100 B.C. - Earliest signs of Israelite Judaism.
  
• ~800 B.C. - Earliest original signs of Ancient Roman and Greek civilization.
  
• ~753 B.C. - Earliest signs of Roman Monarchy.
  
• 509 B.C. - Traditional date of the origin of the Roman Republic.
  
• ~200 B.C. - Tanakh is canonised.
  
• 27 B.C. - Foundation of the Roman Empire.
  
  
• 6-4 B.C. - Birth of Jesus Christ.
  
  
• 14-33 A.D. - Formation of the gardens predating the Vatican City's construction.
  
• 27-29 A.D. - Beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry.
  
  
• 30-36 A.D. - Death of Jesus Christ as ordered by Pilate.
  
  
• 38 A.D. - Based on allusions of early Christian testaments, formed of warrior-monk followers of the disciples, after Jesus' Death, the first Demon Hunters make a sacred pact vouching to destroy all unholy life in a world they cannot yet explore. Through various means yet unclear, the Demon Hunters mystically imbue themselves - and their future progeny - with the ability to enter this alternate, hellish dimension and slay demons at will around the first tear, located within the heart of the Roman Empire. The Demon Hunters' existence is vowed to be kept tentatively secret, with the original group being formed of around two-hundred individuals later scattered continentally.
  
• 40 A.D. - Constructions of structures predating the Vatican City begins.
  
• 61 A.D. - The Demon Hunter who finds himself at the head of constructing the barricades around the tear located at what is now the Vatican City defects and forms the earliest organisational basis of the Templar Order. A bloody battle ensues in which all of the dozen Demon Hunters under his control are swiftly executed, the Hunter, known in modern texts as The First Paladin attempts to suppress all known existence of Inferis and the original Hunters.
  
• 98 A.D. - Sterile and with no heirs, but having imparted his knowledge to a group of seven subordinates, including Pope Saint Clement I, and Emperor Trajan, the 13th of the Roman Empire, whom would later become the Seven Paladins, the Templar Order's leadership group.
  
• 221 A.D. - Tear in Rome discovered.
  
• 326 A.D. - First church is built in the Vatican City.
  
• 351 A.D. - Tear in Barcelona - then the Roman "Barcino" - discovered.
  
• 476 A.D. - Western Roman Empire ceases to exist. Eastern continues to.
  
• ~500 A.D. - At this point, almost all knowledge of the Demon Hunters has died out completely, though they have been continued in small cadres internationally as elite soldiers by day and slayers by night. Usually great warriors or soldiers. The Templar Order has managed to suppress all knowledge of Inferis without any mainstream leakages so far.
  
• ~550 A.D. - First known registered attempted demonic summoning. Considered and widely known as "the origin" to all Ritualists.
  
• ~600 A.D. - Ritualist practices become sweeping underground phenomena, incorporating elements of voodoo and sacrifice.
  
• 623 A.D. - Tear in London discovered.
  
• ~700 A.D. - All common Demon Hunter lore has been lost at this point, or seized and supposedly "destroyed" by the Templars.
  
• 1,095 A.D. - Crusades begin.
  
• 1,109 A.D. - Belphegor falls into a thousand-year slumber, choosing to only communicate telepathically and usually only with Lucifer.
  
• 1,129 A.D. - First official papal endorsement date of the Templar Order's offensive arm in the Crusades as the Knights Templar. Stems from a leak in the Vatican.
  
• 1,291 A.D. - Crusades end.
  
• 1,209 A.D. - After a century of anarchy, Lucifer assumes control of the Entropic Chasm, Belphegor's sphere.
  
• 1,390 A.D. - Second official leak of the Templar Order, covered up by conversion into Freemasonry.
  
• ~1,400 A.D. - Tear in what is now Johannesburg discovered.
  
• 1,513 A.D. - Tear in Hong Kong discovered by Portuguese explorer and Templar Jorge Alvarez.
  
• 1,549 A.D. - Tear in what is now Helsinki discovered.
  
• 1,545 A.D. - Tear in what is now Rio de Janeiro discovered.
  
• 1,729 A.D. - Tear in Irkutsk discovered.
  
• 1,775 A.D. - American Revolution triggered by the Templars, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington being Paladins.
  
• 1,776 A.D. - Adam Weishaupt, a Templar Paladin, accidentally leaks the third and final piece of information on the Templar Order in history, being exiled and forced to "sculpt" it into the Bavarian Illuminati.
  
• 1,790 A.D. - Tear near the Potomac River discovered. Washington D.C. built over it.
  
• 1,861 A.D. - Beginning of American Civil War.
  
• 1,864 A.D. - Templars express support for Abraham Lincoln and assimilate him into the Paladins.
  
• 1,865 A.D. - With the newfound Templar tactical strength, the American Civil War ends with a Union victory.
  
• 1,914 A.D. - The Black Hand, a mercenary group formed at the behest of the Templar order, assassinate Archduke and ex-Templar Franz Ferdinand prior to his attempts to expose the Templar organisation.
  
• 1,914 A.D. - World War I begins.
  
• 1,918 A.D. - World War I ends, one of the greatest Templar fuckups of all time.
  
• 1,921 A.D. - Seeing the potential for the NSDAP in Germany, the Templars contract Adolf Hitler, a great and influential man at this stage, to salvage the current political state of affairs which they hold responsibility for.
  
• 1,922 A.D. - USSR founded under Lenin, manipulated by Lucifer himself from beyond the barrier.
  
• 1,933 A.D. - Hitler appointed Chancellor. Transforms Weimar Republic into Third Reich.
  
• 1,936 A.D. - Germany violates the Versailles Treaty by occupying the Rhineland, apparently corrupting outside of Templar influence.
  
• 1,936-1,939 A.D. - Many assassinations attempted. None successful.
  
• 1,939 A.D. - World War II begins.
  
• 1,945 A.D. - With Templar support, President Roosevelt leads his armies into Germany and occupies Berlin alongside the Russian siege of the city. Roosevelt later dies, and as a further deterrent, the Templars manipulate the next election to have one of their elite undercover agents, Harry S. Truman, enter office and drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagaski. Meanwhile, Templar agents engineer the suicide of Adolf Hitler inside his bunker to eliminate the possibility of him revealing Templar existence under Russian torture.
  
• 1,988-1989 A.D. - al-Qaeda formed under Bin Laden, who has been telepathically controlled by Belphegor from beyond the barrier.
  
• 1,991 A.D. - Soviet Union dissolved.
  
• 2,001 A.D. - Belphegor accelerates Lucifer's plans, coaxing Bin Laden into having his troops hijack the plane and bomb the Twin Towers.
  
• 2,006 A.D. - President George W. Bush dies of heart failure. Dick Cheney acts president up until the inauguration of the 44th President...
  
• 2,009 A.D. - The first Templar emplacement since Truman in 1945, President Edwin Edsel "E.E." Thomas assumes office after the second term of George W. Bush. Thomas is a Paladin.
  
• 2,011 A.D. - Under command of Thomas' senior officers, Seal Team Six infiltrate the al-Qaeda compound and assassinate an unarmed Osama bin Laden, before doctoring the scene and reporting in his death. E.E. Thomas begins his highly successful campaign for a second term as President in April/May.
  

CURRENT HISTORY - 2012

JANUARY

• Lucifer begins to plot surrounding the slumbering Belphegor.
  
• A gunship airstrike is called in on Guardez Enterprises in Rio de Janeiro, for which the Templars are responsible. The official story is that Brazilian air forces were testing out prototypes targeting software on a training program gone wrong. Casualties: 12 dead in the crossfire, 59 injured.
  
• The Templars ascertain the true leadership of the Liberation organisation and begin to view them as a threat.
  
• Three young adults go missing in downtown Washington D.C.
  
• Planning for Belial's gauntlet begins.
  
• Lucifer enters public combat for the first time in eons in the Viral Stadium against Vlad III Tepes, or Count Dracula. After his apparent success at the Devil's testing his mettle, the Impaler is offered stewardship and pseudo-ownership of the Entropic Chasm as the Devil himself tires of taking on the hardships of Belphegor's realm until their slumbering comrade awakens.
  
• The events of EVENT #1 occur.
  
• Nephilim is formed by Lazarus Carter, Jinhong and Pulean Jangmi, Yuuko Koizumi, and Jerome Fontaine, the five original core members.
  
• The events of EVENT #2 occur, and the existence of a prototyped "Memoir Crystal" is discovered by Gaius Octavian Skipio and comrades.
  
• EDEN is formed by Lucrum Saliva and Gaius Octavian Skipio.

FEBRUARY

• The events of EVENT #4 occur; and for the first time in seven billion years Hell has an angelic visitor who announces an arrival of his kin to come soon.
  
• Additionally, Vlad III Tepes is officially appointed Steward of the Entropic Chasm in stead of the slumbering Belphegor.
  
• Nephilim's memberbase begins to grow.
  
• Blackgate, or the ideals behind it, starts to form, courtesy of one Leon Necris and his late brother Vitaly.
  
• The Four Blades are formed between Bastian van Staade and Cael Gladius.
  
• The events of EVENT #3 occur. Parts of the Vatican are blown up and Templar, Ritualist, and civilian casualties number collectively into the hundreds, almost the thousands. It's passed of as a Satanist terrorist attack.
  
• After the assault on the Vatican, Red Love is formed months later from the ashes of Red Lotus by the chaos Demon Eris and her fresh shell Alice Engelherz AKA "Alice the Chopper".
  
• P.U.R.G.E. is formed in the aftermath of the Vatican assault as a middleground between the Templars and the UN's general consensus. Their ideal: to eradicate Ritualism.
  
• Vatican rebuild begins as does the construction of two memorials; one public for the civilians, and one in the city's Templar headquarters for the lost agents, projected completion date on the repairs is around May-June.
  
• The Crystal Artisan, Pupus, delivers the overlord another batch of Memoir Crystals, setting in stone the Devil's personal interest in the small orange gems.
  
• Annihilated once before many a year ago by the Templars, Green Sun is reformed by Veronika Kolobkova at the behest and funding of a mysterious benefactor.
  
• Carbombs around Rio de Janeiro - the cars in question of four Brazilian government officials - detonate as a signal from Liberation.
  
• The Templars set a date for the election and consensus concerning the vacant Paladin spot in May.

MARCH

• On March 1st, the Angels arrive, bringing with them their Skyhavens and their forces. They make no offensive moves; they simply invade. In time, the "Afterlife War", as it will come to be known through history, will begin of its own accord.

[Lazarus Carter]

Updated with the events of February and the addition of Arc II, entitled A Host of Angels :: The Afterlife War. As always - PM me with anything you think qualifies for addition.

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