Glossary of the Otherworld

Chaos

Volatile sea of creation and destruction. Most myths and religions consider it the origin of everything in the universe. ‘Creator’ of humanity, who with their beliefs carved out of it the gods and goddesses and their respective pantheons.

Primordial Court

First to emerge from Chaos; beings that form reality.

Nyx [or Nox] - Goddess of the Night. Queen and Mother of Primordials, creator of Pyre. Using Her essence, She wove the tapestry of fate, the final equilibrium that brought Order to Chaos raised by humanity. Manifests most commonly as a ten-foot-tall female with long silver hair and a starlit abyss in place of eyes.

EREBUS – Husband of Nyx. God of Darkness. Nyx’s most trusted guard and confidante, He has a vital role in all of Her designs. All of the Otherworld fears His wrath, and the most common mistake to earn it is by trying to somehow tamper with fate. Manifests a tall blonde man with purple eyes, always wearing heavy black armor and surrounded by tendrils of primordial darkness.

ANANKE & CHRONOS – ‘mated’ pair of Gods of Necessity and Time, spanning the creation.

EROS – God of Procreation (Love). Father of Unicorns. Twin brother of Styx.

GAIA – Goddess of Earth. Wife of Uranus. Mother of Aratatu and the Giants.

URANUS – God of the Sky. Husband of Gaia. Father of Aratatu.

HEMERA – Goddess of the Day.

OCEANUS – God of Water.

OUREA – Goddess of the Mountains.

PONTUS and his female counterpart, THALESSA – God and Goddess of the Sea.

TARTARUS (or Tartaros) – God of Hell. Feral and dangerous – and very hungry.

ONEIROS – God of Dreams.

NEMESIS – Goddess of Retribution.

MOROS – God of Doom.

METIS - Goddess of Wisdom.

NOSOI - God of Plague.

KER – Goddess of Destiny.

THANATOS – God of Death. Twin brother of Phanes.

PHANES – God of Life. Twin brother of Thanatos.

HYPNOS – God of Sleep.

ERIS – Goddess of Discord.

OIZYS – God of Pain.

STYX – God of Hatred. Twin brother of Eros.

DEIMOS – God of Fear.

Egyptian pantheon

Bastet [Bast]

She was worshipped in Ancient Egypt for her dual nature. As a lioness protector of Her father, Ra, while His chariot crossed the skies, and as a cat-like Goddess of Love, Pleasure, and Fertility.

Inspired by Nyx’s Pyre, she created Bast’Aikhtiar and later Awlbast, unknowingly taking part in Nyx’s grand design. Known also as Ra’s All-Seeing Eye, she can see visions of the past, present, and future. Predicting Set’s attempt to slaughter her Awlbast, she hid them and kept watch over them for over two thousand years.

Anubis

God of the Dead and the older twin brother of Bastet. Represented as a male with the head of a jackal, he was known as the Egyptian pantheon’s most fearsome warrior. Over the ages, he often assisted Bastet by harassing Set and keeping the God of Murder distracted. Chosen by Thanatos, Anubis otherwise deals with souls of humans who failed to make the final transition toward the afterlife – especially those who somehow threaten to expose the Otherworld by the attacks on the living.

Set

God of Violence and Murder. Created Sha, canine beasts that invented and taught humans slavery. For that, He was punished with a look into Nyx’s tapestry that prophesied He would die at the hands of a hybrid of human and Awlbast. Ever since, He’s been scheming to outsmart fate.

In the modern day, he took on a name, Seth Bradshaw, and, masquerading as a human, he created a company, AngelTec, based in Los Angeles. While working for him people remain unaware that made by them medical drugs are genuine cures for humans; they are vicious poison for various Others. It has a dual purpose, as while Set is extremely fond of humanity’s volatile nature, he much prefers humans to kill each other – unknowingly strengthening him – than die of natural causes. And as a God of Murder, created by human belief, using their technological advances to murder often naturally long-lived and peaceful Others serves his yet hidden agenda.

Norse pantheon

Odin

All-Father and ruler of the Norse Pantheon. Warned by the Norns (Norse fate-weavers who could peek into Nyx’s tapestry) that he’s destined to die at the hands of the giants, Odin assumed that one to kill him would be one of the Ice Giants, dwellers of the frost-bound realm of Jotunheim. To fight fate, he convinced the Asgardians that the Ice Giants are, in fact, demons and launched a campaign that could be called only a genocide.

King of the Ice Giants, attempting to save his people, offered Odin a truce and the hand of his beloved sister, Ilfana, known as the most beautiful and delicate among her people. However, it was for naught, as though Odin claimed the girl as the war spoil, He proceeded with slaughter. Keeping Ilfana as His mistress and raping her throughout His campaign, he forced her to watch as he decimated her people and family, down to the last of their children. Done, he left Jotunheim a bare wasteland, later to be known as the frozen Norse hell.

Bound in chains, Ilfana was forced into servitude in Valhalla and eventually bore Odin a son, Loki. Raising the boy in hatred toward his Sire and the rest of the Asgardians, she was slain by Freya, Odin’s wife, for some imaginary slight.

Wanting to confirm that he escaped his fate, Odin hung himself on one of the branches of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life, and, paying for it with one of his eyes, he witnessed that he was still meant to die at the hands of Fenrir, Loki’s firstborn son. As it was meant to happen among the fires of Ragnarok (Norse Apocalypse), he kidnapped Fenrir and chained him down in Jotunheim, once more attempting to win against fate.

Loki

God of Mischief. He earned the nickname Trickster as a mere boy when, in retribution for his mother’s death, he tricked drunken Thor into killing his brother, Baldr. Their mother, Freya, made him – Baldr – immortal by asking all things in nature to never harm him, and missed doing that only with mistletoe. Using that weakness, Loki fashioned an arrow from a mistletoe and goaded Thor into launching it at his ‘immortal’ brother. For that trick, Freya made mistletoe poisonous for him and all his descendants, while Odin chained him down below the earth. Loki was saved by a giantess, Angrboda, who became his wife and bore him a son, Fenrir, the Great Wolf.

Fenrir

Great Wolf, and due to his father’s blood, the first of the Frost Wolves. Chained down in Jotunheim as a mere pup, his semi-freedom was the price for Loki’s involvement in Nyx’s design.

Half-god, Half-giant, Fenrir’s wolf form reaches over fifteen feet, towering over even gods. Though initially a demigod, once human worshippers of Odin learned of his destiny, they came to believe Fenrir was the embodiment of Chaos, eventually turning him into a Chaos-aligned god. His skin (and fur in wolf form) is covered in Erebus’s darkness, which contains chains that bind him to Jotunheim. Primed by Odin to react to anger and hatred, they can snap Fenrir right back into a frozen realm if he loses his temper. With Loki’s illusion taking his place, Fenrir carefully hides from Odin, either among his Wolves or in the realms that owe the Trickster favors. That also prompts Loki to offer His assistance to Christian Heaven and Hell, once their God disappeared, letting Fenrir (most commonly by then known as ‘Fenris’) blend among angels and demons.

Greek pantheon

Athena

Goddess of Wisdom. She invented and organized the grand library of Otherworld in Atlantis, then created Mer to guard its knowledge and keep peace among its visitors. All gods and goddesses joining the effort were obligated to make their respective familiars susceptible to the voices of Mer, meant to enforce obedience. Later, once Atlantis became a source of envy and fear among humanity, Athena, with the help of Poseidon, God of the Oceans, hid the grand city at the bottom of the ocean.

Slavic mythos

Sedobog

Proceeding most of the other pantheons, little is known about Sedobog (Gray God). They (as they are not a binary being) are the sum of two: Belobog (White God) and Chernobog (Black God). Most leftover mythos of this creature claim that they were the embodiment of Chaos, and due to their dichotomous nature, Sedobog split themselves into two. Other lore claims they – all three – were siblings, representing good, evil, and neutrality. Spreading across Eastern Europe and rooting out most pagan beliefs, Christianity erased the mythos surrounding them. Yet, what is left of it, all agree: faced with Sedobog, watch your wishes and intentions, as risking inviting Chernobog into reality is fatal.

Belobog

‘Light’ incarnation of Sedobog. He is, for all matter and purpose, a creation-given form. While he commands the domain of emotions within Chaos, when manifesting, he can channel the raw power of Chaos in the form of white mist—the purest form of creation. Souls affected by that mist—a more potent version of the matter they’re made of—are likely to experience a sense of tranquility and comfort.

Surrounded by souls with pure intentions, Belobog remains in his white form. His aura attracts gods known for the patronage of luck and prosperity, inadvertently leading humanity to regard Belobog as a ‘good’ god.

However, he doesn’t have a true command of his form, and if surrounded by intentions leading to downfall, he inevitably turns into Chernobog.

Chernobog

He was also known as the World Eater in many unlucky universes for the brief time they had before their End.

Due to humanity’s belief in Belobog, he appears as a black-haired and black-eyed humanoid creature—opposite to his ‘twin’—his real form is that of anti-matter—visible only as the vaguely humanoid shape of a hole in reality.

Created by Chaos to serve the cleansing of its failed universes, Chornobog is initially unable to feel anything but bottomless hunger for the matter.

His sole appearance in any universe Sedobog is pulled into deems said universe a failure, as Belobog turns into Chernobog in contact with souls affected by what they regard as ‘rot.’ Rot, in nature, being the vile, negative emotions, was known by some to be confused with Chernobog’s anti-matter.

However, in nature, Chernobog—the purest form of destruction—if manifesting, is actually consuming the rot alongside the whole failed universe. Swallowed by him, souls are eventually reborn pure, as is their universe, and forced back into their initial state—with whatever tweak Chaos seems to consider leading toward its improvement.

Sedobog—the sum of the two—is, in fact, the Arbiter of Chaos, and by their nature, they stand outside of fate—if unaware of it. Nyx, Primordial Goddess of the Night, strives across countless universes to prevent Sedobog’s inevitable arrival.

Christianity

Initially created by slaves of Egyptian Pharaohs as Jahwe, his first Angels – Seraphim – were created vicious and merciless. In one night, they swept through Egypt, slaughtering all the firstborn sons. When that deed made the current Pharaoh free the slaves, Seraphim led them to the so-called promised land, Eden.

Given the Ten Commandments to swear by, they created a society that, like many others, eventually fell. At the same time, these humans’ faith created Hell – a burning domain ruled by the laws of the Seven Deadly Sins.

By His nature, omniscient, Jahwe created Heaven and many following Choirs of Angels—the most notable being the Archangels.

When, with the advent of Christianity, His faith changed, turning Him loving and merciful, His Seraphim, for the first time, able to feel guilt for their previous actions, went insane. Contained in His throne room, the mad beasts’ jailors became the Archangels, led by the brightest of them, Samael.

Unaware of how truly the Otherworld worked, Samael eventually grew jealous of humanity’s free will, seeing it as proof of his Father loving humans more than His Angels. That—though it was always meant to be his path—inevitably led to Samael’s Fall, giving life to Lucifer, King of Demons.

Crowned king among the damned, those who chose to follow his Rebellion, the first Fallen, alongside Lucifer, were cast into Hell and eternally banned from ever again accessing Heaven.

The eight Archangels who joined the Rebellion became the Princes of Hell, each choosing a new name for themselves. And so Archangel Raphael, who became known in Hell as Aralim, eventually inadvertently caused the creation of the third domain – Limbo – by falling in love with Archangel Rehael. Sanctioning their union by it, God named their son, Jael, the Abaddon, and gave him the command of the new contingent of Angels of Destruction.

The God of Christianity is considered missing if only a few of His angels and demons, Loki, and some among the Primordial Court know about that. He is rumored among them to be consumed by Chaos.