RD-TAPH

The story is situated in a City state Kelson of 336th Ascension cycle. Various non-religious and religious factions are occupying themselves in a political strife for a better footing in the next Ascension Cycle happening in approx. 30 years, after the fall of this city.

One of the religious groups is called Zvied. It is a sect worshipping the God of Gratefulness, Hospodar. This sect has an Elder Priest in the Chamber of Divinity, a major player in Kelson. Their footing is quite firm in this current cycle.

The main activities of this sect includes Dungeon raiding and missionaries.

Dungeons are fallen city states from previous Ascension cycles. The Ascended are guarding this place against any disturbance, hiding valuable relics and knowledge of the past, buried when the city fell. Missionaries involves a visiting priest to arrive to a different city or other types of civilization to remind them of the legacy of the sacrifice of Hospodar.

All of the characters I have designed as of this moment are from the same local church. The story revolves around the activities of one of the many local churches of Zvied sect, located on the coast.

This church is rather small, having only 5 priests, including the high priest. However, their ambition is big - high priest is leaving to prepare for a battle for the elder priest seat. Imp, the female lead, had recently taken upon herself the burden of the Thorns of Deprecation, the relic of a recently conquered Dungeon, while still being able to hold herself together. This made her an Edgewalker - a person taking a step towards an Ascension and capable of sharing its wisdom, a being with high societal standing in the city state. To help her in daily activities, given her burden - an reverse prayer bind, the high priest recalled back a visiting priest, which will attend to her when necessary. Later, this visiting priest will be given a name Fibo. Imp's fighting role, if she ever gets to combat, is of an buffer/debuffer in RPG terms.

Concept art of Imp (left) and Fibo (Right).

Dungeons are the Domains of the Ascended. No one is allowed to intentionally disturb the place without calling upon themselves the wrath of those who reside there. However, the laws of the Domain allow an intruder's presence if it was not by the intruder's volition, for example, by accident.

Or by external force.

Individuals from outside the city gates are being caught by Armada to be sold as slaves. The Zvied sect, just as any church specializing in dungeon raids, are buying them to force them to wield equipment and push them to Dungeons to search for relics.

What equipment? Well, various relics which gives them a Divine Link - a way to bend the laws of Nature in exchange for bearing a meaningless burden. The Imp's thorns of Deprecation is one of such items. These might have various effects:

All gags impede communication for lower physiological requirements Heels limit movement for access to traditional magic system The clothes sacrifice dignity for heightened regenerative abilities and so on. Not all trade-off are equal though.

These slaves are called Fated, because they were chosen to take upon themselves a burden of city's flourishment.

Fated slaves are divided into various groups. Zvied has few, but competent groups. To be exact, there are only 3 of them, each having maximum of 7 fated slaves.

Group III has only 4 slaves. This group is composited from annihilated groups. The description of each slave in group III are assumptions from male lead, Asdev.

Asdev is a male lead of this story. He was working in a metropolitan city far from this place as local alchemist. He got into trouble with the local politics and decided to flee. However, he got too far and got caught by Kelson's Armada. In the same day, he got sold to Zvied sect and thrown into the Dungeon to test his abilities. As the only survivor of the batch, he got put into the group III. Seeing all the long-time members, all broken by their fate, he set himself to see them return to life as he deemed to be necessary for his survival and eventual escape.

Asdev's equipment are numerous and some collected from dead fated slaves - his collection includes heels for hightened physical abilities, golden ball gag harness for higher stamina and compensation for physiological needs, smoky rubber-like catsuit for regenerative powers, earrings for communication with the priest and black machete which cuts better than it looks like. His preferred fighting style is close-quarters fighting with the said machete and overwhelming opponents with speed. If possible he is trying his best to avoid any duels - all his moves are cunning and calculating.

The Healer is a first male side character. By appearance he was probably trained a slave for high class people's entertainment. He was most likely then sold to Zvied's sect, though it is not known whether it was before or after his realization of powers.

As the name suggests, he has indirect healing powers, which is very rare in this universe. To clarify, his power is capable of mending clothing from all damage and theese have regenerative powers. His ability most likely came from the combination of ring gag harness, the staff he is chained to, and ballet heels for access to magic.

As almost all of the slaves, Healer was just a walking husk of a doll, with no signs of awarness. So broken by the fate even slaves were discharging their anger at him. It felt like he got used to not think so he won't get crushed by the whatever is inside if he dared to look at himself. That was until he met a person, who just let him rest for a bit for the first time.

He can't walk with heels. To move, he has to use his staff or get assistance. Asdev is the only person who he trusts, there is a high possibility Healer has developed an obsessive inclinations towards Asdev.

AM stands for Artificial Mage. His outfit suggests he was of an aristocratic background - it is not that rare to put children to slavery to protect from political enemies, or, to get rid of the competition. His anxiety spikes and frightened nature suggest it wasn't long since he went into captivity. If it weren't for Healer taking shots for him, AM would most likely break way before Asdev's arrival.

AM was an addition by whims of the Male Lead - a stress relief chosen by Asdev for Rho. He locked his position in Asdev's team after Imp realized his powers - he can create an artificial matter from basically nothing and manipulate them to some degree, mostly creating walls and projectiles, making him a mid-range DPS in RPG sense.

Rho is the only female side character in the Asdev's team. She is blind, in exchange for infinite stamina. If she hadn't had her hammer chained to her ankle, she would most likely fall victim from other slave's abuse before she would develop her other senses. Still, without Asdev, she would probably be discarded, as such limitations were very hard to build teams around. Asdev gave her meaning by letting her take care of AM.

Asdev and Rho fight side by side. This duo developed touch gestures to navigate themselves in battle, compensating for each other's shortcomings.

The story will move from Kelson to various Dungeons. If I were to try to briefly describe the place, I think it would go as follows:

East European 50s to 60s, heavy industrialized city with a hint of body horror and fantasy if close to the religious institutions, which rule over the place.

The laws of Nature are very different. People don't have to sweat to effectively regulate body temperature, have tough bodies withstanding any fall from any place. They are able to lift things hundred of times heavier than themselves . Can essentially float on water without any effort, not even breaking the surface. That applies to the Domain of Nature as well. Capable of creating buildings and masses as hard to break as they are tall. Beasts and Flora short as old lady's knees to as tall as the highest mountain imaginable, its movement unimpeded. Small breeze already strong as hurricanes and the rain regularly drowns the city

It's like the people are the ants in this universe.

Introduction

While I was trying to incorporate few themes I wanted, I've quickly found out, that It might be impossible, given my current abilities, to set my story to be as consistent (at least in the background) as I would like it to be.

I will first talk about the first part of the first layer of worldbuilding (there are two layers) and then give a small context on the next part, the time-space the story will take space. All accompanied by some diagrams.

Historical Context

Any civilization experiences its birth, rise and fall. The accurate history of the formation of the first civilization is unknown, even religious texts are uncertain. The common knowledge is that the first city was formed out of people after the Fall of the Paradise, fleeing from the Forces of Nature to survive. It was normal for a settlement to fall apart in few years, as people had to migrate to a temporarily safer place.

At some point, approx. 100 years after the Fall of a Paradise, a religious sect worshipping the god of gracefulness formed and with that, a city state. A research on divinity and inner workings of the world gave the people the power to fight the Forces of Nature and the first Ascension Cycle began. No more did they have to run away and a civilization began to quickly flourish. However, insidious human nature eroded the state within and civilization fell apart, leaving behind an uninhabitable place filled with Ascended (more in Religious Context), known to be Dungeons.

Those who survived, formed new city states, beginning a new cycle. From that point, every state counts date in Ascension Cycles. Humankind flourishes and falls apart every 50 to 100 years. Only two fates await this civilization - they either get swallowed by the forces of nature from outside, destroying its legacy completely, or they Ascend, creating a Dungeon in its place and survivors create new city states. For the city state in which the comic takes place, it is in 336th cycle.

Over the cycles, many cities were established and fell apart. History is filled with constant movement and struggle against the Forces of Nature (namely Hunting beasts, swarms, colonies, etc.). To combat them, the religious sect has dwelled into the study of divinity and Nature. Though Ascension follows a fall of a city state, the sect optimized data preservation to some degree.

In around 50 cycles, city states began scavenging old technology from Dungeons as it got more efficient than making new technology on the spot. Over time, religious sects started infusing themselves and dominating other settlements outside their cycle, providing them new order and a intellectual wealth. Such cities established political and religious hierarchy systems which persisted to the current cycle.

It is worth to note, that the former settlements got enough power over the cycles to form a non-religious state organizations - All under the banner of the Chamber of Commerce and Armada (more about the below).

The economy is largely contained within the city state - however most of the city states are wide enough to secure all necessary goods. The primary income comes from hunting the Forces of Nature and then its processing via various routes, from food and water to building materials.

A schematic diagram of generalized economy of the city state Kelson of 336th Ascension Cycle with some routes highlighted by arrows.

The hunting industry is accompanied by weapons industry and human trafficking. The hunting and Dungeon raiding is in the jurisdiction of Chamber of Divinity, while human trafficking, processing, manufacturing and communication between neighboring city states is the realm of the Chamber of Commerce, Saying that, it is not uncommon for each faction to expand its influence in other ways (research, interstate communication, exploration, more in Religious Context). Each cycle would reset the power level of each faction, at least to some degree.

To get the info on what Dungeons are, see Religious Institutions in Religious Context below.

A Sketch of a societal structure depicting balance between factions. From an unknown priest of the god of Gracefulness

As it was implied above, the society is separated horizontally into non-religious and religious groups.

The non-Devotees group is divided into 3 classes: aristocrats (mostly big business owners since economy is centralized and high positions in the military or law enforcement), middle class (same citizen privileges as aristocrats besides ownership) and slaves (non-citizens or demoted due to debt or criminal activity, treated as property). Aristocrats of the same industry form alliances and their representants are forming the chamber of commerce. Military (Armada, defense of the state) and law enforcement is itself a faction and have their rank-type classes (5-commander, 20-commander... up to 10k commanders and a high general on top).

The Devotees are people who spend they life worshipping divine law. The highest position, Sacerdotal, oversees the whole city state and each other faction is under their rule, having the last word in the faction gatherings. Though the Devotees faction are mostly loyal to Sacerdotal, the Chamber of Commerce and Armada are in a political clash to upheld bigger influence over the current Ascension Cycle to get a bigger footing in the next cycle. Besides Sacerdotal, the Devotees with their own interpretations of divine law, are divided into sects - their Elder priests are forming the Chamber of Divinity. Sects have their local churches, commanded by High priests and accompanied by paladins (hunters), priests (research and overseeing dungeon raiding), visiting priests (Inter-state communication and missionaries) and fated slaves (dungeon raiding). Each cycle a different sect is in power which is characteristically followed by appointed Sacerdotal. It is worth noting that though the divine law is somewhat universal, it is generalized enough for each sect to work with law enforcement to give different punishments, according to their interpretation.

Diagram of general societal structure of city states worshipping the God of Gratefulness - individual roles are sorted by descending societal status

The Ascension Cycle and the divine law is closely intertwined with the culture - instead of prolonging the current cycle, people are aiming for a better upstanding in the next cycle.

Given the threat, the laws are strict and punishments are dire (though these vary from sect to sect).

Religious Context

An Illustrative depiction of Ascension to Divinity (no story characters depicted here).

Pantheon or Deities:

Aalmira, the Force of Nature - creating the Kind of Paradise and then giving them Meaning through Mortality (this period is called the Fall of Paradise), as it is a Natural thing to do. Aalmira created the Domain of the Nature (explanation in Mythology)

Hospodar, the God of Gratefulness - given birth by Aalmira, Hospodar has seen the inevitability of corruption of humankind caused by the meaningless suffering by other lifeforms and by the people. Hence, he striked a deal with Aalmira. Instead of getting Meaning, he would sacrifice his body, people can create cities and nations on top of his withering divine body. That way, people would be protected as long as they sustain the divine domain and abide by its laws different from the Domain of the Nature.

Mythology:

The theme of the text is often the ability accept a seemingly meaningless burden to ascend to Divinity. The deal just prolongs the inevitable. This is why, After the Fall of the Paradise, the deal is described as such. Moreover, the withering Divine Domain od God of Gratefulness requires people in it to ascend as well. By taking such meaningless burden upon themselves, they would join in the protection against the ever-growing Force of Nature. The context will be provided by the short story below.

Aalmira is often described as the universe itself - by whims of such deity a lifeform is created called the Kind of Paradise. They were omnipotent and omniscient, comparable to Aalmira. Conscious of their existence, these forms understood they wanted something. What they craved was something they would never achieve in their current state - they agreed to call it Meaning. After spending their time searching for a solution, they realized what is missing. It was the constraints. They striked a deal with Aalmira, who wasn't swayed by such needs. Aalmira therefore imposed limits for them. The Time was created. The physical laws under the Divine Domain of Nature were created. With such laws, many new phenomena occurred, new patterns emerged: Competition and Corruption, Hope and Fear, Adventure and Struggle, Mortality and Legacy, and many more. All of them gave the Kind of Paradise the Meaning they craved. They thanked Aalmira. The future descendants forgot the past and enjoyed the present.

Eventually the Kind of Paradise would all meet death, not being able to reach their former Divinity. A new cycle would begin. On the whims of such deity as Aalmira a lifeform called the Kind of Paradise would be born. For a while they resided on the side of Aalmira and then they were sent to the Divine Domain of Nature, surviving alongside other lifeforms, until all of them meet Death, such period has been named the Fall of the Paradise.

All of the lifeforms were thankful for it. But then on the last cycle, one of the lifeforms, feeble in their bodies compared to others, were given an ability to treat future the same way as present. Once they were sent into the Divine Domain of Nature, a new phenomena emerged, exclusive only to people: Dread and Sense of Meaninglesness.

Before all people were sent into the Divine Domain of Nature, Hospodar, one of the people, has seen all the suffering by Meaninglessness caused by such phenomena. He asked Aalmira if this is what other lifeforms wished for. Aalmira stayed silent, as such deity didn't understand needs of the Kind of Paradise. Hospodar then took it upon himself to change it. Aalmira cautioned him to respect the wishes of other lifeforms. After a brief thinking, he found a way to elevate humankind while leaving all lifeform's craving for Meaning intact: He would make a new Divine Domain inside Aalmira's by sacrificing his body. On top of his withering divine body, new phenomena, exclusive to people, would emerge: Acceptance and Responsibility. Such phenomena balanced the Dread and the Sense of Meaninglessness. People in this domain struggle for meaning to this day and in death, strive for Ascension to Divinity to sustain the Domain known now as the Divine Domain of the God of Gratefulness. People were grateful for the past, enjoyed the present and looked forward to the future.

Religious Practices:

The religion revolves around cycles: many rituals are trying to remind people of their divine past, their responsibilities to Hospodar and helping people with their legacy for the next Ascension cycle.

Every day, before starting a new day, the most faithful of devotees and priests meet in the church to start a prayer, voicing their gratitude for their day and silently voice their plans for today. The same thing happens in the evening, but they instead silently voice, how the day went. The way they pray may differ for each sect.

Every week, local citizens would go to church and listen to a local priest interpretation of the Divine Law.

Any person can come to church throughout the day and speak with a priest, even if priest can contact law enforcement to punish those, who are ungrateful, priests can enforce the law by themselves (law enforcement is working in place not in an immidiate distance from the church)

Every year there are three festivals - A new year of a current cycle, Hospodar's Vow - celebrating those, who succesfully gained a Divine Link, and Winter Feast, celebrating the end of hunting season.

Priests of the God of Gratefulness. celebrating the new year of the Ascension Cycle. Left - Mother and her daughter, Devotees with a divine link (more below), Middle - high priest, Right - accompanying priest. No story characters depicted here

To become an adult, one must accept a meaningless burden for the first time. If the burden is heavy enough, the Domain of the God of Gratefulness give the Divine Link, an ability which breaks the Laws of Nature. In order to get it, the burden must be especially heavy though. It is also worth noting that the weight of burden does not fully correlate to the strength of the blessing. Not many people are willing to throw away their lives this easy for potentially lackluster abilities. What kind of burden has to be made is different for each sect.

To Ascend, one must accept a heavy burden comparable to the Hospodar's sacrifice. Ascended then strengthens the Divine Domain of the God of Gratefulness and around them, the abilities of the Divine Link strenghtens as well. However, all people would eventually lose themselves, as the Divinity strips them of their Meaning. If they are contained, they are then kept deep in the city and are released when needed, when the city state falls to the force of nature or when they break out themselves. Such scenarios would lead to a creation of a Divine Domain known as Dungeons. This is considered a successful Ascension Cycle and the surviving would then create a new city state and celebrate this week as a beginning of a new cycle (year zero of a cycle).

Sacred Texts

the Divine Law is named Sepsy. It tells the tale of Aalmira and Hospodar and then rules to not succumb to phenomena (Struggle, Corruption,...) written over the Ascension Cycles. Besides Sepsy, there is a myriad of other scriptures called Pozinamky, detailing the findings about Divinity, Different interpretations of sacred text, history and laws of Nature.

Sepsy is used as Divine Law and disputes are resolved through them. Any precedent is documented in Pozinamky.

Religious Institutions:

Each sect has local churches and they all vary in functions. Generally, it includes function as general education centers, training centers for priesthood for devotees after finishing their studies for citizens, and hunters' and dungeon raiders' place of of stay, named Paladome and Fated's base respectively. Moreover, some of the sects have research centers, but it can iclude even butcheries, brothels, slave training centers, merchant guilds, manufacture centers and so on, depending on the sects' interpretation of law.

Hunters are called Paladins and they are slaves, who volunteered to be trained to hunt or gather the lifeforms, sometimes even other people outside the city state.

Dungeon raiders are called Fated slaves forcefully brought to be trained to withstand their equipment, which gives them strong Divine Link.

Dungeons are the domain of the Ascended and one of the laws inside them states to call upon a wrath of the Ascended if anyone disturbs the place. This does not to apply to those who entered not by their own volition, i.e. by accident of being forced. This is why Fated slaves are used to raid the Dungeons.

A group of Fated Slaves scavenging artifacts for a recently conquered Dungeon. Priest's point of view.

Interfaith Dynamics:

Easy in, Impossible to get out - to become a devotee, a person makes a vow to submit to anything to further the cause, therefore any signs will be considered a Corruption which needs to be 'removed from unfortunate victim', priest would even resort to banishment of phenomenon by torture to "save a devotee".

This religion is strict toward their devotees, but patient toward those, who haven't heard of Hospodar yet. The Divine Link is giving them quite the advantage in believability. They consider deities of other lifeforms. However, they consider Hospodar as the only god representant of the humankind - missionaries are sent to remind people of this and those who don't recognize their god are ungrateful heretics - these are forcefully taken in as slaves to support the cause by taking in some meaningless burden.

Influence on Law and Ethics:

Gratefulness and Responsibility are the main themes of the law, crimes like theft, murder, unfaithfulness or tax evasion are severely punished. The Divine Law does forbid death sentence, but repentance is made taking in a meaningless burden - armbinder, lost limbs, gags, getting chained to a cart, forced to wear humiliating clothing and other body limitations and modifications. Type, intensity and brutality varies from sect to sect.

Since religion is strongly oriented towards future, families are strongly supported. The society is focused on group culture.

Heretical Movements and Schisms:

Religion is divided into many sects. Elder priests of these sects form a body called the Chamber of Divinity. Any sect or religion outside these are considered heretics. Each of them are fighting for the seat of Sacerdotal, to impose their interpretation upon the whole city state. Each Ascension Cycle the power dynamic partially resets depending on the contributions of the previous cycle.

Symbolism:

there are two symbols prevalent in the religion, and that is a circle O and an X. O represents the divine domain, often marking devotees and priests with a divine link. X is a symbol for an submission to Divine Law - as X's are written even by illiterate people, it symbolizes signing up anything that future brings forth no matter the previous upbringing. Those two symbols are drawn in symmetric combinations.

Some examples of symbols used in the city state Kelson of the 336th Ascension Cycle.

Impact on Arts and Architecture:

Architecture is molded by a necessity for fast growth - the design is rather plain, cubic, with simple shapes (stripes most of the time) engraved and some X and O's. Art is more free in that sense - most artist must be devotees to perform art, music, or writing publicly though. The Divine Law has a lot of fantasy elements themselves, so there are many fictions acceptable by the religion.

Some depictions of the city state buildings with the citizens.

Context of the characters of the [TinDiaDy!]

Asdev: Male lead, a person from the outside, captured by human traffickers and then sold to become a fated slave of the Zvied sect.

Imp: Female lead, currently working aa a priest of a Zvied sect specializing in dungeon raiding and missionaries. One of her meaningless burdens is a reverse prayer bind, giving her ability to wield thorns of deprecation (an artifact from a conquered dungeon)

Fibo: Visiting priest of the Zvied sect. She went back to the city state Kelson to attend to Imp. Fibo got her name from Imp.

Healer, AM and Rho: Long-time Fated slaves of the Zvied sect.

All gags impede communication for lower physiological requirements

Heels limits movement for access to magic system

The clothes sacrifices dignity for heightened regenerative abilities

and so on.

Moreover, to enter the Dungeon without calling upon the wrath of those residing in the dungeon (the reason will be specified in the next post), visitors must enter unwillingly, or forced there. This is why only slaves enter the dungeons.