#cotl worldbuilding

CW for mentions of death/body horror/cannibalism and the usual

Also note that while this post will reference/link to some of the other worldbuilding posts I’ve made, you don’t have to have read them in order for this to make sense! But you can still look at them if you want some extra context.

Kichirou was not a chosen god, instead finding his Crown on the head of a fallen god’s dead body and taking it for himself. The daggers he wields were also crafted from the bones of said god’s carcass not long after he got the Orange Crown.

The independence that comes with being a god is what drew him to it, wanting to be strong enough to survive on his own, after running away from whatever god he used to follow in search of a freer existence.

He wanted to be able to go where he wants and do what he pleases, not bound by the teachings of a god or the fragility of his mortality…which is why he was very disappointed to learn gods require Devotion to survive, which can only be generated by the mortals who worship them.

He viewed having to stay in one place, look after a cult, and change his behaviour in order to make his followers like him as just another type of prison, and refused to start a cult because of it.

Luckily for him, he soon discovered that cannibalising gods and devoted mortals, as well as stealing from the shrines of other gods, was another way to indirectly harvest Devotion and keep himself fed. With some sneaking, scavenging, and combat skills—he managed to survive off of hunting alone. He also discovered that eating a god’s Heart specifically also felt like doing drugs made him stronger, and used that to his advantage to garner some pretty decent strength, especially for a god with zero worshipers.

Due to their inherent reliance on mortals, the existence of a god without a following was previously unheard of. Being the one to find an exploit, a way to break free from this cycle, is what granted Kichi the title of Freedom. But those who disobey the natural order of this world don’t simply go unpunished…

The secondary title of “Mischief” was a less majestic one. He caused trouble for fun and was charismatic enough to trick people and manipulate contracts in certain cases, giving him the title of Mischief(/trickery/deceit/etc)

He was also a thrill seeker and got into Situations specifically for the thrill/the fun of it most of the time. For that same reason he loved gambling (and definitely played it completely fairly and didn't have more than a few people out to get him because he cheated them out of their gold). I bet he knows some crazy card tricks and every single one of them is rigged

Kichirou was well known across the Lands, but that’s not to say he was well liked. I think rage baiting other gods was his favourite part about this whole deal, actually.

There's some people he was on good terms with, but also plenty that despised him for his tendency to cheat and steal from them. He was known by lots of names, many of them more unsavoury than others, Teeth in the Darkness only becoming one of them much later down the line.

For many centuries, he was doing fine. He was pretty powerful, and free to do whatever he wanted just as he had planned, and while usually managing to outrun the consequences of his trickery.

When the Bishops decided they wanted the Lands all to themselves, and initiated the God War however, things started going downhill for him.

With so many gods dying and having their cults and corpses desecrated, and surviving mortals flocking to the Old Faith by the dozens, Kichirou’s options for harvesting Devotion dwindled, and he was forced to lay low/go into hiding as to not be ambushed in his now weakened state.

Even so, he stuck to his principles no matter what, and refused to start a cult even now.

He survived for a while, but sources of Devotion only dwindled further, and he only grew weaker and much, much hungrier.

One night, in one last desperate, instinct-driven attempt to keep himself from starving, he turned to the last source of divinity he had left—and consumed the Orange Crown itself.

What followed was the Crown’s internal mechanisms for trying to regenerate both itself and its bearer’s body going completely haywire, and after a very painful transmutation, turning the Fox into what he is today. (When referencing this event, I refer to it as The Singularity to save time)

Now, he is what I can only describe as a half-corporeal being, only able to manifest fractions of a physical form in complete darkness, and completely unable to manifest his entire physical form due to how much energy it takes him. His body is also stuck in a perpetual state of decay and regeneration, which makes him heal from injuries quicker than other gods, but also just makes existence very painful.

While it did keep him from dying in a sense, and made it easier for him to hide away during the War—it also left him without a stable physical form and unable to hunt properly, as well as permanently unable to leave the shadows.

Overtime, he learned to bargain with gods and mortals alike as a means to get food and whatever else he was after, and figured out how to use his state to his advantage when it came to hunting things down on his own—but no matter how well he tries to adapt, it cannot change the fact that he’s the furthest thing from ‘free’ now.

When Butcher enters the picture, the Fox is curious about them from the very beginning. Their stubbornness, lack of fear upon meeting him, and quite frankly—their sheer audacity—is not something he sees often.

He especially takes an interest in them however, after realising that their role as a vessel lets them bend the rules of this world in ways full-on-gods and mortals cannot. Maybe he himself failed in trying to achieve true freedom, but what if there was someone else capable of breaking free from the rules of this world with his help?

Bonus/fun fact: Kichirou is actually nocturnal and sleeps during the day! Gods don’t usually require sleep in the way mortals do, but he started sleeping as a means to conserve energy when food was running low/after The Singularity, and it has become a habit ever since. Don’t have shit to do in the daytime anyway when you can’t manifest a proper physical form until it gets dark, you know?

And yes, his weapon is the Ruin of Nirah, because the way Kudaai talks about it and it’s moon design elements make me believe it was his somehow. Since it’s confirmed Nirah was a god, I’d like to think she’s someone Kichi was on good terms with, until the God War started and he turned on her when things got desperate, which then gave the weapons their legendary status. They’re also duo wielders because I saw someone draw them as such and thought it was super cool. He lost them after the Singularity.

(There is also his whole backstory with Ratau that I’ve also been planning out, but that will be getting its own dedicated post if I decide to talk about it)

Also here's the doodles on the side in full quality cus I had to shrink them down

Design Notes

I went with this whole Everything for his backstory, because “The God of Freedom who prides himself on being independent is punished for breaking the Divine Order by being chained in place, and forced to depend almost exclusively on others for his survival” is the exact sort of dramatic irony canon cotl would pull on one of its characters imo. And it gives him a solid reason to want to help Butcher which is important for plot stuff and such

Him being a fox combined with his abilities/personality made me start headcanoning him as a kitsune ages ago. Maybe I don’t literally consider him to be one in-universe, but I do reference their characteristics as inspiration for his visual design + story/character in the more meta sense.

Kitsune being sometimes regarded as tricker spirits is also what inspired me to make Mischief one of his domains! And then I thought, hey aren’t kitsune primarily depicted as female, would that mean he’s trans? Which then made me realise making him trans would be a very nice thematic fit to his other domain being Freedom—and the way in which he embodies said domain—so I’ve since then canonised it for the AU. T4t Darkbells is #real

The name Kichirou was chosen for its Japanese origin (continuing with the kitsune inspiration) but also primarily for its meaning (luck), because “Gambler comes out as transgender, names himself Luck” is some shit He Would Do, and Tbos’s naming scheme in general tends to not take itself very seriously. There’s also at least a few puns to be made here which is a bonus

Politics + Geography

After winning the War of the Gods, but before Narinder’s imprisonment, all 5 of the Bishops split the land into equal parts for them to rule over, and molded each of their domains to their will. Both the landscape and the political borders of the Lands didn’t always used look like this, but gods shape the world to their liking, and as the lady remaining gods to walk the Lands, the Lands shifted in their image.

The Bishop statues on the map above roughly indicate the placements of their cults. There are many smaller cult campuses scattered across their domains and the Lands in general, but the ones marked on the map are the main settlements, and the ones the Bishops themselves inhabit.

In the middle of the island are the Bishops’ meeting grounds. They were built there so each Bishop could easily access them when the five of them had to meet up to discuss important matters. Each Bishop’s domain has a clear path to access the meeting grounds, and those are the paths the Lamb takes when going on crusades. The land the meeting grounds are built upon doesn’t belong to any Bishop. It is also where Narinder’s chaining took place.

All doors directly connect to the Bishops’ respective domains, except for the one leading towards The Gateway, as it’s not so much of a literal door as it is a portal to the land of the dead. Post-game, the Mystic Seller also manifests there, but its portal now leads to the Ether instead of the Gateway.

Anchordeep has more than 50% of its territory under water, and the rest is still mostly in damp, dark caves. The Lamb’s crusades here take place on the area above water. (And Sfish helps them take care of some underwater camps as well! Thanks Sfish!)

Kallamar’s temple is unfortunately also above water, because all Bishops put their temples in a place that all of them could access, in case one of them quickly needs to find the other. Seeing as the others can’t breathe under water—he ended up with this. It never even occurred to them that it could be a liability in the future.

After his imprisonment, what was formerly Narinder’s land has now been deemed “cursed ground,” and none of the other four gods have come forward to claim it as their own land ever since. Followers of the Old Faith still set up camp there, but they do so independently of the Bishops. Some autonomous communities, such as the pilgrims, also choose to live there due to the lesser pressure enforced on the area’s residents by the Old Faith. The Lamb’s cult—the Vanity—is located in the northern-most part of the Cursed Grounds, closest to the meeting grounds.

The location of The Vanity was also formerly the location of Ratau’s cult, but the original Cult of Death might’ve been located in a different part of the Grounds.

Long ago, the Cursed Grounds used to be filled with off-shoot camps of Death Cult followers, and great structures built in their deity’s image—ones that rivalled the beauty and excellence of every other Bishop’s domain.

Since then, however, a majority of the Death Cult and its following has died out, leaving nothing but ruin in its place. The Cursed Grounds are depicted as almost entirely overground/empty on this map because of this.

The fauna in the Cursed Grounds also appears to be much more normal than that in any of the other four Bishop’s domains. No longer being contorted by the whims of a god for the past one thousand years, nature has slowly managed to reclaim its course over this territory, and restored it to its initial state.

(Perhaps the reason Darkwood’s fauna is the second most normal looking out of the five is that in his reign, Leshy chose to embrace the “chaos” of nature and not interfere too much with it running its course, seeing it to be against his principles to try controlling the uncontrollable.)

And maybe, now that the gods who used to rule over the other four domains too have been slain, the nature there could also start returning to its original glory…

There's a line of tall mountains that runs across the northern-most part of the island. There may be something on the other side, but few have tried scaling them to cross over, and none have lived—or at least none have returned—to tell the tale.

Gameplay (crusades)

Instead of taking place in unique, randomly generated dungeons like the ones in-game—crusades consist of the Lamb making their way through each Bishop’s territory. Slowly cutting their way through, they eventually reach the center of the Bishops’ cults, where they can finally confront the Bishops themselves.

Summoning circles like the one at The Vanity’s entrance are scattered across the Lands, but many of them haven’t been maintained and no longer work properly because of it. At the end of each crusade, the Lamb finds one of these circles, restores it back to functionality, and uses it to teleport back to the cult. They also serve as “checkpoints” for the next crusade, allowing them to continue where they left off instead of fighting their way through the same part of the land again.

Another reason for them to fight on the crusades instead of just running by, is because filing down the amount of worshipers a god had also directly weakens the god, as touched on in my Devotion worldbuilding post.

Design/thought process

The way you unlock all the secondary locations in-game is by running into NPCs native to those areas on crusades, and being invited to come over, which then unlocks those areas on your map.

The locations of said areas on my map were chosen after the domain you first encounter their respective NPCs in (Spore Grotto -> Anura, Smuggler’s Sanctuary -> Anchordeep, Mida’s Cave -> Silk Cradle)

The only exception to this rule is Pilgrim’s Passage (which should be located in Darkwood), because putting the Cursed Grounds up north ended up causing way more problems than just swapping its place with Darkwood’s, so going with this small inconsistency instead seemed like the lesser evil.

- Marcus was Butcher's dad, and the lumberjack of their village—Westmeadow. While officially called a lumberjack, he also served as a forager for outside materials, being one of the few people in the village who had the skills necessary to safely venture out into the outside world.

After he sustained an injury that rendered him unable to keep working, the role of lumberjack was quickly passed onto Butcher, as to not suddenly leave the village without a source of food and medicinal ingredients. It's customary in sheep culture for children to take after their parents' trades, but Butcher took on the role younger than most, at only thirteen years old, due to the urgency of the situation.

- Villia was Butcher's mom, and she ran the medical tent in Westmeadow. Only children were a rare occurrence, usually there was at least two to take on both of their parents' jobs after they retired, but Butcher was one of the few only kids in the whole village.

Due to this, they shadowed under both of their parents, learning both of their trades, with the intent of becoming an expert in both and being able to teach someone else to do the job they chose not to focus on in the future. That choice was taken away from them when they had to become the lumberjack, but that was the job they preferred doing anyway.

Thanks to their mother’s teachings, Butcher still has some medical skills that come in handy when running the cult (and before that—when protecting themselves) to this day.

- Both of them might look intimidating at a glance, but they're both mostly well-adjusted people and good parents, albeit unreasonably strict at times, at least in the eyes of the kids...that being said, at least half of it is just thanks to a chronic case of Resting Bitch Face. [Looks at Butcher] and I think it may even be genetic /j