"Praised" [Working title] - VERY Rough Plot Summary

Setting:

 

The series takes places in a very anachronistic era, taking aspects mostly from medieval times, but having some steampunk elements. Think very similar atmosphere and art style to The Last Airbender, and its sequel Korra.

 

Some backstory:

 

        In this story, there exists a single universe, within it a being who, over time, becomes the ultimate life form, devoting their entire existence to gaining the cosmos’s vast knowledge, becoming the “perfect one”. In some cultures, they called these things “Gods.” This being evolves to a state omnipotence, and then that being transcends the “threshold” to another, higher plane of existence; this sparks the creation of a new universe. A big bang, if you will. This forges an entirely new universe, and deletes the previous one. The next universe has everything evolve completely different than the previous. Think of it like every world, solar system, galaxy, etc. is randomly generated, for lack of better term, every time one of these beings “transcends”. These “Gods” then decides to basically toy around with the next cosmos, like a play-thing of sorts. They can either help it, or ruin it.

 

        Similar to the Greek gods taking a title like "God of war", "God of lightning", etc., these beings took the name of the subject they dedicated their existence too. Like justice, chaos, zeal, gluttony, war, pride, etc. First came Justice, then Chaos. From there, gods would come to them in varying intervals of time (1000's of years, one million years, to even a mere 400 years) and from countless varieties of worlds. Eventually, Chaos decides to find specific people in the cosmos, and sort of nudges them towards the darker side, creating gods like Zeal, Fear, Debauchery, Panic, Death, Plague, etc. Justice and his assortment of morally correct deities banish the gods of Chaos away, into a sort of stem off of their realm: The Mortisphere, a sort of intergalactic prison, and, for some reason or another, the mortals of the universe’s idea of an after-life. Go figure. Anyways, Justice locks away the Gods of Chaos, along with other miscellaneous evils around the macrocosm. To keep transcendence of mortals under control, the Gods opted to create a mystic tome, full of mysterious cosmic abilities and spell, information regarding the many universes before, let alone thousands of pages on the galaxies of the current universe. They gave it to the beings of a certain planet (which may or may not be the universe’s equivalent to Earth) for protection, and to choose what path they will take for themselves. But, the Gods begin to notice the books power has corrupted countless numbers of people: dictators, armies, politicians, even the lowest classes of citizens fought to get the book. After one last crucial event, the furious immortals ravaged the kingdom and took the book. The book was forever lost, in the most barren wasteland of a region on this planet. The Gods completely withdraw all contact with the universe and the beings within it, and leave them to their cruel, selfish ways.

 

Plot time:

        The event that sparked the Gods to leave? It all began with two warring nations, a highly religious city (Ceninnon), very respectful of the Gods, and a dictatorship-led, technologically advanced kingdom (Craesolis). Its leader, [PLACEHOLDER], has branched out his originally small city into a massive, dystopian society, affecting several nations neighboring it, and it looked as though his next target would be Ceninnon. The night before the invasion, a defecting member of the holders of the God’s tome had brought the book to Craesolis’s leader, for a plan so terrible that once the Gods were alerted of it, they ravaged the city, killed hundreds there, and sent the leaders of the kingdom to the far corners of the Earth, alone, to suffer. Cenninon’s leaders took in the refugees, but as punishment for their kingdom’s evil doings, they are sent to live below the city, in the ancient catacombs and ruins. The city of Ceninnon rests atop a large mountain; within the mountain is a dark, decrepit, rundown series of ruins. These act as a support for the city above. This is where the people of Craesolis now live. They're treated as poor, low-class citizens, some are even slaves and military fodder. A year after this emigration to Ceninnon, the new prince is born, his name is Xyphes. Xyphes, on his 5th birthday, is met by one of the palace’s new slaves; a young boy, only a few years older than Xyphes. His name is Diacuse. Diacuse was found as toddler in the rubble of Craesolis, no family to his name. The boy was taken in by the royal family, but treated as a servant.

 

        The two become the best of friends, and throughout their childhood the two of them andventure and explore the city, and even sneak out to “the land not travelled”, only to be caught. The two never minded however, they enjoyed the fun of it all. Eventually Xyphes and Diacuse, now 20 and 22 respectively, decide to use their self-taught skills to fight for the city in secret, stopping several large scale attacks from occurring on the city. Xyphes believes that he’s ready to lead, and Diacuse agrees that he is a suitable leader, but notes that until his father dies, he’ll stay the prince. Xyphes knows this all too well, and goes to his father to discuss his leadership plans. He overhears the king talking to his advisors about finding an ancient relic, a certain book, which may grant him immortality. Xyphes is outraged that he may never rule, and begins to formulate a plan to stop this from happening. Xyphes goes to Diacuse and lies to him about the king being a tyrannical dictator, and wants to invade other nations, and that he sees him an unfit ruler (I have to mention that Xyphes, throughout the story, is hinted at being influenced by the God of Chaos. It's subtle, but there are several clues to it. You only truly find out when it's blatantly said). Xyphes comes up with a long elaborate ruse to trick Diacuse and his people to overthrow the king. Diacuse, being the only one of his people to be as high up in command as he is, is used to keep the king out of the loop. Diacuse rallies his people to attack the city-above, using crude explosives and weapons (crossbows, crude flamethrowers, etc) that they had been secretly building to try and take them over.

 

        Xyphes tells Diacuse to kill the king during all the confusion of the attack, he does, and Xyphes comes to congratulate him for helping him. Xyphes offers a portion of the nation to be controlled Diacuse, but he refuses, outraged that he was tricked into killing an innocent man. Diacuse rushes to him, grabs him by the throat, and tries to fight him; but he couldn’t muster the will to. Xyphes calls the guards and fakes an injury, saying that Diacuse was the traitor that planned all of this! He's chased out of the kingdom, his people out numbered from the start (Xyphes planned it that way from the very beginning). Diacuse’s people are almost entirely killed, with only a spare few still alive in the ruins below. They set off the final bit of Diacuse’s plan, the crude explosives destroy the support beams under the city holding up the upper class are of the city-above. The castle is one of the last things left standing, along with middle class areas.  Xyphes is crowned king. He begins to expand his kingdom, going crazy with power. Diacuse then travels the continent (which is mostly jungle, with some off and on grassland), simply looking for safe haven from Xyphes.

 

        A good portion of "season 1"'s adventures come from his exploration of the land. He would bump into gods every so often, in the form of mortals. The thing with Gods is that, it's shown all throughout that they have very human looking forms. It's not shown for a while that their true forms are frightening, alien looking beasts. I want their true appearance to be a major reveal. Like, the characters can barely comprehend the horror they see when they see them. He god that Diacuse comes upon the most however, is Wisdom. The two, after a rocky start, become good friends soon enough. Wisdom tries to help Diacuse along on his adventures, leading him to a destination unknown to both of them, but seemingly important. They arrive at an enormous desert (something Diacuse had never even heard of), and Wisdom disappears. Diacuse eventually reaches a small town by the sea, a sandy oasis, and finally meets his long-lost father. Wisdom appears a final time, telling him that he’ll be needed soon. Diacuse nods, and runs to his home, embracing his new found heritage.

 

        Diacuse is met by Wisdom only half a year later, and is told that Xyphes has conquered all the nations surrounding Ceninnon. He’s been sending assassin after assassin to him, tracking him down, and if he doesn’t leave here soon, he’ll send his army to his home of Laupsies. Diacuse agrees, not wanting to put his family in any harm. Wisdom and Diacuse travel around the continent once more, hiding from the army of Xyphes and his countless assailants. Diacuse gathers the several acquaintances he met on his travels, for a final assault on Ceninnon. They storm the city, fight to the castle, and Diacuse encounters Xyphes, finally giving him the beating he deserved; only for Xyphes to ask him to forgive him, and pleads that he help him. Xyphes told of a god named Wisdom that came to him and warned of an impending apocalypse: The return of chaotic gods. Eventually Diacuse and Xyphes come to a truce, and the two must journey around the world searching for the book that held chaos within the Mortisphere, and return it to the gods. They discover the location of the book: a literal moving mountain in the volcanic region of Vissatho. The two climb the mountain, in the process recovering their lost friendship. Once the reach it, Xyphes and Diacuse take the book to the temple of Melzisoth, the temporal gateway to the higher realms. The two are told to read the sacred text of summoning to send it to the dimension the Gods live in, but Xyphes reveals his influence by chaos he had been keeping a secret, and Diacuse is forced to kill him, Diacuse getting his arm sliced up in the fight. In Xyphes' dying words, he tells Diacuse which text to read to send the book back. He does so, a portal opens and the gods of Chaos are released on this world. Xyphes grins evilly, knowing his final devious trick had been accomplished, and finally dies. The other gods come to Diacuse and tell him of his mistake, and that he must go find and either return them to their rightful domain, or slay them. Diacuse gets to keep the book and use its sacred powers however, which he uses to create a robotic prosthetic arm, powered by spells. Wisdom is banished from the order of the gods for assisting in this treachery, and has his powers taken away. Wisdom (now going by his name before reaching transcendence) parts way with Diacuse, angered and depressed of his current situation.

 

 -----------------------------------EVERYTHING PAST THIS I'M UNSURE ABOUT-----------------------------------------

 

        Diacuse, now on his final quest, begins to search the Earth for the gods of chaos, conquers many perils, and meets many acquaintances, new and old, including his good friend Wisdom, now over his banishment and willing to help his friend save the universe. Diacuse eventually does this task, but it turns out all of these events were set up by Chaos from the start of his banishment. He tricked Diacuse and the gods, and by some crazy means made it so Diacuse became a god. Diacuse transcends and becomes the god of misery. The newly transcended universe is OUR universe, OUR Earth. Diacuse is the god that most people think of today and "Satan" is the god of chaos influencing people to transcend, for every time a universe recreates, he is freed and his fellow chaotic Gods are revived. This will all be simply implied however; it won't be flat out said. The final scene of the comic will probably be our Earth though, to further that implication.

 

I’m not too happy with it right now; I’m trying to change some details to make it flow better. Any criticism and advice would be appreciated.