Christian Cosmic Horror Worldbuilding

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/81/Powerwolf_-_Blessed_&_Possessed.jpg

Not exactly what you were looking for, pic related is worth a read, I think.

Don't forget, demons ARE angels, just ones who rebelled against god. Only certain choirs of angels are even remotely humanoid, look like huge interlocked rings covered with eyes. There's a reason that the first thing angels say to people is usually "be not afraid".

Pretty much, the world is on the brink of being consumed. Primordial evils have awoken, fire rains from the sky, reality bends and twist, as time itself unravels, eyesand faces tear their way from vast expanse of earth and sky, dripping pus, blood and maggots onto the lands below. There are no heroes. They all died barely amounting to anything in the face of the Darkness, and now there are only a scant few willing to stand up and fight. The Apocalypse has come, and there is no hope.

What was that Flash game where you played as a priest and shot up demons and shit? From like, at least ten years ago. Do that

That is pretty damn cool. Thanks for that.

bump for interest

What are some good bible chapters for inspiration for games and weird world building.

I think you can find good stuff in the Book of Enoch, though it's regarded as non-canon

Three days of darkness, my dude.
Like The Mist only hardmode is turned on.

Pepper in some shit from The Stand after it blows over and you've got something tasty.

The Book of Revelations is an obvious ones.
I suggest skimming through Ezekiel. He had some of the weirdest visions. That's where the angels who are a wheel within a wheel and can go forward in all directions without turning come from.

Definitely. The book of Enoch expands on why God decided to flood the Earth and warn Noah. A large group of angels called the Grigori lusted after mortals and were thrown out of heaven for their crimes.

Their leader Shemyaza was blinded and chained by the ankles before being thrown from paradise. Left to hang upside-down eternally between heaven and earth he makes up the constellation of Orion.

The Grigori taught humanity many things. Some angels taught magic, reading the stars and the like. Armaros showed them how to make weapons, wage war and create make-up, which is for some reason just as bad.

The Grigori went on to produce a race of half-human half-angel creatures called the Nephilim, man eating giants (Which is why the follow-up to Enoch is the Book of Giants) with pale skin and six fingers.

Massive wars between humanity and the giants and their allies consumed the world. Humanity was being eaten by these abominations and God completely lost control of the Earth and decided to just flood it and start over.

The Grigori were wrapped in chains and imprisoned beneath the Earth for the devastation they caused and await the apocalypse to return.

You could have one escape and bring armies of evil giants from beneath the Earth.

There is a list of all the named Grigori and what they were responsible for (magic, war etc.) online, so you could build a rogues gallery from that.

Hellgate london. Boom, done.

This guy Book of Revelations is a good one

Inquisitor is an old school Baldur's Gate-esque RPG that deals with this kind of thing pretty heavily, you're playing an Inquisitor in a pseudo-dark ages Europe where the devil is real and evil is winning.

Araqiel (also Arakiel, Araqael, Araciel, Arqael, Sarquael, Arkiel, Arkas) taught humans the signs of the earth.
Armaros (also Amaros) in Enoch I taught men the resolving of enchantments.
Azazel taught men to make knives, swords, shields, and how to devise ornaments and cosmetics.
Gadreel (or Gader'el) taught the art of cosmetics, the use of weapons and killing blows.
Baraqel (Baraqiel) taught men astrology.
Bezaliel mentioned in Enoch I
Chazaqiel (sometimes Ezeqeel or Cambriel) taught men the signs of the clouds (meteorology).
Kokabiel (also Kakabel, Kochbiel, Kokbiel, Kabaiel, and Kochab), In the Book of Raziel he is a high-ranking, holy angel. In Enoch I, he is a fallen Watcher, resident of the nether realms, and commands 365,000 surrogate spirits to do his bidding. Among other duties, he instructs his fellows in astrology.
Penemue "taught mankind the art of writing with ink and paper," and taught "the children of men the bitter and the sweet and the secrets of wisdom." (I Enoch 69.8)
Sariel (also Suriel) taught mankind about the courses of the moon (at one time regarded as forbidden knowledge).
Samyaza (also Shemyazaz, Shamazya, Semiaza, Shemhazi, Semyaza and Amezyarak) is one of the leaders of the fall from heaven in Vocabulaire de l' Angelologie.
Shamsiel, once a guardian of Eden as stated in the Zohar, served as one of the two chief aides to the archangel Uriel (the other aide being Hasdiel) when Uriel bore his standard into battle, and is the head of 365 legions of angels and also crowns prayers, accompanying them to the 5th heaven. In Jubilees, he is referred to as one of the Watchers. He is a fallen angel who teaches the signs of the sun.
Yeqon (also Jeqon or Yaqum, יָקוּם, "he shall rise") was the ringleader who first tempted the other Watchers into having sexual relations with humans. His accomplices were Asbeel, Gadreel, Penemue, and Kasdaye (or Kasadya), who were all identified as individual "satans".

oh forgot to say this is the list of grigori i found

I believe that diablo was that type of game

Now when you say cosmic entity

So ok we have all of these dead paladins and clerics and some live ones but what if we focus on the demons like demonlords fighting for control over human cities and such

And what when the fire dies
the demons would slaughter each other for a bid of power.Say one lord rules the golden gate bridge and another rules the rocky mountains and so on

What was once ruled by man is now a war-torn hellscape ruled by the 666 demon kings of Hell. From the seven Sins ruling their own realms that vary from one two to several states,the 72 demons of Solomon and even the dreaded princes of hell

Your thread has become Darksiders,Diablo,and a paragraph of the Ars Goetia

Ok i remember from a while ago about this one demon,Forneus,i guess he is a minor king or something but thats not what matters this guy likes humans and teaches them his great wisdom and makes them loved by both allies and enemies so when all hell breaks loose this fucker bursts from hell,and he looks like a giaant sea monster by the way, and all the humans in the area are shitting their pants and hes like "hey calm down i just want to read you some stories and shit come on guys"

That's pretty metal.
IT'S STORY TIME!

Dont forget Testament of Solomon and Book of Enoch

Zack Parsons did a thing on SA called That Insidious Beast that's basically evangelical christian cosmic horror, but probably not in the way you're looking for. Still definitely worth a read, though

Read the Book of Revelations. It's short and full of cosmic horror in the midst of the apocalypse IIRC. Shit's pretty dope.

Here's a good example of what you're looking for.
In the end, it results in a stalemate and Chaos is the last remaining force in the world.

For America,the nation is cut into hundreds of warring groups, some larger than others. The devil has disappeared and now many lords of hell have fought for his throne.Humans are most of the time either running for their lives or have been enslaved for one purpose or another.only one demon lord is said to be kind to the humans that find themselves in his realm

so should the setting be all grimdark or have some hope

It should have just enough hope that it's all the more crushing when it's inevitably taken away.

will their be something like this in the setting like the corrupted scions of god who are still doing his will after his death long ago

but we can have good demon Forneus too right at least until he is devoured by the unstoppable chaos that is this setting

They would inevitably consume each other, in their attempts to gain more power and prestige among their fellows, at least in the case of the lesser demon lords. Might also introduce the titanic demonic skeletal horrors from Aztec Mythology to join in on the "fun".

I tried to expand constructively on this post, and I couldn't, despite having watched the entire series + end twice in the last month. Jus throw in more overt revelation content in the apocalypse, like Armageddon and the whore of babylon

Perhaps. But they would be utterly broken, and likely would have forgotten their purpose in the midst of the Apocalypse. They cannot hear the voice of the Almighty anymore. all they hear now is the vile snickering of the Adversary.

I agree with forgetting their purpose but the should still have the empty void of a duty to be done and false drive their endless torture

Off topic, but this shit is why I don't really believe in the bible itself. That's some pure polytheistic bullshit that creeper in from some local religion.

What the fuck does a giant hung upside down who teaches people magic have to do with Jews wandering the desert for 40 years or with Jesus getting nailed to a stick?

The fuck does any of that have to do with the general rules of "don't be an asshole" and "don't be degenerate"?

Fuck

>Misato
>Not the Whore of Babylon
Also, like usual when Evangelion gets brought up with me, RRRREEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! FUCKING REBUILD!!!!! FUCK YOU ANNO!!!! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!!!!!!

That actually seems like a far better way to torture them. Of course the snickering can probably be kept, they just won't hear it whilst they wander around aimlessly trying to fulfill some empty void of a purpose.

The Grigori and their spawn weren't nice user. If they weren't stopped the world would have been munched. Unless you're talking about how it relates to the Bible itself? Well it probably serves as an example of angels, despite their purity and connection to the Almighty, are not infallible beings.

Also bumping with demon images.

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4 horseman
Demons with eyes all over their body
Fucked up "miracles" like the tower of babel
Steal demon names like beelzeebub
Intelligent whales
Manifestations caused by sinning
Magic blood
Temples with ancient horrors sealed away
Judges

Basically the oldest old testament stuff and revalations.

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No that was Diablo 2, Diablo 1 was Blizzard trying to one up World of Darkness in terms of Grimdark and gothic themes.

Who would win in a conflict between Hell and the Elder Gods?

Have you heard of Kabbalah, the Jews literally have an entire school dedicated to mysticism and discussing the workings heaven and history of the earth before the Israelites.

While more greek/roman inspired than Christian I would look at the divine comedy for inspiration.

Fundamentalist Christian reporting. If you've got any questions I'll be happy to answer them, maybe this thread'll have some decent OC. Best of luck with your campaign OP. 1 Corinthians 8:1-21 is worth a read.

Saved. Paladin Bane is a badass.

I know of the Divine Comedy. It's pretty interesting.

How exactly do you view demons or dark forces? I'm Christian myself, but it's always interesting to hear things from others points of view.

I like it's depiction of Satan being punished with the rest of the sinners, I personally feel it fits better.

Yeah, it's actually good to read into. Satan isn't the ruler of Hell in that work, he's just as much of a prisoner as everyone else.

Technically thats in line with the bible, which just says lucifer and the rebellious angels were thrown into the lake of fire. All descriptions of demons RULING hell are non-cannon works added after the fact.

Satan is the hebrew word for "enemy" and can refer to anyone who is against the hebrew god. Even his depiction in the new testament is a disembodied voice, the devil himself isn't described, and given the above, could well have been Jesus' inner doubts at the time.

God gets sick of the bullshit (Especially your speshul denomination making lies about him) and floods the Earth again. If you make a boat and survive, you go to hell for going against God. If you don't, you drown and go to hell for pissing off God in the first place.

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Look up Ophanim, OP. I wonder what kind of hallucinogens were available to the early Israelites?

I believe that demons are angels that abandoned God's will to rebel with Satan. God is the omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and all-knowing creator of all things, therefore his will is perfect and absolute. God's will is perfect and absolute, and God is infinite, having created all things.

Therefore each sin, (deviation from God's perfect and absolute will,) is infinite and can only be repaid with an eternal punishment. All sins must be punished, and humanity, having inherited original sin from our ancestors who denied God, must be eternally punished for their sins.

God is completely justified in condemning all of humanity to hell, but God is omnibenevolent, just, and merciful. So God became human, God in the flesh, both Man and God, in the form of Jesus Christ, born of a virgin woman. He lived a perfect, sinless life, performing miracles and preaching righteous, perfect wisdom, before allowing the Romans, (spurred on by the Pharisee Jews,) to crucify Him.

When crucified, Jesus Christ willingly took on all sin, and accepted the punishment for all sin. Only a perfect, sinless man would be an acceptable sacrifice to repay the depth of all sin. As no human was able to take on that sacrifice, God Himself was punished and died for our sake. Three days later, Jesus Christ arose from the grave, resseurected, in victory over death and hell, proving His divinity.

Because of Jesus Christ's sacrifice, all sins are forgiven, all humans can repent of their sins, and go to heaven to be with God for eternity. All they have to do is acknowledge Jesus Christ as God, accept His forgiveness, and do their best to follow His commandments and live a Godly life, as the God intended when He created us.

> (1/2)

I don't mean to get into a fedora-y theological debate

but if god is the all-knowing creator of all things

why did he create the angels that he knew would rebel just to send punish them forever

ophanim r cool albeit a bit overplayed in internet circles

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That's not even true. Satan is God's employee.

By willingly and pridefully rebelling against God's grace when they were free of all evil and temptation, demons have committed an unforgivable sin. To punish them, God created hell, and all demons are condemned to eternally suffer in hell. Humanity, having original sin, and being unable to live without sin, were given a way to escape hell and be with God, through the salvation of Jesus Christ.

Demons and dark forces conspire to prevent humanity from understanding and accepting Jesus Christ's sacrifice, in an effort to see as many souls damned to hell with them as possible. One day, the forces of hell will rise up and attempt to usurp God, as God is omnipotent, they are doomed to fail, and damned to a deserved punishment in eternal hellfire. Until then, they'll keep tempting humans away from God's grace and salvation.

As for the capabilities of demons, they're fallen angels, capable of manipulating and selectively ignoring the laws of physics. The reason they haven't taken over and work to tempt humanity from the shadows is that God doesn't let them enter this dimension in a physical form. They're much more powerful than humans, with the ability to possess people to do things far beyond their natural limits. Beyond that, there's not much in the Bible, but I'm sure you can come up with plenty of 7 deadly sin-themed abilities and generally fucked-up supernatural powers. Throw in a smattering of pagan lore and H.P Lovecraft and you're golden.

> (2/2)

OP, you know WoD and oWoD each has their own separate demon book, right?

God, being all-loving, wants to love His creations and be loved. Love means nothing if it isn't voluntary and faithful. God gives all of His creations free will, and the ability to choose between sin and God. Satan and his demons were once perfect, free of sin, and all temptation, they were with God in God's infinite love and perfection.

But they wanted more. Knowing the consequences of denying God, and having a total lack of sin and temptation, they still chose to commit the first sin and rebel against God. Their choice to rebel was their own choice, taken in free will of their own volition. God had nothing to do with it.

God created them knowing that they would sin against Him, but they had the choice and fully knew the consequences. To sin in a futile attempt to usurp their omnipotent, omnibenevolent, perfect creator, or follow the purpose meant for all things, be with God, and enjoy eternal love and fulfillment in His grace? A third of angels chose to sin and rebel.

Knew I saved this for a reason

Demons are created by God to tempt humans. Same way God is OK with black plague, child mortality, miscarriage and everything else. If you feel like he's being unfair to you, you go to hell xD

Wait, what are you doing here? Jack Chick warned you about us bro!

idk dude your logic is a little bit suspect. If you're a creature with
1) No limits on your actions and power to create/shape events
2) No limits on your knowledge of what will transpire in any given scenario
3) As a result of the two, no limits on... Anything

Saying that creatures rebelling when you knew it would happen and had the choice of whether or not to create them had "nothing to do" with the actions of god is a bit nonsensical.

Heck, in your earlier post, you stated that god was "completely justified in condemning all of humanity to hell" (simply for original sin that new humans hadn't even committed). So apparently humans are guilty of things they literally played no role in, which occurred before they existed, but God is free of any blame for events which he knowingly caused.

If you want to get real technical, God could've only created the creatures that would've used their free will to love him forever, and since he'd know for certain they were doing it out of free will (omniscient) and could guarantee they were the only ones (omnipotent) it wouldn't be any different from the ones currently existing that love him freely, there'd simply be a lack of completely unnecessary suffering.

>A third of angels chose to sin and rebel.

Then only make the other two thirds instead.

WoD demons are nowhere near eldritch, nor evil enough for my tastes. This is more of an absolute Apocalypse type setting, where every single evil beasty from every walk of the earth has come out to revel in the consumption of the world.

You all may want to look up "Hell is the absence of God" by Ted Chiang, found in his short story collection "story of your life". It involves a really interesting depiction of people treating angels like natural disasters (including some who intentionally chase them).

My personal belief is that their is a direct polar opposite to God manipulating casuality and fate in a similar way to how God breaths out reality, and allows Creation to be. Except that this force causes more malign probabilities to become reality, and thus further the dissolution of all reality. That's pretty much what I've based this setting off of.

I imagine you're not the person I responded to, then, because that flies pretty well in the face of God being omnipotent.

I personally believe that God *is* omnipotent, it's just that it has, a dark counterpart, for lack of a better term. Pure Good, can't exist without Pure Evil to define and give it meaning.

More demon images.

Ah, Epicurus. My second-favorite hedonistic Greek philosopher, the first being Diogenes the Dog.

> Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
> Is be able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

God is both willing and able to prevent evil.

> Is be both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Evil does not come from God, evil comes from sin, or in the case of nature, stems from the original sin's corruption of God's perfect creation. God decided to give all things free will to choose between sin and God, as without the free will to decide to love God for ourselves, our love for God is meaningless.

Humans give into temptation and abuse their free will to commit sin every day, because of our inherently sinful nature. Sin, and by extension, evil, is a demonic creation, and is not a part of God's perfect creation.

Evil has been prevented in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which gives us the ability to be free of sin, and by extension, evil, and the bible, which is the perfect guideline to living a Godly and moral life. Those who deny Jesus Christ and the bible will inevitably be punished for their sins.

> Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

If that was the case, I'd be masturbating to hentai on /h/ instead of answering your questions.

I've been a Forever GM for little over 16 years. D&D is no more inherently satanic than Ping Pong. Anyone who says otherwise is looking for a reason to be offended and victimized, and are no better than Tumblrite social justice warriors.

Free will without choice is free will. The original sin did not damn humanity, it provided an opportunity to sin. All humans, being weak and imperfect, have committed sin of their own volition, against the will of God, and are therefore damned to eternal punishment, which can be avoided through God's salvation.

Are you a Zoroastrian by any chance?

>God is both willing and able to prevent evil
>Creates lifeforms that bring evil

?

>Free will without choice is [I imagine you meant to put a not here] free will

I never implied otherwise. But god knows what choices we'd make before creating us. Why not only make those of us who would actively choose to love and obey him? His omniscience and omnipotence makes all suffering completely unnecessary, and his benevolence makes all suffering completely inexplicable.

I've always liked stories steeped in Biblical mythology which outright deny that demons want anything to do with Earth. When all of the archdemons have better things to do than plot world domination, because they know that eventually it's going to happen anyway, and being eternal and unchanging, they're in no rush - they're essentially sharpening their knives in wait while their own petty politics and agendas continuously change the hellscape around them.

>Evil does not come from God, evil comes from sin, or in the case of nature, stems from the original sin's corruption of God's perfect creation. God decided to give all things free will to choose between sin and God, as without the free will to decide to love God for ourselves, our love for God is meaningless.

>Humans give into temptation and abuse their free will to commit sin every day, because of our inherently sinful nature. Sin, and by extension, evil, is a demonic creation, and is not a part of God's perfect creation.

>Evil has been prevented in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which gives us the ability to be free of sin, and by extension, evil, and the bible, which is the perfect guideline to living a Godly and moral life. Those who deny Jesus Christ and the bible will inevitably be punished for their sins.

God decides to make a gun. Making a gun that reliably works by shooting a projectile at its target via a predictable trajectory is somehow a bad thing to God, so he makes a gun that explodes 50% of the time when you try to shoot it.

God is fired from his job as a gun maker.

Without the choice to deny God, it is not free will.

Let's say you adopt an infant, and lock it in your cellar with everything it could ever want or need. You teach it to always love you and be with you, and you never give it any chance to leave the cellar or do anything but be with you and love you. It spends its entire life in the cellar, loving you because it knows nothing else. It never wants for anything, because you provide it everything it could ever ask for, as long as it doesn't interfere with the infant's love for you. It never stops loving you because it has no concept of hate or disobeying you, or any chance to act on those concepts.

Does the infant truly love you? No, it does not. Without the choice and freedom to deny you, its love is fake, artificial, and meaningless because it knows nothing else.

You'd be an irresponsible parent to shelter your child all of its life and refuse to give it freedom. Yes, if it has freedom it may grow up and get addicted to drugs, sleep with prostitutes and get std's, or end up shitposting on a Guatemalan Crotcheting Website, but ultimately, that's the child's own choice, and you'd be a bad parent to deny your child the freedom to choose how to live their own life.

The best you can morally do is teach them the consequences of their actions, teach them why it's bad to do those things, and let them chart their own course in life.

>Ctrl+f Kult
>0/0

I am disappoint.

Kult is an old swedish horror RPG with translations out in English, featuring a world built mostly around gnostic beliefs with some Kabbalah and hellraiser thrown in.

Basically, all humans used to be gods but two brothers wanted it all for themselves (Demiurge and Astaroth) so they created an illusion -which is our world- and trapped all other humans in there.
The illusion is upheld by their servants, monstrous creatures that keep the jail in place and look just like other men unless the illusion shatters.
Meanwhile, as the Demiurge took the role of a "benevolent" leader of creation, his twin brother Astaroth became his dark shadow, the adversary and they both created their own realms of heaven and hell and maintained a balance of power til one day, Astaroth found his brother missing and so now scrambles to find a new order.

Full of "angels" and monsters competing for power, interesting cults and fucking awesome magic.

You're not understanding me at all. Those still created by god would still have the choice to deny god. They just wouldn't. Your metaphor is therefore entirely irrelevant

>You know you'll create humans A, B, and C
>You know that given the choice to deny you, humans A and B will love you and C will deny you
>You choose to create only humans A and B who freely choose to love you, thus avoiding the unnecessary and FUCKING ETERNAL suffering of human C

Not complex

Also,

>you're an irresponsible parent to shelter your child all of its life and refuse to give it freedom
>but god isn't irresponsible for creating beings that he knows will spend a few decades living and then indescribable eternity suffering

?

>you're a bad parent if you do nothing to intervene in your child's drug addiction

Yeah I don't think we see eye to eye in terms of morals, ethics or any basic frame of reality.

patrician

> You're not understanding me at all. Those still created by god would still have the choice to deny god. They just wouldn't. Your metaphor is therefore entirely irrelevant

>You know you'll create humans A, B, and C
>You know that given the choice to deny you, humans A and B will love you and C will deny you
>You choose to create only humans A and B who freely choose to love you, thus avoiding the unnecessary and FUCKING ETERNAL suffering of human C

> Not complex

If there is no possibility to deny God, there is no free will. A, B, and C all recieve the same choice to either sin or follow God. A, B, and C all have the fundamental right to exist and make their own choice, fully aware of the consequences.

Eternal suffering is the only moral punishment for an infinite crime, and is therefore just. It is unpleasant, it is terrible, and it is unthinkable, but it is more just than not punishing an infinite crime.

God is a loving God and doesn't want hunanity to suffer for all eternity, but God is a just God and sin cannot go unpunished. Which is why God became human, God in the flesh, both Man and God, in the form of Jesus Christ, lived a perfect, sinless life, and was sacrificed to suffer the punishment for all sin, giving humanity a way to avoid eternal suffering.

Eternal suffering, and sin is completely optional. Denying God despite the evidence is completely optional. Loving or hating God is completely optional. Hell is completely optional.

>Also,

>you're an irresponsible parent to shelter your child all of its life and refuse to give it freedom
>but god isn't irresponsible for creating beings that he knows will spend a few decades living and then indescribable eternity suffering

> ?

If He created beings without free will and the possibility to deny Him, He would be irresponsible.

> (1/2)

>?

>you're a bad parent if you do nothing to intervene in your child's drug addiction

>Yeah I don't think we see eye to eye in terms of morals, ethics or any basic frame of reality.

God intervenes in people's lives to heal them if they comes to Him, but He lets them experience the consequences of sin first-hand before. Otherwise there'd be no incentive for them to do anything but sin.

> (2/2)

>Are you a Zoroastrian by any chance?

Nope. I pretty much identify as a Christian. Or rather someone who believes in a singular omnibenevolent force that permeates all, whilst also believing that other deities exist and giving them respect (well, unless they're evil).