The Gods of Shinza
Dies Irae (Main Characters, Longinus Dreizehn Orden, Other People and Interview with Kaziklu Bey)
Kajiri Kamui Kagura (Eastern Expedition, Yatsukahagi)
Avesta of Black and White (Ashavan, the side of Good, Dragvant, the side of Evil)
Event Horizon Battlefront Aditya (Brahmana, Saiva, Rudrya, Trivikrama)
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The Seven Archdemons
A group of seven beings of Dragvant among the most powerful in existence. Each of them have a specific title and rank, from the strongest to the weakest, and they all inhabit a personal domain like the Yazata, which usually extends to an entire planet or another dimension entirely, and acts as an extension of their very being.
- Demon Lords and Archdevils: They all have a myriad of servants of varying power to do their bidding.
- Prescience by Analysis: It is eventually revealed that the Seven Demon Lords are actually a result of a system imposed by Mithra to try and simulate and predict the archetypes of the future Hegemonic Gods of the Shinza verse. As their numbers indicate, she had planned for it to total at seven but as fans of the series know, things kinda went off the rails resulting in nine of them, possibly ten.
- Random Power Ranking: Rather than being ranked by raw power, they are ranked according to the threat they pose to Wahman Yast as well as the amount of atrocities they have to their name. This results in individuals such as Kaikhosru being ranked fairly low despite his power as he mostly keep to his own realms and have a more pragmatic approach to his evil. And then there is Aka Manah who is just a giant question mark and as a result is ranked at the bottom by default.
- Red Baron: Each demon lord also have a title associated with them:
- Khvarenah, the Workshop of Destruction.
- Nadare, the Fractured World.
- Bahlavan, the Violent Locust Swarm.
- Frederica, the Princess of Slaughter.
- Mashyana, the Immobile Impurity.
- Kaikhosru, the Covetous Starving Dragon.
- Aka Manah, the Wicked Admonition Ekou. note
- Reality Warper: All of the Archdemons has a power called the "Power of Ego" which let's them distort the surrounding world according to their desires.
- Really 700 Years Old: All of them have existed for centuries, excepting Frederica who is only 20 years old.
- Rule of Seven: There cannot be more than seven Archdemons, but they have their tremendous powers to compensate.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Played with. Instead of the standard sins, each of the demon lords are associated with a certain "malignancy":
- Khvarenah's is Oblivion.
- Nadare's is Contradiction.
- Bahlavan's is Violence.
- Frederica's is Ignorance.
- Mashyana's is Degeneration.
- Kaikhosru's is Infatuation.
- Aka Manah's is Fiction.
- Small, Secluded World: Similar to the Yazata, they possess the ability to manage an entire dimension/planet and ruling it as they please.
- Specifically Numbered Group: Their numbers are always capped at seven. No more, no less. Should one fall, then another one will rise to take their place within a year.
- Standard Evil Organization Squad: All 7 of them belong to Dragvant and act as its top leaders.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Despite being compelled to fight against Ashavan, some of them don't actually participate in the war at all, and in the case of Bahlavan, even kill other members of Dragvant because of his Commandment. Even during the Gathas where fighting is technically forbidden, or rather, pointless, it still descends into an all out brawl between most of those present.
- World's Strongest Man: They represent this for Avesta as a whole.
Khvarenah
Khvarenah
- Archnemesis Dad: Deliberately invoked. He created Quinn to both learn about Good as well as to eventually face him down. When she states her intention to eventually return and fight him, he states that he is looking forward to it.
- Badass Cape: His Astral Body possesses a cape made of 500 galaxies.
- Blessed with Suck: His Commandment basically forces him to perpetuate the war by constantly creating the weapons everyone uses. And the boon pretty much ensures that he creates endless suffering for everyone by just existing. A pretty problematic ability for someone that simply wants to create and see beauty in everything. In fact, if not for the Commandment he could very well have become a Hegemonic God whose world could have been even more perfect and peaceful than even the 3rd and 5th Heaven's.
- Celestial Body: In his Astral Body, Khvarenah has a cape woven from 500 hundred galaxies, leading to this effect.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As he is of the Evil side, there are many things that he doesn't understand about Good. As a result he created Quinn in order to find some understanding on what it is that drives the Good side, especially the concept of hope in the face of defeat.
- Long Haired Prettyboy: His Astral Body takes the form of a young and pretty boy with hair longer than his whole body. And fittingly, he has many of the same features that Quinn has.
- Planet Eater: Planets, Stars, Galaxies. It's all food for this guy.
- Red Baron: "Workshop of Destruction", "Forge of Ruin" and "Star Cluster of Destruction" are some of his better known titles. He is also known as "Halo of Light".
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Really unusual case. He is constantly producing weapons and gadgets as a waste product of his usual goings on and is basically the pinnacle of engineering and tool crafting. The Yazata have a duty to recover what is essentially his garbage in order to prevent it falling into the hands of evil. Magsarion's armor for instance is one such object.
Nadare
Nadare
- Black Eyes of Crazy: Downplayed, she has only one one eye with a black sclera and is the ultimate representation of evil.
- Blessed with Suck: Has perhaps one of the most powerful Commandments in the series, but it also comes with some of the worst baggage. Specifically, it has the boon of giving her power close to that of a Transcendence God and the trait of acting as a Sensory for Mithra. However it also forces her to act as a supervisor of the struggle in between Good and Evil, forced to be a plaything to fate and to ultimately be tied to everlasting failure, and her final fate is to simple serve as the Final Boss for whatever challenger that stands before her and to herald the rebirth of the world when Good and Evil trade places. And unlike other Commandments, this one cannot be violated, forever shackling her to her role.
- Cosmic Plaything: She is pretty much nothing but a toy for Mithra, forever bound to manage to war between Good and Evil, with the only end in sight is to be killed by whatever hero faces her.
- Duality Motif: Her whole design is about invoking the opposing and dualistic nature of black and white, with things being black as the abyss on one side while the other side is as stainless white as the void. It extends even to her eyes being mirrored in color to each other.
- Evil Counterpart: She is basically the ultimate representation of Evil and as such stands as a mirror to the Divine Blade Ahura Mazda, though in a different way from Aka Manah. Additionally, both Ahura Mazda and Nadare are the Sensories of Mithra, both representing different sides of the same coin and having similar roles to play in this universe. The only real difference is that Ahura Mazda is a permanent fixture while Nadare is replaced with each cycle.
- Evil Will Fail: She is fated to always fail and her ultimate role is to just serve as a Final Boss that is meant to fall at someone else's hand.
- Failure Is the Only Option: She is bound by karma to always fail whatever she attempts, nothing will ever go her way and any plan she attempts to cook up will either fizzle out or blow up in her face.
- God in Human Form: She is a sensory of Mithra. However she also plays with the typical archetypes quite a bit in that she was not born as one, but rather became one after she was made into Nadare.
- Humanoid Abomination: There is something fundamentally wrong with her existence, as if the universe itself is trying to reject her, which could be the reason of her teleportation's. Similarly, she has abilities that just seem to defy any semblance of common sense within the world, like she has some kind of authority over the universe itself.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Unlike other Commandments, hers cannot be violated, preventing her from taking her own life despite how much she might want to do it.
- The Jinx: Thanks to her second Commandment she is able to use her fate of failure to make others always fail around her..
- Legacy Character: Nadare is in fact not a name, but a title passed on to different individuals.
- Name Amnesia: When she became Nadare she had her name stripped from her, only remembering it as she lay dying, Sita.
- Onee-sama: In a bizarre way she acts as a sort of big sister figure to the other Archdemons, treating them with a friendly sisterly affection. This is especially true towards Frederica, being described like a little sister to her.
- Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Has extremely pale, almost white, skin with pitch black hair though with the scattered white stripes.
- Reality Warper: While the setting is full of Reality Warpers, Nadare's special ability called "Fractured World" allows her to basically sow chaos in a physics sense on a gigantic scale. She can fuses objects together or separate them in order to basically turn it into something the ought not be, be if people or even the stars and planets themselves.
- Really 700 Years Old: Is by far the oldest out of all the Archdemons and is speculated to have existed since the worlds inception.
- Sensual Spandex: Wears a grey or perhaps a sheer black skintight bodysuit underneath her regular accessories that doesn't leave much to the imagination. Given the technologically advanced nature of her realm, it also somewhat crosses over into Future Spandex.
- Thanatos Gambit: In a devious move she managed to weaponize her karma of eternal failure via her second Commandment that allows her to control fate in exchange for carrying out her role, creating a bizarre paradox. As she is bound to her first Commandment to always carry out her role, that means that the second one cannot fail, she is bound by fate yet can manipulate it at will. It becomes so bizarre that she is basically an embodiment of irrationality, making everyone else fail around her. And the only way to get around this is to be more powerful than her, more powerful than someone with the power of a Transcendence God, thus someone who can challenge the Gods. In short, she has set things up in such a way that her final failure will be the biggest middle finger to the powers that be.
Bahlavan
Bahlavan
A wandering warrior who's mostly driven by his desire to fight strong foes. Despite being the 3rd Archdemon, he has killed far more than most of the others, including members of Dragvant. His Commandment forces him to attack everything on his sight at full power, be it human, insect, alien or even Star Spirit, all for the sole purpose of becoming the strongest warrior of the universe.- Above Good and Evil: Enforced by his Commandment. Because he's forced to fight anyone he sees, he's responsible for killing numerous members of Ashavan and Dragvant, including Archdemons.
- Ax-Crazy: This guy kills just for sport. And he is not picky either, he will kill whatever or whoever cross his path. And his Commandment assures that he does this as it requires him to fight anyone or anything that he makes contact with at his full power. This has resulted in him being the leading cause of up 90% of all Archdemon kills.
- Evil Counterpart: Samluch likens him to Magsarion, since both of them are infamous for slaying everything in their path.
- Establishing Character Moment: His introduction during the Gathas involves him smashing in Nadare's face so hard she is reduced to atoms before she can even finish greeting him and he keeps going even as she keeps on regenerating due to the laws of the Gathas. His next scene immediately following this shows him fighting the Star Spirit Spenta Mainyu, known for killing an Archdemon by itself, on a neutron star. Following a battle of epic proportions, he manages to kill the Star Spirit, while thanking it for making him even stronger than before.
- Fiery Redhead: His official art shows him to be red-headed, and he's by far the most ferocious of the Archdemons.
- Me's a Crowd: His Commandment has the boon of constantly creating copies of himself.
- Offhand Backhand: Reduces Frederica to a bloody pulp without even looking when she attempts to strike him from behind. Of course, this doesn't stick.
- Red Is Violent: Has a primarily red color scheme and is a vicious Blood Knight and is associated with the malignancy of Violence.
- Single-Stroke Battle: His duel against Spenta Mainyu ultimately came down to just a single strike where Bahlavan survived the star spirits opening strike followed by him delivering a single, earth shattering punch to it's head, crushing it and sealing the duel.
- Supernatural Floating Hair: His hair is near constantly floating as a result of his immense fighting spirit. In fact it is capable of rising through the air even under the extreme gravitational influence of a neutron star.
- Team Killer: Several Archdemons were actually slain by his own hand.
- To Be a Master: He desires nothing more than to be the strongest there is. His Commandment further takes it to its logical extreme.
Frederica
Frederica
- Voiced by: Mamiko Noto
- Always Accurate Attack: At one point, she limits her vision which in turn causes her to gain the power of being able to ignore distance and angle when attacking her foes.
- Antagonistic Offspring: She is a Dragvant born from Ashavan parents so she is this trope by default. Doubly so as she is eventually revealed to be the daughter of Sirius.
- The Baby of the Bunch: She is the youngest of the Archdemons by a wide margin at a measly 20 years old and is as a result treated as little more than a spoiled child by the others.
- Born from a Dead Woman: She crawled out of her dead mother's body after she committed suicide in the prologue.
- Complete Immortality: As long as she doesn't try to avoid and blocking attacks, she's effectively immortal.
- Depower: After Munsarat betrays her she willfully violates her own Commandment causing her to lose all of her powers and be converted to an Ashavan before being finished off by Magsarion.
- Dance Battler: The way she fights is likened more to a dance than to some actual fighting moves.
- Discard and Draw: On top of her regular Commandment, she also has access to a special one that allow her to gain an even more versatile tool-set by inducing various restrictions on herself. And unlike regular Commandments which are permanent, these only last for as long as the time period she decides on when invoking them.
- Due to the Dead: In spite of her nature as a Man-Murdering Demon, she has imposed an absolute ban for anyone to desecrate the remains of her mother.
- Enfant Terrible: Looks like a cute little girl, but is still one of the Seven Demon Kings, responsible for untold calamities and atrocities. To put things into perspective, she killed her own mother while she was still in the womb.
- Finger Poke of Doom: At one point she induced the limitation on herself that she would only be able to fight with her pinkie. This resulted in her now being able to strike the vital points of an opponent even from a distance with nothing put a poking motion.
- Glass Cannon: Downright obscene offensive power at the expense of any and all defensive capability. Thanks to her Commandment though she is practically immortal as long as she never tries to avoid or defend against an attack.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: Upon their first encounter, Frederica uses a torn off lower half of a handmaiden's corpse as an impromptu whip.
- Healing Factor: Her Commandment grants her infinite regeneration and immortality as long as she doesn't avoid or defend against attacks.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Upon seeing Magsarion's brutal fury and relentless aggression in trying to kill her she couldn't help but feel pure love and passion for what she was witnessing even as he was slinging curses her way.
- Mythology Gag: The name of her scythe comes from the nickname of Lyle in Paradise Lost who was known as Lyle of the Deathscythe.
- Red Baron: The Princess of Slaughter.
- Self-Made Orphan: She killed her own mother and devoured her from within the womb.
- Shout-Out: Her name is apparently a reference to Freddie Mercury and her Commandment is named Killer Queen.
- Sinister Scythe: Her Deathscythe, a weapon with powerful dimension distorting powers.
- Story-Breaker Power: Her regeneration might be simple compared to other powers in the story yet it proves to be one of the most insurmountable of them all. In fact, even Magsarion at his strongest couldn't get through it. It was only after she willingly defied her Commandment which resulted in her loosing said power that he finally managed to kill her.
- The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Invoked by her Commandment, which makes her invincible to any attack she doesn't try to dodge or block. As a result, her body is so fragile that most attacks go through her with next to no effort, and yet due to her insane regeneration, heals from it so fast that Quinn, Samluch and Alma though they were fighting an illusion at first.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Compared to the other Archdemons, her young age is apparent from her lack of fighting skill and experience. She is however more than capable of compensating for this deficiency via simple strength and her absurd regeneration.
Mashyana
Mashyana
A star spirit and Archdemon who rules over the planet Druj Nasu, a gas giant and the sole remaining planet in it's system after the rest were destroyed by Mashyana. She acts as the empress of the sole piece of land around the planet, her star body the tree of Gayomart, that orbits the planet. Haughty, cruel and surrounded by a stench of rot, yet beautiful like the most well crafted of dolls.- Brought Down to Badass: Heavily weakened due to losing her other half but still powerful.
- Cain and Abel: She is the sister to Zurvan who of course is of the opposite moral alignment to her, making them bitter enemies.
- Cherry Blossoms: Her main body is a giant cherry blossom tree and is heavily associated with the decay of death.
- Evil Smells Bad: She is near perpetually surrounded by a stench of decay and rot.
- Frozen Face: No part of her face ever seems to move even when she speaks creating a very uncanny effect likened to a deathmask.
- Green Thumb: As Gayomart is her body, she can manipulate it's roots, branches and petals as she pleases.
- Hime Cut: Fitting with her "oriental empress theme" she has the traditional haircut to match.
- Meaningful Name: Gets her name from the first human woman in Zoroastrian cosmogony, who is paired with Mashya, the first human man. This ties into her complicated relationship to her brother Zurvan, her counterpart.
Kaikhosru
Kaikhosru
- Voiced by: Takuma Terashima
- Affably Evil: The guy is a monster like the rest of his kin, yet he also just incredibly easygoing and friendly even to assassins after his head.
- "Arabian Nights" Days: His realms follows the generally stereotypical Arabian style with himself as the sultan.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Ultimately subverted, he began to ascend as a Hegemonic God in his final bout with Magsarion but is killed before it is complete.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: In-Universe example, but him making Alma his mistress despite knowing her true nature and even compromising with her is seen as utterly incomprehensible by the heroes and that there must be some kind of catch. In general he just acts in ways that just seems to run completely counter to everything about morals as they understand it.
- Face–Heel Turn: It is revealed that he once was an Ashavan 400 years in the past before he underwent Tentsui and became one of the archfiends.
- The Fettered: Something that is extremely unusual for a Dragvant is that he is not acting on his urges for cruelty whenever they hit him.
- Greed: His defining trait is his bottomless greed resulting in him becoming a tyrannical leader who exploits planets until they are dead husks before moving on to the next.
- The Hedonist: Pretty much lives only to strip planets of their wealth and life so that he and his followers can live in luxury, seeking pleasures of all kinds to satisfy his endless greed. Interestingly though is that he extends this as a wish unto others, wishing for a world without death or decay so that other people could indulge in their worldly pleasures and desires just like he does.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Alma speculates that the reason he accepted her as his mistress is due to the fact that she won't submit to him and that his pride as a man won't let him rest until he manages to make her his.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: He manages to see through Alma's deception yet despite knowing her to be an assassin decides to make her one of his mistresses, exhibiting an unusual interest for her. Turns out to be because she was given to him in an exchange between him and Sirius as a seal on their alliance.
- Mythical Motifs: Heavily associated with dragons.
- The Omniscient: After he devoured the ruling Star Spirit and took its place, the whole planet effectively became his body allowing him to see everything that is going on on it's surface.
- Orcus on His Throne: The group take advantage of the fact that he is more of the overlord type as even though he more than likely knows that they are there, he won't be bothered to get his butt off the his throne to kill them despite this.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Part of the reason he is ranked so low among the Demon lords is that he sees little value in pointless cruelty and is much more content with simply being a tyrant.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: He guesses that the God of the world is a women but not based on any real logic but just from the fact that he is infatuated with women. Not in the lustful manner mind you but in a purely conceptual manner, viewing them as beings capable of existing and thrive by containing contradictions.
- Royal Harem: Has an impressive harem composed of 18 mistresses, all of them also serving as his generals and are powerful fighters in their own right.
- Taken for Granite: He has the power to turn people into statues made of gemstones.
- The Usurper: Killed and devoured the planet's Star Spirit before taking its place as the planets sovereign spirit.
Aka Manah
Aka Manah
The most mysterious of the Archdemons, Aka Manah is an enigma whose power and threat level one can only guess at as there have so far been no events that can for certain be attributed to it. In fact, it is only thanks to the power of Vohu Manah and the fact that there are supposed to be seven Archdemons that Aka Manah's existence is even known.- All Your Powers Combined: The blade is fused from millions upon millions of star spirits and all of their powers and authorities are at the beck and call of the blades wielder. And to make matters worse, those powers can also be mixed and matched with each other to create some incredibly powerful combinations. And given just how many star spirits are infused to the blade the amount of possible combinations boggles the mind.
- Evil All Along: After some Foreshadowing, in chapter 14 Nahid is finally revealed to not be as pure as she was made out to be, being the forger and wielder of the 7th Archdemon Aka Manah. Strangely though, she is still recognized as an Ashavan.
- Evil Costume Switch: Nahid switches outfits after The Reveal to a much more evil looking outfit.
- Evil Counterpart: Aka Manah is an evil, unholy version of the divine blade Ahura Mazda.
- Evil Redhead: Nahid's hair turns from white to red after her Face–Heel Turn is revealed.
- Good Eyes, Evil Eyes: Nahid goes from having gentle blue eyes to piercingly yellow slit eyes after The Reveal.
- Living Weapon: The true form of Aka Manah is that of a cursed sword made out of hundreds of millions of Star Spirits melded together into a perverted parody of the holy blade Ahura Mazda.
- Hidden Villain: Aka Manah is a giant enigma, even more so than Nadare. No one knows who this individual really is or how powerful they are. The only thing anyone knows for certain is that they exist.
- Hikikomori: In one of
his comments does Masada describe Aka Manah as a shut-in. - Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: After Nahid reveals her true colors she switches her wardrobe from her regular fairly modest dress to a much more revealing feather-themed one that shows off her ample chest and curved figure alongside one hell of a Navel-Deep Neckline.
- Walking Spoiler: As Aka Manah is a mayor enigma for most of the story, it is a given that even remotely discussing it after being revealed is entering massive spoiler territory.
Servants of the Archdemons
Munsarat
- Voiced by: Wataru Hatano
- Battle Butler: Serves as Fredrica's butler and is one of her strongest servants.
- Blind Obedience: He is basically an evil version of Quinn, being bound to obey any order given to him by Fredrica in exchange for perfect power and expertise regardless of what that order might be. Even if he is told to kill himself he will gladly carry it out.
- Blow You Away: His weapon spins so fast and with such fury that it creates vicious winds that pull in whatever happens to be close right into the saw to be shredded.
- I Fight for the Strongest Side!: His Commandment forces him to obey whoever he views as the most beautiful, and as he views power as beauty that means he will follow whoever is the strongest around, usually whoever beat him in a fair fight. Before the start of the story he was actually under the command of Varhram following a defeat at his hands and was put under to the order to go into hibernation. Later he is then under the command of Magsarion following the death of Frederica after which he is ordered to kill himself alongside all the other Man Murdering Demons.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Averted with him despite being a Man-Murdering Demon as he views eating human flesh as something for kids. The maids that serve under him play it straight though.
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: He wields what can best be described as a mix between a huge mace and a buzz-saw.
- The Needless: He has simply grown so powerful that he doesn't need any sustenance. In fact, he hasn't eaten anything for almost 50 years and is still going strong.
Zariched
One of the Daevas that follows Bahlavan.- Two Beings, One Body: She and Taurvid can fuse into one person and combine their Commandments.
Taurvid
One of the Daevas that follows Bahlavan.- Two Beings, One Body: He and Zariched can fuse into one person and combine their Commandments.
Others
Bushyasta
- Instant Expert: Her Commandment had the boon that, in exchange for never refusing what was given to her, she would be able to adapt and handle whatever she is faced with.
- Lazy Bum: She was a candidate to becoming one of the Demon Lords, but her unrepentant sloth kept it from happening.
- Living Relic: She was born very early on during the era of the first heaven and has experienced the universe undergoing the Tentsui process at least once.
- Posthumous Character: Was killed by Varhram before the start of the story.
- Red Baron: Was known as the Goddess of Nightmares.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Although her role was a small one, her death at the hands of Varhram ends up having huge ramifications for the story at large with a lot being traceable back to that event.
