Literature / Godclads

A Godclad in action

Godclads.

The gods are dead.

Their heavens fell.

The dream was never real.

In the greatest megacity in the known world, New vultan. Avo - a man-eating ghoul that ghost jacks for a living, finds himself risen from the dead due to his father's dead ghost and the mission it left him - to save this scum city and become God.

But as he struggles to grasp that mantle, the question remains - what type of god will he be?

This is an original fiction by ostensible mammalian it is found on SpaceBattles.com (here) and Royal Road (here). Mammal has also published the first book of the godclads series, "The Broken Cage", on Amazon in both E-Book format and Audiobook format

It also has a discord and patreon that he posts on around 20-21 extra chapters a week.

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This page is full of spoilers. the work provides examples of:

• The Ace: Zein thousand hands is called by the author himself an "Anti Skill issue." he also said that the same applies to an even greater extent to her daughter Veylis, the fist of recursion.
  • Samir The Force breaker Naeko is another of the top aces in the story, the absolute top of the paladins as their chief. Wielding an 8th sphere frame known as The Sage Of Sundered Sky FORCE-BREAKER-PEACE-BINDING a godclad frame based on total control over violence. He is the best of Zein Thousandhand's students and is the only one that her daughter, Veylis, will not attack. He had also easily killed Zein once he got his hands on her.
• Advanced Ancient Humans: Void watch is this to a T, to further elaborate on this. Voidwatch is from millions of years in the past, being an absurdly ancient space faring human faction that once upon a time, before the universe broke was called the Architects. they are by far the most advanced faction in the story regarding technologies, sadly most if not all of that tech was built to work on stable physics, which is a rare thing indeed in idelihm. Where most of the planet is afflicted with a case of major physics breakdown.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: For both voidwatch and omnitech this is the case for different reasons.
  • For Voidwatch, it is mainly because all of their tech isn't built to work in the wibbly, wobbly ball of "what is physics" that is Idelhim. Their tech is working on stable laws of physics. And as such, a lot of their tech either doesn't work as well as it should or just frankly doesn't. Regardless, they are still the most tech-savvy faction in the world. boosting frankly still absurd tech that the other factions combined can't stand more than maybe three seconds against combined.
  • Meanwhile, in regards to Omni tech, according to the author, their tech is less actual tech and more art squiggles and drawings. That only works if produced by their custom-made heavens. Otherwise, it just doesn't work at all. all the while they call what they are doing True Science. it isn't that at all.
• Alien Blood: A ghoul's Blood is a Bloodborne plague that can infect others to become ghouls themselves if exposed to enough brain and body matter and can do self-healing - even if doing it fast does have the risk of tumors.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What Veylis Avendaer, aka the leader of the high flame guild and daughter of Jaus Crownbearer Avendaer, tried to do to him. it didn't quite work out.

• Badass Transplant: Almost any transplant counts here. For example, we have the:
  • Mime-Fog: Allows Avo to produce a spore-expelled field of active camouflage
  • Celerostylus: A symbiotic reflex booster laced into Avo's spine; accelerates him a bit over sixty-five miles an hour in his baseline body
  • Echoheads: A chimeric bioform adapted into an implant. It can provide echolocation for eight hundred feet. It is designed from a hyper-durable silicon-chitin structure that also allows each of the eight heads to piece forward from the inside like a mantis shrimp punches.
  • Bone Demon: A body-sheathe—a complete overhaul of Avo's physical form. Made from a nest of super-tensile, hyper-synaptic nanofibrous mycelia on the interior. Beyond the threads, thick plates of cordyceramite line the outside like jagged skeletal continents emerging from a sea of webs. Bound to his biology, Avo can harden and shift his structural integrity and shape the fungal-ceramic matter's growth that encases his outer skin.
• The Beautiful Elite: The eight guilds of the city all have incredible gene and body modification technology so that they come out looking beautiful and graceful no matter what.

• Beyond the Impossible: Every miracle used by the gods or the godclads takes almost if not just zero consideration to the laws of the natural world, instead working on myth logic and such.
• Bio-Augmentation: The Sang (No-dragon) grafter ravuca is a doctor that does bodily improvement via this method.
• Blood Knight: Avo and Draus are always looking to fight each other and others. Draus, in particular, goes out alone and kills syndicates by the groups for fun. The only ones in Avo's carde that aren't at least a little bloodthirsty are Kae and Essus.
• Body Horror: The protagonist himself is a biologically engineered man-eating monstrosity, but thanks to the extensive possibilities with Bioware and flesh-grafting, one can find a wide range of biologically structured wonders, the prime experts in the field of biotechnologies are the No-Dragons (aka sang) one of the eight guilds that control new Vultan.
• Brain/Computer Interface: The meta minds interface between the real and the nether. The noosphere or the ansible from Voidwatch connects one's mind to several virtual spaces that do the same thing.
  • Metamind: A phantasmal mind-enhancing construct held together by ghosts. It is created by forking a copied instance of one's mind, rooting it a body, killing said body, and stitching a new, parallel mind to the original, thus giving a "twin-stacked of thought" to the user and offloading any potential mental trauma. With the cloned mind serving as the core, the external layer is layered in the memory of flowing ghosts, allowing an obfuscating function and preventing mem-lock. The Meta also allows for cognitive repair functions and the resequencing of a mind should memory sequences go missing.

• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Street slang for Guild or Guild supporters. Highflame—Gold; Ori-Thaum—Silver; Voidwatch—Purple; No-Dragons—Black; Ashthrone—Blue; Sanctus—Grey; Stormtree—Green; Omnitech—Red.
• Conlang: Newspeak variant - the author has an index with all the meanings of each word and slang.
  • Rotlick: A derogatory term for a ghoul; a creature that likes to eat rotting bodies at times.
  • Synced: Slang meaning to understand; if one is on the same page as another.
  • Consang: A term denoting closeness; or kindredness. Can be used mockingly. Derived from the word: Consanguinity.
  • Nova: A term referring to the potency or coolness of something.
  • Stay zero: Stay calm; don't be rash.
  • Rust: Someone who is bad at what they do.
  • Flat: An unaugmented person; a baseline human.
  • Dive: To cast deep into your subconsciousness and ride one's mind like a vehicle through the Nether, traveling from memory to memory; alternatively, it means a contracted gig commissioned to a Necrojack or a team of street squires.
  • Agnos: An agnostic of the old faiths–the few people who are permitted to know scripture under their pact with Jaus and the Guilds. Are unaffiliated to all factions and perform metaphysical tunings and maintenance for Liminal Frames, Heavens, and Hells
  • Half-strand: An extremely derogatory term with two layers to its meaning. The first is someone with missing half a genetic strand; predating this slur, the earlier version was derived by meaning that "half someone's father's genetic material spilled out of their mother, resulting in a half-finished subhuman at most."
• Cool Old Lady: There are a number of cool old ladies in the world of godclads. The ones we as readers are most well acquainted with are:
  • Quail Tavers - the most legendary squire in the megacity of New Vultan. this is her introduction scene.
    Most squires died within three months on the job. Veterans made it over two years. Legends ten. Quail Tavers was rumored to be over four hundred. There was something to be said about an ancient still thriving in a profession that butchered the young by the billions.
  • The other extraordinary old lady we see in the story is old Lady Zein, an almost certainly insane drug-overusing old lady that can kick almost everyone's ass, has seen everything in the world, has a future seeing heaven and a sword made out of a god, and is in the top 5 best fighters in the world.
• Corporate Warfare: The eight guilds are the ruling class of new vultan and all hate each other. Each guild is the equivalent of a continent and is massive, both size and resource-wise.
• Cosmic Keystone: The Flayed Ladder is one of these. Its a device that acts as a key to shape reality in any way shape or form the one who has it wants. Voidwatch wants to use it to turn back the clock so that their greatest mistake never happens and all the other guilds have their own utopia in mind with it.
• Crapsack World: The world of god-clads is fucked right to the bone. The majority of the people living in the megacities are without any rights as human beings, existing as drug addicts and fuel for the higher-ups to power up their heavens and hells, dying in droves in abject poverty or blood sports if they are lucky, not to mention that reality is breaking almost every day given the sunderwilds (a reality wound that covers the majority of the planet).

• Cyber Space: The Nether is A ghost-mind network that runs in a parallel plane to existence and is connected in a grand weave of loci, ghosts, and moving minds. It is almost like a living organism due to how it is formed from countless living minds. It functions as the Internet of the godclads world.
• Dark Messiah: Avo is on the way to becoming this - as he is the only one with the frame needed to fix the collapse of the heavens of lust, love, and fertility and save the world with the ladder. But he is also a cannibal monster with fraying control over himself. he is also a contagious mind disease that infects and eats others.
• Designer Babies: Due to the "womb rash" (a deadly condition triggered by either physical touch or lust; there is no known cure), even the mere thought of having sex can kill you. Babies have been mainly vat-grown for a while now. Of course, the guilds in the tiers also practice genetic modification for the best outcome of looks, abilities, and more. An example of such is arbel Greatling .
  Abrel Greatling's body was a morphology of expense and transhuman artistry. From skin to sinew, her make was quality and efficiency, with even the oxygen burning at nearly a thousand the efficiency of a flat. Even if she were stripped of her Frame, she would have walked a god among the baselines. She could have sprinted for a week without tiring–strained against tons and only failed against the limitations of physics instead of her own tendons.
  • Most if not all of the guilds Fated have some version of being a designer baby and similar stuff to arbel (even if not to the same extent as her) as even FATELESS in the lowest slums have been designed to have at least perfect white teeth and such.
• Death Is Not Permanent: In Godclads, death is not necessarily the end. For example, you can die and become a digital ghost (this is your memories in a nutshell. Also, necrojackers use you as a part of the toolbox). If you are a Godclad like Avo, you die and are presumably cleaned of "rend" (toxic miracle waste) and get resurrected pretty much immediately.
• Death of the Old Gods: The godfall. It was an event in the story's past that had broken the gods and gave rise to the current status quo.
• Deity of Human Origin: What the Gods of Godclads are - a soul that is infused with a storyline - a myth. And as such, every God has its beginnings in human worship and death. It is also what godclads themselves are - as humans that have taken the shattered pieces of the Gods they broke and have now mantled the pieces to their souls - thus becoming immortal and impossible beings. Able to display almost almighty miracles, one and all (even if each one differs in scale.)
• Door Stopper: The story, as of this very moment, is around a million + words long and is far from being finished, and this is on the publicly published side. These numbers also don't include the Patreon updates.
• Elemental Motifs: Avo is often described in such a way. Especially once he gets his mind burned and imprinted with Ignorance. His elemental motif is flame.
• Fantastic Drug: There are several such drugs in godclads. Examples include - Joy, Suncloud, and more.
  • Joy makes you happy and slows down the heart rate; consequently, it is the single most used drug in the setting.
  • Suncloud is a nano-drug that kind of melds into your mind - gives one combination between super hallucinations and lucid dreaming.
  • Numb is an emotion killer, and it also helps one sleep better. It's a regulated drug by choice of the guilds. However, many people use it when their nightmares get to be too much for them to handle.
  • Nova is a combat drug - it will increase muscle density for a while but won't do that to bone. It can also make one's heart explode.
• Fantastic Rank System: The god class has a system that determines what level of power they have over reality called spheres and circles (taking inspiration from heaven spheres and hells circles of Dante's hell) starting from the first sphere up to the ninth sphere (circles do the same). As a god-clad rises in rank and sphere, they have more and more say over reality.
• A God Am I: This can be literal with Godclads (colloquially called ‘clads). After getting a liminal frame implanted with access to heavens and hells, a ‘clad can get into a phase of god complex (expected when one is using the powers of actual gods at will) that makes the whole category a group of… eccentric people, at least those that survive and manage to tone down, if partially, their new (if justified) arrogance at their apparent immortality
• Godhood Seeker: Everyone in the story seeks to become a godclad, as that is how you live your life as you want. And the guilds are seeking to have their ark win the war to the ladder.
• Gorn: The story is bloody and comes with Avo having a blood heaven.

• Horrifying Hero: Avo is a very horrifying creature, and he only gets more and more terrible as the story goes on.
• Horrifying the Horror: The first time the sangist inside Avo sees a raptured heaven, it is immediately struck with horror and fear that it begs him not to let him see it.
• Layered Metropolis: Distribution is Maw is mostly waste disposal or tunnels for people to flee up through (direct Maw is hellscape; can't stay there as a normal person); Warrens is near-empty in the gutters (25 billion tops); Spine has about (80 billion spread out); The Throat and Light's End are packed with around (400 billion). The Arks and Elysiums at the top of the tiers run about 10-12 each, and the remaining distribution is a 75-25 split between Undercroft and the "Purgs" above them.

• Master Swordsman: Zian Thousand Hands - the wife of Jaus is an ardent student and supporter of the art of the cut. She called an unparalleled warrior and the best person to have ever picked a blade by several people.
• Mechanical Muscles: There are several people in the mega city of new vultan that has abandoned base biology in favour to metal and more. The one in the main cast that has fully done this is dice. Who has become a full body aug in a metal suit called the rigjumper.
• Mega City: The city the story takes place in, "New Vultan," has about 947 billion people living in it and climbing as refugees gather from the cruel world to try and reach the Dream.
• Messianic Archetype: Jaus Avendaer is this. A simple slave who found a great civilization sleeping away and with them rose to overthrow the gods and became the world's leader. Things happen, and he dies, but his name is worshipped as a god. Much to his hate - the man did not want to be a God.

• Morality Chip: In Avo's memories walton had installed such a thing for avo to be able to integrate and interface with the city of new vultan without causing problems. (What with avos cannibal eating and general phycology)

• Pieces of God: Heavens are pieces of fallen gods that the people of Idheim implant into themselves to become godclads.
• The Power of Blood: Avo's wound-shaper is a heaven of blood and architecture. It can do all sorts of stuff with blood. Stuff that should not be possible.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Avo has for sure given some straight up roasts of such a level to several people.
• Red Baron: A lot of people in the story have monikers. Such as
  • Avo our protagonist has the moniker of moonblood or ghoul or Dagger from Zein thousand hands.
  • Jelene Draus is nicknamed as Dread Draus
  • Veylis Avandaer is called The High Seraph
• The Reveal: There are several such in the story. Examples include:
  • Avo finds out that his entire memory is a well-constructed fake.
  • Walton reveals himself as a low master - specifically the famine of defiance.
  • The Hungers reveal the actual purpose of the ghouls - country to what Avo believed that the purpose of them was to defeat the guilds and take back noloth - the Hungers reveal that the ghouls are meant to be trash bins for the hunger's pain and suffering and similar such things.
  • The fact that Kae was one of if not the head of the project that Avo's frame of the stillborn was made from.

• Trans Humanism: As a cyberpunk staple, this is also in god-clads. From the metal infusion or replacement parts to the mind additions or the biological upgrades, there is little you cannot replace or upgrade about yourself in new Vultan.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: Every single guild has its version of the utopia that it wants to achieve. Not all utopias are equal, so they fight to make them a reality. For example:
  • Sanctus wants reality to descend into raw chaos and let existence turn into primordial soup while mankind stitches themselves into the ever-changing patterns as a "collective ascension."
  • Highflame wants a very structured, hyper-moralistic xianxia system.
  • Ori-Thaum doesn't think anyone should individually own heaven and wants everyone to share it.

• Wham Episode: There are plenty of revelations and wham episodes to spare in a story such as this. Here are just some examples:
  • Chapter 7-5 a forced choice - Avo uncovers a version of his father "Walton" who shows him the real war in New Vultan and the stakes in question when he shows him the Flayed Ladder in its full glory and what some of what is in stake and after that to make sure that the other versions of himself won't hurt Avo Walton forces him to kill him in full so that the other versions of himself won't be able to use the memories they had together as a weak point. Avo is left screaming and broken by this.
• Wham Line: There are plenty of revelations and wham lines to spare in a story like this. Here are just some examples:
  • Chapter 8-14 The Inverted Dreamer (I) -
    “Did you hear me, ‘Walton?’ You gave our greatest instrument to a creature that was less than a slave. Less than a dog! They were made to express our hate! Our hate! Our boundless hate for the world! To bleed the betrayers forever! Lick sacks of fucking waste-trauma! And you made the meat meant to carry our excess metaphorical shit a god!”
  • Chapter 13-8 The Enemies of My Enemy I -
    "Avo could feel the sneer building on D'Rongo's face. +No. Of course you're not. You're too good for that. And you killed my Incubi. All at once. All without the Exorcists noticing.+ Her features softened. A chuckle of genuine amusement filled her mind. +Ah. The answer is obvious. Welcome to my mind then, Priest of Noloth. Come to strike another bargain with me?+."
• Womb Horror: Wombrash is a metaphysical contagion that leaked into the world after the Rupturing of the Heavens of Lust, Love, and Fertility. Due to this, the Physical Intimacy Ban is in full effect for New Vultun and the surrounding areas. All lustful activities must be conducted using proxies in the Nether. Any physical intimacy will trigger an outbreak of the rash, which causes a body's biomass to begin producing womb sores that incubate half-formed homunculi. The transmission vectors of womb rash are: physical, auditory, and visual. All physical intimacy in reality, constitutes a felony of the highest order and will be monitored by Guild Exorcists.