The story practically requires you to read the original sins comic and the 2nd storyline, Venials, in order to be understandable. The original comic chapters are downloadable from the site, and Venials is accessible from the archives.
It does not go in order, switching to a different time period each storyline. The seven virtues are also involved, as well as several tarots and a necromancer named Murdoch. Oh, and some golems. Humanoid, evil golems that the sins were previously inhabiting... it's very complicated.
The original website can be found here
. New updates are located here.
The creator has also made a similar series that can be found on the site, called Mercynaries, as well as a Web Game called Mind Your Manors.
This comic provides examples of:
- A God Am I: The Rulers actively rule over their world as gods.
- After the End: The Spirit World was once a vibrant and healthy place, but was converted into a barren wasteland. Similarly, Sins Venials ends with the human world fading away into nothingness. The sequel, Sins Revenant, deals with those who survived by escaping into the Spirit World. But as a side effect of the human world's destruction, the energy released causes the Spirit World to start healing.
- All There in the Manual: A great deal of background information isn't covered in the main comic. You have to get it from the author's notes beneath the comics, the obscurely placed B-Side Comics, and the games on the swag page.
- Anachronic Order: The story of Venials mostly moves forwards, but has frequent arcs situated in the past with little to no warning or visual cues. Keeping up with the Author's notes situated below the comic and the in forum timeline are pretty much the only ways to keep track of the story's progression.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The comic revolves around the residents of the Spirit World.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The Shades often appear as a single color.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: In ancient times, the Spirit World was ruled over by whichever demons managed to muscle the most power. These demons were called Demon Barons. In the current era, the Spirit World has long been ruled over by the Sins as a result of Gods Need Prayer Badly. But with the destruction of the human world and the revival of the Spirit World, they have lost a considerable amount of clout, with this chaotic, destructive system threatening to return.
- This is how Labor picks his replacement—he goes out looking for fights and picks the demon that is capable of beating the absolute tar out of him.
- Badass Normal: Jin, one of the previous hosts and pirate queen who eventually became a helper to the force of Destiny, an immortal warrior, and one of the newest Sins.
- Von Froya also qualifies—she was a human from the mortal realm who, with the help of the dealer, shut down the link between the spirit and physical worlds and defeated a demon baron.
- The Vice—he's an adorable mini-demon who was refused entry into the Sins and went to the dealer instead. He then defeats Armageddon, get's a massive possessed scarf and helps kill off the Apocalypse, and gets wangled into the Sins anyway through the dealer's influence!
- Balance Between Good and Evil: There can only be seven Sins and seven Virtues. Any more would cause The End of the World as We Know It. When the Tarots show up, the universe gets a bit out of whack.
- We also get glimpse of what happens when there is one too few in Marlowe's arc, as that also triggers an Apocalypse level world ending events, everyone was lucky they fixed it before things went into Brain Bleach territory
- The Tarot's invasion ultimately poisons the world beyond repair, and it fades away into nothingness.
- Big Eater: All of the various incarnations of Gluttony, obviously.
- Big Bad: Anger in the original story. Empress of the Tarot in Venials.
- Bittersweet Ending: In Sins Venials, the Virtues manage to preserve part of the world's spirit, but ultimately fail to prevent their actions as well as the Tarots' from causing The End of the World as We Know It. As most of the Sins and Virtues depart together to the Spirit World along with several of the hosts, Chastity goes to the Fates and Lust chooses to die with Rhett as the human world fades away.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Librarian quickly gets frustrated when she quizzes one of the sins on their biology.
- Blessed with Suck: The Virtues, especially Fast.
- Blob Monster: Sloth, mostly. However, all of the Sins have this quality in their shade forms.
- Bratty Half-Pint: A few of the hosts, but most notably Alicia.
- Butt-Monkey: Flattery!Envy for the Sins, Sharing for the Virtues, Hierophant for the Tarot
- Cannibalism Superpower: Demons are theoretically capable of feeding off of or even consuming other demons for their energy and power. However, this practice is usually frowned on. Some of the most dangerous demons to do this ended up becoming Sealed Evil in a Can.
- Cast of Personifications: The anthropomorphic personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins are the protagonists, with personifications of the Seven Heavenly Virtues, the Tarot, vices, fates, etc. being supporting characters.
- Cat Fight: ...yeah.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Fortune can be like this at times.Fortune: I've hunted bananas before...
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Sins:
- Sloth: Dark Blue
- Lust: Pink or Purple
- Anger: Black for original Anger, Blue for Pettiness
- Pride: Yellow
- Envy: Green for Desire, Black and Orange for Flattery, Black for Jealousy
- Greed: Brown
- Gluttony: Orange (bright pink or neon green early on) for Craving, Light Blue/Black for Gorging
- Cross-Cultural Handshake: Here.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Rulers, a new band of forces, easily crushed the Tarot and conquered the human world. When the Sins encounter them, they experience the same fate.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: The big showdown pitting the Tarot against the Sins and Virtues. A few Tarot are able to put up a bit of a fight, but for the most part, the Sins and Virtues manage to crush them.
- Curse Cut Short: Here.
- Cursed with Awesome: The strain of becoming host to the Sins shatters your soul, making animals hate you and possibly denying access to a proper afterlife (assuming one exists at all), resulting in The Nothing After Death... but you get to command around the personifications of the forces of humanity's sins.
- Proves to no longer be a curse at the end of Venials, because the only humans who could be brought back and survive The End of the World as We Know It were the former hosts.
- A Day in the Limelight: Murdoch got one, in which he tried to figure out what Filo was 'up to'. It didn't go well, probably because he's The Chew Toy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Lust, Murdoch, Joy.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The Sins (and Chastity) fighting Death.
- It's even lampshaded. Gotta love Flattery!Envy's expression.
- Hoarding!Greed's Oh, Crap! expression is good too.
- It's even lampshaded
- Dumbass Has a Point: Gorging!Gluttony tends to be... very hungry a lot of the time, but she has her moments of insight.Gorging: This guy is an idiot.Lust: I know! All the more fun this will be! Don't hog him, Breck!Gorging: No. Bad idea.Lust: Wha?! But I want to wail on him too!Gorging: If he loses, The Tarot will replace him.Lust: Good! He doesn't deserve to be a force!Gorging: They might replace him with someone competent.
- Embodiment of Vice
- Emotion Eater: Demons gather their energy from what they represent. Many of them represent certain emotions. Lust grows stronger by sleeping with people or residing near those who have a bunch of pent up lust. Hope can feed off of the hope in other people.
- The End of the World as We Know It: This is what will happen if the world falls too much out of balance. Thanks to the petty machinations of Lust, Chastity, the Tarot, and the worst of them all, Destiny, it ultimately occurs and the human world fades away into nothingness.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As jerky as the Virtues are, they're not entirely bad. To wit: Joy made no snarky comments for Rhett's funeral in the Addison Arc, much to Content's pleasure, and Labor was set up to interrogate Marlowe since Chasity wasn't having much luck... until he found out he was mute, and was rather put off at the thought of it.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: Animals hate the host of the Sins.
- Extreme Omnivore: The original Gluttony's power is the ability to eat anything, including dirt.
- Fade to White: The way the human world ends.
- Fantastic Nature Reserve: The orb that seals away the demon known as Nostalgia contains a portion of the Spirit World as it was before the life got sucked out of it.
- Fog Feet: Lust gets stuck with them a lot.
- Gender Bender: Among others covered on the "character" pages, an walk-on in the W arc of Venials pays the Sins' master to "make [him] a pretty lady," and Lust does so. Some of the wishes come with catches, but this one not obviously.
- Give Me Back My Wallet: Rhett was at least kind enough to make pointers to Addison of how to do it right.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: One of the ways Forces gain power. There are several different types, and some are more reliant on it than others.
- Demons are basically masses of spiritual energy and goo. Most of them are nameless, but some of them become Anthropomorphic Personifications. While they do exist naturally on their own, originating from the Spirit World, they can gain a significant power boost if humans think about or put enough belief into what they represent. If they stop receiving human belief, the associated demon receives less energy, causing them to weaken as they use up their reserves.
- If enough universal energy is loose, it is possible for human belief to create an entirely new Force, with their shape and personality determined by it.
- Good Is Boring: The Virtues, especially Labor, though it's more a case of Order is boring, since the conflict between the Sins and Virtues is essentially a case of Grey-and-Gray Morality and Order Versus Chaos.
- Good Wings, Evil Wings: Modesty has angel wings. He's not a good guy, but he's not really a Knight Templar...he's actually pretty apathetic.
- Groin Attack
- Hypocritical Humor: No one beats up my villain but me!
- Idiot Hair: Baxter.
- Immortal Immaturity: Most of the forces are very childish.
- Jerkass:
- Harmond (initially), the Greed Golem, Todd, Grandeur!Pride, Chastity, Empress...
- Ahh, Chastity just takes her job too seriously. Joy, on the other hand?
- Karmic Death: Gluttony takes over a town and steals all of the food. Her host body is done in by a fork. It's even lampshaded.
- Literal Genie: Envy in Aska's arc. Later subverted when Aska writes a book instructing hosts how to command the Sins.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Envy had no partaking in the Addison arc and when he found out the other sins had a WHOLE adventure with a host without him two arcs later, he grew to contempt them.
- The Magic Comes Back: It never actually went away, but the World Tree of the Spirit World has been dead for thousands of years, having had the life sucked out of it by the many demons that call it home. But in the beginning of Sins Revenant, the surge of energy released by the destruction of the Human Realm causes it to start reviving. However, a number of dangerous, ancient demons begin to awaken with it.
- Magitek: Tiny amounts exist, though it is solely possessed by a handful of Necromancers. But, in a big contrast to the normal setting, one of the side games depicts an advanced modern society with magical technology all over the place.
Word of God says that its the same universe as the Sins', but in a different, yet to be specified time period. After the human world is recreated, a new group of forces introduces it. - Medieval Stasis: It has been thousands of years since the Sins came into being, and over their entire lifespan, the world's development has hardly progressed at all. Aside from the golems used by a handful of necromancers and a small number of magical artifacts from lost civilizations, there are no signs of advanced magic or technology. Word of God says that the In-Universe reason for this is due to the scarcity of materials needed for industry (like metal), the lack of large towns, and a badly designed economic system that involves lots of pirates. Out of universe, its probably just because the story takes place over such a large period of time that showing such a thing would be difficult. The human world's 2nd incarnation finally breaks out of it thanks to the efforts of a new group of forces who introduce humanity to progress.
- Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: The petty machinations and infighting of the Sins, the Virtues, the Tarot, and most importantly, the Fates, ends up destroying the entire human world.
- The Nothing After Death: At the very least, this is where the souls of the hosts end up when they die. Since the existence of a lively afterlife is unconfirmed, this is probably the afterlife for everyone.
- At the end of Venials, Rhett tells Lust that death is very "...meh."
- Oddly Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Sins Venials and Sins Revenant.
- Order Versus Chaos: Word of God says that the comic has never been about good versus evil, as both the Sins and Virtues have done questionable things, but order (The Virtues) versus chaos (The Sins).
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are basically masses of spiritual energy and goo that have been shaped into creatures. They are the native residents of the Spirit World and can draw additional power from Gods Need Prayer Badly. Most of the demons in the Spirit World have no name, as they do not represent anything in particular, but underneath certain conditions, it is possible for them to become the Anthropomorphic Personification of a particular concept.
- Our Souls Are Different
- Physical God
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Sins seldom promote sin, and the Virtues seemingly never do anything virtuous.
- Pointy Ears: The humanoid Sins and the Virtues.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: D'awwww...
- Running Gag: Lust's "squiggly butt".
- Schizo Tech: For the most part, the human world seems to be trapped in Medieval Stasis. However, there are occasional signs of advanced technology. Like a modern day playground situated at the former site of Pride's temple, or the Golems and other tools used by a handful of Necromancers.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Obviously.
- Seven Heavenly Virtues
- The Unmasqued World: In the original incarnation of the human world, forces remained behind the scenes and kept a low profile. But in its second incarnation, a new group of forces openly introduce themselves to humanity and are worshiped in return for bringing progress to the world.
- Villain Protagonist
- Void Between the Worlds: Between the human world and Spirit World is a dimension called Limbo. The main part of it is an empty white void. For a long time, this was where the Virtues lived. A darker area in Limbo is called the Valley of Shadows, which effectively serves as an afterlife for shades. The original Anger ended up trapped there after his death. Limbo continues to exist, but gets closed off when the human world is destroyed, since the Spirit World no longer connects to another side.
- World-Healing Wave: Chapter 3, Sins Revenant focuses on the rebirth of the Spirit World, resulting from all the energy unleashed by the human world's destruction.
- World Tree: The Spirit World happens to be one of these. It was originally a lush and interesting place, but all of its demonic inhabitants eventually sucked out too much of its energy. But after the destruction of the human world, the human world's energy infuses the Spirit World with new life.
- Who's Laughing Now?: Flattery!Envy. He originally thought he was part of the team and put up with their usual joking. But when he found out they went on a WHOLE ADVENTURE WITHOUT HIM, he was reasonably pissed off, and quit without telling the sins. Thus, knowingly causing a disturbance in the world when they were being unlocked again, just to spite them.
- World of Technicolor Hair: The vast majority of the cast have unusual hair colors.
