Though there are many theories and philosophies, nobody can really say for sure what happens when you die. Well, except for you.

First is the pain. Sharp, hot, unbearable pain. Like a burning arrow shot right through your chest. Next is the voice.

"Be not afraid."

You open your eyes and you see it - a divine being, with a pair of white wings and a shining golden halo, in its arms a bow and bloody arrow. The being extends a hand to you, blazing with holy light. You take it, and with the strength of a thousand men the being lifts you up, a million miles into the sky, and into the Kingdom of Heaven.

It's exactly like in the stories. A massive shining citadel in the sky, built on the clouds and surrounded by the stars, populated by the angels. You are looking down on the city in awe when you realize something beating at your back. Right there between your shoulder blades is a pair of massive wings, keeping you aloft as you sail through the sky. You, too, are an angel.

You are brought in front of the fortress, along with a ragtag group of misfits such as yourself, all sporting glowing wings and shining haloes. It is there you are brought before him.

Michael - a large, shirtless man with six wings and six arms, welcomes you to the Kingdom of Heaven. As a divine angel, you now have one job: To further the Will of the Almighty. It's simple. By day, you will act as guardians of humanity and fight the demons that plague them. By night, you will return to Heaven and rest, enjoying the luxuries offered only to you.

This is your new life. You're not sure how you were chosen or why, but this is where you are now. You did it - you won the afterlife lottery. All that's left is to fulfill your new purpose, and enjoy your new eternal life... That is, until the Final Day.

The Rules (and Lore) (Mostly the Lore)

1. Forum Rules apply, obviously. Be respectful and all that.

2. Let's talk about Miracles. If you practiced magic in life, that is wiped clean from your body as soon as you enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Instead, you are granted power over miracles by the Almighty. Every angel has a miraculous specialty, which can be divided into four major archetypes:

• Conquest: White Miracles, Support Miracles. Angels with the Conquest archetype specialize in beneficial miracles that help the party achieve their goals, whether in battle or in the field. This can range from raising the strength of your allies to shining lights to fill dark rooms. Conquest Miracles are flavored with light and waving banners.
• War: Red Miracles, Destructive Miracles. Angels with the War archetype specialize in smiting the enemies of the Lord, dealing powerful damage to monsters and demons, but the miracles are very volatile, and can easily fall out of control. From manipulating weapons to manipulating the elements, any destructive miracles are covered here. War Miracles are flavored by flames and clashing blades.
• Famine: Black Miracles, Opposition Miracles. Angels with the Famine archetype specialize in undermining the enemy less directly. Poison, plagues, hiding in the shadows - all these are covered under Famine. They rarely engage in direct confrontations, but tend to use cunning to reach their goals. Famine Miracles are flavored with shadow and the flipping of coins.
• Death: Pale Miracles, Fate Miracles. Angels with the Death archetype are rare, but not unheard of. Naturally, they specialize in interacting directly with the End. Death Miracles are considered great gifts, gifts like Prophecy, reversing death, manipulating fate. Death Miracles are flavored by bone and red string.

3. Each angel also has an affinity to a certain Heavenly Virtue. This is mostly there to provide a basis for the characters, but it will also affect how certain characters interact with you. There's no hard and fast rules here, so I won't be putting a limit on players & you can choose whichever ones you want.

The Signup

• Name: Can be anything, no restrictions.
• Appearance: Can be a description or an image, whatever is more convenient
• Miraculous Affinity: Please see The Rules for choices on Miracles.
• Miraculous Specialty: What aspect of your miracle type do you embody the most? Feel free to be creative with this, the archetypes are meant to be very general and wide-reaching
• Other Skills: What else does your character bring to the table? Anything they were good at in life?
• Equipment: Anything your character died with, or that was very special to them, will be brought with them here.
• Backstory: Who was your character? What did they do in life? How did they die? How much of it do they remember? How do they feel about this new life? What is their relationship with the Almighty?
• Heavenly Virtue: In case you aren't aware, the virtues are: Humility, Kindness, Patience, Restraint, Charity, Purity, and the one, the only Diligence.

I'll start the game after we have four signups, but it will remain open for anyone to join.

Edited by Afterwards on May 9th 2023 at 8:04:58 AM

Can I call dibs on Diligence? Have yet another Historical Domain Character in mind for that one lol

sure! theres no limit for this one like in the other one, so no need to reserve spots or anything lol

Ah gotcha! Working on my sign-up sheet rn btw

Name: Kelsey Perez

Appearance: Peroxide bleached blonde with blue streaks, lightly tanned, tattooed sleeves up and down both arms and right on the bottom of her belly, with various foreign scripts and roses. Tacky, but she thinks it looks cool. Blueish eyes. Dresses like a cheerleader on MySpace. As an angel, has glowing blue/indigo wings coming out from her lower back.

Miraculous Affinity: Famine.

Miraculous Specialty: Kelsey is famine, but she's the kind of famine that looks good, the type that you can glamorize, the type that makes you look pretty in clubs and in photos and gets everyone to praise you even as you lose yourself. She's good at illusion, tricking the enemy. False lights at the end of the tunnel you stumble through, a hand that will hold yours in the cold, empty night, or the false faces of your worst mistakes, urging you to do better.

So basically, illusion magic bullshit.

Other Skills: Kelsey can drink five shots of Fireball in a row without puking. She is also dexterous, very physically fit, and good with fighting in close quarters, weaving her way through any of the devils that might mess with her.

Equipment: Kelsey Perez has the following:

• A flip phone, able to take photos of what happens to make a record, act as a limited reference book for what she needs to know to create a specific illusion, and obviously, make calls. The home screen for the phone seems to be another girl, with pale skin, black hair, and heterochromia, with a green and a blue eye.
• A makeup kit. Just because she is dead and among the angels doesn't mean she can't stop looking good.
• Rings on every finger. Cheap ones, but they look cute.

Backstory: Kelsey Perez didn't come from much, but she always hoped for bigger and better things. And everyone knew that she'd amount to something when she grew up. In that forgotten city project, standing on the rooftop of her building because the power was out and air conditioning wasn't an option, she'd study things over and over and over again, her academics and her athletics, the two things that she was told could get her a chance to get out of this place. She was the perfect girl in life: honor roll student, on the cheer team, and beautiful, the life of all of the many parties she went to, constantly posting away on her MySpace. Her story was the American Dream: she got into a big shot college, moved states away, and everyone knew she would be destined for greatness, the one who made it and would make things better for everyone else.

Of course, she would be destined to die like the American Dream. Maybe everything got too much for her, maybe her beauty was meant to burn away in the party scene, maybe she was meant to starve because starving meant that she had a hunger to look better, to have something better, and maybe she would have shattered anyways when someone failed to catch her as she fell to the ground. She had one person who she could talk to about it, a girl who she had become roommates with, someone beautiful in another way, a girl who was the polar opposite of her in every way, an aimless wanderer who needed a place to stay after cutting ties off with her dad. It was something to hold on to as she worked herself to death.

And work herself to death, she did. As much as she accomplished: She was still found unconscious on the bathroom floor, just a little closer to heaven. She's here now. They were right, she guessed. She was meant for greater things.

Heavenly Virtue: Diligence

Edited by MadameButterflyKnife on May 9th 2023 at 9:52:20 AM

• Name: Hugo Klorakis
• Miraculous Affinity: Death
• Miraculous Specialty: The cleansing of disease, filth, and dangerous pestilence, for the betterment and health of the greater world
• Other Skills: Mopping, dusting, wiping, sweeping, washing, typing, and “Burling”, AKA Ice Jug Curling
• Equipment: His iconic Soulcatcher Mop and Bucket, his trusty Purifying Windex, and a gun
• Backstory: Hugo Klorakis was a humble Greek janitor who got a steady set of janitorial work in a very small Estonian town, living his boring life for forty years, until his “greater purpose” was revealed. When a horrible plague overtook the underdeveloped part of his country, Hugo took it upon himself to become a wandering plague doctor, going from town to town keeping the land safe and healthy. Near the ending of this horrific plague, Hugo met his end when he discovered he’d contracted the plague himself. He perished within his self-imposed quarantine, far from anyone to infect.
• Heavenly Virtue: Purity

Name: Ulrike Magnolia Philistine

Appearance: An old woman with grey hair cut short wearing a Roaring 20s styled suit and fur coat on her shoulders. She has a tattoo of an mouth with an outstretched tongue on her left hand and is nearly constantly smoking.

Miraculous Affinity: War

Miraculous Specialty: Ulrike can cause things made of organic matter to become inorganic matter, a common method of hers is to turn plants such as vines or branches into substances like iron or steel.

Other Skills: Ulrike is very good at disappearing and blending into to her surroundings. Hiding in plain sight was always something that was easy for her. Equipment: A snake looms around her neck as if it were a scarf.

Backstory: Ulrike was a German-American born in the early 20th century known for her moxie and guile in running her own Bohemian cafe / speakeasy known as "Hand to Mouth". It's status as a safe haven for queer youths and Magnolia's own very stern approach to violence against her patrons made it so that Ulrike was known as the "Stone Flower of Logan Circle". She would die in a riot that occurred in front of her establishment. The cause of death was due to a bullet wound to the throat, leaving a hole that persists even as an angel.

Heavenly Virtue: Restraint

Edited by Baisteach on May 9th 2023 at 7:01:24 AM

• Name: David S. Trapp

• Appearance: Dave is a rather tall (high end of 6') rat-person with black and white fur, sporting a ragged business suit.

• Miraculous Affinity: Famine. He's a big rat.

• Miraculous Specialty: He's always wanted friends, and now he can make some. He now has the ability to summon hordes of ghostly rats, which can either swarm his opponents to inflict them with poisons (or just tear them apart if he's feeling Silly), or dissipate into a thick smog for an easy distraction.

• Other Skills: Moving undetected, fitting into strangely small spaces, and somehow always knowing his way around a sewer. (but. only a sewer.)

• Equipment: His trusty switchblade, an unloaded revolver (he was told it would protect him, but was never told it was unloaded.), and a necklace fashioned from the bullet that brought him here.

• Backstory: Dave was never really noticed, and that's how he liked it. He just did what his boss told him to, took packages where he was told to, and never interacted with clients. He'd been living on the street before this, so of course he never questioned it. He never questioned why the client locations started getting scarier, he never questioned why the packages started smelling weird, and he especially didn't question when a package he was carrying started leaking blood.

Okay, he did question that one actually. He shouldn't have, but he learned! He made sure he didn't question his boss bringing him into the office for a meeting, he didn't question when his boss pulled out a gun, and he didn't have time to question anything that came after that.

They never found him after that, but it doesn't matter. Someone else took the job shortly after. He has a new job now, anyways. A bit too much of a spotlight, and he's not sure if the new boss is more or less scary, but he's not going to question it.

• Heavenly Virtue: Charity

• Name: Aphelion a.k.a Zhu Xīng Yu 朱星雨
• Appearance: A figure followed by the sentimental scent of rain. Veiled hair casting long shadows, eyes inscrutable and unchanging expression even more so, a lilting curve of a smile in a thin slice of the moon.
• Miraculous Affinity: Conquest.
• Miraculous Specialty: The cords of fate are woven around Aphelion’s wrists like an old encumbrance, and for a price well paid in life- he was granted the ability to guide states of being, to reach out to and refasten the connections that pulse through the world. Grasp from one source, and bestow a tether to another, feeling the steady push and pull of balance and exchange like an underflow. With enough luck, and the patience to tune the current, a deft touch could lace them together into something new.^note  In other words it’s just fucking Soft and Wet with causality flavour. Yes this is the second time I’ve accidentally referenced this same thing in a TVT roleplay please don’t kill me
• Other Skills: Brewing sweet tea. Cat’s-cradle. Carving little finches out of soft wood, reminiscent of summer days.
• Equipment:
  • Bo Jiang Zuo: ‘A Relic of times long past, the loyal weapon and guardian that hovers by your side. Takes after a winding constellation in appearance, no larger than your splayed palm, and its aid comes to shelter you in a shower of shooting stars.’
  • Floral Hairpin: ‘Wisteria set in gold. It doesn’t belong to you. A keepsake; a remainder.’

• Heavenly Virtue: Charity- for someone whose hands knew only to give.

Edited by unfortunatezorua on May 16th 2023 at 7:33:35 PM

• Name: Russell Jacobson Fowler. You're cool, though, right? Yeah? Call me "Rusty."

• Appearance: Black, with a ‘fro that gets in the way of my eyes more often than I’d like to admit. An avid collector of band merch from centuries before I was born — all the cool kids got their vintage stuff from me. About 20% metal by way of prosthetic fixes. Still figuring out what’s different about myself in the afterlife.

• Miraculous Affinity: War! (Huh! What is it good for?)

• Miraculous Specialty: Technopathy. You know how all those old adventure movies have the demolitions expert? Knows how to make stuff explode and/or do other fantastic things with little more than scraps and duct tape? Yeah. That. With a side of electricity. A certain robot's writing me into existence, after all.

• Other Skills: Gifted far-future inventor type. Instant film photography. Reviving long-dead technological devices. Mastery of the electric fiddle (bordering on the virtuosic).

• Equipment:
  • The Rustrod: My prized melee weapon of choice. Think “baseball bat” meets “those little circle things on a power pylon” and you’re on the money.
  • The Hook Echo: A Fold prototype SMG that I dismantled, put back together again, broke, repaired, upgraded and revived… several times. Barely recognizable from its corporate origin, damn near unusable by anyone not named “Rusty” or “Dixon,” and switchable between pure electric light rounds or a caseless bullet magazine.
  • Sterling: A custom electric fiddle. Self-built, super lightweight and might or might not have self-defensive capabilities.

• Backstory: Do you really want me to describe myself here? Come on, I'm not the one you want to ask. Fine, we'll give it a try.
  • You're in, what, 2023? Hmm... let's see... 342 years from your perspective, give or take a few, the Earth and its inhabitants are locked in a cold (okay, well, more like spicy around the edges) war between the Andromeda Manifold (think big, hegemonic corporate alliance, corrupt as fuck) and the UTC (the evolution of Earth's governmental bodies, ALSO corrupt as fuck). You know that whole "privatized colonization" thing that Elon and Bezos won’t shut up about? Yeeeeeeah, not the move. Our solar system's split between factions and everyone kinda hates each other now. Yay!

  • Anyway, the Manifold. Powerful. Multifaceted. Unrelenting. If they don't own it already, they want it. When you're a 12-year-old with a penchant for mischief and a talent for building tools of destruction, you're either a wildcard that needs to be addressed... or a tool.

  • One false move put me in front of a powerful fellow who called himself Brett (absolutely a fake name) and a contract that would null and void my personal "KILL ON SIGHT" order (probably pretty real?). I didn't know how to read legalese as a preteen. Come on, you would've done it too.

  • They got ten years out of me before I got wise enough to break out. By then I'd made some friends, found my escape route, skirted the eyes of the corporate drones (literal and figurative). Once I was a free agent again, I kept doing what I'd done best — using the Fold's cutting-edge tech against them.

  • Everyone loves a good freedom fighter story, right? There was the UTC, the Fold — and then the ones caught in the middle, the misfits that had to figure out ways to make it work. A haphazard group, to be certain. But we had to look out for our own... and had to have the means to pull off some rebellion here and there.

  • Had a good thing going, for a while. Met a couple funky fellows — a machine that fancied himself both a bee and a vampire for some reason, the daughter of Julian Fairchild himself, her robot brother, a fella with color-changing hair. Repairs, custom weaponry, the best margs this side of the System — I was the guy.

  • Couldn't last forever, right? Duh. This trade rarely ended well for folks like us. All I can remember is that I showed my face in the wrong place, and when you're a known quantity, that's a death sentence.

• Heavenly Virtue: Kindness. (Aren’t you tired of going apeshit? Don’t you want to just be nice?)

Edited by Tre on May 11th 2023 at 10:25:12 AM

• Name: Nakano Takeko
• Appearance:
  • The Defender of Aizu herself◊. Takeko is decked out in late Edo-period samurai armor.
  • She has sleek angel wings poking out of her back, fitting through two holes in her armor designed for the wings to go through them.
  • Underneath her armor and clothes, Takeko has numerous scars from her battles, including a few recovered bullet wounds.
  • Takeko has some faint patches of light blue skin around her body, which are the sole remnants of her Oni lineage upon ascending to Heaven.
• Miraculous Affinity: War
• Miraculous Specialty: Battle; Takeko is a skilled warrior who has fought bravely on the battlefield, showing no mercy towards her foes. No matter what, Takeko does not give up; she'll keep fighting even if she's on the verge of death. She'll only stop, if she y'know, dies, but she will very much take the remaining enemies down with her.
• Other Skills:
  • Martial Arts: Having received extensive training in martial arts since she was a child, Takako is a capable fighter even without weapons.
  • Calligraphy: She can write pretty well.
  • Teaching: Takeko is able to teach whatever she knows to others, whether that'll be wielding naginatas, literary arts and so on.
• Equipment:
  • Naginata: Takeko's signature weapon that she has fought with in every battle. It used to be engraved with special Oni-related spells but upon Takeko's ascension to Heaven, the spells were removed; still a very effective weapon though.
  • Kimonos: Wearing samurai armor 24/7 is kinda inconvenient, especially in times of peace, so she has a spare kimono or two. They're usually blue.
• Backstory:
  • Nakano Takeko was born in the city of Edo (an older name for Tokyo) in 1847. She was the daughter of an official of the Aizu Domain. From her mother's side, Takeko was descended from oni-human hybrid samurai, making her part Oni. While she wasn't as strong as a full Oni, she certainly was sturdier than a regular human and could easily beat said human in a match. Starting at the young age of 6, Takeko received diligent training in martial arts, literary arts and calligraphy. She ended up teaching others younger than her, such as her sister, Yūko. She read up several stories about Japanese female warriors, generals and empresses but she particularly admired the tale of Tomoe Gozen, who would leave a great impact on her. As she got older, she got employed by the lord of Niwase and taught the naginata to his wife before teaching it to other women as well.
  • Then, the Boshin War broke out in 1868. It was a conflict between the Tomugawa shogunate and the Imperial Court. It was kickstarted by nobles and samurai being dissatisfied over how the shogunate handled foreigners, particularly when US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry opened Japan to global commerce 14 years prior. The Civil War raged on and eventually the shogun surrendered. However, the region of Aizu, who were loyal to him to no end, kept on fighting for him. Takeko formed the Jōshitai, a group of female warriors and included her mother and sister. They were initially not allowed to fight by the officials of Aizu but a Shogunate Army colonel gave them the go ahead and crowned Takeko as their leader. They then headed into the Battle of Aizu.
  • Early in the morning, on the Yanagi Bridge, Takeko launched a change towards incoming Imperial Army troops who were all armed with firearms. The troops were caught off guard as they weren't expecting a whole army of women, giving the Jōshitai the upper hand as they took advantage of their surprise to attack. The Jōshitai fought diligently but Takeko was the one who fought the hardest. She slashed her away through dozens of enemy soldiers fighting with no mercy. Many fired at her but it didn't slow her down but instead, it encouraged her further. By the end of the onslaught, a grand majority of the Imperial troops were either dead or retreated from battle. Takeko and the Jōshitai were clear victors. The survivors spread news about them all around Japan, where it ended up catching wind with the Emperor who figured that he needed to stop them. The Jōshitai, especially Takeko, were willing to continue the fight. Because of their efforts, the Boshin War lasted for several years where Takeko massacred Imperial armies and the Imperial Court had to get assistance from its Western allies to send additional troops.
  • On the dawn of 1872, the Imperial Court was able to track down the original weapons used by Minamoto no Yorimitsu, a great general from centuries earlier that slayed the Oni king, Shuten Doji. The weapons were engraved with magical spells specialized in killing Oni, with the Imperial Court aware of Takeko's Oni heritage. An Imperial general, Tomura Yoshinori, was assigned the weapons and the task to kill Takeko. Yoshinori led an ambush on the Aizu-Wakamatsu castle to lure out the Jōshitai. While they fought, Yoshinori was able to get close to Takeko and behead her with Yorimitsu's blade in one clean strike. This enraged the Jōshitai, especially Yūko, and they attempted to avenge Takeko but one by one, they fell. Eventually, Yūko was able to recover Takeko's head and escape with it to a nearby temple. She donated Takeko's naginata to said temple and buried Takeko's head under a tree.
  • For Takeko herself, she ended up ascending to Heaven after her death. Upon entering the Kingdom of Heaven, her Oni traits were all wiped away from her, leaving behind only faint patches of light blue skin. Takeko however, wasn't sure why she was picked for Heaven; Japan was not a very Christian country, so she wasn't remotely Christian yet got picked to go to what seemed to be Christian Heaven. While she believed that a competent Christian warrior deserved her spot more, Takeko was content with serving Heaven and fighting for it, albeit she is neutral towards the Almighty.
• Heavenly Virtue: Diligence