InfernalsWhyWeFight

From Exaltedcursejar

Revision as of 20:52, 5 April 2009

A Brief History of Creation

Once, the world was whole. Once, it was as it should be. Once, things were in balance, and each creature and device and river and tree and blade of grass sang in harmonious unison. The world was right, a perfected mechanism that never tired, never flagged, and forever maintained itself in the face of an infinite storm of chaos that seethed without reason at its gates.

And then the world rose up and betrayed its makers, decimating their number, slaying that which cannot be slain. In a mere moment in the reckoning of the majestic titans who forged reality, their rule was undone. Two of their number, turncoats, aided the machine they helped to construct, and by their aid were created the weapons of the Betrayal - the Exalted. Against these curious meldings of god-machine and man, the Primordials' immortality and omnipotence was unavailed. Seven hundreds of these miniscule weapons and an army of their lesser brothers bred from the blood of Gaia the Betrayer were sufficient to end the rule of beings greater than the reality that had made them possible.

And then, once a dozen and one of their number had fallen and the Creators left no choice but to surrender, came the greatest insult of all. The god-machine, constructed to maintain Creation, had learned malice: the greatest of its subroutines, the Unconquered Sun, forced the defeated titans to make oaths upon their very name. Binding oaths, these, sealed with the heart's blood of their own souls, spilled upon the sacred earth in mockeries of executions. Unmade was he who led the Makers; in his shame he now calls himself Malfeas, and within him are bound his kin.

For uncounted eons, there they have dwelt, mutilated and lessened by their disfigurement. Crueler still cut the shame of it all, as the god-machine gave Creation itself over to the weapons they had forged against their makers, who summoned the souls of the ensnared former masters of the world to do their bidding. And though many of the now-Yozi lost all hope and fell into self-torturing quiescence, there remained one whose nature would not let him rest until he was restored.

Maddened by captivity, the Ebon Dragon ever strove to escape, looking always through those souls of his the Exalted called forth, tempting them with secrets of power, and seducing more than a few to his cause. It looked as though the god-machine's own weapon might be turned against it... until the weapon turned against itself, slaying those the god-machine had bid rule Creation in their stead. One plan was disrupted. A thousand more formed at once. Such is the nature of the Ebon Dragon.

And at last one of those plans came to fruition, as he bespoke his dead brothers in the shadow of Creation that their corpses had become. Unbound by oath, they strode forth, and captured seven-score and ten of the curious god-machine devices that attached themselves to men and made them stronger than gods. And in exchange for his knowledge of their workings, they gave to him fifty of these devices, and at last the mechanism that would return the Yozi to power was his.

But the Yozi, tortured and mutilated as they were, are not given to trust, and Ebon Dragon's great prize was soon discovered by the others. Though his cunning was unmatched, the great Ebon Dragon was not the mightiest of Yozi, and so the threat of their action gave him pause, and so he was made to involve the other Yozi in his plans. Whether through hope that their long imprisonment may soon be over, or simply paranoia and greed for a god-machine-man-weapon of their own, the Yozi of Malfeas are galvanized like they never have been in all the long years of the Betrayal.

Now the Reclamation is at hand. Soon, the world will be right again, and the god-machine punished for its impudence. War is coming, and the Green Sun Princes mean to win it...if only to make amends.

Infernals

It goes without saying that Infernals are Yozi Loyalists. The Yozi have a very good reason to be paranoid about creating powerful underlings, after all, and have only fifty Infernal shards to hand out. And, in the end, the Green Sun Princes must retain their free will, both because the Exaltation requires it and because it makes them proof against the Oaths laid upon the Yozi by the betraying god-machine.

Luckily, even in the Creation from whence the Yozi were banished, there remain a scant few loyal to their creators. These Yozi cults often attract the power-hungry, the cruel, and assorted hangers on, as many cults tend to. Though there is certainly room for cruelty in the Yozis' plan for Creation, cruelty for its own sake is hardly a efficacious tool. Here, though, the small number of Infernal essences available works in their favor; there are certainly, among all the various Yozi cults across Creation, sufficient "diamonds in the rough" who are loyal simply because they believe that the universe should be restored to its true masters.

Certainly, these are not the only Infernals. Mistakes are easily made. The Yozi are not perfect (at least, not anymore, though some might be loath to admit it), and those demons they can send forth into Creation are less perfect still. A mortal suitable for the Infernal Exaltation may well be able to lie themselves into receiving the Exaltation out of a simple hunger for power. And this is acceptable enough, for the Exaltation itself grants the Infernal an Urge suitable to the Yozi to whom they owe their fealty; their ends are accomplished, at least in some way. The only question is how dedicated the Green Sun Prince is to the overall cause versus their own ends, which can be as varied as any collection of mortals.