ALL content © I.Davis 2012 unless otherwise stated. Do NOT use without permission.

Overview
 Dark and terrible things stalk the blighted southern continent of Caevalonia. Sworn by blood to hunt and destroy these beings are the Daemonslayers, a trio of ill-fated misfits. Thrown together by fate Blackjack, a cursed black dragon, Shade, an Undead werewolf and Soul, an immortal half-fay, must rely on each other despite the vast differences between them. Only mutual trust and their sometimes tenuous friendship can pull them through.
The question is; are these outcasts really capable of turning back this darkness when they're haunted by shadows of their own making?

It's hard to be a hero when you're a monster...


(top)

The Threat:
A black shadow has fallen upon the world of Tymaera. Beings to which the Creator Himself refused existence have broken through the Veil between the ordered universe and the tumultuous nothing-place of Chaos to which they were condemned.

Beyond the Veil that borders the edge of the Multiverse and all its planes of being lay the realms of Limbo. This is Chaos, the antithesis of Existence from which, perversely, Existence was born. It is an ever-shifting nothing-place where form is meaningless. Yet it is not a barren, lifeless place. Beings, barely more than thoughts and whims, move through this realm. These are the demons. Left behind when the Creator formed the Multiverse, its worlds, life and higher beings.
Their hatred at being denied existence when the Multiverse was born has grown and festered since before even Time began. It is incalculable and unrelenting, its malignant tide ever washing and thundering against the Veil like a churning sea of anger and madness.

There are weaknesses in the walls of the Planes of Existence, particularly in the Prime Material Plane (where the Universe and its alternate realities are found - the Mortal Realms) and these are sometimes discovered by the demons. Those with the strongest will - the deepest hate - find the strength to break through. Once they have crossed the Veil demons become more than just an unattached consciousness and take corporeal form. Often this form is powerful and hideous to match their hate. Some are little more than beasts, others are possessed of nigh god-like power but all are the definition of evil. They seek to destroy the lives that have taken Creation for granted and make the Mortal Realms their own.

Once they have found purchase in the Mortal Realms the more intelligent chaos demons seek to allow more of their brethren in to aid their evil quest and sometimes vast invasions tear through the Veil and run rampant, destroying and tainting with the unmaking force of Chaos all that they encounter. Lesser demons simply run rampant, causing death and destruction and bringing the discord of their forsaken realm into the world they have invaded. All must be stopped.

Demons from Limbo are not the only threat to the living. Reality itself is made up of many Planes of Existence. The majority of these (with notable exceptions such as the Spirit World and the Shadow Realm) are realms of gods. Upper Planes tend to be the residences of the Benign deities but the Lower Planes - the 'Netherworlds' -right down to the Abyss itself are places of evil. The native creatures that inhabit these realms (i.e. not the dead souls of those drawn into these planes) are daemons. More often than not they see the Planes above their own as places they want to be and the Mortal Realm is most desirable of all - filled with the soft flesh and tasty souls of the living. These daemons sometimes come into the Prime Material Plane to serve out the purposes of their dark gods or they may be acting of their own volition. Either way, their aim is usually evil, frequently involving dragging mortal souls back to their own realms.


(top)

The Quest:
 The Daemonslayers' quest began when the DemonQueen, Shine (a.k.a. the 'Sister of Chaos') attempted to destroy their world, Tymaera, by assimilating it into the lower dimension she had created and populated with her demonic armies and other, less fortunate worlds she had already devoured. Shine was an ancient evil, a demon that had escaped the Chaos Realm at the very beginning of Creation even before Time began its inexorable passage. Extraordinarily powerful already, as the ages passed she became even more so until her powers were godlike. Legend is unclear as to whether she created her own Lower Plane - or if she stole the dimension by slaying one of the lesser gods. Either way this gave Shine the perfect place to mass and muster her evil forces. On the part of her demons, they recognised her as a goddess to them for creating a realm where they could take on form and that most precious thing of all for those from Limbo - Identity.

Caught up in their own struggles for survival through wars driven by both the wants and needs of mortals and the petty desires and grievances of the gods, Tymaera's inhabitants did not know the danger until it was too late. The continent’s strongest force, the Empire, at first ignored the strange and fantastical rumours of dire happenings beyond the mountain ranges that formed the World's Spine. The Empire had troubles of its own with rogue kingdoms as it had been raised only a few centuries previously from the ashes of the Old Empire which was brought to ruin during the Dragon Wars.

Then the Empire wrongly attributed the atrocities to the Lunaris (the Dark Elves) who lived in those lands and the dark gods they worshipped.

Shine was eventually defeated during her assault upon Tymaera: a ritual to bring her bodily to the Prime Material Plane was disrupted by Shade and Blackjack and her essence sundered. Even with her gone her influence had been far-reaching. Many demons had broken through into the Prime Material Plane, and remained after her demise, scattered across the Multiverse. Her corruption had reached to mortal souls too and these servants who still remain loyal to her dark cause are almost too numerous to count.

From the ragged remains of Shine's armies, the Lords of Darkness have arisen. They are a council of Greater Daemons, an unprecedented coalition both of Chaos demons and daemons of the Netherworlds, bent on making Tymaera their own and to reopen the Dreaming Gate back to the dimension Shine created to allow her demonic minions trapped there to pour forth once more.

Suffice to say, Blackjack, Shade and Soul have their work cut out...


(top)

Brief Backstory:

When Shine first began her attack on Tymaera she knew the Dragons of the world would be the greatest threat against her armies and sought to eliminate this danger first. Rather than destroy these powerful creatures outright she decided it would be more useful to twist them to her own ends and created a spell to transform dragons into her servants. She based the design for her new creatures on a race that had been long extinct: Dracosvulfs. The first dragon she transformed was Bloodbane – the dread black dragon who, after the Dragon Wars two centuries previously, had seized control of the Old Empire and thus the entire continent of Caevalonia. But he had long since become bored with his position of power and had gone into hibernation, leaving 'lesser mortals' to run his affairs. In his pride he believed none would dare attack him and this fatal error left him vulnerable to the Demon Queen’s curse.

The spell Shine cast transformed Syrax into a dracosvulf and (so she thought) destroyed his memories. The spell was not perfect though and she had to have her prime torturer, a demoness called Aster, break his mind before he would serve her.

After modifying the spell to avoid having to waste time breaking her new servants’ minds, Shine went on to cast this curse upon many more of Tymaera's dragons. From now on she targeted younger, more easily manipulated dragons.
 
It was Shine’s chosen generals, under the watchful eye of her champion in the Mortal Realm the Archdemon Saragoth, which led the armies. One of her most cunning generals was surprisingly the 'conscript' that had once been Bloodbane. He had taken on the name 'Blackjack' (after the cudgel-like weapon he used to kill his superiors in the fights-to-the-death necessary to rise up through the ranks in her armies) and had become a general. He led a surprise attack far in the north of Caevalonia, utilising the network of portals marked by stone circles in ancient times where the fabric of reality was weakest to bring a 'small' strike force of a few thousand demons to rip into lands in the safe, secure heart of the Empire. The prosperous city of Celeburn was razed in a single night, its occupants slain in unspeakable ways and the lush valley of the same name transformed into a dead wasteland.
However, at this distance from the Dreaming Gate, the hub of Shine's power, the spell that had held the general so long in Shine's sway began to wane and with fresh eyes he looked upon his command and was disgusted by what he saw being done to this world. He deserted, taking his battle steed Knightmare with him. Without a strong leader the demons fell into disarray, turning upon one another and tearing themselves apart for it is not the nature of chaos to work together. Lord Saragoth, Blackjack's commander, was enraged by the betrayal and loss of an entire army. He sent his personal guard, the Dread Knights, to hunt the errant general down.

Meanwhile, Blackjack wasn't the only person with problems. Shade, an undead lycanthrope with a string of misfortunes for his past had been betrayed to a superstitious mob by his rival in the band of mercenaries he had recently left. Grievously injured, he was almost done for when he stumbled across a small campsite... which happened to be Blackjack's. They became companions on the road: Shade needed a purpose and Blackjack thought he could be useful against the Dread Knights. Together they sought a way to destroy Shine to save their world. It was during this time that Blackjack began to regain his memories of his true form and even managed to transform into Syrax Bloodbane. Eventually, they defeated Shine but their task was not over.

With her banishment, the Dreaming Gate: the portal from her dimension to Tymaera, collapsed. Only the smallest fraction of energies can now pass through it. Her forces left in the Prime Material Plane scattered and, for now, the threat was stopped. With nowhere better to go Blackjack and Shade took up residence in Uth Nagor, the city that had been Bloodbane's home. Blackjack also re-established contact with his dragonthralls - those who had served him as Bloodbane and had been given the gift of longevity through the Dragonlife spell. Some of these individuals became friends with this 'new' version of Syrax, whilst others remain just as allies.

Moving into Uth Nagor proved problematic for the dracyre Azeth had taken up residence – a rare vampire dragon who served the Liche-King Bel'Sharoth himself. He sought to gain access to the infamous black Ziggurat there, which predated the Age of Darkness, so that his master might access the power within to bring his shadow of death to the world. Facing off against this evil Shade reunited the two halves of the Raven Staff, an ancient magical artefact whose purposes were lost in the miasma of time. However, he did not realise that this action carried a terrible price and he became the host for the bodiless soul of Raven, an ancient, evil dracoliche who had been imprisoned in the staff in a time long forgotten. This parasite did not immediately manifest and for some time Shade began to feel he was going crazy.

However, the Lords of Darkness, a coalition of Shine's generals and other Greater Demons came together led by the demon prince Lord Saragoth, based in the city of Khisan near where the Dreaming Gate had fallen.

Despite his earlier rage at Blackjack's abandonment of Shine's cause, Saragoth needed strong leaders to establish his armies. Figuring if he had been broken once, he could be broken again, he sought Blackjack out and, using a captured Shade as leverage, invited him to rejoin his inner circle by coercing him to take a Blood Oath. Threatening someone Blackjack actually cared about did not prove a wise move and Blackjack responded by killing Saragoth's lover, the demoness Aster. In turn Saragoth all but tore one of his hearts out and left him to die. To save him, he and Shade took a Blood Oath to become Daemonslayers. They swore the oath to the demigod Kalganos, the First Dragon. Kalganos accepted, showing this by bringing Blackjack back from the brink of death. After this it became their mission to track down and slay daemons, the godless chaos demons and other evil nether-entities.

Later, whilst attempting have some 'down time' during a quiet period, Shade met Meccha, a half-fay runaway almost as lost as he. They quickly fell for each other and she joined him and a very grudging Blackjack on the road.

Meanwhile, Saragoth had found a way to bring Aster back. He captured Meccha and as revenge for the Daemonslayers' responsibility for Aster's death, tore out part of her soul to return his lost demon lover. He would have killed Meccha but Shade and Blackjack stopped him. After this Meccha came back to Tymaera with them, although she has not taken the Blood Oath, she is as much a Daemonslayer as Shade and Blackjack. As Caevalonians customarily take on 'usenames' when they travel, she took on the name Soul, for what had been stolen. She looks forward to the day when she can kill Aster and reclaim that which is hers.

*authors note - I need to work on this some more to clarify stuff etc, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what's happened so far!
(top)

Current/Ongoing:
The Daemonslayers: Introduction and Backstory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ALL content ©2017 I.Davis unless otherwise stated. Do not use without permission.

Overview
 Dark and terrible things stalk the blighted southern continent of Caevalonia. Sworn by blood to hunt and destroy these beings are the Daemonslayers, a trio of ill-fated misfits. Thrown together by fate Blackjack, a cursed black dragon, Shade, an Undead werewolf and Soul, an immortal half-fay, must rely on each other despite the vast differences between them. Only mutual trust and their sometimes tenuous friendship can pull them through.
The question is; are these outcasts really capable of turning back this darkness when they're haunted by shadows of their own making?

It's hard to be a hero when you're a monster...


(top)

The Threat:
A black shadow has fallen upon the world of Tymaera. Beings to which the Creator Himself refused existence have broken through the Veil between the ordered universe and the tumultuous nothing-place of Chaos to which they were condemned.

Beyond the Veil that borders the edge of the Multiverse and all its planes of being lay the realms of Limbo. This is Chaos, the antithesis of Existence from which, perversely, Existence was born. It is an ever-shifting nothing-place where form is meaningless. Yet it is not a barren, lifeless place. Beings, barely more than thoughts and whims, move through this realm. These are the demons. Left behind when the Creator formed the Multiverse, its worlds, life and higher beings.
Their hatred at being denied existence when the Multiverse was born has grown and festered since before even Time began. It is incalculable and unrelenting, its malignant tide ever washing and thundering against the Veil like a churning sea of anger and madness.

There are weaknesses in the walls of the Planes of Existence, particularly in the Prime Material Plane (where the Universe and its alternate realities are found - the Mortal Realms) and these are sometimes discovered by the demons. Those with the strongest will - the deepest hate - find the strength to break through. Once they have crossed the Veil demons become more than just an unattached consciousness and take corporeal form. Often this form is powerful and hideous to match their hate. Some are little more than beasts, others are possessed of nigh god-like power but all are the definition of evil. They seek to destroy the lives that have taken Creation for granted and make the Mortal Realms their own.

Once they have found purchase in the Mortal Realms the more intelligent chaos demons seek to allow more of their brethren in to aid their evil quest and sometimes vast invasions tear through the Veil and run rampant, destroying and tainting with the unmaking force of Chaos all that they encounter. Lesser demons simply run rampant, causing death and destruction and bringing the discord of their forsaken realm into the world they have invaded. All must be stopped.

Demons from Limbo are not the only threat to the living. Reality itself is made up of many Planes of Existence. The majority of these (with notable exceptions such as the Spirit World and the Shadow Realm) are realms of gods. Upper Planes tend to be the residences of the Benign deities but the Lower Planes - the 'Netherworlds' -right down to the Abyss itself are places of evil. The native creatures that inhabit these realms (i.e. not the dead souls of those drawn into these planes) are daemons. More often than not they see the Planes above their own as places they want to be and the Mortal Realm is most desirable of all - filled with the soft flesh and tasty souls of the living. These daemons sometimes come into the Prime Material Plane to serve out the purposes of their dark gods or they may be acting of their own volition. Either way, their aim is usually evil, frequently involving dragging mortal souls back to their own realms.


(top)

The Quest:
 The Daemonslayers' quest began when the DemonQueen, Shine (a.k.a. the 'Sister of Chaos') attempted to destroy their world, Tymaera, by assimilating it into the lower dimension she had created and populated with her demonic armies and other, less fortunate worlds she had already devoured. Shine was an ancient evil, a demon that had escaped the Chaos Realm at the very beginning of Creation even before Time began its inexorable passage. Extraordinarily powerful already, as the ages passed she became even more so until her powers were godlike. Legend is unclear as to whether she created her own Lower Plane - or if she stole the dimension by slaying one of the lesser gods. Either way this gave Shine the perfect place to mass and muster her evil forces. On the part of her demons, they recognised her as a goddess to them for creating a realm where they could take on form and that most precious thing of all for those from Limbo - Identity.

Caught up in their own struggles for survival through wars driven by both the wants and needs of mortals and the petty desires and grievances of the gods, Tymaera's inhabitants did not know the danger until it was too late. The continent’s strongest force, the Empire, at first ignored the strange and fantastical rumours of dire happenings beyond the mountain ranges that formed the World's Spine. The Empire had troubles of its own with rogue kingdoms as it had been raised only a few centuries previously from the ashes of the Old Empire which was brought to ruin during the Dragon Wars.

Then the Empire wrongly attributed the atrocities to the Lunaris (the Dark Elves) who lived in those lands and the dark gods they worshipped.

Shine was eventually defeated during her assault upon Tymaera: a ritual to bring her bodily to the Prime Material Plane was disrupted by Shade and Blackjack and her essence sundered. Even with her gone her influence had been far-reaching. Many demons had broken through into the Prime Material Plane, and remained after her demise, scattered across the Multiverse. Her corruption had reached to mortal souls too and these servants who still remain loyal to her dark cause are almost too numerous to count.

From the ragged remains of Shine's armies, the Lords of Darkness have arisen. They are a council of Greater Daemons, an unprecedented coalition both of Chaos demons and daemons of the Netherworlds, bent on making Tymaera their own and to reopen the Dreaming Gate back to the dimension Shine created to allow her demonic minions trapped there to pour forth once more.

Suffice to say, Blackjack, Shade and Soul have their work cut out...


(top)

Brief Backstory:

When Shine first began her attack on Tymaera she knew the Dragons of the world would be the greatest threat against her armies and sought to eliminate this danger first. Rather than destroy these powerful creatures outright she decided it would be more useful to twist them to her own ends and created a spell to transform dragons into her servants. She based the design for her new creatures on a race that had been long extinct: Dracosvulfs. The first dragon she transformed was Bloodbane – the dread black dragon who, after the Dragon Wars two centuries previously, had seized control of the Old Empire and thus the entire continent of Caevalonia. But he had long since become bored with his position of power and had gone into hibernation, leaving 'lesser mortals' to run his affairs. In his pride he believed none would dare attack him and this fatal error left him vulnerable to the Demon Queen’s curse.

The spell Shine cast transformed Syrax into a dracosvulf and (so she thought) destroyed his memories. The spell was not perfect though and she had to have her prime torturer, a demoness called Aster, break his mind before he would serve her.

After modifying the spell to avoid having to waste time breaking her new servants’ minds, Shine went on to cast this curse upon many more of Tymaera's dragons. From now on she targeted younger, more easily manipulated dragons.
 
It was Shine’s chosen generals, under the watchful eye of her champion in the Mortal Realm the Archdemon Saragoth, which led the armies. One of her most cunning generals was surprisingly the 'conscript' that had once been Bloodbane. He had taken on the name 'Blackjack' (after the cudgel-like weapon he used to kill his superiors in the fights-to-the-death necessary to rise up through the ranks in her armies) and had become a general. He led a surprise attack far in the north of Caevalonia, utilising the network of portals marked by stone circles in ancient times where the fabric of reality was weakest to bring a 'small' strike force of a few thousand demons to rip into lands in the safe, secure heart of the Empire. The prosperous city of Celeburn was razed in a single night, its occupants slain in unspeakable ways and the lush valley of the same name transformed into a dead wasteland.
However, at this distance from the Dreaming Gate, the hub of Shine's power, the spell that had held the general so long in Shine's sway began to wane and with fresh eyes he looked upon his command and was disgusted by what he saw being done to this world. He deserted, taking his battle steed Knightmare with him. Without a strong leader the demons fell into disarray, turning upon one another and tearing themselves apart for it is not the nature of chaos to work together. Lord Saragoth, Blackjack's commander, was enraged by the betrayal and loss of an entire army. He sent his personal guard, the Dread Knights, to hunt the errant general down.

Meanwhile, Blackjack wasn't the only person with problems. Shade, an undead lycanthrope with a string of misfortunes for his past had been betrayed to a superstitious mob by his rival in the band of mercenaries he had recently left. Grievously injured, he was almost done for when he stumbled across a small campsite... which happened to be Blackjack's. They became companions on the road: Shade needed a purpose and Blackjack thought he could be useful against the Dread Knights. Together they sought a way to destroy Shine to save their world. It was during this time that Blackjack began to regain his memories of his true form and even managed to transform into Syrax Bloodbane. Eventually, they defeated Shine but their task was not over.

With her banishment, the Dreaming Gate: the portal from her dimension to Tymaera, collapsed. Only the smallest fraction of energies can now pass through it. Her forces left in the Prime Material Plane scattered and, for now, the threat was stopped. With nowhere better to go Blackjack and Shade took up residence in Uth Nagor, the city that had been Bloodbane's home. Blackjack also re-established contact with his dragonthralls - those who had served him as Bloodbane and had been given the gift of longevity through the Dragonlife spell. Some of these individuals became friends with this 'new' version of Syrax, whilst others remain just as allies.

Moving into Uth Nagor proved problematic for the dracyre Azeth had taken up residence – a rare vampire dragon who served the Liche-King Bel'Sharoth himself. He sought to gain access to the infamous black Ziggurat there, which predated the Age of Darkness, so that his master might access the power within to bring his shadow of death to the world. Facing off against this evil Shade reunited the two halves of the Raven Staff, an ancient magical artefact whose purposes were lost in the miasma of time. However, he did not realise that this action carried a terrible price and he became the host for the bodiless soul of Raven, an ancient, evil dracoliche who had been imprisoned in the staff in a time long forgotten. This parasite did not immediately manifest and for some time Shade began to feel he was going crazy.

However, the Lords of Darkness, a coalition of Shine's generals and other Greater Demons came together led by the demon prince Lord Saragoth, based in the city of Khisan near where the Dreaming Gate had fallen.

Despite his earlier rage at Blackjack's abandonment of Shine's cause, Saragoth needed strong leaders to establish his armies. Figuring if he had been broken once, he could be broken again, he sought Blackjack out and, using a captured Shade as leverage, invited him to rejoin his inner circle by coercing him to take a Blood Oath. Threatening someone Blackjack actually cared about did not prove a wise move and Blackjack responded by killing Saragoth's lover, the demoness Aster. In turn Saragoth all but tore one of his hearts out and left him to die. To save him, he and Shade took a Blood Oath to become Daemonslayers. They swore the oath to the demigod Kalganos, the First Dragon. Kalganos accepted, showing this by bringing Blackjack back from the brink of death. After this it became their mission to track down and slay daemons, the godless chaos demons and other evil nether-entities.

Later, whilst attempting have some 'down time' during a quiet period, Shade met Meccha, a half-fay runaway almost as lost as he. They quickly fell for each other and she joined him and a very grudging Blackjack on the road.

Meanwhile, Saragoth had found a way to bring Aster back. He captured Meccha and as revenge for the Daemonslayers' responsibility for Aster's death, tore out part of her soul to return his lost demon lover. He would have killed Meccha but Shade and Blackjack stopped him. After this Meccha came back to Tymaera with them, although she has not taken the Blood Oath, she is as much a Daemonslayer as Shade and Blackjack. As Caevalonians customarily take on 'usenames' when they travel, she took on the name Soul, for what had been stolen. She looks forward to the day when she can kill Aster and reclaim that which is hers.

*authors note - I need to work on this some more to clarify stuff etc, but hopefully this gives you an idea of what's happened so far!
(top)

Current/Ongoing:
The Daemonslayers continue their three-person war on demonkind. Meccha still wants the rest of her soul back, so does F'lair who is still haunted by nightmares of the Spirit World and by the dracoliche soul Raven. Blackjack is just out for revenge and (without telling the other two) is quietly reestablishing the underground network he had established as Bloodbane. He's also looking for ways to break the demon-wrought curse he is under and to regain the power he has lost thanks to it. He's already regained his memories, but he's not telling his friends..
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(top image lineart by D.Frederik )