Letalium is a dark fantasy universe
perpetually torn by a war between two rival spirits, Rakhmet and Keth, both of whom want to become
god—which in this context, simply means "the guy in charge of everything.''
Humans were once spirits who lived in heaven with Rakhmet, Keth, the angels, and various other cosmic entities including the original actual
God. However, the early humans were on the bottom rung of the heavenly ladder, so they decided to hold an uprising. They succeeded in
killing God, but all of Its servants turned against humanity, cursing them with mortality and banishing them to the physical world.
With the threat of marauding humans averted and
God dead, Rakhmet and Keth both decided that they deserved to take God's place. So they rallied other spirits and started fighting a war over it.
Meanwhile, the humans tried sneak a huge container full of God's blood with them down to the physical world, as they believed that they would use it to restore their immortality. The angels escorting them, however, found out and tried to confiscate it. After a brief scuffle, the humans dropped it into the physical world, and it spilled all over the place. It seeped into the ground and welled up in subterranean pools.
The humans got dropped off in the physical world as planned, but now everyone in heaven knew that the incredable magic power of Godblood was down there. It is very difficult to travel physically between worlds to get it, but it was a valuable resource that could potentially decide the outcome of the Cosmic War between Rakhmet and Keth. So both sides spend the entire history of the Physical World manipulating mortals into procuring Godblood for them.
Created by
Anthony Alexander.
This Constructed World provides examples of:
- A Chat With Satan - The Night God Keth is disembodied at one point, so he basically has to interview people to find a proper host to replace his body for a while.
- A God Am I - Emperor Solidir eventually came to believe he was.
- The Alliance - The Republic of Omnikar started out this way, but 200 years of Black and Grey Morality politics has turned it into The Empire. The Coalition of Free Nations might count, if they didn't Kick the Dog so much.
- Always Chaotic Evil - the Lunans
- Anachronism Stew
- Artifact of Doom - The Lunar Staff.
- Authority Equals Asskicking - Justified in that most of the time, only the rich and powerful can afford Super Serum
- Awesome, but Impractical - Pretty much all "modern" technology. Especially the ornithopeters and steam-powered spider-mechs used by the Republic Army.
- Badass Army - The Republic Army.
- Bamboo Technology - Ancient Rakhmeti and Ezo left it all over the place.
- Belief Makes You Stupid
- Cain and Abel - a recurring theme
- The Caligula - King Ferrishk II.
- Colonel Badass - Vidic Bonechain.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience - Things associated with the night god Keth are "cool" colors like blue, black, white, purple and grey. Things associated with the day god Rakhmet are "warm" colors like red, yellow, orange and brown.
- Con Lang - Rakhmeti. It's very crude and not at all usable yet, but it's there.
- Cool Sword - Dominion and Judgement, the two swords owned by Moon Emperor Solidir. He himself wielded Dominion in fights, and was confident enough in his skills that he would give any challengers Judgement to use. Needless to say, they are very ornate.
- Crapsack World
- Dark Messiah - Sheriet i Rolfe
- Deal with the Devil - Solidir made one, and his family continued to suffer from it until the end of days.
- Defusing the Tyke Bomb - Vidic tries to do this with Sheriet and fails. Here, however, his intentions are primarily selfish; she is in the way of him getting what he wants, and he would rather try to talk her out of fighting than be forced to kill a thirteen-year-old girl.
- Eccentric Millionaire - Aleon.
- Eldritch Abomination - Keth and Rakmet, the lesser angels and the Roc Lords.
- The End of the World as We Know It - Keth and Rakhmet have been fighting for the title "God of the Universe" since almost the beginning of time. In the end, Keth gives Rakhmet a final "fuck you" gesture by just destroying it all.
- The Empire - The Moon Empire and later the Republic of Omnikar
- Eternal Recurrence - Rakhmet and Keth just can't decide which of them should be God. So they fight over the title (and really, it is just a title in this universe). However, they are both immortal and indestructible, so neither of them can have won for long.
- Evil Overlord - The Avatar, Nehaz, Solidir, the Raven Queen...Evil Overlords are a dime-a-dozen in Letalium.
- Et Tu, Brute? - Mortal villians tend to have moments like this when their friends and families don't follow them to The Dark Side. Especially when Eliaza helped La Résistance defeat Emperor Solidir, and when Sheriet's own daughter foiled her plans to create an Earth-Shattering Kaboom.
- Evil Sorcerer - Moon Emperor Solidir, and his Witch-Generals
- Evil Versus Evil - Keth versus Rakhmet and Dria'ac versus Qetzo, both pairs of rival Eldritch Abominations
- Fantasy World Map - Mr. Alexander loves creating them and there are several different ones depicting Letalium. However, Mr. Alexander has no scanner, so you can't see any of them sorry.
- Flaming Sword - Angels sometimes wield them, when they aren't wielding flaming whips.
- Ghibli Hills - the Omnikar Plains
- General Ripper - General Victor.
- God Is Dead - And yes, humans killed it.
- Grim Up North - the Frostlands
- He Who Fights Monsters - Nehaz
- He Who Must Not Be Named - The Man too Badass to Name.
- Humans Are Warriors
- It Makes Sense in Context - I bet you don't understand a word that I've been saying, do you?
- La Résistance - The Wenibi and later the Kemwenibi.
- Mind Rape - A favorite tactic of botht Rakhmet and Keth.
- Moral Event Horizon - Emperor Solidir passes through it when he begins raping girls with magic.
- Mordor - Most of the Elderland.
- Mugging the Monster - When some highwaymen attempt to accost The Man Too Badass To Name, the results are not pretty.
- Mythopoeia
- One-Man Army - Nehaz and Vidic are separate one-man armies from different nations and eras.
- Our Angels Are Different - There is no clear-cut difference among angels, demons and gods. The three words are pretty much just titles.
- Our Orcs Are Different - The Lunans are basically Tolkein orcs with another name and a horrific origin story.
- Patchwork Map - Justified as the result of earth-shaking battles between supernatural forces.
- Power at a Price - Godblood makes you super-strong, super-fast, and long-lived. It also makes you very ugly.
- The Power of Blood - The local Super Serum is the blood of Letalium's (dead) god, which has seeped into the earth and welled up in pools underground.
- Precursors - Humans in this universe are descended from long-dead angels.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy - the Omniks and, to a lesser degree, the Highlanders. Some Lunans like to think of themselves this way, though usually for them it's just an excuse to fight.
- Redemption Equals Death - In a rather grim way: if a person allows him/herself to be possessed by an evil spirit (and it is a decision), the spirit will leave his/her body right before he/she dies. So you get just a few minutes of clarity to realize how royally you have screwed up before kicking the bucket.
- Shattered World - Letalium used to be this. The forces of gravity pulled it back together, though, so now it's just a very jagged and wierd-looking, but entirely intact world.
- Storming The Castle - Shamad and the Wenibi (A Good Name for a Rock Band?) storm the castle of Emperor Solidir.
- Super Serum - Godblood, which is literally God's blood.
- Super Soldier - The practitioners of the Kemenati martial arts form. Also Vidic Bonechain, who is half-angel. Emperor Solidir intended the Lunans to be super soldiers, but he failed to control them and they just ended up being Super Pains in the Ass.
- Super Strength - Granted by Godblood.
- Royal Blood
- Tyke Bomb - Blue Lotus warriors begin training in childhood, and usually complete it around the age of thirteen.
- The Usual Adversaries - The Lunans, whose entire culture revolves around rape.
- Vestigial Empire - The Moon Empire
- World Sundering
- Worthy Opponent - Vidic initially sees Sheriet as this. Sheriet, however, is too bigoted against Vidic's race for the feeling to be mutual.
