'DEAD', or, 'Delights, Earthly And Desolate', is a long running quest taking place on the site known as fiction.live, or otherwise alternatively as anon kun.
Leonard Kowalski wants to have a nature retreat to get his mind off the office job hell he’s in. Along the way, he’ll encounter horrors beyond imagining, convert to Roman paganism, and have serious introspection about the value of anime.
Many are going to want to start going on retreats... from humanity.
And that’s just the start.
- Deity of Human Origin: What all human gods are. Essentially, similarly to how Wild Magic is performed by believing hard enough that you can cast something that the world will let you do so except in certain conditions, human gods are formed by humans believing that they exist, which then 'causes' them to exist from the amount of belief placed that they do exist. It’s similar to Cogitato Ergo Sum. Of course, it’s not only humans whose mass belief can create gods...
- Eldritch Abomination: What the being who created the Wretches is implied to be by the Scoutmaster. It’s further supported by the fact that just looking at it caused one of its victims to go blind permanently from their brain trying to comprehend something that was completely incomprehensible.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Since humans believing hard enough is what creates gods, the gods require the faith of humans to maintain their current strength. If they gain a surge in faith from humanity, then they get strengthened beyond what they had before. However, if they lose followers, the vice versa occurs with them being weakened. Lose all followers, and well...
- Mentor Archetype: The Scoutmaster. He gives advice to Leonard about what his current prey has as weaknesses and strengths, when to run and when to not, what’s valuable in being taken from his hunted prey, what he can use later and what should be used now, etc. He also empowers Leonard beyond his former ordinary human status with new upgrades whenever he kills enough things of sufficient quantity or strength to get a new badge.
- He’s more than a mentor to just Leonard, though. The Scoutmaster frequently talks about how he’s had and has many new “campers” he trains every day as a mentor. Leonard is just one of many of his trainee hunters, though the Scoutmaster does say that Leonard is definitely one of the best of his new talents. He cares about his trainees too beyond what they kill and gets very, 'very' pissed off and sorrowful when one of his trainees other than Leonard gets killed trying to take down an elder Vrykyul in Romania, but moves forward.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: A few.
- The Erlking. It’s been so long since he became one of the hunter-trainees under the Scoutmaster that no one alive still actually knows his name, but his title strikes fear in the hearts of virtually everything supernatural out there excluding his and Leonard’s teacher. He’s so strong that before the quest started, he managed to hunt and permanently kill a Forest General. Considering even minor guardians of the forest such as Watchmen can control the entire forest against any enemies that approach them as well as regenerate from the forest itself even if their corporeal forms are destroyed, killing one as ridiculously far above a Watchman as a General was... yeah. He’s killed so many things a human shouldn’t be able to that the mere implied suggestion that Leonard might be gaining strength the same way he did, from enhancements from the Scoutmaster for good hunting, spooked a Watchman easily able to kill Leonard.
- Angra Mainyu. His faith may be barely holding on, and he may be severely weakened from not just a loss of faith but also sustaining his servants’ lives from dying from their own lack of faith. However... he still has 30000 health to Leonard’s 120 and can do 1k damage smites.
- Order vs. Chaos: The difference between Hermetic and Wild Magic. ** The first is orderly and based around proper systems of writings and carvings called Inscriptions which set in place various spells and enchantments on buildings and objects, and create magical effects that way. It has incredible variety in what it can do. As long as the patterns of the Inscriptions are maintained in whatever carvings are done, they will perform magical effects for the caster on their own without the caster needing to expend anything of their internal magical energy reserves. Rather, the Inscriptions collect the external magical energy of the world to perform the task, and are functionally unlimited in how long they can function until the pattern gets damaged.
- On the other hand the second is chaotic and undefined by proper systems, being less focused on the whole and more on the individual. Rather than using a system of carvings and lines that use magical energy known as ether/aether like in the first to have said carvings and lines perform the magical effects for you, in the second you perform the effects using your own body and internal reserve. Because it’s so individualized compared to the more orderly magic, it has less variety as such to do things. However, a spell can be performed using this more chaotic magic simply by believing hard enough that you 'can' do said spell that the world itself acknowledges your efforts and lets you. However, while this is quicker than using Inscriptions in casting spells and can come up with truly wild and out there spells based off the caster’s mind, it has downsides in that using your internal reserve means that unlike orderly magic the spell-casting time is limited to before you run out instead of limited to when the Inscription pattern gets damaged and otherwise unlimited. In addition, because of it being more individualized than the first type of magic, a sufficient enough number of people observing the caster performing said magic will cause the world to revoke their permission to do so as their belief that they can perform said magic is overpowered by the logic of others, leading to the magic not being able to be cast.
- The Protagonist: Leonard, of course. Though given the role he’s taken up with his actions and chosen background choices, the Erlking could be considered the former protagonist to Leonard’s current.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Quite a few.
- Aqavanta sincerely loves and is trying to protect its people and worshippers from being exterminated or enslaved by humans at all costs necessary. However because the only humans it and its people had seen before Leonard were scientists of a corporation of VERY dubious morality experimenting on its people in various and sometimes unethical ways, it has gotten the idea that 'all' humans must be evil, and its people will never be allowed to live in peace as long as humans exist. Then comes the genocidal intentions...
- Better World. They legitimately, are, (as their name sake implies) trying to create a better world where humanity is rid of the evils inherent to their nature like cruelty, selfishness, murder, destroying nature, etc. However the methods and actions they take towards humans for this purpose are nothing short of abominations.
- The Wretch-maker genuinely thinks it’s doing humans a favor by kidnapping them and molding their bodies and minds to be shaped to its specifications of “superiority”, and considers the current world of humanity to be pitiful and only creating inferior beings. It thinks that its shaping of humans into Wretches will allow them to become better than they were as organisms and as people. It is the opposite.
