A Hero fighting against the manifestation of a Shadow Lord

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

– Albert Einstein

The Worlds of the Shadow

“Cadet, listen to my tale if you want to survive, because you must know what you fight for… Before reality, only an infinite ETERNITY existed, a fathomless and unyielding void in a perfect Equilibrium. Or at least so it was, until somehow she gave birth to three phenomena.

The SOURCE was the first: a Big Bang, an explosion of creative energies that flowed into streams that mystics call the COSMIC FORCES, while scientists call the fundamental forces, which tries to fill all Creation with life, matter and material existence.

The ABYSS came second in contraposition with the Source: the end of things, Entropy, born with an infinite hunger to devour and destroy everything, in order to preserve the balance of things.

THE SHADOW formed last: the space between Source and Abyss, the Multiverse in which the Cosmic Forces flow from creation to destruction and where countless realities are brought into existence. Both material ones like our own world and immaterial ones like the dreamlands, all separated by THE VEIL, which also protects them from the chaos of the Shadow.

It’s in one of those immaterial worlds, the one which is closest to the Source and that we call the HEAVENS, that the ANGELS were born. Creatures of pure thought, embodying the very essence of the fundamental/cosmic forces, they took a mandate to preserve and nurture Creation. As a reaction, the Abyss spawned the DEMONS: the embodiment of entropy, with the power to destroy and corrupt everything. Their first action was to corrupt the nearest reality, turning it into their home, a place we known as HELL.

For aeons the Angels battled the Demons to protect Creation, untile some of them got tired of this infinite war, and guided by the powerful Angel LUCIFER, rebelled against their brethern rules. They entered the physical world and took up a physical form, wanting to teach the mysteries of creation to some intelligent creatures, arming them to  fight the Demons in their stead. Thus they descended as Gods among primitive creatures, teaching them the ways of magic and science and the secrets of life and death, and being called by them “Gods”, “Angels”, “Elohim”, “Grigorii”.

But the Demons took notice, and soon taught those same creatures how to use those secrets to fulfill their darkest desires. The more gifted among them thus became known as the SHADOW LORDS: powerful individuals who can bend reality and Shadow to their will, through magic or science, and who soon declared themselves Gods. In a never ending quest for knowledge and power, these creatures captured and tortured their own teachers, Angels and Demons alike. They waged multiverse-spawning wars between them, Angels and Demons alike, putting the whole balance (and existence) of Creation at risk… until a multiverse-spanning catastrophic event reverberated through the whole Creation, destroying worlds, civilizations, Angels, Demons and Shadow Lords alike.

It took Creation millennia, maybe eons, to recover up to the point where we live now. So, cadet, if we want things to continue to be as we know them, it’s our duty to make sure that no other Shadow Lord arises in our times. That no Angel or Demon is permitted to spread dangerous knowledge, into the ears of gifted individuals. It’s our duty to study these dangers, forces and creatures but to also keep this dangerous knowledge to ourselves, in order to preserve the world as we know it for our loved ones. We are the BLACK TEMPLARS, who work in the shadows to preserve the world from those who would like to endanger the status-quo.”

The Multiverse of Shadow Lords