Editing Demon: The Fallen (section)

== After the Rebellion ==
{{Topquote|I do not enjoy. I cannot. I put on a good show when sipping fine wine or eating exquisite viands or making love to a magazine model, but there is no true happiness for me. I can conceive enjoyment. I receive a certain intellectual satisfaction from undergoing "pleasure". It suits me to arrange matters pleasantly. I prefer beauty to ugliness, the scent of a rose to the stink of a turd, the caress of silk to the rasp of burlap. But the absence of pain is not pleasure, and any mental comfort I achieve is very sterile next to actual joy. I keep trying, though. I keep thinking that maybe one day I'll trick myself into ''thinking'' I'm happy, which might very much more like ''being'' happy. "Fake it 'till you make it" as they say. So I eat like a king and fuck like a rock star and I get a bumper sticker that says "Heaven Doesn't Want Me and Hell's Afraid I'll Take Over". I've been faking it since mankind tamed fire, and I haven't made it yet. Instead of happiness, I have duty.|Lucifer Morningstar, the Adversary}}

=== Binding of the Earthbound ===
Lucifer had indeed not been locked in the Abyss. He was sentenced to wander Earth alone forever. He did not sit idly and began to plot the resummoning of his kin, starting with his five Archdukes. The summoning was difficult, so Lucifer taught the secrets of magic to people all over the world. When he was done the peoples of the times of antiquity, unaware of one another, began five great rituals to summon their "gods". They had prepared great Reliquaries to house their gods, giving Lucifer's followers physical bodies in the world. Said objects resembled their associated Fallen in some way. All five of the Archdukes were summoned at the same time to places all over the world:

* Abaddon was first, summoned by Akkadian priests in service of Sargon of Akkad. His reliquary was an ancient tree 30' in height, carved with faces and filled with crimson vines of petrified wood.
* Asmodeus was summoned to Sumer and housed in a ebony statue run through with bits of gold, looking like a many-armed priest facing the heavens.
* Dagon was summoned by a cult located in the Indus Valley (India) put in a massive basalt slab engraved with players and later adorned with moving parts.
* Azrael was summoned by the [[necromancer]] kings of Kush (Africa) into a scarecrow built from bones, draped with gray cloth and had emeralds for eyes.
* Belial, the Great Beast, was last, summoned by the [[China|Chinese Shang Dynasty]] who treated him as greater than the [[emperor]]. His Reliquary however was small: [[Cthulhu|a foot-tall idol in the shape of a crouching half-cephalopod, half-man]].

Upon being summoned Lucifer contacted them, but to his horror realized that his Archdukes had been driven utterly insane. They scoffed him and began to expand their cults in an attempt to lord over Humanity as the Earthbound, the first of the demons. Their main objective was to harness worship, which gave them the ability to work their dark powers and remain in the world. Their reign was terrible and harsh, punishing severely and driving others into acts of greater and greater depravity. They did not enslave entire nations: instead they aimed for the highest ranking official within a nation and seducing them into their cult. Some of these cults were quite public as religions: Marduk, Nergal, Apep, Zahhak and Bastet are but a few names for these fronts. The secrets of summoning demons began to spread out, and more and more Earthbound were summoned to the world. The Lightbringer sought allies, but all rebuked them and promised Lucifer a future in which only they would rule.

=== Star, Cross and Moon ===
Lucifer found allies in the most unlikely of corners: Humanity. Specifically a tribe that told the history of the world as it had actually happened. They had no sorcerers of their own and were too insignificant for the Earthbound to conquer. These people, the [[Jews|Hebrews]], started to received the secret guidance of the Morningstar himself. Earthbound caught wind of this and tried to tempt the Jews, but they turned out to be very resilient to their efforts. Solomon, successor to King David, was a seeker of knowledge. This put him into eventual contact with the Phoenicians, who were willing to teach him if he took upon the worship of the Earthbound-in-disguise. Solomon agreed and began to learn a great deal of things while at the same time building temples, shrines and performed rituals and prayers. A staggering total of 72 Earthbound were involved this way, with Solomon eventually building them all a great temple under Mount Moab. When it was done he withdrew an ancient Assyrian parchment and began to perform a ritual. Each of the 72 Earthbound were bound into a single bronze urn that Solomon had prepared. He then brought it out to the Dead Sea and dropped it into its depths, never to be found again.

With the ever-increasing number of Earthbound in the world they eventually came into conflict. The classical period saw the conflict between many of the Earthbound, with many mortal religions creating stories of their exploits against mortals and each other alike. With the rise of the [[Roman Empire]] Asmodeus and Abaddon decided to team up and help the Romans. This worked spectacularly, and the Pax Romana was a time of great depravity in the world. Those Earthbound part of it found great stability and an income of worship as well. Everything was peachy until a Hebrew man named Paul stated to have undergone a revelation (courtesty of ol' Lucifer) and claimed the divine connection of a man called Yeshua ben Josef, aka Jesus Christ. The Earthbound were appalled at the call to such a fake religion (as in, there's no Earthbound behind it) and began to take steps against this new religion, Christianity. While the problem was not new (given the whole Hebrew issue) the half-hearted steps taken against the Jews meant that something drastic was needed. Both the Christians and the Jews faced mass persecution by the Roman government, encouraged by the Roman people. The Archdukes saw Lucifer's hand in this, as did they in the deaths of Caligula and Nero, who had five-pointed stars carved upon their foreheads. As the years passed though the accord between the Earthbound began to fracture, cumulating in a Roman called Constatine received an omen in his dreams: a cross of light in the sky accompanied by the words ''in hoc signo vinces''. Doing just that, he ordered his men to paint crosses on their shields and fight their battle, which they won despite the odds. The now Emperor Constatine made Christianity the state religion and outlawed the worship of the old gods (aka the Earthbound). Almost overnight the Earthbound were stripped of their income of Faith, and the death blow was struck when the entire Empire collapsed. In the aftermath the Earthbound made a mad grab for any Faith they could find, but their rage made it difficult to find a steady income of Faith.

Even worse for them, the relatively untouched Arabia saw the rise of a merchant called Muhammad, who claimed that there was only ''one'' God, and that all who claimed otherwise should be converted or slaughtered. In a last mad grab for power they tried to turn the three faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam against one another, but the wars between them only bolstered the faith of the people. Now utterly drained the Earthbound found themselves falling into torpor. In their death throes the Earthbound created things like the Inquisition, the Plague and religious extremism, but it was for naught. Only deepening the world's faith the start of the Renaissance and the belief in science, reason or logic rather than demons saw the remaining Earthbound run completely out of Faith. Their Reliquaries were disassembled, hidden or otherwise obscured, their relics buried with them and their servants scattered to the winds, waiting for the eventual return of their Earthbound masters. For centuries the Earthbound slept, through enlightenment, colonization, world wars and the rebuilding of the world.

And Lucifer saw it was good.

=== Happy New Year! ===
[[File:Jahy-sama-demon-the-fallen.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Your average Demon after escaping the Abyss]]
The year 1999 was a major turning point for the settings of WoD. Due to all the magical shenanigans caused by [[Vampire: The Masquerade|vampires]], [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse|werewolves]], [[Mage: The Ascension|mages]], [[Wraith: The Oblivion|ghosts]] and so on the magical backlash resulted in a spiritual storm in the Afterlife. The rather unpopular [[Wraith: The Oblivion]] was nixed so hard it weakened the walls of the Abyss, allowing the Fallen Elohim to escape and for the first time in millennia walk the Earth (alongside creating [[Mummy: The Resurrection]] and [[Orpheus]]). What they do with their new lives is up to the PCs and Storyteller.