It has been said that, in the world of Ennen, angels will very rarely show themselves to common mortals.
There's a lot of confusion surrounding this. As Ennen is polytheistic, and some of the gods and goddesses don't seem to understand themselves what their purpose is - Krytikas, the goddess of secrets, once lamented that her very nature meant that she couldn't even reveal herself to the mortals that suspected she existed - the purpose of angels can be hard to divine.
Some suspect that angels act as messengers to the gods and goddesses. This couldn't be further from the truth. For one, when divine beings find themselves in a position where they need to contact the mortal world, they can just as easily act through a prophet or a disciple. Some gods and goddesses will even take a body of their own and enter the mortal realm themselves - Tzarth, the goddess of death, did this once and reportedly has yet to return to the divine realm.
So if angels are not messengers, what are they? In order to answer that question, a little more knowledge is required about the details of Ennen theology.
In the beginning, there was one being. Nobody knows much about it - no name, no description, nothing. In fact, nobody's even sure if it was just one being, but in the interest of making this as uncomplicated as possible, most theologians keep the count at one. They gave it the name of the First Being for obvious reasons (there was a small but forceful group lobbying to name it Big Papa, but thankfully for the field of theology they were outvoted). This being, for its own unfathomable reasons, decided to create a court of other beings, each perfect in their own way, perhaps to keep it company.
These beings were not perfect. Far from it.
At first, their existence was idyllic. They coexisted happily. But soon, they began to feel annoyance. Annoyance turned to anger, and anger turned to bloodshed. The First Being, again, for its own unfathomable reasons, locked the remaining beings down and started over. This time, it didn't try to make its creations perfect. Instead, it gave them flaws. It gave them personality. The common thought process here is that if the First Being knew ahead of time what flaws its creations were going to have, it could head off any likely violence at the pass.
This worked slightly better - but only slightly.
Its first creations were Tzarth, Dirata (the goddess of twos), and Zanos (the god of life). After Tzarth, in a twist that everyone agreed the First Being should have seen coming, killed Zanos and absorbed his essence, the First Being isolated her to prevent any more damage and set its sights on something else: a world.
It began slowly weaving into existence the world of Ennen. As it did so, it also began expanding the pantheon, creating the likes of Krytikas and Thale, the goddess of truth. (The First Being at this point also created Takren, the god of fives, for some reason that presumably made sense at the time.) It gave Tzarth her own realm to keep her occupied (and also to keep the divine murder rate down). More gods and goddesses followed, as did a thriving world.
But what of the original creations?
Some say that the First Being remolded the remaining ones, leaving them to wander the world of Ennen in mortal bodies, cursed with exceptionally bad luck until the end of time. Others say that the First Being simply let them be, locked in their metaphysical prison. Still others say that the First Being hated being wasteful, and used the original creations as the base material for the newer creations.
And this is where the angels come in.
While some in Ennen have a heavily romanticized view of angels - winged beings of light who bear blessings and good tidings - there are those who take an alternative view. There are those who tell stories of winged monsters, relentlessly tearing apart everything in their path. There are those who say that they've seen - with their own two eyes, no less - creatures like nothing any mortal has ever laid eyes on who killed and killed, only stopping when they felt the whim. There are those who claim that there are demons on the shoulder of everyone doing a Bad Thing - the original creations subtly trying to turn sour their creator's handiwork.
All such stories, of course, negative and positive alike, are unverified. Some theologians question them entirely - the First Being was obviously very meticulous, they say, in creating the world; why would it be so careless regarding its first creations? Nobody has an answer either way. But maybe, just maybe, the answer to the question of what angels are and the answer to the question of what happened to the original creations are one and the same.
Or maybe they aren't.
It's something to think about.
There's a lot of confusion surrounding this. As Ennen is polytheistic, and some of the gods and goddesses don't seem to understand themselves what their purpose is - Krytikas, the goddess of secrets, once lamented that her very nature meant that she couldn't even reveal herself to the mortals that suspected she existed - the purpose of angels can be hard to divine.
Some suspect that angels act as messengers to the gods and goddesses. This couldn't be further from the truth. For one, when divine beings find themselves in a position where they need to contact the mortal world, they can just as easily act through a prophet or a disciple. Some gods and goddesses will even take a body of their own and enter the mortal realm themselves - Tzarth, the goddess of death, did this once and reportedly has yet to return to the divine realm.
So if angels are not messengers, what are they? In order to answer that question, a little more knowledge is required about the details of Ennen theology.
In the beginning, there was one being. Nobody knows much about it - no name, no description, nothing. In fact, nobody's even sure if it was just one being, but in the interest of making this as uncomplicated as possible, most theologians keep the count at one. They gave it the name of the First Being for obvious reasons (there was a small but forceful group lobbying to name it Big Papa, but thankfully for the field of theology they were outvoted). This being, for its own unfathomable reasons, decided to create a court of other beings, each perfect in their own way, perhaps to keep it company.
These beings were not perfect. Far from it.
At first, their existence was idyllic. They coexisted happily. But soon, they began to feel annoyance. Annoyance turned to anger, and anger turned to bloodshed. The First Being, again, for its own unfathomable reasons, locked the remaining beings down and started over. This time, it didn't try to make its creations perfect. Instead, it gave them flaws. It gave them personality. The common thought process here is that if the First Being knew ahead of time what flaws its creations were going to have, it could head off any likely violence at the pass.
This worked slightly better - but only slightly.
Its first creations were Tzarth, Dirata (the goddess of twos), and Zanos (the god of life). After Tzarth, in a twist that everyone agreed the First Being should have seen coming, killed Zanos and absorbed his essence, the First Being isolated her to prevent any more damage and set its sights on something else: a world.
It began slowly weaving into existence the world of Ennen. As it did so, it also began expanding the pantheon, creating the likes of Krytikas and Thale, the goddess of truth. (The First Being at this point also created Takren, the god of fives, for some reason that presumably made sense at the time.) It gave Tzarth her own realm to keep her occupied (and also to keep the divine murder rate down). More gods and goddesses followed, as did a thriving world.
But what of the original creations?
Some say that the First Being remolded the remaining ones, leaving them to wander the world of Ennen in mortal bodies, cursed with exceptionally bad luck until the end of time. Others say that the First Being simply let them be, locked in their metaphysical prison. Still others say that the First Being hated being wasteful, and used the original creations as the base material for the newer creations.
And this is where the angels come in.
While some in Ennen have a heavily romanticized view of angels - winged beings of light who bear blessings and good tidings - there are those who take an alternative view. There are those who tell stories of winged monsters, relentlessly tearing apart everything in their path. There are those who say that they've seen - with their own two eyes, no less - creatures like nothing any mortal has ever laid eyes on who killed and killed, only stopping when they felt the whim. There are those who claim that there are demons on the shoulder of everyone doing a Bad Thing - the original creations subtly trying to turn sour their creator's handiwork.
All such stories, of course, negative and positive alike, are unverified. Some theologians question them entirely - the First Being was obviously very meticulous, they say, in creating the world; why would it be so careless regarding its first creations? Nobody has an answer either way. But maybe, just maybe, the answer to the question of what angels are and the answer to the question of what happened to the original creations are one and the same.
Or maybe they aren't.
It's something to think about.