Aurora: The Wandering Empire

Long, long ago in the time before the Sundering, there were gods who held dominion over the celestial heavens and influenced the people of the Prime Materia through angelic servants and mortal clerics. The expansion of their sovereignty was held in check by the Primordials, ancient elemental beings with whom the gods harbored longstanding enmity.

When the veil between worlds was ripped open, gods and primordials and mortals from across the multiverse were suddenly thrown together, the immediate result being several large scale conflicts erupting all at once. Eventually the utter chaos of this cataclysmic event subsided with all sides suffering heavy losses. Most of the gods and primordials however had killed eachother in the great pandemonium.

When the Primordials died, the elementals under their auspices were freed of their bounds and flew into utter bedlam, essentially becoming like wild animals.

When the gods died, many of their angelic servants lost all sense of purpose, and begun aimlessly wandering the ruined realms of their dead gods while slowly going mad over the long centuries. Some angels took their gods dogma and followed it to the most extreme degree. Angles of the God of law will hunt down and mercilessly punish criminals wherever they find them; angels of the god of war constantly see to ignite the flames of strife and conflict, angels of the god of love enthrall and force people to become lover slaves to one another, etc.

The servants of the slain god of light (we'll call him Pelor, or Helios, or Torchy) had an entirely different idea. They found a new sun god in the form of an infant celestial deity fathered by the light god upon the goddess of knowledge, and they began to raise this godchild up in the image of their former master. Though a font of great divine power, and viewed by many mortals as a being of awe inspiring puissance, the godling is still a child by the reckoning of the immortal celestials. Where once the gods presided over the angels with absolute authority, now the angels influence the will of a god to their own ends, which is pretty much preserving their way of life from before the Sundering and the following wars.

The godchild sits in isolation and tranquility within the uppermost room of the highest tower in a grand, golden city floating upon a great magical cloud and surrounded by honor guards of armored angels, as well as an armada of levitating cathedrals that are capable of devastating foes with blasts of seering radiant light. This floating space Vatican travels along the Angel Roads, great pillars that fold two points of space together for quick travel from back when the celestial realms of Empyrean and Apollyon were whole, bringing light, warmth and protection to the people who live in the desolate outer reaches of known space. 

For the various peoples who live on the dark edges of space, this grand floating city of gleaming golden towers is the closest thing to daylight that they know. They offer their love, devotion and obedience to the goldchild, who in turn consumes this energy and uses his will to power the the whole grand procession at the behest of the archangels who rule the divine armada. Because the city's regular procession, the folk along the Angel Roads have come to know it as “Aurora”, after an old world term meaning “sunrise” from the days when there was a sun.

Though the godchild rules in name, most actual decisions are made by Araehel, the archangel who discovered, protected and mothered the infant deity (angels do not have any innate gender, but some choose to take on either a male or female aspect). Besides Araehel, there is a council of seraphim who debate and rule on a number of issues concerning Aurora and the worlds she visits. The council is split into two parties, one who wants to focus on improving their existing territories, and another, led by council member Sabrael who wants to broaden the cities influence and involve Aurora in other conflicts. Michratheon is another member of the council who was secretly a servant of the dead god Asmodeus, and seeks to subtly disrupt and undermine the city, in an effort to ruin it from within.

Michratheon also secretly runs an extensive criminal network within the city itself through “his” underlings Uziel and Zaradhel.

Aurora itself is home to a number of pilgrims from all around it's orbit, who live in the lower levels of the city and perform menial labor in exchange for a pittance and being within close proximity to the godchild. Many of these become soldiers in the ever growing army of Aurora, and they support the angel Sabrael's vision of an expanded empire. The mid-levels of the city are populated by deva, a race of humanoids who were once the angelic servants of many gods, but gave up their divine aspects in lieu of going mad without their gods. They represent the merchant and artisan castes of Aurora.

There is another purpose to the procession of Aurora and it's radiant glow. Beyond known space is a force of utter destruction. A vast, nonsentient space virus that knows nothing but the instinct to consume. The Nihil (working title) is a immense organism not unlike a giant amoeba that lies hibernating beyond the reaches of the various inhabited realms of space. Before the Sundering, the Celestials had to eke out a civilization in their earliest days by driving this organism back further and further to allow for their expansion into the stars. That makes this thing the natural predator of angels and gods. Now, the only thing keeping this ancient threat pacified is the procession of of the golden city. Imagine an immense cloud of utter blackness, with the faint light and dying screams of partially digested souls within it. Now imagine this is the size of a continent. Travel too far out amongst the stars, beyond where even the astral krakens and other wild celestial beasts roam, and you may find yourself within the Nihil's obliterating embrace.

Campaign Front

The godchild has been kidnapped! Who had the power, resources and motive to do it?

Was it one of the archangels hoping to further their own ends? Was it mortal forces who learned the truth behind the facade of Aurora? Was it worshippers of another god? A cult dedicated to the worship of the Nihil?

And what happens when the one thing keeping the Nihil at bay is taken out of the picture?