What is Purgatory

Hello again, last time we posted we talked about business partners, artists and starting things up. This time around we will be fleshing out a little bit about what Purgatory is all about.

Purgatory is going to be a world/game where everything is set in modern times.

It's a world where time has stopped.

After the war for Heaven, where Satan led the renegade angels against the throne, Satan was cast down, along with those that followed the dark path. The schism was great. Heaven itself was built on the foundations of Duty, a duty to guide mankind, to watch over us, protect us and prevent us from regression and devolution.

At the point where Chinese and Egyptian civilisations were expanding and growing into the cultural and distinct societies that history has taught us, the war for heaven was reaching a crescendo.

The usurper; Satan had been cast down. His followers crushed, broken and scattered across the many realms. During the closing stages, the greatest of God's champions, Michael smote Satan outside of the great keep and in doing so expelled Satan and his followers from Heaven.

The renegades, led by the Bale Star (Satan) were banished and cast down upon the Earth in righteous fury.

Herein lay Michaels mistake. For now, humans knew that they were truly not alone and as the greatest civilisations in history watched on in wonder and awe as destruction, evil and rancour descended from the skies in tidy of fury and humiliation.

These ancestors scoured the lands, attempting to track down these fallen comets to understand their meaning. Some of the greatest migrations of human settlements and some of the greatest conquests by human civilisations have been driven by this momentous event with warlords, kings, generals and rulers determined to be the first to truly communicate with the gods.

But the renegades had vanished.

Whilst evidence existed of their arrival, nothing other than the impact site could be found. Tracks leading in all directions confused the greatest hunters and diviners of their time, confounding kings and great leaders to a lifetime of nothingness.

The renegades had dissipated like smoke, as if into the very air we breathe itself for none could find any trace of their existence.

The renegades fled into the canyons, mountains, gorges and forests and there they dwell. Broken, cast aside and defeated they remained hidden from humanity, watching, learning and licking their wounds, waiting for their moment to take the ultimate revenge on God - The mass slaughter of his greatest creation, Mankind.

Time marched on and men forgot. Details, texts and writings of the coming of 'God' was consigned to history as a story, fairy tale or myth. Historians have studied and argued over these relics and 'holy texts' until the present day, so lost in their study they did not see the obvious signs and portents that would truly confirm the renegade angels existence and more importantly, the extent to which mankind was being manipulated.  

Every war, every act of desecration, of slaughter, debauchery and dictatorship has been the machinations of the renegades.

God saw mankind ripping itself apart in greed, lust, murder and war and could watch no more.

At this moment, God declared war on the renegades, war on earth and war on mankind. The clock would be reset, mankind would be saved and the renegades destroyed or brought to justice.

God loosed the angels of heaven but in doing so time slowed. Earth was not designed for angels and the arrival of so mightier a being tipped the balance of time out of place, what was undone and those that had died, perished and been consigned to history awoke and roused themselves from their eternal slumber. The doors to Valhalla were cast aside, the Petersrauld Gates smashed asunder as the legions of damned and worthy vomited forth, back into the material world for the long war to come.

Angels were truly revealed to mankind as they hunted the renegades and battle lines were drawn as humanity flocked to banners and made ready to stand by a side or stand alone.

The above is a very draft version of what were are looking to achieve. It sets the tone and in simplistic terms:

• Earth is now a battlefield where angels and mighty beings do battle in the very streets, districts, towns and cities that surround us as we take a side. Who will you choose?

We wanted to bring a range of models to you, that not only had the age of cliché of demons vs. angels, but angels that could represent either side. Most importantly though we wanted to bring an element of us, of what we are as people to the game in an attempt to mix fantasy with modern.

We are aware of previous texts or ideas that place angels or god hidden in humanity, guiding us and making our decisions. It is important to point out that this is not that. Whilst yes, we refer to angels manipulating humanity, it is a precursor for God to rain down angels upon us to destroy earth as we know it and very much like he did with Noah, to cover the lands to start again.

For example, we are in the closing stages of bringing to you 'factions' that see groups of humans that can be fielded together or mixed with other factions to play a progressive skirmish game where humans are pretty much the goblins of the world, weak, useless and insignificant.

For those that read this BLOG not only will you understand about what it is we are looking to bring but more importantly a heads up as to the first factions that will be coming to you. The Soul Train and NWA. (Nuns with Attitude) But enough of that.

The game will be accompanied by a card system, the cards will be used to purchase upgrades for weapons or to grant models and character 'gifts from the gods' that can be used in game. We want people to progress with their 'crew' as they play more games and get better (or worse) as time goes along. There are some fantastic mechanics that we will be bringing to you that add that unique and often random element to the game that will tip the balance in a number of directions making each experience a different one.

More of this will follow in the coming months and weeks but instead, we have taken the time to go through some of the art we have released to explain, what, where or who they are.

In the coming days we will be doing a piece on each of the pieces of art that we have released to date, to give you an understanding of the thought process behind the who, where and what is going on in the picture.

This time around, we will start with where it all began. Heaven Fall.

Heaven Fall is the image of the 'comets' falling over the great pyramids of Egypt.

Why Egypt?

Well Purgatory, or the notion of it was first mentioned or referred to in the bible in the book of Ezekiel. More specifically chapter 26, verse 20 (some of you may have noticed this appears as our facebook page). When researching this, it became apparent most scholars point to this being around the 600 to 550 years BC. When understanding which civilisations were around then, two immediately stood out. The Egyptians and the Chinese Dynasties.

Egypt is a powerful reference point. Whilst to devaluate the Chinese civilisation, we decided that the Pyramids of Giza represented a much more well-known 'icon' to start our journey. That is why we chose it

What is going on exactly?

This is the moment that mankind was aware of other beings. The 'comets' are fallings angels streaking down through the clouds, cast down from Heaven. You will not that we made reference to the 'bale star' earlier, this is represented by the black 'comet' which is designed to be Satan. The black trail associates the comet with being impure.

The pyramids are a vision by us of what we though they may have looked like at the time. Rather than make the mistake of getting the timelines wrong and showing them as they are now, we asked our artist to picture them as they might have been.

You will see in the image that people are 'watching on' in the bottom left of the image and that in front of the pyramids themselves there are references to markets and a town very close by.

The sky was designed to be quite ominous, to reflect the circumstances and to draw attention to what was going on at the time.

What is going on with the pyramids?

It’s a question we have been asked and the answer is quite straight forward. The story above talks about realms, we don't want to limit our thoughts to just Earth and the cosmic, celestial style of the main pyramid it designed to allude to a greater power being wielded here. It's quite an important aspect of the drawing.

Why start there?

It's not what is going on now, we admit. However it was always our intention to provide people with a gaming experience that was rich with background and references. We are great admirers of Games Workshop in this regard as this storyline that they have created is often a greater pull than the models themselves. It can lead people to reposition, re paint or even design their own ideas based on a smallest fragment of text from just one piece of background.

We wanted to start with where it all kind of kicked off, so that if anything people knew why Angels were running around being the crap out of soul singers and nuns.....

Well we will leave you there. Watch out for more on other pieces of art and characters in the coming days.

Next up: Siren!