#and also the common depictions of humanoid angels in biblical stories

[ladsofsorrow24]

i think i... kinda get it now why angel devil looks like that

[multi-lefaiye]

cudaas lore: guardians and wildlings

okay so i’m making a powerpoint going over cudaas and its worldbuilding and characters but i want to share some of it in more depth. specifically, i wanna ramble about guardians and wildlings.

there is no Official CUDAAS Taglist™ (at least, not at this point), but uhhh some of y’all showed interest so I will tag a couple of people perhabs,,, since y’all showed interest: @chaotic-queer-disaster @dr-runs-with-scissors @jezifster @skitzo-kero @emotionalsupportpuma @albatris (if you don’t want me to tag you in things relating to this going forward please let me know!!!! and if you want to be added to the unofficial taglist please let me know!)

so this story started with the premise of “what if angels and demons kissed and unionized” but instead of using Biblical angels and demons i was like. what if i made my own lore. so that’s how this started. not to say there’s no similarities, but i wanted to try and make my own!!!

gonna put the more detailed rambling under the cut in case this gets a little long asdfjkl;

fair content warning: this is gonna be talking a lot about fictional religious stuff! if that isn’t your cup of tea please tread lightly!

okay so i did post the Creation Myth as the people in this world, perigea, understand it over here: [link] but there are things that myth doesn’t go over and some things that aren’t quite accurate to how things actually work. if you don’t want to read that, though, i’ll give a basic run-down here.

so the equivalents for angels in this universe are called guardians, but they are not meant to be creatures of “good” or otherwise have any specific moral alignment. in fact, guardians can be super fucked up and nasty! the thing guardians were created to do was enforce order. the gods created guardians to prevent perigea from falling into chaos.

there are exactly 1000 guardians in existence, and every time a guardian dies or falls (we’ll get there) a new one is created in their place. each of the five gods who created guardians (the sixth one did not create any) made 200, and each created a different ‘type’ of guardian.

for example, the goddess of the oceans, the old woman of the sea, created guardians that look a lot like merfolk! she also created a group of absolutely massive guardians known as leviathans, who are so large that only a few of them can exist at a time. the most powerful of these leviathans is named persephone, and they’re a minor character in CUDAAS!!!

the guardians that the story focuses on were created by the god of the land, the mountain king! these guardians look the most like traditional/common depictions of angels: humanoids with feathered wings. however, they can get funky! all guardians, on some level, can shapeshift, and many of them choose to make their appearances a little fucky.

regardless of the kind of guardian, they tend to form tight-knit social groups with strict hierarchies known as flocks. each flock has around 40 or so guardians, and one guardian is appointed the leader by the god who created them. flocks exist to essentially keep guardians on task and in check. some function more like family units, but most of them are more just like. groups of coworkers.

anyway, so! falling. a guardian can go through a process known as Falling! this process is incredibly painful and traumatic for the most part, as it involves them being stripped of their power and status, as well as any physical identifies that make them a guardian. some guardians will choose to do this themself, buuut most of the time it happens when a guardian REALLY pisses off the gods and is punished.

how does a guardian piss off the gods? it really depends, but most of the time it happens when they go against their stated purpose. guardians are created not to be individuals, but instead to be part of a collective whole and support the gods in their goals and power. if a guardian becomes too individualistic, too outspoken, or too sympathetic towards wildlings... they usually get the boot.

a guardian that has fallen still retains some of their power, but this varies on a case by case basis. generally, they can still shapeshift to an extent and have extended lifespans, but they are no longer as powerful or immortal anymore. falling cannot be reversed, either--once it happens, it’s permanent.

now, let’s talk about wildlings, the equivalent of demons.

whenever a guardian is created, a being known as a wildling is created as a byproduct. wildlings are not intentionally created by the gods, but they are a response from the universe itself to the existence of guardians. a being of pure order cannot exist without upsetting the careful balance between order and chaos, and so the universe responds by spontaneously creating a being of pure chaos.

wildlings are not inherently evil, just like guardians are not inherently good. in fact, many wildlings are actually very kind--they just tend less towards hierarchy and order and more towards chaos. wildlings don’t exist to tempt mortals towards chaos or into making bad choices--they exist just to keep the balance and prevent things from becoming so orderly that they become stagnant. a little chaos is necessary for the universe to keep going.

unlike guardians, wildlings aren’t really divided into specific categories based on physical characteristics. this is primarily because they’re much more proficient shapeshifters than guardians are, so many of them change their appearances on a whim. aside from appearing mostly humanoid, they don’t have much that makes them easy to spot at a glance.

wildlings are repelled by strict order and hierarchies, but they do tend to form close-knot groups known as packs. packs of wildlings function very much like found families, as wildlings intensely crave companionship. they very rarely have one specific leader, but occasionally one will take the role and act as a parental figure to the rest. wildling packs can be any size.

now, if wildlings are created as a byproduct of guardians, does this mean wildlings can fall as well? yes, actually!

falling for a wildling is far less traumatic than it is for guardians, but it still is a painful and terrible experience. wildlings, like guardians, can willingly relinquish their magic, or they can have it stripped from them by a being more powerful than them. or, more commonly, a wildling will fall when a guardian falls, regardless of the reason.

a fallen wildling loses much of their magic, just like a guardian does, but they retain more of their original magic than a guardian would in the same situation.

now, how do wildlings and guardians interact? this actually depends! under the mountain king, guardians are expected to hunt wildlings and fight them constantly, essentially upholding a balance between chaos and order through violence. guardians and wildlings, according to the mountain king, are meant to be natural enemies.

however, the other gods have different views! for example, the old woman of the sea allows her guardians to work alongside wildlings to keep peace in the oceans. she recognizes that both are important to upholding the balance, and she encourages them to work together to fulfill this purpose.

okay, i know this is very long, but i want to share a couple extra bits of worldbuilding/facts relating to guardians and wildlings:

- all guardians and wildlings are effectively agender, though that may not be the term they use! they may have different relationships with gender and use different pronouns, but none of them experiences gender in the way a human in our world might.

- there is a stereotype, even among guardians, that a smaller guardian is weaker due to not being strong enough to manifest a larger physical form. this is false, though--because alekto, one of the protags of CUDAAS, is a very small guardian but also a VERY powerful one.

- a guardian cannot become a wildling or vice-versa, as though are completely different beings.

- wildlings typically do not give themselves wings, regardless of the region where they live. a wildling with wings is considered very strange to the others of their kind.

- this is more of a personal design choice for me when i draw them and not a hard and fast rule, but wildlings are usually made of lighter, warmer colors, while guardians are darker, cooler colors. i should specify that this does not apply to skin colors--guardians and wildlings both have skin colors and features similar to humans for the most part, but guardians often look Cooler where wildlings are Warm.