Last night and into this morning, I had a series of extremely vivid dreams. I'm not going into detail, because I'm going to write a bunch of stories, but the setting was interesting enough that the first thing I did when I woke up was reach for my iPad and write down as much as I can remember.
Once again, forgive the abrupt change in font, im pasting this from my iPad Notes app and the Blogger app doesn't have a lot of editing options. Also, I'm not going to edit it, because I feel something may be lost if I do, but I'm going to throw up a section of the several pages of stuff for you to read. Feel free to tell me what you think!
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Next World stories.
Christian heaven is a massive metropolis with its own government
Lawyers are angels, all government workers are angels, wings are earned after years of service or special deeds. Joining the government is the only way to become an angel. A century of service as an angel guarantees entry into paradise. This is called 'taking the long way round'
'heaven' is a bit corrupt. People's rewards are based on their level of (very) strict piety on earth. The people who earned it live in the massive upper levels in the district called 'paradise'. Paradise is a gated community, and something like 1% of the souls in 'heaven' live there. Most are making their way in the city, trying to find a place for themselves and just living their afterlife.
all beliefs have their own place. "kar-ma" train lines will take a soul between realms or even back to earth if they believed in reincarnation.
Every realm has a "slum" where people who were unsure or were atheists are housed. They can apply for citizenship to a realm by accepting a belief, or they can go back to earth at random.
After enough time in a realm, a soul will have earned enough 'manna' (currency) or learned enough through meditation (in certain realms) to ascend to a state of 'nirvanah' which is becoming one with 'God' or deity or the collective unconscious.
Manna is used as currency and can be traded. Manna is also used to produce 'Magick' but it is expensive and very few souls make a practice of this, considering it a waste
Magick is literally a physical manifestation of energy, this can be almost anything from fireballs to telekenisis to teleportation to healing to various other uses. It takes a lot (and I mean a LOT) of manna to ascend to nirvannah, though, so most souls just save it up.
Most souls generate a very small amount of mana each day. This is enough to pay for one of the smaller dwellings which provide shelter but not much else. Some souls generate more than others but this variation is never much. In 'heaven' where the first stories take place, people earn manna by working, either in government or for another soul.
Manna is generated by the belief of people on earth. And is stored in a tightly controlled 'well of manna' in heaven. This branch is run by an offshoot of governmental angels called 'Templars'. Who are basically the Fed. They control the supply of mana so the economy isn't flooded. This well is also where the power comes from for law enforcement angels to use Magick in the pursuit of their work.
Hell is a universal punishment for the truly wicked. Most punishments come with a manna fine, or if it's really bad, excommunication from the realm. If a soul earns a punishment, they are charged a manna fine, which will be paid off in full. If they do not have enough manna, they are sent to work in a prison camp, where their naturally generating mana is used each day to pay off a bit of the fine until it is paid off. Only a certain percentage can be paid up front. Time in a prison camp is therefore not avoidable by even the very wealthy.
Fate has a weird way of playing silly buggers on people, lots of seemingly random coincidences.
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I'm planning on writing at least one, if not a series of stories using this setting. Beyond the basic setting I've laid out here, I've got four different character bios, several plot hooks and threads, and a lot of random ideas for cool set-pieces for the reader to experience.
I'm feeling REALLY confidant about this, so expect the first sample sometime in the next few days.
See ya'all tomorrow!
PS> I'm specifically saying stories and short stories here because I'm avoiding use of the "B-word". Ideally I'd love to write a "B-word" but I don't wanna jinx this idea. I've had good ideas in the past that, when I sat down to start a "B-word" I just got overwhelmed and never wrote about them again. If you will recall, that's one of the reasons I'm doing this 365 day challenge, so I'll have enough material for a "B-word" at the end of it. Wish me luck!
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