The afterlife, or Hell for short, can be thought of as a number of different planes of existence, just like our world is one plane of existence. Once a character dies and chooses to Go To Hell, he is reborn on another plane. Each hell plane consists of two districts mostly called Upper and Lower something, for example Elysium. There is no crime system in hell, so there is no need for prosecutors and jurors and since taxes are at a fixed level in hell and prostitution is legal anywhere there is no need for judges either. You will therefore not be able to vote or be elected in hell. There is no Social Ranking system in hell either, so there is no real need to become prosecutor or juror for example. Most districts will live without any officials.
Hell has a ranking system however, it is based purely on fight, either against NPCs or against other PCs. There is a Daily Webpage that shows the ranks in hell. The ranking system is build in such a way that you gain 1 hell score for every NPC you kill. If you KO another demon, you gain 50 hell score and the other demon looses 50 hell score. If you permakill another demon however, you loose 500 hell score. The punishment of 500 for permakilling is in place to discourage permakilling. The +50/-50 system however should encourage a constant non permakill struggle. Beware that you can also loose hell score when you run out of souls. IN that case, your hell score is used to restore your manna.
A demon in London does not earn any hell scores.
Every day at server restart, the hell scores are measured against each other and the demons are sorted into a ranking ladder as follows:
There are 18 rank steps. The top step can have up to 9 demons in it, the other steps can have up to X demons all in all (currently 20 but we may increase this number anytime)
It is a bit complicated. The centerpiece is, that every day all ranks are reshuffled and every character can end up with a different rank than the day before. For many people being high on the ladder is a prestigious goal.
Regarding the fights mentioned in the last chapter, only demons on ranks which are no more than 2 steps away may fight for hell score. For example if a demon is on step 5, he can fight a demon of ranks 4, 3, 5, 6 and 7 and, if he wins, will gain 50 points. However if he fights a demon of rank 10 or 1 and wins, he will not gain anything. This is in place to prevent the top ranking demons from constant challenges by characters at the bottom of the ladder.
Demons who do not have enough hell score to be on one of the ranks are called Zombies. They are not listed on the hell webpage. This is also true for characters who do not have level 4 in one cult. These characters can not make it to the ranks of hell regardless of their hell scores.
During server maintenance, when the rank is determined, not only is the regular hell score used but also a pseudo score that comes from the amount of Spiritual Ether found in a demon's vault. Only for the purpose of determining the rank is the ether in the vault counted. By using ether here we ensure that demons also try to have a great stack of this important raw material handy and that there is not a shortage. Each unit of ether that is stored on the vault's floor, not in a locker, counts for 0.5 hell score, so 100 ether are 50 hell score. Furthermore it makes summoning a random demon something meaningful since you can always be reasonably sure that the demon has ether in his vault. The ether must be on the floor of the vault, not in a locker! If there are multiple stacks of ether, the system often packs them together into one stack, so there is no sense in keeping separate stacks since they will eventually be combined anyway.
Beware that you will not see the score + ether value while you are in game! The value of your hell scores in game differs from the one on the hell webpage since only the pure hell score without the ether bonus is used in game!
The naming system in hell is also somewhat unusual. Each character in hell has up to 3 names.
This is the name that the character had while alive in London. It is always listed in the hell ranking Daily Webpage so that the player can find his character. This name is only used for Zombies who don't have enough hell score to make it to the ranks. In the Hell Webpage this is the 3rd name of each demon in the lower line.
This is a name from a table of possible demon names. Currently there are 20 for each cult but we may increase this number. Once a demon reaches a rank, he receives this name as a sign of his status. the name is handed out randomly. The demon keeps this name as long as he not falls out of the rank and becomes a Zombie again due to low hell score. In the Hell Webpage this is the 2nd name of each demon in the middle line.
These names are really more titles and they are given out for the demons who share the highest rank in hell and who have the title Prince/Princess. These are prominent names that everybody recognizes like Lucifer, Satan and so on. Each name also has a female form. All names are in a fixed order and the character with the highest score in this rank will receive the highest name, the second one the second name and so on. These names can change daily per character, so whoever is Prince Lucifer today can be Prince Beelzebub tomorrow if he is passed by another character. These names are the highest prestige for many players and there is often a struggle to keep their names. In the Hell Webpage this is the 1st name of each demon in the top line.
Here is an example of the top part of a hell page with demons who have all 3 names:
Inquisition |
Succubus |
Rank |
Score |
Names |
|
Rank |
Score |
Names |
| 1 | 28474 | Prince Jupiter (Prince Thaine) [Driven] |
1 | 30034 | Prince Lucifer (Prince Mendrion) [St. James] |
|
| 21126 | Princess Fricka (Princess Marecha) [Zepar] |
16647 | Princess Satana (Princess Elamyra) [eeee] |
|||
| 18118 | Princess Aphorodite (Princess Thaina) [Angel] |
11000 | Prince Beelzebub (Prince Putisiel) [Carson] |
Soul points are a very much desired commodity in hell. Soul points are effectively drawn from humans in London, they can not be created in hell. These points are what makes a demon powerful, since demons can not take blood or sperm potions, just as they can not eat human food. So in order to refill their manna after casting a spell, they feed from the soul points they own. Soul points are therefore a good that is used up and which must be refilled constantly. When a demon runs out of soul points, he refills his manna by using up hell score instead. This can lead to his fall from the top of the ranking ladder so this is not a situation that can be sustained very long.
There are basically two ways how demon can receive soul points from humans: Either by his followers in a gang who worships him and who sacrifice soul points voluntarily in order to keep their demon strong, in exchange for favors from the demon, or by being summoned to London, breaking free and then sucking life from humans.
Souls can be exchanged between characters by using a Soul Exchange Container. These containers always have a fixed amount of souls and they can be traded like any object. Once a demon double clicks it while it is in his inventory, he consumes the souls and adds them to his soul points which can be seen in the stats window above the paperdoll. A demon can also "pack" some of his souls in an exchange container, for example to give it to another demon. This can establish a supply chain in hell since not every demon will have followers in London.
If you wish to store these containers, do so by dropping them on the floor of your vault -- attempting to store them inside of a box or a locker or shelves will cause them to disappear without a trace
Demons can not eat human food. There is a special demon roast platter that can be made by demon-chefs but this food is based on Spiritual Ether which is very precious. Demon food sustains a demon's body and is used in exactly the same way as human food.
This is a special raw material that is only found in hell. Many things need ether to be made, be it in hell or in London. Ether is the primary export good of hell. Often demons are summoned to London to obtain ether from them. Since demons also use ether to rise in rank, it is relatively sure that every demon has a stock of ether in his vault.
(c) 2005, Sociolotronics LLC