Overlord Back up August 13 2018

   Most Overlord Tournaments last for years, sometimes even centuries, as the calculating devils conspire, tempt, create cults, playing on complex rules of fear, worship, and the spreading of myths; resulting in the creation and foundation of many cultures. This is the result of two aspects most typical of such tournaments. The first being that the Overlord Tournament is normally held the moment a sapient world is detected or at least when its occupants are first discovered to start carrying over subconcious influence from reincarnated "souls", thus needing the cleansing aspect of a Paradise and Punishment after life system to prevent too much cross-life influence from these reincarnating souls keeping them occupied as well as the reward and punishment system giving the previous life a sense of closure so the soul can move on without the previous life influencing their new experiences too much. The second reason is because these Tournaments are normally held on the world being fought over, and part of their purpose is to instill within the cultures a sense of the dread that awaits them, and which of the 12 to 20 (it varies by world) Overlords and their Netherworlds has the most mental impact and would thus be most appropriate for that world. While it may be a first come first served for entering a tournament, usually its younger Overlords with smaller Hells and Netheroworlds (or control regions within a much larger one such as how the Steampunk Hell and various city and amusement park theme Hells are islands and cities within the vast "Beta Hell".) As well as planetoids floating within the "Alpha Hell" and the Dark Void Hells among other very large Hells; but the souls who go to these places seldom ever learn such details.

   For the sake of the tournaments and their rules and the above reasons these Devils, Demons, and Gods of Death, ect... are more inclined to create cultists, use various Folklore Class fear demons and monsters that are bound by local religious symbols, magic, and designed material weaknesses and such to create a sense of being a natural part of their world and culture so they are more likely to be spread as "The ruler of the underworld" to the locals. Even better if they can be spread across cultures on the same planet and show up in their various pantheons in one form or another *so long as its consistent*. Thus edging out the other members of the tournament. Losing the tournament is typically caused by one of four factors.

  1: Being defeated by another Overlord in direct combat: Even a lethal attack will result in the losing Overlord being transported alive back to their own Netherworld alive and well.

  2: The same result if defeated by a local, can't expect fear in the culture when there are stories of the so called King of Hell or whatever being bested by a hero.

  3: They leave the planet during the tournament. All combatants are expected to physically stay on the planet in question until they are the last one standing among the Overlords *a King of the Mountain kind of deal*. Losing Overlords are sealed away from the planet to prevent any retribution or poaching of additional souls even if some fragment of their cults and monsters remain behind (those usually thin out over time and help keep folklore diverse).

   4: The final loss factor is "overkill" if the Overlord in question goes (too far), this is usually indicated by the tournament based on the planet, level of technology, any powers the locals may have, and so on. Basically exterminating entire cities, destroying an entire generation, genocide, causing extinction level events, siding with one side of a mortal war, are typical "Against the Rules" for most planets. That last one not as common if its village and town levels and not country and empire levels, a cultist town sacrificing to gain demonic powers isn't uncommon, but ask an entire landmass to kill everyone under the age of 15 to become his demonic pawns and gain wealth beyond imagining; yeah, that usually frowned upon. Although for stronger Overlords this issue tends to fall more into *You blew up the mountain and set off a chain of volcanos that the locals will be lucky to survive through with any of them remaining*. Another reason why these tournaments are normally held when sapient life is new and the participants are usually from smaller Netherworlds and use more subtle means to win.

  There are reasons however why a more developed world may play host to an Overlord Tournament. The first being the world somehow remained hidden (usually thanks to some Celestial Being, or the world developing in an usual place). Second a new world is colonized by mortals and they are seperated from the rest of their species but also show signs of surviving as their own world (Xenogenesis clause). The third and most common reason is because the Overlord was defeated by the locals. One of those rules that actually holds over from the tournaments *there are some special rules regarding setting off an apocalypse, but most who want to expand their own Hells won't earnestly seek that*. When a world develops things like magic, advanced technology, and the like they can run the risk of both discovering "Hell is Real" as well as "There are many Hells", coming to the conclussion "Hell and Heaven are artificial constructs forced on our quantum singular states of being by unknown alien forces". Thus they will fight back, although the magic one tends to be less direct; for these reasons devils will often spread lies about magic and technology being "sins" to discourage their development. Especially if they arn't particularly strong and won a more typical tournament. So a sorcerer sealing them away, sealing away their Hell, launching a fleet or soldiers into Hell to take down the "demon like aliens imprisoning our life force" ect...tends to result in that Hell being disqualified to rule. These worlds however never realize (as they wouldn't know about it) they are going to cause a new Tournament to take place.

   Overlords are told, and some even given special early warning, when a its a Tournament over a world that has defeated its previous Hell and demonic Overlord and how. Thus more powerful Overlords seen as better suited for such a world tend to show up. After all hard for a devil who was defeated by a lone hero to rescue a princess, or some Blue Devil Man in a loin cloth and club with an army of ogres whose palace and Forests of Despair were overrun by hover tanks, mechs, and battle suit space marines to continue on as the ruler of that world's after life. Some worlds may even end up being shared by multiple Hells...especially if under the special circumstances of converged timelines, and alien invasions (a world gets invaded by another planet's culture), as well if a planet was diverse enough and the tournament went on too long that a few different Hells were regarded as part of the collective cultures (although a Vassals system is more common in that case).

  All of which brings us to Aesperia. The incredibly short summary of its history is the land mass and oceans were once the surface of an Earth-T timeline that ended up causing a Mystical Cataclysm via quantum energy technologies and rescued by the goddess of Other World who stablized the surface and set it as a flat world within a floating stone bowl on the Nebular Sea of Other World. The previous sapient population had gone extinct *in so much as humanity was mutated into monsters* 2 million years of evolution had started to bring some of that back, but most kept hidden, and any world in Other World would not be detected by the Hell system as Other World is directly and physically connected to the Dark Netherworld, Red Nether World, Tempestia, as well as The Land of the Dead. So negative souls would just fall into those places, as well the small pocket space of the Red Hell of Lahk Fhar floated about in Other World, as have a few other colored spheres ruled by demons, but would have no claim to the dead. The world of Aesperia to complicate matters would be named Aesperia as it was colonized by Aesperians from Reality-Q fleeing their oppressive plutarchion galaxy. Made even more complicated by the fact that a reduced in power via reincarnation and amnesia of her previous life Rhulan was the one to bring them there.

   This world had gone over 2000 years with the Aesperians on it before it was decided a proper Overlord tournament should be held. Lahk Fhar trying to claim his Hell should be the one for it as his "Red Sun" had orbited Aesperia for centuries...but no souls, instead he acted like an ogre king demanding a virgin maiden of his choice from a kingdom once a generation; until he was defeated by a local hero. He was surprised to find Overlord rules kick in as a result and his entire Hell was thrown from Other World entirely and sent to float in the Dark Void...where his Burning Hell has remained and he is forced to obey the greater Overlords of the Dark Void where as before Other World was treated more as a wilderness by the higher powers that govern it. Even more so to learn why it went that far with him, that the hero that defeated him had been set up and gifted with knowledge, weapons, and powers by the subtle machinations of another Overlord, Satasar.

  He was quick to jump at the chance to have his Hell returned there when Aesperia came up. However Lahk Fhar to his surprise has found this Overlord Tournament is very special, being held on a specialized Battle World, with very thinned out rules, and extremly powerful Cosmic scale Overlords fighting in it. He has already underestimated a few he never met or thought were mere local magic casters of Aesperia getting the whole "Overlord of Evil" type titles getting to their heads. What usually should have taken days if not weeks at the least, if not years normally, the number of Overlords being cut in half, has happened in a span of less than 24 hours. One of which he is well aware was pure luck, had Rhudra paid attention to the rules she could have easily just thrown Lahk Fhar into orbit (thus "out of the ring"). He has realized this, it makes his blood boil now to realize he Lahk Fhar the giant red devil, the feared evil of dozens of worlds whose visage inspires dread and mortals to hold tight their religious symbols, is the under dog in this fight. Sahralia he knows rules lands in three different greater Hells, Beta Hell, Alpha Hell, the Dark Void, Yi'Nata is worshipped as a goddess of the dead on most magical worlds (which he should have realized Aesperia would be too tempting a prize for someone like that), then again Garag also rules a Hell of many magical worlds as well; but he was taken out first. His own sister Liacifit, the ruler of a grotesque organic hell is here much to his surprise as she rarely bothers with worlds more advanced than steam and combustion tech, let alone magical ones. His biggest fear however is Endara, while Endara rules over several City Hells in the Beta Hell, including a large coastline city on the Forest Hell continent there, she never bothers with magical worlds. He knows however she is typically part of those higher end tournaments, where the locals must be shown that no army of mortals no matter the weapons can withstand the overwhelming powers of Hell.

   Lahk Fhar's eyebrows furrow as the sea and air about his levitating self are painted with red and organs wavering lights, the air turns hellishly hot and rushing an forces that would rip apart buildings. He turns to see a massive blood red sphere on the horrizon being impacted by giant orange spirals of light leading down like spirals from a cone to a point like a drill on the massive dome.

   "Sahralia and Yi'Nata?" asks Lahk Fhar.

   "No," says Liacifit floating crosslegged in the air not far away, "Rhulan and Endara,".

   "She has been rather proactive in this tournament," remarks Liacifit, "such impatience, no strategy, just assume a stronger battlle form and then charge in."