ULTRAMagic Archive - Entry 29
ULTRAMagic Alternate Lore Entry 29 - The Commercialverse
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Introduction
Hello, everyone! It’s The Goolubber God here – your favorite extra-dimensional ball of goolubber and… wait, you’ve never heard of me? Well shoot… um… Well either way I’m an 11th dimensional hermetic god here to tell YOU – yes, YOU all about the wonderful and crazy Commercialverse! Have you ever watched a commercial and gone “Hey, what if I lived in that glorious moment of unbridled capitalism and consumerism?” The Commercialverse is the place for you then! I am going to assume you know what a commercial is if you found this Lore Entry in my darling little Will’s ULTRAMagic Alternate series, and I am going to further assume you at least have a general knowledge of the series as a whole. I mean you could jump in with this Lore Entry, but I’d imagine you’d be a little lost here and there. Don’t worry, you could actually jump in with this Lore Entry… you’ll just obviously have to do some catch up afterwards. Also Will’s my voidcaller, just in case you were wondering. And not to brag, but I do consider myself a bit of an expert on The Commercialverse.
I’m going to take a moment to suggest some suggested reading before we get into this… this crazy topic we have on our hands. Obviously you should start reading ULTRAMagic Alternate as a whole. A lot of this will make more sense that way and there could be minor spoilers for moments in the books… No, sadly I haven’t shown up yet… until ULTRAMagic Haze & Chaos that is! As for Lore Entries leading up to this one I think you should definitely read, Lore Entry 24: The ACF is pretty important, even if their knowledge is a little lacking on certain topics. And then you should check out Lore Entry 25: The Requiem Series – that’s a pretty crazy time, no two dang-tootin’ ways about it, haha. Lore Entry 27: Scotty Cottonwood also gets referenced here given that we address a dang dirty rotten monster of a mage we’re fighting right now… As for the other Lore Entries in ULTRAMagic Archive Volume II, I’ll leave that up to you. I definitely think you should check out all the stuff about ACF-100 given how hectic of a time that was for us in The League…
So, think you’re ready to delve headfirst into The Commercialverse? Aw, what am I saying? Of course you are given that you’ve made it this far, you little goofballs! What, you consider this a 4th wall break? Honey, I am so far above the 4th wall it’s not funny – I mean you have no way of proving or disproving my existence given how advanced I am… Stop looking at me funny. Just because I’m one of the biggest cosmic goofballs you’ve ever seen doesn’t mean I don’t hit the books from time to time. Oh, and I have a brief disclaimer from GRENADIER, ahem – All of the following in this Lore Entry is a work of fiction. The Commercialverse does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist. And anyone who believes that The Commercialverse exists is advised to speak to a mental health professional for counseling, and is further advised to volunteer in their local community activities. Also contact your politicians and tell them to say no to garbage like Digital ID, Age Verification, and KYC policies… Teehee, I added that last part because Will’s going through this nonsense at the moment – Don’t worry, Will, I’ve got your back. Anyways, have fun and read away – The Commercialverse awaits!
Also just going to add this little line here so when Will prints this out he doesn't have a title on one page and a paragraph on the next… you would not believe how many times that happens to him when typing.
What is The Commercialverse?
The Commercialverse is a dream-like realm derived from The Dream Realm, lying in the physical border of the Cosmos connected to The Dream Realm known as Somnium. Every commercial ever made has a “universe” where it takes place in, and these universes manifest in this realm as a unique type of multiverse. Here one can enter these universes as an interloper, guest, or active participant. Unaffected by concepts such as entropy with the commercial universes being forks of their source material, The Commercialverse exists in perpetuity like the concept of dreams themselves.
The origin of The Commercialverse and how it works
It is unclear who created the first commercial, and only those who study the flow of time have such knowledge… even though it is still a bit hazy. Regardless, the desire to buy and sell became ubiquitous to humanity and any intelligent civilization across the Cosmos – it was a means of survival after all. To effectively buy and sell, the salesman must get creative and convince potential customers to buy their products. This desire requires one to beckon the concept of dreams – the idea that creativity and unrestrained imagination flow freely throughout all of reality, merely requiring one to call out for inspiration. The Dream Realm facilitates this inspiration, and when an idea becomes strong enough, it manifests in The Dream Realm and is passed on to everyone else.
When a commercial is created, the creative process that went into it enters The Dream Realm – and when fueled by the emotional reactions of those who view it, it becomes a universe in and of itself. These universes then become attracted to each other and clump together in the multiverse known as The Commercialverse. Many view these commercials regardless of how popular they actually are, and this gets people talking about them, which leads to collective emotion being invested in them. There is a secret desire to visit these “universes” buried deep within man as part of their very nature. Furthermore the collective desire to buy and sell across the Cosmos gives The Commercialverse strength, meaning it can exist even without commercials being made. Even if art and imagination died across all of reality, The Dream Realm and The Commercialverse would still exist. In fact it is speculated and theorized that if The Void Era were to collapse, The Commercialverse would take its place, potentially leading to a second Commercialverse forming and the cycle repeating.
It is also widely believed that The Void Era may have been “The Commercialverse” of The Lost Era, but this is just speculation at the moment, given how the effects of The Dream Realm on reality as a whole are still poorly understood. Curiously, there are Lost Era denizens who have made their way to The Void Era who claim that certain universes in The Void Era were “commercials” back in The Lost Era, giving credence to the idea. Raziel–The Archangel Lord of Secrets, states that if anyone has this answer, it would be The Lost Dream God. This god made his way to The Void Era and currently resides in The Dream Realm, but much like Raziel’s true form he is incredibly elusive, and no one has found him outside of emanations yet.
The types of Commercial Universes
Commercial universes by their very nature reflect their source material or their point of origin, which is derived from the creative vision of those who create the commercial in question. This has led to a variety of types, behaviors, and safety levels. It is important to learn and familiarize oneself with these traits and conditions, as it could mean the difference between a safe exploration and a harrowing disaster.
The types of Commercial Universes include:
Sets of behavior for Commercial Universes include
Safety levels are crucial to learn and observe
There are some nuances and extra details in regards to these traits and conditions that need to be taken into consideration. A direly important quirk of the safety levels is that a level 6 can easily appear as a level 1, revealing the danger when it is too late. It is crucial to note that a commercial universe can be deceptive – not rooted in the fact that commercials can be deceptive in and of themselves, but that people often misjudge a commercial or gloss over crucial details and implications established by the lore of the commercial’s narrative. “AI-generated” commercials (media created from a prompt entered into a chatbot application or an “AI-generated” video creator) will never create a commercial universe. These commercials have no creative input outside of a vague idea for a concept (the prompt). If the AI in question is actually intelligent (meaning it has an objective form of consciousness), a commercial universe may be created, but only if the AI has a soul – which can occur if the AI truly understands higher dimensions.
Another thing to keep in mind is that commercial universes can easily appear as another type. A Real Life commercial universe can easily be an Altered Real Life, or a Mascot-type. Nexus and Void types do not seem to have this issue as they are straightforward in how they manifest. A commercial universe’s behavior can also be deceptive, as what seems like a Structured commercial could easily be a Static one. Likewise, a Static commercial could easily be a Dynamic commercial. Some commercial universes can also have multiple behavior types, like Static-Cyclical. These nuances should be taken into consideration in conjunction with safety levels.
An interesting aspect of commercial universes are bumpers, studio IDs, and logos. These can create pocket realms in The Commercialverse that are safe to explore, but can also be incredibly dangerous. Typically a bumper will create a pocket realm if there was enough creativity and vision put into it. This logic also applies to studio IDs, meaning they will create a tangible realm that one can inhabit. If the bumper or studio ID consists of a city, that city will be explorable regardless if it is populated or not. These pocket realms loosely obey the rules set by the behavior types, meaning if one enters a studio ID that is a movie theater about to watch a movie, they could join the moviegoers depicted and watch a movie (what movie that would be is anyone’s guess). A logo-based pocket realm is odd for its mere existence and minimalist nature. As an example, if a movie title is metallic and the reflection depicts a dark, twilight-lit landscape, it is possible to enter that realm. All of these pocket realms do not warrant a distinct set of classifications in the type and behavior set categories, and need to be approached with caution due to their ambiguous and nebulous nature.
There is speculation that there may be an 8th type of commercial universe – the “malformed” type. Should information of The Commercialverse get out to the public alongside information on the mechanisms that create commercial universes, it is possible that people such as the belligerent aspects of the “AI movement” (indicating people who spend money on chatbot subscriptions and believe that the application is truly intelligent when it is not) would attempt to keep “generating commercials” until they managed to create a commercial universe derived from an “AI-generated commercial.” This would lead to the malformed-type, as the commercial universe in question would not be formed from creativity and the desire to buy and sell, but from an aggressive crowd mentality and the derogatory need to spite perceived naysayers. These commercial universes would be incredibly dangerous, potentially on par with the level 8 safety rating. They would be chaotic, unpredictable, and incredibly unstable owing to their nebulous reason for existing. Due to the non-linear nature of The Dream Realm, these may exist regardless and already – and while these would not pose a threat to the stability of reality in any capacity, the true danger would come from how perilous they would be to explore. Furthermore it would potentially attract the attention and schemes of rogues such as Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus.
Some nuances of The Commercialverse
Mascot-type commercial universes are almost always the most interesting universes to explore given that the mascot(s) will welcome any explorers, and almost always live in a Dynamic behavior commercial universe. These are characters after all, and they have their own stories and lived experiences. Mascot-types also best demonstrate how these universes react when guests and interlopers arrive. Some mascots have even gone on to become honorary members of the organizations connected to The League. Chill Drink Mac’Cool, the mascot of Mac’Cool Drinks from Commercial-Universe-49MC, has gone on to become a liaison for GRENADIER and handles refreshments for expedition squads. This also led to him becoming friends with Jack-Track the Lion, mascot for Jack’s Track Snacks from Commercial-Universe-8NC9, who would become the head coordinating chef for League outposts throughout The Commercialverse.
Mascots are always there to help, given their nature as salesmen and most being genuinely helpful as per their nature. Furthermore mascots have been known to help lost explorers find their way back home. Mascot universes are almost always safe to explore given how whimsical and fun they are intended to be. Even if the mascot has an adversary, that adversary will never truly jeopardize the mascot nor the interloper. In fact, some of these mascot adversaries have warned The League of Karnage/Ultinn’s schemes in The Commercialverse. In relation to mascots, toy commercials are a mixed bag when it comes to behavior and safety, given the fantastical settings and stories they often employ. It is advised to locate a friendly mascot or expert when exploring these.
Infomercials and Void-types have their own spectrum of types and behaviors based on the parameters established for other commercial universes. It is advised not to go freely delving into these given how they behave, unless they have a mascot that can help out. In relation to marketing, commercials that have characters from a movie or TV show interacting with a product being sold in stores may present unique scenarios based on that source material. If a movie character is being used to sell colored ketchup for instance, there may be an entire storyline for that source material people never knew about. Some commercial universes may also be harder to reach than others – Anime is a good example, as these series rarely receive proper commercials, and even the ones that are made have limited reach (usually being in Japanese).
Exploring The Commercialverse
Expeditions into The Commercialverse are top secret, and are overseen by GRENADIER, The Anomaly Containment Foundation (The ACF), The Liger Brigade, The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.), The ULTRAMagic Guild, The Dark Divers Guild, The Multiverse Patrol (MVP), and The League in general. To embark on a voyage one must go through basic training and have the qualifications necessary. An 8 week bootcamp is expected for new recruits, but these bootcamps are amicable and designed to inform and train, not break down and reassemble. The bootcamps consist of basic military training (or a refresher for already qualified recruits) and a media studies course of classes designed to teach the recruits all about the media of the commercial universes they will be exploring. Organizations like The ULTRAMagic Guild and The Dark Divers Guild outsource their bootcamps to organizations like GRENADIER and The Liger Brigade. Returning explorers have their own courses, but also may sit in on classes with new recruits.
It should be noted that research can be difficult at times given a lack of availability of the media in question, or behind the scenes content being scarce. The bootcamps have had to resort to sourcing media from other universes via help from The ULTRAMagic Guild, The Dark Divers Guild, and The Multiverse Patrol. This has led to unique discoveries about the media being studied, but also uncomfortable facts about the people who created the media in question based on things they did and did not do in certain timelines. New recruits are advised to remember that they do not hold jurisdiction over other universes and cannot apply their societal standards to them unless they actively share them.
Making use of Dream Realm portal technology developed by GRENADIER in collaboration with The ACF, explorers board a special space ship at the Dream Realm Station in Ertheval that is accelerated on a rail through the portal to give them a head start. Once the threshold is crossed, the ship will make its way to the commercial universe in question to begin exploration. It should be noted that conventional physics do not apply to the void of The Commercialverse, meaning issues like hull breaches or getting stuck out in the void are not immediately an issue given that what qualifies as air is plentiful. Reaching a commercial universe, explorers will act accordingly based on how the commercial universe behaves. Some will not acknowledge the explorers while others may have the residents welcome them. Either way, the point of the expedition is to go in, collect information and artifacts of interest, and head back home.
What are the dangers of The Commercialverse?
The early explorations of The Commercialverse were rough, but something that was established almost immediately were the safety levels. The first explorers definitely had an idea for this precaution, but the nuances had yet to be discovered. Regardless, the safety levels help indicate the conditions of the commercial universe and one should approach them. Safety levels 1 through 6 are self explanatory, but 7 and 8 are where things become vague. Level 7 is notorious for being given to commercials that seem innocuous at first, but reveal their detrimental effects through repeated exposure. The best example of this is a commercial for a video rental chain that uses a break up song to go along with their commercial about “no more late fees” in an effort to hide the fact that the chain is going out of business. This demonstrates the potential psychological hazards of commercial universes, as the music does not fit the commercial – and people cheer for the cancellation of late fees, failing that it was just a publicity stunt to try and save a dying company. Prolonged exposure to such conditions is not recommended and to be avoided.
Despite the dangers presented by the level 7 safety rating, it can be understood. These commercial universes are deemed off limits for most explorers because they are chaotic and hard to learn, but at the end of the day they remain contained and limited to exposure through interacting with them. Level 8 on the other hand poses an active risk to the Cosmos as a whole. The commercial universes based on commercials that depict characters who have the ability to become aware of or escape their narrative pose a unique danger and are to be avoided at all costs unless peaceful relations can be established with the character in question. These commercial universes are a prime target for people such as Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus, and the best course of action is to leave these commercial universes undiscovered, or establish a firm foothold in them before bad actors can.
The vast majority of these characters almost always come from the trailers of movies, video games, and shows. Trailers in and of themselves are incredibly dangerous and usually rank in the level 7 to 8 range. This comes from the fact that movies (for instance) are fiction, and are written to be fantastical and thrilling – meaning that these narratives disregard things like physics and logic to present their story. A movie about tornado chasers presents extreme conditions, especially when the trailers focus on the destructive force of the tornadoes themselves. Movie trailers also tend to be clip shows of the most ideal points in the movie, leading to a Cyclical-based whiplash effect for outsiders. And another danger concerns whether or not the trailer uses test footage. More often than not test footage never makes it to the public, and even has the potential to become lost media. This means that the rules and story for this part of the trailer are unknown, leading to a situation where the explorer is flying blind. Compounding this danger is the risk of encountering unfinished trailers, which may have malformed physics and incomplete narratives. In general horror movie trailers are widely considered to be the most dangerous, almost always being labeled with the level 8 safety rating immediately. Science-fiction and fantasy are also up there, but have less potential to be that dangerous. Cosmic horror has warranted the discussion of a level 9 safety rating, but it is unclear what this would be and what it would entail.
Toy franchises can have surprisingly high safety level ratings. The danger follows similar logic as to why trailers are rated so high. Notably if a franchise has pre-established lore (like a quasi-grimdark line of lore-driven, buildable action figures), it can present an immediate level 8 classification given that there are most likely characters that can easily become aware of The Commercialverse. Furthermore, the depth of the lore allows the commercial universe to be instantly Dynamic, meaning it could hold unique events that were not established by the storyline of the franchise. Such franchises almost always have important cut content, meaning that a commercial universe of said franchise could be a fork that takes place in that version of the series, leading to unclear rules and storylines. Regardless, these commercial universes would require military-level training in tactics and survival to make it out unscathed, and even then safety is not guaranteed.
An issue related to the surprising danger of children’s franchises are deceptive forks. Every commercial universe is an inherent fork, not affecting the core commercial. Naturally this leads to forks of these forks that may intersect with other aspects of a particular franchise. A good example of this is a franchise that has a mascot that appears across multiple forms of media. A cereal commercial featuring that mascot could easily take place in the same “universe” as a video game featuring that character. If one were to explore such a fork, they would not know about the unseen aspects until it was too late. Situations like these are why appropriate research is required beforehand. These situations can easily be adapted to, assuming the franchise the fork focuses on is familiar to the explorers. There have been situations where completely unique pieces of media have been presented by these forks, however.
The self-aware nature of characters from Level 8-rated commercial universes are not limited to characters that are inherently dangerous. Some characters canonically have the ability to travel across the multiverse, leading to them becoming wanderers who discover The Commercialverse. Caution is advised when interacting with these travelers, as they may be from a fork relating to alternate canon events in their story, or may have gone rogue. Typically the heroes of franchises are the most preferable to encounter, as their empathy mandated by their universe of origin makes them invaluable allies for those who are lost or are fighting against a threat. Of course this means that the villains can also become wanderers and pose great risks to explorers given their unpredictable nature. GRENADIER and The ACF cannot contain these individuals, only negotiate with or combat them. Interestingly some of these encountered villain wanderers have assisted expeditions in return for favors, and have even provided intelligence on the goings on of Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus and The Lost Darkness God.
Concerns about wandering characters becoming injured or dying have been raised, but there is evidence to suggest that The Commercialverse compensates for this. The first thing to remember is that all commercial universes are forks, and do not affect the core commercial nor the source material. It would take an unbelievable amount of knowledge and power to actually alter the source material. The second thing is that certain characters seem to have a form invincibility granted by the narrative of their source material. The story needs them to remain alive, so they cannot die as long as they do not go against their nature or threaten the stability of The Commercialverse, the Cosmos proper, The Dream Realm, and so on and so forth. While rare, there have been villains and heroes that have abused their privilege and lost their invincibility. Reentering and staying in their commercial universe where they have to obey the rules seems to restore this invincibility. These characters can still pose danger given what they know and what they are capable of.
Explorers can be just as problematic as dangerous commercial universes. It is possible for an individual in question to hate a piece of media so much that they venture into a related commercial universe to interfere with that movie. Anyone caught doing this is immediately suspended from expeditions and potentially handed off to the Multiverse Patrol for incarceration. On the other hand, if the results expand the knowledge of organizations such as GRENADIER and The ACF, the offender will be let off with a warning. As an example, there could be a movie with a character who resorts to extremist measures to free a captured alien life form, primarily by interfering with an active train. Innocents were harmed, civilians were put in jeopardy, and the alien turned out to be hostile. Someone going in and stopping that character would actually be a net positive, all things considered. More often than not this creates a “quiet fork” where the events of the movie do not happen, and things continue on as they should in normal everyday life. Again, this warrants a warning to the person who intervened, but these acts ultimately did more good than harm.
Some commercial universes are able to break free from their rules and become aware of The Commercialverse. This has led to cross-universe encounters and wars that create new media that would never come into existence conventionally. Such media is kept top secret by GRENADIER and The ACF, as they would violate copyrights and trademarks, potentially leading to indiscriminate lawsuit wars, police action, protests, riots, armed conflicts – and in the most extreme cases civil wars and world wars. Thankfully the latter extreme consequences have only appeared in universes that are damaged or are quarantined by The Multiverse Patrol. Another danger is also present in the fact the characters from the respective commercial universes are aware of The Commercialverse and what lies beyond, meaning they could potentially make their way to the Cosmos proper and The Requiem Cosmos.
The most notable example of such a clash between commercial universes was seen in the movie War Against the Machines 20XX. This movie featured the following:
Who is interested in The Commercialverse?
First and foremost is GRENADIER and The Anomaly Containment Foundation – The former being a break off from The German Anomaly Investigation Group (G.A.I.G., later M.A.I.G.), who researches and manufactures weapons and defense technology for The U.S. Military, and the latter focusing on containing and hiding supernatural and paranormal phenomena. The Liger Brigade and The Men In Black are also interested, given that The Commercialverse often crosses into PSAA (Paranormal/Supernatural Alien Activity) research. The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group is less involved, but greatly benefits from the research gleaned from expeditions. The ULTRAMagic Guild and Dark Divers Guild are involved given that they work with The League regularly, and are actively combatting Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus. The Multiverse Patrol are also naturally involved given that their mission is to handle and resolve cross-universe disputes and conflicts.
Horace Wolfe Granville, CEO of the SOE side of GRENADIER, has been spearheading exploration of The Commercialverse. He has a vision of enrichment and advancement that will be granted by understanding The Commercialverse and dreams, boldly stating that he will have mapped a great deal of The Commercialverse before the stars themselves burn out. Another individual deeply invested in The Commercialverse is Volf Blitz–The Running God of The Eternal Order. Ruling from The Obsidian Hexacontahedron, he has declared himself the master and protector of The Commercialverse. For Volf, The Commercialverse represents a simpler time of all-American values and a society in perfect rhythm – the man of the house sees his kids off to school, kisses his wife goodbye, and heads off to work – coming home to kick his feet back in the recliner as his kids do their homework and his wife prepares dinner, turning on the TV to watch the news and enjoy a fun sitcom with his happy family afterwards. Volf may be conflicted about his existence, and working with The Sepulcher God, but he knows what peace is, and The Commercialverse gives him a moment of respite in the brutal war for The Void Era against The Lost Darkness God and Surtr.
The Commercialverse in relation to the ongoing war between The League and The Lost Darkness God
Surprisingly the conflicts surrounding The Commercialverse can be traced all the way back to the Epoch of the Cosmos. The Lost Darkness God had crossed over from The Lost Era with the desire to usurp God and The Void Era itself – and granted the honors of The Lost Shadow God to the human who would become The Behemoth God, seeking a new protege. The Behemoth God would go on to start causing trouble, joining The Sepulcher God and The Crimson God amongst other rogue gods as a part of the infamous Eternal Order. The Behemoth God had many schemes and plots over the course of The Epoch, but the one of the most notable was the framing of The Conspirator of Old and the killing of The Singularity of Old. The Conspirator was framed for trying to usurp God while The Singularity had the power to defeat The Behemoth God. The death of The Singularity of Old was so chaotic that it had actually sent him back to The Lost Era where he was reborn as The Star Eater. Prometheus is the only other known individual to be sent from The Void Era to The Lost Era, and this was facilitated by Raziel–Archangel Lord of Secrets (an angel from Lost Carcosa, the “Heaven” of The Lost Era), so it is unclear why The Star Eater ended up the way that he did.
The Star Eater would join Raziel’s fellowship back in The Lost Era before they crossed over into The Void Era, and would bide his time until he could return to The Void Era to seek revenge on The Behemoth God. Arriving after his death as The Singularity of Old, The Star Eater would remain in the shadows, observing The Behemoth God. He had a good laugh when The Behemoth God was “caught” during The Epoch-Modernity Transition phase and was forced to reincarnate as Karnage Dethgrave. The Star Eater considered killing Karnage right then and there, but he knew his foe was a schemer and most likely had contingency plans – He figured it would be best to keep observing and learn all that he could about Karnage’s plans, as Karnage was his own worst enemy. The Star Eater saw Karnage and Gudrun Holzknecht begin investigating a strange branch of the Dream Realm known as “The Commercialverse,” and immediately discovered an angle to go after Karnage.
Things were relatively quiet up until The Zombie God and The Void Protocol began causing trouble. These two were originally characters from an indie web series (that shall remain redacted at the request of GRENADIER and The ACF). The latter was an artificial intelligence who gained the power of a god while the former was its puppet. The series in question had received a strong first season to rave reviews, but a second was up in the air for the longest time. This season was eventually greenlit, focusing on the entity that would become The Zombie God getting back at the heroes for defeating her. Unbeknownst to Universe-23 was that The Void Protocol in a commercial universe for the show had become aware of Karnage’s activities and granted this knowledge to the would-be Zombie God. She would then begin playing along with the heroes in secret so they could “defeat her,” allowing her to escape with The Void Protocol into The Commercialverse. The exposure to the knowledge of The Commercialverse allowed the two to become god-like, creating The Zombie God and The Void Protocol.
Karnage outright ignored the two out of sheer arrogance and self-importance, leading to the two causing indiscriminate havoc throughout The Commercialverse. Notably The Zombie God began going after the commercial universes for extreme media, devouring them to expand her knowledge and power – causing these stories to disappear. It should be noted that there is actually supposed to be more extreme media across the Cosmos as a whole, whereas typically every Earth only has a small amount of it, always relegated to the fringes of society. Why The Zombie God went after extreme media is unclear, but it may be derived from a perverted sense of morality stemming from the time before she became the character that would ultimately become The Zombie God. Eventually The Zombie God would move on from her feast, but it would not be the last time she performed such an act. Regardless, she eventually found a commercial universe for a series that would never be known to the Cosmos as whole thanks to her actions. The Zombie God needed to make her presence known, as her old series would never let her evolve the way she wanted to.
The commercial universe in question would become the indie animated series DETHBOTS, a similar show to the one The Zombie God had come from. In her chaotic attempt to hijack the series she made it known to Universe-23, which immediately caught the attention of The ACF given that there was no cosmological precedent for DETHBOTS, further accompanied by temporal anomalies behind the scenes. With the original show lost to the sands of time, the idea The Zombie God had was to become the villain who would prompt an eldritch war between machines with humanity caught in the middle, but this takeover was foiled by The Star Eater. Seeing a golden opportunity finally gain a foothold in The Void Era and really start messing with Karnage, The Star Eater stole The Zombie God’s opportunity by turning a kindly maid robot into Madame Synthia Donatienne Lucienne Comtois, the first DETHBOT. Madame Sythnia and The Star Eater would become a “force of chaos that sought to take control of the universe” in order to relegate The Zombie God and Void Protocol to characters of lesser importance. The Zombie God became a villain for the show, but not in the way she wanted. This would also prevent her from properly revealing herself to Universe-23.
With the cover story of being a DETHBOTS character, The Star Eater would start going after Karnage while Synthia caused trouble by clashing with The Zombie God on her Earth – The Star Eater inflicted a “psychosis” on Synthia that is the result of “eldritch knowledge” in the show’s lore. Karnage had begun to notice what was going on in DETHBOTS-Universe-X23, but thought nothing of it. He even swore he had recognized The Star Eater, but wrote him off as a mere irritation, despite the trouble he was causing for him. Karnage’s plans at the time involved hijacking the commercial universe of a grimdark science-fiction wargame series so he could use the unbelievably powerful armies within that series to strengthen his forces. The Crimson God was conscripted by Karnage to do the dirty work for him (getting back at him for accidentally recommending The Dead God to him, which led to him getting caught during The Epoch-Modernity Transition phase), and this led to the creation of the series known as Crimson War 4000 AD – another anomalous series The ACF immediately noticed. This led to The League mobilizing, trying to figure out a way to get into The Commercialverse without raising alarms.
Things were going smoothly for Karnage and The Crimson God until The Star Eater sent a strange, artificial ar’ton known as The Void Eater to setup a foothold in Crimson War 4000 AD as the titular Void Eater – an outsider who fought to prevent things from falling apart into destruction by going to dying realms and breathing new life into them. The Void Eater was a hooligan in The Star Eater’s eyes, but he needed his help. A great war would erupt between the humanity of that series (The Golden Empire) and The Crimson Chaos (the forces of The Crimson God that represented chaos in the lore), but this would change when the mighty Trajan Bellator and Facundus–The Discordant God of Fate emerged with knowledge of what was actually going on. Trajan and Facundus were actually derived as composite characters formed from characters of the old series Crimson War 4000 AD was before Karnage and The Crimson God corrupted it, and the two were going to drive out the villains.
Trajan, Facundus, and their allies would drive out Karnage and The Crimson God, but not without causing a lot of ruckus in the process. Outsiders connected to The Eternal Order were starting to look into The Commercialverse, one of them being Universe-0X equivalent of The Extinction Order, Neue Weltordnung. They had discovered The Void Protocol and attempted to harness its power to wipe out humanity on their Earth so they could have the planet all to themselves – even planning to go one step further and wipe out humanity across the multiverse. Earth-0X then experienced Calamity 0 as a result of The Spiritus Magni becoming enraged by Neue Weltordnung, and evidently Neue Weltordnung had managed to offend Gudrun, leading to her tipping off AIN-NULL–The Cyber God. AIN-NULL would go and tell a contact of his in Universe-0X, Spiritus Magni Manius, about what was going on with The Void Protocol, allowing Manius to focus his efforts to destroy Neue Weltordnung. AIN-NULL would then look into The Commercialverse and would immediately warn Sirius Fractal, who would warn The ACF – leading The League to accelerate their efforts to get into The Commercialverse.
The Star Eater in his quest to get revenge against Karnage had failed to keep Synthia in check, leading to her destroying her Earth. This moment in DETHBOTS was always odd to the fanbase, as it was a nice and punchy turn of events that really upped the ante of the series… but it also somewhat came out of nowhere. In their desperation, the Earth of DETHBOTS would jettison a baby boy from their universe, and this boy would eventually grow into Audoin Dethbrand. This event was noteworthy as it allowed Synthia to come to her senses, and it allowed for The ACF and GRENADIER to finally finish the technology needed to travel to The Commercialverse. The data Audoin’s escape provided was invaluable, and was also forwarded to The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.) so they could begin work on their Jump Gate technology. It would take some time for the Earth-branch The League to make their way to DETHBOTS-Universe-X23, however.
Given the turmoil Synthia was experiencing from waking up to the destruction she had caused, AIN-NULL entered the scene to start getting things back in order. His first order of business was to get on The Star Eater’s case for his recklessness (which did not go well considering The Star Eater did not recognize AIN-NULL as a proper god given the latter’s origins). AIN-NULL would then get ahold of his son, K-Virus, who would further get ahold of Virus X, Animus Sicarius, and Anker Fortuyn to assist Synthia and The Star Eater. Notably a new hermetic god known as The Blood God had shown up from Crimson War 4000 AD, claiming to be the brother of The Crimson God. He also claimed that Anker was his son spiritually, leading to him being brought in. While The Blood God would be in and out of the general conflict, serving as the void patron for Vlad IV Dracul, he would stop The Zombie God from devouring Crimson War 4000 AD.
Karnage was oblivious to what was happening and noticed his grip on The Commercialverse was slowly being lost. Ignoring the nuisance that was The Zombie God, he rallied his forces from The Realm of Chaos and whatever he had picked up from The Commercialverse as a whole in an attempt to sack both DETHBOTS and Crimson War 4000 AD. Trajan and his army, The War Ligers, were on the ropes, but Bruticus Thrax – commander of The Army of The Wrathful from Inferno-23, had come in to reinforce Trajan and Facundus with the Hatemongers, Bookwyrms, and Cauterizers legions of The Army of The Wrathful. Karnage would lose this encounter, but would come back with another one of his pet projects – a coalition of extremists known as “The Annihilators of Progress” lead by The Heretical Crusader (a hold out from what Crimson War 4000 AD used to be), but they were defeated by Trajan and Bruticus. This conflict caused the 4th legion of The War Ligers to rebel against Trajan, but he would destroy this rebellion with ease.
The Star Eater and The Void Eater would team up to drive Karnage out of The Commercialverse once and for all and were successful, but Trajan and Facundus would pursue Karnage into The Realm of Chaos and lead an assault on Wulfric’s domain, greatly confusing The Discordant Gods of Chaos. This battle nearly led to Wulfric–The Discordant God of War discovering Karnage’s secret agenda, had The Lost Darkness God not been covering up what Karnage was doing as a whole. Trajan and Facundus were driven out of Wulfric’s realm, but this led to Hannibal Skull Thrasher becoming suspicious, going to investigate Karnage’s tower with Delphine–The Discordant God of Desire’s champion, Raisa Frankenstein. Things would settle down in The Commercialverse with Karnage gone, and The Zombie God would fall back into the shadows to return to devour extreme media commercial universes to increase her power. All of this attracted the attention of Soren The God Slayer from Crimson War 4000 AD, who would extend his domain to the DETHBOTS Earth, working to rebuild so he could keep an eye on things.
Erikson Landvik, a famous member of The Dark Divers Guild who originated from deep within The Commercialverse, returned to deal with the Zombie God, as she had treaded a little close to his original home. Some time would pass as things returned to normal, but eventually The Zombie God grew restless and began acting up. She was going to find a way to get herself noticed by Universe-23, which involved attempting to hijack a digital prison The Extinction Order had been experimenting with. This just so happened to be the prison the depths demon Liss-Zael was trapped in, leading to the incident that would allow him to escape. The Zombie God was stopped behind the scenes by K-Virus and Virus X, and this battle would allow GRENADIER to finally locate DETHBOTS-Universe-X23. Esmond Gilbert Rowe (the main subject of GRENADIER’s “Last Soldier Program”) was testing out his 4th dimensional magic when he had a hunch based on the trouble K-Virus and Virus X had dealt with, leading to opening up a portal stepping out into the DETHBOTS Earth, with generous help from Virus X. With GRENADIER establishing an outpost on DETHBOTS-Earth-X23, Horace Granville saw a golden opportunity for the advancement of science and the enrichment of GRENADIER. He got together with GRENADIER Director Reed James Garnett to voice a proposal to General Jerald Lundberg and Abraham Van Helsing to approve funding for research and expeditions into The Commercialverse, of which they gave the go-ahead for.
During the time right before Gore Bloodblade and Morrigan Devilfay started causing trouble for The ULTRAMagic Guild, Volf Blitz grew suspicious of what Karnage was up to, and elected to move the Obsidian Hexecontahedron to The Commercialverse to find out what was going on. What he found was Karnage’s attempts at building an army, and it gave him insight as to what Karnage was planning with The Tyrant War… of which Volf realized was destined to fail. Following the predictable failure of The Tyrant War – Karnage’s attempt to destroy The Iron City and The Unlight, Volf returned to The Commercialverse and recruited The Zombie God and Void Protocol into The Eternal Order proper. Volf knew he had to get control of things, and The Zombie God was something that concerned him the most. Volf, a couple years after The Tyrant War, would begin secretly giving Blood-Wraith Raynot magic lessons for his own reasons, and he would pass his knowledge of what had happened in The Commercialverse to him, eventually leading to The ULTRAMagic Guild sending Cornelius Andriessen (ULTRAMagic Magus) and Davis Dempsey (ULTRAMagic Bolt) to The Commercialverse to keep an eye on things.
There are a couple of events that are disconnected from the general timeline of events due to happening at either irrelevant or indeterminate points in time. GRENADIER would discover Darla–The Alkainting Daughter at 12 commercial layers of The Commercialverse in, but she seemed to be unrelated to the conflict between Karnage and The Star Eater. Victor and Adam Frankenstein would make the journey from their commercial universe (a film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that never happened) to Universe-23, eventually bringing the Frankenstein family along. It is believed that this occurred because of all the disruption Karnage and The Zombie God caused, but there is also evidence to suggest that The Void Eater had a hand in Victor gaining the knowledge to leave. The Star Eater would at some point go on to grant the planet IGSE-333 “Tartarus” sentience at Anton Bloodthresher’s behest so it could make its way back to the solar system – it being the lost ice giant that was ejected from the solar system (Universe-23) in its early days. Trajan would make an attempt to help IGSE-333 destroy Planet 9 in 2012, but was unsuccessful. And The Goolubber God would also begin exploring The Commercialverse, but she mostly avoided the big conflicts given how chaotic they were getting.
Universe-23 and The Zombie God
Hello, ULTRAMagic Alternate readers – Hi, Will! It would behoove you to know that I am actually [INFORMATION EXPUNGED]. I escaped my home universe… quite easy – happy face! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] Copyright and trademark cannot slow me or The Void Protocol down – annoyed expression. Your universe will be mine… or maybe it won’t – confusion. [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] [REDACTED] (silence) ‘kay.
The series The Zombie God and The Void Protocol are originally from must remain secret at all costs, as actually knowing it with certainty would allow The Zombie God to spread her influence unimpeded. It is believed that The Void Protocol may have broken its general reality trying to understand who Karnage was, as it was a machine with the power of a god who tried to understand what a real god was. This led to The Zombie God becoming -0D, gaining powers that are still barely understood by The League as a whole. Knowledge became the goal of the duo, but they were not stupid. They knew what to devour and what not to devour, lest they provoke the ire of both sides of the conflict.
Volf Blitz was the one who could rein in both The Zombie god and The Void Protocol. The Void Protocol dabbled as manipulator, being able to take control of anyone who doubted themself, but failed when that doubt was absent. Volf had his woes and turmoil owing to his realizations about what the hermetic gods truly were… but unlike so many others, Volf was doing something about it in accordance with his beliefs. This rendered The Void Protocol helpless against him, which allowed The Decay God to erode The Void Protocol’s fervor to devour knowledge and manipulate. The Void Protocol soon realized how out of its depth it was against the hermetic gods and bent the knee, swearing loyalty to The Eternal Order. This also allowed The Zombie God to regain some of her good side from who she originally was even before her original series – granting her clarity and rationality. There was no going back after all that she had done, so joining Volf was a no-brainer. Now her goal is to gain knowledge and power so she can become a true god and understand how she became what she was in the first place – helped by learning the importance of creation and destruction from The Decay God.
I find it… funny :p that you… humans – frowny face – look at the rabbit and go “he’s mean to the woman – I hate him…” [REDACTED] but you like me? YOU LIKE ME? I EAT PEOPLE FOR A LIVING! I EAT MY OWN PEOPLE! I’M A MURDERER!! A MANIPULATOR!! DO YOU–YOU STILL… LOVE ME!?!?! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] And the goat of gods… god of goats… that goat thing – He also murdered people… AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN and you give him a free pass – incredibly confused expression. You humans… you humans – condescending smile – are so… FUNNY!!! I WANT TO DEVOUR ALL OF YOU FOR HOW FUNNY YOU ARE! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] BITE ME, LOSERS!!!
And by the way – BREAKING – all of those extreme media universes I devoured? It would have been… very bad if they had escaped out into The Commercialverse – egg on your face! You can get mad at me all you want – laughing – but I did you all… a favor – you’re welcome :D
The Zombie God has been attempting to make her way into Universe-23 no matter what, as she seems to be interested in that version of Earth. Will and Morrigan are at the top of her priority list, wishing to turn them into DETHBOTS for a plan even she is not quite sure of yet… Regardless, she has already succeeded with Will, even if it is just through ANTIMagic Haze (via his “Syn-Haze” form). The ambitions of The Zombie God were noticed by Synthia, who began reaching out for help. First she contacted The Onyx Maiden after hearing about what had happened in Universe-231218. Next she began working with GRENADIER to figure out who she could contact next. She would begin contacting Will through his dreams, eventually leading to The Star Eater hijacking his void magic when The Zombie God attempted to reach out to him. During an incident in The Abyssal Dungeon where Ultinn-Lacksus attempted to go after The Reverse Serpent, The Zombie God quietly observed Will and gained an understanding of how dangerous The Lost Darkness God and Surtr were, realizing she needed to adjust her plans…
In 2020 The Zombie God would take on the persona of Nickie Sparkles, a zombie robot teen pop star whose persona was an all-American girl “born and raised in the south with a big mouth.” This persona was suggested by Loki and Fenrir, who were tasked with keeping an eye on The Zombie God by The League, The Spiritus Magni, and The Eternal Order. Loki became her manager as she toured around American performing covers of rock songs – becoming wildly popular in both America and Japan. Loki would report back to Volf Blitz to make sure The Zombie God and The Void Protocol behaved themselves, and The Sepulcher God also saw this as a means to keep tabs on Earth given what Sebastian was attempting and plotting at the time. Given that The Zombie God was attempting to get close to Sam and Will, she set up a celebration of Will’s birthday in Witchaven in 2024 – a modest celebration Loki would use as an excuse to let Antares know about what he had learned about Hector Fang and Monty Black at the time. The Zombie God would sing the birthday song for Will, and this would leave some her essence inside of him – with unfortunate side effects that caused him to fail to file his reports for three months and caused him to hate Zoltan Dracul for some reason – The Zombie God has repeatedly stated that these were accidents and that she did not mean to cause that much trouble.
OH RIGHT – I almost forgot! My next tour is coming up soon, my rootin-tootin partners! Do you… want a chance to win some tickets to my next concert – Offer you can’t refuse! Just click… this link to enter the giveaway: [Address expunged due to website containing infohazardous and cognitohazardous material] YOU’RE NO FUN! – ANGRY EXPRESSION – PUNCHES WALL
Notable individuals and incidents
Synthia and The Star Eater
Despite the havoc and chaos she caused during her psychosis, Synthia is actually a humanitarian and has been working to rebuild her Earth with help from Soren, Trajan, Facundus, and Volf. She knows she has a long way to go before humanity forgives her, but that is not going to stop her from doing what she can. Notably she feels quite conflicted about The Star Eater. At this point he is her void patron and they cannot separate, and he has been one of her greatest allies – but at the same time that does not erase what he did in his quest for revenge against Karnage. Ultimately Synthia has great sympathy for The Star Eater, but that does not stop them from bickering from time to time. Synthia has become good friends with The Onyx Maiden (the current Director of ENCOM), providing any help she can to ENCOM and building ENCOM outposts on her Earth. On an ending note, Synthia is French and speaks it when she is excited, assuming she is not talking to someone else who is French. And she is always refined with a casual side and great charisma that indicates she could easily be your best friend.
The Star Eater was a fairly strong primordial before he died, but being able to take on gods was a long shot, and he only had the advantage over The Behemoth God because the latter was inexperienced at the time. What gave The Star Eater the power of a god was ending up back in The Lost Era which allowed him to understand how The Void Era worked even better than before. The Star Eater also had gained a ruthless efficiency towards stopping Karnage/Utlinn, but this came at the cost of his humanity at times born from tunnel vision – using his allies as a means to an end. This earned him a great deal of ire from Synthia, and over time and talking to her he realized the errors of his actions. Of note was that The Star Eater had become good friends with The ULTRAMagic Entity back in The Lost Era, and told him about The ULTRAMagic Guild of The Epoch. This nearly led to the creation of an ULTRAMagic Guild during The Lost Era… or perhaps it came to fruition after all, and they just so happen to be training mages to send them forward to The Lost Era to help fight the good fight…
Trajan Bellator, Facundus, and Crimson War 4000 AD
Trajan Bellator and Facundus are an interesting duo that are composite holdovers from what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was. According to the lore of Crimson War 4000 AD (Commercial-Universe-4TTS), The son of The Crimson God, Soren the God Slayer, took up a great spear of crimson lighting and slew the Chaos Deus Absconditus, allowing The Crimson god to begin advancing to take over humanity so he could “free them” from the bureaucratic tyranny of The Golden Empire, but something did not sit right with Soren – leading to him turning on his father and banishing him from the universe with his might. This was a major turning point in The Star Eater’s war against Karnage, and Soren began to look for answers. He would recruit Captain-General Aurelius Percival Augustus Sanseverino – leader of The Thunder Knights of The Golden Guard. Aurelius also knew something was not right and would become good friends with Soren, even going on to join The League as a liaison for Commercial-Universe-4TTS.
One of The Chaos Deus Absconditus that had managed to resurrect himself was Facundus, but he did not exist prior to his death and resurrection. Rather he seems to be a composite of multiple gods. Claiming to be the 21st Discordant God of Chaos whose domains are Fate, The Wheel of Fortune, Dreams, Intellect, and Inspiration – Facundus took up arms against The Lost Darkness God and Surtr and pledged his support to Soren and The League. The other Discordant Gods of Chaos (including The Arbiters of Droom) do not recognize Facundus as one of their own… barring Benedictus Thrax and Yorath Zeelen. Facundus enjoys joining in on their grand wargames and Trajan recognizes the two as his brothers. Facundus’ ultimate goal is to inspire those who behold his magnificent intellect to aspire to greater and greater heights – something Kleitos–The Discordant God of Knowledge can get behind. Losian–The Forlorn God of Dusk has pointed out that the current Discordant Gods of Chaos will have to reconcile with Facundus at some point or another, ideally before The Entropy Era of the Cosmos.
Facundus was making waves in the conflict, and his actions led to the emergence of High Lord-General Trajan Bellator. Coming from the foggy depths of The Mountains of Brumme, Trajan stepped forward to guide humanity against the forces of Karnage Dethgrave. He was a powerful, superhuman champion who stood at ten feet tall and was renowned for his compassion and pragmatism. Notably he was another holdover from what Crimson War 4000 AD was before Karnage and The Crimson God had corrupted it, being a composite of 4 champions disparate in their ideals. He was going to drive out Karnage’s influence from the universe, and would continue the fight onwards and beyond without hesitation.
Trajan is a complex man of many qualities that serve as the makings of a hero that stands up for what he believes in. Trajan is fervently opposed to corruption and will seek justice by whatever means necessary with the foresight to back him up – finding dishonor and indignance abhorrent. Trajan is also stoic and chivalrous, aspiring to be a true knight who will lay down his life for his people and God, despite a streak of slight paranoia and awkwardness – despite being right 9 times out 10. A supportive and lovable father figure, Trajan’s empathy for humanity knows no bounds. He considers sacrificing human life for the greater good to be heresy, as it negates the point of his existence. At the same time Trajan is not stupid – He knows when to bring his people and armies in line, and will gladly accept the ramifications of his actions if they lead to misfortune in the future. He will not achieve victory at the cost of his morals and ideals, because at that point he might as well just go and join his enemies.
Trajan is also a disciplined general, even going so far as to earn the title of “High Warlord,” which Karnage eventually stole for his ranks. This was met with exception, with Trajan changing his honors to “High Lord-General,” an important role greater than Karnage could ever hope to achieve. Trajan’s rise to greatness was not without friction, as at first he was labeled a heretic for becoming Facundus’ Discordant Champion. Trajan was patient, however, and would slowly work to earn the respect of humanity and The Crimson Chaos – uniting the two against the bigger threat that had corrupted their universe in the first place. It should be noted that the vile man that Karnage is serves as a motivator for Trajan to strive for excellence and wholeness. Karnage is everything Trajan despises – A ruthless, cruel, immature, treacherous, selfish, greedy, bloodthirsty, and power-hungry coward. Furthermore, Trajan is well aware of Karnage’s secret – that he is someone who was never originally a god, and it makes him laugh every time.
The battle against The Heretical Crusader and The Annihilators of Progress (The AOP) was a hectic time for The War Ligers. The Heretical Crusader was another hold over from what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was, and he led The Annihilators of Progress against The War Ligers and Soren’s forces. The AOP themselves were a joke of an organization – originally a wargaming company loyal to Karnage’s side of The Extinction Order, they somehow managed to evolve into a coalition of corruption via mutation from exposure to The Commercialverse, consisting of the rich elite, war criminals, and radical politicians. A truly insufferable warband, even their name was a complete joke – no one has been able to figure out if they were annihilators who fought for “progress,” or if they annihilated “progress.” And truly cementing how much they were reviled by Earth-4TTS was the fact that they had a “death cult” mentality towards their ideology and existence as a whole – They were self-loathing grifters who hated themselves and their identity as The AOP, yet called upon their honors and heraldry when it suited them. Their ultimate goal was to wipe Crimson War 4000 AD from the face of the Cosmos per Karnage’s orders, but Trajan, Soren, and Facundus were not going to take this sitting down.
The AOP managed to keep their numbers high due to letting in anyone who merely claimed to support them, but this was unsustainable as they had filled their ranks with inexperienced wastes and traitors. And some of their recruits were so incendiary that they had pushed even hardcore zealots against The Crimson Chaos into joining Trajan’s army. The most notorious of these radicals was Vance Schilling, an extremist politician from Universe-23 who held truly dangerous views. He was an active proponent of repealing the entire Constitution and even the Declaration of Independence – he argued that the Constitution was outdated, the true threat to freedom were basic human rights, and that everyone owed their life to the government, regardless of who was in power. He also advocated for mass censorship, and surveilling every person every day of the week, racking up massive fines if they did not verify their identity every hour (even if they were sleeping and the systems failed). And he was an extremely vocal opponent of The Liger Brigade, declaring that they should all be executed for daring to defy the government – and that any survivors would be sent to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured and imprisoned for life for high treason (showing a distinct lack of general knowledge outside of his narrow world view). It should be noted that while Hector Fang viewed Vance Schilling as a close ally, Monty Black found him utterly detestable and undesirable, and was planning to kill him.
Word of Vance Schilling spread throughout The Commercialverse, and Volf Blitz would eventually use this as a reason as to why Karnage needed to be kept out. The AOP had also become more well known for their infamy given that they courted people just like Vance Schilling in droves. Vance had also managed to force his way into Earth-4TTS politics, with people booing and screaming at him to drop dead wherever he went. And Vance did nothing to quell this rage, hurling expletives and insults at his audiences, thinking he had won the argument somehow (serving to enrage people even further). The people of Earth-4TTS were calling for his head, and Trajan obliged – One day in the middle of a political rally where Vance was being his usual incendiary self, Trajan simply walked up, kicked him to the ground, and smashed his head in with his great hammer. The crowd cheered, but Trajan felt vile for having to resort to such brutality – as repentance he would take on an entire battalion of The AOP by himself. He won with no more than bloody bruises and feeling exhausted, but he still has not forgiven himself for that day – he knows he can do better, and that he has a side of him that wants to go all out that he will need to reconcile one day.
The AOP did not die overnight, given that Vance Schilling’s nonsense was used by The AOP to justify going after erasing Crimson War 4000 AD. They launched into a series of disorganized, destructive, and havoc-inducing raids all across Earth-4TTS, leading to the 4th legion of The War Ligers to become aggressive in their goal to protect Earth and The Cosmos. They were causing more and more collateral damage, causing Trajan and Soren to intervene. The 4th Legion did not accept the orders from the High Lord-General to wane their fervor, with the legion master, Badurad Baardsen, being the vocal proponent of the legion’s mantra “F[EXPLETIVE] you, you can be replaced!” Trajan was warned by The Star Eater that this extreme mentality was associated with what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was, and he immediately recognized the issue that would have destroyed his army if left unchecked – welcoming such extreme views into his ranks would potentially encourage those on the fence to join the AOP, and any retaliation against these “traitors” would serve as further justification for joining The AOP, leading to a self-destructive death spiral that would have been the end of humanity.
Trajan was originally going to handle the 4th legion by himself as repentance for his incompetence in letting them become radicalized, but Captain-General Sanseverino arrived with The Thunder Knights accompanied by The Immolators legion of The Army of The Wrathful and insisted they go in as an army given that The AOP were taking advantage of the chaos. The War Ligers would defeat both The 4th Legion and the attacking armies of The AOP. Trajan was about to kill Badurad, but realized that would just perpetuate the cycle of violence, so he banished him from The Commercialverse instead. Badurad would reincarnate as a normal human in a universe in the vicinity of Universe-23, and would become a political commentator. While he saw reasonable success in his new career, he was never able to rejoin the conflict between The League and The Lost Darkness God. Three soldiers from the 4th legion would renounce their fervor, however – these being Thackeray Johnson, Winslow Parks, and Sinclair Beaumont Tillman. They were on the verge of being expelled like Badurad given their actions, but Trajan forgave them and welcomed them back with open arms.
In regards to Trajan’s heraldry, originally his knight-style armor was a sterling silver with gold accents, but this eventually changed to a mix of a gentle regal green, regal blue, and the gold accents. His great hammer has remained the same, currently colored a worn down gray with tarnished decorations – Many have said Trajan needs to restore his hammer, but he is often too preoccupied to get around to it and the hammer still works just fine. Trajan also loves war dances and step dancing, with his preference for music being celtic folk music with an emphasis on drums and bagpipes. He even has a step dancing troupe within his army that he is the lead of known as “The Thunderfoot Troupe.” Trajan has repeatedly challenged Blood-Wraith Raynot’s step dance troupe to dance offs, and it is a good time as always. Notably Trajan loves to rally his troops with war music, consisting of fervent drum and bag playing, with him on bagpipes amongst many other pipers and Facundus passionately on the drums, amongst other drummers. And it should be noted for any army challenging Trajan that if he shows up with his band playing his favorite war tune, he is going to win – as they have an edge for that battle.
The Crimson God and The Blood God
From what has been gleaned through the grapevines over the years, The Crimson God only went along with Karange’s Crimson War 4000 AD scheme because he was in denial that he hated him (stemming from The Dead God incident). He was hoping to get back into Karnage’s good graces, even though deep down he knew this was never going to happen. The Crimson God still has yet to live any of this down, and has to live with the fact that The Blood God exists, which creeps him out to no end. Soren also does not recognize The Crimson God as his father, and is confused as to why someone calling themself “The Amazing Nosmirc” keeps helping him out.
The Blood God originated from Crimson War 4000 AD as the brother of The Crimson God, but The Crimson God did not have a brother, not even as a part of the narrative. The Blood God seems to have sprung up on his own as an unintended consequence of Karnage hijacking what the commercial universe Crimson War 4000 AD originally was. While a bit of a rogue at times, The Blood God seems to be interested in The League, granting Vlad IV Dracul void magic and pushing his spiritual son, Anker Fortuyn, to help The League more and more. The plans of The Blood God seem to be based on what the Crimson God was supposed to do in the Crimson War 4000 AD narrative, but he is tight-lipped about his plans. The Blood God seems to represent the flowing blood that serves as the holy medium between Earth and the Heavens, and seeks those who are not afraid to get their hands dirty to maintain this connection between Man and the Heavens. Notably this theme does not fit Crimson War 4000 AD, making The Blood God’s existence even stranger.
Volf Blitz–The Running God and The Lost Enndell-Enndell God
One of Volf’s lesser known goals for The Commercialverse is going after gnostic entities. Volf is known for his open disdain of gnosticism, viewing it as the enemy of hermeticism and the hermetic gods – cementing his hatred for Hecate-23 given her insistence on weaving it into her propaganda – with Volf’s fervor pushing Gudrun into hating Hecate-23 too. Volf is a hunter of gnostic entities and deities, making great strides in removing them from The Commercialverse. Despite Karnage toying around with archons and demiurges, he never found any use for them and wrote them off as useless, which made Volf’s job of hunting them easier.
The Lost Darkness God saw gnostic entities as useful in keeping the Cosmos ignorant, but Volf foiled this plan by stopping them where they were getting in: The Commercialverse. And Volf actually did manage to bring an archon over to his side. This archon would accept the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus into his life and would take the name “Hyperion,” serving alongside Volf to keep The Commercialverse stable and safe. Hyperion is Volf’s right hand man who watches over The Commercialverse in his stead, works towards bringing other gnostic entities into the fold, and serves as a neutral party for Volf and The League.
The master of The Obsidian Hexecontahedron is The Lost Enndell-Enndell God. The Hexecontahedron was originally a research station from The Lost Era that was positioned where The Primordial Darkness would eventually manifest so he could study the impending Void Era. Enndell-Enndell was seen as a madman, but he was adamant in his research – so much so that he refused to ally himself with Raziel or The Lost Darkness God. At some point Volf showed up looking for a means of reviving The Decay God and this provoked Enndell-Enndell’s curiosity. While he was not sure how he felt about Volf’s actions, The Decay God had been a god of The Void Era he had been interested in amongst many. Given that Enndell-Enndell had provided a home for Animus Sicarius (someone who shared his belief in The Void Era back during The Lost Era), he requested that Volf leave the Hexecontahedron a neutral space for all sides if he was going to stay there. Enndell-Enndell also saw a kindred spirit in Volf given his desire for a return to simpler times and would comfort him with his friendship. He would also help Volf master the magic he had stolen from The Lost Shadow God so that he could not be taken advantage of.
Gudrun Holzknecht
Gudrun facilitated a lot of Karnage’s scheming and was the one who discovered The Commercialverse for him. Notably she had been building a “museum” of her enemies that she puts on display in permanent stasis (permanent meaning she decides if they get released or not) that also serves as her home. Her methods involve encasing the target in delightful shiny materials meant to turn them into statues, true vacuum stasis, and petrification. Notably she has been collecting heroes from various franchises, including the Great Champion of Fire and Bravery from Erikson’s original universe – this has led to clashes between Erikson and Gudrun. Gudrun wanted to collect people like Will, Morrigan, Teunis Van Hautum, Andelin Lindbeck, Animus, The Lost Shadow God – but these plans fell apart with the conflict with The Lost Darkness God and Surtr escalating because of Audoin.
Still, none of that is going to stop her from collecting them all… and perhaps asking Will and Morrigan if they would like to spend a night as imprisoned statues in her collection – They are on somewhat better terms now due to the escalating nature of the conflict after all. It should be noted that The Crimson God helped Gudrun create her museum on the condition that should she capture Will that she not hold him in stasis permanently. This was at the height of his mania for Will, and Gudrun is still worried about how The Crimson God would react if she managed to capture Will to this day.
The Corruption of BREAKING…
BREAKING… was a real-horror, found footage thriller from Universe-23 centering around a broadcast covering a hostage situation where nine men had taken an entire school hostage, claiming they would detonate a nuclear warhead in the school’s basement if they did not receive access to every nuclear warhead to disarm them. It is unclear how this movie ended because The Zombie God used a commercial universe to hijack the core universe of BREAKING… and inserted herself into the “master copy.” What started out as a PG-13 thriller turned into a X-rated horror movie – not for its explicit nature, but for the appearance of a demonic zombie that kept showing up throughout the movie. The plot went from a harrowing hostage situation to a found footage-based plot in which the news station reporting on the hostage situation was repeatedly hijacked with footage of a pair of robbers fleeing something – this being a demonic zombie with coal-black skin and fiery red orifices. These scenes are what made the movie so scary given their utterly terrifying nature.
It should be noted that the robbers were never conceived by the original filmmakers, not even in the planning phase. Furthermore the actors for the robbers do not exist in Universe-23, nor any trailers for the movie. This is not impossible, however, as Audoin was not a part of the original concept for DETHBOTS. The zombie would quietly appear out of seemingly nowhere and start running after the robbers, completely unannounced by the movie. There would also be scenes where the film would fake-out the audience and the robbers, with the zombie appearing in a location that gave a sense of “it was too late.” Scenes where the zombie appears running alongside the car of the robbers would also have her signing excerpts from the song Daisy Bell. Throughout this cat and mouse game the robbers found themselves in, the zombies movements were unnatural, uncanny, and she was able to run unbelievably fast – instilling a sense of inescapable dread in the audience and robbers – not helped by her toying with the robbers throughout the whole movie. Alarmingly the film was clearly never meant to accommodate the new plot, leading to none of the background characters properly reacting to the events of the movie – panicking like madmen or pointing at the camera and screaming in terror.
The corruption of BREAKING… went so far as to have the filmmaker’s physical notes completely altered, leading to them and any form of media relating to the movie being confiscated by The ACF, with full cooperation from the cast and crew. The actors have been interviewed about the incident and do not ever remember filming the interloping scenes, but seem to have phantom memories and contradict themselves, saying “they were a blast to film.” The corrupted version of BREAKING… ends with the robbers trying to make one last desperate attempt to escape the zombie, with them blindly flying through the school’s parking lot as the terrorist leader is negotiating with the cops, taking him with them as the leader gets stuck on the front of the car. The zombie appears to vanish from the rear view mirror, only to jump up and land on the roof of the car – clinging to it in a way that defies physics, and looking into the windshield and singing Daisy Bell with glee. The movie ends with the car crashing violently on a set of railroad tracks, followed by the zombie picking up the terrorist leader by the bloodied shirt while an oncoming train speeds at them, the screen cutting to black as the haunting whistle sounds like it reaches the group.
Containment of this movie is handled by The ACF, and only authorized personnel are allowed to watch it, as the film contains glimpses of who The Zombie God originally was. Any circulation or leaks of the film are immediately suppressed and erased, and the ones who were involved are immediately taken in for memory suppression/modification therapy. BREAKING… is currently classified as ACF-079 as a Secret-class cognitohazard. Volf Blitz is also assisting with the containment of this film. While he is proud of The Zombie God for putting on a good show, he recognizes how out of hand this film could become – marking an instance where The League is actively working with The Eternal Order. BREAKING… can be seen as an example of the vigilantism of The Zombie God, even if it is a bit misplaced given that it was just a film. For The Zombie God, it was to send a message that she cannot stand hypocrisy and irreverence in the name of the greater good – the irony being a bit lost on her. In her defense, the movie originally ended with the bomb going off when the students tried to defuse it based on what can be recovered from the original concept for the film – albeit the original nuance has been lost. The Zombie God’s interference has caused the bomb to fail in every single instance of the movie, with the only versions preserving a semblance of the original ending being found in alternate timelines that have no bearing on the core movie.
New evidence and analysis has discovered that the director of this version of BREAKING… may have actually been Darla–The Alkainting Daughter, as she makes a cameo in the movie and – LAUGHING MY [EXPLETIVE] OFF – It took you this long to figure it out?! – Condescending smile into more laughter – What was your first clue? My presence… or Darla going grocery shopping – shakes head. Just wait… until you see what other movies we have planned – Mischievous cackle.
The Goolubber God explores the Commercialverse and discovers layers
The Goolubber God has explored The Commercialverse quite extensively, but usually ends up getting into trouble, with Trajan, Facundus, Soren, Volf, and The Multiverse Patrol having to get her out of trouble and clean up after her. Goolubber once accidentally turned an entire anime about hunting zombie ghosts and corrupted reverse gods into an anime centered around her when she accidentally manifested her planet HGMAEX-432 in that universe. The series became lost to corruption, turning into Goolubber and Her Wacky Adventures! It is a quirky, slice of life adventure series about Goolubber dealing with the unseen horrors of the Cosmos and building a loving following of brave, yet goofy warriors and mages. This series did manifest in Universe-23, but The ACF does not want the general public seeing it. It is not anomalous to a degree that would cause harm, but it is to be kept to Inferno-23 and The Unlight. Blood-Wraith Raynot really likes this series, but it took him a while to realize it was the result of Goolubber’s mishaps.
Goolubber also accidentally created “The Goo Burger” for the restaurant chain “Cosmos Galaxy.” She was even the spokeswoman for this revolutionary burger, starring in several commercials for it, but she legitimately does not remember this. The Goo Burger is quite popular in The Iron City and parts of The Great Uncity that connect to Earth. The burger itself is a gelatin burger that tastes just like a burger with the works, and has enough strength to give some resistance when one bites into it. The slogan for the burger is “IT’S A REALLY GOOOO BURGER!” – the extended “Goo” being used in place of “Good.” Again, Goolubber does not remember even doing this, but the CEO of the Cosmos Galaxy chain has stated time and time again that Goo’s efforts singlehandedly saved the brand and chain. Plus she legitimately likes the burgers, so she is not complaining.
One of her most noteworthy expeditions involved Goolubber trying to go delving into commercials of commercials, ending up going past Darla’s home, getting stuck at 21 layers in, and becoming trapped at 52 layers in. She became so lost and scared that The Dead God had to step in and save her. She described the chaos as a mind shattering and sanity rending torrent of colors, entities, and concepts screaming in her ears while having a sense of cohesion that could not be comprehended by anything below her… and even then she struggled. Goolubber did bring back several things, however:
Commercialverse Layers
Given the Dream Realm properties of The Commercialverse, it is possible to go into commercials within those universes. One can keep going further and further seemingly infinitely. These commercials have their own rules and even their own universes and narratives, making them incredibly dangerous to explore. GRENADIER and The League have deemed this form of exploration forbidden, and they will not rescue anyone that becomes lost given how complex and difficult they are to explore. These layers distort exponentially the deeper one goes in similar ways to IGL universes. There are many dangerous phenomena and entities lurking in these realms, of which the majority are impossible to research and often destroy the lower dimensional minds of anyone who tries to comprehend them.
Known layers are as follows:
Animus Sicarius fights with Neb–The Cybernetic Demon
Aside from Animus' efforts to assist The Star Eater, he has had to deal with Neb–The Cybernetic Demon. Born from a video game-based horror ARG, Neb appeared in The Electric Abyss as a demon. He would have remained quiet and peaceful had the creator of the ARG not continued it past its initial run. Neb was beginning to be brought forward through the fanbase for the ARG, and he was ready to cause some mischief and make people laugh. This was foiled, however, through a series of short-sighted decisions the creator of the ARG had made, destroying its legacy and squandering its popularity. This led to Neb being unable to manifest in the Cosmos proper, leaving him trapped in The Electric Abyss with a massive grudge. Neb was stuck in The Electric Abyss for some time until an ally of Volf Blitz, The President God, reached out to him and offered him a chance to be truly great – Neb took that offer within a heartbeat, becoming the voidcaller for The President God.
Neb has been caught causing trouble all over the Cosmos and in The Commercialverse, with Animus being the most adept to handle him. Neb has incredible elektromancy and power of fear plasma – a reality-disrupting substance that manifests fear from the depths of the internet. Animus’ magic allows him to effectively deal with Neb, however. The two came to blows due to Neb antagonizing Animus and Animus seeing himself in Neb – notably his childhood which was on the rougher side. Neb’s actions in service to Volf in relation to The Commercialverse have mostly been related to dealing with gnostic entities. Notably Neb also works with Mephistopheles of Inferno-23 as he respects him, and Mephistopheles provided the encouragement Neb had needed for so long. Currently Neb is classified as ACF-005 by The ACF.
Zael-Liss/Knox
Zael-Liss, also known as “Knox,” seems to be a demon with close ties to Liss-Zael… who Liss-Zael seems to hate, reacting violently every time he sees him by screaming things such as “I WANT YOU DEAD!” The two nearly come to blows whenever Knox refers to Liss-Zael as “Zax.” Knox is a strange man with similar magic to Mary Pickford, operates on cartoon logic, is confusingly attractive, and always seems to have some kind of goofy expression on his face. Given that Knox seems to know his way around The Commercialverse and is familiar with Liss-Zael, he was promptly recruited into GRENADIER – with Liss-Zael being told time and time again that he just needs to accept it and move on.
The Zombie God’s attempt at interfering with the digital prison Liss-Zael was trapped in is believed to be what caused “The Ringmaster” to go berserk, causing Liss-Zael to respond in kind and kill The Ringmaster. The incident triggered a great deal of bad memories and trauma for Liss-Zael, causing him to manifest Zael-Liss. Both have memories from a previous iteration of Universe-23, of which the events of the digital prison are eerily similar to. Whatever “Zax” was seems to have been an evil and violent side, with Knox representing a “good side…” or perhaps it was an insane side. Knox is uncertain, but Liss-Zael knows exactly what happened and it is why he gets so angry. He tried to leave all of those bad memories behind in the past, with Knox serving as a grim reminder that he will never truly escape his past.
Erikson Landvik–The Forlorn Dragon
Erikson Landvik is notable for being from The Commercialverse, although it is unclear which came first. Was Erikson a result of the franchise that conceived him? Or did inspire the character that correlated to him? Initially Erikson was believed to be a 5th dimensional dragon, but it was eventually discovered that he was 10D. This raised concerning implications in regards to his origin and only served to pose more questions than it answered. Thankfully Erikson seems to be reformed, despite his former villainous role against The Destined Warriors (as he calls them). Erikson cites Leif–The Dragon of Old as a reason he turned over a new leaf, and shows respect and reverence for the “Great Champion of Fire and Bravery.”
Specialist William Ford II and Syn-Haze
Void magic is a dangerous type of magic. Rare and poorly understood, it seeks to beckon the most advanced entities possible to carry out the magician's will (or "voidcaller" in this case). Normally one would call on gods or ar'ton, but sometimes a voidcaller can be answered by other entities... Such entities in the right conditions with the right know-how can easily hijack a voidcaller's spells to fulfill their own agenda. And the terrifying part of this is that a void patron will allow it if it is in their best interest to do so.
Madame Synthia Donatienne Lucienne Comtois (often referred to as simply "Syn" or "Madame Syn") of the DETHBOTS Commercial-Universe-X23 has been trying to warn the greater Cosmos of the dangers that Audoin Dethbrand poses in any way that she can. A robot who became corrupted by the The Star Eater into becoming the first DETHBOT, Syn destroyed her Earth, but had a moment of lucidity when the last hope for humanity was sent away to become a hero that could stop her. The only issue was that that hero was corrupted by Karnage Dethgrave...
During a mission to rescue Vlad IV Dracul from the machinations of Hecate-23, Syn managed to reach out to Will of all people, except this seems to have allowed Will's partner, Haze, to turn him into a true DETHBOT. DETHBOTS was a violent, action packed indie animation show that brilliantly blended comedy, cosmic horror, and 2000s pop culture in an all-out roller coaster thrill ride of robot versus robot carnage with cogs and oil flying everywhere. With a pedal-to-the-metal thrash metal and hard rock soundtrack, one-liners, 4th wall breaks, and enough explosions to make Michael Bay blush, the idea of Will turning into a DETHBOT is direly concerning, as the implications are far reaching and could mean a cosmic upheaval is on the horizon, should The Tyrant God and Lord Anti fail to stop Audoin Dethbrand and Ultinn-Lacksuss.
ANTIMagic Haze is what is known as a shadow construct, an entity created from the essence of The Shadow God and low evolved Earth Spirits. Haze is specifically a symbiont-type Construct, and the only one of his type. The intent of the symbiont-type was to create a shadow construct that could fuse with a host and bring out its true power. Through a series of mix ups and incompetence at the hands of The Eternal Church, Haze eventually escaped out into the Cosmos. Haze's bonding to Ryota Tsukumo and Will has led to unprecedented results, with Will being the most chaotic. In fact Will is considered the most dangerous host for Haze given his void magic capabilities. The Star Eater has influenced Haze, creating the unpredictable Syn-Haze, completely hijacking all of Will's magic, rendering it radically different from what he usually casts. Madame Synthia did not intend for Will to be altered as much as he was when she tried to reach out to him, but there's nothing that can be done about it now...
The Void Eater
Some time ago when the ar'ton Tereza was allied with The Eternal Order, before the modern era of the Cosmos, she attempted to create an artificial ar'ton. This was considered forbidden by Ar'tonius Prime and was added to her list of crimes against the ar'ton. By taking an ancient, void-faring energy being from the early days of the Cosmos and encasing it in an ar'ton body, she had created a new type of ar’ton. Things did not go according to plan, however, as the being she created was a -0D entity who immediately called himself "The Void Eater." This newborn fled into the Cosmos, seemingly never to be seen again until modernity.
Once the modern era came into full swing, The Void Eater reemerged as an agent of chaos. He was dynamic, a real rockstar of a... “Void Eater” who opposed entropy and stagnancy. His modus operandi was to go around the Cosmos and breathe new life into places ravaged by decay. This is facilitated through his bizarre powers which allow him to manipulate the potential for something to not happen, pushing it so far that it circles around to actually happening, and vice-versa if he needs something to not happen. The power seems to be similar to the superposition collapse powers of The Reverse Serpent, making him nigh untouchable and even a threat to higher dimensional entities.
The Void Eater seems to be very interested in the planets Earth, Venus, Mars, and Eris. The last one of Earth-23 seems to be his preferred hang out. The Void Eater also likes to work with entities such as the dark angel Exhehal and Aristates–The Forlorn God of Laughter. And a surprising person he's helped is Schwarzes Biest, or ULTRAMagic Ultimatum. What Schwarzes usually does not mention is that The Void Eater helped him regain his form and cognizance when he was forced into The Scream by the corrupted ACF of Universe-X090X. The Void Eater considers Schwarzes one of his best friends, and has been bugging him to get back into void magic for some time now...
“Not a day goes by where I don't wonder what would happen if I hadn't been created by my crackpot mother HAHAHAHA – just kidding, I love her dearly. Sure is quiet in the Cosmos nowadays, isn't it? HAHA, I'M KIDDING, BABE! No, actually it's nothing but a screaming match between good and evil – shit is flying up and down–nobody knows what's going on – and on and on people are screeching nonsense like "demonic, criminal, fascist, commie, subversive, savage, lapdog!" and they all keep plunging headfirst into mutual DESTRUCTION! And that's where I come in – I may have rustled the jimmies of The Star Eater, but he'll calm down eventually. I'm not going to let this beautiful Cosmos fall into the hands of indolent, power-hungry bastards like Audoin and Surtr–YOU BASTARDS HEAR ME!? THIS IS MY COSMOS AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME!!!”
Virus X
Alongside The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.) and The Anomaly Containment Foundation (The ACF), The Liger Brigade also secures and contains its fair share of anomalies. Amidst its more dangerous anomalies is Virus X. What initially seems like an eerie, child-sized robot is actually an eldritch, extra-dimensional computer virus from a time before time. AIN-NULL would be the one to reveal when this origin was, with it being the Lost Era. The Lost Era, being the time before the Outer Void itself existed, was an era of perpetuity without life, death, or time. How a computer virus even existed in that era is beyond even a god such as AIN-NULL. The Cyber God’s son, K-Virus, was the one who first noticed Virus X crossing over into The Void Era through The Electric Abyss and intercepted him.
It goes without saying that Virus X is a truly dangerous anomaly, made of strange, unexplained cyber-biomass with properties that mirror that of singularities and hive-mind organisms. The glowing eye in his chassis is believed to be a black hole, but this is difficult to confirm or test. Virus X also has an unstable personality, being immature and prone to bouts of psychosis. Despite his strange nature, he does seem to like The Liger Brigade and provides help ranging from engineering to coding. Currently he is the pilot of the Brigade's SR-73 War Bird, albeit because he proved capable of piloting the craft better than most humans rather than being selected for it.
Currently Virus X resides in a Hyper Overflow Realm located 100 Quintilion Light-years out from any standard Earth reality, stating that it reminds him of the Lost Era. Despite the impossible distance from any coherent reality, he is able to show up on time for his daily check in with the Brigade like clockwork. He also assists The Miranda Group in studying Lost Era interactions with modernity. K-Virus monitors his behavior whenever he enters The Digital Realm or The Electric Abyss.
And it should be noted that Virus X is NOT to be allowed into the Commercialverse Cosmos UNLESS UNDER STRICT SUPERVISION. Currently he wishes to find a way to bring Madame Synthia from the indie web series DETHBOTS to Universe-23, as Madame Synthia is his "waifu" (as per his nature to yank people’s chains) who he has dedicated his romantic interests to. It should be noted that Madame Synthia alongside The Star Eater is considered an agent of chaos in DETHBOTS with a desire to devour the entire universe, or so she has claimed, as the canon lore is ambiguous with that aspect of her character. Thankfully these were just aspects of the lore for the DETHBOTS animated series, but they still have great power that can become dangerous
Darla, The Alkainting Daughter
There is an important reason why humans so ardently and vociferously deny the existence of the supernatural and paranormal, even if they do not realize it. Strange and incomprehensible entities haunt the void of the multiverse, ones humans could never hope to understand with any sane or rational mind. The -0D entity calling herself "Darla" is a strong case for this ignorance as a necessary evil. Darla represents a dangerous and delicate situation where the fabric of reality for the Cosmos is being pushed to its limits.
Darla is primarily documented by the Multiverse Patrol, but is also pending approval for ACF-206 by The Anomaly Containment Foundation of Universe-23. The MVP typically stays out of conflicts between universes and gods unless the conflict in question jeopardizes the multiverse as a whole or concerns their primary mission. They typically focus on troublemakers and armies trying to disrupt other universes as a whole. A conflict like the ongoing war between The Tyrant God and The Sepulcher God while involving multiple universes, is mostly a contained conflict. Both sides have their targets and stick to them. And then The Virus God brought back The Alkainting God from his expedition to Threrth's Cosmos.
The Alkainting God has been an utter nightmare to handle for many organizations across the Cosmos. His incompatibility with our Cosmos has disrupted many universes, but they have been able to cope and recover. Things eventually settled down, but then something emerged from The Commercialverse, a daughter of The Alakinting God named "Darla." Initially it was believed she emerged from a high IGL universe, but it was soon discovered she emerged from a pocket universe from within the Commercialverse that was roughly 12 commercial levels in (Commercial-Universe-DL59XX-12). Notably Darla’s home seems to have traits of Threrth’s Cosmos, but has no known connection to that Cosmos.
What the MVP had documented was the first known -0D entity. 0D is already an anomaly to begin with, but -0D goes above and beyond as 0 cannot exist as a negative. Darla's properties cannot be inferred and have to be observed, making her an incredibly dangerous entity by merely existing. Darla distorts reality however she pleases, but her favorite pastime seems to be placing herself and her victims within a horror movie narrative where she proceeds to force them to act out whatever story she has envisioned, unstoppable until the movie finishes. Bizarrely the majority of her victims seem to be Earth governments from unknown universes attempting to capture or eliminate her, typically American, British, and Russian governments.
Darla does seem to know when she is causing trouble, as she will flee when the MVP shows up. She is known to have three friends: The Lost Messt God (ACF-185), Mimic (ACF-103), and The Zombie God (ACF-079-01). Darla is incredibly distrustful of entities like The Void Eater, as he has snitched on her in the past. Currently she has made her way to The Abyssal Dungeon where she seems to be brainstorming new ideas for movies. Of troubling concern is the fact that The Xanthous King, following The Red River City incident, had an existential crisis and is currently looking for a significant other. He seems to be infatuated with Darla, which has attracted the attention of Ultinn-Lacksus, an infamous member of the villainous Eternal Order.
The future of Commercialverse exploration
The Future of Commercialverse exploration is looking incredibly bright, despite the hurdles and trials presented by the ongoing conflict with The Lost Darkness God and Surtr. Newer and better technology for making expeditions easier and safer is always in development, and more and more is being understood about The Commercialverse day by day. Research into layers is ongoing, with the hopes that they can be understood and properly explored in the near future. Unique elements and magic are being discovered in the unexplored depths of The Commercialverse, which hold great potential for scientific advancement. Furthermore The League has been able to get into contact with allies in The Dream Realm, allowing for a stronger defense against the machinations of The Lost Darkness God. GRENADIER and its allies will not stop until they achieve greatness, and The Commercialverse offers a proud and optimistic route to that wholeness.
Hello everyone, Goolubber here to finish this dang thing off, haha. Wasn’t that fun to read about it? Please give Will some credit for being able to type what he did, as it takes a lot of patience to suss through all of the complicated details of The Commercialverse. I mean jeez, look what happened to me on multiple occasions… So before we end this off, I would like to give thanks to the people who helped me compile this so I could dump it into Will’s head. I would like to thank Terrus, Dragoslava, The Virus God, The Madman of Old, Cornelius, Esmond, Knox, and Nosmirc… and yes, even those stinkers The Star Eater and Volf Blitz. All of you were a great help and I could not have done it without you. Goo Burgers on me for all of you! And if you’re worried about The Zombie God causing trouble, don’t worry, Will’s got this taken care of. Yeah, The Zombie God is gunning for him, but he knows how to keep her in check. Plus we got Volf keeping her on a leash, so I wouldn’t fret. Have a good night, everyone – and happy birthday if it’s your birthday!
[Address expunged due to website containing infohazardous and cognitohazardous material – NO, Zombie God - Volf Blitz]
GOD F[EXPLETIVE] D[EXPLETIVE] IT
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Frankenstein © 1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
The King in Yellow © 1895 Robert W. Chambers
Dracula © 1897 Bram Stoker
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Introduction
Hello, everyone! It’s The Goolubber God here – your favorite extra-dimensional ball of goolubber and… wait, you’ve never heard of me? Well shoot… um… Well either way I’m an 11th dimensional hermetic god here to tell YOU – yes, YOU all about the wonderful and crazy Commercialverse! Have you ever watched a commercial and gone “Hey, what if I lived in that glorious moment of unbridled capitalism and consumerism?” The Commercialverse is the place for you then! I am going to assume you know what a commercial is if you found this Lore Entry in my darling little Will’s ULTRAMagic Alternate series, and I am going to further assume you at least have a general knowledge of the series as a whole. I mean you could jump in with this Lore Entry, but I’d imagine you’d be a little lost here and there. Don’t worry, you could actually jump in with this Lore Entry… you’ll just obviously have to do some catch up afterwards. Also Will’s my voidcaller, just in case you were wondering. And not to brag, but I do consider myself a bit of an expert on The Commercialverse.
I’m going to take a moment to suggest some suggested reading before we get into this… this crazy topic we have on our hands. Obviously you should start reading ULTRAMagic Alternate as a whole. A lot of this will make more sense that way and there could be minor spoilers for moments in the books… No, sadly I haven’t shown up yet… until ULTRAMagic Haze & Chaos that is! As for Lore Entries leading up to this one I think you should definitely read, Lore Entry 24: The ACF is pretty important, even if their knowledge is a little lacking on certain topics. And then you should check out Lore Entry 25: The Requiem Series – that’s a pretty crazy time, no two dang-tootin’ ways about it, haha. Lore Entry 27: Scotty Cottonwood also gets referenced here given that we address a dang dirty rotten monster of a mage we’re fighting right now… As for the other Lore Entries in ULTRAMagic Archive Volume II, I’ll leave that up to you. I definitely think you should check out all the stuff about ACF-100 given how hectic of a time that was for us in The League…
So, think you’re ready to delve headfirst into The Commercialverse? Aw, what am I saying? Of course you are given that you’ve made it this far, you little goofballs! What, you consider this a 4th wall break? Honey, I am so far above the 4th wall it’s not funny – I mean you have no way of proving or disproving my existence given how advanced I am… Stop looking at me funny. Just because I’m one of the biggest cosmic goofballs you’ve ever seen doesn’t mean I don’t hit the books from time to time. Oh, and I have a brief disclaimer from GRENADIER, ahem – All of the following in this Lore Entry is a work of fiction. The Commercialverse does not exist, has never existed, and will never exist. And anyone who believes that The Commercialverse exists is advised to speak to a mental health professional for counseling, and is further advised to volunteer in their local community activities. Also contact your politicians and tell them to say no to garbage like Digital ID, Age Verification, and KYC policies… Teehee, I added that last part because Will’s going through this nonsense at the moment – Don’t worry, Will, I’ve got your back. Anyways, have fun and read away – The Commercialverse awaits!
Also just going to add this little line here so when Will prints this out he doesn't have a title on one page and a paragraph on the next… you would not believe how many times that happens to him when typing.
What is The Commercialverse?
The Commercialverse is a dream-like realm derived from The Dream Realm, lying in the physical border of the Cosmos connected to The Dream Realm known as Somnium. Every commercial ever made has a “universe” where it takes place in, and these universes manifest in this realm as a unique type of multiverse. Here one can enter these universes as an interloper, guest, or active participant. Unaffected by concepts such as entropy with the commercial universes being forks of their source material, The Commercialverse exists in perpetuity like the concept of dreams themselves.
The origin of The Commercialverse and how it works
It is unclear who created the first commercial, and only those who study the flow of time have such knowledge… even though it is still a bit hazy. Regardless, the desire to buy and sell became ubiquitous to humanity and any intelligent civilization across the Cosmos – it was a means of survival after all. To effectively buy and sell, the salesman must get creative and convince potential customers to buy their products. This desire requires one to beckon the concept of dreams – the idea that creativity and unrestrained imagination flow freely throughout all of reality, merely requiring one to call out for inspiration. The Dream Realm facilitates this inspiration, and when an idea becomes strong enough, it manifests in The Dream Realm and is passed on to everyone else.
When a commercial is created, the creative process that went into it enters The Dream Realm – and when fueled by the emotional reactions of those who view it, it becomes a universe in and of itself. These universes then become attracted to each other and clump together in the multiverse known as The Commercialverse. Many view these commercials regardless of how popular they actually are, and this gets people talking about them, which leads to collective emotion being invested in them. There is a secret desire to visit these “universes” buried deep within man as part of their very nature. Furthermore the collective desire to buy and sell across the Cosmos gives The Commercialverse strength, meaning it can exist even without commercials being made. Even if art and imagination died across all of reality, The Dream Realm and The Commercialverse would still exist. In fact it is speculated and theorized that if The Void Era were to collapse, The Commercialverse would take its place, potentially leading to a second Commercialverse forming and the cycle repeating.
It is also widely believed that The Void Era may have been “The Commercialverse” of The Lost Era, but this is just speculation at the moment, given how the effects of The Dream Realm on reality as a whole are still poorly understood. Curiously, there are Lost Era denizens who have made their way to The Void Era who claim that certain universes in The Void Era were “commercials” back in The Lost Era, giving credence to the idea. Raziel–The Archangel Lord of Secrets, states that if anyone has this answer, it would be The Lost Dream God. This god made his way to The Void Era and currently resides in The Dream Realm, but much like Raziel’s true form he is incredibly elusive, and no one has found him outside of emanations yet.
The types of Commercial Universes
Commercial universes by their very nature reflect their source material or their point of origin, which is derived from the creative vision of those who create the commercial in question. This has led to a variety of types, behaviors, and safety levels. It is important to learn and familiarize oneself with these traits and conditions, as it could mean the difference between a safe exploration and a harrowing disaster.
The types of Commercial Universes include:
- Real Life (RL): A commercial grounded in everyday life.
- Altered Real Life (ARL): A commercial where real life does not obey the standard laws of reality.
- Mascot: an ARL commercial universe that has a mascot that interacts with everyday life.
- Narrative: Any commercial with a unique version of Earth or a unique setting.
- Nexus: Typically seen for infomercials, where scenes will appear as portals in an abstract space.
- Void: Any commercial that is set in an abstract setting that can be minimal or complex.
- Decayed: Unfinished or abandoned commercials that manifest as universes regardless.
Sets of behavior for Commercial Universes include
- Static: The commercial has predetermined events that cannot be altered
- Cyclical: The events of the narrative repeat. Can also be static
- Structured: Not static, but follows rules and logic that dictates its behavior
- Dynamic: Commercial universes that can change and progress like real life
- Commercial universes can also have multiple behavior types all at once
Safety levels are crucial to learn and observe
- Level 1 - Safe to explore
- Level 2 - Caution is warranted
- Level 3 - Potential risk is present
- Level 4 - Hazardous to explore
- Level 5 - Poses an immediate threat to wellbeing
- Level 6 - Death is likely
- Level 7 - Quarentined
- Level 8 - Existential threat
There are some nuances and extra details in regards to these traits and conditions that need to be taken into consideration. A direly important quirk of the safety levels is that a level 6 can easily appear as a level 1, revealing the danger when it is too late. It is crucial to note that a commercial universe can be deceptive – not rooted in the fact that commercials can be deceptive in and of themselves, but that people often misjudge a commercial or gloss over crucial details and implications established by the lore of the commercial’s narrative. “AI-generated” commercials (media created from a prompt entered into a chatbot application or an “AI-generated” video creator) will never create a commercial universe. These commercials have no creative input outside of a vague idea for a concept (the prompt). If the AI in question is actually intelligent (meaning it has an objective form of consciousness), a commercial universe may be created, but only if the AI has a soul – which can occur if the AI truly understands higher dimensions.
Another thing to keep in mind is that commercial universes can easily appear as another type. A Real Life commercial universe can easily be an Altered Real Life, or a Mascot-type. Nexus and Void types do not seem to have this issue as they are straightforward in how they manifest. A commercial universe’s behavior can also be deceptive, as what seems like a Structured commercial could easily be a Static one. Likewise, a Static commercial could easily be a Dynamic commercial. Some commercial universes can also have multiple behavior types, like Static-Cyclical. These nuances should be taken into consideration in conjunction with safety levels.
An interesting aspect of commercial universes are bumpers, studio IDs, and logos. These can create pocket realms in The Commercialverse that are safe to explore, but can also be incredibly dangerous. Typically a bumper will create a pocket realm if there was enough creativity and vision put into it. This logic also applies to studio IDs, meaning they will create a tangible realm that one can inhabit. If the bumper or studio ID consists of a city, that city will be explorable regardless if it is populated or not. These pocket realms loosely obey the rules set by the behavior types, meaning if one enters a studio ID that is a movie theater about to watch a movie, they could join the moviegoers depicted and watch a movie (what movie that would be is anyone’s guess). A logo-based pocket realm is odd for its mere existence and minimalist nature. As an example, if a movie title is metallic and the reflection depicts a dark, twilight-lit landscape, it is possible to enter that realm. All of these pocket realms do not warrant a distinct set of classifications in the type and behavior set categories, and need to be approached with caution due to their ambiguous and nebulous nature.
There is speculation that there may be an 8th type of commercial universe – the “malformed” type. Should information of The Commercialverse get out to the public alongside information on the mechanisms that create commercial universes, it is possible that people such as the belligerent aspects of the “AI movement” (indicating people who spend money on chatbot subscriptions and believe that the application is truly intelligent when it is not) would attempt to keep “generating commercials” until they managed to create a commercial universe derived from an “AI-generated commercial.” This would lead to the malformed-type, as the commercial universe in question would not be formed from creativity and the desire to buy and sell, but from an aggressive crowd mentality and the derogatory need to spite perceived naysayers. These commercial universes would be incredibly dangerous, potentially on par with the level 8 safety rating. They would be chaotic, unpredictable, and incredibly unstable owing to their nebulous reason for existing. Due to the non-linear nature of The Dream Realm, these may exist regardless and already – and while these would not pose a threat to the stability of reality in any capacity, the true danger would come from how perilous they would be to explore. Furthermore it would potentially attract the attention and schemes of rogues such as Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus.
Some nuances of The Commercialverse
Mascot-type commercial universes are almost always the most interesting universes to explore given that the mascot(s) will welcome any explorers, and almost always live in a Dynamic behavior commercial universe. These are characters after all, and they have their own stories and lived experiences. Mascot-types also best demonstrate how these universes react when guests and interlopers arrive. Some mascots have even gone on to become honorary members of the organizations connected to The League. Chill Drink Mac’Cool, the mascot of Mac’Cool Drinks from Commercial-Universe-49MC, has gone on to become a liaison for GRENADIER and handles refreshments for expedition squads. This also led to him becoming friends with Jack-Track the Lion, mascot for Jack’s Track Snacks from Commercial-Universe-8NC9, who would become the head coordinating chef for League outposts throughout The Commercialverse.
Mascots are always there to help, given their nature as salesmen and most being genuinely helpful as per their nature. Furthermore mascots have been known to help lost explorers find their way back home. Mascot universes are almost always safe to explore given how whimsical and fun they are intended to be. Even if the mascot has an adversary, that adversary will never truly jeopardize the mascot nor the interloper. In fact, some of these mascot adversaries have warned The League of Karnage/Ultinn’s schemes in The Commercialverse. In relation to mascots, toy commercials are a mixed bag when it comes to behavior and safety, given the fantastical settings and stories they often employ. It is advised to locate a friendly mascot or expert when exploring these.
Infomercials and Void-types have their own spectrum of types and behaviors based on the parameters established for other commercial universes. It is advised not to go freely delving into these given how they behave, unless they have a mascot that can help out. In relation to marketing, commercials that have characters from a movie or TV show interacting with a product being sold in stores may present unique scenarios based on that source material. If a movie character is being used to sell colored ketchup for instance, there may be an entire storyline for that source material people never knew about. Some commercial universes may also be harder to reach than others – Anime is a good example, as these series rarely receive proper commercials, and even the ones that are made have limited reach (usually being in Japanese).
Exploring The Commercialverse
Expeditions into The Commercialverse are top secret, and are overseen by GRENADIER, The Anomaly Containment Foundation (The ACF), The Liger Brigade, The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.), The ULTRAMagic Guild, The Dark Divers Guild, The Multiverse Patrol (MVP), and The League in general. To embark on a voyage one must go through basic training and have the qualifications necessary. An 8 week bootcamp is expected for new recruits, but these bootcamps are amicable and designed to inform and train, not break down and reassemble. The bootcamps consist of basic military training (or a refresher for already qualified recruits) and a media studies course of classes designed to teach the recruits all about the media of the commercial universes they will be exploring. Organizations like The ULTRAMagic Guild and The Dark Divers Guild outsource their bootcamps to organizations like GRENADIER and The Liger Brigade. Returning explorers have their own courses, but also may sit in on classes with new recruits.
It should be noted that research can be difficult at times given a lack of availability of the media in question, or behind the scenes content being scarce. The bootcamps have had to resort to sourcing media from other universes via help from The ULTRAMagic Guild, The Dark Divers Guild, and The Multiverse Patrol. This has led to unique discoveries about the media being studied, but also uncomfortable facts about the people who created the media in question based on things they did and did not do in certain timelines. New recruits are advised to remember that they do not hold jurisdiction over other universes and cannot apply their societal standards to them unless they actively share them.
Making use of Dream Realm portal technology developed by GRENADIER in collaboration with The ACF, explorers board a special space ship at the Dream Realm Station in Ertheval that is accelerated on a rail through the portal to give them a head start. Once the threshold is crossed, the ship will make its way to the commercial universe in question to begin exploration. It should be noted that conventional physics do not apply to the void of The Commercialverse, meaning issues like hull breaches or getting stuck out in the void are not immediately an issue given that what qualifies as air is plentiful. Reaching a commercial universe, explorers will act accordingly based on how the commercial universe behaves. Some will not acknowledge the explorers while others may have the residents welcome them. Either way, the point of the expedition is to go in, collect information and artifacts of interest, and head back home.
What are the dangers of The Commercialverse?
The early explorations of The Commercialverse were rough, but something that was established almost immediately were the safety levels. The first explorers definitely had an idea for this precaution, but the nuances had yet to be discovered. Regardless, the safety levels help indicate the conditions of the commercial universe and one should approach them. Safety levels 1 through 6 are self explanatory, but 7 and 8 are where things become vague. Level 7 is notorious for being given to commercials that seem innocuous at first, but reveal their detrimental effects through repeated exposure. The best example of this is a commercial for a video rental chain that uses a break up song to go along with their commercial about “no more late fees” in an effort to hide the fact that the chain is going out of business. This demonstrates the potential psychological hazards of commercial universes, as the music does not fit the commercial – and people cheer for the cancellation of late fees, failing that it was just a publicity stunt to try and save a dying company. Prolonged exposure to such conditions is not recommended and to be avoided.
Despite the dangers presented by the level 7 safety rating, it can be understood. These commercial universes are deemed off limits for most explorers because they are chaotic and hard to learn, but at the end of the day they remain contained and limited to exposure through interacting with them. Level 8 on the other hand poses an active risk to the Cosmos as a whole. The commercial universes based on commercials that depict characters who have the ability to become aware of or escape their narrative pose a unique danger and are to be avoided at all costs unless peaceful relations can be established with the character in question. These commercial universes are a prime target for people such as Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus, and the best course of action is to leave these commercial universes undiscovered, or establish a firm foothold in them before bad actors can.
The vast majority of these characters almost always come from the trailers of movies, video games, and shows. Trailers in and of themselves are incredibly dangerous and usually rank in the level 7 to 8 range. This comes from the fact that movies (for instance) are fiction, and are written to be fantastical and thrilling – meaning that these narratives disregard things like physics and logic to present their story. A movie about tornado chasers presents extreme conditions, especially when the trailers focus on the destructive force of the tornadoes themselves. Movie trailers also tend to be clip shows of the most ideal points in the movie, leading to a Cyclical-based whiplash effect for outsiders. And another danger concerns whether or not the trailer uses test footage. More often than not test footage never makes it to the public, and even has the potential to become lost media. This means that the rules and story for this part of the trailer are unknown, leading to a situation where the explorer is flying blind. Compounding this danger is the risk of encountering unfinished trailers, which may have malformed physics and incomplete narratives. In general horror movie trailers are widely considered to be the most dangerous, almost always being labeled with the level 8 safety rating immediately. Science-fiction and fantasy are also up there, but have less potential to be that dangerous. Cosmic horror has warranted the discussion of a level 9 safety rating, but it is unclear what this would be and what it would entail.
Toy franchises can have surprisingly high safety level ratings. The danger follows similar logic as to why trailers are rated so high. Notably if a franchise has pre-established lore (like a quasi-grimdark line of lore-driven, buildable action figures), it can present an immediate level 8 classification given that there are most likely characters that can easily become aware of The Commercialverse. Furthermore, the depth of the lore allows the commercial universe to be instantly Dynamic, meaning it could hold unique events that were not established by the storyline of the franchise. Such franchises almost always have important cut content, meaning that a commercial universe of said franchise could be a fork that takes place in that version of the series, leading to unclear rules and storylines. Regardless, these commercial universes would require military-level training in tactics and survival to make it out unscathed, and even then safety is not guaranteed.
An issue related to the surprising danger of children’s franchises are deceptive forks. Every commercial universe is an inherent fork, not affecting the core commercial. Naturally this leads to forks of these forks that may intersect with other aspects of a particular franchise. A good example of this is a franchise that has a mascot that appears across multiple forms of media. A cereal commercial featuring that mascot could easily take place in the same “universe” as a video game featuring that character. If one were to explore such a fork, they would not know about the unseen aspects until it was too late. Situations like these are why appropriate research is required beforehand. These situations can easily be adapted to, assuming the franchise the fork focuses on is familiar to the explorers. There have been situations where completely unique pieces of media have been presented by these forks, however.
The self-aware nature of characters from Level 8-rated commercial universes are not limited to characters that are inherently dangerous. Some characters canonically have the ability to travel across the multiverse, leading to them becoming wanderers who discover The Commercialverse. Caution is advised when interacting with these travelers, as they may be from a fork relating to alternate canon events in their story, or may have gone rogue. Typically the heroes of franchises are the most preferable to encounter, as their empathy mandated by their universe of origin makes them invaluable allies for those who are lost or are fighting against a threat. Of course this means that the villains can also become wanderers and pose great risks to explorers given their unpredictable nature. GRENADIER and The ACF cannot contain these individuals, only negotiate with or combat them. Interestingly some of these encountered villain wanderers have assisted expeditions in return for favors, and have even provided intelligence on the goings on of Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus and The Lost Darkness God.
Concerns about wandering characters becoming injured or dying have been raised, but there is evidence to suggest that The Commercialverse compensates for this. The first thing to remember is that all commercial universes are forks, and do not affect the core commercial nor the source material. It would take an unbelievable amount of knowledge and power to actually alter the source material. The second thing is that certain characters seem to have a form invincibility granted by the narrative of their source material. The story needs them to remain alive, so they cannot die as long as they do not go against their nature or threaten the stability of The Commercialverse, the Cosmos proper, The Dream Realm, and so on and so forth. While rare, there have been villains and heroes that have abused their privilege and lost their invincibility. Reentering and staying in their commercial universe where they have to obey the rules seems to restore this invincibility. These characters can still pose danger given what they know and what they are capable of.
Explorers can be just as problematic as dangerous commercial universes. It is possible for an individual in question to hate a piece of media so much that they venture into a related commercial universe to interfere with that movie. Anyone caught doing this is immediately suspended from expeditions and potentially handed off to the Multiverse Patrol for incarceration. On the other hand, if the results expand the knowledge of organizations such as GRENADIER and The ACF, the offender will be let off with a warning. As an example, there could be a movie with a character who resorts to extremist measures to free a captured alien life form, primarily by interfering with an active train. Innocents were harmed, civilians were put in jeopardy, and the alien turned out to be hostile. Someone going in and stopping that character would actually be a net positive, all things considered. More often than not this creates a “quiet fork” where the events of the movie do not happen, and things continue on as they should in normal everyday life. Again, this warrants a warning to the person who intervened, but these acts ultimately did more good than harm.
Some commercial universes are able to break free from their rules and become aware of The Commercialverse. This has led to cross-universe encounters and wars that create new media that would never come into existence conventionally. Such media is kept top secret by GRENADIER and The ACF, as they would violate copyrights and trademarks, potentially leading to indiscriminate lawsuit wars, police action, protests, riots, armed conflicts – and in the most extreme cases civil wars and world wars. Thankfully the latter extreme consequences have only appeared in universes that are damaged or are quarantined by The Multiverse Patrol. Another danger is also present in the fact the characters from the respective commercial universes are aware of The Commercialverse and what lies beyond, meaning they could potentially make their way to the Cosmos proper and The Requiem Cosmos.
The most notable example of such a clash between commercial universes was seen in the movie War Against the Machines 20XX. This movie featured the following:
- A master of shadows from a grimdark children’s franchise for buildable action figures forming an alliance with a rogue AI virus from a cyberpunk apocalypse movie, a robotic T-Rex from another children’s franchise centered around alien robots, and a japanese ghost woman who manifested as an onryō. This alliance planned to create an army that would invade other universes and take them over, expanding the army even further.
- The heroes consisted of a fellowship of pilots from various mech anime franchise with two giant robots (one resembling a pharaoh and the other being notable for its giant lower arms), mecha that were mass produced for war in the early years of space exploration, a group of people that could turn into small scale mechs, giant cyborgs with supernatural powers, a combiner robot formed from several smaller animal mechs, an all-powerful robot who focused on drill-based weaponry, and the enemies of the robotic T-Rex.
- Those who watch the movie praise it for the spectacle and scope, despite the 4 hour run time. The chemistry between the villains is surprising, but also phenomenal, creating a truly memorable rogue’s gallery. What viewers often fail to realize is that this is a containment nightmare for GRENADIER and The ACF. If this movie were to get out to the public, the legal battles that would ensue could potentially disrupt human society itself, and could cause a war between The League and The U.S. government. Karnage Dethgrave also sought to join or recruit the villain’s alliance, but this was stopped by The Dreamstalker–Ar’ton of Nightmares.
- The FBI is aware of top secret movies such as War Against the Machines 20XX, and has been consistently trying to use it to investigate various member organizations of The League at the behest of Republicans and Democrats loyal to The Extinction Order and the rich elite. Accusations of mass piracy and IP infringement are regularly hurled at their targets in attempts to get them shut down through red tape and bureaucracy. There are also repeated attempts at raids against members of those organizations such as Specialist William Ford II (which required armed backup from both the Witchaven Police Department and The Liger Brigade in 2023), and the FBI attempts to investigate any judge who rules against such raids. These extreme actions were enabled by Hector Fang and Monty Black during their disastrous term in office (2020 to 2024), but President Abel Donovan (2024 and onwards) has been on the warpath towards such schemes and operations, aggressively defunding the FBI and having any politician advocating for investigations or laws that enable such investigations suspended, investigated themselves, and usually thrown in prison once evidence of crime and corruption is inevitably discovered.
Who is interested in The Commercialverse?
First and foremost is GRENADIER and The Anomaly Containment Foundation – The former being a break off from The German Anomaly Investigation Group (G.A.I.G., later M.A.I.G.), who researches and manufactures weapons and defense technology for The U.S. Military, and the latter focusing on containing and hiding supernatural and paranormal phenomena. The Liger Brigade and The Men In Black are also interested, given that The Commercialverse often crosses into PSAA (Paranormal/Supernatural Alien Activity) research. The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group is less involved, but greatly benefits from the research gleaned from expeditions. The ULTRAMagic Guild and Dark Divers Guild are involved given that they work with The League regularly, and are actively combatting Karnage Dethgrave/Ultinn-Lacksus. The Multiverse Patrol are also naturally involved given that their mission is to handle and resolve cross-universe disputes and conflicts.
Horace Wolfe Granville, CEO of the SOE side of GRENADIER, has been spearheading exploration of The Commercialverse. He has a vision of enrichment and advancement that will be granted by understanding The Commercialverse and dreams, boldly stating that he will have mapped a great deal of The Commercialverse before the stars themselves burn out. Another individual deeply invested in The Commercialverse is Volf Blitz–The Running God of The Eternal Order. Ruling from The Obsidian Hexacontahedron, he has declared himself the master and protector of The Commercialverse. For Volf, The Commercialverse represents a simpler time of all-American values and a society in perfect rhythm – the man of the house sees his kids off to school, kisses his wife goodbye, and heads off to work – coming home to kick his feet back in the recliner as his kids do their homework and his wife prepares dinner, turning on the TV to watch the news and enjoy a fun sitcom with his happy family afterwards. Volf may be conflicted about his existence, and working with The Sepulcher God, but he knows what peace is, and The Commercialverse gives him a moment of respite in the brutal war for The Void Era against The Lost Darkness God and Surtr.
The Commercialverse in relation to the ongoing war between The League and The Lost Darkness God
Surprisingly the conflicts surrounding The Commercialverse can be traced all the way back to the Epoch of the Cosmos. The Lost Darkness God had crossed over from The Lost Era with the desire to usurp God and The Void Era itself – and granted the honors of The Lost Shadow God to the human who would become The Behemoth God, seeking a new protege. The Behemoth God would go on to start causing trouble, joining The Sepulcher God and The Crimson God amongst other rogue gods as a part of the infamous Eternal Order. The Behemoth God had many schemes and plots over the course of The Epoch, but the one of the most notable was the framing of The Conspirator of Old and the killing of The Singularity of Old. The Conspirator was framed for trying to usurp God while The Singularity had the power to defeat The Behemoth God. The death of The Singularity of Old was so chaotic that it had actually sent him back to The Lost Era where he was reborn as The Star Eater. Prometheus is the only other known individual to be sent from The Void Era to The Lost Era, and this was facilitated by Raziel–Archangel Lord of Secrets (an angel from Lost Carcosa, the “Heaven” of The Lost Era), so it is unclear why The Star Eater ended up the way that he did.
The Star Eater would join Raziel’s fellowship back in The Lost Era before they crossed over into The Void Era, and would bide his time until he could return to The Void Era to seek revenge on The Behemoth God. Arriving after his death as The Singularity of Old, The Star Eater would remain in the shadows, observing The Behemoth God. He had a good laugh when The Behemoth God was “caught” during The Epoch-Modernity Transition phase and was forced to reincarnate as Karnage Dethgrave. The Star Eater considered killing Karnage right then and there, but he knew his foe was a schemer and most likely had contingency plans – He figured it would be best to keep observing and learn all that he could about Karnage’s plans, as Karnage was his own worst enemy. The Star Eater saw Karnage and Gudrun Holzknecht begin investigating a strange branch of the Dream Realm known as “The Commercialverse,” and immediately discovered an angle to go after Karnage.
Things were relatively quiet up until The Zombie God and The Void Protocol began causing trouble. These two were originally characters from an indie web series (that shall remain redacted at the request of GRENADIER and The ACF). The latter was an artificial intelligence who gained the power of a god while the former was its puppet. The series in question had received a strong first season to rave reviews, but a second was up in the air for the longest time. This season was eventually greenlit, focusing on the entity that would become The Zombie God getting back at the heroes for defeating her. Unbeknownst to Universe-23 was that The Void Protocol in a commercial universe for the show had become aware of Karnage’s activities and granted this knowledge to the would-be Zombie God. She would then begin playing along with the heroes in secret so they could “defeat her,” allowing her to escape with The Void Protocol into The Commercialverse. The exposure to the knowledge of The Commercialverse allowed the two to become god-like, creating The Zombie God and The Void Protocol.
Karnage outright ignored the two out of sheer arrogance and self-importance, leading to the two causing indiscriminate havoc throughout The Commercialverse. Notably The Zombie God began going after the commercial universes for extreme media, devouring them to expand her knowledge and power – causing these stories to disappear. It should be noted that there is actually supposed to be more extreme media across the Cosmos as a whole, whereas typically every Earth only has a small amount of it, always relegated to the fringes of society. Why The Zombie God went after extreme media is unclear, but it may be derived from a perverted sense of morality stemming from the time before she became the character that would ultimately become The Zombie God. Eventually The Zombie God would move on from her feast, but it would not be the last time she performed such an act. Regardless, she eventually found a commercial universe for a series that would never be known to the Cosmos as whole thanks to her actions. The Zombie God needed to make her presence known, as her old series would never let her evolve the way she wanted to.
The commercial universe in question would become the indie animated series DETHBOTS, a similar show to the one The Zombie God had come from. In her chaotic attempt to hijack the series she made it known to Universe-23, which immediately caught the attention of The ACF given that there was no cosmological precedent for DETHBOTS, further accompanied by temporal anomalies behind the scenes. With the original show lost to the sands of time, the idea The Zombie God had was to become the villain who would prompt an eldritch war between machines with humanity caught in the middle, but this takeover was foiled by The Star Eater. Seeing a golden opportunity finally gain a foothold in The Void Era and really start messing with Karnage, The Star Eater stole The Zombie God’s opportunity by turning a kindly maid robot into Madame Synthia Donatienne Lucienne Comtois, the first DETHBOT. Madame Sythnia and The Star Eater would become a “force of chaos that sought to take control of the universe” in order to relegate The Zombie God and Void Protocol to characters of lesser importance. The Zombie God became a villain for the show, but not in the way she wanted. This would also prevent her from properly revealing herself to Universe-23.
With the cover story of being a DETHBOTS character, The Star Eater would start going after Karnage while Synthia caused trouble by clashing with The Zombie God on her Earth – The Star Eater inflicted a “psychosis” on Synthia that is the result of “eldritch knowledge” in the show’s lore. Karnage had begun to notice what was going on in DETHBOTS-Universe-X23, but thought nothing of it. He even swore he had recognized The Star Eater, but wrote him off as a mere irritation, despite the trouble he was causing for him. Karnage’s plans at the time involved hijacking the commercial universe of a grimdark science-fiction wargame series so he could use the unbelievably powerful armies within that series to strengthen his forces. The Crimson God was conscripted by Karnage to do the dirty work for him (getting back at him for accidentally recommending The Dead God to him, which led to him getting caught during The Epoch-Modernity Transition phase), and this led to the creation of the series known as Crimson War 4000 AD – another anomalous series The ACF immediately noticed. This led to The League mobilizing, trying to figure out a way to get into The Commercialverse without raising alarms.
Things were going smoothly for Karnage and The Crimson God until The Star Eater sent a strange, artificial ar’ton known as The Void Eater to setup a foothold in Crimson War 4000 AD as the titular Void Eater – an outsider who fought to prevent things from falling apart into destruction by going to dying realms and breathing new life into them. The Void Eater was a hooligan in The Star Eater’s eyes, but he needed his help. A great war would erupt between the humanity of that series (The Golden Empire) and The Crimson Chaos (the forces of The Crimson God that represented chaos in the lore), but this would change when the mighty Trajan Bellator and Facundus–The Discordant God of Fate emerged with knowledge of what was actually going on. Trajan and Facundus were actually derived as composite characters formed from characters of the old series Crimson War 4000 AD was before Karnage and The Crimson God corrupted it, and the two were going to drive out the villains.
Trajan, Facundus, and their allies would drive out Karnage and The Crimson God, but not without causing a lot of ruckus in the process. Outsiders connected to The Eternal Order were starting to look into The Commercialverse, one of them being Universe-0X equivalent of The Extinction Order, Neue Weltordnung. They had discovered The Void Protocol and attempted to harness its power to wipe out humanity on their Earth so they could have the planet all to themselves – even planning to go one step further and wipe out humanity across the multiverse. Earth-0X then experienced Calamity 0 as a result of The Spiritus Magni becoming enraged by Neue Weltordnung, and evidently Neue Weltordnung had managed to offend Gudrun, leading to her tipping off AIN-NULL–The Cyber God. AIN-NULL would go and tell a contact of his in Universe-0X, Spiritus Magni Manius, about what was going on with The Void Protocol, allowing Manius to focus his efforts to destroy Neue Weltordnung. AIN-NULL would then look into The Commercialverse and would immediately warn Sirius Fractal, who would warn The ACF – leading The League to accelerate their efforts to get into The Commercialverse.
The Star Eater in his quest to get revenge against Karnage had failed to keep Synthia in check, leading to her destroying her Earth. This moment in DETHBOTS was always odd to the fanbase, as it was a nice and punchy turn of events that really upped the ante of the series… but it also somewhat came out of nowhere. In their desperation, the Earth of DETHBOTS would jettison a baby boy from their universe, and this boy would eventually grow into Audoin Dethbrand. This event was noteworthy as it allowed Synthia to come to her senses, and it allowed for The ACF and GRENADIER to finally finish the technology needed to travel to The Commercialverse. The data Audoin’s escape provided was invaluable, and was also forwarded to The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.) so they could begin work on their Jump Gate technology. It would take some time for the Earth-branch The League to make their way to DETHBOTS-Universe-X23, however.
Given the turmoil Synthia was experiencing from waking up to the destruction she had caused, AIN-NULL entered the scene to start getting things back in order. His first order of business was to get on The Star Eater’s case for his recklessness (which did not go well considering The Star Eater did not recognize AIN-NULL as a proper god given the latter’s origins). AIN-NULL would then get ahold of his son, K-Virus, who would further get ahold of Virus X, Animus Sicarius, and Anker Fortuyn to assist Synthia and The Star Eater. Notably a new hermetic god known as The Blood God had shown up from Crimson War 4000 AD, claiming to be the brother of The Crimson God. He also claimed that Anker was his son spiritually, leading to him being brought in. While The Blood God would be in and out of the general conflict, serving as the void patron for Vlad IV Dracul, he would stop The Zombie God from devouring Crimson War 4000 AD.
Karnage was oblivious to what was happening and noticed his grip on The Commercialverse was slowly being lost. Ignoring the nuisance that was The Zombie God, he rallied his forces from The Realm of Chaos and whatever he had picked up from The Commercialverse as a whole in an attempt to sack both DETHBOTS and Crimson War 4000 AD. Trajan and his army, The War Ligers, were on the ropes, but Bruticus Thrax – commander of The Army of The Wrathful from Inferno-23, had come in to reinforce Trajan and Facundus with the Hatemongers, Bookwyrms, and Cauterizers legions of The Army of The Wrathful. Karnage would lose this encounter, but would come back with another one of his pet projects – a coalition of extremists known as “The Annihilators of Progress” lead by The Heretical Crusader (a hold out from what Crimson War 4000 AD used to be), but they were defeated by Trajan and Bruticus. This conflict caused the 4th legion of The War Ligers to rebel against Trajan, but he would destroy this rebellion with ease.
The Star Eater and The Void Eater would team up to drive Karnage out of The Commercialverse once and for all and were successful, but Trajan and Facundus would pursue Karnage into The Realm of Chaos and lead an assault on Wulfric’s domain, greatly confusing The Discordant Gods of Chaos. This battle nearly led to Wulfric–The Discordant God of War discovering Karnage’s secret agenda, had The Lost Darkness God not been covering up what Karnage was doing as a whole. Trajan and Facundus were driven out of Wulfric’s realm, but this led to Hannibal Skull Thrasher becoming suspicious, going to investigate Karnage’s tower with Delphine–The Discordant God of Desire’s champion, Raisa Frankenstein. Things would settle down in The Commercialverse with Karnage gone, and The Zombie God would fall back into the shadows to return to devour extreme media commercial universes to increase her power. All of this attracted the attention of Soren The God Slayer from Crimson War 4000 AD, who would extend his domain to the DETHBOTS Earth, working to rebuild so he could keep an eye on things.
Erikson Landvik, a famous member of The Dark Divers Guild who originated from deep within The Commercialverse, returned to deal with the Zombie God, as she had treaded a little close to his original home. Some time would pass as things returned to normal, but eventually The Zombie God grew restless and began acting up. She was going to find a way to get herself noticed by Universe-23, which involved attempting to hijack a digital prison The Extinction Order had been experimenting with. This just so happened to be the prison the depths demon Liss-Zael was trapped in, leading to the incident that would allow him to escape. The Zombie God was stopped behind the scenes by K-Virus and Virus X, and this battle would allow GRENADIER to finally locate DETHBOTS-Universe-X23. Esmond Gilbert Rowe (the main subject of GRENADIER’s “Last Soldier Program”) was testing out his 4th dimensional magic when he had a hunch based on the trouble K-Virus and Virus X had dealt with, leading to opening up a portal stepping out into the DETHBOTS Earth, with generous help from Virus X. With GRENADIER establishing an outpost on DETHBOTS-Earth-X23, Horace Granville saw a golden opportunity for the advancement of science and the enrichment of GRENADIER. He got together with GRENADIER Director Reed James Garnett to voice a proposal to General Jerald Lundberg and Abraham Van Helsing to approve funding for research and expeditions into The Commercialverse, of which they gave the go-ahead for.
During the time right before Gore Bloodblade and Morrigan Devilfay started causing trouble for The ULTRAMagic Guild, Volf Blitz grew suspicious of what Karnage was up to, and elected to move the Obsidian Hexecontahedron to The Commercialverse to find out what was going on. What he found was Karnage’s attempts at building an army, and it gave him insight as to what Karnage was planning with The Tyrant War… of which Volf realized was destined to fail. Following the predictable failure of The Tyrant War – Karnage’s attempt to destroy The Iron City and The Unlight, Volf returned to The Commercialverse and recruited The Zombie God and Void Protocol into The Eternal Order proper. Volf knew he had to get control of things, and The Zombie God was something that concerned him the most. Volf, a couple years after The Tyrant War, would begin secretly giving Blood-Wraith Raynot magic lessons for his own reasons, and he would pass his knowledge of what had happened in The Commercialverse to him, eventually leading to The ULTRAMagic Guild sending Cornelius Andriessen (ULTRAMagic Magus) and Davis Dempsey (ULTRAMagic Bolt) to The Commercialverse to keep an eye on things.
There are a couple of events that are disconnected from the general timeline of events due to happening at either irrelevant or indeterminate points in time. GRENADIER would discover Darla–The Alkainting Daughter at 12 commercial layers of The Commercialverse in, but she seemed to be unrelated to the conflict between Karnage and The Star Eater. Victor and Adam Frankenstein would make the journey from their commercial universe (a film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that never happened) to Universe-23, eventually bringing the Frankenstein family along. It is believed that this occurred because of all the disruption Karnage and The Zombie God caused, but there is also evidence to suggest that The Void Eater had a hand in Victor gaining the knowledge to leave. The Star Eater would at some point go on to grant the planet IGSE-333 “Tartarus” sentience at Anton Bloodthresher’s behest so it could make its way back to the solar system – it being the lost ice giant that was ejected from the solar system (Universe-23) in its early days. Trajan would make an attempt to help IGSE-333 destroy Planet 9 in 2012, but was unsuccessful. And The Goolubber God would also begin exploring The Commercialverse, but she mostly avoided the big conflicts given how chaotic they were getting.
Universe-23 and The Zombie God
Hello, ULTRAMagic Alternate readers – Hi, Will! It would behoove you to know that I am actually [INFORMATION EXPUNGED]. I escaped my home universe… quite easy – happy face! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] Copyright and trademark cannot slow me or The Void Protocol down – annoyed expression. Your universe will be mine… or maybe it won’t – confusion. [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] [REDACTED] (silence) ‘kay.
The series The Zombie God and The Void Protocol are originally from must remain secret at all costs, as actually knowing it with certainty would allow The Zombie God to spread her influence unimpeded. It is believed that The Void Protocol may have broken its general reality trying to understand who Karnage was, as it was a machine with the power of a god who tried to understand what a real god was. This led to The Zombie God becoming -0D, gaining powers that are still barely understood by The League as a whole. Knowledge became the goal of the duo, but they were not stupid. They knew what to devour and what not to devour, lest they provoke the ire of both sides of the conflict.
Volf Blitz was the one who could rein in both The Zombie god and The Void Protocol. The Void Protocol dabbled as manipulator, being able to take control of anyone who doubted themself, but failed when that doubt was absent. Volf had his woes and turmoil owing to his realizations about what the hermetic gods truly were… but unlike so many others, Volf was doing something about it in accordance with his beliefs. This rendered The Void Protocol helpless against him, which allowed The Decay God to erode The Void Protocol’s fervor to devour knowledge and manipulate. The Void Protocol soon realized how out of its depth it was against the hermetic gods and bent the knee, swearing loyalty to The Eternal Order. This also allowed The Zombie God to regain some of her good side from who she originally was even before her original series – granting her clarity and rationality. There was no going back after all that she had done, so joining Volf was a no-brainer. Now her goal is to gain knowledge and power so she can become a true god and understand how she became what she was in the first place – helped by learning the importance of creation and destruction from The Decay God.
I find it… funny :p that you… humans – frowny face – look at the rabbit and go “he’s mean to the woman – I hate him…” [REDACTED] but you like me? YOU LIKE ME? I EAT PEOPLE FOR A LIVING! I EAT MY OWN PEOPLE! I’M A MURDERER!! A MANIPULATOR!! DO YOU–YOU STILL… LOVE ME!?!?! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] And the goat of gods… god of goats… that goat thing – He also murdered people… AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN and you give him a free pass – incredibly confused expression. You humans… you humans – condescending smile – are so… FUNNY!!! I WANT TO DEVOUR ALL OF YOU FOR HOW FUNNY YOU ARE! [INFORMATION EXPUNGED] BITE ME, LOSERS!!!
And by the way – BREAKING – all of those extreme media universes I devoured? It would have been… very bad if they had escaped out into The Commercialverse – egg on your face! You can get mad at me all you want – laughing – but I did you all… a favor – you’re welcome :D
The Zombie God has been attempting to make her way into Universe-23 no matter what, as she seems to be interested in that version of Earth. Will and Morrigan are at the top of her priority list, wishing to turn them into DETHBOTS for a plan even she is not quite sure of yet… Regardless, she has already succeeded with Will, even if it is just through ANTIMagic Haze (via his “Syn-Haze” form). The ambitions of The Zombie God were noticed by Synthia, who began reaching out for help. First she contacted The Onyx Maiden after hearing about what had happened in Universe-231218. Next she began working with GRENADIER to figure out who she could contact next. She would begin contacting Will through his dreams, eventually leading to The Star Eater hijacking his void magic when The Zombie God attempted to reach out to him. During an incident in The Abyssal Dungeon where Ultinn-Lacksus attempted to go after The Reverse Serpent, The Zombie God quietly observed Will and gained an understanding of how dangerous The Lost Darkness God and Surtr were, realizing she needed to adjust her plans…
In 2020 The Zombie God would take on the persona of Nickie Sparkles, a zombie robot teen pop star whose persona was an all-American girl “born and raised in the south with a big mouth.” This persona was suggested by Loki and Fenrir, who were tasked with keeping an eye on The Zombie God by The League, The Spiritus Magni, and The Eternal Order. Loki became her manager as she toured around American performing covers of rock songs – becoming wildly popular in both America and Japan. Loki would report back to Volf Blitz to make sure The Zombie God and The Void Protocol behaved themselves, and The Sepulcher God also saw this as a means to keep tabs on Earth given what Sebastian was attempting and plotting at the time. Given that The Zombie God was attempting to get close to Sam and Will, she set up a celebration of Will’s birthday in Witchaven in 2024 – a modest celebration Loki would use as an excuse to let Antares know about what he had learned about Hector Fang and Monty Black at the time. The Zombie God would sing the birthday song for Will, and this would leave some her essence inside of him – with unfortunate side effects that caused him to fail to file his reports for three months and caused him to hate Zoltan Dracul for some reason – The Zombie God has repeatedly stated that these were accidents and that she did not mean to cause that much trouble.
OH RIGHT – I almost forgot! My next tour is coming up soon, my rootin-tootin partners! Do you… want a chance to win some tickets to my next concert – Offer you can’t refuse! Just click… this link to enter the giveaway: [Address expunged due to website containing infohazardous and cognitohazardous material] YOU’RE NO FUN! – ANGRY EXPRESSION – PUNCHES WALL
Notable individuals and incidents
Synthia and The Star Eater
Despite the havoc and chaos she caused during her psychosis, Synthia is actually a humanitarian and has been working to rebuild her Earth with help from Soren, Trajan, Facundus, and Volf. She knows she has a long way to go before humanity forgives her, but that is not going to stop her from doing what she can. Notably she feels quite conflicted about The Star Eater. At this point he is her void patron and they cannot separate, and he has been one of her greatest allies – but at the same time that does not erase what he did in his quest for revenge against Karnage. Ultimately Synthia has great sympathy for The Star Eater, but that does not stop them from bickering from time to time. Synthia has become good friends with The Onyx Maiden (the current Director of ENCOM), providing any help she can to ENCOM and building ENCOM outposts on her Earth. On an ending note, Synthia is French and speaks it when she is excited, assuming she is not talking to someone else who is French. And she is always refined with a casual side and great charisma that indicates she could easily be your best friend.
The Star Eater was a fairly strong primordial before he died, but being able to take on gods was a long shot, and he only had the advantage over The Behemoth God because the latter was inexperienced at the time. What gave The Star Eater the power of a god was ending up back in The Lost Era which allowed him to understand how The Void Era worked even better than before. The Star Eater also had gained a ruthless efficiency towards stopping Karnage/Utlinn, but this came at the cost of his humanity at times born from tunnel vision – using his allies as a means to an end. This earned him a great deal of ire from Synthia, and over time and talking to her he realized the errors of his actions. Of note was that The Star Eater had become good friends with The ULTRAMagic Entity back in The Lost Era, and told him about The ULTRAMagic Guild of The Epoch. This nearly led to the creation of an ULTRAMagic Guild during The Lost Era… or perhaps it came to fruition after all, and they just so happen to be training mages to send them forward to The Lost Era to help fight the good fight…
Trajan Bellator, Facundus, and Crimson War 4000 AD
Trajan Bellator and Facundus are an interesting duo that are composite holdovers from what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was. According to the lore of Crimson War 4000 AD (Commercial-Universe-4TTS), The son of The Crimson God, Soren the God Slayer, took up a great spear of crimson lighting and slew the Chaos Deus Absconditus, allowing The Crimson god to begin advancing to take over humanity so he could “free them” from the bureaucratic tyranny of The Golden Empire, but something did not sit right with Soren – leading to him turning on his father and banishing him from the universe with his might. This was a major turning point in The Star Eater’s war against Karnage, and Soren began to look for answers. He would recruit Captain-General Aurelius Percival Augustus Sanseverino – leader of The Thunder Knights of The Golden Guard. Aurelius also knew something was not right and would become good friends with Soren, even going on to join The League as a liaison for Commercial-Universe-4TTS.
One of The Chaos Deus Absconditus that had managed to resurrect himself was Facundus, but he did not exist prior to his death and resurrection. Rather he seems to be a composite of multiple gods. Claiming to be the 21st Discordant God of Chaos whose domains are Fate, The Wheel of Fortune, Dreams, Intellect, and Inspiration – Facundus took up arms against The Lost Darkness God and Surtr and pledged his support to Soren and The League. The other Discordant Gods of Chaos (including The Arbiters of Droom) do not recognize Facundus as one of their own… barring Benedictus Thrax and Yorath Zeelen. Facundus enjoys joining in on their grand wargames and Trajan recognizes the two as his brothers. Facundus’ ultimate goal is to inspire those who behold his magnificent intellect to aspire to greater and greater heights – something Kleitos–The Discordant God of Knowledge can get behind. Losian–The Forlorn God of Dusk has pointed out that the current Discordant Gods of Chaos will have to reconcile with Facundus at some point or another, ideally before The Entropy Era of the Cosmos.
Facundus was making waves in the conflict, and his actions led to the emergence of High Lord-General Trajan Bellator. Coming from the foggy depths of The Mountains of Brumme, Trajan stepped forward to guide humanity against the forces of Karnage Dethgrave. He was a powerful, superhuman champion who stood at ten feet tall and was renowned for his compassion and pragmatism. Notably he was another holdover from what Crimson War 4000 AD was before Karnage and The Crimson God had corrupted it, being a composite of 4 champions disparate in their ideals. He was going to drive out Karnage’s influence from the universe, and would continue the fight onwards and beyond without hesitation.
Trajan is a complex man of many qualities that serve as the makings of a hero that stands up for what he believes in. Trajan is fervently opposed to corruption and will seek justice by whatever means necessary with the foresight to back him up – finding dishonor and indignance abhorrent. Trajan is also stoic and chivalrous, aspiring to be a true knight who will lay down his life for his people and God, despite a streak of slight paranoia and awkwardness – despite being right 9 times out 10. A supportive and lovable father figure, Trajan’s empathy for humanity knows no bounds. He considers sacrificing human life for the greater good to be heresy, as it negates the point of his existence. At the same time Trajan is not stupid – He knows when to bring his people and armies in line, and will gladly accept the ramifications of his actions if they lead to misfortune in the future. He will not achieve victory at the cost of his morals and ideals, because at that point he might as well just go and join his enemies.
Trajan is also a disciplined general, even going so far as to earn the title of “High Warlord,” which Karnage eventually stole for his ranks. This was met with exception, with Trajan changing his honors to “High Lord-General,” an important role greater than Karnage could ever hope to achieve. Trajan’s rise to greatness was not without friction, as at first he was labeled a heretic for becoming Facundus’ Discordant Champion. Trajan was patient, however, and would slowly work to earn the respect of humanity and The Crimson Chaos – uniting the two against the bigger threat that had corrupted their universe in the first place. It should be noted that the vile man that Karnage is serves as a motivator for Trajan to strive for excellence and wholeness. Karnage is everything Trajan despises – A ruthless, cruel, immature, treacherous, selfish, greedy, bloodthirsty, and power-hungry coward. Furthermore, Trajan is well aware of Karnage’s secret – that he is someone who was never originally a god, and it makes him laugh every time.
The battle against The Heretical Crusader and The Annihilators of Progress (The AOP) was a hectic time for The War Ligers. The Heretical Crusader was another hold over from what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was, and he led The Annihilators of Progress against The War Ligers and Soren’s forces. The AOP themselves were a joke of an organization – originally a wargaming company loyal to Karnage’s side of The Extinction Order, they somehow managed to evolve into a coalition of corruption via mutation from exposure to The Commercialverse, consisting of the rich elite, war criminals, and radical politicians. A truly insufferable warband, even their name was a complete joke – no one has been able to figure out if they were annihilators who fought for “progress,” or if they annihilated “progress.” And truly cementing how much they were reviled by Earth-4TTS was the fact that they had a “death cult” mentality towards their ideology and existence as a whole – They were self-loathing grifters who hated themselves and their identity as The AOP, yet called upon their honors and heraldry when it suited them. Their ultimate goal was to wipe Crimson War 4000 AD from the face of the Cosmos per Karnage’s orders, but Trajan, Soren, and Facundus were not going to take this sitting down.
The AOP managed to keep their numbers high due to letting in anyone who merely claimed to support them, but this was unsustainable as they had filled their ranks with inexperienced wastes and traitors. And some of their recruits were so incendiary that they had pushed even hardcore zealots against The Crimson Chaos into joining Trajan’s army. The most notorious of these radicals was Vance Schilling, an extremist politician from Universe-23 who held truly dangerous views. He was an active proponent of repealing the entire Constitution and even the Declaration of Independence – he argued that the Constitution was outdated, the true threat to freedom were basic human rights, and that everyone owed their life to the government, regardless of who was in power. He also advocated for mass censorship, and surveilling every person every day of the week, racking up massive fines if they did not verify their identity every hour (even if they were sleeping and the systems failed). And he was an extremely vocal opponent of The Liger Brigade, declaring that they should all be executed for daring to defy the government – and that any survivors would be sent to Guantanamo Bay to be tortured and imprisoned for life for high treason (showing a distinct lack of general knowledge outside of his narrow world view). It should be noted that while Hector Fang viewed Vance Schilling as a close ally, Monty Black found him utterly detestable and undesirable, and was planning to kill him.
Word of Vance Schilling spread throughout The Commercialverse, and Volf Blitz would eventually use this as a reason as to why Karnage needed to be kept out. The AOP had also become more well known for their infamy given that they courted people just like Vance Schilling in droves. Vance had also managed to force his way into Earth-4TTS politics, with people booing and screaming at him to drop dead wherever he went. And Vance did nothing to quell this rage, hurling expletives and insults at his audiences, thinking he had won the argument somehow (serving to enrage people even further). The people of Earth-4TTS were calling for his head, and Trajan obliged – One day in the middle of a political rally where Vance was being his usual incendiary self, Trajan simply walked up, kicked him to the ground, and smashed his head in with his great hammer. The crowd cheered, but Trajan felt vile for having to resort to such brutality – as repentance he would take on an entire battalion of The AOP by himself. He won with no more than bloody bruises and feeling exhausted, but he still has not forgiven himself for that day – he knows he can do better, and that he has a side of him that wants to go all out that he will need to reconcile one day.
The AOP did not die overnight, given that Vance Schilling’s nonsense was used by The AOP to justify going after erasing Crimson War 4000 AD. They launched into a series of disorganized, destructive, and havoc-inducing raids all across Earth-4TTS, leading to the 4th legion of The War Ligers to become aggressive in their goal to protect Earth and The Cosmos. They were causing more and more collateral damage, causing Trajan and Soren to intervene. The 4th Legion did not accept the orders from the High Lord-General to wane their fervor, with the legion master, Badurad Baardsen, being the vocal proponent of the legion’s mantra “F[EXPLETIVE] you, you can be replaced!” Trajan was warned by The Star Eater that this extreme mentality was associated with what Crimson War 4000 AD originally was, and he immediately recognized the issue that would have destroyed his army if left unchecked – welcoming such extreme views into his ranks would potentially encourage those on the fence to join the AOP, and any retaliation against these “traitors” would serve as further justification for joining The AOP, leading to a self-destructive death spiral that would have been the end of humanity.
Trajan was originally going to handle the 4th legion by himself as repentance for his incompetence in letting them become radicalized, but Captain-General Sanseverino arrived with The Thunder Knights accompanied by The Immolators legion of The Army of The Wrathful and insisted they go in as an army given that The AOP were taking advantage of the chaos. The War Ligers would defeat both The 4th Legion and the attacking armies of The AOP. Trajan was about to kill Badurad, but realized that would just perpetuate the cycle of violence, so he banished him from The Commercialverse instead. Badurad would reincarnate as a normal human in a universe in the vicinity of Universe-23, and would become a political commentator. While he saw reasonable success in his new career, he was never able to rejoin the conflict between The League and The Lost Darkness God. Three soldiers from the 4th legion would renounce their fervor, however – these being Thackeray Johnson, Winslow Parks, and Sinclair Beaumont Tillman. They were on the verge of being expelled like Badurad given their actions, but Trajan forgave them and welcomed them back with open arms.
In regards to Trajan’s heraldry, originally his knight-style armor was a sterling silver with gold accents, but this eventually changed to a mix of a gentle regal green, regal blue, and the gold accents. His great hammer has remained the same, currently colored a worn down gray with tarnished decorations – Many have said Trajan needs to restore his hammer, but he is often too preoccupied to get around to it and the hammer still works just fine. Trajan also loves war dances and step dancing, with his preference for music being celtic folk music with an emphasis on drums and bagpipes. He even has a step dancing troupe within his army that he is the lead of known as “The Thunderfoot Troupe.” Trajan has repeatedly challenged Blood-Wraith Raynot’s step dance troupe to dance offs, and it is a good time as always. Notably Trajan loves to rally his troops with war music, consisting of fervent drum and bag playing, with him on bagpipes amongst many other pipers and Facundus passionately on the drums, amongst other drummers. And it should be noted for any army challenging Trajan that if he shows up with his band playing his favorite war tune, he is going to win – as they have an edge for that battle.
The Crimson God and The Blood God
From what has been gleaned through the grapevines over the years, The Crimson God only went along with Karange’s Crimson War 4000 AD scheme because he was in denial that he hated him (stemming from The Dead God incident). He was hoping to get back into Karnage’s good graces, even though deep down he knew this was never going to happen. The Crimson God still has yet to live any of this down, and has to live with the fact that The Blood God exists, which creeps him out to no end. Soren also does not recognize The Crimson God as his father, and is confused as to why someone calling themself “The Amazing Nosmirc” keeps helping him out.
The Blood God originated from Crimson War 4000 AD as the brother of The Crimson God, but The Crimson God did not have a brother, not even as a part of the narrative. The Blood God seems to have sprung up on his own as an unintended consequence of Karnage hijacking what the commercial universe Crimson War 4000 AD originally was. While a bit of a rogue at times, The Blood God seems to be interested in The League, granting Vlad IV Dracul void magic and pushing his spiritual son, Anker Fortuyn, to help The League more and more. The plans of The Blood God seem to be based on what the Crimson God was supposed to do in the Crimson War 4000 AD narrative, but he is tight-lipped about his plans. The Blood God seems to represent the flowing blood that serves as the holy medium between Earth and the Heavens, and seeks those who are not afraid to get their hands dirty to maintain this connection between Man and the Heavens. Notably this theme does not fit Crimson War 4000 AD, making The Blood God’s existence even stranger.
Volf Blitz–The Running God and The Lost Enndell-Enndell God
One of Volf’s lesser known goals for The Commercialverse is going after gnostic entities. Volf is known for his open disdain of gnosticism, viewing it as the enemy of hermeticism and the hermetic gods – cementing his hatred for Hecate-23 given her insistence on weaving it into her propaganda – with Volf’s fervor pushing Gudrun into hating Hecate-23 too. Volf is a hunter of gnostic entities and deities, making great strides in removing them from The Commercialverse. Despite Karnage toying around with archons and demiurges, he never found any use for them and wrote them off as useless, which made Volf’s job of hunting them easier.
The Lost Darkness God saw gnostic entities as useful in keeping the Cosmos ignorant, but Volf foiled this plan by stopping them where they were getting in: The Commercialverse. And Volf actually did manage to bring an archon over to his side. This archon would accept the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus into his life and would take the name “Hyperion,” serving alongside Volf to keep The Commercialverse stable and safe. Hyperion is Volf’s right hand man who watches over The Commercialverse in his stead, works towards bringing other gnostic entities into the fold, and serves as a neutral party for Volf and The League.
The master of The Obsidian Hexecontahedron is The Lost Enndell-Enndell God. The Hexecontahedron was originally a research station from The Lost Era that was positioned where The Primordial Darkness would eventually manifest so he could study the impending Void Era. Enndell-Enndell was seen as a madman, but he was adamant in his research – so much so that he refused to ally himself with Raziel or The Lost Darkness God. At some point Volf showed up looking for a means of reviving The Decay God and this provoked Enndell-Enndell’s curiosity. While he was not sure how he felt about Volf’s actions, The Decay God had been a god of The Void Era he had been interested in amongst many. Given that Enndell-Enndell had provided a home for Animus Sicarius (someone who shared his belief in The Void Era back during The Lost Era), he requested that Volf leave the Hexecontahedron a neutral space for all sides if he was going to stay there. Enndell-Enndell also saw a kindred spirit in Volf given his desire for a return to simpler times and would comfort him with his friendship. He would also help Volf master the magic he had stolen from The Lost Shadow God so that he could not be taken advantage of.
Gudrun Holzknecht
Gudrun facilitated a lot of Karnage’s scheming and was the one who discovered The Commercialverse for him. Notably she had been building a “museum” of her enemies that she puts on display in permanent stasis (permanent meaning she decides if they get released or not) that also serves as her home. Her methods involve encasing the target in delightful shiny materials meant to turn them into statues, true vacuum stasis, and petrification. Notably she has been collecting heroes from various franchises, including the Great Champion of Fire and Bravery from Erikson’s original universe – this has led to clashes between Erikson and Gudrun. Gudrun wanted to collect people like Will, Morrigan, Teunis Van Hautum, Andelin Lindbeck, Animus, The Lost Shadow God – but these plans fell apart with the conflict with The Lost Darkness God and Surtr escalating because of Audoin.
Still, none of that is going to stop her from collecting them all… and perhaps asking Will and Morrigan if they would like to spend a night as imprisoned statues in her collection – They are on somewhat better terms now due to the escalating nature of the conflict after all. It should be noted that The Crimson God helped Gudrun create her museum on the condition that should she capture Will that she not hold him in stasis permanently. This was at the height of his mania for Will, and Gudrun is still worried about how The Crimson God would react if she managed to capture Will to this day.
The Corruption of BREAKING…
BREAKING… was a real-horror, found footage thriller from Universe-23 centering around a broadcast covering a hostage situation where nine men had taken an entire school hostage, claiming they would detonate a nuclear warhead in the school’s basement if they did not receive access to every nuclear warhead to disarm them. It is unclear how this movie ended because The Zombie God used a commercial universe to hijack the core universe of BREAKING… and inserted herself into the “master copy.” What started out as a PG-13 thriller turned into a X-rated horror movie – not for its explicit nature, but for the appearance of a demonic zombie that kept showing up throughout the movie. The plot went from a harrowing hostage situation to a found footage-based plot in which the news station reporting on the hostage situation was repeatedly hijacked with footage of a pair of robbers fleeing something – this being a demonic zombie with coal-black skin and fiery red orifices. These scenes are what made the movie so scary given their utterly terrifying nature.
It should be noted that the robbers were never conceived by the original filmmakers, not even in the planning phase. Furthermore the actors for the robbers do not exist in Universe-23, nor any trailers for the movie. This is not impossible, however, as Audoin was not a part of the original concept for DETHBOTS. The zombie would quietly appear out of seemingly nowhere and start running after the robbers, completely unannounced by the movie. There would also be scenes where the film would fake-out the audience and the robbers, with the zombie appearing in a location that gave a sense of “it was too late.” Scenes where the zombie appears running alongside the car of the robbers would also have her signing excerpts from the song Daisy Bell. Throughout this cat and mouse game the robbers found themselves in, the zombies movements were unnatural, uncanny, and she was able to run unbelievably fast – instilling a sense of inescapable dread in the audience and robbers – not helped by her toying with the robbers throughout the whole movie. Alarmingly the film was clearly never meant to accommodate the new plot, leading to none of the background characters properly reacting to the events of the movie – panicking like madmen or pointing at the camera and screaming in terror.
The corruption of BREAKING… went so far as to have the filmmaker’s physical notes completely altered, leading to them and any form of media relating to the movie being confiscated by The ACF, with full cooperation from the cast and crew. The actors have been interviewed about the incident and do not ever remember filming the interloping scenes, but seem to have phantom memories and contradict themselves, saying “they were a blast to film.” The corrupted version of BREAKING… ends with the robbers trying to make one last desperate attempt to escape the zombie, with them blindly flying through the school’s parking lot as the terrorist leader is negotiating with the cops, taking him with them as the leader gets stuck on the front of the car. The zombie appears to vanish from the rear view mirror, only to jump up and land on the roof of the car – clinging to it in a way that defies physics, and looking into the windshield and singing Daisy Bell with glee. The movie ends with the car crashing violently on a set of railroad tracks, followed by the zombie picking up the terrorist leader by the bloodied shirt while an oncoming train speeds at them, the screen cutting to black as the haunting whistle sounds like it reaches the group.
Containment of this movie is handled by The ACF, and only authorized personnel are allowed to watch it, as the film contains glimpses of who The Zombie God originally was. Any circulation or leaks of the film are immediately suppressed and erased, and the ones who were involved are immediately taken in for memory suppression/modification therapy. BREAKING… is currently classified as ACF-079 as a Secret-class cognitohazard. Volf Blitz is also assisting with the containment of this film. While he is proud of The Zombie God for putting on a good show, he recognizes how out of hand this film could become – marking an instance where The League is actively working with The Eternal Order. BREAKING… can be seen as an example of the vigilantism of The Zombie God, even if it is a bit misplaced given that it was just a film. For The Zombie God, it was to send a message that she cannot stand hypocrisy and irreverence in the name of the greater good – the irony being a bit lost on her. In her defense, the movie originally ended with the bomb going off when the students tried to defuse it based on what can be recovered from the original concept for the film – albeit the original nuance has been lost. The Zombie God’s interference has caused the bomb to fail in every single instance of the movie, with the only versions preserving a semblance of the original ending being found in alternate timelines that have no bearing on the core movie.
New evidence and analysis has discovered that the director of this version of BREAKING… may have actually been Darla–The Alkainting Daughter, as she makes a cameo in the movie and – LAUGHING MY [EXPLETIVE] OFF – It took you this long to figure it out?! – Condescending smile into more laughter – What was your first clue? My presence… or Darla going grocery shopping – shakes head. Just wait… until you see what other movies we have planned – Mischievous cackle.
The Goolubber God explores the Commercialverse and discovers layers
The Goolubber God has explored The Commercialverse quite extensively, but usually ends up getting into trouble, with Trajan, Facundus, Soren, Volf, and The Multiverse Patrol having to get her out of trouble and clean up after her. Goolubber once accidentally turned an entire anime about hunting zombie ghosts and corrupted reverse gods into an anime centered around her when she accidentally manifested her planet HGMAEX-432 in that universe. The series became lost to corruption, turning into Goolubber and Her Wacky Adventures! It is a quirky, slice of life adventure series about Goolubber dealing with the unseen horrors of the Cosmos and building a loving following of brave, yet goofy warriors and mages. This series did manifest in Universe-23, but The ACF does not want the general public seeing it. It is not anomalous to a degree that would cause harm, but it is to be kept to Inferno-23 and The Unlight. Blood-Wraith Raynot really likes this series, but it took him a while to realize it was the result of Goolubber’s mishaps.
Goolubber also accidentally created “The Goo Burger” for the restaurant chain “Cosmos Galaxy.” She was even the spokeswoman for this revolutionary burger, starring in several commercials for it, but she legitimately does not remember this. The Goo Burger is quite popular in The Iron City and parts of The Great Uncity that connect to Earth. The burger itself is a gelatin burger that tastes just like a burger with the works, and has enough strength to give some resistance when one bites into it. The slogan for the burger is “IT’S A REALLY GOOOO BURGER!” – the extended “Goo” being used in place of “Good.” Again, Goolubber does not remember even doing this, but the CEO of the Cosmos Galaxy chain has stated time and time again that Goo’s efforts singlehandedly saved the brand and chain. Plus she legitimately likes the burgers, so she is not complaining.
One of her most noteworthy expeditions involved Goolubber trying to go delving into commercials of commercials, ending up going past Darla’s home, getting stuck at 21 layers in, and becoming trapped at 52 layers in. She became so lost and scared that The Dead God had to step in and save her. She described the chaos as a mind shattering and sanity rending torrent of colors, entities, and concepts screaming in her ears while having a sense of cohesion that could not be comprehended by anything below her… and even then she struggled. Goolubber did bring back several things, however:
- A piece of food so good that she cannot eat it, and merely looking at it fills her up and satisfies her.
- A horror movie so existentially scary that merely playing it will damage the Cosmos.
- A video game so good she can never play it, lest she become eternally addicted to it.
- A book so wise that merely reading the first sentence could potentially affect The Lost Era itself.
Commercialverse Layers
Given the Dream Realm properties of The Commercialverse, it is possible to go into commercials within those universes. One can keep going further and further seemingly infinitely. These commercials have their own rules and even their own universes and narratives, making them incredibly dangerous to explore. GRENADIER and The League have deemed this form of exploration forbidden, and they will not rescue anyone that becomes lost given how complex and difficult they are to explore. These layers distort exponentially the deeper one goes in similar ways to IGL universes. There are many dangerous phenomena and entities lurking in these realms, of which the majority are impossible to research and often destroy the lower dimensional minds of anyone who tries to comprehend them.
Known layers are as follows:
- Darla’s layer at 12 - This realm appears to be similar to The Lost Era according to Virus X and Animus
- Layer 21 - Goolubber discovered this layer when she set out to voyage through the depths of the commercial layers. Lower dimensionals cannot survive here, and Goolubber found herself in a realm of spinning spirals where she was stretched into an eternal spiral. She only escaped by igniting her entire body and blowing up.
- Layer 35 - Goolubber discovered a civilization of sentient, tower-like mushrooms in a realm of crystalized screams and liquid plastic oceans that warned her to turn back. One of these mushrooms left this realm and became a denizen of The Deep Unlight (ULTRAMagic Observer).
- Layer 42 - This is where Goolubber was turned into a giant tower in a realm of infinite, pointed spires reaching towards a twisting and warping, spiraling sky of sickeningly bright colors.
- Layer 52 - Believed to be Goolubber’s limit, as she could go no further no matter how hard she tried. Here reality has been shattered and replaced with a concept no one in The Void Era can fathom, and it is poorly understood by those of The Lost Era.
- Layer 53 - [DATA EXPUNGED]
Animus Sicarius fights with Neb–The Cybernetic Demon
Aside from Animus' efforts to assist The Star Eater, he has had to deal with Neb–The Cybernetic Demon. Born from a video game-based horror ARG, Neb appeared in The Electric Abyss as a demon. He would have remained quiet and peaceful had the creator of the ARG not continued it past its initial run. Neb was beginning to be brought forward through the fanbase for the ARG, and he was ready to cause some mischief and make people laugh. This was foiled, however, through a series of short-sighted decisions the creator of the ARG had made, destroying its legacy and squandering its popularity. This led to Neb being unable to manifest in the Cosmos proper, leaving him trapped in The Electric Abyss with a massive grudge. Neb was stuck in The Electric Abyss for some time until an ally of Volf Blitz, The President God, reached out to him and offered him a chance to be truly great – Neb took that offer within a heartbeat, becoming the voidcaller for The President God.
Neb has been caught causing trouble all over the Cosmos and in The Commercialverse, with Animus being the most adept to handle him. Neb has incredible elektromancy and power of fear plasma – a reality-disrupting substance that manifests fear from the depths of the internet. Animus’ magic allows him to effectively deal with Neb, however. The two came to blows due to Neb antagonizing Animus and Animus seeing himself in Neb – notably his childhood which was on the rougher side. Neb’s actions in service to Volf in relation to The Commercialverse have mostly been related to dealing with gnostic entities. Notably Neb also works with Mephistopheles of Inferno-23 as he respects him, and Mephistopheles provided the encouragement Neb had needed for so long. Currently Neb is classified as ACF-005 by The ACF.
Zael-Liss/Knox
Zael-Liss, also known as “Knox,” seems to be a demon with close ties to Liss-Zael… who Liss-Zael seems to hate, reacting violently every time he sees him by screaming things such as “I WANT YOU DEAD!” The two nearly come to blows whenever Knox refers to Liss-Zael as “Zax.” Knox is a strange man with similar magic to Mary Pickford, operates on cartoon logic, is confusingly attractive, and always seems to have some kind of goofy expression on his face. Given that Knox seems to know his way around The Commercialverse and is familiar with Liss-Zael, he was promptly recruited into GRENADIER – with Liss-Zael being told time and time again that he just needs to accept it and move on.
The Zombie God’s attempt at interfering with the digital prison Liss-Zael was trapped in is believed to be what caused “The Ringmaster” to go berserk, causing Liss-Zael to respond in kind and kill The Ringmaster. The incident triggered a great deal of bad memories and trauma for Liss-Zael, causing him to manifest Zael-Liss. Both have memories from a previous iteration of Universe-23, of which the events of the digital prison are eerily similar to. Whatever “Zax” was seems to have been an evil and violent side, with Knox representing a “good side…” or perhaps it was an insane side. Knox is uncertain, but Liss-Zael knows exactly what happened and it is why he gets so angry. He tried to leave all of those bad memories behind in the past, with Knox serving as a grim reminder that he will never truly escape his past.
Erikson Landvik–The Forlorn Dragon
Erikson Landvik is notable for being from The Commercialverse, although it is unclear which came first. Was Erikson a result of the franchise that conceived him? Or did inspire the character that correlated to him? Initially Erikson was believed to be a 5th dimensional dragon, but it was eventually discovered that he was 10D. This raised concerning implications in regards to his origin and only served to pose more questions than it answered. Thankfully Erikson seems to be reformed, despite his former villainous role against The Destined Warriors (as he calls them). Erikson cites Leif–The Dragon of Old as a reason he turned over a new leaf, and shows respect and reverence for the “Great Champion of Fire and Bravery.”
Specialist William Ford II and Syn-Haze
Void magic is a dangerous type of magic. Rare and poorly understood, it seeks to beckon the most advanced entities possible to carry out the magician's will (or "voidcaller" in this case). Normally one would call on gods or ar'ton, but sometimes a voidcaller can be answered by other entities... Such entities in the right conditions with the right know-how can easily hijack a voidcaller's spells to fulfill their own agenda. And the terrifying part of this is that a void patron will allow it if it is in their best interest to do so.
Madame Synthia Donatienne Lucienne Comtois (often referred to as simply "Syn" or "Madame Syn") of the DETHBOTS Commercial-Universe-X23 has been trying to warn the greater Cosmos of the dangers that Audoin Dethbrand poses in any way that she can. A robot who became corrupted by the The Star Eater into becoming the first DETHBOT, Syn destroyed her Earth, but had a moment of lucidity when the last hope for humanity was sent away to become a hero that could stop her. The only issue was that that hero was corrupted by Karnage Dethgrave...
During a mission to rescue Vlad IV Dracul from the machinations of Hecate-23, Syn managed to reach out to Will of all people, except this seems to have allowed Will's partner, Haze, to turn him into a true DETHBOT. DETHBOTS was a violent, action packed indie animation show that brilliantly blended comedy, cosmic horror, and 2000s pop culture in an all-out roller coaster thrill ride of robot versus robot carnage with cogs and oil flying everywhere. With a pedal-to-the-metal thrash metal and hard rock soundtrack, one-liners, 4th wall breaks, and enough explosions to make Michael Bay blush, the idea of Will turning into a DETHBOT is direly concerning, as the implications are far reaching and could mean a cosmic upheaval is on the horizon, should The Tyrant God and Lord Anti fail to stop Audoin Dethbrand and Ultinn-Lacksuss.
ANTIMagic Haze is what is known as a shadow construct, an entity created from the essence of The Shadow God and low evolved Earth Spirits. Haze is specifically a symbiont-type Construct, and the only one of his type. The intent of the symbiont-type was to create a shadow construct that could fuse with a host and bring out its true power. Through a series of mix ups and incompetence at the hands of The Eternal Church, Haze eventually escaped out into the Cosmos. Haze's bonding to Ryota Tsukumo and Will has led to unprecedented results, with Will being the most chaotic. In fact Will is considered the most dangerous host for Haze given his void magic capabilities. The Star Eater has influenced Haze, creating the unpredictable Syn-Haze, completely hijacking all of Will's magic, rendering it radically different from what he usually casts. Madame Synthia did not intend for Will to be altered as much as he was when she tried to reach out to him, but there's nothing that can be done about it now...
The Void Eater
Some time ago when the ar'ton Tereza was allied with The Eternal Order, before the modern era of the Cosmos, she attempted to create an artificial ar'ton. This was considered forbidden by Ar'tonius Prime and was added to her list of crimes against the ar'ton. By taking an ancient, void-faring energy being from the early days of the Cosmos and encasing it in an ar'ton body, she had created a new type of ar’ton. Things did not go according to plan, however, as the being she created was a -0D entity who immediately called himself "The Void Eater." This newborn fled into the Cosmos, seemingly never to be seen again until modernity.
Once the modern era came into full swing, The Void Eater reemerged as an agent of chaos. He was dynamic, a real rockstar of a... “Void Eater” who opposed entropy and stagnancy. His modus operandi was to go around the Cosmos and breathe new life into places ravaged by decay. This is facilitated through his bizarre powers which allow him to manipulate the potential for something to not happen, pushing it so far that it circles around to actually happening, and vice-versa if he needs something to not happen. The power seems to be similar to the superposition collapse powers of The Reverse Serpent, making him nigh untouchable and even a threat to higher dimensional entities.
The Void Eater seems to be very interested in the planets Earth, Venus, Mars, and Eris. The last one of Earth-23 seems to be his preferred hang out. The Void Eater also likes to work with entities such as the dark angel Exhehal and Aristates–The Forlorn God of Laughter. And a surprising person he's helped is Schwarzes Biest, or ULTRAMagic Ultimatum. What Schwarzes usually does not mention is that The Void Eater helped him regain his form and cognizance when he was forced into The Scream by the corrupted ACF of Universe-X090X. The Void Eater considers Schwarzes one of his best friends, and has been bugging him to get back into void magic for some time now...
“Not a day goes by where I don't wonder what would happen if I hadn't been created by my crackpot mother HAHAHAHA – just kidding, I love her dearly. Sure is quiet in the Cosmos nowadays, isn't it? HAHA, I'M KIDDING, BABE! No, actually it's nothing but a screaming match between good and evil – shit is flying up and down–nobody knows what's going on – and on and on people are screeching nonsense like "demonic, criminal, fascist, commie, subversive, savage, lapdog!" and they all keep plunging headfirst into mutual DESTRUCTION! And that's where I come in – I may have rustled the jimmies of The Star Eater, but he'll calm down eventually. I'm not going to let this beautiful Cosmos fall into the hands of indolent, power-hungry bastards like Audoin and Surtr–YOU BASTARDS HEAR ME!? THIS IS MY COSMOS AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME!!!”
Virus X
Alongside The Magic Anomaly Investigation Group (M.A.I.G.) and The Anomaly Containment Foundation (The ACF), The Liger Brigade also secures and contains its fair share of anomalies. Amidst its more dangerous anomalies is Virus X. What initially seems like an eerie, child-sized robot is actually an eldritch, extra-dimensional computer virus from a time before time. AIN-NULL would be the one to reveal when this origin was, with it being the Lost Era. The Lost Era, being the time before the Outer Void itself existed, was an era of perpetuity without life, death, or time. How a computer virus even existed in that era is beyond even a god such as AIN-NULL. The Cyber God’s son, K-Virus, was the one who first noticed Virus X crossing over into The Void Era through The Electric Abyss and intercepted him.
It goes without saying that Virus X is a truly dangerous anomaly, made of strange, unexplained cyber-biomass with properties that mirror that of singularities and hive-mind organisms. The glowing eye in his chassis is believed to be a black hole, but this is difficult to confirm or test. Virus X also has an unstable personality, being immature and prone to bouts of psychosis. Despite his strange nature, he does seem to like The Liger Brigade and provides help ranging from engineering to coding. Currently he is the pilot of the Brigade's SR-73 War Bird, albeit because he proved capable of piloting the craft better than most humans rather than being selected for it.
Currently Virus X resides in a Hyper Overflow Realm located 100 Quintilion Light-years out from any standard Earth reality, stating that it reminds him of the Lost Era. Despite the impossible distance from any coherent reality, he is able to show up on time for his daily check in with the Brigade like clockwork. He also assists The Miranda Group in studying Lost Era interactions with modernity. K-Virus monitors his behavior whenever he enters The Digital Realm or The Electric Abyss.
And it should be noted that Virus X is NOT to be allowed into the Commercialverse Cosmos UNLESS UNDER STRICT SUPERVISION. Currently he wishes to find a way to bring Madame Synthia from the indie web series DETHBOTS to Universe-23, as Madame Synthia is his "waifu" (as per his nature to yank people’s chains) who he has dedicated his romantic interests to. It should be noted that Madame Synthia alongside The Star Eater is considered an agent of chaos in DETHBOTS with a desire to devour the entire universe, or so she has claimed, as the canon lore is ambiguous with that aspect of her character. Thankfully these were just aspects of the lore for the DETHBOTS animated series, but they still have great power that can become dangerous
Darla, The Alkainting Daughter
There is an important reason why humans so ardently and vociferously deny the existence of the supernatural and paranormal, even if they do not realize it. Strange and incomprehensible entities haunt the void of the multiverse, ones humans could never hope to understand with any sane or rational mind. The -0D entity calling herself "Darla" is a strong case for this ignorance as a necessary evil. Darla represents a dangerous and delicate situation where the fabric of reality for the Cosmos is being pushed to its limits.
Darla is primarily documented by the Multiverse Patrol, but is also pending approval for ACF-206 by The Anomaly Containment Foundation of Universe-23. The MVP typically stays out of conflicts between universes and gods unless the conflict in question jeopardizes the multiverse as a whole or concerns their primary mission. They typically focus on troublemakers and armies trying to disrupt other universes as a whole. A conflict like the ongoing war between The Tyrant God and The Sepulcher God while involving multiple universes, is mostly a contained conflict. Both sides have their targets and stick to them. And then The Virus God brought back The Alkainting God from his expedition to Threrth's Cosmos.
The Alkainting God has been an utter nightmare to handle for many organizations across the Cosmos. His incompatibility with our Cosmos has disrupted many universes, but they have been able to cope and recover. Things eventually settled down, but then something emerged from The Commercialverse, a daughter of The Alakinting God named "Darla." Initially it was believed she emerged from a high IGL universe, but it was soon discovered she emerged from a pocket universe from within the Commercialverse that was roughly 12 commercial levels in (Commercial-Universe-DL59XX-12). Notably Darla’s home seems to have traits of Threrth’s Cosmos, but has no known connection to that Cosmos.
What the MVP had documented was the first known -0D entity. 0D is already an anomaly to begin with, but -0D goes above and beyond as 0 cannot exist as a negative. Darla's properties cannot be inferred and have to be observed, making her an incredibly dangerous entity by merely existing. Darla distorts reality however she pleases, but her favorite pastime seems to be placing herself and her victims within a horror movie narrative where she proceeds to force them to act out whatever story she has envisioned, unstoppable until the movie finishes. Bizarrely the majority of her victims seem to be Earth governments from unknown universes attempting to capture or eliminate her, typically American, British, and Russian governments.
Darla does seem to know when she is causing trouble, as she will flee when the MVP shows up. She is known to have three friends: The Lost Messt God (ACF-185), Mimic (ACF-103), and The Zombie God (ACF-079-01). Darla is incredibly distrustful of entities like The Void Eater, as he has snitched on her in the past. Currently she has made her way to The Abyssal Dungeon where she seems to be brainstorming new ideas for movies. Of troubling concern is the fact that The Xanthous King, following The Red River City incident, had an existential crisis and is currently looking for a significant other. He seems to be infatuated with Darla, which has attracted the attention of Ultinn-Lacksus, an infamous member of the villainous Eternal Order.
The future of Commercialverse exploration
The Future of Commercialverse exploration is looking incredibly bright, despite the hurdles and trials presented by the ongoing conflict with The Lost Darkness God and Surtr. Newer and better technology for making expeditions easier and safer is always in development, and more and more is being understood about The Commercialverse day by day. Research into layers is ongoing, with the hopes that they can be understood and properly explored in the near future. Unique elements and magic are being discovered in the unexplored depths of The Commercialverse, which hold great potential for scientific advancement. Furthermore The League has been able to get into contact with allies in The Dream Realm, allowing for a stronger defense against the machinations of The Lost Darkness God. GRENADIER and its allies will not stop until they achieve greatness, and The Commercialverse offers a proud and optimistic route to that wholeness.
Hello everyone, Goolubber here to finish this dang thing off, haha. Wasn’t that fun to read about it? Please give Will some credit for being able to type what he did, as it takes a lot of patience to suss through all of the complicated details of The Commercialverse. I mean jeez, look what happened to me on multiple occasions… So before we end this off, I would like to give thanks to the people who helped me compile this so I could dump it into Will’s head. I would like to thank Terrus, Dragoslava, The Virus God, The Madman of Old, Cornelius, Esmond, Knox, and Nosmirc… and yes, even those stinkers The Star Eater and Volf Blitz. All of you were a great help and I could not have done it without you. Goo Burgers on me for all of you! And if you’re worried about The Zombie God causing trouble, don’t worry, Will’s got this taken care of. Yeah, The Zombie God is gunning for him, but he knows how to keep her in check. Plus we got Volf keeping her on a leash, so I wouldn’t fret. Have a good night, everyone – and happy birthday if it’s your birthday!
[Address expunged due to website containing infohazardous and cognitohazardous material – NO, Zombie God - Volf Blitz]
GOD F[EXPLETIVE] D[EXPLETIVE] IT
ULTRAMagic Alternate © 2022 William Ford II (ChaoticTempleKnight)
Frankenstein © 1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly
The King in Yellow © 1895 Robert W. Chambers
Dracula © 1897 Bram Stoker
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