Heralds

Far away, in the depths of Beyond, lies the sacred realm of Heaven. There, encompassed by the Divine Choir, God looks out upon all that has arisen in Creation. He waits for the moment when a world is ready to enter His divine fold. And when He finds one ripe, He sends forth His Heralds to bear His word.

Each Herald is fashioned for this purpose, crafted to speak to the denizens of a particular world. They are a distillation of divinity - the closest God in Heaven may come to mortals. Their tongue is a language made solely for this end, one that brands itself upon the soul of the listener. Yet even these fragments of His might are strange, alien, and incomprehensible: they appear as impossible beings, ever-shifting in form and structure. The Heralds sent to the Prophets of The Church appeared as vast assemblies of wings and fire, of wheels and eyes, and spoke with voices of thunder and glory.

Alien Majesty

When the Heralds appeared, they filled the sky. Their appearance broke the minds of many who saw them, and they saw how few of the creatures beneath heaven could withstand the least shred of God's presence. Three among those who witnessed their coming were able to stand and receive the messages of God in Heaven. These became the prophets, and founded The Church of God in Heaven.

The Heralds are not all the same - they are individuals, each with their own personality and purpose. They bear that purpose as names in Enochian. In the Pallaman commonly used for scripture, they are known as Vox, Oculus, Buccina, Lux, and Gladius - the Voice, Eye, Trumpet, Light, and Sword. When the Prophets were found, the Heralds carried them to a high place and spoke to them in turn, filling them with the word of God. Each Herald spoke, conveying the words from which they were made and etching the purpose and power of God in Heaven upon the Prophets' souls. When the Prophets returned to the company of mortals, they bore a fragment of the Heralds' power within them - they became as strange and removed from ordinary men as the Heralds were diminished from God in Heaven.

Still Here

When the Heralds had delivered their message, they did not depart. They had been made for this world and had no place in Heaven while it persisted. They withdrew into the shadows of eternity but remained as the constant agents of God in Heaven, watching over the mortals who scurry across the skin of the world. Those who have been instructed in their Enochian names can still call out to them, and they will emerge - but make no mistake, they do not serve the one who called them.

Once, when Gladius was summoned during the conversion of Chetkia, the Herald became a pillar of black and crimson flame that smote the earth. For three nights, the sky bore the afterglow of the Herald's manifestation, and when people finally ventured into the affected area, they found the city of Aksugnut flattened and reduced to ash, and all the trees for hundreds of miles around were charred and broken. There were no survivors, but the Herald seared a record of its summoning upon the glass where the city had stood, in crawling Enochian characters which remained only long enough to be read and understood before they shattered the sheet upon which they were inscribed.

In modern times, the Heralds’ names are not spoken for any purpose. The Hierarchs have decreed that there is no circumstance so dire as to bring these strange and fell beings into the world. During the Dragon War, they prepared to call them forth should Leviathan begin to emerge - but thankfully, The Little Dragon and his cult were defeated before that apocalypse could come to pass. But they are still there, just on the other side of reality, waiting for whatever purpose God in Heaven may put them to.