Limbo

The land of the reapers; ruled by the merchant-government Reapers Inc., this is the place where all souls wind up if no demon gets to them first--including you. It exists on a dimensional plane between Earth and Hell, making it a bit like Hell's heaven.

## History

### Past

God originally created Limbo to act as a big waiting room for lost souls, as his little angel helpers were hard at work making new souls for the past millennia and soon realized that there just wasn't enough time or space to keep all these dead souls waiting around at the pearly gates, especially when so many of them were just bound for Hell anyway (a bit of a tease, really, thinking you're about to get into Heaven, just to get judged right before you enter; twas hell for the angelic security guards who had to deal with the perpetual fallout, let me tell you.) So, instead of keeping them in Heaven to be judged, they would instead--at the very least--go through a preliminary judgment period in Limbo, where only the best candidates could then be permitted to try to enter Heaven. For a time, this system worked great; souls were lead to Limbo instead of Heaven, they were judged within a few days, and then they could go wherever Limbo thought would be best for them: the angelic security guards could finally justify their pay. God thought this was Beans McQueens, and went halfway across the other side of the universe to toy around with a different sentient species in his image, in the hopes that they would still love him.

### Present

God's little angel helpers never did stop making new souls, always trying to keep up with the human's ceaseless demands for unprotected sex, and the problem just got infinitely worse after the industrial era, never able to fill the tall orders of hundreds of thousands of souls a day; many humans were erroneously born without souls, and though it's not a problem for Limbo as no soul = no problem, those soulless humans did have a habit of taking the lives of a lot of other soul-filled humans, making an already over-saturated Limbo just brimming with lost souls, who were starting to coagulate into phantoms, making it a huge problem for the angels who just didn't know what to do with them all. The courts were so overburdened and underfunded that the waiting time extended into the tens of thousands of years, and souls usually just didn't show up anyway, being so lost and wandering Limbo; just imagine, waiting fifty thousand years to figure out whether you're bound for Hell or Heaven, just to miss your court date, and you gotta wait another seventy thousand years for the next one!! More souls missed their court dates than any soul was actually heard, clogging up the system even more; entire days were spent just calling out the numbers for souls that just weren't there, either out of fear of being eaten by a phantom, or just forgetting they were supposed to be around. "23,853, 823, 218, 541, 882? Window 7-A, please! ...23,853, 823, 218, 541, 882? Window 7-A! ...last call for, 23,853, 823, 218, 541, 882!"

It was a huge mess. At some point, the angels who ran the place just gave up on it. and retreated back to Heaven, to pretend that Limbo isn't a thing--after all, God wasn't around to watch them, and the humans couldn't see what was going on, and no angel wanted these filthy non-angels in their borders. In an attempt to help the problem, and with their greatest threats gone, a syndicate of phantoms formed together to create the business and government "Reapers Inc."; they started stuffing all the souls they could find into a cavern of Limbo they named "Well of Souls", and sealed away all the horrors that came of that, clearing out Limbo of all the wild phantoms which plagued it. Those remaining souls that had yet to form into phantoms, they simply forced through the system, and pushed into Hell, resulting in a big boost in the demon population, along with a big boost in the peculiarities of demon breeds--after all, only the worst of the worst were supposed to appear there, but now just about anyone could! (Naturally, they avoided pushing any souls to Heaven, because then the angels would catch on to their plot and might try to take back their new sweet gigs.) Even after all of this work, Limbo was still teeming with extra souls, but at least the wait time was pushed down to a mere ten-thousand years, and the hideously powerful phantoms were quarantined, making it safe to exist in once again.

Here is when Head Reaper of Reapers Inc. came up with a brilliant, albeit ethically-repulsive, idea: he could see that the demons of Hell had become very fat and happy on the souls they'd pushed down there, and were willing to do just about anything for more. Hell was filled with extraordinary material goods built up over many thousands of years, simply going to waste; the demons had no idea they were there, and had no idea what to do with them even if they did. The reapers sat on an absolute goldmine of souls to trade with the demons in exchange for their service in uncovering these goods, and as a future investment: the training of these demons could lead to eventually being able to conquer Heaven, Limbo's greatest enemy. The best part: the demons had no sense of unity, and were perfectly willing to kill one another, thereby releasing souls which their reapers could swoop in and bring back, effectively giving them unlimited ammunition to control Hell and relieve it of all the riches within. Huzzah!

Over the next years, Reapers Inc. began inventing various methods of trickery in order to get the demons to do what they wanted; they created a variety of false deities which the reapers would puppet to give commands to the demons, forming devout religions surrounding these deities. It worked, but the demons began to develop a sense of identity, which caused them to band together (arguably also due to the Heaven-bound souls making their way here); from there, the demons were able to get to work in pulling the material wealth out of Hell's surface, and traded these worthless, worthless treasures for what they really wanted: souls. The puppet deities would then "bless" the demons with souls, and transfer these treasures back to Limbo.

As a consequence of developing a sense of a tribe, demon societies began to form, and the smarter demons started to take positions of leadership, all towards the goal of appeasing their new gods. However, because of the prevalence of multiple different deities, nobody could agree as to which deity was actually the best deity or the realest deity, not to mention just how many souls those other guys had; the demons started to attack one another, and in response to these attacks, they started creating walled settlements to keep those other heathens and thieves out--no barbarians allowed!! Work continued: more treasures unearthed, more demons recruited to unearth them, more demons civilized and cultivated to fit in with one demon kingdom or another, more souls flowed; all the while, Reapers Inc. is just absolutely ecstatic with what they'd accomplished. Their immense power and success began to make them believe that they would be the rulers of every dimension, someday.

To further their operation, and given their lack of care as to what happens to the souls that pass through Limbo, they start their latest scheme: they keep the courts going, and make them as slow and inefficient as possible (much as they were before), but with one exception: you can now buy your way to the front of the line, and whoever is the highest bidder gets first dibs; all you need is a bank account with the First Bank of Hell with enough souls to transfer to Limbo, and you can simply return to Hell, alive and well. Now, Limbo could further relieve demons of their souls once they inevitably die to warfare, while keeping tabs on their property through the bank accounts. The reapers are quite proud of their system, indeed, and the demons are none the wiser to this day.

### Future

The reapers hope that someday some demon will rise above the rest and figure out a way to unite Hell against their supposed common enemy: the angels. While the demons and the angels generally never had beef before, being entirely separate, the propaganda which flows from Limbo has convinced the demons that Heaven is plotting against Hell due to deep hatred of demon-kind, and the only solution to the apparent impending genocide of all demons is to conquer Hell first, Heaven second. With the angels out of the way, and the demons fully under their control, and God out of the picture for who knows how many millennia, the reapers will have supreme power forever and ever. High on hubris, the reapers plan to send their princess, the syndicate's boss's daughter Sandy, to enter the fray and be the guiding force which unites the demons against Heaven, their ruler and heroine; supplying her with a near unlimited amount of souls, she is planned to rule the demons on their behalf, in the most literal sense.

## Courts

Limbo's courts exist to accept payment from you for you to continue your game. If you cannot pay off the courts, it's effectively a game over (unless you're willing to wait through over ten-thousand years...yeah, didn't think so.) However, there are other options if you're short on souls.

## Well of Souls

A massive cavern which runs throughout limbo; this is where the reapers store all of their excess souls, their goldmine. However, due to the nature of souls, they tend to merge with one another to form deadly phantoms, souls which eat other souls (even reapers!) So, it's pretty dangerous to go in there, but the reapers are more than happy to let you in if you can help take care of their problem; all you have to do is give them half of all the souls you manage to collect from there, and you can keep the rest. And after all, if you fail, you'll just contribute to the soul count, not to mention whatever was in your bank account which the reapers now own. But can you really afford to say no to this deal? Not unless you want to start over. Should've saved up souls and put them in your bank account if you didn't want to go in here, huh? Or maybe you shouldn't have died in the first place, eh?

## Reapers Inc.

The headquarters for the merchant government that rules over Limbo after the angels left. You can try to kill the reapers here, but they're pretty strong and you have no real leverage, being dead and all; you might have to come back here after a portal between Hell, Limbo and Heaven open up, so that you can bring your demon friends and have a big ol' jamboree. You can also contract reapers here, for a price; they'll be fully licensed and good-to-go once you get back to Hell. Reapers make for some pretty deadly warriors, and even grant bonus souls when they get the kill.

## Merchant District

Limbo is perhaps most famously known for its extensive market; just about anything you might ever want can be found here, and will be transferred directly to your bank account. You can also sell items stored in your bank account here, in case you can't quite make up the difference for your court bribes.