an introduction to COMATELMA

by dorian fleouriarts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• History of the world
• Important worldbuilding points
• How the world looks now
• Heavenly and hellish matter
• Angels
• The Comatelma
• Story set-up
• Characters (in order of appearance)
• Ailennelai
• Yerin
• Julian
• Francisco

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• Characters (cont.)
• Daewon
• Samshulann
• Wiltkewan*
• Ikummuki
• Ramiel
• Arcs
• Arc 1: Finding Samshulann
• Arc 2: Building an army
• Arc 3: The struggle
• Arc 4: “Defeating” Ailennelai
• To-do list

INTRODUCTION TO THE INTRODUCTION

• I first made this story when I was 14, it’s been through 2 major rewrites and hundreds of smaller ones
• ⬅ Character change timeline to show this (which is already outdated LOL)
• No matter how messy it is it holds part of my soul so I have to keep working on it
• This is a Google Slides because it’s easy to read + I’ll never have time to make this a comic + I can edit it whenever
• Anything marked with an asterisk* is very subject to change
• Feel free to ask me questions about the story and characters literally anytime

HISTORY OF

THE WORLD

HISTORY OF THE WORLD: AILE + IKU’S BIRTH

• Since the beginning of time, the world has been governed by the forces of “light” (good, growth, etc) and “darkness” (evil, decay, etc), balancing each other out with constant conflict
• Once humans come onto the scene, they spit out Ailennelai (“light”) and Ikummuki (“darkness”) as conscious manifestations of themselves
• Response to humans creating religion somehow
• Given no guidance as to what they’re supposed to do
• Ailennelai strives to understand herself and the world, Ikummuki does not want to exist
• Ailennelai is dismayed seeing humans suffering and believing in gods she knows do not exist, and vows to do something about it

HISTORY OF THE WORLD: “OLD HEAVEN”

• Ailennelai gathers scholars from around the ancient world to help her create a utopia with its own culture and language
• Referred to as “Old Heaven” in retrospect, haven’t come up with its actual name
• Ailennelai tries to create gods by herself, and learns she cannot create life, only augment what already exists
• One of her scholars helps her create gods using her blood and sacrificed humans
• Several failed attempts, one of them creates Samshulann, the god of war
• He popped out of his “god-egg” too early in the form of a child, Ailennelai raises him as her own son until he is old enough to “do his job”
• Later attempts create fully-formed “adult” gods
• Ikummuki does not like Ailennelai trying to create a place without “darkness”, and enlists Wiltkewan*, the god of agriculture, to help take it down
• Wiltkewan and Ikummuki orchestrate a famine to pressure Ailennelai, they go to war, Ikummuki wins and destroys Ailennelai’s body

HISTORY OF THE WORLD: IN-BETWEEN

• Ailennelai’s body is destroyed, “Old Heaven” is in ruins, Wiltkewan and Ikummuki fuck off
• Normal world history happens, “Old Heaven” is remembered as a mythological place like Atlantis
• Devotees of Ailennelai take Samshulann’s body and put it into stasis, then find a way to reconstruct Ailennelai’s body and consciousness
• Ailennelai spends millenia working under-the-radar with generations of devotees on a new plan for a larger utopia to end human suffering worldwide
• She is also mad with power and thrives on humans believing in her, this is her plan to keep that power
• Ikummuki and Wiltkewan catch wind of this and plan to stop her a little too late

HISTORY OF THE WORLD: THE APOCALYPSE

• As the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Day of 2020, massive tracts of land are lifted into the sky by Ailennelai to create her own Heaven
• More islands in areas of higher population density
• The world is in chaos, Ailennelai and her “angels” start shuttling people into Heaven, while Wiltkewan and Ikummuki attempt to stop her
• Ikummuki’s body is destroyed, Wiltkewan goes into hiding
• Most of the human population is put into the “comatelma”, some people resist, those who resist are promised that they will be left alone on Earth
• This is not true. Ailennelai attempts to eradicate life on Earth with a great flood so only Heaven will remain, leaving few survivors
• Ailennelai believes she has sufficiently destroyed Earth, but creates a cloud layer to hide it from Heaven (and vice versa)
• The small Earth population rebuilds the world, and after centuries, forget that Heaven even exists

IMPORTANT WORLDBUILDING

POINTS

HOW EARTH IS NOW

• Tons and tons of craters from Heaven’s islands being lifted into the sky
• Sea level is lower than when the great flood happened, but still high
• Major metropolitan areas were lifted up to make Heaven, most pre-apocalypse ruins are rural
• Ailennelai keeps a cloud layer under Heaven’s islands to separate Heaven from Earth, which affects the weather
• Areas with no islands/barely any islands: mostly normal weather, biggest threat to life is the high sea level
• Areas with lots of islands: sun blotted out by cloud layer, near-constant storms

HEAVENLY/HELLISH MATTER

• Ailennelai and Ikummuki’s godblood can turn living things into “heavenly” or “hellish” matter
• Ailennelai used her blood to create gods and everything in Heaven
• Ikummuki used its blood to create weapons trying to prevent the apocalypse
• ex.) Julian’s fire necklace during Arc 1 is made of peppers turned into hellish matter
• Ingesting godblood or either matter as a human has adverse effects on the body
• Heavenly matter = cancerous cell growth
• Hellish matter = cell decay
• Heavenly matter can only be destroyed by hellish matter (and vice versa)

ANGELS

• Artificial humans created by Ailennelai and her devotees to maintain Heaven
• All have white hair and a mix of secondary sex characteristics
• Use Ailennelai’s language from “Old Heaven” and go by the neopronouns lai/laim/laies
• Godblood cores and channels allow laim to summon wings and weapons
• Cores are inserted postnatally, making laim dependent on Ailennelai to function
• Meant to use Ailennelai’s godblood, but Ikummuki’s can be used instead… 🤭

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ANGELS (cont.)

• Arc 2 introduces a new type of angel that Earth denizens call “cherubs”
• Grown from brain cells of existing angels
• Don't have any “higher” cognizance, they act purely on instinct

THE COMATELMA

• “Comatelma” = angel term for trees housing all humans in Heaven
• Trees have bubbles of heavenly “sap” oozing out of their trunks
• Each bubble holds a human in a “sap”-induced coma, dreaming of their lives before the apocalypse
• Most angels’ jobs are to maintain the comatelma in one way or another
• Pre-story, no one had ever woken up from the coma, and Ailennelai wanted to keep it that way
• Believes she has “solved” human suffering by keeping everyone in stasis, protecting them from an unpredictable world

STORY SET-UP

STORY SET-UP

• During the apocalypse, high-school senior Kim Daewon is separated from his family in a comatelma. His family on Earth make a time capsule with his things and a plea for someone in the future to wake him up
• The time capsule is passed down, forgotten, and eventually rediscovered by Yerin (Daewon’s distant relative) and her friend Francisco, a pre-apocalypse history enthusiast
• They pore over every detail but have no resources to wake Daewon up
• Seen as village crazies for this. Heaven is hidden from Earth (and vice versa) and it’s been so long since the apocalypse that it’s left collective memory
• In Heaven, archivist angel Osanos is obsessed with pre-apocalypse culture, learning English and teaching laies child Iulian about it
• Eventually, Osanos breaks Heavenly law by crossing the cloud layer to see Earth for laimself

STORY SET-UP

• Yerin and Francisco are visited by a neighbor fanatically exclaiming that they were right, Heaven is real, and they just met an angel
• The two meet Osanos and immediately ask for laies help freeing Daewon
• Lai agrees, goes up to Heaven, and returns with Daewon’s location
• Lai promises to free Daewon laimself… and never comes back
• Francisco loses hope, but Yerin doesn’t give up that easy
• The two start exploring, looking for leftover wartime tech, and end up finding an entire hellish stronghold near the coast
• They spend the next few years building a shitty house and finding out how to work the old tech
• The story starts with Yerin carrying out the mission to wake up Daewon

CHARACTERS (in order

of appearance)

AILENNELAI (she/her)

(please excuse the 2019 art she is in dire need of a redesign)

• Conscious manifestation of light/good/etc that got spit out by the world when humans started creating religions
• Wants to “solve” human suffering, and believes she has with the comatelma
• Cloying, clingy mother to Samshulann
• Deeply insecure and secretly wishes she was a human

KIM YERIN (she/her)

• Weird old lady obsessed with Heaven and pre-apocalypse Earth
• Passionate to a ridiculous and sometimes dangerous degree
• Often does not think before doing (when she really really should)
• Overbearing, especially with Daewon, she didn’t have much in the way of family before him
• Speaks a weird mix of pre- and post-ap¹ English

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(¹ short for “apocalypse” I’m gonna be using that for the rest of the powerpoint)

JULIAN (fka IULIAN) (he/him)

• “Fallen angel” working a penal sentence before Yerin’s arrival
• After Osanos’ (parent’s) visit to Earth:
• Osanos is killed
• Julian’s core is removed (in fear of him defecting)
• Tatinai (other parent) mangles his back so he can never summon his wings again
• Sent to guard a comatelma, a painfully boring job clearly meant to punish him
• Purposely adopts a “human” name and pronouns once he reaches Earth
• Blunt and not very talkative
• Knows some pre-ap English from Osanos, but he takes a while to get used to post-ap English
• Was alone for so long that he lowkey forgot how to socialize

FRANCISCO SANDOVAL (he/him)

• Pre-ap history enthusiast that stumbled into being Yerin’s best friend
• Unsure how this interest started, maybe they lived in an area with a lot of pre-ap abandoned buildings
• Kind of a huge scaredy-cat, which is not very conducive to his work
• IDK i need to develop him more

KIM DAEWON (he/him)

• Reawakened human from pre-ap Earth (c. 2020)
• Only one in his family that went into a comatelma, the rest were stuck on the surface
• Immediately distraught after waking up because every semblance of his past life is gone
• After learning why Yerin woke him up, he decides he needs to live, and accept what he cannot change
• Starts working with Francisco to record pre-ap history
• Has a “you and your coworker who’s way older than you” relationship with Julian
• He finally makes a friend his age in Arc 2…

KIM DAEWON (he/him)

(working on a new design for his clothes. here’s some scribbles)

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(his hair length also changes throughout the story, he’s growing it out after it got shaved for the comatelma)

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SAMSHULANN (he/him)

• God of war from “Old Heaven”
• First god, popped out of his egg prematurely
• Instead of remaking him, Ailennelai raises him as her own son before he starts “doing his job”
• Reawakened in Arc 2 to help them defeat Ailennelai
• Hates fighting, does it anyway, Yerin notices and insists that he switches to something else to help them
• Becomes a nurse so he can finally do some good
• Doesn’t think he deserves to be alive after killing so many people to uphold “Old Heaven” and desperately wishes he could just be a human
• Only speaks Ailennelai’s language when he’s revived, has to learn post-ap English through Julian (which brings them closer together… 🤭)

WILTKEWAN (she/her)

• God of agriculture from “Old Heaven”
• Created “properly” and popped out of the god-egg as an adult, defected and worked with Ikummuki to destroy “Old Heaven”
• One normal eye, one empty socket that she sticks hellish eyes into with different abilities
• Becomes second-in-command to Yerin for the resistance
• Speaks Ailennelai’s language and pre-ap English
• Still figuring out her personal arc, it’ll likely have to do with the fact that she did not have a childhood (alienates her from humans/angels/Samshulann)

WILTKEWAN (she/her)

(last slide’s design is outdated, this one is also slightly outdated, everyone needs new designs LOL)

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(the dress and sash are from her time as a god, paired with a modern military jacket)

IKUMMUKI (it/its)

(Ikummuki has no design right now, it used to have a generic devil design before i realized it wouldn’t even want a humanoid form)

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• Conscious manifestation of darkness/evil/etc that got spit out by the world when humans started creating religions
• Believes there needs to be a balance of “light” and “darkness”, and Ailennelai is constantly disrupting it
• Shows up to help the cast by providing godblood and weapons but otherwise does not want to be here

RAMIEL (fka LAMIEL and RAMI) (she/her)

• Archivist angel sent to Earth to destroy the resistance
• Her mission: kill Yerin and capture Samshulann
• Archivist work = an extensive knowledge of pre-apocalypse Earth, so she can pose as a reawoken human to get close to Daewon and Yerin
• Eventually realizes she doesn’t want to go through with the mission and defects
• Kinda spineless aside from this, which really aggravates Daewon once he learns who she really is
• Starts helping Daewon and Francisco with their history work after Arc 3
• Trans woman
• Male human persona named “Rami” in Arc 2 ➡ back to Lamiel at the start of Arc 3 ➡ combined name of Ramiel and she/her pronouns mid-Arc 3

ARCS

ARC 1: FINDING SAMSHULANN

• Yerin frees Julian and Daewon, Daewon wakes up, they all have a spat before settling into Yerin and Francisco’s shitty house
• Y + F show them the hellish stronghold they built the house over, Julian gets a necklace that lets him do fire magic
• Francisco shows D + J his research
• He’s been looking into “Old Heaven”, but one god is consistently omitted from everything he’s found. He wants to go to “Old Heaven’s” ruins and find out why
• Now that D + J are here, he can venture out while Yerin stays for her own business + guarding the house
• Daewon joins to learn about post-ap earth, Julian joins for that + protecting them
• Before they leave, Yerin parades Daewon around nearby villages as a symbol of hope, which he lowkey hates

ARC 1: FINDING SAMSHULANN

• Random tidbits of worldbuilding on their way to “Old Heaven”
• At “Old Heaven”, they meet “the inventor” who claims to have made Ailennelai’s gods for her
• Reveals that the missing god is Samshulann, the god of war that Ailennelai treated as her own son
• Samshulann is still alive, kept in a comatelma “close to Ailennelai’s heart”
• Julian figures that “Ailennelai’s heart” = inside of a statue of her in the capital of Heaven
• Daewon and Julian infiltrate and take Samshulann, but a storm during their escape makes them crash-land on a random island
• During the infiltration, Daewon meets Ailennelai face-to-face, and she almost convinces him to return to the comatelma before Julian intervenes

ARC 2: BUILDING AN ARMY

• Samshulann wakes up, Julian explains what’s going on
• Julian does all the talking because Samshulann only knows Ailennelai’s language
• They’re discovered by Wiltkewan, who has been scouring different islands to find enough hellish matter to revive Ikummuki
• Samshulann clearly has beef with Wiltkewan but does not elaborate
• Wiltkewan takes Julian’s fire necklace and uses it for the last bit of Ikummuki’s body
• Wiltkewan tells Ikummuki about what’s happened since the apocalypse, tries to get Ikummuki to help the humans, it sends her to do it instead
• Daewon asks for Julian’s weapon back, Ikummuki just gives Julian a new godblood core
• Julian can use his fire again, but his back is still too fucked up to summon wings
• Ikummuki makes them a vehicle out of a bug or something so they can get home and then fucks off

ARC 2: BUILDING AN ARMY

• Everyone starts finding their place in the resistance as it grows
• Daewon continues working with Francisco
• Julian figures out his new powers
• Samshulann helps with combat, Yerin can tell he hates it, he becomes a nurse instead
• Wiltkewan takes over Samshulann’s job
• Julian is tasked with teaching English to Samshulann, and they become roommates… and then something more… 🤭
• Ailennelai starts sending down lesser angels aka “cherubs”in an attempt to eliminate the humans
• Humans have gotten too good at both finding and using hellish weapons, so this doesn’t stop them LOL
• Since “cherubs” aren’t working, Ailennelai tries a new strategy of infiltrating from within

ARC 2: BUILDING AN ARMY

• Lamiel, an archivist angel, poses as a human named “Rami” that was freed by a rogue angel and sent Yerin’s way
• Mission: Kill Yerin and bring Samshulann back to Heaven
• “Rami” quickly befriends Daewon and Yerin, and realizes lai doesn’t want to go through with the mission
• While calling laies superiors for a status update, lai cuts out laies earpiece so Heaven can’t reach laim anymore
• After disconnection, “cherub” attacks become suspiciously sparse, and Lamiel starts running out of resources to keep up laies disguise
• Julian confronts “Rami”, knowing that lai is an angel, but is sympathetic towards laim, telling lai to get out of the area because it seems like Heaven is planning something big
• Lamiel gets ready to leave, but Heaven attacks before lai can, capturing Samshulann and incapacitating (but not killing) Yerin

ARC 3: THE STRUGGLE

• Lamiel is found out and ousted from the resistance
• Arc is mostly about everyone’s struggles without Samshulann and Yerin
• Daewon is incredibly upset at Lamiel lying to him and potentially losing his last bit of family left
• Julian is incredibly upset at having lost his closest friend/now lover
• Samshulann has to be with his mother again, and grapple between staying with her and trying to return to Earth
• Wiltkewan has to take over for Yerin but lacks her charisma and hopeful attitude
• Yerin is going stir-crazy while recovering with Francisco by her side
• Wiltkewann decides it’s too dangerous to rescue Samshulann right now, they need to rebuild first

ARC 3: THE STRUGGLE*

• During the rebuilding, Lamiel comes back, breaking their exile to tell them lai has met a third surviving god
• Wiltkewan knows exactly who this is and demands they go meet her
• Daewon initially refuses to go, but knows that meeting another person from “Old Heaven” would be invaluable for Francisco’s research, so D + J + W + L set out into the desert to find her
• Meanwhile, Samshulann is in Heaven, and Ailennelai is guilting him into staying with her
• She offers to put Samshulann back into the comatelma to ease his worries, and he reluctantly agrees
• Ailennelai finds a way to pilot Samshulann’s body while he’s comatose so she can still use his god powers to obliterate the resistance

ARC 3: THE STRUGGLE*

• On the journey, Daewon and Lamiel both complain to Julian about each other, and he forces them to make up
• At some point Lamiel changes her name to Ramiel and becomes a woman
• They get ambushed… by Nairoketh*, the third surviving god who controls the sun/fire*
• Wiltkewan appeals to Nairoketh by talking about their shared history
• Nairoketh refuses to be involved with Heaven again, even if it’s against them, and turns them down
• As the group leaves, “Samshulann” (piloted by Ailennelai) appears to kill them
• Nairoketh joins the fight, Julian can tell he’s being controlled, Samshulann hears Julian’s voice and starts snapping out of his coma
• Julian breaks Ailennelai’s control thing and fully frees him
• Samshulann wakes up and is surprised to see Nairoketh again. Nairoketh still doesn’t join them, but now they know where to find her

ARC 4: “DEFEATING” AILENNELAI

• Ailennelai goes into deep distress seeing her son reject her
• Back in resistance territory, the group discover that Yerin has healed her injury with Ikummuki’s godblood somehow
• She knows it’ll kill her eventually, vowing to defeat Ailennelai before that happens
• The resistance starts preparing for a final confrontation, Ikummuki even shows up to help, but Ailennelai shocks everyone by surrendering
• Samshulann’s rejection made her realize the error of her ways, and now she wants to end the comatelma and help repopulate Earth
• Literally everyone is skeptical of this, she offers herself up as prisoner to carry it out
• Ailennelai and the resistance begin the long, grueling process of bringing down Heaven’s islands and freeing people from the comatelma

ARC 4: “DEFEATING” AILENNELAI

• During the process, Samshulann and Ailennelai are deliberately separated, and their interactions are chaperoned by either Julian or Wiltkewan so Ailennelai won’t manipulate him
• Near the end of the process, Samshulann meets with Ailennelai secretly, and she begs him to kill her
• Everyone hates her and she doesn’t know what she’s meant to do after this
• Samshulann refuses, but is haunted by the interaction, and meets with Julian and Wiltkewan to decide what he should do
• Dichotomy of gods/angels (made for a purpose) and humans (find their own purpose) is prominent throughout this story
• Samshulann posits that if Ailennelai could live a human life, without the pressure of being a god, she would finally be happy
• Julian and Wiltkewan are against Ailennelai getting this sort of redemption, Samshulann understands, but still wants to help her

ARC 4: “DEFEATING” AILENNELAI

• S + J + W meet with “the inventor” and find a way to reverse-engineer the process for making gods to give Ailennelai a human body
• They also find a way to make Samshulann and Wiltkewan fully human
• Lowkey I haven’t figured out the specifics of how they do all this but I DO want this to be how it ends
• They grow Ailennelai’s new body, stopping at “newborn child” stage so she can live a full life, and kill Ailennelai’s old body
• Samshulann doesn’t want to be part of Ailennelai’s new life, and she’s taken to be raised somewhere far away
• Epilogue where Samshulann and Julian have a child, and the old resistance territory is a community with a mix of pre-ap humans, post-ap humans, and angels

TO-DO LIST

• Include Tatinai in the main story somehow
• Probably in Arc 3
• Read more actual mythology for inspiration
• Update designs for Daewon, Francisco, Wiltkewan, and Ramiel
• Update ALL the gods’ names to fit Ailennelai’s language
• Update my rough notes for Ailennelai’s language (and give it a real name)
• I am not creating a full conlang because that’s not my brand of crazy