From DirtyWiki

Contents 1 The Complete Guide To Angels 1.1 History 1.2 Derivations of Angels 1.2.1 Souls 1.2.2 Natural Angels 1.2.2.1 Overview 1.2.2.2 Physical Characteristics 1.2.2.2.1 The Manifestation 1.2.2.2.2 The Physical 1.2.2.2.3 Pregnancy 1.2.2.3 The Aging Process 1.2.2.3.1 Angel Aging Chart 1.2.2.4 Genetics 1.2.2.5 Powers 1.2.2.6 Crossing Over 1.2.2.7 Footnotes 1.2.3 Deceased Angels 1.2.3.1 Overview 1.2.3.2 Summoning 1.2.3.3 Bringing the Dead Back (to Life) 1.2.3.4 Footnotes 1.2.4 Immortal Mortals 1.2.5 Ancients 1.3 The Bridges 1.4 Population

The Complete Guide To Angels

The very first and most important thing one has to remember is that in this world, angels are not from heaven. There is no heaven. There is no hell, no god, nothing as any modern religion assumes things to be. Angels are the "highest power", demons are the "lowest". There is nothing higher, nothing lower.

(Do remember that 'high' and 'low' is subjective and that 'powers' is also subjective.)

There are two types of angels: deceased angels and natural angels. Deceased angels were the first of all angels on earth and for all intents and purposes were just ghosts at the time. Now, ghosts are a separate entity and deceased angels are the souls of those who have died and crossed into the afterlife. Natural angels are what we see today.

The term angel was adopted sometime in the middle ages, though many older cultures and people call themselves differently. Angel is not the definitive term, nor really a term for them at all. Science has never defined them so there is no official term. In ancient times, they were the unmoved movers. Unmoved movers is probably the most accurate term, but not many angels born after the 14th century know they were actually called this at one point.

History

Thousands and thousands of years ago, when religion was a science, the first angels walked the earth. There is no record of the first appearance of angels, but records date back to 6500BCE and earlier of people who were alive and had wings. No angel survives from this period to confirm anything, and few angels can trace all the way back (it's about as likely as you tracing your own ancestry back to 6500BC).

But where did these angels come from? They haven't always been here, as one can see, and only stepped into humanity recently.

As the world’s population began to grow, especially around the invention and perfection of farming, the souls of the deceased had nowhere to go. There had always been a magical atmosphere, and many non-humanoids are far older than angels, but at a certain unknown point for an unknown reason, an afterlife appeared.

It may have been a glitch, or it may have been population control (until then, humans and the dead walked together and scared one another to pieces). Whatever the case, a pocket formed and eventually spread out between the atmospheres. A second plane for the souls to enter. You see, souls are quite a bit different than people think. We come from the earth and the earth stays with us, so when we die, part of the earth returns. That part is the soul.

Most of the souls that had been wandering earth for thousands of years went to this afterlife, and every new soul followed as evolution dictated. However, angels appeared because a few chose not to leave earth, having retained a waking consciousness akin to the reason that some ghosts remain earthbound today. Just as not every human, even one with unfinished business, turns into a ghost, not every soul turned into a conscious one. Every case was different. It was likely that very few of these existed, perhaps as few as ten. Location may have also played a factor.

The longer these souls stayed, the stronger they became. Earth began to reclaim them, the magical layer began to follow them and evolved around them. Out of this came powers. Wings to help them travel. These wings were passed on to every soul to help them get to and travel through the afterlife. Eventually, angels on earth also evolved wings, most likely because they were intrinsically a part of the afterlife and the magical layer that created it. But unlike the dead, who got their wings after crossing over, angels were exposed and their wings were not able to be hidden yet. This created a problem.

As no angel from this earliest incarnation exists today, it is unknown whether they looked like living creatures or were somewhat different. Angels have evolved, physically, until the last four or five hundred years, so it is highly likely they look very different today from their ancestors from thousands of years ago.

The earliest angels could only mate with each other.

Angels on earth began to reproduce, and every subsequent generation was stronger than the last because of the combination of so much magic. Out of these new generations, more and more powers developed and strengthened and became standards instead of varying events. Some chose to stay on earth, some chose to cross over. By the time humanity had written languages, as well as complex spoken ones, the afterlife was well-established and angels were their own beings. By 6500BCE, when some of the earliest records appear, angels were capable of mating with humans, leading many to believe that angels must be a few thousand years older than that.

Still, so long ago, they had not needed to hide their identity. Wings were still visible and led to a world-wide worship of beings with them. And a subsequent fear, as well.

Fear is what led to the eventual evolution of control over their appearances, which still looked like the dead, and made angels able to blend in seamlessly with the rest of humanity (their eyes could not be changed, but eye color in humans is diverse enough for this to not be much of a problem, which is most likely why eye color stayed light).

During the rise of Christianity, everything began to change. Angels had been frequently adopted into religions around the world for thousands of years, but people were no longer the same. Politics had changed.

At first, the rare angel was regarded with awe and used as inspiration for many religious creatures. This was not a common event, but the emergence of an angel was always celebrated as a miracle and the angel itself was favored over local religious officials for knowledge and understanding. The Church didn't want to lose power to these strange beings, so declared that they were impersonations of angels created by the devil itself to lure people from god's path.

These words were not easily ignored. Paranoia and fear-mongering were rampant, and angels were persecuted. Not by the thousands, as thousands is all there ever are, but by the dozens, or whenever one was found. Wings were stripped unsuccessfully, leading people to grow even more afraid, and angels crossed over at incredibly early ages in order to escape. The ones who stayed hid themselves, and it only took hundreds of years for the appearance of an angel to be as deceitful as it is today.

One could argue that evolution in angels varies from place to place, but nearly every angel has needed to hide its appearance, and evolution jumps forward much quicker than in humans. A generation or two is all it takes. Magic is worldwide, so affects every angel, rather than just one area.

The fear and persecution continued through the Middle Ages. Then, angels suddenly... disappeared. And as there have never been many, all official records of them having existed have been destroyed and were destroyed immediately. But the disappearance was simply the next stage in the angelic evolution. It was also around this time that their counterpart, the demon, showed up (in records--they have existed almost as long as angels have), and attentions were diverted from the angels to them (many accounts of witchcraft and subsequent hunts are thought to have begun because of a mischievous demon).

Angels have existed in their present form for at least four hundred years.

Derivations of Angels

As stated, in the beginning, all angels were the souls of the deceased. What are souls?

Souls

Everything on earth is obviously from earth, with a few extraterrestrial exceptions. We all have a connection. That connection is the soul. It anchors us to our planet in ways gravity doesn't. It stays behind when we die because it isn't organic. It can't die. Every one is unique, but every one is connected. Humans cannot get in touch with their own soul because they are living creatures with no capacity to understand what to look for, so death is what changes us.

Souls slowly evolved into their own species on earth. This division formed itself into "two classes" of angels. These classes are:

Natural Angels

NATURAL ANGELS are their own sort of living being, but they exist and only exist as an extension of the earth. One must remember that angels evolved from the dead. Living things cannot rise from a dead body, so angels still don't technically have life (this is getting extremely technical, so disregard it as it doesn't directly impact anything your characters would do). They are entirely souls and their connection to the earth is the strongest because of this.

Where an angel is born, a bridge (See: III. The Bridges) is formed between every single plane. Usually, this bridge centers on the exact location the angel was born (the very spot) and branches out for about a quarter mile to a mile in any given direction. As you might imagine, hospitals in cities where angel populations are more dense are often bridges.

Natural angels are born angels. Whether both parents are angels or only one is doesn't matter. Natural angels don't pop out of nowhere.

Overview

Angels are not inherently good, nor are they inherently bad¹. They are a generally passive, peaceful, secretive species that is bound to their powers through necessity. Meaning, they can only do anything significant if they have a good reason to or the full understanding of what they are doing. One cannot blindly have control of the earth. The earth does nothing at random. (These are, of course, very general statements and do not reflect every exception, of which there are many.)

Angels are a pure being, untainted and untouched (this is not a statement that applies to each individual angel's lifestyle, however). They are a positive light and a positive force but can do bad things if they so desire, just as anything with a mind of its own can. An angel’s soul is incredibly bright and incredibly clean, an appealing meal for creatures such as demons, and even vampires. But angels are in tune with that soul and can protect it easily from any violation, as long as they are aware. That soul is everything that makes the angel an angel at all, and comprises most of their body, which is why demons are so dangerous and why angels can kill them but they cannot kill angels in return. Regard it as a favor.

Physical Characteristics

Angels are not humans. As mentioned, they are technically not living creatures at all. Their genetics (to keep it simple) are guided by magic and thus do not show up in any type of screening. Their souls mimic humans so flawlessly because their bodies were human thousands of years ago and once they became solid beings again, all of the imprints in the original souls reappeared. As such, their basic genetic makeup appears to be human and there is no way to detect that they are different using scientific methods. Eyes and intuition are the only methods of use. No exceptions.

However, that doesn't negate the fact that they aren't human anymore. They don't operate in the same way as humans, physically. They can catch colds and be shot and come very near death, but they will never succumb to any of it, and that is the first difference. Their souls mimic extremely well, have I mentioned that?

Angels, however, have two appearances. One is human, with some minor physical differences (explained in the section below), and one is angelic. Once upon a time, it was all the same.

The Manifestation

An angel's appearance when not controlled or hidden (a 'manifestion') is much of what religious documents claim them to be, for the simple reason that these were the beings on which those messenger angels were based.

They are, as history likes to remind us, an ethereal being with a beauty that mankind cannot emulate. This is because their souls are so pure that their aura, the very essence of what an angel is, reflects an inner beauty that no living creature can have. Because they aren't living, they are not subjected to the rules of the living, that we must grow old and die. They don't. They are eternal. Magic is a "perfect" thing. Think of angels as a natural wonder of the world. Certain locations steal your breath away, and angels are somewhat similar. But this also makes their aura very powerful, and the presence of any angel is a difficult one to forget. You are interacting with a living soul, a soul without a barrier. It can be very uncomfortable if an angel is in a weird mood. (There are many tales in folklore about men pining away for women who have bewitched them with their beauty. Angel lore shares many similar, but true, encounters. It is next to impossible to forget the face of an angel.)

• Wings: Angels have white (though this can vary from pure white to grey), feathery wings that have a wingspan that is usually triple the angel’s height, sometimes slightly less. They're huge. So huge that they drag on the ground if an angel walks with them at his back. These wings, when present, feel real and attach to the angel through whatever clothing he or she is wearing. Wings are magic. An entire angel is made of magic. They will not cause holes to appear in clothing and the attachment tends to look as though they cleanly emerge from the body (some angels have downy covering around the attachment points). This attachment cannot be broken (feathers can be torn away; they grow right back, but the stripping of angel wings will cause them to bleed). But they also leave no mark, no sign of ever having been there in the first place because those bones and those feathers are pure magic.

• Glow: All souls look like this because they are filled with so much energy. An angel’s skin glows softly, enough to actually be semi-useful as a light in the dark. It can increase to a very strong, bright light when they grow older. Never does it fade.

• Nimbus: In addition to the general glow, angels have a nimbus of brighter, more concentrated light behind their heads. There's a lot of energy around the brain.

• Eyes: An angel’s eyes are always bright or pale in appearance. There is no exception and this is the one trait that they cannot hide unless they are altering their entire appearance temporarily. They will often contain a world of wisdom or sorrow or maturity. While not physically able to age, they give away just how old an angel might be. It is easy to read an angel’s eyes, to see how he or she feels. But they almost always haunt the person who has looked into them. This trait, though strongest in angels, can be found in humans, too. Eyes just plain old significant on anyone.

• Voice: When an angel has let his or her manifestations take over completely, his or her voice will start to sound almost echoic. It's very faint.

Almost all purely physical aspects of being an angel can be controlled. Wings can be hidden, the glow can be concealed, the nimbus can vanish. The only physical things that are unable to be hidden are the bright eyes and the infectious aura.

It is natural to be drawn to an angel simply because they are so filled with power and purity. They are a part of nature and nature is calming. Attention is easily focused on them even if they are in a crowd and not saying anything at all. Their aura is easy to feel, easy to follow, and their moods are almost contagious. A depressed angel is a very difficult being to subject oneself to; likewise, a happy angel will send spirits soaring.

Generally, angelic traits manifest at puberty during moments of heightened emotion. For example, wings often appear as a shield when someone is very, very afraid; and when an angel is suddenly happy, they tend to glow, their wings appear, and their nimbus shines all at once. It takes several instances until the powers become permanent and controllable (however, there are always moments, even after an angel matures, where instinct overrides control and powers manifest whether the angel wants them to or not).

The Physical

There are several characteristics of the physical well-being of an angel:

• Severe, chronic, or life-threatening medical issues that an angel can be born with or develop early, disappear during puberty. Manifestation or not, they will fade over a period of two or three years. An example is the disappearance of brittle bone disease or HIV. If an angel contracts something later in life, such as cancer or a serious illness or injury, they will have to suffer as humans do and wait for their body to heal itself. Puberty tends to cleanse. (Bad eyesight falls into this category. If they have failing eyes or blindness or even deafness before puberty, it will go away--but remember that anyone who is born blind will have a difficult time adjusting to the change, so this is not necessarily beneficial. Later in life, they cannot become permanently blind or deaf and will likely never need glasses, although again, any damage is temporary. Temporary can mean anything from several hours to five years, but usually no more than that.)
• They cannot, however, have major genetic mutations. Genetic mutations and missing chromosomes and the like are corrected during pregnancy. Mind you, these are mutations that cause problems. Big problems, not little ones, such as whatever leap created blue eyes and blonde hair. There is no angel that can have some sort of genetic mutation. That is why older angel families are often incestuous--there is no danger of having a child that is adversely affected by it, though social stigma may prevent anyone from fully engaging in marrying one's sibling. Magic corrects and builds missing links for any child--remember, their bodies are mimics.
• High metabolisms and rather strong immune systems are the norm. High metabolisms keep angels healthy and fit. Unless they sit and do nothing with their lives, ever, most angels do have naturally lithe bodies. Although, some are more fit than others, again, because of personal choices and activities. Muscle tone depends on the family and the exercise, as with humans, so a trip to the gym will probably be necessary if they spend all day eating chocolate cake and still want to retain a nice, firm...something. That is one aspect of humanity that just can't leave them. Sorry.
• They will not be obese or supremely underweight. This is only because they have high metabolisms. An angel can gain weight, but it will often come off on its own after several months if it is at all unhealthy, or if the metabolism is able to break it down. Additionally, they can be underweight if they don't keep a healthy diet. Weight will come back naturally if it gets to a dangerous point. (Pregnancy is one exception to the weight-gain rule, to be discussed in detail later.)
• Their bodies don't age. They can alter their appearances to look older, but after aging stops (read about the Aging Process below to find more information), they are done growing older. Nothing wears out and nothing needs replacing. But, pins and screws and artificial means of healing or fixing, including new hips and even pacemakers, generally get rejected as the body part restores itself, which could take as long as five years, but usually no longer.
• Despite all this, there is no generic appearance of an angel. They are not all tall, nor are they all small. While you won't find any angels with dwarfism or gigantism, they have retained human genetics of appearance and as with humans, how they grow depends solely on their family history. The only visibly angelic trait, other than manifestations, is their light and/or pale eyes. But, unfortunately, humans can have light eyes, as well, so you can't rely on eye color to tell an angel from a human.

Pregnancy

Pregnancy in angels is generally the same as in humans. They carry for nine months (on average), the women have the same gestation periods as humans, and have normal ovulation. It's egg + sperm with sometimes twins and sometimes more. But angels usually gain a very heavy amount of weight during pregnancy because their metabolisms are abruptly slowed and hormones are off the charts. Most angels gain at least five to ten pounds more than what is considered average in humans. They have incredible weight gain for all three trimesters and it's not uncommon to gain not one, as is common with human pregnancies, but two pounds a week or more.

Angels are also not immune to having premature births or miscarriages, but miscarriages can only occur within the first two weeks, or rather, before the heart begins beating. After that, there can be no vanishing twin or miscarriage, both natural or caused by outside stressors. That also means that the window to abort for an angel is very, very small. But, luckily, most angels know almost immediately after conception that they are pregnant. This makes early detection very easy and accidental pregnancies can be taken care of without unknowingly missing the window of opportunity. If one knows what to look for or what to feel.

In addition to knowing when they have conceived, angels can also tell the sex of a child by at least the middle of the second trimester, if not at the second trimester or even late in the first. They may have a feeling they know what the gender(s) may be, but by the third trimester, they will know for certain without any ultrasounds to prove it for them. This may bother some pregnant angels, but it may also delight some others. They can also tell when other people (angels and humans and other humanoids alike) are pregnant, and can, through touch, tell the sex of another's child. Detecting the gender of another's baby is only concretely done late in the second trimester. The bond between mother and child is far stronger than that of a random angel with their hands on the mother's belly.

There will be no complications during the pregnancy that require the child to be born prior to six months because the child must survive outside the womb. Try to cut in to get the baby out and the skin will heal. A baby cannot be born prematurely if they cannot survive.

Finally, due to the chaos that pregnancy creates, hormonally and environmentally, magic is more easily drawn to a pregnant woman (as are ghosts, in somewhat similar manners), and for the duration of the pregnancy, an angel can do slightly more with her abilities (ie, levitate more objects/levitate larger objects, feel the environment around her if she doesn't normally, etc.). This may be a result of two bodies with two souls (or more bodies if the mother isn't having a single baby).

The pregnancy glow also tends to be more literal and less oil glands and happy. (But it's not as bright as a complete and total manifestation glow.)

The Aging Process

The most complex aspect of an angel is its aging process, which slows at puberty and eventually stops altogether.

If a family of purely natural angels existed (that is to say, no one bred with a human or a vampire or any other non-angelic, mortal life form), which is highly doubtful at this point in time, all of the angels in that family would have stopped aging at eighteen years old.

However, because no such family exists and whether angels like it or not, human genetics can play around with angel offspring, the aging process is constantly tested. It takes three generations for a family to level out the aging after a human is bred into the family initially. If no subsequent humans/mortals marry into the family for three more generations after, the first human to breed with them again would start the process over. If humans or mortals continue to marry into the family at a regular pace, or if no humans or mortals ever marry in again, the aging process would no longer be affected.

Producing a child with an immortal human being² or a demon would not affect the aging process. Basically, immortality doesn't change anything.

When the first angel produces offspring with a human family, the ages at which people stop aging from one generation to the next go from about 40 to 20 to 18. THESE AGES ARE ALL HUMAN YEARS. The angel won't look their age at all because after puberty everything slows.

• The first gap is largest because that is the initial jump from purely angel genetics to human genetics.
• The second gap is smaller because by then everything is just about to return to normal but needs one more generation to get there.

***This does not mean that a first or second generation angel is not a complete angel! The aging process is the most complex aspect of an angel and needs time to repair itself! But anyone born first or second generation will be completely and 100% entirely angel!***

Angels begin to age slowly when they hit puberty (the ratio of human to angel years being about 1:3); so if puberty begins at twelve, by eighteen, most angels look to be about fourteen or fifteen, give or take a year or two depending on the physical characteristics of the angel itself (some angels look young, some angels look old, just as in humans). Their bodies will mature (as in, puberty won’t be prolonged and will take as long as it does in humans), but their appearances will not. All maturing stops when their aging process stops. Their eyes tell their human age, but part of the haunting myth of angelic beings is the perpetual youth.

Finally, and probably obviously, angels are immortal. They can be seriously injured or disfigured or become gravely ill (yes, even with cancer), but unlike their human counterparts, they will make a full recovery. The catch to this law is that an angel’s wounds won’t go away if they are self-inflicted with the intent to harm. (An angel who hurts an angel will heal, just as an angel hurt by a demon will heal--it's self-inflicted that scars permanently.)

The reason that there are only two immortal species is because these are the two species that evolved from the dead. Life must end and evolve and change for life to go on. Angels and demons are not living, so don't need to die.

Angel Aging Chart

This breaks down the various ages that your character will look depending on their generation, with regard to how slowly angels age. Ignore this if there has been human integration for over three generations, or no human integration for over three generations.

Remember, the angel may not actually seem to be as young as they look, and some real, actual people look mature at a younger age while others stay young until they're older. Appearances vary. Also, the onset of puberty varies. The younger it begins, the younger an angel may look. This chart assumes an average starting age of about twelve.

STOPS AGING AT | APPEARANCE
40 | 20 - 25
20 | 15 - 20
18 | 14 - 18

*BECAUSE WE HAVE ANGELS WHO HAVE MULTIPLE FAMILIES, THIS MUST BE STATED: Even if a single angel has married and bred with different humans for multiple generations, the aging process will start over again, without exception, every single time. It's the human or mortal side that affects it.

Genetics

When an angel conceives, the trait is passed on to his or her children in full. There are no half-breed angels, or any other sort of being. This is because of the role of genetics and dominance has evolved to prevent bizarre mutations of supernatural creatures. In this case, 1+2 does not equal 3, but 1.

Angels are the most dominant gene because they are the rarest and would disappear otherwise. If an angel conceives with a demon, the child will be an angel. This rule of dominance applies to every supernatural creature. The purity of the angel overrides the rest of the species.

Demons are the next most-dominant species only because they are immortals.

Interestingly, angels are not the most populous of the species. They are, in fact, the least populous of any. No one knows just how many angels there are in the world, but their numbers do not surpass one million, and are, in all likelihood, somewhere in the thousands. Some countries do not host a single one.

As stated, many angels seek refuge by crossing over when their mortal loved ones pass on, or they feel they have no connections to or need to be on earth. This acts as population control, and keeps their numbers so low.

There are not, at least according to many speculations, very many angels over the age of two hundred. Most cross over before even reaching their first century. No angels have stayed since the beginning. For all that they are not human, they feel very human emotions when life changes.

Powers

It is very important to remember that angels are a part of the earth just as any natural occurrence is. They are an extension of the atmospheric magic and have inherent connections to everything that goes on in the world. They are magic, in a sense. They were borne of a deceased soul and have only ever consisted of magic.

More significantly than that, most angels don't even realize it. In fact, most angels are only in tune with a fraction of the powers listed below, and are unaware that they are capable of more. It takes direct teaching to truly own one's potential, but angel families have been so displaced and so human for so many hundreds of years that it becomes impossible to find anyone who knows. Age has nothing to do with it.

Angelic powers can often control the environment around them and, because there is no god and has never been, they are given the power that such a being may possess, with certain limitations. They can't create or destroy anything, but they are able to do almost anything else, even bending their own magic beyond its usual capacity (please note that this is something most modern angels don't know they are capable of and is rarely seen outside of very old or very well-taught angels).

All supernatural magic occurred as one entity at one point in time. Different species developed different characteristics, but magic is one thing and there are no walls between any breed. Angels have the ability to manipulate or control the magic of others. ³

1. As stated, angels often affect the environment. Their moods, for example, can change the weather, make the ground quake and windows implode. Emotions have to be running very, very strong and very negatively for anything so extreme to happen. You name it, and an angel’s mood can probably achieve it.
2. Not limited to the environment, angels can also negatively affect people. Certain times, when the conditions are right, angels can align themselves with another person and whatever they do to themselves will be inflicted on the other person (this is basically a soul-to-soul connection that physically manifests). Also, they can cause extreme hallucinations and create disembodied voices, only heard by the person they desire to hear it. Again, anything an angel wants to achieve can probably occur.
3. Angels can heal, but only wounds caused by magical beings (any and all apply), and not self-inflicted wounds (with the intent to harm). They must touch the injury or the area around the injury for the healing to occur. The skin of both the angel and the one he or she is healing will become very pleasantly warm and the healing process will be quick and painless and no scar or bruise or ache will remain.⁴
   1. This same method can help reduce pain even in humans with nonmagical issues, but the element of pain reduction is not a skill easily obtained and is rarely found to be used, known about, or understood.
   2. Angels can override magical damage beyond injuries. If an angel has destroyed windows or other objects, those objects can be repaired and the magic erased. Any supernatural magic applies to this rule, as with the rule of healing.
4. Injuries in angels are a complex thing. Here is the overview in as succinct a manner as possible. Life-threatening or seriously disfiguring wounds heal instantly. Bullets to an insta-death location are expelled as they break the skin (it still stings). Limbs heal as a blade penetrates the flesh. Non-life-threatening or non-seriously disfiguring wounds heal slower but heal completely. For example, a broken leg will heal faster than in a human, but will still take a couple of weeks, depending on the angel and the severity of the injury. An angel can have a limp or a recurring problem, but the problem will fade within a few years. Completely superficial wounds heal normally. A paper cut will last as long in a human as it does in an angel. That is to say, there is no fast healing when you scrape or bruise or shallowly cut your skin. Self-inflicted wounds with the intent to harm will not fully heal. That is, if someone cuts their arms or tries to take their own life, if it leaves a mark, the mark will scar and not fade. Life threatening-diseases in angels are rare because cells of that nature are destroyed or healed instantly, but there have been cases of angels being stricken with cancer--they heal completely and with no lasting affects, but in regular time. As for mental disorders, any organic mental disorder, such as depression, will heal within a five year span. The key to angels it that balance remains in tact.
   1. Angels born with crippling illnesses will be healed, if not instantly, when they hit puberty.
   2. The basic concept is that corrupt cells cannot survive in an angel’s body. They will be healed or destroyed before causing harm.
   3. At the same token, if too much is happening at once--that is, if an angel is in a car or plane crash and has been hit in all kinds of directions and sustains dozens of injuries in a short period of time (seconds, not minutes), even the life-threatening ones will take much longer to heal. But an angel will never die, just remain unconscious until everything has returned to normal.
5. More creatively, angels can alter their appearances, genders and voices to mimic anyone or no one at all. These changes can only last for a full day at a time (one rotation of the earth around its axis from the point the magic occurs--a sort of undo button for superficial magic). They can also alter the appearances, genders and voices of other people. The angel doesn't have to wait out the twenty four (or so) hours and can resume a normal appearance whenever they choose. (Many older angels tend to use this to make their appearance seem their age.)
6. Angels can fly, but need their wings to do so. There is no exhaustion because the wings are not part of the physique.
7. They can transfer their power to other people for perhaps minutes at a time, depending on the person. A child, for instance, because most are generally innocent, will possess certain powers for hours at a time. A jaded adult would only experience them for a few minutes at a time. (The angel will not lose his or her power during this transfer. They simply direct the magic to the other individual and it sticks for a day at longest.)
8. Angels are more prone to premonitions because they are so in tune with the world. These premonitions usually manifest in a dream or series of dreams where they are physically transported either to a memory or an actual event or simply given a vague idea of something yet to come. They are rare and significant, only happening when absolutely necessary (some angels, in their infinite lifespan, never have a single one).
9. But an angel can also slip into the dreams of others and be fully conscious and aware during them. No contact is needed with the person for this to work. (This ties almost directly to the ability of angels to manipulate another person’s senses, as stated in point ii. Soul-to-soul. Magic-to-magic.)
10. They can make mortal people become immortal if their intentions are pure. Those people will not become angels but they will age as angels do (if they are made immortal at an older age, they will reverse the aging over the period of a day and all of the 'imperfections' such as a bad leg or a bad heart will be healed). No power is transferred. More on this in the Immortal Mortals section.
11. They can make people who would ordinarily be unable to have a child become pregnant. This includes infertile women (by any cause, cancer or genetics--even if they haven't got ovaries or a uterus) and yes, even men (the rub here is, well, mentioned later). They can't make virgins pregnant though, or everyone would have a Jesus. You have to actually have sex with an angel or have sex with someone else after being healed or given the opportunity for pregnancy.⁵ Men must also be female. This is where altering appearances of others comes in handy. And you had better be secure in your sexuality, because men will stay female for the duration of the pregnancy without exception.
12. Generally, and surprisingly, angels are not supremely strong or fast. In fact, their physical strength and speed is exactly the same as in humans. Demons are the stronger species, and the one with the higher population. But their powers are limited and they have no control over the afterlife. Yet, if an angel and a demon were to face off, the demon would most likely win, or at least cause severe damage to the angel.⁶
13. Angels are the only being that can kill demons, but demons cannot kill angels. This is mostly used for a defense mechanism, but the root is deeper and directly connected to the fact that demons are an unnatural corruption and angels are their polar opposites. If a demon could kill an angel, all angels would be in jeopardy.
    1. Realize that, while demons and angels are opposites and therefore 'enemies', there is no ongoing battle between them. No epic war. Nothing like that.
14. Angels who no longer wish to be on earth can cross over to the afterlife and come back if they so desire. No physical changes will occur, except that they have no control over their appearance while they are crossed-over. To cross over, they simply close their eyes and concentrate and fade away. It takes no more than a minute.
15. When an angel is extremely sad, to the point where he or she no longer wishes to live and hasn't got the will to cross-over, their body starts to shut down. They lose control over their powers and the most distinct sign of this is a rapid drop in body temperature, to the point where their lips are purple and their skin is pale. They should be hypothermic, but never exhibit any symptoms other than a slow heart beat and deadly loss of body heat. They tend to shut out the world at this point, but each angel responds somewhat differently.
16. In addition to mild precognitive abilities, angels have mild telekinetic abilities. They must really know how to manipulate the magic to get it to work, but when it does work they can stop people from moving and, yes, bend spoons, as well as a host of other things that vary from angel to angel in different situations (adults will be more capable, and angels must most often be taught how to do this). This is far more rare in angels of today because angels of today are simply too infused with humanity to know how to control the magic. The average angel will be able to lift objects and move objects but anything more intricate is difficult to achieve. The average angel must also be very focused on the object. Wiser ones may not have to be focused at all. Wiser ones are difficult to find.
17. Angels can sense magic, since they are able to manipulate it and were borne from it. They could locate another magical person if they are taught what they should be looking out for. Again, angels must be taught what to feel if they are to differentiate between actual species (and this takes some work that angels of today may not understand), but they can always sense magical beings in general.
18. As stated, the most astounding ability that an angel has, is simply how his or her emotions affect everything around them. If an angel is terribly upset, everyone feels it. If an angel is terribly happy, everyone feels it. If an angel has a great deal of pent-up emotion, they can manage to alter the weather, to shatter windows, send out shockwaves of energy that feel like earthquakes, and even, if it continues to be pent-up, turn into an untouchable burst of energy.

This energy is tricky to describe, and comes in short bursts. If they let their anger or sorrow (which usually triggers it) last too long, their bodies come apart into what an angel is naturally comprised of--the magic itself. They look like a rush of wind. Nothing can harm them and, for this short amount of time (never lasting more than a minute and so intensely draining that they are quite rare), they can even walk through solid objects if they can find the ability to walk.

The transformation into the energy is rather disturbing. A noise, much like wail, and a gust of wind accompany the transition, as they break apart. They appear rather grey, like static, as magic has no color.

Crossing Over

Angels can, as stated, cross over. "Die", in other words. As angel bodies aren't simply vessels, when they cross over, nothing of their body remains because their body and soul are the same thing. There is nothing to bury. But there is also no one reason an angel can cross over.

A common reason angels cross over at all is because they lose a loved one. When an angel crosses for an upsetting reason, they might go into the ice coma first, though it can be as short of an episode as five minutes, or as long as several centuries or more. Eventually they begin to fade away and simply disappear.

This isn't the most common way an angel crosses because they usually want to get it over with. Simply crossing over only consists of fading away on the spot. It takes less than a few minutes at most (usually just a few seconds) and then they are gone. They do not become deceased angels, and they can visit at will and live on earth again, but generally they do not come back because they either do not want to or don't even realize they can (unlike deceased angels, you cannot summon an angel from the afterlife because they retain their consciousness and are still the same creature as they were on earth).

Footnotes

• ¹There is no good vs. evil in the world. The use of 'good' and 'bad' is merely an overall assessment of the general nature of their existence. Angels generally do not cause harm because their natural instinct is to protect the earth. Demons generally do cause harm because their natural instinct is to be powerful and to use what they have for their own gain.

• ²Immortal human beings can only occur when an angel makes them so. This process takes at least two days and will only work if the human is wanted and needed and loved by the angel passing on the immortality. Demons do not possess this ability. No powers are transferred. More information in the Immortal Mortals.

• ³This capability is extremely limited. It is more commonly used when an angel is attacked and injured, or when an angel breaks something in a fit of anger (such as broken windows). If put in a tense enough situation, an angel can make another creature’s, or even another angel’s, powers go haywire. (This also applies to the fact that angels can guard themselves from a demon’s soul-sucking.)

• ⁴When an injury by a magical creature occurs and the injury is healed, the magic that was possessed in the wounds will still be active for a week after the initial healing. An angel can reverse the healing and open the wounds again.

• ⁵Having sex with an angel of any kind dictates that the child will be a natural angel. Likewise, if a demon and a human mate, the child will be a demon. But if an angel and a demon mate, the child will be an angel because angels are the dominant gene, if you will. Because of this, there are no "half-breed" children. A child born of an angel will always be an angel. The child born of two demons or a demon and a human will always be a demon.

• ⁶This is only the case if the demon knows what he or she is and has full control of his or her powers, and has been able to catch the angel off-guard. Otherwise, the angel can gain the upperhand through the simple use of greater powers. But again, angels can kill demons and not vice versa, so it’s wisest not to fight an angel at all.

Deceased Angels

DECEASED ANGELS are the souls of the dead who have gone on to the afterlife. Not ghosts.

Overview

Deceased angels are the souls of the departed. Every single living creature has a soul. Every living creature crosses over (unless they choose to remain as a ghost for whatever reason). Humans, however, become angels. These angels are powerless, save for the fact that they have wings and can fly and look exactly like their earthly counterparts in all physical manifestations. The wings are merely for transportation issues.

These deceased angels live in the afterlife, an invisible plane inside earth, and are bridged by natural angels (See: III. The Bridges). They cannot be contacted by any form of humanity, nor have any interaction with them. They can see and hear all that happens on earth; however, they cannot leave unless summoned by an angel. They tend not to want to leave.

See: Afterlife.

Summoning

Deceased angels can only return to earth if summoned by an angel, and can only reach earth by crossing so-called bridges (See: III. The Bridges). They can leave the area around those bridges, but in order to arrive and depart, they must be in a bridge.⁷ Their wings will be hidden, but can manifest, and depending on the situation, they will either be solid or ghostly in appearance.

• Solid: The angel has been summoned by or for a loved one. They are missed and loved on earth and are needed only for reasons pertaining to those people: to see them, to touch them, to speak with them. Mostly this is for the sake of closure. They will feel warm and lifelike as long as people need them, but have no pulse, no need to breathe , eat, or even sleep(though they may out of habit). They are not living, but will feel and look and sound as though they are (they have weight and cannot walk through walls and possess every internal organ, but none are operational), which is why it's not advised that anyone really summon a soul, as loved ones can become attached again and end up damaging the soul by frequent visitations (too many unnatural uses for anything natural will eventually corrupt the natural state).

• Ghostly⁸: These are summoned for more selfish reasons that may include wanting to talk to a famous person or someone with no real connections to any loved ones on earth. They are not truly needed, therefore they appear as ghosts would: translucent. Their voices are softer and similar to an echo in sound. They have no mass and no internal organs and do not look remotely living or human.

NOTE THAT YOU CANNOT BRING BACK A NATURAL ANGEL WHO HAS CROSSED. Angels have a choice whether they want to stay or leave and are not bound to the afterlife in the same way a deceased angel is. You must wait for the angel to come back on his or her own time.

Demons, however, can only cross if they have been killed, and thus can be brought back. They would stay the two weeks as a human would and would operate as a natural angel, but their manifestations would look demonic. They would be of no harm to anyone. (If they were brought back to life because of a pregnancy, they would return as a demon.)

Bringing the Dead Back (to Life)

The process of bringing a deceased angel back is actually quite simple. Deceased angels may become the living again if they become pregnant or cause a pregnancy. The child must be wanted for conception to even occur (however subconsciously the child was desired), and the deceased angel will lose its place in the afterlife because it is needed to care for a living being. The child will then become a natural angel.

No angel child can be miscarried or cause complications that endanger the mother's life.⁹

The deceased angel who has given up his or her standing as an angel will become mortal, resuming life at the age they left it and dying as they would have had the circumstances been different (usually, they all die of old age).

If a natural angel conceives with a deceased angel, which is often the case, the child would be an angel with or without the deceased angel's help, but the deceased angel would still become mortal again.

If a demon or other supernatural creature conceives, they will return as their former supernatural state.

Footnotes

⁷It is quite possible that angels who wander away from a bridge at their last hour will end up being lost souls, doomed to an existence as neither a ghost nor an angel. There are records of people being unable to summon back a loved one who has only been to earth once. This is more of a theory than an actual fact, but not a theory anyone wishes to test.
⁸This state will be adopted by a soul who is brought down in excess, even if they are loved.
⁹In the conception of a natural angel, not to do with deceased angels, a child can be lost within the first two weeks of pregnancy.

Immortal Mortals

As mentioned, angels can make mortals (including mortal supernatural creatures) immortal.

While the process itself still manages to stay within families that live amongst humans, it's not a process anyone can explain. It has to do with strengthening the soul of the person and giving them the same magic that operates within angels.

It requires physical contact, pure and genuine intention, and patience.

A person cannot accidentally make another person immortal. They must be preparing for it, thinking of it, intending to do it. They must touch the person intended for a few brief seconds. The angel will feel warmth that will last about five seconds (stay holding on until it has gone) but will not know if it worked until three days has passed. Three days and a feather will appear near the person who has become immortal. An angel may never know whether it worked if he or she doesn't see the feather--at first, anyway.

The feather itself will look as though it belonged to the angel who performed the action, but it won't actually be theirs. It is usually between a foot and two feet long, not one of the longest or one of the shortest feathers.

An immortal person will stop aging if they are beyond puberty, and if they are not, they will begin to age slowly at puberty (if they are younger), or will slow down instantly (if they are going through it). This aging is identical as it is in angels. Problems will heal. Illnesses will heal if they are immediately life-threatening. Their healing system will be identical to angels. Everything will be identical to angels except that they will receive no powers of any kind and will not have any physical manifestations. It is purely age and health related.

This means that anyone who is elderly will return to a younger physical state, similar to the age the first generation of a human/angel pairing would be (that is, they stop aging at forty but look younger). The general cut off point for age regression is about forty or forty five. Any older and they will become young again over a period of twenty four hours (one rotation of the earth starting from the point the feather drops, even if the person doesn't see it appear--they fall from the ceiling or from the air).

If two immortal humans have children, the child will be mortal. This condition is not genetic.

Ancients

As is the case with most things, modern names and understanding are not necessarily the same as what was originally used or intended. Angels are hardly an exception to the shroud of folklore, legend and myth. The term angel itself has not always existed and evolved from the Old English word 'engel', which ultimately came from Latin, angelus, which came from Ancient Greek, ángelos. Point being, the supernatural presence outdates the word.

They had individual names for themselves in many different languages and many of those have since fallen away. In fact, much of what existed once has fallen away due to the separation between humanity and the earth. Most angels live as humans and use their angelic powers rarely.

I've reiterated that angels are generally out of touch with their own potentials. Most angels today don't know that they are as powerful as they are. Most angels today are from families of human and angel interbreeding, from cities and overpopulated areas. It's not a sign of weakness that they don't know. An angel who is four hundred years old may know less than one who is only twenty. It depends solely on the family they are from and the people they are around. The unfortunate thing is that it's difficult to find an angel who does know what they are capable of doing.

But when you find them, no matter their age, you can call them "ancients".

Angels are creatures of the earth. They were created by the environment and as such, have a great deal of control of said environment. Humans were once the same way, and while they could not actually control the elements or understand the workings of the earth, they tried and they respected and cared for mother nature. Times, however, changed dramatically. In order to present oneself as human, one must forget all that the earth gave you. It is no longer possible to exist as an angel in the most natural state and be from a city or otherwise living as human. The so-called "ancients" are not often that old at all--it is their way of life that is ancient. They hearken back to something that hasn't fully existed in perhaps a thousand years.

Ancients don't refer to themselves as angels, nor do they refer to themselves as ancients, nor do they think anything of it. They are generally reclusive only because this is the only way an ancient can exist. An ancient is found in remote locations, often without any idea of the rest of the world's progression, or purposefully ignores humanity in order to preserve their way of life. Either case is equal to the other and an angel who is completely oblivious and living in seclusion is not more in-tune than an angel who is aware of outside distractions but lives a secluded life. Generally, however, ancients are found in places left alone by development. As such, there are few in the world.

However, secluded living doesn't mean that an angel who once lived amongst humanity can suddenly hide in a hole and change their ways. It takes decades and decades and decades. Being willfully ignorant, as seen in reality, preserves ancient traditions better.

There is no power greater than what they are capable of. All angels are, of course, capable of doing what the ancients do in a very broad sense, just like nearly everyone on earth could theoretically learn how to do the splits. But ancients harness their powers and live like angels, never reverting to humanity, and the immersion keeps them in complete harmony with the environment, the atmosphere, and their own plethora of abilities.

Ancients are so in tune with the world that they can literally read it and can feel the pull of magic through the air and ground. They can feel the earth just by listening to it, they can understand the strain and the changes it undergoes through time. This ability to "read" things has led most current ancients to call themselves "readers" in some form or another, just as angels were all called "messengers" in some form or another.

Their telekenetic abilities will be heightened so that they rarely have to lift a finger, save to do hard labor, and they know or understand every last secret there is about being an angel. Or reader. Or simply a supernatural being. They know what exists, they understand how they all work, and this heightened sense of existence really makes them psychic, in a very, very broad sense of the word. They cannot predict the future, they cannot see what is going on elsewhere in the world anymore than a human psychic can, but by using their skills and techniques of reading the environment, they can figure a great many things out.

When the world was still confined to lines of pure supernatural families, all angels were this way. Again, humanity breeds a certain amount of ignorance.

Ancients will always live with and for the earth. Cities and other locations are often too cluttered ('artificial').

You must ask permission and work with a moderator to make one of your own.

The Bridges

Bridges are the only connections between the planes. They are formed when an angel is born. The exact spot the angel was born becomes the center of the bridge, and can extend as far as a mile in any direction, weakening at the edges. (This is often why angels live in the same house for many generations. This is also why hospitals are bridges in many places.)

There is nothing tangible about a bridge. They are simply the merging of two planes of existence.

The bridges serve as the only places where deceased angels can cross back and forth from this world to the next, as summoned by natural angels.

Also, they are the only location where all denizens of fairies exist, as well as other strange creatures, and are the ideal place for any supernatural being; but larger species, such as anything humanoid, can and do live away from them and often never visit one in a lifetime. (But if they did, they would feel the shift in the atmosphere and may or may not enjoy their stay.)

Bridges are intense concentrations of magic and have had a hand in many bizarre creatures. It's like safe radiation.

Population

Angels are the least common of all supernatural beings. Out of the world's 6,500,000,000 people, roughly 2,000 are angels. But how? They have existed for at least 12,000 years. Surely that should mean there are more, especially considering immortality.

Let's look at some factors.

1. There were probably between five and ten angels when the creature first appeared on earth--and compared to humans, they appeared on earth very recently. Most of these angels never reproduced. They couldn't reproduce with humans. It's surprising they didn't immediately die off.
2. All angels cross over at some point, so their "lifespans" match humans.
3. Most angels marry humans, so they aren't marrying into other angel families. That means we don't need a wealth of families in order for angels to continue reproducing. In reality, there simply aren't enough angels for every line to be pure without resorting to incest. But incest also means there are less angels in the world than one would think.
4. Lines of families simply don't go back incredibly far anymore, meaning even the oldest living lines only have a maximum of eight generations. Some only have one child every century.
5. Every single angel family is far too different for there to be one formulaic answer as to how many there are in the world. But there just aren't many. Consider that the oldest families tend to have very few children and the more recent ones have more. There will be a spike in the population in the coming years, but out of the world's total population, it won't make a difference.