In this world's young years, a man named the Benjamin Zul stole away the world's very soul, bound it to flesh and blood, to pen and paper. He made the very spiritus sancti of the planet into a person, known as The Parchment. On this, he wrote a contract for everlasting life, in exchange for his own soul. He gained immense powers, enough to topple empires. He used this power to start and end wars, to get people on the brink of death to sign like he had, to become his personal armada, his own pantheon of unstoppable Gods and Goddesses, in exchange for their souls.
Why souls? Why not a blood sacrifice? He'd taken the soul of the world, and the world could not live without its return. The souls of 900 people powered the world for eons, stuck in eternal torment as their physical bodies reined an evil empire. But, the man who started it, now the King of Darkness, the Shadow in the Flames, was tired of life. He started a schism within the Blacklist, turning members upon members. Gabriel, number 13, ran afoul of this plan, and devised to stop it. By the time he and his group of members found the plan, it was too late. The King of Darkness laid into Gabriel, taking a physical body for the first time since he'd signed The Parchment. Using Gabriel as a puppet, he laid waste to the body of the Parchment, killing the beautiful woman it had been disguised as. The world screamed, and the Blacklist became mortal.
But, they were still powerful, still Gods in their own right. So, what killed the Gods? Themselves. Centuries later, a beastlike man known as the Chainheart Machine gave into his darkness, letting the King back to the world. The King slayed every member in order of number. The bodies were placed in a pyre, but refused to burn. A mass grave was made, and the bodies lay there today, refusing to give way to rot and age.
This, atrocity upset the world. With its source of energy and its original soul gone, the world underwent decay. Years stopped progressing, no new technology, no new art or medicine has been produced for almost 2500 artificial years. The world slowly dies, more land becoming plighted each year. Now, people live in the ruins of ancient cities, getting by on the old technology that some still know how to use.
But, it is said, that if one with enough conviction dies, their soul never totally fades, but is passed down from age to age, until it is returned to a body proper. The Blacklist all died with this conviction, and now that their souls have been cleansed of their original sins, they are pure, reborn, but weak. Trapped within new souls, they are mere sparks of what their flames used to be, they are the natural leaders of the new world.
With the King still rampant, a reborn Blacklister must take up arms, and find his fellow reborn brothers in hopes of ending the Kings rage on the land, also with hopes to end the worlds torment, and revive its soul.
Subject: The Blacklist 
