This is a text-based game of interactive fiction. It starts with your death and introduction to the afterlife where you discover an eternal struggle between the forces of Paradise and the Pit. How it will end depends on the choices you make! You may end up a slave, a nobody, a monster, a king, or, if you are very lucky, a god.

The length of this work is 340,000 words.

If you are familiar with this work or its previous author, I ask you to please read the following letter.

A Letter from the Editor Regarding Authorship:

I am not the original writer of this game. In fact, I find myself in the peculiar and regrettable position of being unable to even credit them.

The original author had to stop working on the game in 2015 after the release of Apotheosis v0.11. In their last online posting, they gave their blessing for others to share and continue playing the game but made it very clear that they could in no way be associated with the game anymore. The reason for this is unspecified. I have seen many theories, from personal issues with their partner, religious issues due to the game's subject matter, legal threats from corporations, to trouble with certain governments of the world for publishing obscene content. It could have been anything and your guess is as good as mine. The result is that the game has long been scrubbed from all original sources at the request of the author and all traces of their name removed.

I understand that some may consider my decision to update and re-release this game to be wrong, and I admit that this is undoubtedly true to some extent. After all, I have not been in contact with the author since their dissapearance from the public light. However, please understand that this game holds a very dear place in my heart. It is a wonderful piece of writing and pure work of art. I have spent countless nights playing and replaying this game, losing myself in this unique world that the author has crafted. For over five years I have watched this game fade from memory. I know it has occasionally been passed around in hushed circles by a dedicated few, but even that is a rarity. I have watched it fall past obscurity and head into the void. I am one of the few people who had a copy of Elysium, the author's working title for the unfinished rework of the introduction for Apotheosis v0.12. I can no longer stand idly by as this work is lost to time, the digital equivalent of an ancient book crumbling to dust, without anybody willing to transcribe its words. I am continuing this project out of love for the author's work, and as per their last wishes, keeping their ties to the game severed. I do not, and will never claim the credit for the work the author has done, but please understand the reason why I am doing this and also why I will never mention their name, and I beg those few fans who do know their name to be considerate and not to share it.

As unlikely as it may be, I sincerely hope that the original author is out there reading this, with a smile of satisfaction that their work will continue to be enjoyed by an audience for years to come. To the author I have this message: if one day you decide to come in from the cold, I welcome you with open arms. Whether it be to praise me or to condemn me, I will respect your wishes, and you will always have my eternal gratitude and admiration.

With Love,
Julia Gumshoe

Update 0.14 - 09 March 2021
- A very incomplete expansion of Elysium has now been added. At the moment I am still implementing the main features. You might notice it now has a primary Elysium day/midday/night loop. The plan is that Cladius' tasks will get progressively more interesting and your choices during your midday activities may have an effect on them. Three different [hidden] stats will keep track of your progress: Valor, Obedience, and Sinner. Eventually these will affect whether you are called to Paradise (at the moment only Sinner does).
- New Checkpoints feature! Hopefully making a drastic improvement to QOL by adding a way to get from endings to earlier decisions. I was informed that once you hit an ending, it is extremely tedious to restart from the beginning and loading a save doesn't save your ending progress. Please report any bugs you encounter.
- Being stuck at the Zodiac stones for eternity added to Past Lives.
- All the Angelic Past Lives updated to have the same formatting as the Demonic Lives. The title of the ending is displayed at the top and the "game over" wording has been removed.
- Future Plans added.
- Added ending "Just a Footnote".
- Added "Long Live the Queen" to Unfinished Lives.
- Added "Star Mercs" to Unfinished Lives
- Moved some of Julia's Unfinished Lives to Past Lives. Although they don't end your story (since you can move on and become a different type of devil), they definitely aren't unfinished paths since you "failed" with Julia and are done with that questline.

Update 0.132 - 08 March 2021
- Fixed a critical bug where the game breaks if you input a custom name.
- Added Socials tab.
- Expanded "Unfinished Lives" descriptions.

Update 0.131 - 07 March 2021
- Minor writing edits and bugfixes.
- Added some more unfinished lives that I missed before.

Update 0.13 - 06 March 2021
- Updated the UI and base framework to Twine 2
- Integrated and slightly expanded the Elysium introduction rework
- Slightly modified angel paths to work with Elysium
- Some dead-ends disabled (they were unclickable anyway)
- Updated all Past Lives to the modern format
- Overall writing cleanup and bug fixes
- Added "Unfinished Lives" to aid completionists in finding unfinished paths that aren't tracked as endings.