Unlife

The Unliving are beings that arise primarily from the spirit world of the Platonic Field. They are variously called eternals, spirits, personifications, and even gods, but the unifying thing is that they all exist purely as cogito, ergo sum, they think therefore they are.

The DC Universe has a vast array of “divine” beings, bordering on what TV Tropes calls a “Fantasy Kitchen Sink”. There are various aspects of the Abrahamic gods (the Voice, the Presence, the Hand, etc.), von Daniken-like New Gods, classical Earth Pantheons (Greek, Roman, Norse), every sort of demon imaginable, Lovecraftian horrors, god-like immortals (the Guardians), and much more. We apply the basic rules for Gaiman’s Endless and use them to shape every tier of the celestial hierarchy. We start with the most abstract, the Source, then descend through the Dominions (the Endless proxies), the Virtues (the archangels), the Celestial Powers (the Old & New Gods), and finally, the Terrestrial Power (the Greek and similar gods).

Nature

Mortal life as we know it is an entanglement between the Quantum Field and Domain of Life (the Life CPSS) in the Platonic Field. Mortal biological life is the usual expression of this connection. Still, stronger cases are known (e.g., immortal beings), and there are even those who have become severed from the Life CPSS but retain physical existence (the undead).

The Unliving are a form of sentient being wholly within the Platonic Field and are formed entirely from self-sustaining thoughts, concepts, and ideas. These entities are called the Unliving or the Unending in a pejorative sense. Instead, it means that they are simply not alive in the physical sense. They do not evolve, do not metabolise, do not grow, are not in internal homeostasis, and cannot – at least in a conventional sense – die. However, they do respond to stimuli and, in some narrow cases, do reproduce.

At the earliest times, unliving random aetheric or platonic fluctuations with a sufficient amplitude within the Platonic Field could become coherent thoughts, fragments of ideas, and concepts. Very occasionally, these become strong enough to have their own willpower and literally will themselves into creation. These are thought forms or personifications. In later times, sufficient collective belief in a being or imagining of a being could cause its form in the platonic field to take on an independent nature.

Ranks

The eldest of the Unliving are the Primordial Ones and their servants. These are the great caretakers of the Universe and the anthropomorphic personifications which emerged in response to sentient mortal life. There are four great ranks for these beings:

1. The Triarch – The great trinity of Creation, Balance, and Entropy personified by the Source, the Monitor, and the Greater Darkness.

Beneath the Triarch are two lesser tiers of primordial ones which arose during the First World.

2. The Dominions – The Unending personifications of the great concepts of life itself – fate, life, dream, action, etc.
3. The Virtues – Lesser primordial ones who, while still universal in scope, have a more singular existence than the Dominions. They acted as the agents of the Source during the First World but were sundered by the Rebellion.

Finally, a group that arose during the Second and subsequent ages is beneath the primordial ones.

4. The Powers – The powers were formed by the thoughts of millions of mortal minds, creating imagined personalities and intelligence behind natural phenomena. These are the “gods” of the mortal races. They split into two sub-divisions, the Terrestrials and Celestials. The former are the gods of a particular place or culture, the latter have become divorced from their progenitor race/culture and exist.

Mantles and Personas

Unliving personifications have a dual nature between the idea they embody (their Mantle) and the individual personality of their personification (their Persona).

Mantle

These personifications are bound by the concept that birthed them, their Mantle. Being around other minds—particularly mortal minds—that express the ideas defined by their Mantle strengthens an individual Unliving. For this reason, some Unliving have sought the worship of mortal minds while others have adopted mentorship or stewardship roles over specific groups of mortals. These lead to them being called gods, although this is a highly loaded term that implies the divine or sacred.

An Unliving’s Mantle is inherently immortal. Unless you can completely decohere them, it will eventually reform. This is because truly killing one of them is akin to trying to stamp out an idea, so long as the concept of their Mantle remains so do they remain.

Personas

As the term personification implies, a suitably robust thought form can develop its own Persona. This is a self-form, i.e., self-awareness and a soul, that becomes attached to the mantle in much the same way that a self-form of a mortal being becomes attached to a physical body. This persona gives them a personality and a personal identity beyond just their function.

Just as physical life has a shadow in the platonic field, so the persona can invoke a shadow of themselves within the quantum field. This shadow allows them to exert a physical influence in the material universe and to incarnate a puppet form called an avatar. An avatar may appear much like a normal physical body and can be vulnerable to physical processes. It can even be physically destroyed, but doing so does not destroy the being that generated it – although it may be some time before they can form a new avatar.

While a mantle is effectively indestructible, its persona is not and can undergo the death of its persona. If their persona dies, their individuality (their self-form), that part of them that is akin to a mortal soul, separates from the mantle and decoheres. However, the conceptual space their Mantle occupies will reform with a new persona, a new self-form that often has an incomplete memory of “their” old life.

This comes from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, where the Sandman’s Morpheus persona dies and is superseded by a new persona called Daniel. However, his station and mantle—his god-like portfolio—as Dream endures uninterrupted.