When the great war in Heaven broke out, angels were forced to take sides. Either hold their ground and take up arms against their rebelling brethren, or betray their allegiance to Heaven and declare war against God.

Some angels chose a third path, to sit out the war and fight for neither side. When the war was over, the angels who chose not to fight were banished from Heaven but not cast into Hell. They were sent into exile to live a "twilight existence" as observers. They watch from The Aether and bide their time until another war breaks out, at which time they can earn their places in Heaven once again.

Their existence is not entirely passive, however. Every seven years they must make a sacrifice to Heaven or else fade from existence entirely. Since just after the time of Adam and Eve, they have made arrangements with human communities to exchange blessings, luck and tranquility for a human child to sacrifice every seven years.

When Spawn discovered one such sacrifice taking place in a small town he was passing through, he interrupted the ritual and offered to suffer their "Ordeal" to protect the child. Spawn successfully survived the Ordeal and saved the life of the child, but angered the Forgotten Ones. During his ordeal, he also learned that Mammon is one of the Forgotten Ones, but he has gone astray and is acting on his own. Spawn learns that Mammon seeks to use Spawn in his quest to undermine the very fabric of creation.

Just as Mammon had planned, Spawn released the Forgotten ones from their bonds of Teind and they attacked Heaven (to save themselves their fate of fading away). Their forces overtook Heaven's defenses and nearly breached the gates of Elysium, until they were stopped by the angel Zera - who slaughtered every last one of them.

A short time after God and Satan were retuned to their domains by Mother, God appeared to Satan in Hell and announced that he was ready for the final battle.

Shocked, Satan pridefully agreed to war and ordered the release of the Four Horsemen, thus beginning Armageddon. Pestilence, Death, Famine and War were unleashed upon the Earth and ravaged everything in their paths.

Together they killed nearly every human on Earth, who then were quickly resurrected as angel or demon-like creatures to wage war against each other.

A white nameless void ruled by a nameless lord. The Lord of the Fourth is a slug-like assemblage of skins that he has stitched together from the souls of people he has tortured. He claims that because the Fourth level is devoid of physicality, souls have begged to have some reassurance that they still exist - hence his reason for skinning them.

He obviously takes pleasure in the torment of his victims, and is quite proud of his other duty - the growth of the neural parasites that the hellspawn wear. The parasites are grown and raised under his supervision before being sent to Malebolgia's 8th level for attachment.

Fred Barbera lived in the New Vista apartments with his wife Wilma. Wilma hated Fred, and had been cheating on him for quite some time. One day when Fred came home early, her boyfriend Barney Saunders was forced to hide in the garbage chute.

Soon after, Armageddon happened and Wilma lost track of Barney. After the White Light, however, she heard a voice coming from the chute telling her to kill Fred - so she did so by filling his peanut-butter sandwich with broken glass.

As it turned out, the voice from the chute was the Violator who had possessed the body of Barney.

Fred Barnett and his wife adopted a little girl 12 years ago and lived happily until the untimely death of his wife. Since that time, his life unraveled as he was unable to keep things together.

He lived in squalor and had not held a job for 11 months. As a result the courts ordered his daughter taken from him and placed into foster care. At the urging of a friend named Eric, Fred visited Spawn to ask for help.

Spawn was angry and confused at the request and refused to help. Afterwards, Fred felt there was no other solution and committed suicide.