The sea, golden beaches, cocktails, nice music, and a world full of colors: this is the first idea while stepping inside Paradise Killer. But behind this facade, the island is a far more grim and hopeless world, a metaphor of our society and a silent battlefield of cosmic Gods and demons. Paradise Killer is a detective adventure, where the main goal is to solve a complex and impossible murder. However, the island where the game is set is a place of obscure believing and intricate lore. But let’s start from the beginning.
At some point in human history, cosmic Gods landed on the planet from outer space. Humanity was enslaved, forced to build gigantic cities or palaces, or recruited to join the armies while the Gods declared wars on each other. East Europe and France were two of the bigger battlefields where rival Gods fought for the control of those regions. At an unspecified moment in history, humanity rebelled against the alien tyranny and fought back, a time known as the Great Betrayal. Several Gods were injured, trapped, or murdered, freeing the planet from under their claws. But the Syndicate, obsessed fanatics of the cosmic Gods, had different ideas.
The Syndicate is an association of immortal and peculiar characters, gifted with special talents and united by two strong principles: 1) creating a perfect paradise, 2) resurrect their cosmic Gods. The Syndicate got its ability from the first cosmic God, Silent Goat, which sacrificed itself to gift the Syndicate with unthinkable power. The Syndicate members became immortal and able to control the flow of time on their unreachable paradise. They were able to reset each island if they didn’t like the outcome, trying to reach each time for a new perfection. Worshipping the cosmic Gods was always a priority and a rule marked in stone for the Syndicate, but trying to free and revive the ancient creatures was more complex than the Syndicate expected. A mysterious organization of powerful and dangerous people, the God Hunters, were actively defending the locations where the Gods were slumbering. Sometimes the Gods have their own schedule and, even while hibernating, physically dead, or drifting in the deep space, they found psychical ways to reach people. Cosmic Gods can deceive people in their dreams, coercing their will with incredible gits or promises. The deities found their way through the subconscious to what people truly desired, and used that to their advantage. However, this is a crime even for the Syndicate, and deceived people are usually punished once discovered.
The island couldn’t exist and sustain with only the few members of the Syndicate living there. As expected from a powerful elite, they needed a class to rule, with far fewer benefits and a lot more struggles than the immortal elite. The Syndicate started to kidnap people from the real world, creating a class of “citizens” that were forced to work and to worship the Gods. If this sounds you somehow familiar, let’s say that Paradise Killer is also a good metaphor for a capitalistic society. The citizens are forced to worship the Gods because this act creates a sort of psychic energy that directly feeds the Gods, speeding up their recovery. However, at the end of each island before resetting for a new hypothetic paradise, even more drastic solutions involve the citizens and the Gods.
It is possible to find the sparkling statues representing the many cosmic Gods scattered all around Paradise Island, but especially on the Beach Garden and the Ziggurat. The statues are representing many Gods but without a specific description. Only by offering blood to altars hidden around the island, the player could discover secret carvings explaining the story of each God. Of course, it is then the responsibility of the player to match its story with the respective simulacrum of the God. This is also an interesting reference to Elder Scrolls saga, where the Gods are hidden around the map in their sanctuaries, with only their statues as vessel to communicate with them.
If you saw images of Paradise Killer before, you should know how peculiar and bizarre the art-style and the vaporwave aesthetic could be, and this is reflected even in the Gods. For example, a very common theme between the aesthetic of the cosmic deities is to exhibit goat-like elements. Seriously, you should be surprised by how many Gods are humanoid goats, or even creepier goat-related abominations. Goats are so related to Gods that the people blessed by them as their champions will have the head exchanged with the one of a goat, as cosmic reward. Another creepy story is related to a mass of raw flesh found in a bamboo forest. The amorph flesh started to mutate, creating several goat heads. People saw this as a miracle and the grotesque abomination was worshipped as a messenger from the Gods. Skulls are also an important element for the aesthetic of the Gods and some of them have skulls integrated into their design.
In the following article, I will analyse each God, providing background and information obtained by collectibles and conversations inside the game. I will also try to match each God with its statue, but of course this is my interpretation and not 100% guaranteed. Paradise Killer is a murder-mystery and a detective story, but feel completely safe while reading this article since it is free of any spoiler regarding the investigation. The only minimum spoiler could be the last God, Crying Grudge, but it is not related to the investigation, only in its image and appearance, which anyway is shown in the main art of the game.
- Silent Goat
The first God that took contact with the Syndicate and the most important in its history. Silent Goat is the one that gifted its power to the Syndicate, and the reason why they are able to reset the islands and to live forever. In the beginning, the visiting God was captured and tortured inside a cave. Anyway, the God decided to gift its power to the Syndicate, sacrificing itself to provide an infinite source of energy that will allow the Syndicate to build their resetting paradises. Silent Goat is represented as a towering humanoid with multiple arms and a goat skull as head, and of course its statues are everywhere on the island, even some gigantic ones.
- Damned Harmony
A powerful and mischievous God that fought in the past against the army of New Night, but it was able to escape into the cosmos before its fortress was destroyed. The God drifted around the space moving on a comet, till it was able to be close to Earth again. Damned Harmony deceived the protagonist, Lady Love Dies, making her an unknown puppet of its complex scheme. The God wanted to open the island to a powerful faction known as God Hunters, which will have slaughtered the Syndicate. However, its plan failed and Lady Love Dies got exiled. Probably due to its fearful nature, there are no big statues of the god, just small half-body simulacra. Damned Harmony looks like a well-dressed man, missing the head and with sort of tentacles or worms coming out from where the neck should be.
- Nightmare Revival
Described only as the giant head of a goat, this is a mysterious and reclusive God that had few contacts with humans. The God rules in a faraway planet over a colony of scholars. Interestingly, in one of the conversations with the demon Shinji, he confessed to collect artifacts from a planet of slug scholar. So probably the scholars worshipping Nightmare Revival are slug-like creatures. The statues of the God picture it exactly as it is described, as a giant disembodied goat head, but supported by a pair of big hands. Together with Silent Goat and many others, this is another God with goat-like characteristics.
- Blood Dancer
Goddess gifted in engineer and intelligence, which brought technology and technological advances to many planets. However, she has no ethics, and often her experiments caused genocides of entire civilisations. The statues built in her honor show a beautiful woman with a bronze skull as the face, also keeping in her hand another skull. It also looks like that human skulls are a common offering for this God.
- Moonlight Petal
Goddess of terraforming and architecture, which especially enjoyed to build mazes and underground structures. Her biggest creation is a cyclopic labyrinth built inside a dead star. After reaching the Earth, her playground became Russia and she built an endless city in Siberia. After the Great Betrayal, she was killed and buried in unmarked catacombs in Russia, with her corpse protected by guardians. There are many statues of Moonlight Petal around the island, but her appearance is quite ordinary, just a woman dressed in a tunic, with the face partially hidden under a hood.
- Lost Pain
When Lost Pain was defeated, it flew to the Moon to regain its powers. The God conquered the golden city on the dark side of the Moon, and now the city is deserted. Lost Pain is slowly draining the energy of the Moon and using it to resurrect. This God is a sort of bogeyman for the Syndicate, terrified by the idea that one day it will be back to take its revenge, destroying the Earth in the process. Some people also suggest that completely annihilating the Moon is the best option to get rid of Lost Pain. There are only small statues around the island, portraying the God as a horned demon with a long tongue. On the Moon, the God is nevertheless worshipped by a Cult.
- Dying from Sadness
A sentient stone traversing the universe and drifted to Earth by the awakening of other Gods. Also called a despair philosopher, the God is a cryptic and hermetic being existing in its own loneliness. It is represented as a huge stone or a crystal.
- Cosmic Deceit
Mischievous and aggressive God, it is described as a many armed iguana. The God now slumbers under the sands of a purple desert hidden in Egypt. Cosmic Deceit already tried to resurrect once by deceiving an important member of the Syndicate, specifically an Architect responsible for altering the reality of the island. The crazy plan of the God was to force the Architect to sacrifice Crying Grudge, the only living God rescued by the Syndicate. This sacrifice would be enough to resurrect Cosmic Deceit back to full powers, but its plan failed. At the moment I was unable to identify any statue resembling this God.
- Endless Moon
Also called the Goat Woman, this is another mysterious God related to goats. She was also in France and embraced a war with the God fish Dire Rose, who attacked the country. Now she is imprisoned in the underground of a palace. There are few but gigantic statues of the Goddess, representing her as a beautiful woman, with the body similar to Milo’s Venus, including the missing arms, with the head of a goat skull.
- Vile Embrace
As the name suggests, this God is one of the most plainly evil and macabre, but there are only very few details available. One piece of information is often missing: it is not a single God but a pair of sadistic Twins forming a single entity. The God travelled across the stars to find new races to vivisect, it is unknown if for pleasure or for scientific purposes, but judging the extreme nature of Vile Embrace, it was probably for its pleasure. Its followers are also focused on carnal pleasures, usually engaging in extreme sexual activities. The God is represented in small statues as a skeletal demonic creature, with horns and the skin barely attached to its body. Its appearance is quite similar to Lost Pain. Talking about big statues, the only possible connection with Vile Embrace is a couple of horned creatures, male and female, dancing together. This is quite far from the horned monster of the small statues but it is the only one fitting twin entities.
- Beautiful Spectre
A mysterious God with very little information available. It is known as the unending skeleton, the master of the astral hunt, and the scourge of a solar system. It is quite clearly a destroyer but other than this no more details. The Beautiful Spectre appearance is also a mystery, but there are many huge skulls, or clusters of skulls, around the island, built with the same brilliant material of the God’s statues. Since it is known as the “Unending Skeleton”, what if it’s true form is an infinite cluster of gigantic skulls?
- Destroyed Eden
A colossal centaur that roams around the universe, so big that wears a crown made of asteroids. If here nothing suspicious, the God is hiding a creepy and disturbing secret. The caves of the asteroids are filled with tribes of fanged men that the God rescued from a dying planet. The fact that the tribes are literally described as “harems” raises many questions regarding their relationship with the gigantic God. The statue is missing every one of the creepy details, representing just a common crowned centaur.
- Enchanted Blue
The Goddess is a scholar of galactic races and appreciative of the pleasures of life, especially food and wine. She is also associated with beauty and aesthetics, and this is reflected in her followers. Special followers that enter in communion with her, or are deceived by a mental connection, will be blessed by instantly gaining beauty and physical perfection, changing their bodies overnight. Right now, Enchanted Blue is imprisoned by elite God Hunters in a hidden desert somewhere inside the Sahara. There is only a small statue portraying the bizarre God and a hidden chapel. The lower body has a four-legged structure similar to a frog, while the humanoid upper body has a horned face that could remember a rhino. She is anyway well dressed, wearing complex black clothes.
- Shadow Zero
Considered a female God, she is often described as capricious, and her arrival on a world is a bad omen since he destroyed every world she touched. She is a sort of apocalyptic God of destruction, described as a tentacle-armed goat. Her statue is quite fitting with the description: a goat with multiple tentacles going out from her belly, which are also used to walk. Sadly, this Carpenter-esque God only appears as a statue. Anyway, this is another entry for the goat-like Gods.
- Dire Rose
Described as “the fish that vomits skeleton”, the God is a warmonger being that attacked and siege France for centuries, probably using its regurgitated army of skeletons. Dire Rose probably died when the siege was broken during the Great Betrayal. On the beach, there are several statues of the God, represented as a giant fish jumping out of the sand.
- New Night
A warrior Goddess that is worshipped only by the Marshals, the military police of the island. In the past, the Goddess and her army fought against the soldiers of Damned Harmony in East Europe. There is only one statue of the Goddess in all the island, and it inside the Barracks of the Marshals. In the past islands, red lightings destroyed all the statues of the Goddess, except for the one in the Barracks. The phenomenon was perceived as a sign of New Night to be worshipped only by warriors, so even in the following islands the statues outside the Barracks were not rebuilt. The Goddess is a towering humanoid figure wielding a spear and a shield, with two heads similar to a dog or a jackal.
- Crying Grudge
Also called the weeping God, the creature has an almost sad story. The God took control of Persia and enslaved the population to build a colossal construction, the Chaos Palace, an ever-growing structure made with the sufferance of the people. The Palace was a gigantic structure, almost sentient and with the need of continuously growing. People living inside the Chaos Palace didn’t know what the light of the Sun was, and time was an alien concept for them. After the Great Betrayal, The Persian army captured and tortured the God, parading the half-dead God around the city and exhibiting it like a trophy. The tears of Crying Grudge had an incredible effect on the ground, creating a sea of lilies. Not so sure if this phenomenon also exterminated people, but the God was rescued by the Syndicate and now it slumbers hidden in a pyramid to regain its powers. In its physical form, Crying Grudge looks like a monk wearing a purple robe. The head is a green skull, crying a dense green liquid and almost vomiting smaller skulls from the mouth down under its robe. The God is also called a Prophet, always crying for the visions of futures that cannot unseen. Also some of its statues scattered around the city will cry if the proper gift is offered, creating a small patch of flowers where the tears are falling. If you already notice, this time the image it is not just a statue because Crying Grudge physically appears in the game. The God is gigantic, resting inside a pyramid. It speaks in unknown hieroglyphs, which luckily can be translated. The intimidating but powerless God is almost abandoned, used only for rare pieces of advice or to study its godly flesh for mischievous purposes.
Surreal and Creepy 
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