I have a story that involves angels. My problem isn't one of risking offense, but of bad internal logic to the plot. In the story, I have a few angels who are capable of creation (life, not just objects). While there is some playing around with religions, for the most part I'm going by historicity and as old as I can get of origins, not fantasy to drive the logic of the world. Any ideas how I can make this world without looking like it's just random?
What is the world's history? The cultures, the religions, it all had to come from somewhere. If you have a sort of melting pot of religions making up one belief, how did each one of them have an influence on it? So maybe one aspect of it came from invaders that took over part of the country for a time, and another from missionaries from across the globe, etc. The way that you choose these should play into the plot if they're going to be important to the story. I hope that helps.
I'm really not sure what you're asking here. Are you trying to find out what your should look for in the angels attributes? You already said you're basing them on historical accounts, so that's not something you need advice about. If you don't want the world to "look like it's just random", then having a cohesive back story would be a good start. Are you asking for help with that?
I've got a background (Would it help to edit my first post and write it out?). The problem is angels dividing themselves is part of the background.
Are you trying to say, how can you seamlessly add in the Angels so it feels natural along with the world? Easy, look up how Tolkien did it and make some variations by yourself and change the names. Tolkien actually took his own origins and aspects of Gandalf/Wizards/Angels from the Christian Bible. It's pretty much the same thing. Or you can try to be hella original... good luck with that.
I'm not looking to change names, as these angels also appear in our world or interact with people from it. Are people saying reading about about angels that can split into more than one new person is readily accepted?
Are you trying to say, how can you seamlessly add in the Angels so it feels natural along with the world? No, I said how to I seamlessly make angels that divide into multiple beings fit naturally into my world? The dividing part was the important one.
Well, for that you need to ask yourself the following questions: Why do they divide themselves? Just to procreate? Or for some other reason? What are the prerequesites: Can they do it anytime or do they need to rest for a while or sleep? Do they need to have done something good or bad or made a huge dent on history before they can split? Does it cost a lot of "magic" or is it a biological function? Can they do it only once? Do they only do it when they really, really need to? Do they consider it normal, or is it good/bad to do such a thing? And strangely: If they can freely split into two: Why is the world not overrun with Angels? The most important questions are: "Where do angels come from?", "For what reasons would an angel decide to split?" and "What beliefs will be created by stories about these circumstances?" If you can answer those three questions, you can set up a "logical" backstory about the concept of angels and the beliefs surrounding them. But that's something you'll have to do yourself.
