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Description
My own taken on the Horsemen of the apocalypse for Grand Grimoire, but with a few twists. Most majorly, they have opposite, good versions of them known as The Guardians of Paradise. The Guardians work to persevere humanity and represent life's most important values. Another change was Death to Doom, as I find that all of the other riders lead to death anyways. Story wise, they have been around since dark ages and were the first cryptids to cross the border between Earth and Hell. One hundred years ago, Lizzie's great grandmother Azalea destroyed the Paradise kingdom, the island where the Guardians lived. As the Guardians attempt to rebuild their home, the Riders have been quietly reeking more havoc than usual on the world. I'll make proper references for them in due time, but for now, here's some brief descriptions of them.

The Riders:

Pestilence: Representing sickness, decay and starvation, Pestilence exploits the human flaw of vice to tempt mortals into bringing about their own demise. Her "hair" is actually a flowing, gaseous cloud of toxic chemicals. She can extract any kind of toxin from her hair and use it to weaken the immune system of others, then infect them with a disease or affliction of her choice. She also can spit and shoot sulfuric acid out of her hands, the potency of which is powerful enough to melt steel. Her powers are more effective if her victims participate in dangerous vices, such as drugs or alcohol. Pestilence also grows stronger if her environment is literally toxic, such as nuclear wasteland or a quarantined area. She wishes to bring about the apocalypse by making the world too poisonous for life to exist. Personality wise, she's sassy and playful with a sick (pun intended) sense of humor. She enjoys watching people suffer from horrifying diseases, poisoning crops and water supplies, and tricking humans into hurting themselves. Although she hates humanity like the rest of the Riders, she does like parties and often disguises herself as a human to partake in festivals and raves... and then gives all the other participants some kind of awful disease to kill them off when the party is over.

War: With a flowing main of fire, a blood-stained suit of armor and an ax sharp enough to cleave mountains, War is a terrifying and nearly unbeatable enemy on the battlefield. She will start conflicts between countries by lying to their leaders, attacking cities and making it look like their enemies did it, and sabotaging supplies. When the conflict begins, War will ride in on a flaming horse and begin killing soldiers of either side for the pure enjoyment of it. On rare occasions, highly militaristic civilizations will find War as their ally in battle, as she will join fights on their side as a way of saying "thank you" for keeping her entertained. The angrier and more prone to violence people are, the more powerful War becomes. She's incredibly smart and good at getting others rallied up, but her specialty is exploiting the weakness of her foes in combat. Although her extreme strength and knowledge of all forms of warfare helps her fight, her ruthlessness and lack of remorse for her actions is what gets her results. When not in the heat of battle, War is superficially charming and sophisticated with a taste for fine wine.

Conquest: Humorless, cold, and calculating, Conquest rules over civilizations for fun with an iron fist. She's the kind of person, er, goddess that would read 1984 as a how to guide. Those under her control live their lives in constant fear and without the comfort of basic necessities. To this day, no rebellion against her has worked, as her trained armies of spies and soldiers will quash any form of non-conformity often before it starts. Conquest has hair trigger temper and with kill and torture her subjects for even minor offenses. Most terrifyingly, however, is her psychic abilities of suggestion and warped perception. She can control the thoughts of those around her to varying degrees based on a variety of factors. The lower the intelligence of and individual, the more unstable their mental state, the amount of fear they have for Conquest, and the less informed they are about the truth surrounding her empire, the more power they give to her. While not outright mind controls, she is able to convince other to do things they'd normally never consider doing. They'll believe outrageous lies, commit horrific acts, and give up their freedom and happiness willingly for Conquest. She's a neurotic control freak who will throw violent temper tantrums if things do not go her way.

Doom: What appears to be a hood and cloak is actually the face and body of Doom, a demon made from head of toe of pure shadow. Doom rarely speaks, but the haunting sound of her voice is terrifying enough to drive men mad. She is the leader of the Riders, and the head of a worldwide cult of dark mages. In every recorded tragedy in history, from natural disasters to human-made slaughters, at least one witness has claimed to have seen Doom as the event took place. Her strength is drawn from feelings of hopelessness, nihilism and sadness. The scythe she wields can be used as a traditional weapon, but is more often used a staff for magic. Doom is the most powerful spell caster on Earth, and many occultists and cryptids take after her methods in hope of becoming powerful. However, most will lose their minds and sense of morality following down her path. The cult she leads, whose members call themselves "Silent Visionaries", are Doom's most successful students which make up an incredibly loyal army to serve her biding. Many of the disasters caused by the fellow Riders would not have been possible without the help of Silent Visionaries working under Doom's orders. Quiet, serious and extremely terrifying, Doom is truly a creature born of nightmares.

Guardians:

Health: The ultimate healer and botanist, Health owns a magical garden filled with every kind of plant known to humanity. The pouch she wears at all times works in mysterious ways and can store all of the seeds, nuts, fruits and leaves she gathers from the garden. So long as she doesn't use them up, they will remain in prime condition forever. She can then remove them from the pouch at any time and use them as items for healing, nourishment, and even weapons. Health knows the proper uses of all plants, and any botanical item she grows will be twice as potent as normal (for example, and apple she grows will contain twice the nutrients of normal apple). Some of her plants have supernatural properties, such as growing very quickly and wrapping around enemies, or exploding on impact. However, Health is much more of a doctor than a fighter, and prefers to heal others rather than harm. In days of old, the sick would flock to Health's garden to receive treatment, which she would always provide. She also trained many healers, nurses, doctors, gardeners and botanists in hopes of helping humanity keep themselves prosperous. After Azalea's destroyed the Garden of Life, Health has been having a hard time regrowing her crops, thus hindering her progress. She's a caring, smart goddess who enjoys helping others, but is very prideful and can often come off as snarky and a know-it all. She tends to nag others to take care of themselves better, and while she will never turn down a request to be healed, she'll not likely do it with insulting your intelligence first if the reason you needed her help was your own fault (for instance, if you broke your harm doing something stupid). Deep down, she cares very much for humans and cryptids alike, and only acts they way she does to hide her true feelings to avoid coming off as "soft".

Peace: Living in the Palace of Sands, a crystallized cathedral on a desert oasis located in the Paradise kingdom, Peace used to invite the weary and distressed to stay in her beautiful temple to relax and refresh their minds and bodies. Everyone from trauma victims to war torn refugees were welcome in the Palace of Sands, where Peace would take care of them until they were ready to return home. The luxurious temple was like a spa, complete with rooms to stay in, pools for swimming and plenty of food and drink for everyone. But it was not the comfortable conditions or gorgeous desert view that helped visitors recover from their mental scarring, but Peace's personal consoling and guidance. Even the most broken of people could open up to her, and she would listen to their stories with empathy and patience. With Azalea's destruction of her temple, Peace now has no where to keep her patients, and thus cannot help people the way she used to. Her body is physically indestructible, and very (but not completely) immune to magical damage. Due to her pacifistic personality, she never fights to defend herself or others, and instead just takes hits until her foes are exhausted. Kind, reliable, and patient, Peace has a hard time saying no to requests and is a bit of a pushover. However, she is the most openly gentle and nurturing of the Guardians, and will go to extreme lengths for others at the expense of her own safety and happiness.

Freedom: Before the destruction of Paradise Kingdom, Freedom inhabited a gorgeous valley filled with meadows and sparkling clean waters known as the Ravine of Truth. Here, she trained many future leaders, soldiers and anyone who wished to defend the values of humanity or retake lands ruled by dictators or tyrants. Although she taught fighting skills, her main goal was to teach her pupils to never give up their beliefs and morals if they are scared. On multiple occasions, Freedom has lead armies of her allies to fight oppressive regimes. If possible, however, she will encourage peaceful revolution. Among the many lessons she taught those who followed her were negotiation, understanding, justice and respect. Many great leaders were personal students of Freedom. The most combat oriented out of the Guardians, Freedom is an expert warrior with the ability to summon a bow that uses arrow-like miniature tornadoes as ammunition. She's a good teacher who's know for her tough-but-fair attitude towards her pupils, who she often befriends on a personal level. She also has a competitive side, and enjoyed racing the many eagles and hawks that lived in the Ravine of Truth. She can control the direction of the winds and often takes advantage of this ability to fly faster, which means she wins these races nearly all the time. Not one for formality, many regard her as the the most personable Guardian for her sense of humor and honesty, even if said honesty can be a little damning at times.

Hope: The current Hope is actually a reincarnation of the original Hope, who was destroyed by Azalea. Although sharing the same body and powers as her previous form, she lost all her memories up to her destruction. For the past one hundred years, the other Guardians have been trying to reteach her how to fulfill her role as their Leader, but she still has much to learn. While a century of education may seem like enough to a human, Hope has pretty big shoes to fill: the original Hope was an extremely powerful goddess who lead the Guardians in all they did, and helped them in their missions. She also had a following of non-immortal humans and cryptids known as the Stellar Knights, who functioned as opposites to Doom's Silent Visionaries. Although the loyalty they showed to Hope was on par with the Visionaries' loyalty to Doom, the Knights did not join under the guise of becoming invincible, omnipotent magic wielders. They instead follow Hope's values of a safe, prosperous life for all beings, equality for humans and cryptids, and a better world for future generations. Thanks to Hope and the Stellar Knights, many of the tragedies caused by the Riders were either fixed or avoided all together. However, after the destruction of Paradise Kingdom, the Stellar Knights were almost completely killed off by Silent Visionaries, leaving only a few wayward survivors scattered across the globe. With the first few years of her rebirth spent being taught how to talk, walk, and function again, the the decades after how to basically use her powers, Hope knows little about the history of the world and still hasn't remastered all of her abilities yet. While she's far from being the omnipresent, ultra-wise Leader of all that's good in the world, she's doing her best to make steps towards her goal of being just as powerful as she was before. What does remain from her old self is her optimism, courage, benevolence and graciousness. Hope may not know how yet, but she believes she and her Guardians can rebuild paradise kingdom and continue their mission: saving the world.
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Description
My own taken on the Horsemen of the apocalypse for Grand Grimoire, but with a few twists. Most majorly, they have opposite, good versions of them known as The Guardians of Paradise. The Guardians work to persevere humanity and represent life's most important values. Another change was Death to Doom, as I find that all of the other riders lead to death anyways. Story wise, they have been around since dark ages and were the first cryptids to cross the border between Earth and Hell. One hundred years ago, Lizzie's great grandmother Azalea destroyed the Paradise kingdom, the island where the Guardians lived. As the Guardians attempt to rebuild their home, the Riders have been quietly reeking more havoc than usual on the world. I'll make proper references for them in due time, but for now, here's some brief descriptions of them.

The Riders:

Pestilence: Representing sickness, decay and starvation, Pestilence exploits the human flaw of vice to tempt mortals into bringing about their own demise. Her "hair" is actually a flowing, gaseous cloud of toxic chemicals. She can extract any kind of toxin from her hair and use it to weaken the immune system of others, then infect them with a disease or affliction of her choice. She also can spit and shoot sulfuric acid out of her hands, the potency of which is powerful enough to melt steel. Her powers are more effective if her victims participate in dangerous vices, such as drugs or alcohol. Pestilence also grows stronger if her environment is literally toxic, such as nuclear wasteland or a quarantined area. She wishes to bring about the apocalypse by making the world too poisonous for life to exist. Personality wise, she's sassy and playful with a sick (pun intended) sense of humor. She enjoys watching people suffer from horrifying diseases, poisoning crops and water supplies, and tricking humans into hurting themselves. Although she hates humanity like the rest of the Riders, she does like parties and often disguises herself as a human to partake in festivals and raves... and then gives all the other participants some kind of awful disease to kill them off when the party is over.

War: With a flowing main of fire, a blood-stained suit of armor and an ax sharp enough to cleave mountains, War is a terrifying and nearly unbeatable enemy on the battlefield. She will start conflicts between countries by lying to their leaders, attacking cities and making it look like their enemies did it, and sabotaging supplies. When the conflict begins, War will ride in on a flaming horse and begin killing soldiers of either side for the pure enjoyment of it. On rare occasions, highly militaristic civilizations will find War as their ally in battle, as she will join fights on their side as a way of saying "thank you" for keeping her entertained. The angrier and more prone to violence people are, the more powerful War becomes. She's incredibly smart and good at getting others rallied up, but her specialty is exploiting the weakness of her foes in combat. Although her extreme strength and knowledge of all forms of warfare helps her fight, her ruthlessness and lack of remorse for her actions is what gets her results. When not in the heat of battle, War is superficially charming and sophisticated with a taste for fine wine.

Conquest: Humorless, cold, and calculating, Conquest rules over civilizations for fun with an iron fist. She's the kind of person, er, goddess that would read 1984 as a how to guide. Those under her control live their lives in constant fear and without the comfort of basic necessities. To this day, no rebellion against her has worked, as her trained armies of spies and soldiers will quash any form of non-conformity often before it starts. Conquest has hair trigger temper and with kill and torture her subjects for even minor offenses. Most terrifyingly, however, is her psychic abilities of suggestion and warped perception. She can control the thoughts of those around her to varying degrees based on a variety of factors. The lower the intelligence of and individual, the more unstable their mental state, the amount of fear they have for Conquest, and the less informed they are about the truth surrounding her empire, the more power they give to her. While not outright mind controls, she is able to convince other to do things they'd normally never consider doing. They'll believe outrageous lies, commit horrific acts, and give up their freedom and happiness willingly for Conquest. She's a neurotic control freak who will throw violent temper tantrums if things do not go her way.

Doom: What appears to be a hood and cloak is actually the face and body of Doom, a demon made from head of toe of pure shadow. Doom rarely speaks, but the haunting sound of her voice is terrifying enough to drive men mad. She is the leader of the Riders, and the head of a worldwide cult of dark mages. In every recorded tragedy in history, from natural disasters to human-made slaughters, at least one witness has claimed to have seen Doom as the event took place. Her strength is drawn from feelings of hopelessness, nihilism and sadness. The scythe she wields can be used as a traditional weapon, but is more often used a staff for magic. Doom is the most powerful spell caster on Earth, and many occultists and cryptids take after her methods in hope of becoming powerful. However, most will lose their minds and sense of morality following down her path. The cult she leads, whose members call themselves "Silent Visionaries", are Doom's most successful students which make up an incredibly loyal army to serve her biding. Many of the disasters caused by the fellow Riders would not have been possible without the help of Silent Visionaries working under Doom's orders. Quiet, serious and extremely terrifying, Doom is truly a creature born of nightmares.

Guardians:

Health: The ultimate healer and botanist, Health owns a magical garden filled with every kind of plant known to humanity. The pouch she wears at all times works in mysterious ways and can store all of the seeds, nuts, fruits and leaves she gathers from the garden. So long as she doesn't use them up, they will remain in prime condition forever. She can then remove them from the pouch at any time and use them as items for healing, nourishment, and even weapons. Health knows the proper uses of all plants, and any botanical item she grows will be twice as potent as normal (for example, and apple she grows will contain twice the nutrients of normal apple). Some of her plants have supernatural properties, such as growing very quickly and wrapping around enemies, or exploding on impact. However, Health is much more of a doctor than a fighter, and prefers to heal others rather than harm. In days of old, the sick would flock to Health's garden to receive treatment, which she would always provide. She also trained many healers, nurses, doctors, gardeners and botanists in hopes of helping humanity keep themselves prosperous. After Azalea's destroyed the Garden of Life, Health has been having a hard time regrowing her crops, thus hindering her progress. She's a caring, smart goddess who enjoys helping others, but is very prideful and can often come off as snarky and a know-it all. She tends to nag others to take care of themselves better, and while she will never turn down a request to be healed, she'll not likely do it with insulting your intelligence first if the reason you needed her help was your own fault (for instance, if you broke your harm doing something stupid). Deep down, she cares very much for humans and cryptids alike, and only acts they way she does to hide her true feelings to avoid coming off as "soft".

Peace: Living in the Palace of Sands, a crystallized cathedral on a desert oasis located in the Paradise kingdom, Peace used to invite the weary and distressed to stay in her beautiful temple to relax and refresh their minds and bodies. Everyone from trauma victims to war torn refugees were welcome in the Palace of Sands, where Peace would take care of them until they were ready to return home. The luxurious temple was like a spa, complete with rooms to stay in, pools for swimming and plenty of food and drink for everyone. But it was not the comfortable conditions or gorgeous desert view that helped visitors recover from their mental scarring, but Peace's personal consoling and guidance. Even the most broken of people could open up to her, and she would listen to their stories with empathy and patience. With Azalea's destruction of her temple, Peace now has no where to keep her patients, and thus cannot help people the way she used to. Her body is physically indestructible, and very (but not completely) immune to magical damage. Due to her pacifistic personality, she never fights to defend herself or others, and instead just takes hits until her foes are exhausted. Kind, reliable, and patient, Peace has a hard time saying no to requests and is a bit of a pushover. However, she is the most openly gentle and nurturing of the Guardians, and will go to extreme lengths for others at the expense of her own safety and happiness.

Freedom: Before the destruction of Paradise Kingdom, Freedom inhabited a gorgeous valley filled with meadows and sparkling clean waters known as the Ravine of Truth. Here, she trained many future leaders, soldiers and anyone who wished to defend the values of humanity or retake lands ruled by dictators or tyrants. Although she taught fighting skills, her main goal was to teach her pupils to never give up their beliefs and morals if they are scared. On multiple occasions, Freedom has lead armies of her allies to fight oppressive regimes. If possible, however, she will encourage peaceful revolution. Among the many lessons she taught those who followed her were negotiation, understanding, justice and respect. Many great leaders were personal students of Freedom. The most combat oriented out of the Guardians, Freedom is an expert warrior with the ability to summon a bow that uses arrow-like miniature tornadoes as ammunition. She's a good teacher who's know for her tough-but-fair attitude towards her pupils, who she often befriends on a personal level. She also has a competitive side, and enjoyed racing the many eagles and hawks that lived in the Ravine of Truth. She can control the direction of the winds and often takes advantage of this ability to fly faster, which means she wins these races nearly all the time. Not one for formality, many regard her as the the most personable Guardian for her sense of humor and honesty, even if said honesty can be a little damning at times.

Hope: The current Hope is actually a reincarnation of the original Hope, who was destroyed by Azalea. Although sharing the same body and powers as her previous form, she lost all her memories up to her destruction. For the past one hundred years, the other Guardians have been trying to reteach her how to fulfill her role as their Leader, but she still has much to learn. While a century of education may seem like enough to a human, Hope has pretty big shoes to fill: the original Hope was an extremely powerful goddess who lead the Guardians in all they did, and helped them in their missions. She also had a following of non-immortal humans and cryptids known as the Stellar Knights, who functioned as opposites to Doom's Silent Visionaries. Although the loyalty they showed to Hope was on par with the Visionaries' loyalty to Doom, the Knights did not join under the guise of becoming invincible, omnipotent magic wielders. They instead follow Hope's values of a safe, prosperous life for all beings, equality for humans and cryptids, and a better world for future generations. Thanks to Hope and the Stellar Knights, many of the tragedies caused by the Riders were either fixed or avoided all together. However, after the destruction of Paradise Kingdom, the Stellar Knights were almost completely killed off by Silent Visionaries, leaving only a few wayward survivors scattered across the globe. With the first few years of her rebirth spent being taught how to talk, walk, and function again, the the decades after how to basically use her powers, Hope knows little about the history of the world and still hasn't remastered all of her abilities yet. While she's far from being the omnipresent, ultra-wise Leader of all that's good in the world, she's doing her best to make steps towards her goal of being just as powerful as she was before. What does remain from her old self is her optimism, courage, benevolence and graciousness. Hope may not know how yet, but she believes she and her Guardians can rebuild paradise kingdom and continue their mission: saving the world.
---
Hey, if you like this, why not check out my commissions starting at ten points? Check here for more info tinystalker.deviantart.com/jou…