<sub> Tales of New Eden/ToNE is a story revolving around a  magical garden, existing outside of time and as essentially a type of  purgatory. When a person dies, if they meet certain criteria (mainly if  the garden sees them as “worthy” to be a host for it's immense thirst,  as well as a representative of its beauty), they will enter immediately,  often trapped there for the equivalent of many years, and undergoing  many trials.

 

 

 New Eden itself is sentient, and  contains much land divided into many little “kingdoms”. The ruler of  each of those kingdoms is a person chosen from the beginning of time,  destined to enter into it, and often with the combination of exterior  beauty but some fatal flaw in their mind/personality. This is because  New Eden feeds off evil, negativity, and pain in order to keep itself  alive; the reason why, or how it does this, is currently unknown.

 

 These “rulers” will undergo many trials while within Eden, though they  will often be suffering them and not noticing, as compared to most of  their past lives, life in this hidden garden will seem as a paradise.  (One requirement of being a ruler in New Eden is that you be under a  certain age, as though the garden is alive, it manifests itself in the  much more able form of man; therefore it wishes to have a representative  that is not only beautiful, but amply young, to mirror the life of a  young and beautiful flower. Resulting, most of these rulers would have  had to have died young, as a result of some tragedy in their life.)  After this, everyone gains Immortal life.

 

 In addition to  “rulers”, others, also chosen from birth though the decisions can be  impacted by the lives of the rulers, may also enter, though they will be  in an odd form; lacking a solid body, these will be more akin to  spirits or ghosts, not being able to speak. They are essentially as  will-o-the-wisps and possess less sentience or willpower as the rulers,  and the garden can take over them more or less at will; like wisps they  have been known to appear in the world, and guide the predestined to  places and events which Eden wishes them to attend to.

 

(New Eden  itself can indeed take a human form, though it will appear more as one  of these "wisps" and not as an actual human; therefore it relies on the  rulers. Though not parasitic, it does influence their decision making  without impairing their will.)

 

 The rulers are bonded to New Eden itself, physically and emotionally. 

 

 In regards to emotion, the more negative energy they create, and Eden  feeds off it, the worse their mental state becomes, and the more power  they gain. 

 

 Physically, they have lost much of their humanity,  to be replaced with plants. This is a complex process, as there are many  elements and ways this can happen. Primarily, flowers grow over wounds  gained in life, since a person enters the mystic garden in whatever  physical state they were in at the time of their death. Thus, a physical  injury may be treated in this way (though it would still cause pain,  just not bleed out or cause disaster), but not a mental one. Their are  some on the line, for example, sociopathy acquired through physical  injury. Over time such injuries will heal but the process is slow (and  unpredictable, New Eden being outside of the real timeline in the first  place, though time does pass in its own way). Additionally, it is often  the inside of the body (since it is often the main cause of death and  decay, for example, if organs are damaged. Also important is that if an  organ has been replaced with organic material, the person cannot exit  New Eden without serious risk of death, since the Garden will not be  around to provide life to them) where the growth begins, as slowly body  parts become replaced with flowers/plants, the longer the person remains  in New Eden, and also the more negative they become. In some cases,  some rulers' entire skeletons have become replaced with a combination of  bone and wood. The particular science behind this is complicated and  varies with the individual. (resulting, in the modern world, the rulers  are very afraid of becoming hurt, injured or in need of a doctor, lest  someone cut them open and reveal their true nature. Apparently, New Eden  itself wishes to remain hidden, for now.)

 

 This is not  parasitic; New Eden can never remove someone's will or sentience, but it  can impair their decision making, cause them more insanity, and over a  long period of time, physically bond them to itself so much that they  are unable to move, being absorbed into the Garden, and living withing  the entirety of their domain, feeling, breathing, and seeing, not with  their body (which acts more as the heart and brain of the entity), but  with the nature around them. As they are unable to physically speak in  this state, no one knows what it is like to be so thoroughly bonded with  Eden, or how decision making works. It is also unknown if anyone has  yet reached this state.

 

 

 Due to the nature of such  deep attachment to New Eden, which connects every ruler within it,  naturally, all of the rulers are connected to one another. Therefore, if  one person is to become injured, though there may not be a physical  wound on everyone else, all within Eden would feel the pain (though to a  slightly lesser degree than the original person who felt it). Because  of this in general, as well as the rulers all having acquired more or  less permanent wounds at some period of their life, everyone is always  in constant pain and is more or less desensitised to it.

 

 

 The balance of Eden is suddenly upset one day, when an ordinary woman  from the natural timeline somehow manages to break into the Garden's  timeline, opening the door to a Pandora's box that it would take the end  of worlds to close.</sub>