About Me

My name is Manny (Manuel Francisco Enriquez). I’m the founder and creative mind behind Proxy Realms, and the person who brought The Black Sons of Loyola universe to life. Before Proxy Realms existed, I was fully immersed in the tabletop miniature world as a printer. For years, I ran prints under multiple commercial licenses, helping hobbyists, painters, and gamers bring incredible models to life all over the world.

In the fall of 2023, everything changed. I became ill and was diagnosed with Chronic Myeloid Leukemia. Something I loved doing suddenly became dangerous. Resin, especially in its liquid form, is extremely toxic for someone in my condition. I tried to scale things back and only print for a few studios in bulk, hoping less exposure would be safe enough. But even then, I kept getting sick. Reality hit hard.

I couldn’t keep going the way I had been. Around that time, my daughter began talking about wanting to go to nursing school, so we started looking into programs in the area where I live. That search led us to the University of Loyola Maryland. I had heard the name before, but honestly, I didn’t know it had any connection to the Jesuits, the Catholic Church, or anything like that.

That small discovery sparked my curiosity. I started reading about Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. His story of transformation from soldier to saint felt powerful, but what truly stood out to me was the part of his life when he was accused of having ties to a mystical sect known as Los Alumbrados, or “The Illuminated Ones.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Loyola

That moment in history caught my imagination. It made me think about how faith, devotion, and power can twist and evolve over time. What would the world look like if those ancient rivalries of belief never ended? If faith became a weapon, and heresy became a banner people fought under?

Those questions became the foundation of what would turn into The Black Sons of Loyola. At first, it was just an idea to pass the time, something creative to help me stay busy through treatment, but it quickly grew into something much deeper. It became a universe built on that same tension between light and darkness, obedience and rebellion, faith and fire.

Black Sons became my way to stay connected to the community I love without risking my health. It became a creative refuge, a place where I could build worlds, write lore, and bring characters to life through imagination instead of resin. What started as late-night reading and ideas slowly grew into a full universe filled with depth, passion, and purpose.

I also wanted to stay within the World War I timeline, since Trench Crusade had made such a big impact on the community. The mix of faith, war, and industrial horror fit perfectly with what I wanted to create. It felt like the right era to explore how religion and warfare could merge into something both divine and terrifying. From there, the world expanded into several factions, each representing a different side of faith, corruption, and survival.

But enough about me and how this all came to be, let’s talk about the world itself.

The Black Sons of Loyola are the remnants of a once-sacred order, forged in faith and discipline but consumed by fanaticism. Once devoted soldiers of penance, they have become instruments of relentless judgment, believing their holy mission is the only thing keeping the world from complete damnation.

They march beneath tattered banners bearing the IHS sigil of Ignatius, their prayers echoing like battle hymns through smoke-choked trenches. To them, war itself is worship. Every heretic burned and every trench purified by fire is seen as an offering to the God they believe still watches.

Their armor blends priestly robes and heavy plate, covered in soot, scripture, and relics of martyrdom. Their weapons are etched with verses that have been twisted into symbols of wrath. Each Black Son confesses before battle, believing that death on the field grants absolution.

They are led by the Superior General, a figure whose authority descends from the original line of Ignatius himself. Known as the Last Grand Inquisitor, he commands with unwavering conviction, his word treated as divine law. Beneath him are the Iron Confessors, the Purging Choir, and the Phantom Redeemers, each serving a sacred role within the order’s hierarchy.

The Black Sons dwell within Sanctum Bellatorum, a fortress monastery. Once a place of prayer and pilgrimage, it has become a citadel of war. The air is thick with incense and gunpowder, and the chants of the faithful mingle with the sound of distant artillery. Sanctum Bellatorum stands as both holy ground and holy prison, where the Sons prepare for the endless crusade they believe will cleanse the world of sin.

The Los Alumbrados are mystics, visionaries, and seekers of divine truth who believe that enlightenment can only be achieved through inner revelation rather than obedience to dogma. To them, the divine spark lives within every soul, and salvation comes not from confession or penance but from awakening the light that already resides within.

They stand as both the mirror and the opposite of the Black Sons of Loyola. Where the Sons bring fire to purge the world, the Alumbrados bring light to reveal it. Their teachings are outlawed and condemned as heresy, for they reject the idea that any institution or priest can mediate between man and God. This belief has made them the sworn enemies of the Inquisition and eternal fugitives in the eyes of the faithful.

Their leaders form the Illuminated Council, a gathering of prophets and philosophers bound by shared visions and secret rites. At their head stands Lord Malachai, the Eternal Seer, a figure said to have stared into the heart of the sun and seen the divine truth within its blaze. His words guide the Alumbrados across the fractured lands of Iberia, calling the faithful to awaken, to see, and to break their chains.

The Alumbrados dwell within Bastion De La Luz, a radiant fortress hidden among the mountains, where sunlight filters through crystalline spires and reflects like living fire. Once a Jesuit observatory, it now serves as their sanctuary and stronghold. Within its glowing halls, monks and mystics meditate beneath mirrors of gold and glass, their chants weaving through the air like beams of refracted light. To the Church, Bastion De La Luz is a nest of heresy. To the Alumbrados, it is the heart of illumination.

The Corpus Profane are a plague-born cult that has embraced decay as divinity. They believe rot is not the end of life but its purification, a holy undoing of flesh that reveals the truth beneath. What others see as pestilence, they see as grace. Disease, mutation, and death are their sacraments, and to join them is to be reborn in corruption.

Their origins lie within the Ceuta Penal Colony, a fortress prison once used by the Inquisition to exile heretics, criminals, and plague victims. When the Leper of Rome arrived bearing the mark of the Worm Host, the prison became a cradle of blight. The guards were the first to fall, the inmates the first to kneel. In the shadows of its bloodstained halls, the condemned found faith in the crawling god that whispered from beneath the stones.

The Corpus Profane now spread from that cursed place like a living infection, their numbers swelling as corpses rise and pilgrims of decay answer the call. They are led by the Leper of Rome, a figure both prophet and plague-bearer, whose body is a sermon of rot. Around him gather the Worm Priests, whispering the litany of dissolution, the Leper Brigade, a legion of diseased zealots forged in the filth of the Ceuta Penal Colony, and the First Maw, soldiers of ruin whose mouths never close and whose hunger never ends.

Their seat of power remains the Ceuta Penal Colony, now known simply as the Citadel of Rot. The once-iron walls drip with moss and blood, the air thick with spores and incense made from burning flesh. Bells toll not for prayer, but for infection. Within those walls, the faithful of the Corpus Profane wait patiently for the world to crumble, because only through decay, they believe, can salvation take root.

The Vultari Syndicate are mercenaries, deserters, and scavengers who thrive in the chaos left behind by holy war. They are soldiers without scripture, bound by profit rather than faith, and guided only by the law of survival. To them, loyalty is a currency, and war is the marketplace.

Once outcasts from the great factions, the Vultari forged their own brotherhood in the ashes of no man’s land. They pick through battlefields for relics, weapons, and secrets, selling them to the highest bidder, sometimes to both sides of the same war. Their armor is a patchwork of stolen insignias and scavenged gear, their banners stitched from the flags of fallen nations.

They are led by Sir Wulfric the Grim, a former inquisitorial officer turned warlord, whose scarred face and iron will earned him a reputation as both executioner and savior. Beneath him operate infamous figures like The Black Gambit, Ilyss Veyra, the Blind Fury, and Mateo de la Sombra, the Shade of the Vultari, each commanding their own ruthless detachments.

The Vultari Syndicate makes its home in The Salted Veil, on the jagged cliffs of a forgotten coastline of Ibiza in the Sea of Broken Saints. There, deals are struck in blood, relics change hands under candlelight, and allegiance is as fleeting as mercy. In a world consumed by faith and plague, the Vultari stand apart, not as believers or heretics, but as the scavengers who profit from both.

Each faction represents a piece of this universe’s larger story, a reflection of how faith, fire, and survival shape a broken world still clinging to its own idea of salvation.