The Deathless

The Deathless are a collective term for otherworldly, demon-like entities that began appearing in Kelnor in the year 930.
Still as yet unexplained, somehow strong instances of hatred, fear, guilt, and madness began to cause the frequent manifestation of monstrous beings that were hideous to behold and terrible to confront. These creatures had come to be known as "demons" only as the closest proxy to what they were. Only years after were they named "Deathless".
Deathless are horrific beings with alien intelligences bent solely on causing fear, suffering, death, and corruption. However, there is a vast variety to the number and kinds of Deathless that appeared in the long years of the Deathless Crisis. The only basic "constants" of these demonic entities are outlined below:
• They manifest as a result of strong emotions, specifically negative emotions including despair, guilt, and insanity.
• The stronger the emotional residue, the more dangerous the Deathless.
• They are universally malevolent, seeking only the debasement (and ultimately the destruction) of humankind.

CLASSIFICATION

Deathless were classified by the respective emotions that caused their manifestations. Three main groups have been identified so far: those of Despair, Guilt, and Insanity. Many more than those three categories appeared, but formal classifications are still underway.

DESPAIR DEATHLESS

Deathless of Despair are drawn to fear, terror, and panic. Screams of horror are music to them, and they can smell fear across time and space. Despair Deathless typically aim to terrify mortals, relishing and subsisting off of their fear. They are among the most terrifying creatures to behold, and their physical appearance reflects the worst fears and nightmares of humankind. Whether they are naturally born this way, or merely assume terrifying characteristics to horrify their intended prey (humans) is open to speculation. But most have appearances that are feral or bestial, suggesting animal hungers and an appetite for mindless destruction. Others play off the phobias common to weak-minded individuals, with spidery bodies and limbs, and serpentine traits. There are potentially hundreds of different types of demons of despair; the following section details only those most commonly encountered by people during the Crisis.

HOPELESSNESS

Demons of despair come into being through the resonating effects of human anguish, fear, and terror. They feed on human suffering, and a side effect of their very existence is the snuffing-out of hope in an area around where they manifest. Demons of Despair of all ranks are imbued with an ability called “hopelessness”. In game terms, when engaged in combat against a Demon of Despair, characters cannot use Inspiration/Hero points to guarantee hits, survival, or alter the consequences of actions.

DEVOURER

Devourers are entities that feed almost exclusively on human fear - and flesh. While not particularly powerful or cunning, they learn quickly, and the first thing they tend to learn is how to terrify their victims. Devourers typically inhabit the corpses of the fallen, reanimating them as zombie-like "puppets". However, their possession usually corrupts and/or mutates the corpse, so that while the walking cadaver is recognizable as the person it once was, it also has monstrous traits that mark it as clearly inhuman. A Devourer generally looks like a bloated, animated corpse, still bearing the wounds and injuries that killed it. It may be suffering from decay, showing strange blotches of ugly color where blood has pooled, or simply an “off“ cast to its skin. A Devourer often has clear deformations, however, including (but not limited to) claws, fangs, multiple lashing tongues, inhuman speed, a monstrous moaning keen, etc.
Typical Manifestation: Devourers manifest by possessing nearby corpses, which mutate, twist, and deform as they rise again. If no corpses are present when a manifestation occurs, the nearest dead body (even in another room, down the hall, etc.) will come alive and seek out the individual who caused its creation

DEATH SLITHER

Seen in the shadows of an abandoned mine or moving through a darkened passage, a Death Slither might be mistaken for a snake as it slinks sinuously across the floor, moving side to side with quick and powerful swings of its tail. This strange form of Deathless resembles the skull and spine of a human cadaver, hung with rotten flesh and patches of hair and a bisected lower jaw rimmed with jagged, alien teeth. Death Slithers are typically lone hunters, stalking the darkness for isolated victims, playing cat-and-mouse with potential prey. Since they can literally “taste” their victims’ growing fear, these creatures appear to delight in tormenting prey before an actual confrontation. When the sensation of intense fear becomes too much for the Deathless to resist any longer, it finally ambushes its prey, moving in for the satisfying climax of the kill.
Typical Manifestation: When manifested, a Death Slither generally reanimates scattered bones, which slowly come together to take on a serpentine shape and life of their own.

NIGHTMARE WEAVER

Nightmare Weavers are insidious beings that feed off of terror. However, unlike more base Deathless which merely seek to terrify one or two victims with a brutal, frontal assault (relying on its appearance to frighten), Nightmare Weavers typically take much more care in terrifying their prey, relishing the buildup of unmanageable fear that results from their machinations. Nightmare Weavers are stealthy, patient creatures, often observing humans in their vicinity from hiding before deciding how to best cultivate their fear. When they do act, they do so invisibly, using their abilities undetected to create an atmosphere of terror that begins subtly but develops into outright hysteria as the Weaver grows hungrier and hungrier. Physically, a Nightmare Weaver resembles a twisted, human-sized arachnid with a distorted, malformed head, a chattering, vertical maw with probing tongue, and multitudes of mirror-like eyes in which to capture the terrified expressions of their prey when they finally move in for the kill.
Typical Manifestation: When a Nightmare Weaver manifestation occurs, shadows in the area seem to elongate and come to life, taking on a spidery quality. Soon the darkest part of the shadows coalesce into the shape of the creature, which then emerges as if it had been hiding in the darkness all along.

ENGORGED HORROR

Entities embodying pure rage, hunger, and power, Engorged Horrors are obese monstrosities that by all accounts are revolting to look upon. Rotten flesh clings to its hide and congealed blood oozes from its pores; its belly strains grotesquely from the dozens of victims it has eaten whole. An Engorged Horror is surrounded by the smell of death, an odor that can give away its presence through the streets it has passed or in which it lairs. While the Engorged Horror appears to be its own form of Deathless, some claim the creature is merely a mature version of a Devourer, though the two monsters’ abilities and weaknesses appear to have few similarities.
Typical Manifestation: An Engorged Horror typically manifests by possessing a nearby corpse, which swiftly balloons over the course of a few seconds to awful proportions. Skin splits, blood curdles, and flesh corrupts within moments of its rise from death.

PANIC FEEDER

A Panic Feeder is a powerful Deathless which only takes physical form when the intensity of despair in an area flares up to unprecedented levels – in a mass panic, for example, or in the moments before a large group of people are faced with imminent death (such as in the moments before a large execution, which was the site of this creature's fist appearence). A Panic Feeder resembles a monstrous “demon” covered in a foul-smelling, inky black flesh that oozes with a noxious fluid, which some claim is digested human despair. A Panic Feeder is 35 feet tall, has multiple arms and a humongous head featuring three ravenous maws, each large enough to swallow a man whole. When a Panic Feeder manifests, it typically rampages through the screaming and horrified masses around it, snatching men up and gobbling them alive, its actions resembling nothing less than a glutton in a candy shop.
Typical Manifestation: The spawning of a Panic Feeder is usually preceded by a tear in the fabric of time and space, a black “rip” in reality through which the oily black beast spills, in a vile mockery of human birth.

REAPER

When a person faces certain death, their instinct for survival triggers a bestial urge to fight and kill, a desperation all people have but seldom are forced to reveal. During the Crisis, this desperation could give form to a destructive entity known as a Reaper. Once manifested, a Reaper will hunt down and kill its “creator“, wanting nothing more then to “thank” them for bringing it into being, laying waste to anybody who stands in its way. Resembling a desiccated corpse with razor-sharp, bladed limbs, a Reaper is a whirlwind of impulsive violence and rage.
Typical Manifestation: When a Reaper manifests, scattered droplets and pools of blood in the vicinity seem to animate, drawn together over horizontal and even sloped surfaces into one large mass. To the eye the blood takes on a mercury-like quality as it flows, until it begins to assume a monstrous shape, rising with pulsating, malevolent life.

GUILT DEATHLESS

Deathless of Guilt are perverse beings that are created as reflections of corrupted and evil humans, the “residue” of an evil act that takes on a life of its own, manifested in physical form. They are, in essence, an “imprint” of the guilt inherent in a given person, and as a result they draw their power off of the human(s) who - usually inadvertently - created them. Guilt Deathless may resemble a specific person who succumbed to tremendous feelings of guilt, albeit terribly altered and/or mutated. The personality and memories of its creator are often inherited by the creature, if only to allow it torment them more effectively. These Deathless typically aim to destroy the person that created them, but once they have taken form and accomplished this act they go about seeking other guilty creatures to pervert - or simply consume. There are potentially hundreds of different types of of Guilt Deathless; the following lists only a few examples.

SYMBIOSIS

Unlike those demons that subsist solely on human fear, which often indulge in violent orgies of destruction and bloodshed, Deathless of Guilt are more cunning, subtle creatures; they cultivate their prey almost like humans do “crops”. Other Deathless typically rampage on being manifested, but those of Guilt instead latch onto their “creator”, offering him powers or benefits while subtly eating away at their conscience, psyche, and ultimately, soul. This is known as symbiosis.
All Guilt Deathless have the Symbiosis ability, but what this ability does will depend on the specific breed. Generally speaking the Deathless will attempt to persuade its creator to join with it (since this character will be a natural choice), or anyone who seems especially susceptible to manipulation. This is a kind of “deal with the devil”, either verbally, telepathically, or (in the case of less intelligent creatures) instinctively forged, in which the demon “offers” to bond with the victim in exchange for her life (or in some cases, the lending of special “powers“ that will help the host overcome her companions and/or enemies).
For the creature, this is less a “deal” and more like the relationship between a parasite and its host. In exchange for putting aside its lust for suffering (albeit temporarily, or at least with one particular individual), it cultivates an “ally” or “puppet” through which it can affect greater malice… or at the very least, savor the horror of its host as she betrays her companions and conscience – a sensation that to such Deathless is far more delicious.

GUILT WORMS

It is unclear whether Guilt Worms are a form of minor Deathless or simply the immature form of some more powerful creature. They seem to exist in great quantities like the unformed, wriggling larvae populating a primitive, prehistoric world, but they are certainly malevolent and possessed with an evil instinct. When Guilt Worms manifest they generally seek to infest the nearest intelligent creature. They do this by attacking the head, entering through the ears, mouth, or nostrils, before burrowing into the brain. Here they nest, attaching themselves to the cerebrum and influencing their host’s memories. A person infested with Guilt Worms is slowly tormented as the Worms unlock memories of the individual’s victims, playing them over and over again in her mind to torture her. In addition to enhancing the guilt their victim already feels for her past crimes or actions, the process is also excruciatingly painful, oftentimes leading to a slow, agonizing death.
Typical Manifestation: Food, meat, or corpses nearest the person manifesting this type of demon suddenly comes alive with writhing “larvae”. These wriggling, maggot-like entities begin moving in a swarm towards their creator

CORRUPTOR

Seducers extraordinaire among the Deathless, Corruptors are entities that exhibit malevolent cunning. As manipulators of the weak and instigators of the rash, Corruptors seek out hosts of strength or position through which greater evil can be wrought. Invisible to all but the most sadistic of individuals, those that do happen to behold one are usually dumbfounded by what they see. A Corruptor resembles a giant head floating in midair, a mass of writhing tentacles protruding from its skull. But what people find most disturbing is the vacant expression of the creature as it watches its seduced thralls commit gruesome acts at its behest. The most famous victim of a Corruptor was the Eventellian king Aldous of Eventell, who took the throne five years into the Crisis, and quickly came under the control of a Corruptor, committing horrific acts against his own people at the creature's behest until he was deposed by his son Aeosas of Eventell.
Typical Manifestation: When a Corruptor appears, it is preceded by a ghostly glow, from which its ethereal, watery shape takes form. Once it has come into being, the creature will usually drift in the direction of the character who manifested it, attempting to take control of her and initiate its symbiotic influence.

WRAITH

According to those in the know, everyone who looks upon a Wraith sees something different: a spectral child horribly bruised or mutilated; a hollow-eyed man with a stab wound through the neck; a tortured woman covered in scars, etc. In reality, a Wraith has virtually limitless forms, though it always picks a form from its beholder’s guilty past. Every man, woman, or child a particular beholder of the Wraith victimized is known to the demon; it is a protean entity which changes shape to match those whom its prey brutalized, killed, raped, disappointed, or hurt. Able to resemble humans, a Wraith can thus manipulate its environs, such as using objects and opening doors.
Typical Manifestation: When a Wraith comes into existence it is followed by malevolent voices, fiendish giggles, and dark laughter. The Wraith is able to accurately mimic the voice of whoever’s shape it is taking, except that it will have a cold, evil, empowered, and terrifying tone to it.

SOUL SHADOW

A Soul Shadow is typically manifested when a person murders, is caught red-handed killing someone, or is responsible for a great number of deaths. Even though the criminal may not feel any guilt for what he has committed, the outrage of others and the demand for retribution from those killed can be strong enough to call a Soul Shadow into being.
Soul Shadows typically form symbiotic relationships with their creators, soothing them by “eating” their despair and instilling them with an icy calm. Keeping this host pacified to draw strength and energy from, the Soul Shadow will then strike out on its own to hunt. They most often seek out areas where there is little light to spare, and from the darkness lure chance victims to their deaths. As the creature lies in wait it projects images onto its blank, albino face; the face of a reviled rival, a betraying friend, a hated mother, an abusive father, etc. Taunting and tormenting, a Soul Shadow gradually instills its prey with rage, luring her to follow it to a secluded spot where it reveals its true physical form in ambush. Using its enormous tongue, the creature pulls its victim towards its fang rimmed maw and swallows her whole. After a couple hours of rest, a Soul Shadow seeks further cries of anguish and begins the hunt anew…
Typical Manifestation: When this creature appears, the shadows themselves seem to coalesce into shape, rising to its full height. The creature blends perfectly in dark places, which are its favored environs.

PROGENITOR OF SINS

A creation of pure emotion and raw pain, the Progenitor of Sins is a being given form by the consequences of despicable acts. A Progenitor is a sort of “living feedback” made physical by the twisted power of the Deathless. A Progenitor desires nothing more than to bring pleasure to itself; it seeks out the twisted, sick minds of deviants and those most likely to commit acts of depravity. Those who have laid eyes upon one speak of a fiend that resembles a hideous woman with shoulder length black hair, long powerful legs that end in clawed feet, and mottled breasts that leak a black, odorous ooze. The Progenitor’s face is scarred and pock-marked with boils, her lips swell with pus, and her tongue hangs limp, swaying back and forth. The most disturbing aspect of the demon is her arms, which are writhing, pulsating tentacles that drip an acidic excretion from their suggestively-shaped tip. The palms feature mouths reminiscent of the sexual organs of a human female, but fanged and ready to tear apart its victims.
Typical Manifestation: A Progenitor’s manifestation is usually preceded by a wave of physical pain and mental anguish experienced by everyone in the vicinity, followed by the sound of reality tearing itself open as the demon emerges out of thin air.

TORMENTOR

The Tormentor is a particularly sadistic demon, finding sensual pleasure in the execution of what can only be described as “poetic justice”. A Tormentor seeks out those who have committed crimes against their companions (such as those who betray friends out of cowardice, malice, or for gain), and takes shape as a towering mass of pulsating flesh ending in four muscular tentacles. Atop this rests a hideous gagged and blindfolded head, vaguely reminiscent of a horrifically-tortured human being. A Tormentor has two tentacle-like arms that end in filthy, bladed claws, and the entirety of it seeps a foul ooze, a byproduct from the pain and anguish it absorbs. An unerring seeker of pain and pleasure, denying itself sight so as to better detect the presence of the sadistic and cruel, the Tormentor’s cruelness surpasses even its need to live. When a Tormentor is finally destroyed it unleashes a wave of raw suffering and destruction.
Typical Manifestation: A Tormentor manifests from puddles of blood, rising as a mass of gore that soon takes the creature’s shape.

ASPECT OF REVENGE

The Aspect of Revenge is categorically one of the strongest Deathless, a powerful entity that seems to exist solely to haunt the wicked, not unlike many demons of guilt. The most common description of this particular creature is of an enormous monster, half-man, half-woman, both twisted and broken, monstrous and evil, comprised solely of the deepest, darkest shadows. No light escapes its shape and all hope seems quenched by its mere presence. This was, in fact, the first ever Deathless that manifested, at the now infamous public beheading of a serial murderer in the city of Montleme. The Deathless killed almost 500 people in the six hours before it was destroyed.
Typical Manifestation: When an Aspect of Revenge manifests there is a sudden spike in the air temperature, a flaring of heat that melts the nearest sizeable source of metal. Within moments this white-hot, liquefied metal swiftly comes alive as a protoplasmic mass, its flailing pseudo pods gradually cooling and taking on a more organic (albeit just as monstrous) form.

INSANITY DEATHLESS

Demons of Insanity are true beings of nightmare, created by the nonsensical dreams and insane ravings of madmen. Demons of Insanity have truly alien goals, at times seeking to devour humans, cause wanton and aimless destruction, or simply flit about mindlessly like fireflies in the void. Demons of Insanity typically have bodies and shapes that do not conform to the laws of reality and physics. Some fly, others float, and still more can travel through solid objects like walls in the manner of ghosts. Their presence inspires madness, and they only seem to be at peace with humans if they’ve first been reduced to babbling idiots and screaming lunatics. There are potentially hundreds of different types of demons of insanity; the following lists only a few examples

PARADOX

Demons of insanity are different from other Deathless in that they can manipulate a force known as “paradox”. Paradox is a term used to describe the tendency of reality to fall apart when such Deathless are present in the material world.

SCUTTLING IMPOSSIBILITY

Bizarre creatures as of yet not fully understood, the Scuttling Impossibility seems to manifest from thin air in the vicinity of the insane. As soon as they take shape, an Impossibility will often scamper off to hide among shadows and begin its life of mayhem and havoc-making, gnawing like rats on the walls of Reality. Whenever bad luck of all kinds seems to crop up, it is a safe bet that Impossibilities are somewhere nearby, lurking just out of sight. Awful things, Scuttling Impossibilities resemble small, dog-sized balls of ever-changing protoplasmic material supported by spindly legs and/or arms. An Impossibility’s shape constantly changes, bristling with eyes, mouths, tentacles, and other grotesque appendages.
Typical Manifestation: An Impossibility manifests as ectoplasmic “sweat” that forms on walls, ceilings, or floors, which quickly turns into a blob that grows to appropriate size and then comes to life.

THING THAT SHOULDN’T BE

A gelid mass of quasi-substantial matter, the creature known only as the Thing That Shouldn’t Be appears to be a race of beings that defy the laws of physics and normal biological categorization. With an appearance only vaguely suggestive of terrestrial cnidarians, “Things” have a ghostly translucency to them, a fey luminescence, and an ethereal substance that defies understanding. All that is known of these creatures is that their touch has horrifying effects on human beings, not only damaging tissue on contact but altering cells irreversibly at a molecular level.
Typical Manifestation: A Thing, when manifested, seems to drift with ghostly grace through the walls of the ship, coming to the character who manifested it like a moth drawn to a flame.

HERALD OF MADNESS

Among the many bizarre creatures spawned during the Crisis, the Herald of Madness resembles a ball of flesh of shifting shape and size, from which radiates several tentacle-like appendages. Below these are the creature’s eyes, large, black, lidless things facing in all directions. Covered in what seem to be warts and angry boils, with large veins gorged with blood, the Herald of Madness is an unwholesome sight. It teases the living with mutterings of what awaits them in death, and its screams can be heard from miles away drawing other Deathless to its side. Though not as powerful as the higher-intensity demons it precedes to this dimension, a Herald can still be deadly, for when a large number of them congregate, madness itself can be given form…
Typical Manifestation: The manifestation of a Herald of Madness is accompanied by a chorus of singing in alien, impossible tones, followed by the indescribable sound of reality’s walls being bent under tremendous stress.

VIOLATOR

Violators are Deathless which manifest as a result of human madness, in specific madness that leads down a path of violence. Though this is not always the case, a human who succumbs to uncontrollable rage can develop a sort of “seed” within her, unnoticeable at first, which over time grows subtly, feeding off her anger and at the same time stoking it. This “seed” gradually grows into an “egg” of sorts, until at long last, when the human host is slain, it causes her corpse to split open, spawning a fully-grown Violator. Violators are slimy, repulsive creatures of unbridled hostility that lash out against life, sanity, and even Reality itself. They seem to loathe all things, and even go so far as to mindlessly kill other demons they come across. A Violator appears as a bloated, slug-like creature with two powerful appendages that hang from its side. Its frog-like throat swells as it breathes, and its flesh secretes a foul slime. The back of its neck bulges with an obscene, undulating mass that appears to be its brain. Its face is disturbingly human-like (vaguely resembling the human in whom it “grew”, only deformed and badly mutated), possessing two blank eyes and an exaggeratedly-large mouth.
Typical Manifestation: A Violator, when manifested, begins growing in the body of the character who manifested it. Within a matter of hours it grows to maturity inside, until at last it rips free from within its host, killing her and leaving her body in bloody ribbons like a serpent’s discarded skin

DREAM-EATER

Dream-Eaters are strange extra-dimensional entities that seem to haunt (and hunt) those humans who have managed to tap into the power of the mind. They generally only appear after a person has manifested a psychic power (though this is not always the case), if not suddenly then slowly, over time, as the prisoner in question accumulates insanity from using her powers. A Dream-Eater’s appearance is mind-boggling; it resembles a large mass floating above the ground, with four writhing tentacles jutting from beneath it and supporting it, its mass dominated by a large, gaping maw. Oddly, the arrangement of its features has something of a simulacrum effect on the human eye, that is, taken as a whole the creature seems to resemble an enormous human face (but up close it does not).
Typical Manifestation: A Dream-Eater typically manifests out of nowhere; a character looking down a hallway sees what looks like eyes, a mouth, and slowly undulating tentacles, reflected in mirrors, polished surfaces, or in the shadows. Yet moments later, as her eyes adjust to take in these details, the creature seems to come together, like an optical illusion that at last becomes visible after long minutes of staring.

CHAOS INCARNATE

Pure chaos given physical shape, form, and intelligence, the creature known as Chaos Incarnate seeks nothing but random, mindless destruction. Man, objects, other demons - nothing is permitted to exist around it. A being of unimaginable power, the Incarnate has a vague resemblance to man, using two arms to drag itself across the floor and possessing an unusually large head. Whenever it opens its terrifying mouth, it ejects a multitude of vile tentacles, scarred and blistered and capable of inflicting terrible mutation with the slightest touch. The being’s lower body is serpentine in nature, ending in multiple muscled tentacles, while its back is covered in large gaping mouths filled with teeth and tongues. When the Incarnate manifests, nothing is safe as it rampages, crushing lives beneath its massive bulk and eating anything that dares to get to close.
Typical Manifestation: When Chaos Incarnate manifests, ooze - black as crude oil - appears like ectoplasm, swiftly filling the space of its size (massive). This pool of liquid chaos bubbles and seethes as the protean creature emerges from it, ready to devour Reality.

MADNESS-GIVEN-FORM

Madness-Given-Form is by far the strangest – and perhaps most powerful - of all the Deathless of Insanity. Those who have seen the creature generally emerge changed, psychologically, surviving the encounter only after being reduced to babbling idiots. Its very presence creates rifts in space and time; abnormalities with no explanations erupt around it. Up becomes down and down becomes up. Walking in one direction, a man suddenly finds himself facing the other way. Madness-Given-Form breaks the laws of physics and laughs at it, even those who surrender to it and beg for its secrets, snuffing their life-forces with mere whispers of its omnipotence.
Typical Manifestation: When manifested, Madness-Given-Form simply wills itself into being, bending the laws of Reality to make its presence possible regardless of the circumstances or dimensions of the place to which it is drawn. The only saving grace seems to be that no two Madness-Given-Forms can exist in a plane of reality at any point, there can only be one such creature.