User:MisterSinister/Orcus
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Information About Orcus[edit]
Alternative Names and Titles: Betrayer of Life, The Goat, Lord of Death, Reaper King
Symbol: The Wand of Orcus
Portfolio: Undeath, hatred
Domains Granted: Chaos, Corrupt, Evil, Hatred, Undeath
Favoured Weapon: Heavy mace
Orcus' Statistics Block[edit]
Stuff will go here eventually.
A description of Orcus goes here.
When the First Ones first began to create what would become the planar multiverse, some of them had become concerned with applying Paradox's First Principle - all things must eventually end. While the First Ones saw no need to think of this concept in relation to themselves, as others created lesser species, their end had to be overseen and quantified. A First One, named the Reaper King, quickly arose and took over this concern, becoming the first, and only, Lord of Death. With him, came the concept of mortality - that death was an inevitable end to life. Some creatures (such as the First Ones and their servants) were left exempt, but to all else, the rule had to apply. In death, the souls of such creatures would return to the Heavenly Registry, where they would be re-energized by the Fountain of Life, before being returned into new bodies, to live again. As the guardian of the Registry, the Reaper King would ensure that the cycle would not end, and that mortal creatures would continue to their ends, while the power of their soul would continue, without end, to return.
The Reaper King was perhaps one of the most successful First Ones, mostly because he was proactive - death sought others, and those that would cheat it would become the business of the Maruts - the Angels of Death. The idea of angel servants, active enforcement and involvement in the universe are all believed to have originated with the Reaper King, and while other First Ones were content to enjoy the fruits of their labours, creating on a whim, the Reaper King worked hard to ensure that no mortal creature would escape death.
It was likely the Reaper King who first discovered that there were beings within the multiverse that openly rebelled against the First Ones simply by existing - the Voidborn. Their servants, and indeed, they themselves, were not exempt from death - the Reaper King had been given no such instructions - and thus, death had to come to them. Initially, the Lord of Death sent his Maruts, which were promptly destroyed by the Voidborn and their servants. Undaunted, the Reaper King sent more of his servants to bring compliance and order to the wastelands which these creatures inhabited. Still they fell, hundreds, thousands, millions, their immortal existences ended for the first time. Their soul-bodies, rent beyond repair, flowed into the cursed ground of the planar wastelands, only to strengthen the Voidborn, fuelling their ability to call forth their servants from the destruction and loss that these proud beings experienced.
Never had the Reaper King's control of death ever been so defied. Although others, including Paradox, urged restraint, the Lord of Death would have none of it. Grasping his weapon, donning his armour, and mounting his planar steed, he rode into the planar wastelands. Death had come to the place of death.
With each step, his steed destroyed hundreds of the servants of the Voidborn. Each swing of his mighty scythe cut apart whole continents of these wastelands. His gaze caused their black suns to explode, and wherever he strode, death finally came. None of the servants or powers of the Voidborn could harm him - he was death itself, and those who failed to comply with the law of the First Ones would experience it first-hand. Eventually, the Voidborn could no longer ignore this attack. They were the destroyers and consumers, and no agent of the cosmic laws of the First Ones could possibly excel against them in that.
They came at him, all at once, in all their horrific splendour. The legions of Maruts that came alongside their leader were destroyed almost immediately by horror-fires and time-rending magics. Space and time was cracked open, and souls were dragged forth and ignited to burn the offender to their thinking. The black suns of the wastelands went nova, scouring the combatants with balefires before dragging them towards an eternal end within their black hearts. Through all this, the Reaper King stood, fighting off the Voidborn, never falling, never failing.
However, even the powers of a First One are limited, and the Reaper King began to tire. His mighty scythe did not strike as true, and his steed began to visibly age from the power of the onslaught. Although he was a master of a principle of the eventual end of all things, the Voidborn capabilities for destruction, and ignorance of the cosmic laws of Paradox and the First Ones gave them an advantage he could not hope to close. Seeing as his time was coming, the Reaper King finally stared into the abyss of his own possible mortality, finally realising that he may have to become subject to the very thing that he was overseeing. As his guard finally failed, and he was struck the blow that would unmake him, for an instant, he saw the world as a Voidborn. Creation, destruction, everything - all came together at once in his powerful mind. The insanity of the idea that he could both be the master of death and also subject to it began to reshape reality around him. Drawing in the power of the surviving Maruts, he began to try to work out this paradox, creating a display of creation, destruction and re-creation around himself that caused even the Voidborn to recoil - they simply could not understand what was happening here.
Voidborn and First One alike looked on in horror as something that seemed to violate everything, and yet exist all the same, tried to resolve its place in the cosmos. Its effects were becoming intolerable, and risked dissolving all of the laws and constructions created by the First Ones. Paradox, seeing the danger in this, quickly flung the remains of the Reaper King as far away from the multiverse as possible, to the edges of possibility. Death no longer had a master, but fortunately, nothing needed to change, as the Heavenly Registry was operating so well that it didn't truly need First One oversight.
With the corrosive effects on reality contained, Paradox and the other First Ones saw for the first time what their multiverse had created. The Voidborn beheld the source of their misery for the first time. War was inevitable - and its first casualty was Death itself.
As the multiverse-spanning war raged, the bizarre, reality-bending construct that was the Reaper King came to rest on a faraway world. Piercing deep into its core, it came to rest next to the heart of the world, seeking to heal its broken mind and body, and to realise its place in the multiverse. Its strange thoughts and unnatural conclusions soon began to seep into the thoughts and deeds of the population of the world that it lived in, leading them to act strangely. Life and death became mixed for them, and the pondering of both and their relationship began to define the creatures that lived there. Everything seemed permitted, provided that it was rationalised. In the end, pure madness began to overtake the beings that dwelled on this world, and it was only the war between the First Ones and the Voidborn that stopped any corrective actions being taken. In return, the bizarre thing dwelling inside their world began to soak up their thoughts and concerns, their actions and beliefs, and this gave it enough stability to at least think clearly, focusing its broken mind and strengthening its irrational body.
None truly know how many years went by. The former Reaper King may have slumbered there for thousands, perhaps even millions of years - none can be certain. The poisonous thoughts and concepts that came trickling from its mind were refracted into thousands of strange, logical strands, which the population of that world began to weave into a tapestry of creation-defying blasphemy - seeking to rationalise and quantify the impossible, the contradictory and the mad. In all this time, they cried out for understanding that would not come, thoughts that would not lie in place, and concepts that could not be expressed without driving the listener as mad as they were. This cry was shared by the wounded First One at the heart of their world, and it became a beacon to reality itself - for that being still commanded immense power over reality as a (former) First One.
Eventually, over time, the Reaper King began to coalesce into fragmented personalities, each having found a slightly-different understanding of the truly impossible situation it had found itself in. These personalities then began a war for control, some defeating and absorbing others, until only three remained. Fuelled by the thoughts and deeds of the world's population, and in return, fuelling them, had these personalities acted in unity, the Reaper King would have ascended to godhood. However, their disunity and constant infighting meant that much of this power was squandered and diffused, leaving it in its bizarre non-state. Each of these personalities were facets of the Reaper King's existence, which had become dominant enough to assert some control over it by bringing order to the chaos of its predicament.
The first of these called itself the Reaper. It was what remained of the Reaper King's First One personality, a strong hand of guidance for death, seeking to bring this law to all those that would violate it. All the discoveries, experiments and experiences of the population of the world served to reinforce its belief that this task should yet be done, for without a strong overseer, those with enough will and power could defy the eternal machines of the Fountain and Registry, becoming immortals who are not meant to be. Clinging to duty in the face of contradiction, it finally accepted that to enforce such a rule it must itself be bound to it. However, in spite of this requirement, it must still, in death, as in life, continue to serve and protect the idea of death as an end.
The second called itself Orcus, from a curse spat by the inhabitants of the world. The darkest, angriest elements of the Reaper King's being coalesced in it, growing in intensity and fed by the frustration, anger and hatred of the world in which it inhabited. It hated the First Ones, for failing to come to its aid sooner and leaving it in this predicament, it hated the Voidborn for destroying it and putting it in such a strange position, and it hated all mortal beings, because as it saw it, it was their need for death that led to this oddity in the first place. No other thing escaped its fury, for through endless rationalisation and festering, it finally found a way to blame every other thing. Even its own self wasn't blameless - for ultimately, it hated itself more than any other creature. The contradiction of its existence lost all meaning in the face of this much hatred - of everything that was, is and will be. It no longer mattered why or how it could be like this - all that mattered was that everything else was not worthy of existing for putting it there.
The last of these, composed of whatever dregs remained that were rejected by both Orcus and the Reaper, called itself Tenebrous. A shadow of the Reaper King, it comprised his sadness, loss, exhaustion and despair at his situation. A giant black stain on his heart, this grew and spread, fed by all the loss and concession of the population, of all the questions unanswered, things undiscovered, actions untaken. No light shone upon Tenebrous, no purpose gave it fire or light or warmth - it merely existed as a reflection, a trace, a shadow. Having decided that the paradox of its existence has no solution, it simply had no wish to exist, but could not depart until the question was answered. Only this new, stranger paradox kept it intact.
