stalled out on writing an update so have some edgy as fuck demons instead
Khvarenah, Winter's Rain
Seventeenth Soul of the Shadow of All Things
Demon of the Third Circle
Society would not be possible without sacrifice. The high could not rule without some measure of acceptance from the low. "This is my duty," says the soldier sent to fight on distant fronts, and he thinks to himself of honor and devotion to his lord and his hard-earned coin. "This is my station," says the farmer tilling hardened land, and she thinks to herself of tradition and family and the generous bounty of the earth. "This is what's right," say the noble, the priest, the minister, the mother. "This is good."
"This is things as they should be."
And so, secure in their service, they shut their ears and close their eyes and bind their hearts against the suffering of others. Against the wretched lives of the exploited, the abused, the dispossed; those broken and ground beneath the wheel of their great civilization. "Be grateful!" comes the chorus-cry, on shrill tongues and strong arms. "Know your place!" History's victors place their boots on the back of their lessers and call it just. Their lessers place their boots on the backs of the least and call it deserved. And the least suffer because that is what the least do. That is what the least are for, for the least have no power.
"Oh, but what if, what if" Khvarenah whispers from the dark, his voice as soft as a lullaby, "what if you did?"
He speaks to the weak, the lost, the forgotten. To the street rat huddled beneath a rain-swept stoop. To the sole survivor of the violated village. To the social darling fallen so far from favor. He seeks those possessed of a particular, peculiar hunger. A drive to reclaim their dignity piece by bleeding piece from the world that abandoned them. In the darkness of their dreams he comes to them. In the shadow of midnight rain he teaches them and shows them the path to become something more than merely mortal, something other than only human. These beauteous akuma are branded with his sign, their souls sculpted into forms pleasing to his eye. Turned loose by their bound master to largely act as they will. To avenge themselves in whatever manner they see fit. For in all things the Yozi may excel, but humans have a creative genius for tragedy all their own. And such novelties please him. And such ends gratify him.
In Malfeas he is the storm that forms in the shadows beneath the Ultimate Darkness and lingers in his wake. The coolness of the dragon's induced night giving rise to coal-black clouds and ink-like rain. Lurid lightning arcs and flashes between titanic thunderheads, granting definition to the hurricanes mass. Drowning sound in rolling thunder and the drumming of the deluge. His freezing downpour lashes the towers and spires of the Demon City, drips and flows into the foundations. The thirsty cup their hands and drink of the ashen water, grateful for the bounty; the wise abstain for to imbibe of Khvarenah's essence is to become his creature. A darkling thing native to his rain-soaked world. When Ligier is roused to wrath and casts forth his blazing spears there Winter's Rain falls as well. Spreading beneath the vast, billowing clouds of ash and debris. Be this the product of an ancient concord, a calculated insult, or careful flattery only the scholars of Hell may say.
At times he appears as a monstrous, saurian beast. Limbs clad in oil black scale, angled snout tipped in a wicked, hooked beak, and a rich mantle of feathers sprouting from his scalp and cascading down his back. Obsidian piercings decorate his flesh, beaded with raindrops and flashing in the reflected light of electricity. His skin smeared with yellow dust designs and wrists and ankles and neck bound in black bells that echo with thunder. About his waist he wears the traditional paper loincloth of a Dragon King high priest. Indeed, in this design may be seen many echos of that once great race. Apocryphally, when the Unconquered Sun turned his face from Creation several of the surviving enclaves turned to the worship of a new, powerful god of night and magic. Spilling blood down stone steps his name and etching his form in the walls of their temple-complexes.
At other times he goes as a young man clad in the garb of a Shogunate noble. His skin pallid and his dark hair plastered to his scalp. Soaked from head to toe, his eyes reflecting only the endless storm of his larger being. Black water trickling from his sockets like tears.
Notes and Abilities: In cultures which he Khvarenah is known, by name or impression, he is inextricably linked to perversions of the natural order. A patron of witches, an instigator of coups, and a saint of bloody-handed regicide. Able and willing to lend his blessings to all such things. Scavengers such as foxes and jackals are sacred to him and he will, at times, attempt to seduce away their relevant gods. In disposition Winter's Rain is identified as a spiteful trickster (a classification with more than a grain of truth) and a great occultist. Knowledgeable regarding many of Hell's hidden histories and deeply buried secrets. Orabilis views him with careful suspicion and rightfully so.
Should he be summoned into Creation he would seek to seal away the Sun from the world. Engineering an eternity of a rainswept world, populated by powerful cults and pallid, predatory beasts. Winter's Rain may escape his prison when a royal line is utterly extinguished in the span of a single night and the state falls to chaos. His clouds form over the gutted palace and the wind keens, heralding the coming storm.
Khvarenah and the Althing: Khvarenah's inclusion in the initial Reclamation was contentious at best. Souls belonging to the Shadow of All Things are, by definition, eminently untrustworthy and Winter's Rain, the embodiment of the Dragon's spiteful selfishness, more than most. Yet his defense on the grounds of obvious self-interest was well argued and his fellow Souls took up his cause on his behalf. In the time since it would appear as if the wary hand extended was well rewarded: a number of Infernals have benefited from his tutelage and his cults are ever efficacious.
Yet if the truth were known he would have been barred without question for Khvarenah despises his kindred. In ages past, when the Yozi were first imprisoned, his previous incarnation was slain to ensure the Dragon's imprisonment. A needed, necessary sacrifice made on his behalf. While the current Seventeenth Soul bears no apparent ill-will a slow, smouldering fury lingers in his being. A sickening anger cultivated over the centuries. At last, with the advent of the Infernal Exalted, Winter's Rain feels that his time has come: through his research he believes he has uncovered a mechanism by which a Fetich may be usurped. And now he quietly seeks the location of the Ebon Dragon's hidden heart, discretely gathering Exalted accomplices to aid him on his endeavor. Intent on cannibalizing his sibling and usurping their position in the Yozi's hierarchy.
Sarvar, the Fog-Wreathed Maw
Expressive Soul of Winter's Rain
Demon of the Second Circle
It is sometimes said that Creation is without true judgement. A wicked man might prosper and a good man might be punished and the world goes on, uncaring and indifferent. It is sometimes said that there is no real justice to be found in the Universe. How could there be? So many suffer, every day, at the hands of unjust authorities. If there are celestial watchmen they must surely be asleep. If there is some cosmic judge who would reward virtue and punish sin then surely they must be corrupt beyond all imagining. But, surprisingly, this is not in fact true. This is known because Sarvar exists.
And he hates you.
He hates you with all the gentle tenderness of your lover, your dearest friend. He hates you for what you are, for what you've done, for what you've failed to do. For your petty vices and your hidden sins. Your great failures and little cruelties. He hates you because you are special in some way, exceptional, unique. Because you live while they died. Because you exist while they suffer. Because you did not know, you did not care, and in so doing you damned them all.
Nothing is supposed to persist between Yozic incarnations. Should a Pantheon collapse then the new Mythoi that forms is a new being. A mutilated, horrifying being to be sure! But new nonetheless. Should an Unquestionable perish then whatever creature forms from the aftershock should lack all continuity. They should remember nothing, have no connection. A tree that grows from the belly of a corpse is not the dead man's son. A Third Circle birthed from the demise of a predecessor is not the predecessor reborn.
And yet Khvarenah remembers. And yet Sarvar exists.
He appears swathed in a cloak of glistening shadow. Towering over lesser creatures, hood pulled low. The front lays unbound, baring flayed flesh and obsidian bone. Red, raw meat, every glossy tendon, every sinewed cord on display. His eyes cannot be seen but the pressure of his gaze may be felt. His build is humanoid and yet his mouth is too large for the proportions he evokes. Naked teeth curling up and around the sides of his skull. In one flensed, skeletal hand he clutches the haft of a giant spear. The blade itself more a blunt, bloodstained slab of metal than an actual weapon. Shimmering fog spills from his feet and oily chains clink and clatter, unseen in the depths. Any who cross his path are taken, dragged to his demense within Malfeas. A ruined, mist-soaked city-scape where inner ugliness is made manifest. Where the specters of the mind confront the living body. It is not enough that you are punished, you must understand why. You must see yourself as he sees you. And you must atone.
Those few who come to terms with the darkness are allowed to leave unmolested.
Notes and Abilities: The only limits on Sarvar's predation are his current power (which is formidable) and his interest (which is nearly boundless). In Malfeas he is a mythic monster, a behemoth of speculated but unknown origin and rumored to be responsible for the disappearance of a number of demon Citizens. While he rules only a sliver of a single shell much of the surrounding territory has been evacuated, inhabited by only the desperate or the foolhardy. His single-minded intention frightens even his greater self who has painstakingly obscured the connection between the two with powerful sorceries lest his own intentions be betrayed and he be called to account. Necessitating that Winter's Rain masquerade as his own Expressive Soul (a small, mischievous, foxlike being with avian and reptilian features) to uphold the deception.
Noble or wicked, sorcerers do not summon Sarvar. Only the unwise and then only once. The Fog-Wreathed Maw does not discriminate, cannot be made to discriminate, and will, inevitably, direct his attentions to his summoner and those they hold dear. Only the truly pathetic are sometimes spared his wrath and he may be seen, on occasion, watching the masses of shadowed-things that emerge when the Dragon's shadow passes. Motionless and inscrutable.
When a small community commits a shared evil act and hides the secret, burying the wretched truth so that none may know, Sarvar may slip his bonds on the next new moon and persist for a month. In that time he will drown the township in mist, isolating them from the rest of the world, and initiate the process of penance. Those who do not escape before the month ends are dragged below. The town left behind; a tainted, shadowed monument.
Only a few yards?
