the bearers
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Daud; the Knife of Dunwall
Daud was an interesting specimen. For years I watched as he carved way, eager to make his mark in the world. So I gave him a mark of my own.
"I see everything. I see forever, and right now I see a man walking a tightrope over a sea of blood and filth. The Empress is dead, and the water's rising. At the last moment you seem to be acquiring a curious sense of justice. Funny how the final days always mean so much."
Corvo Attano; The Royal Protector
Ah, Corvo. I enjoyed watching the infinite web of possibilities take a definitive shape on his journey for vengeance. I thought the bearers of my mark had grown stale. Daud lost my interest, but the assassination of Jessamine caused a series of events that enthralled me. In a world where greed and carnage bred destruction and chaos, Corvo managed to captivate my interest most. Through the Void I saw everything; the potential outcomes of every decision Corvo would ever face. He managed to make me second guess, something that so few in my time have ever accomplished.
"Sometimes pieces of us linger long after we're gone. The Duke inherited a vibrant city and wasted no time stripping it to the bone. What will he leave behind? And what about
you? Who will you leave to pick up the pieces here in the Jewel of the South?"
Emily Kaldwin; The Empress
Emily, daughter of Corvo Attano, and heir to the late Jessamine Kaldwin. As I was predestined to be one with the Void, she was destined to follow the shadow of her father's steps. Whispers and traces of the void were prominent throughout her life. When she was a child, I often heard her mind in the endless echoes of the Void. She held a fascination, unlike any other, about me. But myth and reality are never quite the same. In her dismay, Emily soon realized the harrowing truth about the Void and those who seek to harness its power. I wonder what might have become of her Imperial Highness if she had declined my gift?
"Here you are back among your own people, the palace-born and those who curry their favor. Are you feeling more comfortable, majesty? Are these the people you want running a quarter of your Empire? No? It never seemed to bother you before. Maybe it looks different up close. Maybe here it's harder to ignore the way the people outside the palace get through the day."
trivia
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โค A book titled Spirit of the Deep seems to equate the Outsider with "a leviathan"
โค Both runes and bone charms, which channel the Outsider's magic, are usually made from whale bone.
โค The Outsider cannot change form and appears almost as he did in life
โค Though he is not omniscient, the Outsider receives "horrible glimpses of all time and space"
โค When appearing at his shrines, the Outsider is only visible to people he wishes to be visible to, as he once talked with Daud while Billie Lurk stood by, unable to see him
โค The Mark the Outsider gives people is in fact his mortal name, but written in a language only the dead can read
the mark
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The Outsider's Mark is a special brand granted by the Outsider to individuals of his choosing, which gives them access and resistance to an array of supernatural abilities.
The Mark is given without regard for merit to individuals who have piqued the Outsider's interest. Bearers of the Mark can use runes to strengthen their powers and gain new abilities. The Outsider places no conditions on marked individuals, allowing them to use their powers as they see fit. He will, however, occasionally direct marked individuals toward certain actions.
The Outsider has told Daud that only eight people in the world currently bear his Mark.
Zhukov was not marked by the Outsider. Instead, he carved the Mark into his hand himself, with the same knife used to sacrifice the young man who then became the Outsider. His powers are unrelated to the Mark.
โ the black-eyed god;
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The Outsider is a mysterious, morally ambiguous supernatural being, neither good nor evil.
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He usually appears to people of interest. Though many people worship him, such is considered heresy by the Abbey of the Everyman and punishable by extreme measures, up to and including death. He was created to be the Void's representational figure and appears to be the source of all magic in the world. The Outsider is not classically a 'trickster god,' but he's done a few things that probably remind people of other trickster examples, like granting man some kind of forbidden boon. You could say he has 'Underworld' god qualities which represent the unconscious, mystery, secret or repressed desires, creativity, etc. The 'Shadow Self' from Jungian archetypes. This aspect is much stronger than the trickster qualities.
Before becoming one with the Void, the Outsider was a mortal. Born an outcast in an unnamed city over 4,000 years before the events of Dishonored, with no known family, the "powerless and abused" was unwillingly subjected to a ritual by an occult group known as the 'Eyeless.' He was bathed and dressed and his hands were adorned with rings. He was thought to show all signs in him to become one with the Void, notably his age and bits of prophecy (the celestial movements and events like the mass dying of fish). While restrained on a ceremonial table in a part of the Void known as Ritual Hold, his throat was slit with the Twin-bladed Knife. His name was cut away and he merged in part with the Void. While his physical body remained in the Ritual Hold, captured in stone and unable to move or even speak, a spiritual image of him was turned into the god-like being known as the Outsider, inhabitant of the Void and able to manifest before others in the real world. Upon attaining godhood, he became a "being of insatiable curiosity about what people do when given power over others," spurring him to appear to those he finds "interesting." The Outsider can make contact with these individuals both through dreams and in the physical world - most prominently at his shrines.
Those known to have been in direct contact with the Outsider include Corvo Attano, Piero Joplin, Granny Rags, Daud, Delilah Copperspoon, the "Lonely Rat Boy," Emily Kaldwin and Billie Lurk.
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The Outsider is revealed to have "human emotion, but inhuman perception," making him "almost alien," or possessing two parts โ "human faculty and something primal and chthonic". Some of the Outsider's lines are sarcastic," but his tone can go unnoticed.
Though widely sought and worshiped throughout the world, the Outsider doesn't have favoritism, and is known to only appear to "interesting" individuals โ his interest in people being the primary prerequisite for his audience. He deems devotees of himself and the Void to be "unhinged" and grants them no favors for their reverence. Those who manage to pique his interest are frequently given his attention, however; furthermore, those who he sees as particularly interesting and potential agents of change are bestowed his Mark, with social standing and effort having no bearing on their selection. Due to his standards, it is not uncommon for long periods of time to pass without the Outsider marking anyone.
His interest in those bearing his Mark is heavily dependent on their execution and vision. Unpredictable, low chaos actions generally garner his amusement and fascination, while high chaos ones are typically met with uninspired synopses of given situations. Should the actions of a Mark bearer become mundane in his eyes, the Outsider seemingly abandons them, until his interest is renewed.
He is ultimately a neutral being, unbiased regarding the happenings of the world and placing no conditions on those he gifts with supernatural abilities. No matter the actions of Mark bearers, his disposition typically remains the same โ that of a dispassionate spectator merely seeking an entertaining show. He does, however, display subtle degrees of hostility, both in The Knife of Dunwall and Dishonored 2: in the former taunting Daud with the assassin's guilt in the murder of Empress Jessamine Kaldwin and approaching demise; while in the latter openly voicing his dislike of Delilah becoming a part of him.
month of darkness
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Born in the Month of Darkness
Before the Great Burning, before the wars
A time of nothing, but hills and shores
The smoke of cities, and fields of rye
No eyes or voices beyond the sky
Believers roamed from town to town
They spied every baby born, up and down
Scouring the land for a child to use
And ponderous, esoteric clues
A crumbling black city, an outcast found,
Father a monster, mother under the ground
A beggar, a mongrel, a boy with no shoes
He fell to their hands to cage and abuse
And lo! in the month of darkness
And lo! his name destroyed
And lo! he still whispers in silence
And lo! he went into the void
They were drawn to a light, a waning gray
His face was blank, he had nothing to say
He watched and waited, they painted his eyes
They colored his clothing with pigments and dyes
They found a path away from the light
To an ancient tree withered by blight
A sacred altar, encircled in stones
Twin blades of bronze, sharpened on bones
And lo! in the month of darkness
And lo! his name destroyed
And lo! he still whispers in silence
And lo! he went into the void
In the Month of Darkness, seasons destroyed
A ritual killing bound his spirit to the Void
Eyes drained of color, the beggar no more
To become what the Believers waited for
They set him outside, beyond the spheres
Quiet as the night, long like the years
He opened his eyes, as black as a dream
Trying to speak, his only words a scream
And lo! in the month of darkness
And lo! his name destroyed
And lo! he still whispers in silence
And lo! he went into the void
Death of the Outsider
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Time was an illusion. A word created by mortals to give them a false sense of control over something they had absolutely no control over. Before time The Void was all there was. Before โcreation,โ The Void existed. It lived in a sea of endless worlds and galaxies, with every possible outcome being a single drop in its vast and infinite waters. The Void was ubiquitous. There were no timelines - no scenarios that It didnโt see. Or so it was believed...
Month of Rain
It was a strange feeling to see with eyes unclouded over the lives and decisions of every living creature. Not limited to one world or the next. Witnessing the cause-to-effect for every decision made or unmade. The timelines stretched all around, creating an intricate web of their own design.
But not every decision was the same -- some moments were pivotal.
These cardinal moments are unlike any others in time. They become fixed; unchangeable across every timeline, across every galaxy, across every world. They are definitive. In different realities the finer details might be altered, but in the end, the outcome is always the same.
The unspeakable ritual which made The Outsider was a fixed point in time. The orphaned child would have his name cut from his throat and his soul brutally ripped from its vessel throughout all of time and space. Nothing could ever change that.
Ascending to godhood had been sudden. One moment youโre screaming and choking on your own blood; the next, the expanse of the whole universe was stretched before your very eyes on a horizon which appeared to have no end. In your mindโs eye the elaborate structures of every life in existence could be seen.
For thousands of years it was believed the Outsider was a god. That his power and influence on the world was unlike any other. 4,000 thousand years is a long time. A lot can be forgotten, history lost. Though a deity to the Void, the Outsider was not as omnipotent as the cultures of the world believed.
The past, the present, the future. Every decision anyone could ever make beautifully and complexly woven together. There were infinite possibilities and The Outsider could not always see the outcome, but he had become quite the master at predicting human nature. It was rare for him to be surprised.
He saw the origins of every story and legend ever told. He saw how myths were created and knew their stodgy truths. He saw the whole of the universe, the birth of its stars and the rise and fall of civilizations...
Nothing phased him.
But then it came...
The scream.
It had come from a woman; her fear so potent for a moment the black-eyed god nearly felt human again. Lena Rosewyn, a Sister of the Oracular Order, had had a startling vision.
Her paralyzing fear trickled through the fabrics of The Void. A sudden darkness, far more unsettling than the onyx hues of the god himself, seeped across his vision.
The Outsider was blind!
The black-eyed god could not see what horrors the sister had witnessed. He didn't need to see. The words which soon trembled from her lips echoed into the Void on a perpetual loop at the very center of The Outsiderโs mind.
โI have seen the Death of the Outsider!โ
And so it was, even a god was denied the privilege of knowing his own end.
โ The Void;
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"The Void is unspeakable. It is infinite and it is nowhere, ever-changing and perpetual. There are more things in the endless black Void than are dreamt of in your natural philosophy."
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The Void is an alternate dimension that "hungers for a representational, godlike entity," the Outsider being its current divine inhabitant. It consists of a series of floating islands in an organic and chaotic state, which contain uncanny representations of real world locales held in suspended animation.
While the purpose of the Void is not entirely clear, the Void sometimes has a divine entity, and sometimes does not. Some last for thousands of years. Sometimes the gap between them lasts as long. Each takes on the attributes of the time or process that made them. However, it is unknown what other divinities have existed in the Void and how they were destroyed. These beings can be unmade in many ways, including by fading, abdicating, deicide, being accidentally destroyed, and being reclaimed by the Void. Despite this, it's possible that somewhere people are still worshiping a prior Void divinity.
There exist cults of devotees on the fringes of society who worship the Void. Approximately 4,000 years ago, on the edges of the Void, the Outsider was made in a ritual by cultists who saw signs of his representational capacity. When his mortal life was brought to an end, he was "merged in part with the Void" and reborn a god. The site of his transfiguration remains intact and serves as a vault of power, which others are able to harness.
It is suggested that there is an otherworldly connection between the world of the Empire and the Void; events that take place within the natural world can appear as still scenes within the Void, such as the death of Jessamine Kaldwin and the abduction of Emily Kaldwin by the Pendleton twins. The Void "draws from one's mind," which in turn influences the environment.
There are various means of reaching the Void. While some are brought into the Void in their dreams, the dimension can be accessed directly from the natural world, but very few people have achieved it, as it is nearly impossible. Outsider shrines also act as momentary conduits between the natural world and the Void, as individuals are brought into the Void when runes are taken from the shrine alters.
Storyline Ideas
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Unspecified Timeline;
โฅ New Threat: A "demon," origins unknown, begins to cause corruption and chaos across the isles. Its powers are unlike anything ever seen, contesting against the power and magic of the Void. What can be done to stop it from destroying the whole world?
Death of the Outsider;
โฅ POST DOTO: Recently turned mortal, the Outsider catches wind of the Eyeless preparing to create another deity for the Void. He seeks to destroy the Cult once and for all.
โฅ POST DOTO: Unsure of how to adjust as a human, the Outsider returns to Dunwall to ask Corvo and/or Emily a place to stay.
โฅ POST DOTO: Inspired by Daud and Billie's forgiveness, the Outsider (now mortal) seeks to find an immortal that contributed to the death from his past life to forgive them. The Outsider's mortal brain could not retain much about his time in the Void and therefore has very little information to go off of. Unaccustomed to being human, he asks Billie for her help on this journey.
Buffy Verse;
โฅ Unspecified Timeline: The First was created as one of the original representations of The Void. Different god-like figures have come and gone from The Void over the millennia. The First separated from The Void (becoming the First Evil) many millennia ago. The Void went through a handful of other deities before The Outsider came to being. The black-eyed god offers his Mark to help eradicate the First from existence.
Roleplay Business
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Writing Style Multi Para - Novella
โฅ I am 100% fine with dark themes, violence, gore and language.
โฅ No smut / sexual writing.
Genres / Verses Dishonored; Open; The Vampire Diaries Universe; Buffyverse; Games; Action; Horror; Suspense; Fallout; League of Legends; Arcane
Schedule Very busy work / personal schedule; writing will be slow.
โฅ Patience is a virtue.
