The Fractured Lord
From Changeling Venue
Contents |
Description
The Fractured Lord is the broken remnant of the ideal of a perfect ruler. It appears as a human figure, seemingly cast from ceramic or some other brittle substance. Cracks and fractures cover its body, widening and closing as it moves. These cracks appear and disappear from its surface as the Fractured Lord constantly seeks to heal itself and return to some semblance of completeness and, one presumes, sanity. Other than the constant presence of fractures and fissures, the Fractured Lord always appears perfectly human, but never appears as the same human twice.
The cracks that appear and disappear from its surface themselves vary greatly in appearance. Sometimes they allow observers to see beyond the brittle surface of the Fractured Lord to living flesh, giving the Fractured Lord the appearance of a flayed human in a crunchy candy shell. At other times, the Fractured Lord appears to be little more than an animate statue that has been shattered and put together again with some pieces missing. On still other occasions, the fissures open onto the blackness of space, or provide glimpses of other worlds, or show the viewer her hearts desire. The Fractured Lord appears to have no control over the content of its form.
Modus Operandi
The Fractured Lord is the living embodiment of a broken dream. Some claim that the Fractured Lord is actually an attempt to synthesize the infinite different conceptions of G*d that reside in the minds of all mortals. Others say that the Fractured Lord is the sole survivor of a broken dimension, or the living embodiment of a fractured universe, operating on rules that seem strange even to the Fae. Still others say that the Fractured Lord is a conglomerate of ambitious and powerful Fae, who in ancient days sought to become even more glorious by merging their very essence into a greater single entity. The fractured nature of the resultant entity owes to the fact that each of the constituent Fae was too proud to surrender completely to the merger. If this is the case, all that remains of the constituent elements is their pride and the pain they have inflicted on themselves over the eons.
Whatever its true nature, the Fractured Lord now exists only to seek escape from the pain of its own existence. Given its inherently unstable nature, however, the Fractured Lord's methods for escaping its own pain can change from moment to moment. Sometimes it uses its great powers to seek simple distractions, availing itself of all forms of games and entertainment. At other times, it seeks out the most extreme forms of chemical indulgence. At still other times, it tries to externalize its pain, by sharing it with others. This sharing can take forms as simple as blood-drenched torture and as complex as finding the key to break down a victim's mind without ever directly revealing itself to its victim.
Sometimes, however, the Fractured Lord believes that it can escape its pain by repairing itself. While this occasionally leads to prolonged periods of dormancy, as the Fractured Lord examines itself in an attempt to trace the true source of its current state, more often it results in horror as the Fractured Lord goes looking for what it believes to be the "missing pieces" of itself. At these times, the Fractured Lord roams the worlds, seeking and invariably finding individuals in possession of these "missing pieces." When this happens, the Fractured Lord devotes itself to torturing its victims until they reveal the whereabouts of the missing piece. Since these victims usually have no idea what the Fractured Lord is or what it is talking about, these torture sessions can last subjective lifetimes.
These victims often end up as servants for the Fractured Lord, once it becomes convinced that they do not have its missing piece. They consider themselves lucky, however, compared to the others. In rare cases, rather than make them servants, the Fractured Lord will decide that one of its victims actually IS the missing piece it seeks. In that case, the Fractured Lord "fractures" the victim, and incorporates the pieces into its ever-shifting form. On rare occasions, a servant of the Fractured Lord will see the eye, mouth, or even whole face of one of these former victims surface upon the Lord. Invariably, these servants report that the broken individual is screaming, and worse, that they appear to still understand exactly what is happening to them.
The worst times for its servants, however, comes when the Fractured Lord tries to assuage its pain by making the world around it conform to its designs. At these times, the world itself seems to splinter and fracture. Time skips incoherently. Cause follows event, the shortest distance between two points becomes a crooked line, and people entering the sphere of the Fractured Lord's influence find themselves broken apart, both body and mind. Many who experience life on the Fractured Lord's terms find that they can never again believe themselves to be completely whole.
Inspirations
The works of Simon R. Green, H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and etc.
Escaped Servants
None yet. While it is theoretically easy to escape the Fractured Lord, as it often lacks sufficient coherence to maintain anything like control over its servants, few actually survive the experience of serving the Fractured Lord for any length of time.
Note - given its nature, Fetches created by the Fractured Lord tend to be significantly flawed. Lost who escape the Fractured Lord will often return to the real world to find that the Fetch that replaced them spiraled into mental illness, often of a violent and frightening sort. Loved ones' memories of the Lost will likely be colored by the terrifying behavior of the Fetch.
