The Nature of It and Its Heralds

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The ancient, nameless being—referred to only as It for the sake of convenience, rather than something It itself would answer to—is a complete and utter mystery to all but a few individuals. Even Its most dedicated and longest-pledged servants know only what they have gleaned from their dealings with It.

What is known for sure is that It originates from around the same time the current multiverse was born. It is as absolutely ancient as any being can ever hope to be, transcending time and space. It is also believed to be the origination of the concept of evil, its dark, malign intelligence having influenced events for untold ages to create chaos and disorder. It also does not exist in any meaningful way that a mortal could comprehend, and as such, cannot directly act or interfere with reality. Also, known only to Its most loyal and powerful servants, the Heralds, it has only one true goal in mind: the complete and utter destruction of all reality.

Beyond this, very little is known. While It is most certainly intelligent, it is unknown whether or not It is even sentient in a way most mortals could understand, or if it is more akin to a force of nature. In addition, it is not known what motivation drives Its true goal of multiversal apocalypse. It could be that, being an existence that technically does not actually exist, It wishes to bring everything into nothingness with It. It could also wish to recreate existence such that it can finally move and act within reality for the first time in eternity. Or, possibly, It simply seeks to do so because that is Its nature.

Regardless of Its motivation, it is absolutely certain that It is completely dangerous, and will stop at nothing to complete Its goals. To this end, It has has always offered small portions of Its powers to individuals possessing the proper nature and ability to act as Its servants. Most of these are temporary pacts, given only enough power to complete the goals It gives them, and when they have outlived their usefulness, It discards them, sending them to their unknowing demise.

However, a very, very select few are viewed as far more useful tools, given far more power and allowed to remain Its servants for all eternity. These beings are known as the Heralds. While technically there is only one “true” Herald at any given time, the one most suited to completing Its over all goals for the current age, none are ever discarded, as they are among Its most powerful and useful tools. So far, there have been only four Heralds ever in all existance. Each of them represents a different aspect of It and Its power.

The First Herald, known as The Sovereign, represents Its will to subjugate all reality under Its power. Before his rebirth, The Sovereign was actually an Ohm general from the Ohm's first attacks on realspace. While many among the Ohm at that time began to develop a serious blood lust, none could match the terrible, inhuman cruelty and arrogance of the man that would become the Sovereign. While he believed in the Ohm's superiority over the races they attacked for their genetic material, in truth this was just an extension of his belief that he was superior to every other being in existence. In the ensuing battle with the breakaway faction that would later become the Daligig and the Rom, the Sovereign's ship was destroyed, and he himself lay dying inside his crumbling ship. It was at this moment It came to him, taking him from the verge of death and giving him knew life as the First Herald. The Sovereign's power is the most overtly destructive among the four Heralds. In addition to nearly unmatched strength and ability to recover from the most grievous wounds, he has the ability to materialize nearly any type of weapon, from knives and swords to guns to missiles and nuclear bombs. Though he was more familiar with more modern weaponry when he first became a Herald, he has since come to prefer primitive, bladed weapons such as swords, as they give him the satisfaction of watching his enemies suffer.

The Second Herald, known as The Whisper, represents the allure and persuasiveness of Its power. In his first life, The Whisper was an influential leader of a backwater planetary alliance. His people absolutely adored him, but few knew of his terrible, megalomaniacal goals. Believing in the superiority of his alliance and his people, he set them about on a terrible, bloody war that ravaged his reality. While many of his followers believed in his message at first, eventually they began to see the horror in what they were committing, and eventually he was assassinated. Upon being reborn to Its service as the Second Herald, The Whisper was granted to influence people on a completely new level. In this new form, he became a living, sentient virus, capable of infecting absolutely any living (and even some non-living) beings. This infection, known appropriately enough as the Whispers due to its effects, begins very subtly at first. At first, the infected individual begins making choices they normally wouldn't, typically small and subtle choices at first. After this stage, the infected begins to see and hear things that aren't there, typically things that cause them to question what is real and what is not. As it progresses, the infected individual starts having episodes where they black out, yet still continue going about, making actions and choices they normally wouldn't but otherwise appearing entirely conscious. As this stage progresses, the infected individual begins hearing whispers at all times, typically cajoling or coercing them to do things, driving them insane. Once the individual's mind begins to weaken, the final stage begins: The Whisper slowly but surely takes control of the individual, wiping out their mind in the process. While it is possible to stop this process before it is completed, allowing the individual to survive, it is very difficult, and will likely lead to at least mild mental instability. As The Whisper has no actual body of his own, he always has one body that he uses as a “host,” something of a corporeal base of operations while he infects individuals in the area. Typically, he infects thousands of individuals in an area in a very controlled manner, in such a way that nearly every infection begins to show itself at the exact same time, making it difficult to act against it.

The Third Herald, known as The Red, represents the inevitability of Its plans and influence. The Red was originally a Nehekari mage and researcher obsessed with learning about fate and its influence on reality. While at first his research was as purely academical and harmless as any of his colleagues' work, it soon took a sinister turn. While researching how fate itself could be influenced, he began inevitably searching for how the premature death of an individual would affect what was supposed to be their fate. In searching for these answers, he murdered thousands of people to observe the effects. When he was finally caught and put to death, It brought him back as the Third Herald. While before his death he was a terrible part of Nehekari history, since then he has become something of a nightmarish legend and bogeyman. His powers allow him to slip through different timelines, affecting and changing them as he sees fit. Most often than not, he will choose an individual or a group of individuals, killing them at different points in their timelines in different ways to observe the effects. He stalks his prey with a cold, clinical nature, often muttering his own clinical observations of his victim before brutally murdering them. It often sends The Red to assassinate individuals with a particularly weighty destiny, which he is all to happy to oblige.

The Fourth and current Herald is more formally known as The Harbinger, though his followers refer to him by the name he chose for himself: Nemo. Nemo represents Its unadulterated will, and lives solely to act out Its goals. No one, not even the other Heralds, know of Nemo's origins, and even they suspect he himself doesn't know either. While his most esoteric abilities are less powerful than those of any of the other Heralds, Nemo possesses one thing that places him above all the others: his vast, immeasurable cunning. While he appears to be a rather carefree and/or insane individual (an image at odds with his position as leader of one of the multiverse's most feared extremist groups), his intelligence and cunning are far beyond anything most mortals could ever hope to compare to. Because of this, It chose him to enact Its true, final goal: the absolute destruction of all reality. As Nemo represents Its true nature and goals, his form resembles It far more than any of the other Heralds. While the other Heralds all have some real presence in reality, Nemo does not. He only exists in a nominally similar way to any other being, but he has no physical presence in reality, nor does he have any supernal presence like a soul. Instead, he is just an absolute intelligence whose presence can affect reality. Due to his particular nature, he can appear to be in multiple places at once, giving the impression that he can teleport or clone himself at will. In order to better interact with mortals and enact his plans in reality, he has created a physical construct for him to control and interact with others, appearing as a man constantly clad in an advanced, armored suit. Much like he himself, Nemo can cause this construct to appear anywhere he could go as well. In addition, he has the ability to teleport anything else, from objects to people to anything in between. One of his favorite methods of executing those who displease him is to use his abilities to remove one or more of their internal organs, watching them die in agony.

At the end of Lirath plot, Nemo will retrieve some of Superman's blood from his corpse. This is because he plans to use this in the creation of a new, terrible type of servant for It. He will use the blood to create clones capable of withstanding an infusion of Its power, leading to the creation of The Wretched. These mindless creatures will be something akin to lesser pseudo Heralds, appearing much like Kal-El in their standard, “bound” state. However, when their considerable power is needed, they can “release” themselves, becoming conduits for Its energy. In this form, they appear as writhing masses of absolute blackness, erasing anything that comes in contact with them from existence. They are terrible, mindless things that Nemo intends to use as soldiers in his final battles.