The Deep One

Description

The Deep One is an eldritch, god-like entity of mysterious origins that is known to very few to occupy The Whispering Abyss, driving his victims mad by whispering in their minds about incomprehensible things, and causing them to drown themselves. Those few who are fortunate enough to be immune to his whisperings, called "Adamants", he forcibly bonds, acting as their patron and providing their power while he studies them and makes strange requests of them to obtain knowledge he seeks. The Deep One also reaches out to the minds of those around Aellorah who are susceptible to his whisperings and who display an intense ignorance and desire to obscure or destroy information. Those who have interacted with The Deep One may catch on to the fact that he seems to desire, more than anything else, to understand the nature of his own existence -- a piece of information which has eluded him for the better part of two millennia.

Background

The Deep One's followers know very little about him, as even he knows very little about himself. The truth behind the Deep One is that he is the product of an attack on Aellor by the god of corruption, Maven. Around the time of the appearance of The Whispering Abyss, Maven had launched an attack on Aellor while she was in the middle of meditating in Sara'lor, the plane of magic. He got inside Aellor's head and fractured her mind, resulting in a split personality called The Deep One. This new entity seemed to be the anti-thesis of several of Aellor's domains, exhibiting traits the opposite of Aellor's.

Despite being two halves of the same entity, neither Aellor nor The Deep One are capable of acknowledging the other's existence. This gap in their shared consciousness has worn away at Aellor, who exists to contain all knowledge, among other things. It is not just that they will not comprehend the other's existence -- they will actively ignore mentions of the other and become confused when the subject is brought up. This can lead to episodes similar to a headache that mortals may experience where they become incapacitated for a short time.

While the Seven Sisters search for a way to cure Aellor of this condition, The Deep One searches for answers to the questions his existence raise. However, due to his opposite domains, The Deep One has a secondary desire that makes him an extreme danger to all life on Aellorah. The Deep One exhibits the domain of Ignorance, opposite that of Aellor's domain of Knowledge. Because of this, he knows very little, and becomes angry when faced with things he does not understand, causing him to lash out. As a result, he seeks to destroy all knowledge so that none may know more than him. To achieve this, The Deep One exhibits an ability whereupon learning new information, he will almost immediately forget it -- and then all creatures, mortal and deity alike, forget this information as well. The only defense against this seems to be that information that is written down does not vanish due to this ability, as it only affects the minds of creatures both mortal and divine alike. After being erased from the world, someone may come across the information in a book somewhere and re-discover it, but depending on the information, it may be lost forever. If a recipe for bread disappears from the world, it may be re-discovered that very same day when the baker opens his cookbook and sees a recipe he can't recall ever creating.

One of the ways The Deep One drives his victims insane is through manipulation of their perception, causing them to see things that are not there. He will give his victims visions of horrifying things, and cause them to hear things that would cause even the bravest of mortals to freeze in terror. He also has the ability to see possibilities of things to come, rather than a definite fate, as Aellor does. He will glance into the potential futures of his victims and tell them all the horrifying ways they could meet their end, inducing extreme paranoia.

Those that he bonds to his service, willingly or not, he calls his "Fathomless". He charges them to travel the world in search of information he believes will lead him to answers regarding his existence, and then he will destroy that information by absorbing it. He treats his Fathomless very poorly, lashing out in anger at them when they fail to bring him information he has requested, torturing and abusing them. Fortunately, his Fathomless number very few, and the information wiped from the world thus far has been inconsequential and few. But with each passing year, more information disappears from the world, and the Seven Sisters have begun to take notice.

Contrary to the belief of those who have studied the Whispering Abyss, the anomaly was not created by the Wellspring eruption which happened at the same time of the Deep One's appearance. The anomaly is instead the sphere of influence of the Deep One. The Wellspring eruption which occurred at the time was a reaction to Maven's attack on Aellor, which is why the eruption came from her Wellspring. The eruption was actually responsible for the creation of The Gloom on Lodis.

The Deep One's actions are often difficult or impossible to discern the motive behind, as his actions can seem random and incredibly strange. But any knowledge he obtains is bad for Aellorah.