The Misbegotten

The Veil's Abductor. The Hive of Illusions. The Weaver of Forgotten Stories. The Unsettling Emptiness.

  The Misbegotten is an ancient and enigmatic Archfey.
The Misbegotten is whispered of in fragmented stories and fleeting moments of dread, their power growing not through recognition but through fear. They are not a singular being but a hive mind, a collective forged from the stolen children of countless generations. The more they are feared, the stronger they become, for The Misbegotten does not thrive on fame or worship but on the absence left behind—the faint and fleeting memories of those who notice a gap, a missing piece that they cannot fully explain. They are masters of illusions, mischief, and theft—not of material things, but of existence itself. Every child they consume is erased from memory, leaving only faint impressions and haunting questions behind. It is through these lingering voids that their legend persists, whispered not as a coherent story but as a dreadful uncertainty.       The Veil's Abductor.
The Misbegotten’s most insidious act is the abduction of children. Yet this theft is not immediate—it is a slow unraveling. When The Misbegotten takes a child, they leave behind a perfect doppelgänger, an illusion so flawless that even the child’s closest family and friends are deceived. Over time, the doppelgänger drains the memories of the real child from those who knew them. The closer someone’s bond to the stolen child, the faster their memories fade, sustaining The Misbegotten and feeding their power. By the time the doppelgänger dissolves into nothingness, the child is already lost, their existence devoured by the hive mind.   Yet, there are always outliers—those who barely knew the child. A neighbor who waved in passing, a merchant who sold them sweets, or an elder who once saw them play in the distance. These faint connections, unburdened by the depth of close memories, are often the last fragile threads keeping the child from total erasure. Such individuals might find themselves haunted by inexplicable questions: “Who was that child? Didn’t they live here once?” These fleeting doubts, whispered in confusion, are the only warning signs of The Misbegotten’s work. They are faint and tenuous, but they plant the seeds of fear and wonder that allow the Archfey’s power to grow.       The Misbegotten is a collective of stolen children, each one absorbed into their hive mind, their individuality erased. This amalgamation makes The Misbegotten an unparalleled master of illusions. Their hive mind allows them to weave impossibly intricate realities, each rooted in fragments of lives they’ve consumed. Their lair is not a fixed place but more akin to a nightmare realm—an ever-shifting labyrinth of illusions, where the boundaries of space, time, and identity blur. Within this maze of terror, every path leads deeper into the uncertainty of the mind, and no matter how far one wanders, escape seems ever out of reach. To enter their domain is to risk becoming lost within this shifting, endless maze, where every twist and turn presents another layer of deception and fear, until one is consumed by the haunting illusions that stretch on without end.       The Weaver of Forgotten Stories.
Unlike most fey, whose power grows from the proliferation of their names and stories, The Misbegotten thrives on the tension between memory and forgetting. Their legend is a patchwork of questions and fragments, perpetuated by those who feel a void they cannot name. A child’s absence ripples outward in small, unnoticed ways—an empty chair at the family table, a toy gathering dust in the corner, a strange feeling of loss when passing by a familiar playground. These subtle gaps inspire whispered fears and fragmented tales among mortals, often shared as eerie children’s stories.   But the act of naming The Misbegotten or trying to fully describe their nature is fraught with peril. To speak of them too clearly is to risk their attention, for they do not merely erase—they replace. Each whisper of their legend, every fragment of their story, sustains their power, ensuring their name endures in the collective unease of those who dare to question: “Who are we forgetting?”     The Unsettling Emptiness.
While The Misbegotten is never seen in a stable, consistent form, their presence leaves behind an unmistakable sensation—a feeling of something precious lost. When a child is taken, a peculiar emptiness follows, one that grows more pronounced the closer one is to the missing child. Those who have known them well may find themselves struggling to recall details about them—who they were, what they looked like, or even how their voice sounded. As the doppelgänger’s illusion dissolves, those left behind experience a piercing sense of loss, as if something irreplaceable has vanished from their lives.
  This strange and pervasive sensation grows stronger with time, yet no one can place it precisely. The closer one was to the missing child, the deeper the sense of loss becomes. Some even speak of hearing whispers in their dreams, murmurs asking: "Who are you forgetting?" For those who linger too long in this confusion, there is the risk of becoming absorbed by the same emptiness, eventually losing all memories of the child, or worse—becoming another hollow soul drawn into The Misbegotten’s endless hive.   Notable Features:
The Misbegotten has no singular form, appearing instead as an amalgamation of their stolen children. Their features flicker between the faces of their victims, a kaleidoscope of hollow-eyed children whose expressions are eerily blank. At times, their form is composed of several overlapping figures, their voices weaving into a dissonant harmony that echoes in the mind. To those who encounter them, their presence feels fundamentally wrong, as if a piece of the world has been pulled away.