Lament: Grief Made Manifest
Oh, my poor child... Your grief, your pain, your... emptiness... it will never end. There is no escaping the truth; Juliet is gone... But I will always be here to share in that void. Know that when you weep for your lost love, I will share in your deepest sorrows.
As many unfortunate worlds have come to know, demons take a deep pride in being a bombastic and unstoppable force of mass destruction. Even the most basal demons find a sick pleasure in wanton destruction and mindless slaughter. This wrath extends to other demons as well with much of their world soaked in their own blood. These behaviors and attitudes come from the types of suffering that create individual demons. The suffering experienced when ravaged by war or disease creates the imposing figures many associate with demons, such raw burning sensations coalescing into hideous forms.
Lament, like other high-ranking demons, was formed from a very specific kind of pain. As her name implies, the Lady of Sorrow is the physical manifestation of grief from across an untold number of worlds. Grief is a universal pain across all worlds, one that mortal life can never truly escape as time marches onward. This hollow pain finds its way to the depths of existence just as any other, feeding into a single entity.
Where all other demons believe they must dedicate themselves to The Nameless One to some degree, Lament holds very little regard to the god of the demons. Though she is among the most docile of demons Lament is believed to possess incredible power above most, if not all, other demons. This is attributed to her willingness to interact with mortal creatures.
The Cult of Apathy
For the followers of the Lady of Sorrow, Lament is a great comfort among a world surrounded by pain. She is the calm reminder that there had once been something beautiful where an empty chair or cold bed now lies. A key tenet of her followers is that those precious things in life are worth holding onto despite the burning it causes. She is also the sobering reminder of that empty space and its unending presence within one's life. This grief was always going to find its way to each one of her followers and it will not be the last time it finds them, not in the least bit.
They believe that pain does not need to be feared. Some even believe it is a beautiful thing, embracing the pain brought about by loss.
Typically, worship of Lament takes the form of memorializing the dead through physical monuments or traditions dedicated to all that has departed from the world. During moments of deep worship, a powerful Avatar of Lament may appear out of the sight of the worshippers. Their presence is felt rather than seen as they produce an otherworldly aura described as a sensation of both deathly still air and chilling winds.
However, her most dedicated followers tend to enter a state of stagnation. When fully accepted, Lament can access the mind and place the affected creature into a blissful depression. In this state loss is all one can understand, the rest of the world becoming mindless background noise. Akin to walking corpses, they forget to care for themselves to any degree, often dying if not intervened.
The souls of those who die while under the watch of Lament will sink down into the world of demons, shielded from other demons by her avatars. Once in her domain, the sunken souls will mourn all in creation until the end of all things.
Domain of Lament
Among other demons, Lament is abhorred. Her close relationship with mortals as well as her irreverence towards The Nameless One have earned her a reputation as a heretic and a troublemaker. These attitudes led to frequent conflict with other high-ranking demons which would reach a head when confronted by the other Demon Kings. They would call upon The Nameless One for an intervention, and she would be banished to the very depths of the world.
Locked away in the darkest depths of creation, Lament would begin to plan her escape through the creation of avatars from her most devoted followers. The Avatars of Lament often take vague forms such as shifting shadows or a murder of crows shrouded in fog. These avatars are sent out to mortal worlds to act as mouthpieces for Lament, being drawn to those who sustain their Lady of Sorrow. Their vague and ghostly forms allow them to sneak out from Lament's prison and evade other demons on their way towards the rest of creation. Those that are caught utilize their agility and defensive capabilities to catch hostile creatures by surprise before fleeing in a mass of shadows and thick mist.
The domain itself is a deep seemingly lifeless cave, a stark contrast to the ever shifting and chaotic world above. The only demons present are the Lady of Sorrow herself, and the loosely affiliated Zealots and their related species. The former is trapped within a single massive chamber, bathed in many shades of blue light from both her own form and the many souls that have joined her in death. The latter live in scattered villages across the domain using houses constructed from carved stone and large scattered bones. Though the Zealots have made several attempts to convince Lament to join their efforts towards the toppling of the other Demon Kings, the obliteration of a Zealot Minister scared them into leaving her to her own devices.
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