The Torment

The Torment is a truly horrifying parasitic Power which draws energy from anguish, rage and pain. Its home realm is one of the Pocketses which is passing through our region of the Discontinuum in a wide and slow orbit that has yet to be fully calculated. Probably its path was disrupted by the Planar Conformation bringing it closer to the Stable Worlds. The archetypal realm and the power have been given the same name, although it is thought that the power may once have come from somewhere else until it moved into its current realm and took full control of it. The home realm now acts as the power's base of operations, providing convenient and shifting access to many other realms. Whatever the realm once was, it has now become little more than a shell in which the power hides, using it like a hermit crab to acquire protection and camouflage.   The Torment is drawn to suffering, sniffing it out across dimensions of the Discontinuum and capable of squeezing through the Barriers to spend time feeding in neighbouring evolutions and archetypes. It is not thought to be particularly intelligent and unlike most of the other Powers cannot be reasoned with. It does, however, possess a perverse form of extreme empathy and a pathological nature which make it foster and encourage the emotions that attract it. Some have said it is like a malicious child poking a stick in an anthill, loving to witness the conflicts it can stimulate.   Of late, the Torment has been coming closer to Earth Zero where it is provoking strife and anger in many parts of the world. Political agents are working in its service and it has found a way to spread discord via "engagement" with divisive lies on social media. Even the low level of disharmony this provokes works well for the Torment not only as an appetiser but as a way to foster more of the true atrocities on which it hopes to feast in future. The Stability Council looks on with concern but at present there seems to be little they can do.