ᴛʜᴇ ғᴏʀsᴀᴋᴇɴ

TL;DR: The Forsaken is a man of contradictions. He is largely quiescent and apathetic, with bursts of wrath and obsession. The desire to experience anything - meaningful connection, new sights, food, even the feeling of the wind - is still present and surfaces occasionally, but lies mostly dormant under centuries without ability to do so. He is incredibly lonely, but in equal measures disdainful of most who might give him attention. He is bitter, ruminating, and petulant. To those few that find him, however, he presents as gentle and kind. He moves with slow, languid motion, and speaks softly and carefully unless he is riled, which is rare in the presence of others. He stands upright, if relaxed, with a regal sort of bearing - though equally is prone to slouching back when sitting.

tw: suicidal ideation
Once, before the Forsaken was called such, he was much as a child: trusting, loving, full of joy and curiosity and naivety. He cared for all the gods of the realm and saw them all as family, even the least agreeable among them. Equally, he loved the humans of the world adjacent, watching them go about their lives with interest. Above all, he loved the Scholar, the god that mentored him. When war broke out amongst the gods, the Forsaken pleaded both sides for peace, for the sake not only of what he saw as family, but the humans, whose world was suffering cataclysms for the battles that raged.

Now, the childlike image of the Forsaken is as distant as his memories of that time. Spending centuries in isolation, trapped in a small realm with no exit, the Forsaken has had little to do but ruminate. Those that exiled him for his perceived rejection are long gone. Somewhere, though, is the man that abandoned him to the mercy of the other gods: the Scholar. To say the Forsaken obsesses over his once mentor would be an understatement: the Scholar is his sole driving motivation. The Forsaken desires only death. For the Scholar, it is punishment. For himself, it is release from an endless existence of stagnation and loneliness that has no other recourse.

In general, the Forsaken resents humans as a whole, as the Scholar favored them over him during the fallout of the Godswar. That said, he does have a fondness for those who stumble through the weave of the realms and find themselves in his prison: those who are lost or, like him, forsaken in some way. He has the ability to guide them back on their path or to a better one, even though he cannot do the same for himself. To the lost he is welcoming, listening to their woes and guiding them on their way. Even so, the Forsaken is not above using even his most grateful and devoted followers if it brings him closer to his goal, regardless of the consequences.

∞ The Forsaken's existence as a god is for the purpose of guiding the lost and the forsaken back whence they came or onto a better life. He can part the weave that separates realms, intuiting where a person intended to go or where they might thrive, and delivering them from his prison to that place. The only exception to this power is himself.

∞ While he cannot part the weave without one of the lost to guide, the Forsaken can peer into the realm of humans and what was once the realm of the gods to observe.

∞ Those who have been lost create a bond with the Forsaken. Those few who pray to him or speak his praises foster and strengthen that bond. The Forsaken can sometimes manipulate these bonds to speak to his followers or, in the most extreme cases, manipulate their thoughts and even actions.

∞ The Forsaken is capable of conjuration and illusion. Inside his prison, he is capable of temporarily changing aspects of the landscape, usually to the comfort of one of the lost. These provide the illusion of being life-sustaining (food seems filling, a bed to sleep in feels restful), but the lost will eventually die of dehydration/starvation or sleep deprivation in the Forsaken's realm. Outside of his realm, he is capable of conjuration to change non-permanent aspects of his appearance (clothes, hairstyle, etc.) and create small objects that are only temporary.

∞ The Forsaken is (technically) immortal. Only a god may kill another god. The weapon of a human (or other race) will appear to injure, only to disappear when the weapon is dislodged. He does feel pain, however.

Once, there were many gods. It is a story familiar across cultures, and across worlds. And as it goes, each god had their task: a god to tend the seas, the skies, the stars; a god to foster love in all its forms; a god of night and of day; a god of illness and of death. There was even a god whose sole task was to welcome newly born gods. The youngest of these was a god given the name of Rain, but who yet had no title, no task. He spent his days under the care of the Scholar, a god of knowledge who loved the people of the mortal realm adjacent more than any other. Rain, too, came to love the humans, and found them fascinating. More than they, Rain loved the gods, each a part of the collective he called his family— even the elusive Shadow Walker, and the stoic Quietus.

Decades passed, then a century. Rain remained the youngest among the gods, and without a divine purpose. It bothered him little, passing time with his family, and growing inseparable with the Scholar. Eventually, small disputes between the gods widened into rifts, and finally, all-out war. Rain pleaded with either side for peace, achieving little. The force of the battles sundered mountains and withered fields, not only in the realm of the gods, but that of humans, too. The gods had forgotten their charges, their purpose. Fearing that humans would be wiped out from the calamities caused by the rage of the gods, the Scholar fled to their realm to protect as many as he could. He urged Rain to flee with him. Determined to save his family, Rain refused, but promised he would entreat on the humans' behalf. The two parted ways.

The Godswar had begun in earnest with the death of Love, and eventually ended - with the death of War itself. The gods came to a truce to preserve themselves, so few remained. Judgment was passed on only two of their number: the Scholar, and Rain, for the crime of supporting not the gods, but humans. The gods could not find the Scholar, hidden in the human realm. The punishment for both fell on Rain: imprisonment, in a small, empty realm. Then, the gods left the ruins they had made of their own home, never to be seen again.

For months, Rain despaired, and waited for the Scholar to find and free him. This new prison was a dearth of the senses, devoid of life. The ground beneath was only sand, and the surrounds obscured by heavy fog. He could see neither sunlight nor the night sky. The only break in the monotony was that of an open platform of stone, lined with columns. When he ventured into the fog to leave, he only ever ended up back where he began. The Scholar, the man that Rain had loved and trusted more than anyone, never came.

Years passed. Then, someone stumbled through the fog: a woman, clutching a small child in her arms. Her home had become uninhabitable, the soil dry and infertile. Rain found that he knew not only this, but he knew where the woman should be: a vision of a small community where their numbers were thin, but the earth was still bountiful. He found himself reaching out, and his fingers knew to part the weave between realms as they had once been able to, years ago. The woman stepped through. The weave closed behind her, and try as he might, Rain could not open it again.

More people followed, as the years continued. Many had been displaced by the Godswar, others were simply lost, unable to return home in a new and unforgiving landscape. Each time, Rain found he knew precisely where each person was meant to go. Still more were the victims of human cruelty in the name of self-preservation. They were just as Rain was: the Forsaken.

He had found his divine purpose.

The realization was more bitter than sweet. As centuries passed, he wavered between sympathy for those who were like himself, and resentment that he need shepherd these people. Was that not the very reason the Scholar abandoned him? Still, the Lost found their way to him, and the Forsaken found ways to comfort them. He learned to manipulate the surroundings so they appeared less hostile, and found he could even conjure food, and fire.

Loneliness was the Forsaken's only constant companion. The first Lost that offered not to turn to a new path, but remain with the Forsaken, was a young man. The Forsaken accepted out of desperation for company. He conjured a small home, with any comfort the young man could wish for. Within days the young man grew weaker, then weaker still. Though the young man had not complained of thirst nor hunger, the Forsaken learned anything he could conjure provided no sustenance. He tried, over time, twice more, convinced it was only something he needed to do better. Unable to bring himself to bury more bodies, convinced this place was simply inhospitable to the mortal, the Forsaken ceased trying. Sometimes the Lost would stay for a day or more, but each time, the Forsaken would send them on their way.

Most Lost found their way to the Forsaken only once in their lives, but a few came more than once. Many of these Lost, unable to convince themselves it was only delirium or a dream, began to worship the Forsaken as a god, when most of the world had forgotten not only that the gods were to blame for the ruins their world was left in, but that they even existed at all. Much like the older gods once had, the Forsaken found he had a stronger bond with his followers. He could speak to them in dreams, and even part the weave if only to watch them go about their lives.

The Forsaken was not the only god some humans still worshiped. Nearly a thousand years since he had first been confined to his prison, the Forsaken learned of a man named the Scholar, who traveled the world and helped people with their problems. He knew everything, one Lost told him; how to deliver a babe more easily, how to coax life out of dry earth, how to build when materials were scarce. The Forsaken did not share the enthusiasm of his Lost; instead, a fury that had lay dormant beneath apathy for countless years resurfaced. The Scholar still walked among the humans, and never had he even tried to find the Forsaken?

Weary of caretaking the hapless humans the Scholar refused to take care of himself, weary of an endless existence in a dreary prison, the Forsaken created a plan: he would lure the Scholar to his realm, somehow, and just as there had been once, there would be war between the gods.

After all, only a god can kill another god.