#12 Unseelie

Though I doubt there will be many Changelings seeking me out, let's begin with them. Changelings are those who have chosen Him freely. Some have called them Observers. I could have been one of them. I don't think I could be now... not knowing what I do. Besides, He is not a forgiving god.

We all start out Chosen, and I've given you the criteria- creative, intelligent, psychic. In millennia past, before the ancient cults were put down by the Abrahamic religions and their magi slaughtered, those who were gifted were chosen by various gods to be their representatives. At that time SM was just a demon, a servant of Marduk (one of the Seven Feared Demons) created specifically to aid him in the battle against Tiamat. He was not made to be kind or thoughtful; he was made to be a weapon.

We are powerful in our own right, which is why we are chosen. He uses our talents to augment His own so that He can spread even to those who are not gifted.

Some instinctively realize what is going on and bolt. Hello, Runners. Just because you run, doesn't make you less strong. On the contrary, it means that you are more sensitive and more self-reliant than most. Physically you are at a disadvantage however. See the previous post concerning your home base advantage. Psychologically you are most problematic for Him. Sadly, most Runners end up Hollowed. Otherwise you are too rebellious for him to waste time and effort on keeping in line.

The Hollowed... are just what they sound like. There is nothing left of who they were. They are more His proxies, than the Proxies are. They have no internal motivation and can only be directed by Him or his Changelings. They may be given some small seed of a personality depending upon how they are used, but they are throw away troops. They can be very hard to tell from Proxies, but at least Proxies will make some sense. Hollowed if they communicate at all, will stick to the same cluster of ideas- ofteN wrIting LiKe thiS - which is completely obnoxious. At least Proxies do it with a secret message in mind.

Proxies can best be described as victims of multiple personality disorder. For some reason known only to Him, SM chooses some broken little shard of his victims and impresses himself upon it. It retains enough of you to function in your place, but it is also a piece of Him. A lot of those notes and weird things that you find in rooms where no one could possibly have gotten in while you were sleeping? You wrote them.

You can break free. There are more exProxies all the time, but nothing worth having is easy. Just remember, the Proxy in you is not an invader. It may be the worst of who you are, nurtured by a demon, but it is still part of you. It is trying to grow, to swallow you whole, but you can turn the tables on it. Accept that it is a part of you, but only a part... one that you ultimately control. You aren't on equal terms. It is less than you, and you can overcome and reabsorb it. There are even some benefits to this occult-wise. More on that in a separate post.

The Changelings or Observers retain the most autonomy and can direct others even without Him. They embraced Him when he came for them. They are His favored children, His priests... His magi. They are very dangerous, not only because they have learned the meta-sciences (what people called magic) of the ancients from him but because they can direct Proxies and Hallowed in His name. They may speak in riddles like some Proxies, but never in gibberish. Most of them you would not know they what they were to look at them or even to talk to them.

And finally, we come to Revenants... There's not much to be said or done about them. They are literally the undead- hard to kill and harder to keep that way, and they are absolutely insane if they have any memories of who they were at all. The only way to deal with a Revenant and hope that it doesn't come back is decapitation and cremation. They aren't vampires in the strictest sense, more like zombies, so a stake through the heart is just not going to do much more than tick it off. You may feel pity for such a creature, but it won't feel anything for you but hatred. It would be wise not to even attempt to reason with it.

You may have noticed the name of this post is Unseelie. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is Scottish and refers to the unblessed or evil dead. Many, if not all, of the people stolen by SM believe themselves to be dead. This is technically only true of the Revenants, thought He may have convinced them otherwise. It is still a good enough collective name for those under His control, making it easier to discuss them when you're not sure what kind you may be dealing with.