Malek

Introduction

Malek is the God of Death, Souls and Disease. Given the very nature of his Domains, he is one of the most powerful of all the Gods, and one of the most influential to Atharen's structure, function and order. It was Malek who engineered the mortal soul, connecting it to the Living Gods and Muid, and as he designed the properties of the soul itself, the God's influence often extends into magic, metaphysics, and other complex features of the mortal world. Malek has always been among the most revered of his kin, though mostly if only so that mortals might evade his Divine flail, fearful of the eternity that is death and the evisceration that comes with blight and plague.

History

Malek was not the first among his brethren to experience the ensuing terror of death; the void lurching over their divine frames, embodied in the form of a mantis dissecting its prey. Rather, Malek was the first of all of his kin - and the only - to live in the face of the Outsider's talons, emerging from the beast's rake alive, though not unscathed. It was this terrifying encounter with the Mana-Eater that instilled a great paranoia within the God, a foundational glance towards the abyss that has forever molded his mind.

Malek has always had a fascination with the finality of life's end. To begin with, he was born with the power to cull other Adac, a feat virtually impossible for others among his kind. With all species he encountered - save for the Outsider itself - he has learned their weaknesses, finding vulnerabilities an almost instinctual drive within him. Of course, this has led other Adac to fear him in the past, but not more than they've admired him. Despite his terrifying power over many of his brethren, the God has always sought one thing above all: that they thrive. His single-minded loyalty has been a key to the Living Gods' success since their divergence from the old Plane, and like a dutiful soldier he has fulfilled whatever imperatives were asked of him.

WIP.

Depiction

Malek is depicted as a strange and ambivalent figure. He has had a long history of paranoia, and a relationship with death many find incomprehensible. The Adac finds it to be a companion lurking from beneath him; always ready to spring, blackening the skies and consuming the world. The Outsider weighs on his mind, an ancient enemy; a prophesized demise. For this reason, many statues of his depict him as fleeing the talons of a Mantis, a creature parallel to the Outsider in appearance. He escapes, narrowly, the doom he imagines to be encroaching upon the mortal world, hopelessly seeking answers in the face of converging abyss.

Despite being one of the most powerful entities in known existence, he fashions himself prey; a reaper-pretender who can do nothing in the face of the true end, a predator capable of bringing death to any. Malek is a loving father to the people of Atharen, perhaps one of the few Gods who knows any compassion. Despite this, the jading weight of history distances him from others, the Adac finding himself a lone wolf in its face. His only relationships are with the children born of him, after Y'shendra's fall. For this reason, his statues often carry a lone child, the next of his progeny, deserving of his ear.

Malek is massive in scale and shape; tall, muscular, robust. He has dark olive skin, wears a multi-faced mask of skulls attached to hair-like fur, and tends to wear naught but a ragged loincloth. Beneath his skeletal mask is, supposedly, the face of a rugged brute, with unkempt, slicked back hair that extends beyond his ears, and a short-length beard. Malek is typically viewed as a primal and ancient figure, unchanging with the progression of history and technology. Even as the world around him evolves, he remains the same; a barbarian wanderer, as lonesome as he is emotionally volatile; wild, passionate. Perhaps for this reason, many take comfort in him, a familiar friend to the base nature of mortal-kind.

Domains

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Influence

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Dogma

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Notable Religious Factions

The Black Remedy

WIP.

For more information on the Black Remedy, please refer to this article.

The Carrion Hole

Malek's realm has a unique metaphysical boundary that directly connects it between the two planes of Atharen and Muid, the only realm of its kind that does so. The surface level of his realm acts as the bridge for all life into the afterlife. Through a tether known as 'the Crossing', souls pass through from Atharen to Muid, though their first destination is a massive basin known as the Well of Souls. The Well of Souls stores the mortal soul upon its death. The soul is extracted of its excess energy, whatever was garnered through its maturation within the shell of its mortal body. What remains of the soul, enough to wander the surface of Senia, is then guided to Senia by one of Malek's Noradac, known as a Collector. As the souls on the surface of the well are being harnessed and extracted, they will funnel into a lower level of the realm, called the Carrion Hole.

It is within the Carrion Hole that the Living Gods drink from the Well of Souls, a massive, multi-level structure that acts as their basin of energy. The Well of Souls naturally refines ether into Divinity when moving between the first and second tier of the structure. Upon reaching the second tier, the Gods dip a divine artifact similar in form to a chalice within the well and drink from it. Each sip of the well contains an unfathomably vast amount of energy, the condensed and pure form of Divinity that emerges from within a soul. Gods use this substance to expand their power, maintain their Domains (such as with crafting Spirits), and previously, to perform divine deeds in aide of their followers, though they no longer do so.

The third and lowest tier of the structure is the true breadth of the Carrion Hole. This is a smaller fountain that Malek himself drinks from, appearing to be within an enclosed grotto-like area surrounded by vultures perched on all sides. Outside of this pond-like enclosure exists the remainder of the realm itself, a vast marsh, its waters filled with corpses. The walls of the Carrion Hole are built of an amalgamation of blended corpses, piling up as tall as mountains. Malek himself resides within a large cave system, free of corpses, known to be silent, tranquil and cold.

Demigods

Surprisingly, since his separation from Y'shendra, Malek has engaged with a number of lovers within the mortal plane, even calling them to his bedside from within Senia. As a result of this, he has a considerable number of recently-created Draedan, one of the only of his kind within the Living Gods to continue to reproduce frequently with mortals after the Bleeding. Malek typically forges his Draedan within the Carrion Hole itself, and will actually deliver a Draedan to their intended mother or father upon their creation. This is, typically, the last time either the child or their parent will ever witness him.

Melphas

Draedan of Ash, Pests and Virulence. WIP.

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