Character Bio: Pastor Nox

So, the Bubonic Plague has resurfaced in China. I was going to wait a while on this bio, but given recent events I thought it would be appropriate to profile the main "villain" in Nightmarescape:

Pastor Nox

Nox lived during the initial European outbreak of the Black Plague. Originally, he ministered to the poor on the streets and eventually became interested in medicine, becoming a physician. He plied his trade along with his ministering for some time before the outbreak of the plague. 

Though his mind was worn away by the dread contagion before death, Nox remembers the sights of death and despair that permeated the streets of his home city.  He can not recall the location, but to this day remembers the faces of the dead and dying.  His efforts were valiant, but the continued exposure to such horror and sorrow eventually broke his sanity. In a bout of madness, he began worshiping the plague and turned his newfound spirituality upon those he ministered. Out of fear and desperation they heeded his call and in no time, he had a band of fanatical followers and flagellants. Nox and his congregation traveled far and wide preaching their new twisted gospel. To them, the plague was not a punishment for sin, but a boon from Heaven to remove the pure and righteous from the purgatory of Earth while the rest of humanity remained behind to rot. Nox eventually succumbed to this "blessing" and found himself in the Nightmarescape with a very special ability...he could psychically communicate with those whose minds and bodies had been destroyed by disease.  He named his band of followers the Afflicted and took to conquest of the Nightmarescape.

For centuries he has waged wars and made unlikely alliances with the hope of making it back to the world of the living so that he may infect all of mankind with deadly contagions. Upon dying they will remanifest in the Nightmarescape under his control. In his mind, this will be his utopia where humanity shares a single vision that he rules. It will be the end of conflict and suffering. 

This vision is what drives him. Nothing will stand in his way. Centuries have passed and his power continues to grow with each soul that finds itself victim of a fatal disease. He is ancient and implacable. His followers are eternally hungry and willing to assent to his every command. All he needs is access to our world and life itself will be damned. 

Character biography: Curse

This will be the first in a series where I will be posting pictures and bios for the main characters in Nightmarescape. Tonight I'll start with the main character, Curse.

Curse awakens in the Nightmarescape unable to remember anything about his past. Immediately, he is rescued from several malicious presences by Larry Spectre, who is quite insane.  Seeing tremendous potential for violence due to Curse's volatile mood swings and temper, Larry takes the angry amnesiac as a protege of sorts and seeks to school him on the ways of the world.
Memories of Curse's past begin to haunt him as Larry is guiding him around. He begins to remember a woman that he was in love with. The feelings torment him as time goes on and Larry eventually tells him about a device that may be able to return him to the old world. Their path to find this device leads them to alliance with a militant faction known as the Archaic Front. Their quest for the device drags them into a conflict between the Archaic Front and Plague Faction. Mayhem and carnage ensue under Larry's watchful eye as Curse beats, bludgeons, and mauls through all who stand in his way.
At first, the lack of memory is incredibly frustrating to Curse and he lashes out in an almost bipolar manner. As time goes on however, he is able to begin recalling details of his life...the more he learns, he questions how much more, if any, he wants to remember.

Read the entirety of his story sometime next month.

What is Nightmarescape and why is there a book about it?

Since I have the space, I'll go a little more in depth here about the Nightmarescape and the story since I've just been tossing out blurbs here and there.

-First of all, what is this Nightmarescape I keep talking about and have named a book after?
  It is the world in which my series of books will take place. It is entirely constituted of psychic residue and is sustained by emotions such as grief, fear, and anger. It has been around as long as humanity has, reaching out to people who have suffered in their nightmares. Once it reaches someone, it will continually manifest in their nightmares until they die and are reborn there. Consequently, people from all over human history populate the Nightmarescape. This has led to many rivaling factions as well as syncretism of thoughts and adoptions of technologies that would not have existed in our own reality.
In appearance, the entire world is black, white, and shades of gray. Everything appears dead and run down. Those who come to populate this dread realm are undead mockeries of their former selves. The only actual colors are blue or red lights that burn in the empty eye sockets of some of the world's residents. Picture a Stephen Gammell illustration from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but less abstract and you're pretty much there...Now take one of the undead residents, reach back into history and equip that ghoul with armor and weapons from different time periods.

-What is the significance of the characters having eyes or empty eye sockets with lights in them?
  Those who die and have some semblance of humanity will remanifest in the Nightmarescape with empty eye sockets illuminated by intense blue lights. This is not necessarily to say that they are "good people" but they still have a lot of human emotions that drive them.
   The red light indicates that the individual has given themselves over to one single desire or aspect of existence. This can include blind emotions such as rage, hatred, domination, or any other host of usually destructive desires.
    Some presences lack eyes altogether and display only empty eye sockets. These poor souls were mindless when they died. They have little to no thinking brain left, only enough to know that they are suffering. The most common of these is displayed among the plague afflicted that Pastor Nox controls.
    Lastly, those who still have eyes are usually crazy as hell.

-What happens when a new presence comes to the Nightmarescape?
   Basically what Curse endures in the book. They wake up unable to recall anything about their former life at first. This knowledge is revealed to them in time through flashbacks. Some are able to use their old lives to start new identities, others become depressed and angry because of the lives they have lost. It all depends on the person and what they are able to remember.

That'll get you started. More to come later.

Well...looks like I've seen fit to start running a blog. I can make longer posts, provide better descriptions, and cause all the mischief I want here. Just stand by...