Therion

The Horror of God's Creation (Art by Vlad Mineev)

### Siblings

God, the Darkness, Ayin, Barbelo, Azathoth, Khaos, Life, Death, Father Time, Vitriol, Ouroboros

### Offspring

* Primordial Beasts
	+ Babalon
	+ Blasphemy
	+ Trihexa
	+ Divus
	+ Livyatan
	+ Behemoth
	+ Caelum
	+ Salamandra
	+ Simurgh
	+ Typhoeus

**Therion** is the Pre-Existential Beast considered to be the first monster within all of Creation as well as the monstrous and most primal side of God. He is also the primal beast that spawned equally destructive creatures of darkness known to John of Patmos as Trihexa and Divus.

## Overview

Therion was born before the Primeval Wars, having been one of the Pre-Existentials who waged war against God in an attempt to prevent the creation of the cosmos. Therion is a true monster, similar to Azathoth, being an eldritch creature, more specifically, the pre-existential personification of hunger, horror, fear, and bestiality, as the shadow of Barbelo.

Therion during the Primeval Wars was defeated by God, with his true body being forced and imprisoned into the Bottomless Abyss, sealed with a key that would later be given to Abaddon. However, during the war, God with His attacks ripped off pieces of the Primal Beast, hurling several smithereens of the beast into the endless void. These shrapnel were found by The Darkness, who infused them with his power within these pieces of Therion, which eventually gained a type of "sapience" and went on to become what would later be known as the Beasts of Apocalypse.

Therion is also responsible for the origin of most of the terrifying primeval beasts mentioned by biblical and Talmudic figures, such as Livyatan, the sea serpent; the Behemoth, the master of the earth, as well as Caelum and Babalon, who is his intellegence. Aleister Crowley used to believe that he himself was the incarnation of Therion, similar to Jesus as the incarnation of God. However, this appears to have been just the arrogance of the occultist. Nevertheless, it would be Crowley's identification with Therion that would lead to him establishing the occult religion Thelema.

The food chain is said to exist for everyone, including the Primordials. Therion is the natural predator of primordials and more specifically of creation gods like God, Life and Barbelo. Therion is a primordial savage beast that exists as a predator of the creation gods and its role is to devour the god of the gods, Yesh. Consequently, Therion's shards like Trihexa, Divus, and Blasphemy are also the natural predators of God's avatars, such as Yaldabaoth or Abraxas.

## Appearance

When taking a physical form, Therion appear as a huge monstrous beast for indeterminate species. With a mixture of mammalian, reptilian, avian, fish-like, and even bug-like features. The body of Therion is constantly shifting between different monsters, as its almost animalistic drive to devour everything doesn't allow it to keep a consistent figure.

## Personality

Therion hasn't shown much emotions outside of animalistic rage a desire for destruction of everything. A few cosmic entities have stated that Therion has an intelligence similar to that of God, however this has yet to be demonstrated. Therion utterly despises Barbelo, wanting to dethrone her so he can be on his own.

Therion is a terrible monster, similar to Azathoth, externally and internally. He is a beast that devours God's creation out of pleasure and revenge on God for what he did to him and his monsters. Despite being similar in nature, Therion is utterly disgusted by and hates Azathoth, knowing fully well the madness the Daemon Sultan is capable of causing, and that he doesn't care about his creations nor consort at all. He is even willing to temporary team up with his siblings if it would mean to destroy him.

Also unlike the Daemon Sultan, he does not want to completely destroy Creation. He is only preparing the ground for Ayin to destroy Creation, and then rebuild in their likeness. He also loves to see his particles grow and kill people.

## Powers and Abilities

As the first beast in existence and the shadow of Barbelo, Therion was one of the strongest being of existence. His power is equal that of Barbelo, maybe even more. In contrast to his alter-ego, Therion represents fear, hunger, despair, horror, oblivion and animosity. He managed to go against all Arcuthas and easily corrupted them, forcing God to seal them away for safely of Creation. His defeat requested unity of God and Barbelo and even so they were unable to truly destroy him.

* **Nigh-Omnipotence**: Similar to Barbelo, Therion is an entity of almost unlimited power, however unlike his alter-ego, Therion uses his power not for creation and good but for destruction and evil. His power far surpass all primordial beast made from his shrapnel and is very close the God himself. Despite being connected in some fashion, Barbelo was unable to defeat him on her own and must merge with God in order to destroy him.
* **Nigh-Invulnerability**: Being able to go against Barbelo and Arcuthas including Calur, Therion possesses incredible resistance to physical and supernatural damage. Barbelo fight with him countless times only to fail to strike him down. Despite being ultimately killed and his pieces sealed by God in the Abyss, his essence and will persistent.
* **Corruption Embodiment/Omni-Corruption**: Being a personification of horror, despair and animosity, Therion is able to corrupt almost everything by his mere presence. Even such a powerful and divine beings like Arcuthas were unable to endure Therion's corruption, turning mad as a result.
* **Oblivion Embodiment**: As the personification of Oblivion, Therion represent a state which devours everything and returning it to its most basic form, to a pure nothing. Since oblivion is bottomless, there is no limit Therion is able to devour which is one of the reason why is so dangerous. However unlike the true Oblivion, Therion doesn't want to devour completely everything as he wish to left something for Ayin.
* **Breath of Fire**: can shoot fire from the mouth can incinerate an entire planet.
* **Laser Beam Projection**: Shoots laser-like beams from its tentacles and mouth.
* **Incarnation**: The Pre-Existential Gods cannot be killed. They can be destroyed, broken into infinite fragments, or even erased to the point of returning to the absolute zero of the Sea of Parabrahman, but never definitively killed. It was no different with Therion, who was broken into several fragments, and its consciousness incarnated into multiple entities such as Livyatan, Behemoth, Trihexa, Babalon and Divus, among others. Can be said that the beast of the Apocalypse, Trihexa, is Therion's closest reincarnation to his true self.
* **Separation of personality**: As a Pre-existential, he can divide his consciousness into many parts. When God tore him apart, his consciousness and personality split into two parts.
* **Apex Chain Food Predator**: Therion is more than just the first beast in existence, he is a natural predator of primordials and Pre-existential entities including God and Khaos themselves, standing as a supreme hunter and predator on the food chain of Creation. Thus due to his nature, he is a natural enemy of creation deities.

## History

During the start of Creation, God was formed from the unmade universe saying "the Word." When God looked into the primordial waters and saw His reflection, seeing His perfect and co-equal reflection, the Holy Spirit who is also the embodiment of the spirit of the Lord, Barbelo, who, seeing the beauty of the Almighty, fell in love with Him and came out of the waters of chaos towards the Most High. However, Barbelo had looked behind her as God did, and she noticed her shadow within the primordial waters. This shadow took form and became the Primal Beast, Therion. Therion is the shadow of a reflection, a mutation of a copy, two layers separated from the ultimate good.

When Azathoth declared the Primeval Wars against the Abrahamic God, Therion also joined the battle on the side of Ayin and the Darkness, in an attempt to destroy the worlds born of God's will. While God fought Azathoth and Khaos, Barbelo was responsible for fighting Therion, her shadow, trying to force him to return to her. However, Therion wanted to dethrone the light and his alter ego. After clashes in the depths of the primeval pits, Barbelo could not defeat Therion, as both were the same being and the Goddess of Creation could not defeat herself, God decided to unite with Barbelo and with the Sword of Extinction was able to cut the Dark Beast's body into thousands of pieces and cast them into the depths of the abyss.

Some of these shards were found by The Darkness who used them to bring the Beasts of Apocalypse to life, while God to keep the Beast under control decided to create new beasts from his body, dividing Therion's body into five distinct beings known as the Primordial Beasts.

While his body was split, his intelligence remained, this intelligence taking the form of the Babalon. She hid in the shadows carefully planning to bring Therion back to his true form. This careful planning would eventually pay off during the Apocalypse, where every piece of Therion would finally come together again. With its form back to how it was, Therion would once again pursue his goal to devour every last bit of God's creation.

## Myths and Legends

Therion is a major figure from the mystical system of Thelema, which was created in 1904 by Aleister Crowley with the book *The Book of the Law*. Therion was based off of the Beast from the biblical Book of Revelation, as Crowley formed a kinship with said Beast since childhood due to his mother calling him "The Beast."

## Trivia

* It is unknown how Aleister Crowley got information about this beast, as little is known about the creature and the closest we have to it is its offspring.
	+ Virgo theorizes that Aleister Crowley was an alien in disguise and so had information about the Monster.