The Beasts of Burden

The Beasts of Burden are a monstrous horde under the command of The Overseer. The Trickster Gods gifted these creatures to The Overseer to assist him in conquering, overthrowing and kill the rest of The Pantheon. The Beasts presently continue to plague the Omniverse.
The Beasts are employed to hunt down targets whenever The Overseer so desires. This force is comprised of the Hounds, Sentinels, Shamans, and its representative The Huntsman.

## **History**

The origins of the Beasts of Burden are thought by some to have first begun in "a Time before Time" within The Omniverse, however there is no actual evidence to support this myth, leading many to consider it a mere fiction spun by the Trickster Gods. The Beasts are primordial manifestations of the forces of Nature itself, in all its aspects. Life, Death, Creation, Destruction, Growth, Decay and many more are all forces that comprise the spectrum of Nature. Many magical traditions throughout the Omniverse consider Nature a sacred force deserving of respect and reverence, and view attempts to bend it to one's will as a taboo at best and a high sin at worst. The shunning of such practices forced the Trickster Gods, remaining loyal to their "blasphemous" ways, to be driven from The Pantheon and into hiding where they continued their work in secrecy, taking refuge in the remotest region of their multiverse where they could avoid persecution.

The Trickster gods were relatively quiet and isolated for a long time, until they had a chance encounter with the "prince" of the pantheon which had cast them out. The Tricksters at first mistook the prince for being there to hunt them down, and attempted to kill him as an act of self-preservation. However, the prince stopped them, revealing to the Trickster Gods that he in fact sought them out for help. The prince explained to them the plan that he and his sister formulated to conquer and overthrow the rest of his pantheon, and if the Trickster Gods were to help him, they would have a place in his *new* Pantheon as well. The Trickster gods agreed to help him, secretly seeing an opportunity to later murder the prince and his sister to usurp all The Pantheon's power for themselves. They set out to fulfill the prince's task of raising up an army to fight for him, And the best creatures for this role were the Beasts of Burden.

The Trickster Gods began their ritual with the employment of a Green Flame, called "the Emerald Embers", which they claimed held the power and essence of Nature itself and would allow them to bend it to their desires. The prince silently did not believe this, thinking the Flame to be nothing more than mere symbolic flare for the ritual, but he nonetheless decided to indulge the Trickster Gods and continue watching their work.
Next, the Trickster Gods, strictly adhering to their traditions, arranged a grid of symbols holding great magical power, stationing themselves at different points of the grid. They called out chants in a form of communication that was incomprehenisble to the prince, as the Green Fire spread throughout the grid's outline in a seemingly intelligent manner. The Flame enveloped the Trickster Gods, yet they remained unscathed. The Trickster Gods entranced themselves as the veils between the Multiverse's planes began thinning. The prince was able to peer past the veil, and caught a glimpse of what lay beyond that which he could naturally perceive. He bore witness to an ancient primordial chaos that existed everywhere around him, yet was not visible to those without the capability to see it. It was the dark side of Nature, and the horrors it was capable of manifesting - Death, Rot, Plague, and all that caused suffering. The prince could now see why The Pantheon objected to these such practices, and how it was considered so unholy. Nature was, of course, natural, and this was the exact opposite of natural. The creation of these beasts was finally initiated by the Trickster Gods, who unnaturally bent the forces of Nature to remove the barrier between Life and Death, forming beings from the primordial chaos who were neither living nor dead. And thus, the Beasts of Burden were born.

With this ruthless army, The prince, or rather The Overseer, slew his entire Pantheon over the course of a single "night", save for his sister who escaped into hiding. Unsurprisingly, the subjects of the empire which The Overseer had conquered willingly yielded, fearing the same fate as those which the Gods suffered. As for the Trickster Gods, they were all murdered by their own creations at the behest of The Overseer, who anticipated their ulterior motives from the beginning and no longer had use for them.

Despite all the resources which The Overseer has acquired and absorbed into his empire, very few have made for an army as good as his Beasts of Burden. And for good reason...

## **Members**

The Beasts of Burden are divided into groups of "packs", with each member serving a specific purpose:

### **The Hounds**

The Hounds serve to track the prey that the pack is assigned to hunt. Possessing heightened extrasensory perceptions, they can perceive things that many others cannot. They can efficiently track the signature of given prey not only across vast spans of -Verses, but they can even trace their signatures through the paths of timelines as well. This allows the hounds to hone in on their target quickly and efficiently. They are relentless predators, possessing only one key instinct: to pursue and kill. No force can stop or divert the hounds from this goal, and no matter what damage is sustained to their physical forms, they relentlessly continue the pursuit of their goal until they are either physically incapable or completely destroyed. The remains of any being who had met their fate at the fangs of the hounds are practically impossible to identify - that is, if any remains are actually left behind at all.

### **The Sentinels**

The Sentinels are avatars of Nature's darkest primordial aspects, vengeful and relentless beings given physical form to reside among the packs of the Beasts. They relentlessly stalk targets even when there are countless Archverses separating them. The Sentinels command and direct the Hounds, occasionally dispersing them to cover greater space in shorter time when pursuing targets. The Sentinels can remotely send telepathic commands to the Hounds if they are not physically in each-other's presence, making separation a non-issue. The Sentinels possess high-level reality warping or "nature manipulation", allowing them to perform feats beyond the capability and comprehension of many other entities. As such, Sentinels are powerful enough to face up against Idea Breakers and low-level Mevalkagna with a probability of winning every 1 of 2 scenarios. The deadliest weapon of the Sentinels is considered to be their infohazardous shriek, capable of inducing fatal damage to one's mind.

#### **Elder Sentinels**

Elder Sentinels are a rarer variant of the standard Sentinels. These titans were standard Sentinels who have existed and survived the longest in the group. As such, the Elder Sentinels are more experienced, and their forms reflect this. They are significantly larger than standard Sentinels, as a reflection of their infinitely older age and all the time they have been able to grow and gain mass. Typically, standard Sentinels will often be directed by Elder Sentinels in hunts due to the Elder Sentinel having a greater understanding of what to do and how to do those things. Elder Sentinels are a greater threat than standard Sentinels due to their honed strategies from longer experience as well as their larger and more formidable stature. Due to this, they require a greater amount of opponents and time to defeat them compared to a standard Sentinel faced by the same beings.

### **Shamans**

Shamans are beings who were once naturally existing mortals, but became members of the Beasts of Burden through ritualistic initiation. If the initiation ritual rejects the being, they suffer a horrible fate worse than death. But if it instead finds the being "worthy", they become one of the Beasts, and are granted powerful abilities. Shamans are in tune with Nature, and have an almost psychic connection to it. The more they are connected to Nature, the greater their powers are. Shamans serve the role of repairing damaged beasts, or creating entirely new ones through rituals similar to that of the trickster gods. As these rituals involve the Green flames, the Shamans also happen to be wielders of the Emerald Embers as well.

#### **The Damned**

The Damned are the result of failed rituals to transform mortals into Shamans. Rather than gain powers and boons, the failed shamans are instead horrifically bound to configurations of the primordial chaos from which the Beasts of Burden originated. The Damned are trapped in these forms, losing all self-control and free will. The minds of the mortals remain intact and can think independently of their forms, but the form of the beast they are trapped within controls their movements and overrides the will of the mortal. This means that the Damned act on the instincts of the Beasts, no matter whether the mortal host truly wishes to commit these acts.

### **The Huntsman**

There is only but one of this enigmatic being, yet he can be in many locations at once. The Huntsman, also known as The Shepard of The Beasts, is a spirit who represents and embodies the collective will of the Beasts of Burden, from which he is manifested. As such, he typically serves as the ambassador between them and The Overseer. He dedicates his entire existence to The Hunt, living and dying and reforming over and over again for just its thrills, to which nothing else can compare for him. The Overseer reserves The Huntsman for only the most ambitious and highest profile of conquests, or else the Huntsman would be displeased by the lack of "tension" in his "hunts". Just about every type of creature that one could think of in The Omniverse has been slain by The Huntsman. And yet, even after all of it, he still remains unsatisfied. The Hunstman longs for the time when he will take on his greatest and most worthy prey, in his "Wild Hunt". In such an event, he would rally the greatest of The Beasts of Burden in an apocalyptic Omniverse-spanning pursuit, bringing destruction to all in his path. But he has yet to find the perfect prey for it...