Gate, Omegus

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## Introduction

While both Alphari and Omegus may create Gates to suit their needs,  Omegus'  is particularly insidious.  This is one of the most feared actions known among the educated sentients of the Multiverse, as well as one of the most successful weapons in the Omegus' arsenal of attacks.

## Creation

Females of any race are strongly preferred,  especially those with childbearing capabilities (even if they have never had children or healers have told them they were unable to). It is unknown why this is,  but many theorize that because the Omegus seeks to corrupt and twist what already exists that it is then corrupting and twisting one of the most common keys to continued reality- the ability to create new life 'from scratch'.

Once a female is found that is wanted,  the most common way to get their cooperation is by coercion, such as threatening family members,  making it seem like agreeing to being a Gate is a lesser evil to another more catastrophic option,  and so on.   This unfortunately usually seems to work as the Omegus working through its agents has the ability to follow through on all threats.

The precise conditioning that this chosen female goes through is unknown,  as they typically only remember making an agreement and then gaining incredible health, toughness, elemental and magical resistances and otherwise becoming more than what they were originally born as.   In some superstitious cultures they are revered as god-touched, most often they are viewed as cursed.

## Maintaining

The woman,  now known as The Gate,  hears the Call of Omegus as an Unman would, but she is shielded from much of the actual influence of it.  Despite this protection,  she is often under a much stronger compulsion or geis that compells her to seek out living creatures and resources in her world to draw all energy from them,  storing that energy within herself.  The more she takes,  the more her belly swells just as if she were pregnant.  While her visible form never gets larger than what would be normal for her kind,  it has been determined that she is in fact acting in a similar fashion as a walking pocket dimension,  able to hold far more (and stronger) energies than her usual abilities would allow.  The usual pregnancy conditions do not apply, however,  such as strange cravings, morning sickness or the like.  She may be extremely hungry all of the time, in a way that regular food does not appease her ,  but is in fact a symptom of her compulsion to seek out the energies Omegus wants.

## Energy Consumption

The nature in which a Gate takes in prime energies can be likened to how a vampire or succubus might do so.   She can consume every vital energy (not just tangible material but also ethereal concepts such as the soul,  essences, spirits, etc) from every object and material she comes in contact with.  This is similar to the Voiden manner of creating an Unman,  however the difference is the Gate doesn't (or cannot) stop short of complete destruction.  To put this into perspective,  a wooden log may be burned to ash,  but even that ash may be used to nourish the soil in a garden and thus continue life.   When the Gate is finished consuming a creature or a thing,  the dust that is left is utterly devoid of any usefullness at all.  It becomes a null material.

Meanwhile,  the energies she does absorb do not go towards her own personal abilities or health.  She merely stores them until she reaches capacity and is primed to release them to the Omegus.

## Opening the Gate

Once the Gate is at capacity,  the Field Marshall will come to conduct the ritual of opening.  They may bring Generals with them,  along with Regiments of Unmen for protection during this time.   It is theorized that this is the only time that there is a nearly pointblank direct line between the Prime Plane where the Gate physically is and the Primal Root of Omegus itself.  There have been no successful missions in trying to reach the Omegus however,  and of the known attempts it has resulted in utter destruction of entire worlds.

The ritual allows for all of the stored energies within the Gate to be funnelled directly to the Omegus, thus fueling its own schemes.   Once Omegus receives all of the energies, it then draws in Voiden and Unman resources from all corners of all of Reality and the Between to push through the Gate into their Prime Plane and world,  thus swarming and infesting a new area of the Multiverse.   It is unknown what the actual numbers have been,  but if left unchecked it results in entire planets and systems and even spheres being utterly consumed and corrupted to Omegus'  whims. In nearly every case,  the Gate is destroyed by the toll this process takes upon them.

If the Gate is destroyed before the full transfer is made,  those Voiden and Unmen who made it through will scatter throughout the world to begin creation of new, local Unmen and to establish footholds.

## The Insidious Threat

As terrifying as this already is for females of childbearing years,  pregnant mothers are especially targeted.  Should the child be determined to be male,  it is often killed within the mother to make room for her conditioning to be a Gate, however should the child be female it is allowed to come to term and be born naturally.   It is then put among non-tainted Omegus sympathisers to be raised and conditioned from birth to be a fully willing receptacle once reaching the onset of fertility.   The horrors of this have been seen to be a far greater capacity (even among the young) for energy siphoning, an unconditional and slavish love for the concepts of Atrophy and annihilation, and the ability for the Gate to withstand the transfer so well that they can be used again for the same purpose.  These born-to-be Gates are often revered by the Voiden as a sort of Goddess,  and referred to as The Mother.