Black Rider

The **Black Rider**, also known as **Huoxiu Otis**, is the infamous demiurge tasked with the duty of heralding the Armageddon and was recorded in the Book of Revelation. He is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

## Summary

The **Black Rider**, or **Black Horsemen**, is the third of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, riding a black horse, is popularly called **Famine**. The black color of the third horse symbolized death and famine, bearing a scale of famine.

The rider rides onward, denying the world life-sustaining food and bringing starvation, but being ordered by divine law to not harm oil or wine. The rider is shown holding a scale, which represents scarcity of food, higher prices and famine, likely as a result of the wars caused by the red horseman. Food will be scarce, but luxuries such as wine and oil will still be readily available.

The "a measure of wheat for a penny" from the King James Version of the Bible might not sound like a famine to modern ears, but in the NIV we read "a quart of wheat for a day's wages," which is a little clearer. While it's never identified as his own, it is implied that the voice John the Apostle hears coming from "the third of the four living creatures" comes from the Black Rider, making it the only horseman that actually vocalizes his intentions, the aforementioned raise in prices.

## Appearance

Otis has the appearance of a short and scrawny young man of Asian descends, with short white hair and crazed blood-red eyes. His skin is said to be so white, it's easy to mistake him for a marble statue carved to perfection. He also mentioned to have his fingernails painted black.

Due to him being the primordial embodiment of hunger, his body reflects this, being so thin and skeletal-like that he looks like the poster child for world hunger-relieve campaigns. Under certain angles, his skin becomes slightly see-through and the thin layers of fat underneath can be seen. His mouth is described as being a bottomless pit filled with countless a amount of razor-sharp teeth and constantly dripping with saliva, mixed with blood and poison.

He wears the stereotypical attire of a waiter uniform, consisitng of black trousers and a waistcoat over a white dress shirt and a black necktie. However, his attire is always seemed to be covered in splashes of blood, much to his annoyance.

He also wears a mask that resembles a leather gimp mask with a black eye patch. It bears a lipless mouth with large, gnashing teeth, much like a restrained asylum monster in horror movies. The mask and the bolt-like accessories sticking out from his neck invoke a Frankenstein-like theme.

Like all angelic beings, he possesses a total of eight feathered-wings, each with a wingspan of around 13-feet. His wings resemble that of a vulture's.

## Personality

The embodiment of true hunger, Otis is constantly hungry, and lack of nourishment results in anger. He has an intolerance for failure, punishing any such occurrence with death.

Like his celestial aunts and uncles, he has a very low view of humanity, thinking them undeserving of being protected by the Abrahamic Heavens, and stated that they only required a little push to fall to hunger and despair. The majority of his hatred toward humanity is because of his origins, being born from his father's despair over the sinful nature of humanity, thus making him more focused on the wickedness of humanity than their virtuous parts.

He is extremely sadistic, enjoying watching humanity slowly starve themselves to dead, as well as devouring the damned souls of sinners from the various planets and universes he destroyed. According to Raphael, he prefers going out to "hunt his own meal".

He's shown to have a dark humor as shown with how he had written a diet book that focused on starving as the main dietary method. He is also the inventor of *new food* and *nouvelle cuisine*, which are practicularly food that has more nutritional values in appearance than in the actual dish. Despite this, he was said to be genuinely shocked when he found out not only humans actually believed in his creations, they actually turned them into a popular diet trend.

He is annoyed by how lackluster his domain has become in the new era, believing that causing famine and wide-spread starvation isn't worth it anymore if all that he gains are several casual mention about "children starving in Africa" in the newspaper.

Along with the other Horsemen, he's looking forward to heralding the Armageddon and bringing forth the end of Earth and the mortal world.

## History

Otis was one of the first demiurges, alongside Welliver, Frewer, and Richings - ancient beings born directly from Raphael's despair over the sinful actions of humanity. He, in particular, was born the moment Abel's blood tainted the earth as the ground tried to hide away the evidences of the first murder at Cain's command, though he only came into form the moment the Mark of Cain was placed upon its wielder's body.

The moment he came into existence, he and his siblings was summoned to the Abrahamic God and they were tasked with the duty of heralding the Armageddon, releasing END onto the mortal world so that the world may be born again more beautiful, which they accepted with the greatest of honor.

Their first mission was in Earth, with them marking the end of the Edenith era. However, due to the fact thirteen of the original Nephilim managed to survive the Deluge despite the angels' direct order, their mission was deemed unsuccessful. Embarrassed, the four of them vowed to one day killed the last of the original Nephilim and end the remnants of the Edenith civilization once and for all.

Afterward, they continue their duty, heralding the end throughout Creation, bring forth the end to countless planets and universes, as well as the species and civilizations living within them.

At some point in history, the four of them founded the Apocalypse Alliance, consisting of gods and mythological figures associated with the apocalypse within multiple mythologies and civilizations across mortal world as means of minimizing the paperwork for both themselves and the Abrahamic Heavens.

In the late 1990s, he became bored and decided to write a dietary book known as "D-Plan Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful" under the alias **Dr. Raven Sable**. It was a major success and was considered "The Diet Book of the Century!", to his amusement.

In the early 2000s, he created *new food* - a type of food indistinguishable from any regular food except for the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walker, and allowed someone to eat as much as they want and still lose weight... and hair, and skin tone, and if one ate enough of it long enough, vital signs. He also invented *nouvelle cuisine* in one of his trips to Paris, the sort of cuisine that cuisine that consists of "a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate".

## Trivia

* Otis' appearance is based on Ken Kaneki from *Tokyo Ghoul*.
* His name "Huoxiu" is a reference to Hong Xiuquan - A commander of the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in drought and famine killing estimately 60,000,000 people.
* His last name is a reference to James Otis, who portrayed Famine from *Supernatural*.
* He owns a black 2008 Cadillac Escalade with a license plate that spells "sick and tired" in addition to his black motorbike.
* According to Gabriel, among the Horsemen, he is the most familiar with humanity, though not in a good way.
* He has a particular dislike of the USA and its citizens, calling them "a swarm of locusts in stretch pants".