Witness to the End

**The Witness to the End**, or simply **Witness**, is a member of the Syndicate and a suspect in the Crime To End All Crimes.

He can always be found on his Balcony during the Investigation.

## Biography

Witness was born in AD 981 in the Chaos Palace, a superstructure in Persia on Earth. During the Great Betrayal, Witness fled deep into the Chaos Palace, nearly succumbing to madness. However, Ezequial discovered him and ushered him into the Syndicate before the Chaos Palace was destroyed by the God Hunters.

As the Syndicate's Witness to the End, he oversees the end of an Island Sequence and protects the island against potential threats in its final days.

## Appearance

Witness is a slender man of Persian descent. His head is encased in a golden mask that leaves almost no facial features visible, save for his bright green eyes. The mask itself is moulded to resemble a stylized skull, with decorative grating serving as ventilation near his mouth. This seems to impact the clarity of his voice, as many of Witness's recorded lines carry noticeable distortion. It is unknown what Witness looks like beneath this headpiece, or when he started wearing it.

Apart from the mask, several other notable aspects of Witness' appearance stand out. His clothing seems to be loosely based on jli kurdi (traditional Kurdish dress) typically worn by men. His short-sleeved purple top bears gilded geometric trim and an ornate collar that appears to resemble layers of golden leaves. It is tucked into an orange sash, beneath which he wears matching purple trousers and buckled shoes of the same shade. Encasing his neck is a large ornamental cuff from which gold coins dangle onto his exposed chest. Visible on the skin is red cuneiform, which depicts a portion of the Code of Hammurabi. More of this red ink coats his arms, starting just below his sleeves and ending beneath the gold bangles on his wrists. Sun-like designs decorate his forearms using the negative space of this coloration. On each hand, Witness wears a gold ring over his third and fourth fingers respectively.

## Personality

Witness is a passionate, exuberant man with a deeply pious outlook on life.

Witness has 'changed drastically' over the course of the Island Sequences, both Lady Love Dies and Carmelina Silence noting that his religious fanaticism has piqued, subsuming other elements of his personality. While generally polite and articulate, his passionate speech patterns will tighten into sharp accusations of heresy should Love Dies express any displeasure with the Gods. He speech is vivid, emotive and moralistic.

Introverted, but not particularly shy, Witness is quick to welcome any into his apartment but just as quick to remind them that he is 'not one for long conversations'. Still, he will erratically espouse his thoughts and philosophy at length, enthusing and condemning in turn. He has a habit of stating his candid feelings or observations before claiming that he was compelled to act or to speak on behalf of the Gods. Where Witness sources his esoteric ramblings from is unknown; though he is well-read, it is likely that he ad-hoc rationalizes many of his actions as even Crying Grudge does not view him particularly favourably.

His view on the Syndicate has soured over the years. He believes that they have lost their way and have forgotten the work they still have to do for the Gods. He fears and advocates for divine retribution, urging that any who hinder the ascension of their cosmic overlords must be 'purged'.

He has grown increasingly paranoid, confining himself to his balcony during his days and nights, his apartment the only of the Syndicate attached to a Nightmare Computer for 'safety concerns'. He receives few visitors due to his obsessive personality, describing Carmelina's visit on the night of the Council murders as a 'rare social call'.

Outside of worship, he enjoys cultivating and nurturing rare and fragile plants - occasionally offering these to others as a test of their devotion. Despite being so tied to death through his role on the Island and his sensitivity to psychic Death Screams, Witness appears to be a highly skilled and devoted gardener, with a surprising knack for keeping even infamously fickle plants alive. He himself remarks that it is good to have a hobby 'while the world is coming apart', admiring plants for thanklessly supporting the life cycle as, without them, all creatures would all die. Life, then, is a fragile thing worthy of time and devotion.

## Relationships

**Lady Love Dies**: Though never particularly close with one another, Love Dies is able to recognise that Witness's personality has changed since they last met over 8,000 years ago. Witness appears unfazed by this observation, viewing his own development as a good thing. He is somewhat warm with Love Dies, but there is a natural distance brought on by his religious zeal. He will help Love Dies even when he questions her motivations, implying that she acts more for herself than for religious fidelity, but views helping her as a duty bound to him by the will of the Gods.

He offers the investigator a Maddeningly Rare Plant from his home country of Iran, curious to see if she will be able to nurture it successfully and hoping that it will bring her something positive to do once she moves onto the next Island Sequence.

**Carmelina Silence**: Carmelina is Witness's ex-wife. Though Witness refers to most of the other Syndicate members by their first or full names, he prefers to default to Carmelina's title of Architect. This coldness is apparent whenever he speaks of her, keeping his typically meandering sentences clipped and short. He initially describes their final night on the Island together following an unexpected 'social call' from her as 'pleasant', sharing with her a bottle of wine that he had been saving. Some chocolates traditionally brought by guests for Syndicate hosts are left on his balcony, implying that she had brought these, though they remain uneaten. It is later revealed that Carmelina had been using Witness as an alibi, and that their conversation had been much more strained than the investigator had initially been led to believe.

Both Witness and Carmelina express concern for one another during the investigation. Both accuse one another of having strayed from the path - Carmelina having become obsessive in her work and Witness obsessive in his service to the Gods. Though the reason for their divorce is never stated, it is likely that this is at the root of their failed marriage.

The timing of Witness and Carmelina's divorce is somewhat ambiguous. Witness claims that their marriage ended over twenty-five years ago, but Carmelina claims it ended nine years ago. It is apparent that she was still wearing her wedding ring a decade ago, so it is likely that Carmelina is correct in the official sense. Witness may have been speaking emotively. It is possible that their relationship effectively died after Carmelina disappeared twenty-five years ago and, unbeknownst to Witness, gave birth to Dainonigate.

**Crying Grudge:** Witness lives in both fear and awe of his 'holy masters', compelled to work not just in service of pleasing his Gods but also to avoid their righteous anger. Crying Grudge is one such God, and he holds personal significance to Witness. As a child, Witness was kidnapped from his home, losing his father and his freedom after being thrown into the Chaos Palace. This Palace was built under Crying Grudge's command, and it was here that Witness was enslaved and tormented for years, losing all sense of time and space amidst the caverns of chaos. Despite this, Witness remained fanatically loyal to Crying Grudge, sometimes even looking back on his days within the Chaos Palace with nostalgia. As he escaped the hell of the Chaos Palace with Ezequial, he abandoned his first wife following the events of the Great Betrayal as she had turned her back on the Gods. His balcony and the interior of his apartment is covered in statues of Crying Grudge. Crying Grudge is emphatically unimpressed with Witness, viewing him as an annoyance.

**Ezequial**: Ezequial became a father figure to Witness during his time within the Chaos Palace. Witness imprinted on him after having lost his own father at a young age. It was with Ezequial that he finally left the confines of the Chaos Palace and was ushered into the Syndicate. Ezequial devolved into a mad paranoia on Island Sequence 3, murdering numerous Syndicate members in a rampage that was ultimately stopped by Monserrat. It is possible that Witness modelled his plan in memory of Ezequial.

**Henry Division:** Witness views Henry as a 'curse on us all' for condemning the Island to rot due to his demonic possession ten years ago.

## Gallery

Witness Sprite - NeutralWitness Sprite - WorshipWitness Sprite - ShockedWitness Sprite - PressureWitness Sprite - HappyWitness Sprite - BreakdownWitness Sprite - AngryWitness Dialogue Background