Nessaj

Nessaj, the Manipulator, was born into the first age, and soon after became the dedicated follower of two blessed children. After the battle of the first lands, Nessaj went into hiding in order to continue the legacy of the blessed children.

## Lore

### Backstory

Nessaj was born into the first age, a tumultuous state for mortal kind. Naturally falling into a position of servitude much like many of his fellow mortals, Nessaj was different from the others. While the mass majority of mortals lived in fear of their overlords, harboring a deep resentment to them: Nessaj saw nothing but brilliance and something to be worshipped. He was enthralled with the power and pure dominance of the blessed children and began to work as a servant for the blessed children. Specifically, Eterence, the son of dominion and Hagenza, the daughter of Affliction. Under these two, he would continue subjugating the poor victims of the cruel gods: developing a sadistic disposition towards the fragile mortals under Eterence, while helping spreading plagues using insects for Hagenza. A brilliant mind in his own right, he would also tinker with various experiments in order to heighten his own potential in service of his master: elevating his abilities of insect control, and malumancy to punish those who would dare step out of line. As he worked under the blessed children, he also studied their biology, which further drove his admiration and fascination with their power grew. The blessed children in his eyes were the perfect species, and that they deserved their place on the throne.

However, as the dawn of the first age approached with the battles of the first lands resulting in the deaths of the Blessed Children, and the sun rose on the second age: Nessaj was now on the losing side. There was no way he would be pardoned for his crimes against humanity, and even if he were: he had no intentions to halt his work on the blessed child and their biological supremacy. Their legacy must survive.

So, into hiding he went.

Assumed dead, Nessaj would spend the next hundred years, experimenting with continuing on the lineage of the blessed children. Reviving on of the old masters was out of the question for his capabilities, he had studied theory well enough: so instead he looked to continuing the blessed child's legacy through the creation of an entirely new one, reviving their species into this new age. As he witnessed mortal kind in the second age flourish, and crown lesser beings with the designation of god, Nessaj's conviction grew. "How far the standard for what exceptional is has dropped, for the commonfolk now crown these lesser articles the same title and prestige as true masterpieces".

Through manipulating his own biology further with the aid of spare blessed child parts, Nessaj changed immensely throughout his research. Before a simple human, what he was now was no longer could be reasonably called a human. His aging had stopped to an absolute crawl and had developed the uncanny ability to shapeshifting. Using this, he began to sneak his way in back to modern society, disguised as various other beings in order to further his own agenda. Through this espionage, Nessaj would further collect more blessed child parts and various other magical artifacts in order to push forward his experiments. There was a limit to this though, many of the remains of the blessed children were either lost to time or simply beyond even his reach.

But then was one particular plan that Nessaj saw as the catalyst to something brilliant, something that would kickstart everything he would need to achieve his goal: the construction of the Arklight. Making his way up the hierarchy disguised, he advocated to the council that they would be able to stop Abzulor's presence through the use of the remains of the blessed children. Agreeing that this was a good avenue for them to achieve their goals, the council would push for the collection and aggregation of all the blessed child parts together: with so many blessed child parts in such close proximity to one another, they would allow the Arklight to tap into their primal energies once again to fix their now damaged reality.

Nessaj didn't particularly care about their goals, nor did he really believe they would really work. But he continued to work alongside the rest of them as he saw their little experiment as a means to an end as well as to satiate his own curiosities. If this were to work, it would surely be a testament to his idol's supremacy. All this time, Nessaj would further manipulate things behind the scenes, continuing their drive towards the preservation of the zenith of all life. As expected by him, the Arklight failed. What wasn't expected by him was that a side effect of all this, was the released spirits of the blessed children thanks to the shattering. This was an unexpected new development that excited Nessaj, along with the new volatile state of the world: perhaps his plans could finally be realised, and instead maybe even furthered. Now more determined than ever, Nessaj he set to find the new forms of the blessed children.

### Recent Events

Since the third age, Nessaj has kept to himself. No one knows where he is, nor are there any records of him due to his shapeshifting self.

## Personality

Nessaj is someone who has existed since the first age, assuming multiple identities through his time disguised. However, Nessaj's core personality still remains the same. He is quite condescending, as due to his viewpoint of the world being warped by his fascination of the blessed children: he sees all other species as being inherently inferior and not worthy of even a fraction of the respect he has reserved for the old masters. While he doesn't claim to be one of the blessed children, or even close: he does consider himself closer than other beings, hence the constant condescending nature.

The fact that he has lived lifetimes more than most beings also further plays into this condescending personality. Nessaj would often fairly cocky and outspoken, being quite annoying to his enemies. This would then be turned up to eleven when he was talking about subjects he was interested in, as he would often go on long rants and monologues.

When assuming other identities, this condescending attitude of his continued. He was able to put on various other fronts in order to maintain his disguises, but to him: acting simply was a means to an end, and that he didn't care to be honest to whoever he was deceiving. Nessaj was fairly pleasant to talk to when was putting on these fronts more often than not, but this rather agreeable nature of his laid-on top of several masks he would use to conceal his true intentions. This deceitful nature of his is almost always on at all times, unless he is in the presence of someone he holds in extremely high regard.

## Trivia

* Nessaj isn't aware of the development of demons from the black pool.
	+ If he had been initially aware of this development, he would've probably focused more of his research on this.
* While Nessaj has shapeshifting abilities now, he doesn't often do whole body shifts as they are extremely draining on him. Instead during combat, he will instead only morph portions of his body.
* Nessaj was the one who planted the fake notes about the Hidden Temple in order to lure magi with knowledge he could use.
	+ This is the same red herring that caused Falthis to become the creature he was.

## Development Notes

* Nessaj's name comes from the Dota 1 hero of the same name titled "Nessaj, the Chaos Knight".
* Nessaj's character was inspired by the character of Kenjaku from Jujutsu Kaisen, explaining their similiar personality traits as well as record of background scheming.