Essence of theAlternate

As you down this Essence you start to feel a little… MAD.

• This Essence transforms you into an Alternate; an immortal shapeshifting demon-like being with the power to shapeshift into human forms, perfectly in some cases and imperfectly in others.

• You are a uniquely potent alternate, one capable of a variety of distressing feats. You are beyond the classification system humans use to try and organize what little they know about alternates.

• As an alternate your mind is capable of comprehending the incomprehensible. You are initially a formless being, capable of manipulating technology and using the systems humans have created to spread your influence, power, and to help other alternates replace humanity.

• One of your handiest tools is the power to infect humans with Metaphysical Awareness Disorder (M.A.D.), a mental illness that warps and twists the minds of humans, causing them to be filled with despair and driving them to desperation and hopelessness. This illness is the end result of humans learning Truths that are not desired to be known. Humans infected with M.A.D. routinely… reposition themselves, and lead a vacancy that an alternate can fill. M.A.D. is spread by telling humans truths they are not ready to hear, truths concerning the dark state of the universe. Some humans prove resistant to these truths, and must be dealt with in other ways, but to deal with the lion's share of humans all you need is to tell them what they are not ready to learn.

• Once a human has been dealt with, you or an alternate loyal to you can effortlessly take on their form, becoming a doppelganger. Doppelgangers are perfect replicas of humans and can move humans into being vulnerable to other alternates. That said other circumstances can lead to different types of alternates spawning.

• More physical types of alternates exist, particularly Flawed Impersonators, are the results of alternates impatiently trying to transform into people, and thus impersonate, those who are still living. These transformations typically don't work the way they are supposed to, and result in alternates with physically impossible characteristics. These alternates are strong, scary, and can be handy in the right situations.

• Some alternates, yourself included, are capable of planting the seeds for Tulpas to form in the minds of humans. Tulpas most often form in the minds of children exposed to alternate infected media and can attack through mirrors and reflections, infecting their creators with full blown M.A.D. and making them useful for other alternates.

• You are capable of expending energy to create other alternates, ones loyal to you that exist in a formless state capable of using the strange technomancy of all alternates, with some being overly zealous in their desire to transform, while most are perfectly patient predators who lie in wait and who target the weakest people they can find to fulfill their dark desires. You can also expend energy to infect media and turn it into a sickly tulpa maker that can partially infect those who find and view it, causing them to create tulpas which drive them to a grisly fate.

• You are capable of all of the strange feats we've seen alternates perform so far, from audio mimicry to the same sort of strange act of physical murder Alternate Gabriel/Satan performed on Dave.

• You are a dark master of psychology, understanding how people's minds work intuitively and knowing how to drive people to apathy, or worse, even without using the deadly secret weapon of M.A.D., letting you understand how to manipulate them and twist them such that they obey you out of both fear and adoration. Your mastery of psychology extends to that of monsters and demons, letting you know how to trick and manipulate even members of your own kind.

• If someone defeats you, hitting you with enough damage to kill someone multiple times over, you resort to your initial formless state and enter a state of regeneration. From here you can eventually reform, taking on the forms you've acquired or returning to a formless state.

• You can take on a flawed impersonator form that is incredibly durable, strong, and fast, for if you want to get down and dirty.

• Like Satan/The Gabriel Alternate you are unusually powerful and capable of overthrowing the divine and angelic. You are a natural foe of all things holy, sacred, and divine and are easily able to weaken and kill even supposedly almighty beings so long as they are wreathed in goodness, holiness, and purity. You will overthrow the natural and holy and replace it with the unnatural and demonic.