The Dark Man

Appearance
The Dark Man's appearance is never threatening; he is said to be an average-looking man, taking on the physical appearance of whatever the local people tend to look like. The Dark Man always showed up with a different face and a different bag of tricks, but two things about him are always the same. Always he comes hooded, a man who seemed almost to have no face, and he never comes as a King himself, but always as the whisperer in the shadows, the man who poured poison into the Kings' ears.

The Dark Man has had many faces and lives. He is always somebody who is charismatic, laughs a lot, attractive to men and women both, and somebody who just appeals to the worst in all of us. His face changes, but whatever his guise is, he's saying the same thing: 'I know all the things that you truly want and I can give them to you. All you need to do is something simple for me...."

History/Background
The Dark Man came from Out of Nowhere. His names have been many, as have the eras (various times and worlds) been that he walked. His first form, as he was born some 1700 years ago on what I call, The Unfortunate World, ran away from home at the age of 13 and set out for a life on the road where he was raped by a fellow wanderer a year later. He resisted the temptation to slink back home and instead went on further to find his destiny and devote his life to The Darkness (where the true power over others lies). He became determined to exact revenge on The Unfortunate World, the place of his suffering. Becoming a powerful wizard, The Dark Man began to sow discord and strife through the neighboring lands, and eventually walking the way to Other Worlds. He seldom acted directly, preferring to act behind the scenes and patiently set events into motion over years, decades, or even centuries. At some point after fleeing The Unfortunate World, he met a Greater Darkness. In a passing whim, he was gifted.

His goals typically center on spreading destruction and causing conflict, usually through bringing down entire civilizations. On The Fallen World, where most of Humanity is destroyed by plague, he is The Walking Man, who gathered the remaining dregs of society into the Army of Sin. On The World of the Great Middle Kingdom, his influences weakened and nearly brought down the Mandarin system that supported The Great Society. On Wylann, he directly brought down The Great Court of the Grand Table through manipulating the great personalities of the Court.

He has, in fact, come to The Unfortunate World often. He came under a different name each time, but always with the same load of woe and misery and death. This time he is Bechell, the court advisor. The time before he had been known as Ballerius, and he had been the King's Lord High Executioner. He, and his heavy axe (which is now the Evil Artifact BoneSpreader) made an end to hundreds thousands, some said of prisoners some who were with his heavy axe. The time before that ... he came as a singer named Dayson, who became a close adviser to the King and a Queen. Dayson disappeared like smoke after drumming up a great and bloody war between the Two Great Countries Avalon and Gaula.

As Delain and all his forms, he cannot remember his life before each "era" of his history. All he has is vague memories. He has been a knight under many banners, a French Cardinal, a servant to the throne, great philosopher, a minstrel and a star, a Nihon Courtesan, a small town priest, an Atlantean Geo-Engineer, and countless others. Each path a dream that teases him with knowledge and wisdom that will help him.

The Dark Man varies his tools from Era to Era, but most like he is an accomplished sorcerer (though he might not call it that) and a devoted servant of the Outer Dark, with general supernatural abilities such as necromancy, prophecy and influence over people's behavior.
The Dark Man wants what evil men always want: to have power and use that power to make mischief. Being a King does not interest him because the heads of Kings all too often find their way to spikes on castle walls when things go wrong. But the advisers to Kings . . . the spinners in the shadows . . . such people usually melted away like evening shadows at dawning as soon as the headsman's axe started to fall.

To quote one of the great sages of Atlantis of the Second Age:
"The Dark Man is a sickness, a fever looking for a cool brow to heat up. He hoods his actions just as he hoods his face. And when the great trouble comes as it always does as time moves ons The Dark Man always disappeared like shadows at dawn. Later, when the carnage is over and the fever has passed, when the rebuilding was complete and there was again something worth destroying, The Dark Man appears again in a hood guise."

Special Equipment
None specific to the Dark Man. He does manage to pick up "a trinket or two" each era.

Roleplaying Notes
He is the Eternal Schemer and a Hand of Evil. He frequently has an unspectacular demises which are often suprising given that he is a legendary villain who outwitted great minds for centuries without ever truly achieving any of his goals. (Effectively the Greater Evil tortures him in life as he would his corrupt soul in Hell even as he serves his cause.)

In your world he may just be a passing waundering evil. He will sow a seed of chaos on his way through.

Perhaps he will have a presence in an era (when/where you are playing). He will be one of the world, taking effort to disrupt the way of the world and corrupt the golden era. He may appear again and again, attempting to bring the end of the society.

Your world may be the Unfortunate One, the world of his first waundering, the one that he returns to again and again, all in an attempt to destroy the source of his greatest suffering.

He is also known as The "Ageless Stranger", "The Waunderer of the Outside", "Fever of the Road", and The One Outside.