Despite that, though, many of us feel drawn to them. We want to see more, to understand more, to experience more... and this is both the power of these things, and a cornerstone of what makes them what they are in many ways.
Because to desire, to want, is the gateway. And even if what lies beyond that threshold is pain, we will endure it precisely because of the want that made us open the door in the first place.
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| Come... I have such sights to show you... |
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Pain and Transformation
Zon-Kuthon. Slaanesh. The Cenobites. The Godhand. Even my own god Tensa found in Gods of Sundara (available for Pathfinder as well as DND 5E). Our fiction, and our games, are full of creatures shaped by alien forces and impossible desires... things that corrupt you, twist you, and which bring their followers to the other end of madness.
And while that works well enough for antagonists in a story, things and people we want to see as cold, alien, and unknowable, it doesn't work as well for our characters. Because we need to understand them, and we need those around us to understand them. Which is why it's important to think of desire, pain, and the transformative nature of the experience that comes with these things.
Consider for a moment seeing someone in middle school or high school who is in their first official relationship. You've never seen anyone that happy, riding high on a fresh emotion that has them walking on air. And then when they have their first break up, it is devastating for them. They bawl, they kick, they scream, and they might even break things. To adults looking on, it seems so petty, and unimportant, because most of us have gone through this process many, many times before. We might remember what it was like when we went through this when we were children, but it's so far removed from who we are now that it often feels like it happened to someone else.
Going through that pain, and recovering from it, changed us. We shifted something in ourselves. Some of us heal, and some of us limp, but we continued on.
Alternatively, think of the original Little Mermaid. She was given legs, but every step was agony, akin to walking on razors for the rest of her life. A bargain she made with her eyes open because she wanted that so badly. She knew that to be changed would bring agony, but the change was worth the pain.
These are two halves of the same coin. On the one hand we have pain that transforms us, and on the other side we have transformations that hurt us. In either case, we will become a different person than who we were... and in some cases we may no longer even recognize what we've become. Or who we used to be.
This is a philosophical basis that can act as a starting point with characters attached to a philosophy of pain, darkness, or even depravity. However, it's important to remember that even in the case of a penitent being remade by the cenobites, or someone rising to become a member of Berserk's Godhand, the transformation doesn't begin with the dramatic final step... the transformation began down a long and winding road that led to where they wound up.
A Thousand Resurrections On The Path of Corruption
Even if you are not a drug user, you're familiar with the idea of building up a tolerance. The first time you take even the smallest dose, the drug hits your system like a freight train, and you feel it pretty intensely. And if you only indulge every now and again, that level of intensity will be your normal experience... but if you use a drug regularly, your body and mind will get used to it. You'll have to take more, and more, just to move the needle. It's why a child being allowed to have a normal caffeinated soft drink might be bouncing off the walls, while their aunt or uncle can drink 2 cans of Monster before they start to shake off feeling like they need a nap.
Alternatively, think of how muscles grow. When you exercise, you create a small tear, and when your body fills that small tear back in the muscle grows in size and power. This allows you to easily lift something that would have been far beyond your capacity even a few years ago, because you have slowly transformed yourself through regular rituals of suffering and self-inflicted pain.
And when we take these relatively mundane things, and apply them to a darker path, we begin to see how characters might walk into the shadows deliberately and with great purpose.
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| No one comes to sit where I do by an accident of fate... |
Through a steady diet of pain, bloodshed, suffering, or even torturous rites, a character might become something new... something different than they were before. Perhaps they were seduced, as we see with hedonists who had exhausted earthly pleasures who pursued the Lament Configuration to experience the next level of sensation. Or they were told there was a way they could overcome an earthly weakness, but only if they followed the path of the Black Spiral, and reached the end.
If these characters simply swallowed a mouthful of this poison, it would kill them, or cripple them. But if they swallow a little at a time, over and over again, year after year, soon they would build up a functional immunity. This is how they might accept the early rites or requirements of these dark gods or strange philosophies, building up the tolerance, determination, and iron will that will see them through as they pass over the threshing blades that will tear them apart, and allow them to reborn anew.
Others may stare at them in horror. They may see what they're doing as an abomination, a desecration of morality, or a grievous sin. But they have not seen what the one on the left-hand path has seen. The naysayers have not walked where they've walked, and done what they've done. And while the dark pilgrim might try to explain these truths, there are certain experiences that words fail to properly convey. It is only through first-hand knowledge that one can truly understand what lurks beyond pain, and beyond the transformations it heralds.
And on a final note, those who haven't seen this article should check out my Pathfinder character conversion for the cenobite Pinhead!
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