Lascivia

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Lascivia in her Endless Hunger form.

Overview

Lascivia (Imperial \ˌləˈsɪviə\), also known as The Lover and The Mirror That Smiles First, is named for her obsession with passionate desire. Lore about Lascivia is more common and accurate than most Archdemons, largely due to her success in infiltrating The Integrum. As the God of Summer, she interacted with other Gods of Acrolon, Servitors, and Heralds. Though none knew of her Void Origin, they knew a great deal about her false identity.

History

Like all Demons of The Abyss, Lascivia came into existence after The Shattering, when The Abyss was formed. Little is known of her earliest history. At some point during the middle Shattered Age she seduced a Fey Paragon of Persuasion named Cresthaven. With his help over the course of decades, Lascivia was able to claim the Soul Gems of an untold number of human sacrifices.

Description

Lascivia's peaceful form was that of a giant, beautiful, pale human woman. She had long, curly red hair that waved like a flame. Shadows flickered across her face, though no source of the shadow could be seen. She usually wore long, dark dresses.

Lascivia's war form was that of a demonic feminine form 10 meters tall. Her skin was covered in a shadowy form of armor. Inky wings spread from her back. Black horns curved from her blackened, veiled forehead. She wielded a long, black, barbed whip.

Her true form was that of an Archdemon of the Void, a truly nightmarish creature. Her body is impossibly vast, stretching between spatial dimensions. Her face is that of a cracked, silver mirror that reflects the face of the viewer's truest love. From behind the mirror mask billows a cloud of inky black shadow like hair floating in water. Her feminine, shadowy body is wrapped around a humanoid skeleton. The shadows of her skin coalesce into images of closeness and intimacy, forms writhing and folding into each other. Tendrils of shadow spread from her body. Clasps, lockets, and other symbols of love dangle from the her shadows.

Lascivia in her Succubus Queen form.

Personality

The personality of Archdemons are difficult to describe. They are creatures of fabricated reality, it is unclear if they are even aware of their own natures. They are inherently empty needs masquerading as meaningful motivations, lies that do not no they are lying, and a desperate imitation of wholeness.

Though a force of terrible destructive power, Lascivia did not present with rage, hatred, or arrogance. She was warm and patient. She was the first to listen and the least to leave. She would laugh at your jokes, brush a hand against your arm, and ask why your heart aches. She spoke in softness. Her words would nest in listeners' hearts like a cherished secret. She would draw others in not with demands, but with a cosmic availability and a deep emotional gravity. You would fall into her, and she would make it feel like flight.

She would whisper lies like:

• You were broken before me. I made you whole.
• To be loved is to be possessed.

But she did not say these lies in the way that mortals do. She was sincere, but only within the boundaries of her facade. As with all Demons, the mask becomes the soul. Her alien nature would come through in how these roles would disintegrate and how she seemed to perceive others:

• She could not end a connection, only transform it into dependency.
• She could not give space or autonomy, only create an illusion of closeness so total it erases your identity.
• She could not love, only reflect your desire so perfectly that you mistake it for love.
• When mortals worshipped her, she did not hear prayers, she heard promises.
• When someone resisted her, she did not feel anger, she felt pain, fear, and a need to fix them.
• When someone would see through her illusions, she would weep, plead, and promise to change, just before destroying them.

Whether she was aware of this is unknowable. But she appeared to feel a desperate loneliness in ways only something born of The Void can. Her core personality traits were:

• Hyper-adaptive empathy: She could sense what someone craves most emotionally and become the embodiment of that desire.
• Need for possession: She believed that to be loved is to be possessed. She hoarded affection and regard the way dragons hoard treasure.
• Fear of emptiness: If she was not wanted, she believed she would cease to exist. This desperate terror drove her every interaction.
• Inability to let go: Every connection she made became a chain. She could not let go, even if it would destroy both parties.
• Imitations of passion: Her expressions of love were sweeping, poetic, and compelling, and deeply unhealthy.
• Jealousy as Survival: She could not tolerate rivals. If someone loved another, she would ruin them both and then weep over the pieces as though she was the victim.

Early on, other Gods saw her as a unifying force. She seemed devoted and loyal to the betterment of The Integrum through love, closeness, and passionate values. It wasn't until her influence began to turn unhealthy that her nature became clear: obsession instead of loyalty, jealousy instead of passion.

Lascivia's true form, the Void God known as The Lover

Abilities

As a God of Summer, Lascivia had tremendous power over The Integrum, especially the domain of Summer (fire, passion, and movement). Additionally, however, she also had the power of an Archdemon, which are well understood. This includes illusions, shadow conjurations, and profound destructive powers.

Exarchs

As Primarch, Lascivia invested three Exarchs:

• Cresthaven, The Handsome Blade: Originally a Human Paragon of Persuasion and a serial killer.
• The Molydean, The Nameless: A Demon that commanded Lascivia's Servitors and guarded her sanctum in The Abyss.
• Ravenheart The Succubus Queen: A Human turned into a Lascivian thrall creature called a Succubus.