What happens when a monster can be everywhere at once? Immortalis: The Jester and the Immoless introduces the Nicolai, 216 physical manifestations of a single immortal being. The Gothic horror epic launches free to read soon at http://www.immortalisverse.com. Most horror monsters have one body. Nicolas DeSilva has 216. The monstrous ruler of Corax Asylum commands an extraordinary collective known as the Nicolai, a population of independently functioning bodies belonging to the same immortal consciousness. In Immortalis: The Jester and the Immoless, this supernatural arrangement transforms identity, individuality and personal autonomy into instruments of psychological horror. Nicolas does not simply employ an army. He is the army.
One Being, Hundreds of Personalities
The Nicolai share a fundamental identity while exhibiting different personalities, professions, preferences and behaviours. Among them are Dr Nicodemus, a brilliant and sadistic surgeon; Commodore Bigglesworth, commander of the Corax Armada; Webster, an experimental scientist; and Archie, the architect responsible for the extraordinary structures of Corax. Others include musicians, criminals, artists, detectives, physicians and creatures whose anatomies defy ordinary classification. Each operates independently, pursuing specialised interests and interacting with the wider world through a separate physical body. Yet they remain Nicolas. Their individuality exists within a collective identity that challenges the distinction between one person and many. The Nicolai can merge and separate, their bodies functioning as extensions of an immortal consciousness whose manifestations are capable of developing competing interests. This creates a form of identity horror. A single being can occupy an entire room, conduct several conversations simultaneously and disagree with himself through different mouths.
The Horror of an Inescapable Presence
For Allyra Cavidini, Nicolas’s monstrous romantic obsession turns this collective existence into a nightmare of surveillance. His guardianship arrangements require her to remain accompanied by designated manifestations of himself. The apparent variety of companions conceals an unavoidable reality: she remains under the authority of one controlling entity. Escape from one Nicolas merely brings her into the company of another. The arrangement also transforms ordinary relationship conflicts into grotesque psychological complications. Nicodemus develops an increasingly possessive attachment to Allyra, challenging Nicolas’s authority over their shared beloved. Jealousy becomes a struggle within the same being, exposing the instability beneath the collective’s apparent unity. The threat is not simply that Nicolas possesses hundreds of bodies. It is that those bodies can develop desires capable of undermining their own governing consciousness.