Nicolas DeSilva (The Greatest Villain of All Time, Believes Himself to be in a Relationship with the Immoless Allyra)

Nicolas DeSilva is the dominant Immortalis. An Immortalis is a demonic god that exists in two bodies; The Vero, the primary self, and The Evro, a physical manifestation of The Immortalis’s base and primal needs. Immortalis feed on blood and flesh and exist between the world of Morrigan Deep, also known as The Deep, and Irkalla, Hell.

Nicolas is the favoured son and bastard of Primus, The Darkness and The First. He was spawned after an affair Primus intentionally had with a Baer, a lycan warrior, to prevent Nicolas’s brother Theaten gaining absolute power.

Nicolas runs Corax Asylum, a filthy prison housing inmates and tributes. Tributes are women bred to pleasure and feed The Immortalis, sacrifices provided by The Thesapien (mortals) villagers. Nicolas made a deal with Irkalla to gain his psychiatric credentials, creating a loophole whereby he can imprison anyone he declares insane.

Corax Asylum

Corax Asylum was designed to confuse and punish inmates. It is a labyrinth of cells, dungeons, torture chambers, filthy washrooms, and a hall of mirrors. All of the walls are covered in clocks and mirrors. Nicolas’s private residence, his chambers, are attached to Corax but not part of it.

Nicolas has a unique gift granted by Primus. He has a fractured mind and many multiple personalities. These personalities manifest in bodily form, creating an asylum filled with various Nicolases. Nicolas sees and feels everything the Nicolases and Chester feels, and he uses this to his advantage.

Political Structure of The Deep

To prevent uprising, Irkalla allowed the development of two opposing political factions, those who worship The Immortalis, The Darkbadb Brotherhood, and The Pauci Electi who claim to despise The Immortalis. The truth is all three parties are in league with each other, and the division is used for control. To give the appearance of resistance, every century two demonic priestesses, Immolesses, challenge The Immortalis.

The Immolesses are doomed to fail.

Allyra

Allyra, a third Immoless, is born following an affair in Irkalla, and The Electi raised her. She is not liked due to her debauchery and penchant for torturing and killing. She does so with the assistance of two Baers to extract information on The Immortalis. She has no intention of dying.

The Immolesses generally challenge either Nicolas or his brother Theaten. Allyra bypasses the system and makes a deal with Irkalla allowing her to access Immortalis blood and join their ranks. Her ambition is sovereignty.

Immortalis cannot steal each other’s blood, as decreed by Primus, and if they want sovereignty, they require a vessel.

Following a rather sensual truce with Allyra, Nicolas offers her his protection, but it comes at a cost. Nicolas is a sadist and becomes fixated on controlling Allyra. As her quest progresses his grip tightens and his lust for her overwhelms.

Nicolas is used to being rejected, and the women who reject him succumb to horrific accidents. He has no understanding of relationships or emotions, even though he is an emotional wrecking ball.

The Theatre of Corax

The Nicolases are extremely theatrical, and Corax develops a theatre, circus, croquet pitch and zoo. These leisure centres are masks for Nicolas’s engagement in mass slaughter and debauchery, and Allyra is drawn into Nicolas’s dark world. Every step of the way he torments and punishes Allyra for what he deems transgressions, but the escalation is offset with sexual affection, and entertainment.

Nicolas also creates his own monsters; The Weebles, The Marbles, The Mutants, The Headless, and The Chronic Bubonic.

The theatre sprawls into The Deep, and The Nicolases plague the townsfolk relentlessly.

Allyra wonders if it is all an act or if Nicolas has a more sinister agenda.

Chester (Nicolas’s Evro)

Chester is Nicolas’s evro, a lust-filled cat-like demon who prowls around The Deep exciting the women with his massive flute, and long tongue. Women do not reject Chester as he is known for his abilities in bed. However, during a dalliance, if Chester finds out the women he is currently engaging are seeing anyone else he kills them. Viciously. Without remorse or pretence. He also uses tributes for gratification and consumption in front of mirrors so he can watch himself.

Chester also terrorises villagers with diseases, parasites and infestations.

In spite of all this, Chester has a special and playful bond with Allyra, and VERY sexual one. Nicolas encourages this as he experiences double the pleasure when Chester is involved. Chester stays Nicolas’s hand when he considers Nicolas’s treatment of Allyra too excessive, unless, of course, he is horny and it suits him not to.

Webster (A Nicolas Alter)

Webster exists as an alter in the mirror world. Nicolas engages Webster via mirrors, although he takes corporeal form in his laboratory. Webster is a scientific genius who acts as an emotional barrier for Nicolas. He is cold hard logic. Webster is the voice that drives Nicolas to eliminate any threat using whatever means necessary. He develops drugs, serums and torture devices to maintain order. Webster also constantly reminds Nicolas that he must stick to, and follow, Plan BAT, but does not elaborate on the nature of the plan. Webster is the part of Nicolas that is most dangerous to Allyra, as he sees her autonomy as a threat to Nicolas’s well-being. It is Webster who suggests the more aggressive mechanisms for controlling her.

Nicodemus, DDS (A Nicolas Alter)

Nicodemus is Allyra’s favourite. He is a medical specialist trained in female anatomical response, dental extraction and optometry. Nicodemus is addicted to medical torture and demonstrating his sexual prowess to Allyra.

Nicolas struggles with the depth of Allyra’s affection for Nicodemus because Nicodemus is a part of Nicolas this creates internal conflict. The conflict is worsened as Allyra sneaks about Corax having secret liaisons with Nicodemus or both Nicodemus and Chester and Nicolas likes to be the centre of attention at all times.

At times, Nicodemus unnerves Allyra, taunting her with the threat of confinement, singing and dancing maniacally, or engaging the tributes with both Smythe and Chester. None the less, Allyra enjoys Nicodemus’s skills and torture methods, and Nicodemus deliberately seeks Allyra out at every opportunity.

Archie the Architect (A Nicolas Alter)

Archie, the architect, designs the passageways and systems within, and surrounding, Corax Asylum. He is also responsible for designing the various Nicolas’s and the central management of the same. Archie does not have a name, he calls himself, ‘The Architect’ as he is too good for common nouns. Nicolas calls him Archie. Archie also raised Absolem to ensure that Absolem adopted his father’s traits and did not pick up any level of benevolence from his mother.

Binky ‘Bink’ McSnort (A Nicolas Alter)

Bink is Nicolas’s ghostwriter, and the two write the magnificent text, ‘Gaslighting for Enthusiasts.’ Binky prefers tartan to plaid, and, like most Nicolases, deems Allyra’s intellect beneath him. Bink is first and foremost a wordsmith and author. He takes Webster and Nicolas’s plans and gives them a framework, enlightening anyone who cares to read as to what Nicolas is up to. Allyra largely ignores the book until it is too late.

Commodore Bigglesworth (A Nicolas Alter)

Bigglesworth is a sea-faring Nicolas alter who considers himself a nautical genius and pirate. Bigglesworth taught himself to sail, and, after wrecking twenty fishing boats and creating havoc in Sapari Port, he took to sea after two weeks. He is a prolific swimmer and navigator and has a penchant for waterboarding tributes and Immolesses alike. When Allyra heels Nicolas’s ship, Bigglesworth lectures her for hours on her errors.

Nicky the Kid (A Nicolas Alter)

Nicky the Kid is Nicolas’s best rider (take that as you will). Nicky specialises in riding boars, cattle, horses, and can stay in the saddle even when his ride objects. He is an artisan with the lasso and whip and assists Nicolas in acquiring unruly livestock when needed.

Nicolas Nachtvinsky (A Nicolas Alter)

Nachtvinsky is a composer, musician and singer. He is also tone deaf, like Nicolas. He composes and produces the most obnoxious sounds for sharing throughout the asylum as a form of torture. Nachtvinsky’s instruments of choice include poorly tuned violins, drowning victims and shattering glass. He uses Webster’s Aetheric Phonoscope Unit to crank up the volume.

Detective Cedric (A Nicolas Alter)

Detective Cedric’s interests consist of, interfering with tributes with his magnifying glass, disrupting law enforcement, inspecting suspects with surgical tools, killing sheriffs (especially the female ones), releasing serial killers, and arming them, and offering threesomes with Chester on a whim. Cedric is a forensic expert and criminal profiler who believes in rights and compensation for murderers and lecturing on the ethics of Vigilante Milkmaids. Cedric does not have a surname as, he claims, his parents did not give him one.

Safety Officer Felippe (A Nicolas Alter)

Felippe is a geologist and occasional miner with an interest in explosives, and the best rocks for bashing tribute’s heads in. He plagues the mining folk of Thanata, after making their original safety officer vanish. Felippe arrives with a raven and lowers it to the newly discovered sub-levels of the mine. The bird returns, clearly dead, but Felippe insists that he is simply malingering. He then demonstrates how to illuminate fumes with dynamite. Felippe has a personal interest in rocks, and, like Webster, can create a range of flammable and explosive materials.

Mr Dibble (A Nicolas Alter)

Mr Dibble, of the International Union of Circi, is a genuine embodiment of true alpha status. He does not show aggression to ferocious animals, he shows context and silent communication, and they bow to him. Mr Dibble does not kill by halves, he leads entourages to their deaths at the hands of Kane, and they follow him willingly. He shares his whisky with the elephants, until they develop a problem, and has a strong understanding with the lions in Nicolas’s recently acquired circus, and he shares the experience with Allyra.

Dr Shiverton Smythe (A Nicolas Alter)

Dr Shiverton Smythe is Nicolas’s most tragic alter. He is a medical genius who works in tandem with Nicodemus, but he has an addiction to Webster’s serums. Nicolas made him this way so that he could get high without the side-effects. Nicolas sees the alters as tools for him to savour new experiences without consequences. Smythe’s addiction attracts Allyra’s sympathies, and she does not understand how Nicolas could allow it. She takes care of Smythe and tries to help him. Ironically, Nicolas enlists Smythe’s skills, along with Webster’s expertise, when attempting to drug and do other unpleasant things to Allyra.

Smythe’s favourite torture method is live feeding followed by the administration of an air bubble. He has a thing for group engagements (take that as you will) and Nicolas allows Chester to occupy Smythe’s body and merge with Smythe.

Monsieur Silas Gideon Alaric Bartholomew-Crispin (with a hyphen) Ledgerly (A Nicolas Alter)

Mr Ledgerly is the formal arm of Nicolas’s propaganda and media manipulation. He steals The Threnodyl Press from one Mr Tickford, citing safety concerns due to tickturdery, and then creates The Daily Nicolas. Nicolas weaponizes the newspaper against Allyra, Lilith, and anyone else who irritates him. Nicolas and Ledgerly publish a range of articles on the ills of women, and the ills of cults, and on the ills of The Darkbadb, whilst promoting Nicolas as a benevolent lord.

Demize (A Nicolas Alter)

Demize was a one-time high priest of The Darkbadb Brotherhood, a sect that worships and studies The Immortalis. Demize took it upon himself to poke around in Nicolas’s life and got a little too close to unearthing some of Nicolas’s best-kept secrets. Nicolas was so touched by Demize’s interest that he removed his head and put it on his gramophone. Demize’s head allowed an unusual incarnation of one of Nicolas’s personality traits, his inner critic. The head follows Nicolas around, mocking him and taunting him, but he also plays tunes on request, so Nicolas allows it.