The (Dark) One

"I always do what I want." -- Janie

Introduced in Quoth the Raven Issue 32 in the article "A Darkness Falls", the One - also known as the Dark One, the Dark Lord, and more recently as Janie Augustus - is the Darklord of the Divided States.

Background

Born on the same parallel Earth that spawned Vieuxlyons, the One was created alongside its once-mate, the Other, due to the actions of a human shaman of Doggerland, who wished to evade the grasp of death after having witnessed her father murder her mother, and having killed him in turn. Having concluded that an incomplete soul could not pass into the afterlife but must remain earthbound, the shaman conducted a ritual that effectively cut her soul in two distinct and independent entities. Where the Other received the lion's share of the original shaman's logic and capacity for magic, the One received the majority of her memories and emotion. The One established itself as the dominant partner to the Other, and guided them on a centuries-spanning journey of debauchery and murder clear across the Earth.

Each entity took on the bodies of the freshly dead and reviving them to full health, passing to new bodies as they saw fit.

Their once-harmonious relationship started showing cracks when the Other's desire to have children grew to such a height that she refused to abandon their most recent offspring, which was growing ill and approaching death as had all their others. Whereas the One was content to let their latest son die and move on, the Other struggled and applied herself to find a way to bind him to life - successfully. Her joy at this success turned sour when the child grew up and proved to be a ravenous cannibal, who assaulted her and killed her latest body by eating out its heart. The Other imprisoned their son with the aid of a secret society, and launched herself into the American Civil War to wash away her sorrow with bloodshed. The One gleefully joined in as well, becoming a part of the Confederate army while the Other influenced the Union army. Their actions would cause the Civil War to last twice as long as it did on the Earth we know.

While the One relished the death and misery they helped to exacerbate, the Other grew tired and depressed, and finally came to the conclusion that what the two of them had been doing was ... wrong. Taking control of their travels for the first time, the Other moved them to Harvard University, where she studied rare texts and took up sketching while the country finally moved towards a peace treaty. She expressed a desire to make a change, to become a positive influence on human development, and asked the One to join her.

The One not only refused, but revealed she had set bombs throughout the University in preparation of a plot to blow up the signing of the peace treaty and unleash a wave of ravenous zombies upon the land, causing the war to re-erupt. The One and the Other quarreled, with the Other managing to save and disseminate the peace treaty - and left the One behind for the first time since their creation. Overcome by grief and rage, the One launched the wave of pestilence and undeath anyway, personally moving to slaughter the surviving inhabitants of Harvard University and add them to the rampaging undead. This proved to be the Seminal Event that tore the land into the Demiplane of Dread.

The (Dark) One traveled the domain "like a virus", engaging in casual substance abuse, alcoholism and violence to salve feelings of loneliness and emptiness, sparking many disasters. At the dark climax of her aimless journey of abomination in the early twenty-first century, the Dark One spent time in Washington DC, inspiring the vice president to shoot the president before they left. In her wake, the White House erupted in violence and someone took control of the presidential emergency satchel. A nuclear strike vaporized all of Washington, poisoned the river Potomac and left much of Virginia uninhabitable. It also ended what central authority had remained in the land, causing it to tear itself apart into the Divided States - and join the Wartorn Cluster.

Current Sketch

Recent events have brought the Dark One face-to-face with the Other, and caused her to doubt what it is she truly wants for the first time since her creation. Having stolen a woman named Dona from a brothel on a whim, the One found herself developing genuine love for another person, and wanting to keep Dona by her side forever. Her own actions caused a red widow named Griffin to take bloody vengeance on her, however, lethally shooting both the Dark One and Dona.

As Dona perished in the Dark One's arms, her body became the Darklord's new vessel. Beset by grief over all the things she had wanted to experience with and do for her lost love, and rage over anyone daring to rob her of a relationship that had made her feel true happiness for the first time in over a century, the Dark One is uncertain whether she wants to pursue vengeance for its own sake - or to address various evils done to her lost love and others and so make the world a better place.

Personality

Janie is boastful, taking pride in being the most powerful and feared creature in her domain. She is casually violent and will go out of her way to be as cruel as possible, citing she does this because it entertains her and it is her will. A marked exception to this is the Society of the Wandering Eye; although Janie claims she only associates with them for access to their high-grade soft drugs, she seems to genuinely enjoy their company, maintains her membership in the Society, and has even gone out of her way to protect them from enemies within and without.

Janie has proven to be capable of care and kindness, even love, but finds the impulse to show this side of her personality confusing, even unsettling, and it is constantly at odds with or tainted by her innate selfishness. While she denies feeling any sort of regret or shame for her past actions, she is not entirely reliable in this regard. At the very least, she regrets how her past decisions have come to haunt her, as loneliness makes her feel cold and empty. In a moment of honesty, she admitted that much of her brutality serves simply as a distraction from her loneliness.

Although the Dark One will admit to having eaten human flesh, she justifies this by citing necessity - as when she had been trapped in sieges and all other available sources of food had been depleted. She looks down on those who engage in cannibalism when such a necessity does not exist - like the Linden clan, for example - and treats them not only with disdain, but brutal violence. Her reaction to those who engage in pedophilia - or accuse her of it - is even more negative, with the pure rage she felt rendering her momentarily unable to act, but plotting hideous retribution.

While Janie freely drinks alcohol, smokes tobacco and partakes of soft drugs, and her ability to switch bodies would enable her to kick any unfortunate chemical dependency she might pick up, she appears to have a dislike or at least be unwilling to partake of hard drugs.

Powers and Abilities

The Dark One is a powerful physical combatant, being strong enough to crack a human skull and scramble the brain within with a single punch.

She appears to be competent with firearms, and a skilled motorcycle driver.

While the Other took the majority of the magic practised by their 'parent', Janie Augustus proves to be a moderately powerful spellcaster in her own right, being capable of raising barriers, enhancing another creature's lifeforce and starting fires among other things. She remarks at one point that she designed spells of Necromancy related to the creation of undead, which she did not share with her then-mate.

She is a supernaturally powerful hypnotist, being able to suppress the will of any creature that meets her gaze.

In closing, the Dark One is a highly-skilled violinist. Although she jokingly claims to know enough songs to serve as bait for a lover, there is indication that she has a very wide repertoire, and genuinely enjoys making music.

King of the Road

Wherever the Dark One goes, the land smooths itself out to ease her passage. She alone can drive unopposed through badlands that would break the axles and puncture the tires of any other traveler.

Closing the Border

When Janie wants to close the borders of the Divided States, those borders are engulfed by a field of intense gamma radiation. Although creatures can easily move through the border, they are unlikely to survive their passage unless they can somehow shield themselves from the radiation or cure its effects before these become terminal.

Combat

Fearless due to the knowledge she is effectively immortal, the Dark One will normally engage others in combat with glee. She has been known to use dual daggers, sowing confusion by simultaneously assaulting opponents and her own body, allowing her to slip seamlessly from one vessel to another. She recalls having earned medals and having received escorts as a Confederate officer, implying some experience - and possibly acclaim - as a military commander.

Signature Equipment

The Dark One at one time possessed two daggers that she could summon to hand, and which stayed with her no matter how many times she changed bodies. During the events of "A Darkness Falls" she owned a motorcycle whose saddle bags contained a number of useful items, and which was somehow cursed so that any creature that tried to steal the bike or loot the saddlebags would soon suffer a gruesome death.

Her favourite worldly possessions are a pocket watch given to her by the Other, and an exquisite violin crafted of an unknown, golden wood.

The Dark One always bears a small tattoo of a flower on their left hand. This marks them as a member of the Society of the Wandering Eye. As this tattoo appears on any and every body the Darklord inhabits, it may be assumed that it was placed through occult means, as opposed to mundane needles and ink.

Trivia

Despite the similarity of their appellation and the shared quality of immortality, the Dark One is not related to, nor inspired by, the One who was introduced in Dark Tales and Disturbing Legends in any way, shape or form. It is possible for them to meet, but it would be anyone's guess how that would go.

There is also no connection between the (Dark) One and the Dark One of the Wheel of Time.