Misery Man

An entity commonly associated with aberrant monsters. Its true appearance is unknown, as the Misery Man changes its shape to suit the person it hunts, but each form always has a few traits in common. The Misery Man is one of the taller humanoid races, most of the time a human, half-elf, or high elf. There are some reports of the Misery Man appearing as a dwarf or half-orc. The Misery Man is always genderless (i.e., it has no reproductive organs at all.), bald, albino, and naked. Most notably, the Misery Man is covered in strange hieroglyphic tattoos of humans being tortured or killed. These tattoos are similar to the markings found on the eggs of aberrant creatures. But the thing that its victims remember the best are its eyes. The Misery Man has one purple eye, and one red one. Both are said to glow faintly, and are described by those who have seen them as “piercing”. The eyes of the Misery Man haunt those who have had close contact with it in their memories. The Misery Man is famous for following around those who have had prolonged or traumatic experiences with aberrant creatures. Common stories of the Misery Man involve a person finding an egg of an aberrant monster, or being held prisoner by and escaping from such a monster, and then being stalked by the Misery Man. The Misery Man will then continue to follow its “target”. It disappears when approached by the target, and cannot be seen by anyone else. It usually appears to its target right before, during, or right after a  stressful situation. The target will also get what has become known as “Misery Sickness”. The target can become paranoid, mad, or unusually aggressive due to Misery Sickness, but the most common symptom is a feeling of crippling depression (hence the name “Misery Man”). The severity of these symptoms will increase over time, until the target is mad with grief, paranoia, or wrath, and the entire time the Misery Man will follow the target, just out of reach. Then, the target simply disappears, without a trace of where they went, or why it happened. It should be noted that the Misery Man has not ever been recorded to speak at all. It has been able to understand any language spoken to it, but has not responded except through gestures.

The exact origin of the Misery Man is is unknown, but there are many theories. Some scholars think that the Misery Man is simply a hallucination caused by a sort of miasma created by aberrant monsters, or even just a product of the maddening presence of these creatures. Some theorize it’s an undead, like a specter or a wraith. Some think that it itself is an aberrant creature. Scholars of the more religious sort think that the Misery Man is the exarch of a Skeletal of the Far Realms, or of a Lord of chaos and madness, such as Irik or Nadir. Some think that the Misery Man is one of these Lords, not just an exarch, but this is highly unlikely.