Balthalmos has a minion!

Baruch the Common Grackle

Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven

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Once the Brother of Councils with dominion over wind and weather, now struck down to nothing.

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Balthalmos’ power had seemed to be endless.

He had spent ages upon eons being told he and his companions were equal. Praesul’s raw fiery power of the sun, Dala’s cool and quiet darklight of the moon, Arwenn’s bubbly living spirit of the earth, and his own unpredictable wind and weather - any diversion from the natural order would lead to the demise of them all. But then he found the cracks.

That awful tyrant, Praesul, was a purveyor of lies. He claimed they were all an equal council, but he clearly put his word forth as law and did everything in his power to enforce it without seeming to do so. Of course, given their respective realms of influence - Praesul over light and sun, Balthalmos over wind and rain - it was unlikely the two would ever become close friends, but Balthalmos had been breeding a particular hatred for the Father for ages when the two had had their final, greatest fight. Balthalmos had been inconsolable that night. Even his beloved Dala, the Sister Moon, had tried and failed to console him. No calming words or soft touches could cool the rage that had enshrined itself in him. He had snapped, not at his love, but at her words. How could she, in his time of need, call for peace when bloodshed was calling at every wall the four deities had built?
He raged for days on end. Winds tore at Arwenn’s rain-sodden earth while butts blotted out the lights of sun and moon alike.

Praesul had called immediately for war, and had very nearly gotten it as Arwenn’s happy demeanor was marred by a fierce love for her creatures left perishing in the path of the elements. Only Dala’s attempts at neutrality had kept the eruption of total chaos at bay. Finally, though, she admitted Balthalmos’ guilt, and the three banded together to take him down with her plotting at the core of their plans.

In the end they proved too much. Balthamos’ only saving thought as he lay powerless had been that Dala had not dealt the final blow, but Praesul. And though her tricks had been his downfall, he could never bring himself to blame her. He was now a cringing wraith at the edges of reality, yet he loved her still.

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premade profile by Chen
overlay & story by Ryou
title quote from John Milton’s Paradise Lost

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