The ultimate nemesis in the setting I’m building around Troupe is The Gloom. The Gloom is, in essence, anti-creation. It is the End and seeks the end of all things. Because of the vigilance of the Greater Gods, it cannot act directly in the world. Instead, It constantly presses the boundaries imposed upon it, worming tendrils of influence to twist and corrupt living beings through Despair and Hopelessness.
Pools of Darkness
Places where The Gloom has been able to concentrate its influences are called tears, rives, or rends, depending upon the severity of The Gloom’s presence. That severity makes The Gloom harder to resist and empowers its corruptions.
Vices
Characters and sapient creatures have vices. Characters can engage with their vices, to their detriment, to earn doom dice. Another way Characters can engage with vices is to generate effort (dice for their dice pool). If a Character does this, they are, in a small way, engaging with and inviting The Gloom. This generates Despair. Despair feeds into any nearby wells of Gloom and weakens the character against The Gloom. Why would a character do this? Desperate times might call for desperate measures.
Powered by sin
There are four principal vices in the game: Lust, Wrath, Vainglory, and Gluttony. When a character uses a vice to their advantage, they first must be doing something directly related to that vice. If they are, they can double their effort and add +1 to each die. They also gain Despair equal to their Hero Dice (HD).
I don't anticipate players reaching for Despair often. The price is high and lingers far more than the momentary power gained. I think that's the point. My assumption is that characters are fundamentally heroic in some way. Theirs is not the way of Despair. That said, tragic tales have their own beauty-- a character, brought at last, to the limits of their endurance, who succumbs to hopelessness? That's a beautiful dark tale worth telling.
Countered by Hope
Despair is countered by Hope. Hope can be found through fellowship, devotion at shrines, temples, and holy places; and questing.
Boggarts
Mortal creatures who succumb fully to Despair are transmogrified by The Gloom into Boggarts. Boggarts often gain great power but lose control, driven by their vices and fear, above all the fear of the oblivion that will come with their death. The forms that Boggarts take will vary greatly and they can often hide their true forms behind innnocuous, pleasant, proud, or impressive shapes.
They creatures are not directly guided by The Gloom. It is enough that they, through giving in completely to their basest desires, spread Despair and Hopelessness through the world. It is against these foes that characters will most often test themselves.
