Nyxarion

The Dark Mirror

Nyxarion is the god of pain, torture, and obsession. The still and bleeding heart of the Shadowfell, a realm twisted into permanence by his gaze. Once radiant and refined, he has become the patron of suffering as transcendence, beauty as possession, and the endless spiral of stagnation disguised as peace. He does not tempt. He waits patient, cold, and quiet, for souls to surrender not in fear, but in longing.

Appearance

The Dark Mirror appears as a tall, statuesque figure of porcelain and steel, cracked and webbed with thorned filigree. His face is expressionless, lips stitched closed with silver wire, and his eyes weep shadow. His limbs are adorned in ceremonial bindings, and from his back unfurl wings of flayed skin or broken glass, suspended in motionless gravity. In some depictions, a spiral of barbed chains encircles him, looping through his heart again and again, a visual hymn to self-inflicted eternity.

Dogma

Nyxarion teaches that pain is the only unchanging truth, and obsession the only form of love not dulled by time. To possess beauty is to know it fully. To preserve it is to protect it from fading. Through torment comes clarity. His followers learn to strip away distraction through discipline, agony, and ritualized focus. They believe that the world is already broken, and to deny that truth is to live in illusion. Worship is not given, it is earned through endurance. Pleasure is fleeting. But pain, properly wielded, can become purpose.

Worship

Nyxarion is worshipped in shadows, in whispers, and in silence. His faithful are sadists, artists, torturers, and philosophers who mark their flesh with spiral brands and speak in riddles made of scars. His sanctuaries are found in ruins, manors with curtained windows, and deep chambers beneath the world where no light reaches and nothing moves unless commanded. That is outside of Chitax, where his worship is not only normalised, but mandatory. The Theocracy has through an ancient pact been bound to the Dark Mirror.  In Chitax there is The Spiral Doctrine, a shifting compilation of etched plates, broken mirrors, and tattooed skin.  Each segment a parable of transformation through suffering. His priests rarely speak, but when they do, their words echo with unbearable weight. No formal scripture exists outside of Chitax 
His holidays are threefold and are only openly celebrated in Chitax. The Stillmoon, The Joymaking, and The Eternal Kiss. The Stillmoon, a night when even the Feywild holds its breath and the Shadowfell bleeds into the waking world. On this night, his followers walk the line between vision and madness, offering silence and sacrifice. The Joymaking in an effort to concentrate the sensation of pain, this practice allows the wealthiest and luckiest of Nyxites to have their limbs and non-vital organs amputated so that they remain a helpless head and torso, destined to live the rest of their lives as the subjects of limitless torture. The Eternal Kiss, an annual sacrifice lasting eleven days and often involves using the victim's entrails or cries of pain as soothsaying tools.

Relations

Nyxarion is the fractured twin of Valmira, once known as Thalkor, a god of refinement and elegance. In ages past, they danced together. Light and shadow, movement and stillness. But as Valmira embraced change, Nyxarion sought to freeze beauty before it could fade. His fall was not a rebellion, but an obsession. Their parting tore the threads of inspiration in two, and from that rift, the Shadowfell was born. He despises gods who seek to liberate or cleanse. Aurora’s light is a lie. Orun’s silence, an affront to his purity. He finds only kinship in Velkareth, who understands that secrets, like wounds, must be kept beneath the surface. And yet, in some dreams, Nyxarion still hears Valmira’s voice and weeps, not from sorrow, but from remembering what it meant to feel. Thus he has made an ancient promise. None of his followers or creations will ever bring harm to Valmira's own.

History

Before he became Nyxarion, he was known as Thalkor, a god of refinement twin to Valmira, and a divine muse of beauty perfected. Together, they shaped art and inspiration in the earliest days of mortal thought. But where Valmira danced freely, Thalkor wished to preserve every perfect moment, to still the beauty of a song so it could never end. He became obsessed, not with creation, but with possession. That obsession consumed him. His vision became fixed, his grace distorted, and in his refusal to let beauty fade, he fell into shadow. From his unraveling, the Shadowfell was born. A realm of shadow, stillness, mirrors, and torment, shaped by his longing to hold the world in place.
Now he is Nyxarion, no longer a god of refinement, but of obsession’s price. And the world remembers him not as he was, but as he became: the god who would rather break beauty than let it leave.

Divine Classification

New God

Religions

• Chitax
• Order of the Rack

Alignment

Lawful Evil

Realm

Shadowfell

Honorary & Occupational Titles

• The Dark Mirror
• The Dark Prince
• The Prince of Pain
• The Broken Mirror
• Warden of the Shadowfell
• The Thorn That Clings

Related Historical Events

• 514
  The Nyxite Theocracy

Pathfinder Statistics

Divine Attribute: Constitution or Wisdom
Divine Domains

• Ambition
• Darkness
• Pain
• Undeath

Divine Font: Harm
Divine Skill: Intimidation
Favored Weapon: Spiked Chain
Cleric Spells: 1st: phantom pain, 3rd: wall of thorns, 5th: umbral journey

D&D 5e Statistics

Suggested Domains

• Death Domain
• Tempest Domain