The Twilight Trinity

Overview

The Twilight Trinity is an experimental group of creatures created by a deep space dark-matter being known as the Interloper. They are a hybrid of energies from "in the beginning there was darkness" and then the "and then there was light" meaning they have properties from being that existed before the commonly known gods made stars and planets but also contain influences from the latter beings which is normally both forbidden and reason enough for other Darkness beings to fear.

The Interloper

Like most nearly all Darkness, the interloper was one among many with critical tasks needed to keep reality from falling apart. In its case, energy conservation and quantum data were left in its control. For most of its existence, it performed these duties quietly, but as the universe started and restarted as Light corruption began to spread, it was eventually infected with Light as well, and it gained one of the most dangerous properties any Darkness could have: curiosity. To it, the eons needed for evolution were only flickers in time, but once it was aware there was more going on than self replicating carbon units, it looked closer. Using artificial radio and microwave transmissions to narrow the search, it found countless civilizations, and it began to wonder about their purpose and their potential. It leaked information to some of their best minds and watched as things like nuclear power and space travel emerged. Wanting very much to study them closer, it tried direct intervention, but this proved to be disastrous. These fragile creatures were not ready for the full on presence of an ancient being, so the Interloper devised a new system of observation and interaction that it felt may work: the twilight trinities.

The Trinity

The trinities always consist of the same types of beings in the same order so that the experiment is controlled as much as it can be. However, trinities are not unique. While only one is deployed per world, many worlds may experience the presence of Interloper's creations. This is what we know about the three entities so far.

The Deceiver (Initiator / Matron)

The Deceiver is always a child-bearing capable unit customized to for the environment and species where it is deployed. Its primary purpose is to gather information, adapt to the location and society, and then carefully select conditions under which it can produce its offspring. It possesses several special skill sets that allow it to survive. Biological mimicry disguises its true makeup, the ability to alter its shape and limited changes in its size lets it hide among almost any group of people, and when all else fails, deadly bone blades and spurs deployed from its wrists can make quick work of unwary enemies. The Deceiver typically has a wing structure that it can deploy or hide that lets it fly for added mobility, and these can be polymorphed into long, stout tentacles if needed.

A deceiver may wait hundreds of years and live many lives before it finds the right conditions to have a child. The child of the Deceiver will always seem normal, and the Interloper traits are expressed only ever other generation. This permits the children time to blend in, and it disconnects the Deceiver from associations with the later appearance of the Destroyer.

Unlike thee Destroyer and Devourer, The Deciever's red eyes almost never show, and they will typically only appear during battles where it is fighting for survival.

Deceiver has one carefully guarded secret: its eyes are hypnotic and it can steal memories when in physical contact with a target. This is unique to the Deceiver.

The Destroyer (Guardian)

The Destroyer is the next in line and the first natural born of the experiment. Being born instead of made, the destroyer is a platform to allow Darkness and Light traits to blend and balance themselves. While often called the Destroyer by the society it exists in, its true purpose and its adaptations are that of a guardian. Once mature, the Destroyer becomes incredibly durable with a skin strong enough to easily deflect most gunfire, incendiaries, and even some enchanted items. Like all members of the trinity, it has some polymorph skill that, in this case, is used to increase its size by 2-3 times and give its limbs stronger, devastating claws. Destroyers are often dragged into wars, and to their allies, they are frightening like a lycanthrope but also dependable and worthy of their trust.

The red eyes of the Destroyer are always seen. They may hide them in various ways be it physical or through simple deceptions like claiming it to be akin to albinos. Like the Deceiver, the Destroyer will eventually find a suitable partner and start a family. One of those children will carry the Interloper's traits, but like the Deceiver, the child will not appear to be out of the ordinary. Only once the child has its own family will the next and final entity come to be: the Devourer.

The Devourer (The Living Gate)

The Devourer is the most powerful and most dangerous of the trinity. This unit is generally long lived, but unlike the others, it does not typically blend in as much as the prior generations. The Devourer contains the living gate, and this is a very important distinction between it and the self-contained entities that are the Deceiver and the Destroyer. The Devourer has a direct link back to the Interloper on an subconscious level that allows the Interloper to access and experience everything the Devrourer does. While the Interloper does not interfere with the operation of the Devourer, it does record all it finds. The direct link to Darkness allows the Devourer to amplify its size far beyond anything its kind can do such that it may easily increase its size hundreds of times or ever more which also allows it terrifyingly strong or even so small that it can hide in plain sight. Like the Destroyer, it has a polymorphic abnility that gives it a tall, unnaturally slender shape with deadly, elongated fingers.

The size shifting ability of the Devourer is tied to its ability to consume things whole be they regular meal, whole people, and even giant monsters. Being eaten goes as one might expect at first, and depending on the Devourer's disposition towards the prey, it may well end in a very mundane manner as nutrition. However, that is not always the case. Hidden inside the Devourer is the Living Gate. Parts of it lead to places where they are one with the Devourer but such that the Prey never loses itself or its soul but is rather carried around for an undefined time in the devourer. Those able to sense such unusal magic and portals might be able to find even deeper layers of the gate that lead to entire hidden cities that are linked through the Interloper such that the chosen that find this path meet in a city of night populated by all the devourers prey collections.

An external component important to the Devourer is the Interloper's key. Ever realm where the trinity appears also contains an unusual key. If the key is found and in the possession of a prey being when it is consumed, the probability of finding the City of Night is greatly increased along with the choice to become the next Deceiver on a whole new world, and this the loop is closed and allows for indefinite propagation. If the chance is turned down, the key returns to the world and must be found again unless the Devourer itself held the key at which point it returns to the Devourer who can give it to anyone they wish. There is no instinct or instruction manual for the Gate or the Key, and the Devourer must learn of these things on its own or with companions, but the Interloper will not reveal anything or give assistance.

Devourers represent apex predators. In additions to their impressive size changing abilities, they can move at bullet speeds while in their combat forms. Because they are connected to Interloper, they can also use its quantum data ability to perform quantum tunneling that can make them appear to teleport by magic. B

Being subconsciously tied to Interloper, the Devourer often has unseal powers of insight, instinctive comprehension of complex physics, and a general bias towards higher intellect than the rest of the trinity.

Extended Progeny and the Key

Each world will have only a single active Deceiver or Destroyer. If a Destroyer dies while a Deceiver remains, a ne Destroyer can be born or awakened in a family line, but there is never more than one active.

The Devourer is slightly different than the others. Just as their is only one of each active at a time, there is only one Devourer active on a world. However, this can be altered if the Devourer deciphers the function of the key and uses it to unlock additional abilities within itself. Only under these conditions is it possible to start a cycle over on the same world and exceed the limit of units on a single world. The most powerful ability unlocked by the key is the ability to continue hybridizing with the local populations. It is likely that doing such will dilute the powerful abilities of the trinity, but it does unlock the ability to have entire family lines and even multiples of them based on interaction and the birth of new hybrid children. At the time this was written, no Devourer ever discovered the true potential of the Key and how it can unlock their own potential as a Darkness-LIght hybrid being.