This Sandbox was created to clean up Dark Messiah's messy description. Let us know on this thread
if you think the description is polished enough.
Cleaned:
Needs More Work: Laconic, First Paragraph, Second Paragraph, Third Paragraph, Fourth Paragraph, Fifth Paragraph.
Laconic:
A ruthless villain or Anti-Villain who presents themselves as a savior and preaches about creating a utopia.Main Description:
It's a Crapsack World, and things are only getting worse. There are heroes, but the status quo won't let them cause more than a few ripples of good in a sea of Black-and-Gray Morality. Out of this ambiguity comes a savior, someone who brings hope to the downtrodden and preaches a utopian vision of peace and prosperity for all. However, they aren't afraid to fight fire with fire. In a world where moral absolutes are impossible to find, they will use underhanded tactics, preemptive strikes, and other acts of Radical Terrorism in their quest to bring about that perfect world.No, they're not The Antichrist (well... not necessarily anyway), but a character with delusions of (or actual feats to back up) being a Messianic Archetype. As a "messiah", the heroic version of this character doesn't hesitate to sacrifice themselves for the masses; in fact, they would die a thousand times and just as well accept a life of torture to reach their goal, but they will also not hesitate to grimly murder thousands in kind and torture many more to achieve that end. The thing is, they've graduated from the school of Utopia Justifies the Means. So while they'll hug orphans, they won't hesitate to make them with bizarre doctrinarian attacks on the Powers That Be. Naturally, they'll also likely be a Dark Shepherd, with at least part of their charisma coming from the fact that their followers are terrified of what will happen if they end up on their bad side.
More tragically, they may be a Fallen Hero (or fallen messiah) who has suffered so much that they have revised their belief system from rainbows to car-bombings. They'll usually be a Knight Templar, with enough good acts and intentions to stay from outright villainy, but they stand on very slippery and muddy ground. If the hero upsets their plans enough, or they gets another tragedy or Heroic BSoD, you can bet they'll go Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. After all, anyone who tries to improve the world through active effort is doomed to failure or Karmic Death, because Ambition Is Evil. Expect the sympathetic and/or successful ones to claim that there is No Place for Me There.
The "villainous" version of this character is usually hiding behind a more traditionally good messiah image. They'll try to get their followers to believe in their messianic message so their minions will be loyal, even if the messiah themselves doesn't believe it at all. May or may not be secretly spreading the Religion of Evil, but usually assembles a Cult around themselves; may or may not have good as their ultimate goal.
Almost always operates on Übermensch or Totalitarian Utilitarian mentality. May or may not be a Magnificent Bastard Byronic Hero. Contrast with All-Loving Hero, The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified. Has nothing to do with the video game Dark Messiah. See also Apocalypse Maiden, The Antichrist. When put against the All-Loving Hero or the Messianic Archetype, that's a Dueling Messiahs dynamic.
