Henkle Osborn

Henkle Osborn is an Oneirian god, known for running the Infinite Tournament over the countless dream worlds that exist within the Tree of Dreams.

Henkle’s origins remain a mystery and no one can quite agree how he came to be. Some say he was an ordinary street performer that rose to godhood. Others say he was a Goar that mastered the dark arts far beyond anyone. And others believe him to be an extraordinarily powerful dark spirit. Ultimately, all the different alternate variants of the idea of Henkle came together as one being making every single one of these possible explanations both simultaneously true and simultaneously false. Whatever the case, he created the Infinite Tournament to facilitate his own desires.

During the Long Nightmare when the entire world fell asleep due to a spell by Praxis, Henkle took full advantage of the chaos as Antithesis threatened to destroy the world.

Appearance

Henkle has no true defined appearance but he commonly appears as a tall green-skinned man with a top hat, a tuxedo and a cane. He has a snake-like tongue, and he can also transform into a giant snake, capable of slithering through multiple dream worlds at once.

Naturally, Henkle has appeared in the mythologies of many Swen cultures. He is often depicted as a malevolent trickster god.

Personality

Henkle is cruel and sadistic with a dark sense of humor. He is a master manipulator and knows how to toy with people’s emotions. He knows what to say exactly when to say it to get under someone’s skin. Unlike some dark spirits which feed off or encourage negative emotions for sustenance, Henkle purely messes with and tortures others for no reason than his own amusement. Henkle is bored and wants to be entertained, but he also wishes to entertain others. He is incredibly charismatic especially around other gods.

Abilities

Henkle is said to be both omnipotent and omniscient over the dream worlds. He sees every iteration of every possible dream in every mortal that has ever lived or will live. He can also shape and twist any dream world to his will to look like anything, and is able to cross between them at will. His virtually unlimited power has made him very bored so he purposely limits himself so that he can experience the thrills of basic human emotions.

Perhaps one of Henkle’s most notable abilities is his mastery of soul magic, being able to completey prevent someone from dying. However, he uses this power to torment others. That means if someone chooses to take their own life in an attempt to escape Henkle’s torture, Henkle will simply bring them back to life to experience the torture again.

Henkle is believed to be unkillable. If his current form is destroyed, an incarnation in another dream world will take his place. As every action creates a diverging parallel universe where the opposite action occurred, Henkle will always survive every attempt to kill him. The only theoretical way to defeat him would be prevent the inception of the idea of Henkle from ever occurring anywhere across Erudite. Should someone ever think of him, he’ll always come back. Perhaps the only true way to defeat him is to give Henkle exactly what he wants: a worthy fight.