The Changing God

"The Tides have proven to be an extremely fruitful path of exploration. The Tabaht don't realize what they have unearthed. They saw these trinkets as just more numenera, but these forces may even have the power to turn back death itself. I certainly hope so for her sake."

 is a character in Torment: Tides of Numenera.

Background

 * The text below contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the story. You were warned.

The elusive entity responsible for much of the misery permeating the Ninth World, the Changing God was originally a man like any other, living in the city of Sagus Cliffs. He rose to prominence as a genius when the Tabaht invaded the city in their relentless campaign of conquest and expansion. As the heart of the Protectorate was about to fall to their forces, the genius who would become the God unmoored the city in time, using ancient engines buried below the City. Without support and without communications, the Tabaht forces were dismantled by the defenders in a brutal campaign of attrition among the crumbling blocks of Sagus Cliffs.

Yet the victory was not complete, for Miika, his daughter, was wounded in the fighting by a Tabaht weapon. Her condition was stabilized by the Changing God, who began to look for a cure. Following the breadcrumb trail of clues, he uncovered a connection between the Tabaht and an ancient civilization, called the Dalad. The Dalad people were believed to have existed long before the Ninth World. 'Dalad' is probably not what they called themselves. Their true name is unknown. They made great use of a force referred to as The Tides, using them especially to affect individual psyches. The civilization of the Dalad did not decline but was completely wiped out by a creature called the Sorrow. So the Sorrow must have destroyed the Dalad because of how they abused the Tides. If the weapon that caused Miika's illness was from this same civilization, it became clear that the sickness must have been tidal in nature.

Beyond tying the surrimene crystal the Tabaht used to the Dalad, the knowledge allowed the Changing God to figure out the key to consciousness transfer. It simultaneously became the best explanation for the Tabaht's success. Without the Underspine, they were little more than humans of above average intelligence, in the Changing God's opinion. His newly acquired knowledge allowed him to try and save Miika's soul through cloning. He transferred her consciousness into a new, resulting in a seeming success. After this transfer, he performed the procedure on himself, creating the first of the castoffs, the Spectral Adviser. To ensure his survival, he initiated a fail safe procedure to transport him away should something happen to him or the laboratory. It was a shrewd move, as his actions woke up the Sorrow.

In the meantime, he laboriously analyzed the crystal. The surrimene crystal remained unknown for some thirty years, until the future Changing God realized that it simply needed a command word. He brought it to his laboratory for further analysis, just as the Sorrow closed in on it...

Trivia

 * The Changing God seems to use a different name with each different shell. While wearing the appearance of what would become the Last Castoff, the Changing God used the name Adahn. This is a reference to Planescape: Torment, where the player can lie about his name being Adahn; doing so several times leads to the creation of a confused character named Adahn, a product of the power of belief in the Planescape setting.
 * According to Casmeen and Mimeon, the Changing God never stays in a body for more than a decade or two before moving on.