#7 – Mammon – Legendary Power

| November 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

Mammon

Name: Lawrence Simmons
Other Aliases: Greed, Hunger, Avarice, Great Old Vice, Scourge of Babylon, and Famine
Related to: Other Aspects, Death, Destruction, Gaia, Chaos
Powers Consumed: Greed: 540 BC, Beauty: 1204 AD
Marital Status: Divorced, Tyche – Lesser Power associated with Fortune

Height: 6 feet 0 inches
Weight: 150 pounds
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Distinguishing features: Gaunt, just shy of appearing starved or horrifically obese and appearing barely able to move.

Curses: People who interact with him frequently develop greed or hunger issues, too much interaction eventually causes madness and death.

Curses: Love of the finest things in life or a complete disgust with them. As likely to be found in a $5000 a week hotel as in an alley in a major metropolis. Both extremes are temporary.

History

Mammon began his life as a swirling energy bound to the lifeforce of Gaia. After a time he manifested and lived among humanity once their quest for understanding made them develop what would one day be known as the gods. Disguising themselves among men, the Aspects gathered energy from their relationships with humanity.

Mammon’s early interactions caused strife and discord so he learned to stay with humans for only a while and then keep moving. This became his lifestyle throughout the millennia. Whenever mankind created cities or civilization, Mammon was one step behind them making sure their need for things never faded.

But just as many civilizations prospered from his appearance, they would often fall just as quickly if they could not temper their greed or avarice. In Mammon’s mind, the most terrible of the great cities lost was Babylon. Though he was not personally responsible, one of the other Great Powers worshiped during that time was a friend and ally and her madness caused the great city’s downfall.

Today

Mammon is considered to be one of the legendary powers of Old Earth. He currently resides in the body of a glutton named Lawrence Simmons. Mammon will normally disguise his appearance from other powers in order to maintain his anonymity. He will do his best to maintain his human host shell and a shell can live for as long as he remembers to treat it well or it dies due to circumstances outside of his control.

While greed in the human species has made him, potentially, one of the most powerful of the Modern Powers, he is disgusted with the complete and wholesale greed the human race is current exercising. Adding insult to injury as the power of Greed continues to grow in the human population, the price on his head continues to grow as the impending Aspect War causes the great powers to begin to ally and chose sides.

Having nearly been killed nearly sixty years ago and losing his memoriesduring the last Aspect War, which was disguised as World War II, he wandered the America West during the early 1950’s and met his former wife Tyche during that time. Since he was not aware of his powers, it was one of the longest periods he spent as a mortal being. Strangely enough, he is nostalgic of that period of his very long life and prefers to avoid interacting with any of the great powers, or utilizing his considerable abilities if he can help it.

Powers and Abilities

Mammon’s physical appearance belies his body’s vast spiritual energies. As such he is possessed of superhuman strength and physical endurance, no matter how fat or thin his human shell appears to be. Possessing the strength of ten men, he is a capable combatant against even the most formidable of human beings. Against Powers whose specialties are physical confrontation such as War, he would prefer to not engage in combat. Their centuries of direct warfare give them an advantage even his great age and experience cannot offset. But he has other abilities that aid him against the other Powers and that is the reason most are loath to confront him.

As a Great Old One, Mammon’s powers are both vast and subtle. His very presence can inspire humans to great feats of generosity or parsimony. He has the power to influence the outcome of supposedly random events, and can completely prevent things that are supposed to happen from ever taking place. If confronted by a firearm for example, it will simply appear to jam or misfire; one of the reasons many of the Great Old Ones still use hand to hand weaponry to resolve their issues.

To touch Mammon is to know the immediate horror of your greatest need, hunger, lust, or greed and to be completely overcome by it. Few beings, even the Great Powers can withstand this because Mammon has over the millennia consumed the lesser Powers of Greed and Beauty and adding them to his powers. Other Aspects now seek Mammon’s powers and his life because of the incredible lifeforce associated with his Aspect in the modern world.

About the Artist: 

Mammon appears in my collection of short stories published as Hayward’s Reach. You can read his story titled: Mammon

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Category: 2011, Fantasy, Horror

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