Payaphim

The term Payaphim is a combination of the words payaso (Spanish word for "clown") and Seraphim. Note that Payaphim is the plural form, while the singular form is Payaph.

They feed off of emotions and dreams, including nightmares. They can travel into different Stories to feed off of various sentient life. They can shapeshift, enter people’s minds to induce certain dreams/nightmares, cause illusions in order to cause emotions, and have various circus related powers, though more often than not, a given Payaph will specialize in a particular ‘role’ (strongman, knife thrower, ringleader, etc). The act of causing intense emotions/dreams in a person in order to feed is referred to as “putting on a show” or just a Show.

They live a relatively long time, about a decade or two more than the average human. They are very sturdy and resilient, being able to take a lot of physical damage. They don’t seem to be able to die by anything other than natural death by old age (i.e. “when their time comes”), at which point they simply fade away over the course of a few months. Even if they are completely annihilated, every atom of their being destroyed, they’ll just completely regenerate later on.

Appearance

Payaphim are essentially monster clowns that exist outside of Stories. How monstrous they look can vary from individual to individual, though they generally appear somewhat humanoid with odd proportions. If they specialize in a particular 'role' as mentioned previously, they will often take on an appearance that suits their chosen role. For example, a strongman Payaph being at least somewhat muscular, or a daredevil Payaph being near-constantly on fire.

Origins

Payaphim are born from particularly intense dream energy which travel from Stories into the Eternal Carnival. This location is a layer of existence 'within' the Nothingness, though it is neither a Miran nor its own Story. As its name suggests, it is a gigantic and impossibly endless carnival/circus grounds, with many rides, food stands, circus tents, and so on,

However, that does not explain why they always appear specifically as clown-like entities in their base form. Then again, it does explain their dream/nightmare related abilities, as well as their shapeshifting and magical skills. Some Payaphim may, very rarely, have memories from the person whose dream they came from in the first place.

Note that some Payaphim may refer to others as being relatives of some kind, even though they are not truly biologically related, not even originating from the same dream. It is unknown why some Payaphim do this, even to the Payaphim themselves.

Abilities

Most Payaphim simply 'appear’ fully formed, with their name and abilities known. Like humans, Payaphim have preferences on what they enjoying eating, and can also have allergies to certain types of emotions/dreams. Holes will appear on their bodies to indicate that they have an allergy, although the location of the hole has no correspondence with the type of allergy (allergic to nightmares involving animal phobias, allergic to all positive emotions and dreams, etc). Note that Payaphim cannot feed off of their own emotions to satisfy their hunger (this would be like a human eating their own arms and legs for sustenance, it can’t work forever!), but they can feed off of other Payaphim.

In addition, a Payaph can eat food and drink liquids like most living beings do, and derive sustenance from them. Thus, a Payaph can effectively become a “vegetarian” in a way, feeding off of food instead of emotions and dreams. However, much like a human eating a vegan/vegetarian diet, Payaphim must eat much more than a regular human in order to satisfy their energy needs. Payaphim do not produce waste, essentially converting anything they eat into pure energy. Still, it is not as much energy as they would get from their normal diet of emotions and dreams, hence why they need to eat so much more food if they choose this type of diet.

Anatomically speaking, Payaphim are made up of a ‘gel-like' substance, even their ‘clothes’. Thankfully their outer layer is not sticky/sweet/gel-like in texture nor smell, and for all intents and purpose are pretty much the same as in other humanoid species. The gel aspects do not come into play until a Payaph starts getting cut/torn apart. In essence, they bleed goo/gel, but can recover quickly. Each Payaph has a unique color to their inner gel. They do not seem to have bones, or otherwise anything that could be comparable to organs or other humanoid body structures.

The Payaph Code

They have a sense of morals and rules that every Payaph is expected to follow. Indeed, there has yet to be a Payaph that has strayed from these rules in recent times (and only one in the past, who was overthrown by other Payaphim for the danger she posed to others):

1. Putting on a show for negative emotions and nightmares should not involve things that would be considered “shock value”. Murder, rape, intense gore, pedophilia, torture, etc. Not only is this considered a “cheap” way of producing negative emotions, all Payaph, even those who would be considered downright evil in other regards, consider the use of “shock value” to be repulsive. According to some Payaph, the emotions that result from such a shock value Show do not taste as good as negative emotions produced in other ways.
2. Using a person’s phobias against them in a Show is fair game, although many Payaphim prefer to avoid using fears in such a way that might cause a panic attack. This may cause their emotions to go out of control in a way that the Payaph would not want to feed off of. In addition, emotional panic on this level supposedly does not taste as good as other emotions. Related to this rule, Payaph generally do not target people with severe mental disorders, especially those that get to the point where the person cannot function on their own. In general, the reasoning is similar to the rule on shock value Shows, in that it’s a rude way of producing any sort of emotion. Besides that, many Payaphim will agree that it is unfair to target someone who may not being able to control or express their emotions very well in the first place.
3. Killing a target is not allowed, unless the situation gets to a point where a Payaph’s life is in danger and they must fight back. This would be like killing a cow and throwing away all of the meat. However, Payaphim can attack targets to cause an emotional reaction, it would simply being non-lethal and without cheap tactics. Some Payaphim prefer to give themselves an additional limitation, in the form of not attacking at all unless attacked first. In this case, they will go and heckle their target into attacking them first. This limitation is purely a self-preferred limit, but those who chose to do it will take it very seriously. Causing some sort of random incident or chaos that could result in others being hurt does not count toward this limitation. This is because there is no particular target in these cases.
4. If a Payaph has entered a Story, they must abide by the rules and limitations of the Story. For example, in a medieval setting with no magic, they must assume a human disguise, only dropping said disguise while putting on a show. However, they must be careful such that either the humans do not suspect the Payaph is magical, or that the humans can write it off as “just a bad dream”, drugs, etc.
5. Payaph are allowed to assume main roles in the Story, even as the main villain, but they are not allowed to be the main hero. In addition, they can never let the existence of Payaphim be known in that Story, so they must be able to explain their abilities away within the limitations of the Story.
6. Payaphim do not like to cheat, though what counts as “cheating” may be different from Payaph to Payaph. For the most part, cheating seems to be where someone essentially “skips to the climax of a show” instead of building up the emotion, and also where someone takes an easy way out when there is a more entertaining/emotion-producing way.
7. Related to the last point, when putting on a show, not only does it have to result in some preferable emotions/reactions, but it must also be entertaining for the Payaph as well. If they do not get any enjoyment out of the show itself (they can’t feed off of their own enjoyment, but they still like to feel it), then they will stop early, or just not bother at all.
8. In general, Payaphim will put on a show for positive emotion for those who are ‘good’ or at least neutral in disposition. They will put on a show for negative emotion for those who are ‘bad’. ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ is usually defined by the rule or morals of the current Story. However, regardless of the Story, Payaphim tend to dislike excessive hedonism (especially those that focus on pleasure derived from an excess of bad things, such as drugs, unhealthy sex, etc), and most have a tendency to put on a show for negative emotions for people who are hedonistic.
9. Payaphim abstain from things like drugs, smoking, alcohol, etc.

The Payaphim Top 10

For some reason, Payaphim keep track of their 10 strongest individuals. It is unknown who started this list, but it is presumed it was started by a group of Payaphim out of boredom. The list updates if anyone is replaced, whether it be due to someone getting stronger/weaker, or someone being outright killed off.

The following is the current Payaphim Top 10, from strongest to weakest:

1. Zir0; agender, ace; Name is just pronounced the same as English “zero”, agender (xe/ey/they) wanderer, no real name; Ring leader (technically)
2. “Lord of Woe” (Real name: Löwen Obadiah Lowell, first name combination of German for lion and Owen), whole name together spells LOL as a sort of irony; demiman (they/he), gay; Has his own castle somewhere called "Pantomime d’Lunaire” (A dream castle, name based on Phantomile and Lunatea), has a condition where he is allergic to positive emotions and positive dreams, so he can only feed on negative ones (hole in stomach); Sad clown
3. “Comedic Genius Locus” (Genevieve P. Locust); woman, straight; Also known as Geni (pronounced Jenny), P stands for Persis; The circus itself
4. “Yo-yo Kid” (Yuuyuu Văn); bigender (he/she), gay-ace; First name is spelled (優勇), excellent” and “brave” characters; Twirling, juggling objects, etc.
5. “Glamour Moon” (Yue Mun); woman, lesbian; First name is Chinese for moon, last name is a Korean family name that is sometimes Anglicized to Moon; She has a wife who works as the food-maker of a circus; Acrobatics & dancing
6. “The Jester Maestro”; man, ace; Also JesterMan, Eminence, and various other aliases throughout the Stories he's inserted himself into. No one knows his past, not even Jest himself (so he says), but he’s pretty sure his real name is Jericho (or what he considers his real name, it was given to him by a dear friend long ago); Strongman
7. “Ropewalker" (Najib Funambul); man, straight; He couldn’t be bothered to think of a better title. He fights with his tightrope pole. Last name comes from “funambulism”, a fancy term for tightrope walking; has a condition where he’s allergic to nightmares involving animal phobias (hole in face); Tightrope walker
8. “Madama LaGuardia” (Hilta S. LaGuardia); woman, bi; S stands for Sabré. She has knifes and swords stuck in her body; Knife thrower and sword swallower
9. “Ms. Merry” (Merry Mary Anderson); woman, straight (has a husband who is a slapstick Payaph); From “merry Andrew”, a term for a type of clown. She has a husband who is a wimpy/scrawny slapstick clown, and they are a loving couple; Beastmaster (skilled as a Seamstress of Animalistic Flesh, makes chimeras out of roadkill to give them a happier second life)
10. “Rex the Reckless” (Richard Ross Rhubarb); man, aro-straight; Kind of a jerk to most people, and usually very crass/harsh/blunt, but genuinely respects the other Payaphim on this list; Daredevil, fire breathing, motorcycle stunts, etc.

Examples of Payaphim

The following are examples of named Payaphim in the Storyverse setting, besides those already listed in the Payaphim top 10:

• Penelope, girlfriend of Zach and younger sister of Löwen.
• The Queen of Strife, mother of Löwen and Penelope, former Rank 1, was genuinely evil and overthrown by the other Payaphim.
• The Apathetic King, father of Löwen and Penelope, he was stitched to the Queen of Strife in order to produce children (think like anglerfish males onto females).
• Dan D. Lyon, a member of the Morbid Mayhem!! crew.
• King and Kevin, two twin Payaphim (i.e. they were born from the same dream). They are not on good terms with each other, with King despising Kevin, and Kevin being terrified of King.