Ilya

Ilya is a reanimated corpse, brought back to life as part of a ritual by a cult worshipping a goddess of love. Their goal was to create a divine servant, a herald from their goddess that could commune directly with her and be a guiding light for their faith. However, things did not go as planned, and the ritual was a failure.

Though the corpse was brought back to life, things were not as they should have been. Perhaps there was a misstep. The ritual required the participation of two people who were in love to pour blessed water over the body - maybe their love was not true? Or maybe the body they had chosen was an unsuitable vessel, unfit in both life or death to contain their goddess's spirit. Whatever the case, Ilya woke, no memory of his past life and no understanding of the present. At first he was like a child, with no understanding of language, no familiarity with basic aspects of life, and certainly no voice of the goddess. Initially, some of the cult suggested that they kill him and try again, but as a corpse reanimated by the goddess he was still deemed sacrosanct. And so it was the cult's duty to raise him in secret, to teach him to attend to the cult's duties, and to determine his true nature.

Despite his sanctity, the cult's opinion of him shifted to resentment. With no word from their goddess, it seemed natural to blame this supposed 'messenger' who was for some reason unable to send or receive messages. Why was he such a failure? As Ilya became capable of speech and understanding- his learning was oddly accelerated, perhaps as a result of his partial divinity- it became clear that he felt nothing from the love-goddess at all. No messages. Nothing. It became doubtful to the cult whether his resurrection was not simply a fluke. However, this did not mean he had no abilities, which the cult soon discovered after asking Ilya to perform the duties of a cupid.

As a cupid, Ilya is capable of making people fall in love. Unfortunately, these are not successful pairings, no matter how compatible the two may seem. Relationships he creates fail in all manner of toxic, complicated, or bizarre ways, often catastrophically. Indeed, once Ilya realized he had this ability, he found himself eagerly drawn to make these pairings, only to be repeatedly disappointed by the inevitable failure. The cult, being the only people he ever met, were his guinea pigs for these experiments, and nearly destroyed the organization due to a chaotic tangle of cursed relationships. Despite the cult's mistreatment of him, Ilya got no pleasure from these misfortunes, disappointed that even his most carefully laid plans went awry. Although he should know better, he is incapable of resisting the urge to pair people up, hoping that this time, finally, he'll get it right and this one will work. Little does he understand or realize, of course, that his affliction is a deep-rooted curse from the goddess who gave him new life, and he will never find success.

Despite his experiences, Ilya's personality is cheerful and cordial. He has a gentle spirit, despite life's attempts to crush it, and his search for affection and validation is borderline pathological. He has an inferiority complex due to his status as a failure; a being not meant to exist, rejected by his own source. He is deeply curious about his past life, but has resigned himself to the idea that he may find no answers, for the cult destroyed any information about where exactly his body came from. While he is reasonably intelligent and rational, this does not seem to extend to his cupid abilities, as he is incapable of stopping himself from making others fall in love: each time, he believes it genuinely might work out. He can be persuaded not to do it on individual instances, and might even say he'll stop altogether, but the internal drive is so strong that he can never truly stop for long.