Black Rider

"Doesn't take much - hardly a push. Oh, America - all-you-can-eat, all the time. Consume, consume. A swarm of locusts in stretch pants. And yet, you're all still starving because hunger doesn't just come from the body, it also comes from the soul."

- Famine

The Black Rider, also known as Famine and Dr. Huoxiu Otis, is the infamous Nephesh tasked with the duty of heralding the Armageddon and was recorded in the Book of Revelation. He is one of the primary members of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Overview
"One of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, he rides a black horse and carries a scale. He has the power to bring famine, and the right to end people's lives through their suffering."

- Compendium about the Black Horseman

The Black Rider, or Black Horsemen, is the third of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, riding a black horse, is popularly called Famine. The black color of the third horse symbolized death and famine, bearing a scale of famine.

The rider rides onward, denying the world life-sustaining food and bringing starvation, but being ordered by divine law to not harm oil or wine. The rider is shown holding a scale, which represents scarcity of food, higher prices and famine, likely as a result of the wars caused by the red horseman. Food will be scarce, but luxuries such as wine and oil will still be readily available.

The "a measure of wheat for a penny" from the King James Version of the Bible might not sound like a famine to modern ears, but in the NIV we read "a quart of wheat for a day's wages," which is a little clearer. While it's never identified as his own, it is implied that the voice John the Apostle hears coming from "the third of the four living creatures" comes from the Black Rider, making it the only horseman that actually vocalizes his intentions, the aforementioned raise in prices.

Appearance
Famine has the appearance of a short and scrawny young man of Asian descends, with short white hair and crazed blood-red eyes. His skin is said to be so white, it's easy to mistake him for a marble statue carved to perfection. He also mentioned having his fingernails painted black.

Due to him being the primordial embodiment of hunger, his body reflects this, being so thin and skeletal-like that he looks like the poster child for world hunger-relief campaigns. Under certain angles, his skin becomes slightly see-through and the thin layers of fat underneath can be seen. His mouth is described as being a bottomless pit filled with countless amounts of razor-sharp teeth and constantly dripping with saliva, mixed with blood and poison.

He wears the stereotypical attire of a waiter uniform, consisting of black trousers and a waistcoat over a white dress shirt and a black necktie. However, his attire always seemed to be covered in splashes of blood, much to his annoyance.

He also wears a mask that resembles a leather gimp mask with a black eye patch. It bears a lipless mouth with large, gnashing teeth, much like a restrained asylum monster in horror movies. The mask and the bolt-like accessories sticking out from his neck invoke a Frankenstein-like theme.

He is also mentioned to possess a total of six feathered-wings, each with a wingspan of around 2-meter, which resemble that of a vulture.

Personality
The embodiment of true hunger, Famine is constantly hungry, and lack of nourishment results in anger. He has an intolerance for failure, punishing any such occurrence with death.

Like many of his celestial aunts and uncles, he has a very low view of humanity, thinking them undeserving of being protected by Heaven, and stated that they only required a little push to fall to hunger and despair. The majority of his hatred toward humanity is because of his origins, being born from his father's despair over the sinful nature of humanity, thus making him more focused on the wickedness of humanity than their virtuous parts.

He is extremely sadistic, enjoying watching humanity slowly starve themselves to death, as well as devouring the damned souls of sinners from the various planets and universes he destroyed. According to Raphael, he prefers going out to "hunt his own meal".

He's shown to have a dark humor as shown with how he had written a diet book that focused on starving as the main dietary method. He is also the inventor of new food and nouvelle cuisine, which are particularly food that has more nutritional values in appearance than in the actual dish. Despite this, he was said to be genuinely shocked when he found out not only humans actually believed in his creations, they actually turned them into a popular diet trend.

He is annoyed by how lackluster his domain has become in the new era, believing that causing famine and wide-spread starvation isn't worth it anymore if all that he gains are several casual mentions about "children starving in Africa" in the newspaper.

Along with the other Horsemen, he's looking forward to heralding the Armageddon and bringing forth the end of Earth and the mortal world.

History
Famine was one of the first Nephesh, alongside War, Pestilence, and Death - ancient beings born directly from Raphael's despair over the sinful actions of humanity. He, in particular, was born the moment Abel's blood tainted the earth as the ground tried to hide away the evidences of the first murder at Cain's command, though he only came into form the moment the Mark of Cain was placed upon its wielder's body.

The moment he came into existence, he and his siblings were summoned to the Abrahamic God and they were tasked with the duty of heralding the Armageddon, releasing END onto the mortal world so that the world may be born again more beautiful, which they accepted with the greatest of honor.

Their first mission was on Tellus Mahte, with them marking the end of the Edenith era. However, due to the fact that several Nephilim managed to survive the Great Flood despite the Angels' direct order, their mission was deemed unsuccessful. Embarrassed, the four of them vowed to one day kill the last of the Nephilim and end the remnants of the Edenith civilization once and for all.

Afterward, they continue their duty, heralding the end throughout Creation, bringing forth the end to countless planets and universes, as well as the species and civilizations living within them.

At some point in history, the four of them founded the Apocalyptic Alliance, consisting of gods and mythological figures associated with the apocalypse within multiple mythologies and civilizations across the mortal world as means of minimizing the paperwork for both themselves and the Abrahamic Heavens. They also created the Lesser Horsemen, who act as their envoy and each embodies a concept that would ultimately lead to the Apocalypse.

In the late 1990s, he became bored and decided to write a dietary book known as "D-Plan Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful" under the alias Dr. Huoxiu Otis. It was a major success and was considered "The Diet Book of the Century!", to his surprise and amusement.

In the early 2000s, he created new food - a type of food indistinguishable from any regular food except for the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walker, and allowed someone to eat as much as they want and still lose weight... and hair, and skin tone, and if one ate enough of it long enough, vital signs. He also invented nouvelle cuisine in one of his trips to Paris, the sort of cuisine that consists of "a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate".

Abilities
TBA

Powers
TBA

Equipment
TBA

Harming, Trapping, & Banishing
TBA

Killing
TBA

Quotes
"Oho… my scales doth sway… Art thou the cause? Then show me thy power… and what thou canst do with this world…"

- Famine

"FOOLISH MORTALS! I AM FAMINE: THE THIRD RIDER; DEVOURER OF WORLDS; FEED ME YOUR SINS SO I MAY SMITE YOU FOR YOUR GREED..."

- Famine

"Oh blah blah blah, not everyone's domains is as always active as yours Redd. If I just stick too what I've been doing for the last eons, the most I will get is a newspaper's casual mention of "children starving in Africa". No, I want more than that. I want to find a way to make these stupid humans starving themselves to death... willingly."

- Famine to War

"When He broke the third seal, I heard the third living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.""

- Revelation 6:5 - 6:6

Trivia

 * Famine' appearance is based on Ken Kaneki from "Tokyo Ghoul".
 * His alias "Huoxiu" is a reference to Hong Xiuquan - A commander of the Taiping Rebellion, which resulted in droughts and famine killing estimately 60,000,000 people, the largest known number of people died due to famine in human history.
 * His last name is a reference to James Otis, who portrayed Famine from "Supernatural".
 * He owns a black 2008 Cadillac Escalade with a license plate that spells SIKN TRD ("sick and tired") in addition to his black motorbike.
 * He shares the same license plate with Pestilence.
 * According to Gabriel, among the Horsemen, he is the most familiar with humanity, though not in a good way.
 * He has a particular dislike of USA and its citizens, calling them "a swarm of locusts in stretch pants".