Dima didn’t look like that all the time. This poor soul had the misfortune of standing too close to a magical cataclysm that was meant to rip spacetime asunder... and it did.
Most didn’t survive this. He is one of the few unlucky ones that did. Baleful energy warped his body, first in the small way - but not unlike being subjected to a lethal dose of radiation, the damage was done, and what was a scar on his chest slowly spread and overtaken most of his body, mutating him into a form not unlike a demonic entity. It attracted attention - the righteous deciding Dima is a threat to be destroyed, the wicked deciding that Dima is a weapon to be used, or avatar of annihilation to be appeased. He’d dodged all of those, and using those same energies that shifted him so against them.
For this warped life was the path of pain - pain so great it forced him into an opiate habit - but with pain also came power - power of destruction, of change, power of sovereigns of the dark. And so, his shadow became long indeed.
