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The Last Castoff | ||||||||||||
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The Last Castoff is the player-character of the Torment: Tides of Numenera video game.
Background
They are the last of a long series of discarded bodies of the Changing God, a way for this powerful mortal to extend his life thanks to a Numenera, an advanced relic of the past. Like all Castoffs before, the last and most recent one attains independent consciousness just after the former host abandons the body. This consciousness is the player's role, taking charge of processing decisions. It is the inflection point for a player's identity in the world.
The castoff body appears to have some residual capacity for memories, emotions, envisaging choices and even an inner monologue. Being created by the Changing God and for a time his vessel makes the Last Castoff another target of The Sorrow, an entity reflexively awakened by the actions of the Changing God and seeking to destroy him and all of his creation. The player will assign the Last Castoff's gender, either male or female, but won't be able to customize their appearance otherwise.
Well aware of the existential threat from The Sorrow, the Last Castoff's only hope is trying to find and reconcile with the originator before death catches them both. In this quest, they will encounter other Castoffs, making allies and enemies in the process, even possessing their minds for a time through the Meres, another particular Numenera attuned to the Tides. The character must travel to the Ninth World and beyond, changing forever the life of many of those met along the way.
The body of the Last Castoff is in some way immortal: A common thread of intelligence survives the individual incarnations. Each time castoff and death comes, by falling terminally to the ground, its agency survives buried deep in its own damaged mind, in something called the Castoff's Labyrinth. From there the Last Castoff can step by step master and free and regenerate themself, following a higher voice. The Last Castoff also has a degree of control over pain, being able to transfer it on to other people or take on himself the pain of others.
The quest of the Last Castoff is linked to a question : ' What does one life matter ? '.
Trivia
When he was still using the corpse of the future Last Castoff, the Changing God used the name Adahn.[1] [This is a reference to Planescape: Torment, where the player can lie about his name being Adahn; doing so several times leads to the creation of a confused character named Adahn, a product of the power of belief in the Planescape setting.[2]]
