Rhulk

About

About him. Rhulk was born to his father Rhelik and mother Vrhuna on the planet Lubrae, a civilization that had been blessed by the Traveler but fell into a military dictatorship after it left. Rhulk lived with his clan of Wanderers in the Wildlands outside of the sole city on the planet, which was controlled by The Regime. The Wanderer clans were subject to frequent dangers, including monstrous wildlife that emerged under the Umbral Sun at night and the Stalkers sent by the Regime to hunt and kill the Wanderers who rejected the city's ways. When he was young, Rhulk witnessed his father kill Stalkers who threatened the clan with a brutality fueled by a bloodlust that Rhulk also felt. He confided in his father about their shared rage and was taught to hate the Regime by him, but when the rest of their clan began to shun Rhelik for his brutality he softened, much to Rhulk's disappointment.[7] His father attempted to teach him patience by making Rhulk watch as other Wanderers were killed by a hunting party of Stalkers and holding him back when Rhulk attempted to intervene. Rhulk was enraged and confused by his father's inaction and believed he was betraying his principles, and vowed to bring down the Regime.[8] Although the clan sought only to help others in need of assistance and to care for the land, the Stalkers continued to pursue them. During one battle several members of the clan were killed, including Fhent and one of Rhulk's clan-uncles. Rhulk fought back against the Stalkers and killed several of them, claiming their supplies and equipment as his own, including a Glaive and Sapphiric Converter. However, Rhelik was captured during the raid by the Stalkers and the rest of the clan, including Rhulk's mother Vrhuna, looked upon him with only concern and fear due to his brutality during the fight. Frustrated by what he perceived as their weakness, that night as the clan danced and sang in tribute to their survival and in honor of the dead, Rhulk ripped apart a pet Yhadt that belonged to some of the clan's children. The clan was horrified, and though Rhulk felt powerful in that moment he feared that made him a monster.[6] A year later, Rhulk was forced to live as an exile from his clan due to his bloodlust being viewed as a liability. While the clan had not been attacked again since that night, Rhulk stalked the area around the artificial Abyss which separated the Wildlands from the Regime's city. He hunted the Stalkers with his new weapon and tools seeking any sign of his father in the hopes of rescuing him and bringing him back alive to the clan. He named his glaive Rheliksward in honor of his mission. Although he killed many Stalkers over that year, he found no sign of his father and felt lost without Rhelik's guidance. His search came to an end when he encountered Rhelik dressed in a Stalker's uniform and was captured by other Stalkers under his command. Infuriated at his father's defection to the Regime, Rhulk believed him to be a coward who sought only survival instead of sticking by his principles.[9] After his previous failure with the Ahslid, Rhulk instead sought the Worms of Fundament; its progenitors had been previously uplifted by the Witness with the Sword Logic eons ago and the surviving Worm Gods now lived imprisoned far beneath the seas of the gas giant. Serving as its herald, Rhulk swam deep into the depths of the planet's ocean, where he was met with the Leviathan acting as the warden of their prison. Despite its repeated warnings to the disciple to turn from Darkness, Rhulk defiantly rebuked the massive creature before proclaiming that he would "rise" instead of "drown" with the Deep. Rhulk then grievously injured it in an instant as he held the Leviathan's rib in one hand and pushed aside its maimed body with the other.[23] The wounded Leviathan could not meet Rhulk's gaze as the disciple placed the rib beneath the beast's skull and raised its head to meet his eyes, proclaiming that the Worms it imprisoned in the depths belonged to neither it nor the Traveler, but to the Witness only. He dropped the discarded rib into the Worm Gods' dwelling before announcing his presence, uplifting the sediment of the seabed into a dense cloud from which he emerged before his captive audience.[24] Upon finding the Worm Gods at the deepest trenches of the planet, Xita, the Nurturing Worm greeted the Lubrean disciple only for him to callously scold her for attempting to manipulate him. As he fully knew of the Worms' plight and hunger from eons of their imprisonment, Rhulk offered the Worm mother a trade: the survival of her children in exchange for their eternal servitude to the Witness. He also promised sustenance for them in the form of the primitive ancestors of the Krill on Fundament's surface, to be given new purpose as fodder for her spawn to feed upon. Holding the rib out for her to grasp with her jaws, they both swam upward from their underwater prison, Rhulk dragging Xita in tow towards the surface and into her new prison aboard his Pyramid. Despite Rhulk's prior claim of the Worms' power for the Witness's behalf, Xita knew well enough that Rhulk sought the Sword Logic out of his own personal desire for domination as it offered to elevate himself as his master's equal despite its earlier objections. From her body, Rhulk created a parasitic strain of miniature Worms made of the Worm mother's living segments, small enough to be implanted into a host. He would set these so-called "larvae" adrift on Fundament's ocean, knowing full well they would reach the shores of the Osmium Court to find their respective sustenance.[25] As the Witness and Rhulk predicted, one of these larvae reached its intended target: the King of the Osmium Court. The dead white larvae spoke to the king of a cataclysm that would result from a Syzygy of Fundament's fifty-two moons (though no such danger actually existed). However, the King's mind would prove to be too feeble for the Witness's whispers, which drove him to insanity.[26] From above, Rhulk and the Witness both gazed upon the Osmium Kingdom's fall to the Helium Drinkers as they observed the escape of the king's surviving heirs: Aurash, Sathona, and Xi Ro. Knowing that the Traveller hidden amongst Fundament's numerous moons was ready to claim the trio for the Light, the Witness chose to claim them first, identifying Sathona as the most promising of the three. Feeding into her fear and pride, the Witness manipulated her desperation into seeking out the remaining Worm Gods in the depths of Fundament, setting the events which led to the creation of the Hive and the rise of Savathûn and her Hive siblings into apotheosis. Rhulk could only wince in envy at his master's suggestion that the future Witch Queen could one day stand alongside him as a fellow disciple.[27]

Personality

Rhulk is completely devoted to the Witness and despises the Guardians for their usage of Darkness. He is egotistical and arrogant, thinking he is above all who oppose him and even taunts the Guardians while fighting them. It seems that while in the Pyramid, he befriended the worm familiars and the Worm God, being the one who would have to create the worms for Savathûn's Brood. He seems to like experimenting with the worm familiars as well, as in the Acquisition section of the raid, one can see frozen Scorn in containers with worms attached to them. However, these experiments most likely failed. Despite befriending the Worm Familiars, Rhulk seemed to have a low opinion of the Hive, disliking being effectively exiled to Savathûn's Throne World, with Fynch humorously comparing it to babysitting Savathûn, whom Rhulk distrusted greatly. Even as a young warrior, Rhulk showed disturbing signs of bloodlust and callous brutality, which ultimately caused his own clan and family to fear him. As a Disciple, he was praised by the Witness for these qualities, as they better enabled him to follow the tenets of winnowing that the Witness itself idealized. Most notably and uniquely, Rhulk values honesty immensely, to the point that it meant everything to him, both as a Lubraean and as a Disciple. So much so, in fact, that he could not understand why the military regime on Lubrae was able to be honest about their shortcomings and misdeeds, while his parents had to lie to him about their motivations and actions. Rhulk is completely devoted to the Witness and despises the Guardians for their usage of Darkness. He is egotistical and arrogant, thinking he is above all who oppose him and even taunts the Guardians while fighting them. It seems that while in the Pyramid, he befriended the worm familiars and the Worm God, being the one who would have to create the worms for Savathûn's Brood. He seems to like experimenting with the worm familiars as well, as in the Acquisition section of the raid, one can see frozen Scorn in containers with worms attached to them. However, these experiments most likely failed. Despite befriending the Worm Familiars, Rhulk seemed to have a low opinion of the Hive, disliking being effectively exiled to Savathûn's Throne World, with Fynch humorously comparing it to babysitting Savathûn, whom Rhulk distrusted greatly. Even as a young warrior, Rhulk showed disturbing signs of bloodlust and callous brutality, which ultimately caused his own clan and family to fear him. As a Disciple, he was praised by the Witness for these qualities, as they better enabled him to follow the tenets of winnowing that the Witness itself idealized. Most notably and uniquely, Rhulk values honesty immensely, to the point that it meant everything to him, both as a Lubraean and as a Disciple. So much so, in fact, that he could not understand why the military regime on Lubrae was able to be honest about their shortcomings and misdeeds, while his parents had to lie to him about their motivations and actions. Despite his skills as a warrior, Rhulk appeared to lack the ability to strategically outwit his opponents or plan for future threats, as it was clear he valued only strength and not cunning. Though Rhulk fully expected Savathûn would betray the Witness somehow, and made it clear that if she made any wrong move, he would use the Upended to obliterate her throne world. However, when the betrayal came and Savathûn claimed the Light, not only was he caught flat-footed and trapped inside his own Pyramid, she even found a way to shut off the Upended, leaving Rhulk a completely powerless prisoner until she died. Furthermore, he couldn't foresee the Guardian Raid team using the energies of his own Pyramid against him, which ultimately led to his demise.

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