ENDLESS	BIOGRAPHY
Created by Neil Gaiman

TEAM DATA

Former Members:  Death, Delirium, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction, Dream,  Dream II,
Occupation: Anthropomorphic Personifications
Base of Operation: Universal (possibly Omniversal); their individual "realms"
First Appearance: Sandman Vol. 2 #21 (November 1990)
Creators: Neil Gaiman

OVERVIEW

A family of seven beings who personify ideas which are a constant for sentient beings everywhere: Destiny, Death, Dream, Desire, Despair, Destruction and Delirium.

MEMBERSHIP

Member	First Appearance	Joined	Status	Note
Death			Active
Delirium			Active
Desire			Active
Despair			Active
Destiny			Active
Destruction			Active
Dream	Sandman Vol. 2 #1		Deceased
Dream II			Active

HISTORY

The Endless came into being billions of years ago at various times. Destiny was supposedly "born" shortly before the universe was created, Death came along as soon as the first life-forms came into being, Dream existed when the first living thing began to become self-aware, and the other Endless quickly followed in order of Destruction, Desire and Despair, and Delight (Delirium). Even though they were not born in our sense of the word and they didn't have parents (except maybe the universe itself), they call themselves siblings.

In the beginning during the so-called "Dawn Days" when the universe was still very young, the Endless were only six in number. Desire and Despair were a single entity whose name is unknown. However, for some reason still unknown, they split into two separate beings and became twins.

Soon after Despair was murdered by a mortal. When this occurred, a new entity that formerly represented another aspect of Despair arose to take the place of the old Despair and the murderer was condemned to an eternity of torment. When the Endless came to the Old Necropolis for the funeral of the original Despair, the citizens refused to bury her. As a result, the Old Necropolis was completely destroyed by decree of Destiny, and it was centuries before the new Necropolis Litharge arose to take its place.

During this same period, another significant change began to happen to the Endless. Delight started to slowly lose her sanity and ability to "hold herself together." Eventually this deterioration became complete and Delight's name was changed to Delirium. Again, the cause of this is unknown, but it has been theorized that this change was the result of something fundamental that changed in the minds of sentient beings everywhere. Delirium's brother Destruction has said that Delirium will someday change again.

Somewhere along the line Desire formed a vendetta against Dream, supposedly because it simply didn't like Dream. The first known incident between the two started when Desire secretly caused Dream to fall in love with Nada, a princess of an ancient and forgotten African civilization. Nada slept with Dream, but then rejected him when she realized a union between a mortal and one of the Endless would result in disaster; disaster which quickly claimed her people and society. When Dream continued to threaten and plead with her, she finally killed herself. Hurt and enraged, Dream condemned her soul to Hell, where it remained in pain and torment for thousands of years. Much later this action would cause serious consequences for Dream.

During the days when gods roamed the world, the Endless gathered for the wedding of Dream's mortal son, Orpheus. When Orpheus' bride Eurydice died, Destruction suggested that Orpheus to go to the realm of the dead to reclaim her soul. Unfortunately, this resulted in Orpheus forever losing Eurydice and in his body's destruction. Since he had already bargained with Death, his head would not die and Dream refused to help him, but established a priesthood to watch over what was left of his son.

At some point during the seventeenth century, Destruction, who had fallen in love with Earth and humanity, became reluctant about his role and his involvement with the upcoming Atomic Age with its world wars and nuclear bombs. Eventually he decided to forsake his duties and roam the planet in human form. He called a family meeting in which he announced his intentions and asked to no longer be considered one of the Endless. In modern times, Delirium, who began to miss Destruction, decided to go on a quest to find him. She convinced Dream, who wanted relief from a recent romance gone bad, to help her. After a long and difficult journey around the world, Dream discovered the only one who can tell him of Destruction's whereabouts was his lost son Orpheus. In exchange for giving Orpheus the death he wanted, Dream could learn where Destruction was. After they finally found him and spoke with him, Destruction left to explore new parts of the universe while Dream had to fulfil his bargain and kill his own son. This would trigger a chain of events that would cause Dream to engineer his own suicide.

Soon afterwards, the Furies came after Dream for spilling the blood of Orpheus. Dream finally realized what he had (or what he wanted) to do and took Death's hand. So Dream became the second of the Endless to die. In his place came Daniel Hall, an infant who was born in dreams and was somehow engineered to take Dream's place by Dream himself before his death.

This new Dream became more compassionate and human than his former self was, which was perhaps what the original Dream had wanted.

After this incident, the Endless mourned the death of the first Dream and came to accept Daniel as their new brother. What, if anything, is happening among the Endless now is unknown.

POWERS AND WEAPONS

The Endless are virtually omnipotent with powers limited only by secret "rules" older than time itself. They can manifest anywhere in the universe and even in more than one place at once. They appear only as they choose to appear or, in some cases, as we choose them to appear. They also have considerable control over mortal minds and even reality itself. The exact limits of the Endless' powers, if any, are unknown. Further the various members of the Endless have virtually absolute control over their individual "functions" (Desire controls emotions, Dream controls dreams, etc.).

The Endless each possess an individual "sigil" which allows them to communicate with each other whenever they wish.

It is believed that the Endless, who have existed as long as the universe, will themselves die when life itself ceases to exist. Only Death will eventually outlast both her siblings and the universe itself.

CHRONOLOGY

For a definitive list of appearances of Endless in chronological order click here

PROFILE REFERENCES

Who's Who in the DC Universe #15 (January 1992)