The Jennis Effect page 2
In the years after the departure of their god of bad luck, Eutowe became an unbearable place of smiles and sunshine. (Eutowe has become the inspiration of the modern word “Utopia,” a place of laughter and rainbows, where nothing ever goes wrong.) The entire civilization quickly collapsed under the weight of their good fortune and the gods found themselves utterly miserable. Too late they realized the pitfalls of having too much of a good thing, and they now roam the universe seeking their lost brother. Every so often they think they catch a glimpse of him, but he vanishes all too quickly. Thorppe knows they are after him, and believes it is still for his misfortune of being, well, unfortunate, so he continues to find new hosts in order to stay hidden.  
 
Thorppe is understandably protective of his hosts for one very obvious reason: once the life-force of the host is extinguished, Thorppe becomes exposed to any who seek him. Therefore, despite the turmoil caused by his divine influence, Thorppe shields his host from the most direct effects of misfortune. Bad luck emanates from the host and swirls around him, as if he stood in the calm eye of a storm, untouched and unscathed. The host does, however, suffer indirectly through loss of employment, loss of home and possessions, loss of loved ones, and so on-but not loss of the host's life, which is Thorppe's single, selfish goal. Thorppe loses some of his omnipotence when he submits himself to a host-this helps him keep a low profile, and it keeps the being completely unaware that it is possessed. Over the years, he has learned to select his hosts wisely, (he will possess any living entity-animal, plant-but prefers humanoids) and often will enter an infant as to avoid suspicion when the host "suddenly" becomes unlucky. Because Thorppe has existed since before the advent of our own civilization, it is conceivable that he is the genesis, through contact with his various hosts, of all the purely "jinxed" items in history. This theory can probably never be proven given the span of time Thorppe has existed and the lack of records detailing where he was when-and in whom at the time. Even Thorppe himself has lost track of the countless thousands of hapless hosts he has hidden in. But of those he can recall so far, his favorite hiding place—which has given him the greatest and longest success in eluding his divine brethren—is his most recent home: Jennis.