Personality: Beltain is arrogant and cruel. He is supremely confident in his own powers and intelligence. While capable of physical combat he prefers to direct others: he will sacrifice his followers callously to wear down an opponent, before entering the fighting himself.
Personal Interests: Acquiring further knowledge of black magic.
History: Beltain is a demon, a demi-god of the ancient world fallen into corruption and black magic. The circumstances of his birth, and his transformation into a demonic being have not yet been revealed. It is possible that, as the only member of the Horde to commonly use a title, that Beltane was originally from a noble family. At some point in the past, Beltane’s physical body was destroyed, but through his knowledge of magic, Beltain was able to preserve his existence by converting his body into Darkforce energy. Why Beltain was not affected by the mysterious disappearance of all other beings related to Darkforce energy has not yet been explained, although it can be theorised that his magical skill protected him. Most of Beltain’s life is a mystery, until he was detected by Samhain and convinced to join the Horde, a group of powerful demons devoted to bringing the Elder God Chthon out of his dimension of exile and recreating Hell on Earth.
Beltain first appeared with the Horde in an attack on the dimension of the Crimson Dawn, where he believed the infamous Darkhold spell book to be located. After a battle with Neo-X Beltane escaped with the book, only to discover that it was a forgery and useless to the Horde’s plans.
The Horde then began to acquire powerful psychics and mystics, placing them in a machine called the Chaos Engine, located in their base in Wundagore Mountain. The Chaos Engine drained the power of its victims enabling the Horde to perform a ceremony called the Blood Canticle, which greatly increased the power of the Horde’s leaders. For the others, this meant that the demon spirits were able to fully consume and replace the host bodies who had been carrying them. This was clearly not the case for Beltane, who needed no host body. Whatever the exact effects were, Beltain was clearly much more powerful following the ritual.
Beltain next led an attack on the X Mansion, to capture more victims for the Chaos Engine and specifically to capture Freelove, who the Horde had identified as a potential host body for Chthon’s return. Beltane confronted Psihawk, and was able to convince the Neo-X leader to give himself up to the Horde, by threatening the lives of his friends. As their demonic invasion of earth began, Beltain and his task force then returned to Wundagore, needing only to complete one final ritual to summon Chthon and secure their conquest of the Earth.
When the Hellions launched their attack on Wundagore, Beltain sensed Shade’s use of a darkforce portal and trapped the Hellions in the Darkforce Dimension. Here he revealed to Shade that he was responsible for the disappearance of Shade’s mother, and , we may assume, the other Darkforce controlling super-humans on earth as well. Shade was able to save his team-mates and he and Beltane battled for control of the Darkforce Dimension. The outcome of this battle has yet to be revealed, but Beltain was not present when the rest of the Horde were defeated by the combined efforts of Spitfire, the Hellions and Neo-X.