Famine

Famine, the second horseman/horseperson of the apocalypse, also known as Dr. Raven Sable takes the appearance of a human man. He's got dark skin, short black hair, dark brown almost black eyes, and a neat, short beard. His 'inhuman' appearance, which he hides, is just him with sharp, spiky teeth, and a slightly sunken look. Like the other Horsemen, he's immortal, capable of shapeshifting, and has powers related to famine. And, like the others, he's also capable of using his powers the opposite way, creating food and making it more healthy– he just chooses not to because he's Famine, why would he do that? His mount used to take the form of a horse, but in modern days, it takes the form of a motorcycle. He can still change it back to a horse, of course.

Calm, sophisticated, affable and dapper, Famine is by far the most self-aware of the four: he regularly signs autographs with biblical quotations relating to himself, enjoys eating at a restaurant at 666 5th Avenue New York, and muses aloud that one of the skeletal models fawning over him reminds him of "an old, dear friend" (Death). He is also one of the cruelest of the group, taking great delight in the self-induced suffering of his victims; for good measure, when one of his employees is shown to be enjoying his work, Dr Sable quickly takes steps to have the man fired. In total, Famine's character is best summed up as: "If you had told him there were starving children in Africa, he'd have felt proud you'd noticed." Famine's symbolic items are a set of scales (which symbolize the way food might be weighed out during a famine and the dwindling resources of the world).

Famine is a confident being. Dressed in a suit, he presents himself as a well put together individual. In keeping with his image as a respectable businessman, he usually dresses in expensive suits, but regardless of his attire, he is always clad in black Along with the other Horsemen, he looks forward to the end of the world. As the horseman Famine, he encourages people to stop eating, and when people are around him they often feel hungry.

Famine comes off as the most human of the four Horsepeople, because he has the most interaction with humans. He's somewhat close to his accountant Frannie. He knows her well enough to have bought her a laptop computer “as a personal present,” which implies a certain amount of familiarity. He takes pleasure in his job: “Sable grinned, the honest, open grin that goes with job satisfaction, perfect and pure. He was just killing time until the main event, but he was killing it in such exquisite ways. Time, and sometimes people”.

While waiting for the apocalypse, he masquerades/works as a business mogul and entrepreneur specializing in industries that exploit people’s obsession with dieting and unhealthy food. He’s a successful businessman who profits from food that provides no real nourishment. He’s behind franchises that sell low-quality, highly processed, or completely nutritionless foods, capitalizing on both dietary trends and malnutrition. His work emphasizes the idea of "famine" by creating a world where people are starved of real sustenance, even while eating. He's also the author of D-Plan Dieting: Slim Yourself Beautiful.

He carries out his function in a variety of ways: nouvelle cuisine (the sort that consists of “a string bean, a pea, and a sliver of chicken breast, aesthetically arranged on a square china plate,”; diet fads; and new foods (“indistinguishable from any other [food] except for […] the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn’t matter how much you ate, you lost weight. […] And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs”. He deals with the big picture, selling to the Federal government and heading up his own corporation. He’s also involved in the more traditional sorts of starvation, but that wins only a casual mention of “children starving in Africa”.

As Mr. Sable, Famine popularizes the trend in expensive restaurants of serving miniscule portions. He’s also the mastermind behind the meal products CHOW and MEALS, which contain only filler and no nutritional value—so people who eat enough of them ultimately die of malnutrition. He takes special delight in seeing wealthy people go hungry by choice (rather than famine and hunger affecting mostly poor people, as has often been the case historically). Ushering in starvation and deprivation wherever he goes, Famine prefers to spread his brand of chaos through more mundane means in modern days; as an extremely popular dieting guru, he has made the notion of starvation fashionable to the public, and is regularly fawned upon by models said to resemble "a skeleton in a Dior dress". Likewise, he patronizes restaurants championing minimalistic noveau cuisine, furthering the ideal of upper-crust conformity's triumph over realistic satisfaction. Outside the realm of the rich and famous, his company also markets cheap, mass-produced foodstuffs to the general population as low-fat meals and weight-loss aids: as promised, eating these meals will indeed allow customers to lose weight, along with hair, skin tone and vital signs if enough is consumed. For good measure, his position as the head of an international corporation allows him to spread starvation in more traditional ways, usually enforcing literal famines in Africa.

The other Horsepeople of the apocalypse are: Death, War, and Pollution. Pestilence retired and Pollution took over in his stead.

Despite being the physical personification of famine, he's actually really knowledgeable and good at cooking and creating food, he even enjoys it. He just usually uses these talents to create unhealthy foods with no real nourishment.