What exactly is the Entity?

[Leviticus]

Who or what is The Entity?

Manifestations.
The entity physically manifests itself as some sort of hybrid being from a spider and some kind of plant, specifically a thorny plant. It does not speak, it does not wander, rather it appears in place and seems to grow out from certain structures such as hooks, the basement walls, and the roof of the old asylum. We know this is not a permanent manifestation as the entity's extensions will disappear from sacrificial hooks once the ritual is complete.

Powers
The Entity has powers by itself including the ability to manifest near its points of worship. This is not uncommon in the slightest, gods for ages passed have dwelt in their temples. Lacking a proper temple, the entity makes do with it's domain and it's shrines. How do we know they are shrines? The perk Monstrous Shrine for killers says it all, or perhaps the daily ritual Worship By Sacrifice might say something.
So the entity can sporadically appear around it's main worship points, however it by itself is not limited to those points. The entity does possess an awareness of where the survivors are in its realm, as seen by the Whispers perk, where the Entity will actually speak with an audible voice but only to the killer. This implies that the Entity knows where the survivors are, implying that the entity is fully aware of everything that goes on in it's own realm, fully backed up by the idea of bloodpoints, or being judged favorably for one's actions during a 'trial'.
The Entity possesses a limited form of weather manipulation powers. What we learn from the Hillbilly's boots addon is that the soil is often but not always slick, or wet. The mists roll in regularly but can be appeased by offerings or intensified. The entity doesn't show control of the phases of the moon such as new moon, quarter moon, full moon, crescent moon based on offerings, but can manipulate the light level while the physical moon itself remains unchanged. (look up during a crescent Moon Bouquet offering match, it is a full moon.)
So what we have so far, (not the conclusion, just a TL:DR in the middle) is a supernatural being that manifests towards it's places of worship (comes when called) is intelligent and understanding, capable of speaking and fully aware of everything in it's domain of influence, and possessing the ability to manipulate the weather. It seems to have a fondness for flora, as most offerings involve some sort of flower, it's own appearance is similar to that of a thorn bush that moves, and as it appears, even the trees change.

With all this together, we are looking at:
An Ancient type of fertility god, specifically towards crops (climate control, always aware, comes when called.)

Nah, that's not good enough.

Powers Cont.
The Entity's main minions are the human killers, both killers of humans and humanoid form killers. An interesting note however is that the Entity bestows supernatural abilities to these individual killers, namely immortality. Evan Macmillan has several wounds that refuse to heal as does the hillbilly, some of which seem life threatening, yet they get around just fine. Evan Macmillan the trapper can walk into his own bear trap and not suffer injury. The Wraith gives off the same red glow when cloaking or decloaking that the entity does when appearing at a shrine. The ability to give these powers is called blessing as you may know, meaning the Entity can give and take this ability freely and often meaning the Entity uses these own powers as well. It was certain in ye olden days that gods could not bless outside their realm of influence. For example, Ashera, a goddess of fertility and sensual arousal could not gift you with strength in battle. The two do not mix. The entity however can postpone death, can grant access to the spirit world (wraith bell, Nurse Blink) and play with it's prey with impunity. In Dead by Daylight, if there is a higher power than the Entity, they allow this. If not, then the Entity is the highest power. If the former, that means this is somehow justified, or allowed. If the latter, then it is possible to assume that the Entity does it's game with everyone at some point.
The Entity can grant speed and strength to it's main minions, and is seen doing so directly during the perk, No One Escapes Death. Since the only reason this perk exists is to kill humans, we can also add in, 'god of war' to the 'fertility god' listing. This moves the Entity up from a common spook demon or common god to a higher tier as it's domain encompasses multiple things. It would be like the difference between a small tribal diety to that of the status of say... Marduk of Ancient Mesopotamia, another god of ancient history involved in fertility rites, war rites, demanding sacrifices etc.
The Entity's realm encompasses RECREATIONS of real world places. The Autohaven of the realm is not the TRUE Autohaven in this sense. It is mentioned as having some understanding of our world but not a perfect one, which is why some things do not work the way they should on occasion. Given the lore that escape and death on the survivor's part both lead back to the campfire to wait before starting another trial, this sort of repetition bears a resemblance to the Catholic purgatory, a place neither heaven nor hell, but something inbetween. In any case, the realms that the survivors wander through being RECREATIONS of real places and where death actually means nothing, signifies some sort of Underworld, and an underworld signifies a God of an underworld. This would make the Entity escalate from a more recognized diety to a prestiegous one, as in history, gods of the Underworld were historically of some note, having accomplished a great feat in their own personal histories, or being the heir of some great god.

So we have an Underworld god with it's domain extending into fertility and war. Few civilizations had such an entity, most were in the middle east, or Central and South America. A few Native American tribes had ancestral guardians/dieties with these qualities but they were spread over several different deities. but I personally have not heard of a Native American diety encompassing all of the above.

A host of smaller powers including the ability to bless individuals with aura reading, traveling to and from the spirit plane, the 'visual cues' the entity makes for the killer when a loud noise goes off can be attributed to a more uncommon god of magic. While there were gods of death and life and every attribute, magic itself was distinguished and usually in illusion abilities, of which the 'spirit walking' and visual cues fall under. Also worth mentioning in this realm are the abilities of the perks Premonition, the terror radius, dark sense, bitter murmur, Deja vu, and the scratch marks when survivors run just to name a few. Although not specifically removed from Native American territory, this level of power falls into the more mystical types of Mayan, Aztec, Babylonian and Egyptian mythology. This means that areas that notably have these types of deities are again the middle east, and Central/South America.

Worship
The Entity feeds on two things. Hope, and Sacrifice.
Hope is a common theme in religion both in mainstream religion for hope of a better afterlife, and more uncommon cults, for again an afterlife with some kind of prestiege. Having hope in Christ for example identifies one as a Christian who believe in Heaven being a paradise for the saints. Hope in Mohammad and Allah does a similar thing for Islam, for the Jews it is the hope for the upcoming Messiah, and so on. In this case though, the Hope is taken by the Entity, it feeds on it. It does not reward hope, rather it squanders it, as mentioned that it dangles hope infront of you, only to dash it to shreds before you at the last moment. This sadisim gives way to the true need of the entity. Sacrifice. The entity is not benevolent, it requires Sacrifice as part of it's cultic faith and rewards diligent sacrifice. It is not uncommon for example, for a killer to be richly rewarded for sacrificing all four survivors. They will rank up. Whereas a Survivor if they escape can still rank down. The Entity doesn't care about your feelings of hope for escape, it want's your blood, your flesh and your bones. It recognizes devoutness and effort, and sometimes rewards it's parishioners with the right to kill the survivor themselves. It accepts offerings and may in return grant you some kind of advantage. It needs worship, it wants worship, it doesn't care about hope, hope is just something it gets to play with. In short, this... god... has fallen. This underworld god of magic, war and fertility has fallen by the wayside. It has resorted to this heinousness in an effort to keep what little followers remain. Doubt me? There are 15k out there who interact with it regularly, mostly survivors who are disinterested, but it's the killers that give it what it wants, the killers who sacrifice to it, who make the rituals, who observe they not be interrupted. The Entity caters to the killers because those are it's few remaining followers, and it will do anything to keep them. (Note, not talking about a real demon manipulating the players by using the game, this is all confined to in-game lore.)
In short, it appears the Entity has fallen from some kind of high and mighty position and will do anything to keep itself... alive. There is an idea in the old religions and cults of the world that worship strengthens the gods/demons. If the entity once had a lofty following from a large civilization, it wouldn't have needed to be this malevolent, it's sacrifices would have come willingly, as would it's praise and worship. This behavior is like that of a man out of time, unpredictable in almost anything: except violence. It will do what ever it takes for just a little more time.

In short, if any of this makes sense, if any of this is true... The Entity is dying... the killers keep it alive through worship and sacrifice. It doesn't feed on hope, it plays with hope while feeding on what matters, because that hope keeps the survivors coming, the survivors keep the killers satisfied with a chase, and the chase ends in sacrifice. Hope is a tool and a toy. An Illusion, in this realm. If you really want to escape the fog, give up and die. Not by hook, not my Momento Mori... stay at that campfire and fall asleep... and don't ever wake up.

[donnie donathan]

Great read, well written and thought out. Have you considered shamanistic deities? look up "Shamanism Entity" have a read on some of the points, it sounds exactly like our ingame entity.

[Tar Soul]

Sounds reasonable. I like your thoughts on the entity.

[Fred]

So if we want to beat the entitiy we should stop playing this game is what you say :D

[Leviticus]

Originally posted by Alfred:

So if we want to beat the entitiy we should stop playing this game is what you say :D

Or stay at the lobby screen :)

[Alp]

entity is spidermans ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up inbred cousin

[fatigue]

The lore states that Benedict doesn't know what it is, but he calls it "the purest form of evil".

[Leviticus]

Originally posted by LolItsDonk:

"the purest form of evil".

I have no doubt of the obscebity of the entity, the evil within. It displays malice and cruelty on a regular basis. But perhaps I'd be hesitant to call it the purest form of evil. Trap me in purgatory, chase me down and kill me a hundred times a day for a thousand years, I'll start laughing at you by day two. However, murder my friends and family but spare only me, leave my home in ashes, the stone foundation covered in the blood of my loved ones... That's when I'll really hate you. Do what you will to me but touch my family, I'll risk everything to destroy you.

That is a truer evil than the sadistic playful nature of the entity. It causes suffering on the individual level but amuses itself by instilling hope to the survivors every so often, to keep them around. I'll consider the Entity a more evil being when I see Jake Park's seventy five year old grandfather hanging on a hook, weakly crying for help at the start of every trial, then I'll concede that the Entity is true evil, and at that point, I'll do everything in my power to foil the killers instead of just get out alive.

[Sta-au]

I've always viewed the entity as man's own creation via stories told at a campfire. That's why the fire is there, it's where and how it was born. Several people sitting near a fire terrified of the dark and telling stories.

[Lord Knightmarez]

"It does not speak,"
...and yet...i always hear it's whispers....

[Dante]

hmmm I wonder if the survivors seeing themselves also kills hope, I always think of jake when i see that since he has one with a beard and one without

makes ya wonder if they are just seeing their future or past selves or even just copies of themselves, scary through however you think of it tho

[Scibra Crandami]

The entity is surely "playing god" here. I don't think they are recreations of real places, but rather I think they are altered as the entity has absorbed them into his realm to which he can alter them, create the 'arena' to which he watches a grand show of humans trying to survive against the relentless killers. I do agree, the entity uses hope to lure the survivors into keep playing the game, to stay available for the killers to sacrifice them. What I think is happening though is that the entity is using the killer's hope of revenge and gifts them with enhanced powers for them to take that revenge on the survivors that need sacrificed. So it's a firm double-play. Slowly, the entity is trying to swallow the entire world in its endless game of chase and sacrifice and false hopes.