It was dark. Here and there, scant patches of luminescent lichen dimly glimmered overhead, but their feeble glow was no more than a scattering of small islands amid the black ocean of subterranean shadow. The daylight had remained far behind - hours, days, maybe years. Nothing here could so much as remind of it; certainly not the patches of lichen, which were unfit to be even a bleak imitation of the sun. But nor was the darkness akin to that of night. There were no stars, no moon, no light, fresh breeze. Worst of all, there was no sense of rest or safety. This was not the darkness that offered a long-awaited moment of respite from toil in the fields and the vexations of the master. This was the stifling black breath of another universe, crawling and festering beneath the earth; a world that, in Justinian’s righteous rule, should never have left its foul lair.
But it was not the darkness that was most terrible in that descent. It was the silence. In the real world, the one that was not clearly a loathsome nightmare come to life by some sorcery, captives were escorted by files of men-at-arms with clattering weapons and crackling torches, who spoke and laughed among themselves, cursed and spat at their charge, even sang if they had had enough ale beforehand. Here, there was nothing of this sort. Only the scraping of a claw on stone now and then, and the low whistling of giant feelers sweeping through the air before his face. And yet, it could have been far worse.
Justinian be thanked, he had never fully seen the monsters. All he remembered was that the ground had shaken and rumbled, someone had called out from behind the rows of wheat, and hard, cutting manacles has closed around his wrists and ankles. Then something behind him had pulled down, towards the soil, and there had been the dark. He was beginning to doubt whether any of that had ever happened, whether it was not that that was the dream and this reality. For indeed, this had to be a dream, a foul vision brought about by the tales of the old men and a tankard too many at the inn. The things from below had not come to his village in many years, if they existed at all. What were the odds they would just appear like this, all of a sudden? Besides, he could not even say what they looked like. Was this not proof that none of this was true, and that he would soon wake up on his bed of straw, pale after the fright the nightmare had given him but ready for the new day’s work?
They came to a bend in the tunnel, and the claws dug painfully into his flesh as they tugged him sideways. Warm streams trickled down his arms, and were lost among his rags. No, this was not the dream. Nor had been his life in the fields, distant though it seemed now. All was damnable truth, and the grip of the inhuman limbs on his wrists was too painful for him to be capable of being truly frightened. He thought he would never be able to move his hands again, but that remark led him further into what he would certainly never do again, and he threw it away with horror.
In spite of himself, his body drank in the noisome sensations that surrounded him. There were darkness and silence, occasionally broken by a glimmering stain or a scratching of monstrous paws on stone; there was also the feeling of the coarse soil he was being dragged over, and the thing that was holding him. The warm, unpleasant taste of blood in his mouth. And there was the stench. It was not only the damp smell of the deep earth, the rot and all the filth that grew fat over it; the monsters also had theirs, and it was unlike that of any animal he had ever seen in his life. Dry, sharp, bitter. It could not belong to anything that was good. It was known to all that dogs and horses hated the things from below, and now he clearly understood why.
Further and further down he went, carried by the invisible and noiseless procession. There had been more bends and twists than he knew how to count, and still they bore onwards. It occurred to him that, while the things did not think like men or other beasts, even they must have had their home, and they were taking him there. He did not like the thought, but there was nothing else left to him.
At last, there seemed to come from somewhere far ahead a red glimmer, spreading over the walls of the tunnel. It was weak, but grew ever stronger as it approached, and he closed his eyes so that he would not see what was swinging its feelers before his face. He could still see the light shining brighter, now a lurid glow made even more blood-like by his eyelids. Suddenly, he felt that he was no longer moving; then, he was roughly turned about and pushed forward by something sharp, managing by some miracle to land on his knees. He did not want to look, and, clenching his hands, fought with the rising urge that was rising to overpower him against his best reasons. It was too great. His eyes agonisingly pried themselves open, and he saw.
The Prophet had bid it, and They had come, for the will of the Prophet was that of Vex’xalar. All of Them, great and small, swam in the great stygian ocean that was the One Mind. The Prophet had swept a limb through it, birthing many small waves which flowed along with the mighty breath of the divine tides, and all those who were close enough to be caught in them heeded their call. Great and small, through earth and water, the bodies of the Swarms had crawled, dug and swam to join the sacred ceremony of veneration, to celebrate the One Will that moved all of them, and they had brought an offering.
They were massed in a great vault, swarming over the floor, the walls, the ceiling, suspended in the air, looking out of the many tunnels that opened into the chamber. Between and under their creeping black shapes, meaty red fungi spread their sanguine glow. The cavern seemed a gargantuan stomach, through the walls of which filtered the distorted rays of the sun. The charnel light shone over the assembled masses and a point, near the further end of the chamber, where the ground sloped down to a lower height, or a greater depth even than the rest of it. It was there that would be the focus of the rite.
The Prophet stood, great, dark and swollen, before a wall adorned with the signs of the ceremony. Twisted symbols of the olden writing of Zattdrok, harsh and misshapen by civil standards, but far less dry and angular than those of Kralhk. They had not been used in their full capacity for centuries, but, so ran the thoughts of the Prophets, it was therefore that they had never been as holy as they were now. And the Prophets could not be wrong, for all thoughts had but one Source. In the midst of the sacred writings there was the effigy of Vex’xalar, and below It that of the potent unmaking; They awaited in hunger. Before the Prophet, two warriors flanked the offering, a soft-skinned being of the surface, servant of evil. It would bring satiatiation.
The Prophet raised its claws, and all was silent. They waited. Then, They began.
“One Below, One with Us. We conjure strength and summon life to be unto You.” rose the clicking, screeching accents of the Prophet.
One Below, One with Us. We conjure strength and summon life to be unto You. They repeated in Their second voice, which was manifold.
”We are the Swarms, as one with You. Your life is Ours, Our strength is Yours.”
We are the Swarms, as one with You. Your life is Ours, Our strength is Yours. They chanted.
”The will of the All is worked through You, who grantest Us the true sight of what must be made, and the guidance to make it. You bear the great gift of the One from the sky and the abyss. None is as powerful as Us who bear it. The earth is Ours, the world is Ours. Bear Us in the journey of the soil and the motion of the hunt, in the cunning twisting of artifice and the unbroken lavine of war, and We shall conquer as One.”
The will of the All is worked through You, who grantest Us the true sight of what must be made, and the guidance to make it. You bear the great gift of the One from the sky and the abyss. None is as powerful as Us who bear it. The earth is Ours, the world is Ours. Bear Us in the journey of the soil and the motion of the hunt, in the cunning twisting of artifice and the unbroken lavine of war, and We shall conquer as One.
”Your body is vast, Your hunger unending. We bring the blood that feeds into Our fold.”
The two warriors seized the offering’s arms and hoisted it up. Akin to a snake, the Prophet’s head darted forward. Its mandibles bit into the soft, exposed throat, and a stifled gurgling rose from it. Then the head spun aside, tearing out the chunk of flesh it had seized. Dark, thick blood spouted from the gash, splattering the wall and covering the effigies and part of the inscriptions.
This was not something the walls of the vault had ever heard until recent times. It was the speech of deep Kralhk, one that had not been heard on the surface since those Riglir tribes, who now were Riglir no more, had carried it deep down with them. They had become the Abominations, loyal thralls of Vex’xalar, and their words spelled out the divine mystery.
Their words, chanted in perfect unison, echoed between the bleeding walls, slithered up the tunnels, through the darkness and the silence that had accompanied thousands of doomward journeys. And the earth trembled.
-Population: Without number. None can say how many terrors dwell beneath the soil of Materia, or even think of it without dread.
-Faction: Red Pantheon (unaffiliated).
-Capital: Hive Vextasrir, also known as the Chasm of Ineffable Odds.
-Government Type: Hive Mind.
-Government Description:
The term “government” is perhaps not altogether suitable for describing the internal structure and functioning of the Vex’lir Swarms. In truth, it is more similar to the natural forms of organisation found in the colonies of certain invertebrates, or, in its heavily magically supplemented form, to the workings of a single, vast living organism. The entirety of the Riglir population is bound to the will of its divine master, the fallen Celestial Servant - and now Red God - Vex’xalar by the means of an enchantment which conjoins their minds with its own. This spell allows the Lurker to issue commands to any number of its subjects at any given moment, and physically constrains them to obey such orders, as though they were nothing more than extensions of itself.
Despite the omnipresence of the curse, a comparatively small number of Riglir is, for various reasons relating to their hatching, afforded a greater degree of freedom in choosing how to carry out the divine injunctions. These creatures take up the position of intermediaries between the god and the masses of its thralls, acting as commanders and overseers (Hive Superiors) or priests and shamans (Hive Prophets). Often, these lieutenants will slightly modify the commands relayed to them in order to better adapt its execution to the current circumstances.
-Head of State: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below.
-Currency: None. The nature of the Swarms is such that internal and external commerce alike are nonexistent, and currency thus unnecessary.
-Language(s): Though the use of speech in the warrens is rare, vestigial remains of the former Riglir languages are still employed for ritual purposes. In the rare occasions members of the Swarms will communicate with the surface world, they have shown themselves capable of using the predominant Elven languages, debased and simplified to varying degrees.
Short History
Until about ten thousand years ago, most of the Riglir race had lived near the surface in a feral state, benefiting from its symbiosis with titanic creatures known as Leviathans, so vast and powerful that they preyed even dragons. Scavenging in the wake of these beings, they were able to subsist without forming societies more complex than rudimentary packs or broods, despite being potentially capable of doing so. However, when the Leviathans disappeared for reasons now forgotten, the Riglir found themselves deprived of their greatest strength and unable to survive in the upper subterranean levels they had until then inhabited. They thus withdrew into the depths where some of their number had already made their home, and began to settle its relatively more hospitable darkness.
However, the underworld itself was not without its dangers. Lethal monstrosities stalked its tunnels, and its caverns teemed with treacherous pitfalls and strange life which had never seen the light of day. Worse yet, many thousands of years before its deeps had been inhabited by the cryptic Old Ones. Though that race had died out so long ago that even the ruins of its cities had become virtually indistinguishable from unusual rocky formations, its ancient and powerful enchantments lingered still, spawning countless horrors and anomalies in dim wells beneath the earth. To face these threats, even on equal ground, the Riglir had to grow more organised. And, possibly to the surprise of anyone cursorily acquainted with them, they did, strengthening their communities and turning to the worship of gods for the protection they found themselves lacking. One of them eventually ascended to a divine state itself, becoming the first in a line of Watchers Below who guided the Riglir on the way to civilisation.
However, when Justinian arose and moved against the Old Pantheon, the last of the Watchers was slain. Its celestial servant, Vex’xalar, sought to escape by manifesting in the material plane; however, the hasty and poorly prepared ritual went awry, leaving the Red God crippled in body and spirit. Drawing upon dark forces of cosmic imperfection and decay, the maddened Vex’xalar cast a spell to bring nearly all Riglir under its thrall, absorbing them into an unnatural Hive Mind and cursing all future generations to be born in its hold. Only a scant few escaped the spell’s effects, fleeing south.
Vex’xalar remained hidden with its swarms while the War raged; once it was over, they emerged again, more ferocious than ever, to assail all that were to be found in the vicinity in an incessant series of incursions which continues to the present day. Of particular violence have been their struggles with the influence of the Lord of the Turquoise Scheme, whose Overlays reach deep below and into the very seat of Vex’xalar. Such was the Lurker’s wrath at the intrusion that, a century and a half ago, it lashed out with tremendous power, creating the immense Chasm of Ineffable Odds which runs through the center of Materia. In this unfathomable abyss the battle rages still, as more and more horrors clamber out of it to blight the world above.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTE INFORMATION:
A Screamer summons a swarm of voracious insects with a spell.
• One Mind: The entire population of the Swarms is telepathically linked with its master and among itself, enabling them to function more as a super-organism than a nation proper. All acquired knowledge is instantly shared between the millions of Riglir bodies, and, through the action of Hive Superiors and Prophets, their masses can act with an impossible degree of coordination. The Hive Mind eliminates the need for conventional social structures, since the activity of every single creature can be regulated individually to be as efficient in carrying out its tasks as possible. However, such advantages come at a price: not only is the individuality and initiative of most of their bodies suppressed, but the Swarms are heavily reliant on its intermediary leaders to function properly. Eliminating them disrupts lesser thralls, causing them to act haphazardly at the best of their own limited skill. Additionally, all of the Vex’lir Riglir are infected with the Lurker’s madness.
• Myriad Bodies: Ever since their early days, the Riglir have been infamous for their frighteningly rapid rate of reproduction and adaptability. These traits ensure that the species will thrive in virtually any survivable environment, multiplying until they quite literally flood their dens and burrows. Even when faced with heavy losses, they are capable of swiftly replenishing their numbers. This natural prolificness is only increased by the liberal application of mutation-inducing magic, which swells their ranks further in less than describable ways. Thus, despite lacking any sort of technology and infrastructure, the population of the Swarms is colossal and incredibly varied by the standards of all but the vastest nations, and can quickly recover from anything short of complete annihilation.
• Horror in the Flesh: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below, last of the Riglir gods and inheritor of the Watchers, crawls upon the earth once more. Though unable to regain its full power after being weakened by an imperfect manifestation and vulnerable to being fully destroyed, the Red God is a redoubtable foe, inhabiting a gargantuan physical form and wielding earth-rending magical might.
• Unholy Arcana: The Vex’lir spellcasters possess distinctive magical abilities granted by their divine patron and certain ancient Masterless Artefacts. Those include transforming bodies in often gruesome and hideous, but undeniably effective ways, channeling the sinister powers of the Hive Mind to assail the psyche of enemies or manifest otherworldly thaumaturgical effects, and a heightened proficiency at animating skeletons and other bone constructs. However, most of them are fraught with risks for the caster and its allies as well. Transmutation spells are fueled by Vex’xalar’s unstable Theurgia, and thus often backfire in spectacularly ghastly manners, and the influence of the Hive Mind is dangerously unpredictable and often uncontrollable.
• Heart of Madness: Being as of one mind with their god, all Riglir are under the influx of its delusions and savage nature. As Vex’xalar believes to be all inhabitants of the surface and their gods to be servants of the inimical Turquoise Lord, the Swarms are invariably hostile to anyone and anything else, and attempts to communicate with them are doomed to end in failure.
• Ichor and Chitin: While physically resilient and versatile and reasonably skilful in the use of magic, the Riglir have never been gifted with the ability for technological innovation, and the advent of the Hive Mind has wiped away the few advancements they had achieved in the course of millennia. As a result, the Swarms possess no technology to speak of, and can neither devise any nor use what they capture or scavenge. Their workers and combatants are therefore unequipped and unarmed, and rely exclusively on their (often modified) bodies.
• Underdwellers: Rare is the Riglir who rises to the surface for any purpose other than an incursion into enemy territory. The species, in its many variations, is adapted for subterranean life, and the Swarms dwell in a great maze of caverns, vaults and tunnels spanning much of the center of Materia and reaching southwards into Ouroborasian lands, and do not control any territory on the surface. Entrenched belowground, their lairs are difficult to invade for conventional forces, who would be at risk of becoming an easy target for traps and ambushes. Furthermore, the Riglir are thus able to move beneath the holdings of other nations, emerging in the most improbable of places in spite of any defenses on the surface.
• Pit of Nightmares: Though their subterranean nature grants the Swarms some advantages, not even they are immune to the many perils of the underworld. The dim recesses of the earth hide bottomless abysses, strange and dangerous creatures unlike any ever seen on the surface and other lethal portents. Worse yet, ancient lingering spells have, over the ages, permeated entire underground regions, spawning horrifying magical anomalies and twisting wildlife into unnatural and monstrous forms - something which has only been exacerbated by the surges of Vex’xalar’s dire and erratic powers.
• Legacy of the Old Ones: Long ago, perhaps even in the oblivion-shrouded first ages, the caverns that now serve as Riglir hives were inhabited by a race of beings who, their name lost to time, are known today only as the Old Ones. They built imposing cities, temples and ziggurats in enormous vaults, and were adept in many mystical arts. It is likely they disappeared before even the first Riglir walked Materia, but they left enduring traces of their passing. Their cities, though ruined and decayed beyond recognition, are being rediscovered; within them, ancient Artefacts of great power have been found, and vestiges of old enchantments hover below the ground, their might not fully spent even to this day.
• Dark Knowledge: There might be clarity in divine madness. Though Vex’xalar, and by extension the Hive Mind, is severely disconnected from the reality of material and celestial planes alike, its peculiar state seems to grant it a strange insight into the flawed nature of the cosmos itself. It has already shown itself capable of apparently calling forth the energies of universal fraying and degeneration to bolster itself at the expense of the very world’s stability, and who knows what other dread skills it might hold in store?
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION:
Hive Ulkar, one of the hundreds of Riglir nests in Materia.
Major Locations of Interest:
• Kralhk: The largest and oldest of the hive clusters, Kralhk houses the most important locations in the Swarms' subterranean domain, among which the seat of Vex'xalar and the sacred city of the Forgotten. The under-land here is barren, grim and desolate, with only some particularly resilient insectoid species surviving in the rocky soil. In the north lie the forsaken vaults of the Old Ones, where wander strange energies and presences; further south, the vast sunken graveyards of the Leviathans slumber in their deathly stillness.
- Hive Vextasrir, or the Chasm of Ineffable Odds: The greatest Riglir hive in all Materia, Vextasrir spans the entire center of the continent across, having grown around Vex'xalar's form to span the immense gulf opened by the god's wrath. Its bottom and western wall crawl with the invertebrates' constant activity; surfaces of Turquoise Overlay cover the eastern wall, alternately encroaching upon and losing ground to infinite numbers of assailants. At the lowermost point in the chasm, so deep that even the sunlight does not reach it from the mouth above, the titanic body of the Lurker Below stands, embedded by half in the soil, ceaselessly lashing against the spectral intruders into its lair.
- The Desolate Vaults: The sinister magnificence of the cities of the Old Ones can now largely only be guessed at. Corroded by ages of abandon, their walls and pillars have crumbled and rotten away, growing indistinguishable from the rocky formations around which have crawled into the narrow, winding streets and circular squares. Yet not all is quiet in the Vaults - the powers of the ancient race have not faded entirely, and surreal entities born of rampant magic stalk the silent corridors.
- Hive Velash: Situated on the site of a ruined temple, Hive Velash is where the fearsome Screamers are hatched from a select stock of Riglir and left to grow, fending for themselves from their first days amid the many dangers of the Old Ones' land. Those who survive the trial of Velash, which is in truth less of a hive than an arena and proving ground, are certain to be some of the strongest and most resourceful among the Swarms' elite.
- The Primordial Well: A curious and unsettling anomaly even in the otherworldly atmosphere of the Vaults, the Primordial Well is a place where, through the efforts of either the Old Ones or the Riglir themselves, the last layer of Materia's soil has been breached, opening a gaping hole into the inchoate darkness beyond. Despite the zones surrounding the Well being plagued by particularly terrible abnormalities and unimaginable horrors, the Hive Prophets and Abyssal Brood maintain a strong presence here, and have built strange structures around and within the cavity leading to the limit of the finite world.
- The Boneyards: Where once the mighty Leviathans shook the earth with their steps, now only their great skeletons, interred by time and scavengers, remain in enormous earthen tombs to mark their passing. So large and numerous are these bones that, at first sight, one could well mistake them for a white city built underground by finer artisans than the Riglir, with jagged spines and rigid limbs rising up like towers and ribcages standing up like the walls of a fortress. The Pale Brood dwells in this hell of tangled decrepitude, which never leaves the thaumaturges hungry for materials for their constructs.
• Zattdrok: Adding to eastern Aberys's already troubled nature, Zattdrok was once the first step in the Riglir's southward expansion, and remains to this day the second largest Hive Cluster. In what might be at once the source and reflection of the fertile farmlands on the surface, the earth here is particularly well-suited for life even in the abyssal deeps; as a result, not only are the local hives exceptionally large and populous, but the swarms dwelling there have encountered all sorts of strange beings living in complex and apparently very ancient ecosystems.
- Hive Ulkar: The central settlement in Zattdrok, Ulkar boasts abundant fungus farms and herds of ghoul moles, allowing it to supply a large portion of the cluster with its resources alone. However, it is rich not only in food, but in troops as well, with local Riglir being especially numerous and well-fed. As such, it is the staging ground of most raids upon the lands above.
- The Dim Marshes: A particularly damp spot at the confluence of several underground streams which has over the centuries developed into nothing short of a stretch of darkling swampland. Under an air heavy with humidity and warm with the slow decay of forests of algae, lichens and fungi there dwell creatures never seen elsewhere who adapted to thrive in this improbable and treacherous environment, the most notable of them being the powerful but lethargic bog goliaths.
- The Chambers of Life: Stranger yet than the Marshes, the Chambers of Life are a web of caverns in which, contrarily to what one might expect having observed the laws and processes of natural life, there seems to exist an entire world of beings as alien as they are diverse. Here, the boundary between plant and animal is even less visible than in the Swamps: the Primal beings that inhabit these chambers, both growing in them as trees and moving through them as beasts, are as much of a riddle in their nature as in their survival so deep within the earth.
• Xelkash: Sinking the claws of its many tunnels deep into the south of the continent, Xelkash might be seen as representing Vex'xalar forcefully - and altogether involuntarily - staking its claim as being part of the Red Pantheon, without, for that matter, entertaining anything but savage hostility against the loose alliance of the southern gods. The under-lands here are inhospitable, but not desolate as those of Kralhk; rather, they are more directly harsh and treacherous, full of pitfalls and overhanging damp soil, and few but the hardy ironhide worms dare make their home here.
- Hive Raahkal: The central hive of Xelkash, and the origin of most incursions into East Ouroborasian territory. Raahkal in particular is home to many Azure Brood Screamers, often engaged in experiments to see to what extent they can employ Turquoise magics against supposed direct servants of the Lord, which include anything from witches to peasants to homunculi.
- The Warrens of a Thousand Maws: Within the south's variably rocky and damp soil, some species of great worms and maggots have found an ideal habitat, digging a complex of chambers and tunnels through which their bloated bodies may move freely. On occasion, the local Riglir collapse and divert some of these passageways, forcing the worms to travel towards specially selected locations - often villages or encampments on the surface.
• Sehtekr: The easternmost Cluster, Sehtekr was severed from Kralhk by the expansion of the Stray Palace Overlay in Tramontan, and now remains connected to it only through a small number of tunnels. Due to its isolated nature and unfavourable position, Sehtekr is presently engaged in struggles against the Turquoise Domain and Justinian forces in the west, as well as attempting to adapt to the desert terrain in the south. The region is altogether quite dry, but some recesses contain small subterranean rivers and lakes.
- Hive Starak: Major hive in Sehtekr, from where the Arch-Superior directs works of entrenchment, encroachment and gradual reestablishment of a direct link with the western Clusters. Due to Sehtekr's overall less centralised nature, it is not as large as Ulkar or even Raahkal, but it benefits from direct connections with lesser hives near and distant alike.
- The Wraith Pits: Though the soil here is nowhere as fertile as in Zattdrok, the local subterranean water deposits have abetted the growth of some dark-dwelling life-forms near and within them. Many small lakes are thus surrounded by circles of undergrowth, through which there move the uncommon beasts which lend the Pits their name: the otherworldly gelatinous wraiths, which resemble the Primals in not being clearly categorisable, but otherwise are as unlike them as anything else in the known world.
RACIAL INFORMATION:
-Majority race:Riglir. While once this name designated a single species of semi-sapient, gregarious invertebrate creatures, millennia of natural and magical evolution have made it so that it is now more of a blanket term covering several subspecies with a common ancestor. The modern Riglir vary greatly in shape, size and environmental preferences; nonetheless, they all share some basic biological traits. Riglir physiology is somewhat similar to that of crustaceans, having a hard, chitinous exoskeleton and diverse (but generally even, unless chaotic magic is involved) numbers of segmented limbs. As a rule, they possess sharp and robust claws, fit for digging through soil and rock and often supplemented by corrosive secretions. Being subterranean creatures, they generally have poor eyesight, and mainly rely on scent, hearing and vibration detection to perceive their surroundings.
Riglir are known to be short-lived, with the average life expectancy among them being between twenty and thirty years. To compensate for this, they are highly prolific, breeding twice a year in normal conditions. Under Vex’xalar, reproduction has become an almost industrialised business, with millions of bodies being regularly herded into special hives every cycle. The hold of the Hive Mind on them is then briefly relaxed, leaving the thralls under the sway of natural instincts and mating pheromones (which cause the usually androgynous Riglir to temporarily develop sexual characteristics). Each impregnated individual lays several eggs after gestation, which, if they are not lost or eaten by predators, hatch within a few weeks.
Unlike their free counterparts in the south, Vex’lir Riglir are born with the curse of the Hive Mind ingrained in their bodies, which places them under the Lurker Below’s dominion unless it is magically removed.
Being the only currently living species in the Swarms that is more than sentient, the Riglir are dominant within them, with other creatures under the Hive Mind’s control being considered as analogous to cattle or beasts of burden at best.
Minority races:
- Leviathans (extinct): The species of giant animals that once roamed central Materia. It is said that they might have been the natural predators of dragons, and their size certainly seems to support this theory, as even an average-sized Leviathan would have dwarfed the mighty creatures. Having died out due to unknown causes ten thousand years ago, their bones remain exceedingly well-preserved, many of them still untouched by decay.
- Old Ones (extinct): The first intelligent race to inhabit the underworld, and likewise the first to vanish. The Old Ones' civilisation reached its apex during the first few Cycles of creation, then gradually declined and disappeared, its works falling into ruin. Nevertheless, their semblance remains known to this day thanks to its depiction in the mighty idol of the Lost.
- Tunnel Skulkers: Large predatory insectoids most common in Hive Cluster Kralhk, where they eke out a living for themselves amid the harsh and unforgiving walls of grey rock by preying on smaller animals such as worms and rodents, and occasionally even minor aberrations. Skulkers have been historically tamed by the Riglir, and were among the first beasts to be controlled through the Hive Mind.
- Onyx Spiders: Enormous, highly intelligent cave-dwelling arachnids, spinning tremendously resistant silken webs. Though so developed as to be entirely sentient and even capable of using tools, onyx spiders are asocial and strongly driven by instinct, a combination making them fearsome predators and impervious to taming attempts. Interestingly, the spiders have devised an inventive method of overcoming mounted humanoid foes by dragging their steed from under them as they charge. Related to the similar, surface-dwelling Agate Spiders.
- Ironhide Worms: A species of large worms native to the southern burrows, with adult specimen measuring up to twelve or fifteen feet. Ironhide worms possess several vestigial limbs with which they propel themselves through narrow tunnels, frequently reaching high speeds, and proverbially hard shells, which earned them their name.
- Bog Goliaths: A bizarre species dwelling in the Dim Marshes, bog goliaths appear, by all tokens, to be a sort of fungus which somehow achieved the ability to move and act as a sentient creature. Though large and physically very strong, the goliaths are lumbering and apathetic, only reacting violently when harmed.
- Ghoul Moles: Subterranean, burrowing mammals that earned their macabre name by occasionally being found eating fresh corpses, being omnivorous but not predatory. They will sometimes emerge in fairly large numbers to feed on battlefields. Since they are fast and easy to fatten, ghoul moles are farmed in Zattdrok hives as livestock.
- Gelatinous Wraiths: Many-limbed creatures found near subterranean lakes in Hive Cluster Sehtekr, their strange shape makes gelatinous wraiths are an enigma as regards their life and functioning. Though normally herbivorous, they have been known to capture other animals with a paralysing poison and consume them by digesting them externally.
- Primals: Even more mysterious than the wraiths are the beings inhabiting the Chambers of Life. More than anything - and indeed if anything - they resemble unnatural fusions of plant and beast, growing in many twisted shapes. Uncomfortably enough, they call to mind the idea of an early, unfinished creation, abandoned due to a flawed design and sealed away so that none may see it.
- Aberrations: The most outlandish of all subterranean entities, aberrations are created by the uncontrollable magical energies pulsing through the Desolate Vaults or erratically unleashed by Vex'xalar, and as such are thoroughly unnatural. No two of them are alike, but all are made similar by the distinct appearance of not belonging in this world, if any at all.
RELIGIOUS INFORMATION:
A depiction of the Lurker, decorated with ritual symbols.
-State Religion: Red Pantheonism.
-Patron Deity: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below.
-Religion Demographics: Given that the Swarms are shackled to the mental dominion of their god, no deviation from its religion is physically possible among them.
-Major Holy Relics/Artefacts in Possession:
• Eikon of the Lost (Masterless): An idol so ancient as to seem to belong to another world altogether, the Eikon of the Lost is believed to date back to the early days of the Old Ones themselves. This imposing statue, despite its incalculable age and the apparent fragility of some of its materials, is surreally well-preserved, bearing not the slightest dent or scratch to show, and remains even now unnaturally resistant to damage. It depicts a member of the vanished race bowing in supplication before a large opalescent gem, held aloft by cunningly fashioned supports of translucent crystal and presumed to represent one of the first deities, or perhaps even the Demiurge itself. As powerful as it is old, the Eikon is overflowing with divine essence. So thoroughly imbued is it that it emanates unearthly distortions of the cosmos’s laws, creating magical anomalies or portentous strength with its mere presence. The Artefact played a crucial part in Vex’xalar’s blasphemous ritual, and continues to sustain the curse of the Hive. The Eikon currently rests in the Vault of the Forgotten, guarded by the Abyssal Broodmaster.
• The Withered Visage (Masterless): A second relic hearkening back to primeval times, though distinctly more recent than the Eikon of the Lost. The Withered Visage is a headdress fashioned from the mummified exo-skull of an Old One, plaqued with silver and studded with precious stones. Those who don it are granted unparallelled osteokinetic powers, becoming capable of assembling bones of any size and shape into redoubtably strong, robust and fast constructs, and maintaining control over hordes of fleshless horrors at once. Furthermore, when worn by a powerful Screamer, part of the essence stored in it can be absorbed by the Hive Mind, enabling other Vex’lir casters to access a limited form of its potential. The Withered Visage is currently carried by Athksarak, the Pale Broodmaster.
-Holy Sites under Control:
• Vault of the Forgotten: Of all the ruined cities of the Old Ones, invisible in their corrosion to any but the trained senses of the Riglir, the one lying in the great cavern known as the Vault of the Forgotten is the largest in its identifiable remains, and the one most haunted by the magical influences of bygone ages. Strange mists coil among the cyclopean heaps of rubble that once were palaces, shrines and pillars, and eerie sounds drift in the maze of the few barely surviving streets. Such is its size and so potent its influences that it might be that it once had been the Holy City of gods now beyond memory. The Vault has become the lair of the Abyssal Brood and numerous Hive Prophets, who ceaselessly work to gradually restore at least a fraction of the city following half-guessed, half-divined designs. The purpose of these efforts remains unclear.
-Notable Magical Institutions:
• Hive Velash Broods: Since performing the necessary ritual to cast a spell requires a degree of concentration greater than the Hive Mind can devote to a single body and, more importantly, a focus upon the sacrifice’s recipient which, due to its monolithic nature, it is physically incapable of (as it would involve the paradox of Vex’xalar sacrificing to and demanding Theurgia from itself), the only possible magic wielders among the Swarms besides the god itself are those Riglir who maintain a degree of partial autonomy in their thoughts and actions. Since, all things considered, the Riglir are anything but wasteful, this potential is exploited to the fullest, with all Hive Prophets and, to a lesser degree, Superiors being capable of spellcasting. However, they are by far not the most fearsome magic users under the Lurker. In a hive obtained from a temple-city of the Old Ones, it has bred a strain of Riglir specialised in performing incantations and directing the obtained Theurgia with utmost skill and efficiency. These creatures, known as Screamers, can exert a far greater control on Vex’xalar’s unstable energies than their normal counterparts, and are divided into four Broods by the branches of magic they are most adept in:
- The Earthen Brood, most numerous and commonly seen of all, specialises in the Red God’s own transmuting magic. Its members’ carapaces are of dark brown and grey colours, and their bodies are notoriously deformed.
- The Abyssal Brood focuses on harnessing the strange powers of the Hive Mind and its magical sources. Its carapaces are black with irregular purple markings.
- The Pale Brood, using the Withered Visage worn by its leader, channel the power of moving and animating the bones of corpses old and new. Its carapaces are of a faded, skeletal white.
- The Azure Brood, the smallest of the four, has as its purpose to experiment with the magics of the Turquoise Lord and learn to turn them against their supposed masters. Its carapaces are of an unnaturally bright azure colour, as in mockery or clumsy imitation of the Turquoise.
-Religious Interpretations/Culture: Limited though its manifestations, and indeed effective substance and utility, might be within the all-controlling Hive Mind, Vex’xalar maintains a semblance of religious rite and canon beyond the strictly necessary utilitarian minimum - perhaps simply out of habit, or for some other less fathomable purpose. Its Prophets do not serve simply as spellcasters and minor taskmasters: following some sort of apparently irregular cycle, lesser thralls gather around them in special chambers or hive sections, and are made to bow and recite ritual chants under the clerics’ lead. These ceremonies, more similar to a puppet show than worship, are typically performed in veneration of Vex’xalar, who is represented with variations of the rather primitive religious symbols used by the Riglir during the time of the Watchers; however, some different versions can now and again be observed, where to the Lurker Below there are added other objects of veneration. Among those, there appear strange signs and images never used before, possibly, albeit strangely, depicting the dead Watchers themselves.
The frequency, magnitude and specific of these rites do not seem to follow any persistent scheme, varying depending on available space, celebrants and victims. Some, held in great vaults with hundreds or thousands of participants, are complex functions, involving otherworldly intricacies in disposition and chant modulation, large idols or murals of alien symbols and elaborate mutilation and slaying of the offerings, whereas others, performed in the corners of lesser hives, may involve only a few dozen supplicants, a crude eidolon and rapid, brutal executions. If something has not changed since Vex’xalar came to power, it is the savagery of the Riglir race.
MILITARY INFORMATION:
The hordes of the Vex'lir close in upon a besieged stronghold.
Total Military Size: Uncountable as the maggots in a dragon's carcass. No matter how many are slain, there are always more coming.
Listed Heroes:
- The Archprophet - Tsakkal, Voice of the Hive - Skalerak the Insatiable - Kal'avakk, the Earthen Broodmaster - Ulrax, the Abyssal Broodmaster - Athksarak, the Pale Broodmaster - Kra'itsval, the Azure Broodmaster - V'nakkr, the Dweller - Itarax, the Hunter - Naxxar - The Great Primal - Bonehide - The Marsh Titan - Dim Breath - The Unspoken
Military Doctrine: While the inhabitants of the surface may have dimly remembered the Riglir of old as bestial creatures, blindly rushing against their opponents in droves, the Hive Mind has since transformed them from a disorganised horde into an unnaturally cohesive, cunning and relentless force. Their favoured approach to engaging battle remains a massed charge of innumerable bodies, overwhelming any opposition through brute strength and sheer force of numbers; however, this basic strategy is now improved and supplemented with a variety of additions which shift and change to adapt to every challenge the Swarms encounter.
Hive Superiors understand the concept of “tactical advantage”, and are generally capable of calculating how many casualties acquiring a given edge over the enemy is worth. Due to the nature of the Vex’lir, Riglir commanders have not the slightest hesitation in sacrificing thousands of thralls should the battle plan demand it, and those latter, fully aware of their purpose, can be relied upon to carry out their tasks just as indicated. Every being, no matter its form, abilities and role, will be certain to employ its potential to the fullest. Much less than a chaotic tide of horrors, the Swarms are as precise and calculating as a mantis luring in and seizing its prey without a single unnecessary movement.
Being accustomed to fighting in narrow and winding underground tunnels, the Riglir are fond of ambushes, pincers and surrounding tactics, pinning their foes in place before bearing down on them with the full strength of their numerical superiority. When forced to meet the enemy in broad, open fields, they will nonetheless attempt to use the terrain to their advantage, crawling behind hills and rocks, skulking in bogs and thickets and even burrowing underground to ensure that their prey has no way remaining to retreat. Wherever it turns, it meets claws and mandibles, spines and poison, humming wings and viscous webbing. There is no escape, and the Riglir do not take prisoners.
Military Units:
Thrall
The most common and numerous breed of Riglir, and likely the closest to the original species, thralls are found in the tens of thousands wherever the Swarms nest or move. Slightly smaller than a grown man, protected by a robust shell and armed with sharp claws, mandibles and corrosive saliva, they can easily overpower and kill unarmed commoners, but are easy to dispatch for a trained soldier, and only dangerous in large numbers.
Swarmspawn
Mutated Riglir dwelling in the tunnels of the inner earth. Swarmspawn are less armoured and physically resilient than thralls, but significantly faster and capable of climbing the steepest of surfaces. They serve as the Swarms' equivalent of light cavalry, sweeping through and harassing slower foes, but avoiding direct confrontation. Swarmspawn usually move in large groups.
Crawling Eye
Small, stealthy creatures endowed with improved senses, and the only Riglir possessing advanced eyesight. They usually fill the role of scouts for the Hive Mind, and are notoriously employed by the Archprophet to perceive its surroundings. While crawling eyes are not much of a threat individually, they can be dangerous when attacking in mass.
Marauder
Winged Riglir capable of rapid flight even at fairly long distances. While useful for scouting or harrying foes with rapid attacks from above, they are not sufficiently strong and agile to challenge all but the most basic aerial cavalry units, and thus are unfit for combat in the sky. Marauders often carry out raids deep into enemy territory, being found as far as miles away from Vex'lir burrows.
Warrior
Larger, more powerful creatures related to the thralls, warriors are the backbone of the Vex'lir hordes in battle. Arrayed along the flanks and in the midst of swarms of lesser Riglir, they prevent enemy cavalry or shock troops from flanking or piercing their loose formations by acting as living shields, a role their thick carapaces and formidable strength allow them to enact perfectly.
Earthbreaker
While warriors are an offshoot of the original Riglir spawned by spontaneous, if alien, evolution, earthbreakers were created by Vex'xalar with the sole purpose of slaughtering as many of the Swarms' enemies before their inevitable demise. These towering, monstrosities encased in natural armour as hard as steel and armed with multiple immense pincers capable of snapping limbs with ease, spearhead the charges of the Vex'lir, trampling over opposition as an avalanche of serrated organic blades and dim, ravenous eyes.
Behemoth
A deviate strain of warriors and the greatest Riglir in existence, aside from certain champions of Vex'xalar and the god itself. Behemoths are so immense that they can topple buildings and tear gashes in stone walls with their claws, and are used by the Swarms as living siege engines. They are, however, quite rare, and are only seen during the largest of battles, otherwise seldom crawling out of their damp haunts. They are amphibious, typically found slumbering on the bottom of large subterranean lakes.
Reaver
As large as an earthbreaker, agile and adept at digging through the earth, reavers are a nightmarish sight to behold on and away from the battlefield alike. They emerge suddenly wherever soft enough soil affords them the opportunity, either bursting out and hurling themselves at the enemy or dragging single victims down into the burrows to be consumed. Worse yet, their approach is almost undetectable, being heralded only by a faint tremor. While they should never be taken lightly as a threat, reavers are less likely to surprise their prey on mountainous or rocky terrain, where they cannot abruptly burst out from under its feet.
Deep Mimic
Less direct in its efforts to devour occupants of the surface than other breeds, but no less voracious, the deep mimic specialises in hunting humanoid beings, and had devised a peculiar mechanism to draw them to it. When mimics consume their prey, they digest its entrails, but leave its skin mostly intact. They then insert their limbs into it and use it as a retractable decoy, moving it and even imitating fragments of speech while its true body remains hidden. Once the victim is lured close enough, the mimic leaps upon it and injects it with a paralysing poison, leaving it defenceless to be eaten at leisure.
Spore Host
A recent creation of the Earthen Brood, spore hosts are imposing and thickly encased in chitinous plating, but the greatest danger they pose lies in the sacs protruding from the holes in their backs. Within their bodies there lives a symbiotic fungus, which, growing under their carapaces, regularly ejects its spores in the form of clusters covered by a thin membrane. Through a series of muscular spasms the host can cause these clusters to burst, releasing clouds of noxious spores which take root in the lungs of those who inhale them and stifle them like a disease.
Dreg Walker
Elusive creatures, armed with a poisonous stinger, who adapted to live in watery deeps, be they those of underground lakes and rivers or even the sea. Dreg walkers can camouflage themselves in the abyssal penumbra, becoming invisible save for the luminescent appendage they use to attract prey. Disturbingly enough, some of them have seemingly learned to conceal themselves in more shallow waters as well, and sometimes use their skills to ambush unwary sailors and fishermen. Being partly amphibious, they can likewise crawl onto beaches and even boats. Dreg walkers plague portions of the Aberysian, Archonnen and East Ouroborasian coasts close to a Hive Cluster, but rarely venture far from their usual haunts.
Abomination
The misshapen descendants of those Riglir who settled in the vaults of what is today Hive Cluster Kralhk when most of the species still lived closer to the surface. Millennia of exposure to the slumbering magic of the Old Ones and occasional consumption of an aberration transformed them radically, twisting their bodies into grotesque shapes and tainting their minds with otherworldly shadows. Curiously, abominations have been among the Riglir most receptive to the Hive Mind, being capable of adapting its commands without the mediation of Superiors and often exhibiting minor magical powers.
Creeping Hunter
Stealthy, silent, almost undetectable creatures that might lurk anywhere in the vicinity of a hive, from places well-suited for ambushes, such as marshes, thickets and sandy beaches, to more improbable ones - open fields, clear, shallow ponds and even inhabited settlements. Wherever they might be, however, creeping hunters are always nigh-undetectable thanks to their ability to alter the hue and patterns of their carapaces to blend in with their surroundings and remain perfectly still, to the extent that their presence might elude even the most attentive observers. Dogs and other animals are often useful when dealing with these monsters, being capable of tracing their scent, which they find unpleasant. Even should a hunter be found, though, they should be faced with caution, as it is capable of making short work even of armed warriors.
Murk Dweller
Deep in the lightless lakes and rivers of the underworld there swim strange things, and the Riglir are not the least of them. Those that, in ages past, descended into the recesses of the world, but were not twisted into horrid forms by the magic of the Old Ones, have undergone a different sort of transformation. Grown pale over millennia of unbroken darkness and having adapted to their new watery domain with the aid of mutating spells, the murk dwellers have all but lost what little eyesight they once had, but gained a wide array of new senses and skills to thrive in the still, black waters. With the advent of Vex'xalar and the Earthen Brood, a number of dwellers were altered to survive in salt water, and now blight the seas along with the ravagers and dreg walkers.
Forager (Demicentaur)
The Earthen Brood of Hive Velash is most infamous for the ghastly mutations its members inflict upon themselves and other Vex’lir; however, that is not the full extent of their aberrant powers. On rare occasions, beings that the Lurker Below considers to possess useful traits and abilities are, upon abduction, brought not to the Prophets for sacrifice, but to the dark lairs of the Screamers. There, unnameable incantations are woven and flesh is melded to chitin, until what emerges from those deep warrens are no longer creatures fashioned by the deities of ages past, but Foulspawn, monuments to Vex’xalar’s defilement of the world. Centaurs were among the first to be distorted in such a manner, the forms of unfortunate captives reshaped into grotesque mockeries of their former selves. Since then, the loathsome foragers have grown numerous in the depths of Kralhk, preparing to emerge at their god’s command. As fast and powerful as their untainted counterparts and encased in thick carapaces, they are terrifying foes to face, whether trampling down prey in devastating charges or relentlessly pursuing it for miles over any terrain.
Ravager (Deminaga)
As Naga are a rare sight anywhere but in the far east, especially after the War in Heaven and Lamash’s conquest of their empire, the Swarms did not encounter any for decades as they consolidated their might. However, when, by some incident, the inhabitants of Sehtekr chanced upon some of them, they were quick to appraise the usefulness of creatures with such an aptitude for swimming, something that most Riglir lacked. Thus, the ravagers were created - monsters not only dangerously swift and dexterous in water, but capable of breathing under it as well, and armed with sharp pincers and mandibles. Now, these beasts infest the seas and lakes the Vex’lir have access to, harassing and attacking vessels even in places too deep for dreg walkers to reach them.
Devourer (Demidragon)
Two hundred years ago, as the world was still recovering from the aftermath of the War in Heaven, Vex'xalar managed to capture one of the remaining dragons by stealthily mobilising a swarm of its thralls, led by the Dweller, to surround the beast's lair and seize it as it was resting. Imprisoned in the deeps of Vextasrir, the unfortunate dragon was experimented upon by the Earthen Screamers, and eventually forced to unnaturally birth the first devourers. Though the dragon long since died amid the torments of the Hive, its twisted legacy lives on in the shape of these monstrous hybrids, who continue to multiply under the Lurker Below's dominion to this day. Though not as individually powerful as a dragon, they are prodigiously strong and ferocious, and even possess a weakened form of the draconic breath attack in the shape of toxic exhalations.
Hive Superior
The rank and file of the Riglir commander creatures, Hive Superiors are present wherever the Vex'lir maintain even the slightest presence. Their function is vital to the Swarms' functioning, as they filter the orders emanating from Vex'xalar and, using magical manipulation of the Hive Mind, tailor them to their environment and position to ensure that each body is able to contribute as much as circumstances will allow it. The Superiors are thus where the Vex'lir are most vulnerable, as eliminating them disrupts the chain of control stretching between the Lurker Below and its servants. They are thus often bred and transformed to be physically resilient, and possess limited magical abilities.
Hive Prophet
Less frequently seen than Superiors, but no less vital for the collective life of the Riglir, Prophets lead the Swarms' bodies in their strange ceremonies and feed Vex'xalar the souls of sacrificed prey. Their ability to channel the Hive Mind to their purposes is far greater than that of Superiors, to the extent that, unlike most other Riglir, they can temporarily subsume the consciousness of other bodies and control them in all things as though they were their own; they are likewise more capable spellcasters. Hive Prophets are usually found within Hives, but rarely appear on the battlefield.
Defiler
It is not only the Hive Superiors and the Earthen Brood that wield the life-warping magic of the Lurker Below. Among the Riglir that are born partially free from the total domination of the Hive Mind, a number is, due to peculiar mutations in their bodies or souls, not as capable of weaving the skein of the One Consciousness as the Prophets and Superiors, and not in an adequate condition to become a Screamer. Those exceptions become Defilers, harbingers of Vex'xalar who recklessly wield the god's unstable Theurgia to distort and befoul all that they encounter, or strengthen their fellow Vex'lir. Such beings are often seen accompanied by swarms of nightmarish vermin spawned by their spells, which they control with their limited powers over the Mind. A disturbing legend has it that those mortal followers of the Lurker who sufficiently transform their bodies and surrender themselves to the Hive Mind may themselves become Defilers; however, such rumours have yet to be verified.
Screamer
The mightiest of Riglir invokers, the four Velash Broods wield each an aspect of the Swarms' dread sorcerous powers. Their strength in transforming bodies and minds in horrific ways is fearsome, and the fact they can, to a limited extent, stabilise the Lurker's chaotic Theurgia signifies they are far less likely to accidentally destroy themselves or their allies than their lesser counterparts. Fortunately, comparatively few survive the initiation period of Hive Velash, and, except for the Abyssal Brood, Screamers cannot control lesser Riglir.
Hive Conduit
Conduits are what enables the Swarms to stretch their Hives far across Materia, even without Vex'xalar's limited sphere of influence. These beings were wrought to contain and project the power of the Hive Mind around them, spreading the Lurker's divine presence as they move ever so far away. Their destruction could potentially sever entire Clusters from the god, and as such they are made to be almost unassailable in their armour, and always kept under heavy guard.
Underworld Auxiliaries
Subjugated by the power of Vex'xalar, the most dangerous creatures of the subterranean domains are made to fight alongside the Riglir against the enemies of the Swarms when the need arises. From lurkers to worms, to even such alien creatures as the goliaths, wraiths, Primals and aberrations are brought under the sway of the Hive Mind - which, in truth, does little but direct them against its intended targets, leaving the rest to the predatory instincts of those who have them and whipping the others into a sanguinary frenzy.
Risen Husk
Skeletons of various races reassembled and animated by the powers of the Pale Brood. While often slow, unwieldy and not very robust (depending on the power of the Screamer controlling them), the Swarms have hundreds of forgotten graveyards from which to draw new forces for their ghastly armies.
Bone Amalgam
The masses of damaged or mismatched bones which cannot be built into stable constructs are not put to waste by the wielders of the Withered Visage. Gathered in large heaps, they are then made to move almost as waves of animated liquid, with skulls, spines, ribs and limbs flowing in amorphous ripples and crashing down upon enemies. Bone amalgams are infamously difficult to destroy, reforming even after being scattered as long as a Screamer is sustaining them.
Risen Leviathan
Deep within the earth, the titanic skeletons of the Leviathans slumber, untouched by the ages. Though many of them are still largely intact, no spell has yet proven mighty enough to animate them fully, and the Pale Broodmaster, for reasons unknown, has to this day withheld from using the full power of its artefact to achieve this.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
No one knows where Tsakkal came from, whether he was woven together by the servants of Vex'xalar, or the Red God itself, from the essence of the Hive Mind, crawled out of the Primordial Well, or came into being in some other, equally unearthly manner. All that is known is that, despite being bound to the One Mind and a loyal adept of the Lurker Below, he is not a Riglir. His shifting body is formed by a multitude of writhing maggots, who, compelled by his will, can coalesce into a variety of shapes, dispersing and reforming within moments. Taking advantage of this flexibility, he often takes on a roughly humanoid guise, which, concealed under cloaks and masks, can enable him to move among surface populations undetected.
Tsakkal controls the worms in his body through what appears to be a lesser reflection of the hive mind, only partly connected to the greater consciousness of the Swarms, which gives it the strength to project itself into the world. Being spread over multiple bodies, it is said that Tsakkal can never die as long as the Hive Mind exists, as he would simply reform elsewhere; rumour also has it that, due to his abilities, he can be in many places at once, and infect the minds of mortals with the touch of Vex'xalar. Whatever the case, it is certain that the Voice is not named thus by accident, being capable of rapidly learning and imitating virtually any language it hears spoken. Combining this with his skill in disguise and transformation, Tsakkal slithers into towns and cities, sowing unrest and dissent and deceiving the populace into turning away from their gods at the behest of his master.
Ancient even by the standards of races with lifespans less fleeting than those of the Riglir, the Archprophet has been there since even before the fall of the Old Pantheon. Once the chosen of the last of the Watchers, whose gifts extended its lifespan far beyond what is natural, the Archprophet would have been left powerless after its patron's demise, had it not been for Vex'xalar exalting it as the first of its chosen. The Lurker, who had hastily commanded the faithful cleric to prepare the ritual for its materialisation to the extent that it was possible, rewarded its worshipper by granting it its own might and granting it the title of its new high priest - a position which was then firmly consolidated when the Archprophet assisted its god in invoking the Curse of the Hive over the species, and one it maintains to this day.
Having devoured the soulless husks of countless sacrificial victims over the centuries, the Archprophet has grown monstrously large and bloated, to the extent that it is unable to move. Despite being eyeless, it sees better than any other Riglir, due to uninterruptedly projecting itself into several crawling eyes, a feat not even the most powerful of the minor priests is capable of. Its might and closeness to the god are such that, according to legends, its mere thoughts can kill. Currently, the high priest of the Lurker Below dwells near the Primordial Well, overseeing the cryptic preparations its underlings perform around it.
The eldest of the Riglir behemoths, and undoubtedly the largest and most voracious. Skalerak has been compared to a walking mountain, blotting out the horizon as it moves, and, while this much is an exaggeration born of fear, the monster truly is vast enough to dwarf most mortal constructions. When the Swarms move in force against their foes, it is often at the forefront of the charge, sweeping up all it encounters into its mouth with its multiple, tentacle-like tongues. Despite what appearances might suggest, Skalerak is far from a savage brute, being one of the Vex'lir's most cunning tactical sub-minds and issuing orders to the hordes under its lead even as it marches.
An old, mysterious creature greatly versed in wielding the powers born from the Hive Mind, though in a manner more narrowly specialised than the Abyssal Brood. The Dweller is almost unparalleled in arranging and controlling the minds of thrall bodies, as well as assailing foes with excruciating cerebral afflictions and infecting them with the fearsome and inhuman thoughts and visions that circulate in the One consciousness. In spite of these fearsome abilities, it is virtually unknown on the surface, as it never shows itself and prefers to act from afar through inferior vessels of the Hive, even striking with its powers from a distance. It currently lurks in the tunnels of Hive Cluster Xelkash, far in the south-east.
Despite being far less imposing than creatures such as Skalerak or even a regular reaver, Itarax is among the most physically dangerous entities among the Swarms. When prowling and stalking its prey, be it below the ground, on the surface or underwater, it is silent and invisible, capable of awaiting an opportunity to strike for hours; once the latter presents itself, its lunge is faster than an arrow, and the grip of its mandibles stronger than a steel vice. Even were one to see through its chameleon-like mimesis, its carapace protects it from blows as the most sturdy of armours. Of the Riglir champions of Vex'xalar, Itarax is among the more bestial, being single-mindedly dedicated to eliminating targets designated by the god, or ones that it finds most appetizing; however, it has shown itself to be capable of following complex reasoning, provided it is not of an overly abstract sort.
While Skalerak leads its lessers amid the heat of battle and V'nakkr skulks far off in the shadows, Naxxar adopts a middle ground between those two approaches. When Riglir under its command appear, it is never far itself, winding its way beneath the soil and bursting out unexpectedly to reinforce the swarm if it falters, or, what it greatly prefers, deliver the finishing blow to the enemy. Unusually for a Riglir, Naxxar is more cruel than animalistically pragmatic, often toying with inferior or defeated enemies before consuming them. It currently dwells in Hive Cluster Zattdrok.
The Arch-Superior of Hive Cluster Sehtekr, and only holder of that title among the Swarms. When the Cluster was severed from Kralhk by the emergence of the Fount and its foundations, Vex'xalar deemed it necessary to establish a local nucleus of control in order to maintain greater cohesion in Sehtekr's strategies. Thus one of the eldest Superiors, Rakkreth, was chosen to act as the Lurker Below's primary focus in the Cluster, dispersing its commands through its now separate ramifications. While its rank has increased, however, Rakkreth remains a Hive Superior in all aspects, being little more than a dutiful, if creative, executor.
EXTRA INFORMATION:
[to fill]
Full History: (Your nation’s history following the major eras/cycles. Remember to align it with the settings history, as it is hard for nations to live in an isolated bubble here)
List of Historical Grievances: The Turquoise Lord and their servants are seen by Vex'xalar as the most dangerous and hated enemy, having been the first to intrude upon the god's abode themselves when, about 150 years ago, the Stray Palace Overlays reached into the bottom of Hive Vextasrir. Unfortunately, in its warped sight, all inhabitants of the surface fall into this category, leading to uninterrupted aggression against all sides.
Relations: Universally hostile. Approaching the Swarms would not lead to anything good, whoever one might be.
Cultural Notes: (Anything cultural of note or unique about the nation that isn’t mentioned under religious interpretations/culture)
Still absorbed in his muttering over the smokes rising from the censer, which had shifted from pale grey to a white unnaturally veined with blue streaks, Ulor managed to hear his name being called from behind him, even though the words previously spoken by the bard had slipped by his ears without leaving any trace. Without ceasing his incantation, he turned towards the table and approached it with short, careful steps, swinging the censer from its chain as he carried it as, he remembered, the adjuncts did during worship functions. And to say it seemed so easy when he saw them doing it... Before reaching the table, he had already struck himself over the knee no less than five times, and, he was certain, narrowly avoided setting himself on fire once more. Now, more than ever, he regretted never having been chosen for service at the altar. Fortunately, however, he reached his goal without excessive damage to his own person, something he found he already had had enough of.
While the stream of unintelligible words from his mouth flowed on without interruptions, he nodded in acquiescence at the feline, and, placing the censer on the table at what should have been a safe distance from the papery findings, bent over the latter. Curiosity lit his eyes as he leafed through what seemed to be ledgers - and ledgers in a cathedral were bound to contain something interesting - only to be replaced by disappointment as he found himself unable to decipher the writing on their pages. Nor was he any more successful with the other documents. The script closely resembled Dwarven runes, but the symbols' arrangement was entirely unfamiliar.
Ulor was about to sweep them aside and proceed to the inspection of a handful of black stones, but instead found himself peering at the strange text so closely that his eyes crossed. Further distracted by a melody he vaguely heard from somewhere in the nave, he stopped muttering and began to absently bite his whisker, as his right hand slid off somewhere along the table to toy with the first thing it encountered. Something metallic, breathing warmly, which had a opening just large enough for... With a sharp and rather breathless curse he drew back his hand, blowing on what had, until a few moments ago, been one of the few spots on his body that had remained relatively safe from scorching and knocking the smoking censer down onto the table. Smouldering ashes fell from the overturned thurible onto the central pages of a still open volume, rapidly eating through the parchment and obliterating what might have been crucial information.
Hissing a rapid spell, Ulor extinguished the cinders and shook them out of the book before hastily shutting it. Then, rapidly resuming his mumbling as though to regain the lost time, he returned the censer to its proper standing position, waved his hands over it almost as though to reassure it (or something else) that the summoning was still happening, and placed the pile of cryptic manuscripts into his backpack. The stones did not yield much else - they seemed fairly valuable, if anything, but that aspect of the matter did not interest him in the least. Slipping them into a pouch, he returned to his ritual in a slightly worse disposition than before.
Ulor's nat 1 in examining the document costs the party some precious pages out of a ledger.
-Population: Numbers often fluctuate, but usually remain within the range of 96-97 million (not counting underworld beasts and assorted monstrosities).
-Faction: Red Pantheon (unaffiliated).
-Capital: Hive Vextasrir, also known as the Chasm of Ineffable Odds.
-Government Type: Hive Mind.
-Government Description:
The term “government” is perhaps not altogether suitable for describing the internal structure and functioning of the Vex’lir Swarms. In truth, it is more similar to the natural forms of organisation found in the colonies of certain invertebrates, or, in its heavily magically supplemented form, to the workings of a single, vast living organism. The entirety of the Riglir population is bound to the will of its divine master, the fallen Celestial Servant - and now Red God - Vex’xalar by the means of an enchantment which conjoins their minds with its own. This spell allows the Lurker to issue commands to any number of its subjects at any given moment, and physically constrains them to obey such orders, as though they were nothing more than extensions of itself.
Despite the omnipresence of the curse, a comparatively small number of Riglir is, for various reasons relating to their hatching, afforded a greater degree of freedom in choosing how to carry out the divine injunctions. These creatures take up the position of intermediaries between the god and the masses of its thralls, acting as commanders and overseers (Hive Superiors) or priests and shamans (Hive Prophets). Often, these lieutenants will slightly modify the commands relayed to them in order to better adapt its execution to the current circumstances.
-Head of State: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below.
-Currency: None. The nature of the Swarms is such that internal and external commerce alike are nonexistent, and currency thus unnecessary.
-Language(s): Though the use of speech in the warrens is rare, vestigial remains of the former Riglir languages are still employed for ritual purposes. In the rare occasions members of the Swarms will communicate with the surface world, they have shown themselves capable of using the predominant Elven languages, debased and simplified to varying degrees.
Short History
Until about ten thousand years ago, most of the Riglir race had lived near the surface in a feral state, benefiting from its symbiosis with titanic creatures known as Leviathans, so vast and powerful that they preyed even dragons. Scavenging in the wake of these beings, they were able to subsist without forming societies more complex than rudimentary packs or broods, despite being potentially capable of doing so. However, when the Leviathans disappeared for reasons now forgotten, the Riglir found themselves deprived of their greatest strength and unable to survive in the upper subterranean levels they had until then inhabited. They thus withdrew into the depths where some of their number had already made their home, and began to settle its relatively more hospitable darkness.
However, the underworld itself was not without its dangers. Lethal monstrosities stalked its tunnels, and its caverns teemed with treacherous pitfalls and strange life which had never seen the light of day. Worse yet, many thousands of years before its deeps had been inhabited by the cryptic Old Ones. Though that race had died out so long ago that even the ruins of its cities had become virtually indistinguishable from unusual rocky formations, its ancient and powerful enchantments lingered still, spawning countless horrors and anomalies in dim wells beneath the earth. To face these threats, even on equal ground, the Riglir had to grow more organised. And, possibly to the surprise of anyone cursorily acquainted with them, they did, strengthening their communities and turning to the worship of gods for the protection they found themselves lacking. One of them eventually ascended to a divine state itself, becoming the first in a line of Watchers Below who guided the Riglir on the way to civilisation.
However, when Justinian arose and moved against the Old Pantheon, the last of the Watchers was slain. Its celestial servant, Vex’xalar, sought to escape by manifesting in the material plane; however, the hasty and poorly prepared ritual went awry, leaving the Red God crippled in body and spirit. Drawing upon dark forces of cosmic imperfection and decay, the maddened Vex’xalar cast a spell to bring nearly all Riglir under its thrall, absorbing them into an unnatural Hive Mind and cursing all future generations to be born in its hold. Only a scant few escaped the spell’s effects, fleeing south.
Vex’xalar remained hidden with its swarms while the War raged; once it was over, they emerged again, more ferocious than ever, to assail all that were to be found in the vicinity in an incessant series of incursions which continues to the present day. Of particular violence have been their struggles with the influence of the Lord of the Turquoise Scheme, whose Overlays reach deep below and into the very seat of Vex’xalar. Such was the Lurker’s wrath at the intrusion that, two centuries ago, it lashed out with tremendous power, creating the immense Chasm of Ineffable Odds which runs through the center of Materia. In this unfathomable abyss the battle rages still, as more and more horrors clamber out of it to blight the world above.
UNIQUE ATTRIBUTE INFORMATION:
A Screamer summons a swarm of voracious insects with a spell.
• One Mind: The entire population of the Swarms is telepathically linked with its master and among itself, enabling them to function more as a super-organism than a nation proper. All acquired knowledge is instantly shared between the millions of Riglir bodies, and, through the action of Hive Superiors and Prophets, their masses can act with an impossible degree of coordination. The Hive Mind eliminates the need for conventional social structures, since the activity of every single creature can be regulated individually to be as efficient in carrying out its tasks as possible. However, such advantages come at a price: not only is the individuality and initiative of most of their bodies suppressed, but the Swarms are heavily reliant on its intermediary leaders to function properly. Eliminating them disrupts lesser thralls, causing them to act haphazardly at the best of their own limited skill. Additionally, all of the Vex’lir Riglir are infected with the Lurker’s madness.
• Myriad Bodies: Ever since their early days, the Riglir have been infamous for their frighteningly rapid rate of reproduction and adaptability. These traits ensure that the species will thrive in virtually any survivable environment, multiplying until they quite literally flood their dens and burrows. Even when faced with heavy losses, they are capable of swiftly replenishing their numbers. This natural prolificness is only increased by the liberal application of mutation-inducing magic, which swells their ranks further in less than describable ways. Thus, despite lacking any sort of technology and infrastructure, the population of the Swarms is colossal and incredibly varied by the standards of all but the vastest nations, and can quickly recover from anything short of complete annihilation.
• Horror in the Flesh: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below, last of the Riglir gods and inheritor of the Watchers, crawls upon the earth once more. Though unable to regain its full power after being weakened by an imperfect manifestation and vulnerable to being fully destroyed, the Red God is a redoubtable foe, inhabiting a gargantuan physical form and wielding earth-rending magical might.
• Unholy Arcana: The Vex’lir spellcasters possess distinctive magical abilities granted by their divine patron and certain ancient Masterless Artefacts. Those include transforming bodies in often gruesome and hideous, but undeniably effective ways, channeling the sinister powers of the Hive Mind to assail the psyche of enemies or manifest otherworldly thaumaturgical effects, and a heightened proficiency at animating skeletons and other bone constructs. However, most of them are fraught with risks for the caster and its allies as well. Transmutation spells are fueled by Vex’xalar’s unstable Theurgia, and thus often backfire in spectacularly ghastly manners, and the influence of the Hive Mind is dangerously unpredictable and often uncontrollable.
• Heart of Madness: Being as of one mind with their god, all Riglir are under the influx of its delusions and savage nature. As Vex’xalar believes to be all inhabitants of the surface and their gods to be servants of the inimical Turquoise Lord, the Swarms are invariably hostile to anyone and anything else, and attempts to communicate with them are doomed to end in failure.
• Ichor and Chitin: While physically resilient and versatile and reasonably skilful in the use of magic, the Riglir have never been gifted with the ability for technological innovation, and the advent of the Hive Mind has wiped away the few advancements they had achieved in the course of millennia. As a result, the Swarms possess no technology to speak of, and can neither devise any nor use what they capture or scavenge. Their workers and combatants are therefore unequipped and unarmed, and rely exclusively on their (often modified) bodies.
• Underdwellers: Rare is the Riglir who rises to the surface for any purpose other than an incursion into enemy territory. The species, in its many variations, is adapted for subterranean life, and the Swarms dwell in a great maze of caverns, vaults and tunnels spanning much of the center of Materia and reaching southwards into Ouroborasian lands, and do not control any territory on the surface. Entrenched belowground, their lairs are difficult to invade for conventional forces, who would be at risk of becoming an easy target for traps and ambushes. Furthermore, the Riglir are thus able to move beneath the holdings of other nations, emerging in the most improbable of places in spite of any defenses on the surface.
• Pit of Nightmares: Though their subterranean nature grants the Swarms some advantages, not even they are immune to the many perils of the underworld. The dim recesses of the earth hide bottomless abysses, strange and dangerous creatures unlike any ever seen on the surface and other lethal portents. Worse yet, ancient lingering spells have, over the ages, permeated entire underground regions, spawning horrifying magical anomalies and twisting wildlife into unnatural and monstrous forms - something which has only been exacerbated by the surges of Vex’xalar’s dire and erratic powers.
• Legacy of the Old Ones: Long ago, perhaps even in the oblivion-shrouded first ages, the caverns that now serve as Riglir hives were inhabited by a race of beings who, their name lost to time, are known today only as the Old Ones. They built imposing cities, temples and ziggurats in enormous vaults, and were adept in many mystical arts. It is likely they disappeared before even the first Riglir walked Materia, but they left enduring traces of their passing. Their cities, though ruined and decayed beyond recognition, are being rediscovered; within them, ancient Artefacts of great power have been found, and vestiges of old enchantments hover below the ground, their might not fully spent even to this day.
• Dark Knowledge: There might be clarity in divine madness. Though Vex’xalar, and by extension the Hive Mind, is severely disconnected from the reality of material and celestial planes alike, its peculiar state seems to grant it a strange insight into the flawed nature of the cosmos itself. It has already shown itself capable of apparently calling forth the energies of universal fraying and degeneration to bolster itself at the expense of the very world’s stability, and who knows what other dread skills it might hold in store?
GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION:
Hive Ulkar, one of the hundreds of Riglir nests in Materia.
Major Locations of Interest:
• Kralhk: The largest and oldest of the hive clusters, Kralhk houses the most important locations in the Swarms' subterranean domain, among which the seat of Vex'xalar and the sacred city of the Forgotten. The under-land here is barren, grim and desolate, with only some particularly resilient insectoid species surviving in the rocky soil. In the north lie the forsaken vaults of the Old Ones, where wander strange energies and presences; further south, the vast sunken graveyards of the Leviathans slumber in their deathly stillness.
- Hive Vextasrir, or the Chasm of Ineffable Odds: The greatest Riglir hive in all Materia, Vextasrir spans the entire center of the continent across, having grown around Vex'xalar's form to span the immense gulf opened by the god's wrath. Its bottom and western wall crawl with the invertebrates' constant activity; surfaces of Turquoise Overlay cover the eastern wall, alternately encroaching upon and losing ground to infinite numbers of assailants. At the lowermost point in the chasm, so deep that even the sunlight does not reach it from the mouth above, the titanic body of the Lurker Below stands, embedded by half in the soil, ceaselessly lashing against the spectral intruders into its lair.
- The Desolate Vaults: The sinister magnificence of the cities of the Old Ones can now largely only be guessed at. Corroded by ages of abandon, their walls and pillars have crumbled and rotten away, growing indistinguishable from the rocky formations around which have crawled into the narrow, winding streets and circular squares. Yet not all is quiet in the Vaults - the powers of the ancient race have not faded entirely, and surreal entities born of rampant magic stalk the silent corridors.
- Hive Velash: Situated on the site of a ruined temple, Hive Velash is where the fearsome Screamers are hatched from a select stock of Riglir and left to grow, fending for themselves from their first days amid the many dangers of the Old Ones' land. Those who survive the trial of Velash, which is in truth less of a hive than an arena and proving ground, are certain to be some of the strongest and most resourceful among the Swarms' elite.
- The Primordial Well: A curious and unsettling anomaly even in the otherworldly atmosphere of the Vaults, the Primordial Well is a place where, through the efforts of either the Old Ones or the Riglir themselves, the last layer of Materia's soil has been breached, opening a gaping hole into the inchoate darkness beyond. Despite the zones surrounding the Well being plagued by particularly terrible abnormalities and unimaginable horrors, the Hive Prophets and Abyssal Brood maintain a strong presence here, and have built strange structures around and within the cavity leading to the limit of the finite world.
- The Boneyards: Where once the mighty Leviathans shook the earth with their steps, now only their great skeletons, interred by time and scavengers, remain in enormous earthen tombs to mark their passing. So large and numerous are these bones that, at first sight, one could well mistake them for a white city built underground by finer artisans than the Riglir, with jagged spines and rigid limbs rising up like towers and ribcages standing up like the walls of a fortress. The Pale Brood dwells in this hell of tangled decrepitude, which never leaves the thaumaturges hungry for materials for their constructs.
• Zattdrok: Adding to eastern Aberys's already troubled nature, Zattdrok was once the first step in the Riglir's southward expansion, and remains to this day the second largest Hive Cluster. In what might be at once the source and reflection of the fertile farmlands on the surface, the earth here is particularly well-suited for life even in the abyssal deeps; as a result, not only are the local hives exceptionally large and populous, but the swarms dwelling there have encountered all sorts of strange beings living in complex and apparently very ancient ecosystems.
- Hive Ulkar: The central settlement in Zattdrok, Ulkar boasts abundant fungus farms and herds of ghoul moles, allowing it to supply a large portion of the cluster with its resources alone. However, it is rich not only in food, but in troops as well, with local Riglir being especially numerous and well-fed. As such, it is the staging ground of most raids upon the lands above.
- The Dim Marshes: A particularly damp spot at the confluence of several underground streams which has over the centuries developed into nothing short of a stretch of darkling swampland. Under an air heavy with humidity and warm with the slow decay of forests of algae, lichens and fungi there dwell creatures never seen elsewhere who adapted to thrive in this improbable and treacherous environment, the most notable of them being the powerful but lethargic bog goliaths.
- The Chambers of Life: Stranger yet than the Marshes, the Chambers of Life are a web of caverns in which, contrarily to what one might expect having observed the laws and processes of natural life, there seems to exist an entire world of beings as alien as they are diverse. Here, the boundary between plant and animal is even less visible than in the Swamps: the Primal beings that inhabit these chambers, both growing in them as trees and moving through them as beasts, are as much of a riddle in their nature as in their survival so deep within the earth.
• Xelkash: Sinking the claws of its many tunnels deep into the south of the continent, Xelkash might be seen as representing Vex'xalar forcefully - and altogether involuntarily - staking its claim as being part of the Red Pantheon, without, for that matter, entertaining anything but savage hostility against the loose alliance of the southern gods. The under-lands here are inhospitable, but not desolate as those of Kralhk; rather, they are more directly harsh and treacherous, full of pitfalls and overhanging damp soil, and few but the hardy ironhide worms dare make their home here.
- Hive Raahkal: The central hive of Xelkash, and the origin of most incursions into East Ouroborasian territory. Raahkal in particular is home to many Azure Brood Screamers, often engaged in experiments to see to what extent they can employ Turquoise magics against supposed direct servants of the Lord, which include anything from witches to peasants to homunculi.
- The Warrens of a Thousand Maws: Within the south's variably rocky and damp soil, some species of great worms and maggots have found an ideal habitat, digging a complex of chambers and tunnels through which their bloated bodies may move freely. On occasion, the local Riglir collapse and divert some of these passageways, forcing the worms to travel towards specially selected locations - often villages or encampments on the surface.
• Sehtekr: The easternmost Cluster, Sehtekr was severed from Kralhk by the expansion of the Stray Palace Overlay in Tramontan, and now remains connected to it only through a small number of tunnels. Due to its isolated nature and unfavourable position, Sehtekr is presently engaged in struggles against the Turquoise Domain and Justinian forces in the west, as well as attempting to adapt to the desert terrain in the south. The region is altogether quite dry, but some recesses contain small subterranean rivers and lakes.
- Hive Starak: Major hive in Sehtekr, from where the Arch-Superior directs works of entrenchment, encroachment and gradual reestablishment of a direct link with the western Clusters. Due to Sehtekr's overall less centralised nature, it is not as large as Ulkar or even Raahkal, but it benefits from direct connections with lesser hives nea and distant alike.
- The Wraith Pits: Though the soil here is nowhere as fertile as in Zattdrok, the local subterranean water deposits have abetted the growth of some dark-dwelling life-forms near and within them. Many small lakes are thus surrounded by circles of undergrowth, through which there move the uncommon beasts which lend the Pits their name: the otherworldly gelatinous wraiths, which resemble the Primals in not being clearly categorisable, but otherwise are as unlike them as anything else in the known world.
RACIAL INFORMATION:
-Majority race:Riglir. While once this name designated a single species of semi-sapient, gregarious invertebrate creatures, millennia of natural and magical evolution have made it so that it is now more of a blanket term covering several subspecies with a common ancestor. The modern Riglir vary greatly in shape, size and environmental preferences; nonetheless, they all share some basic biological traits. Riglir physiology is somewhat similar to that of crustaceans, having a hard, chitinous exoskeleton and diverse (but generally even, unless chaotic magic is involved) numbers of segmented limbs. As a rule, they possess sharp and robust claws, fit for digging through soil and rock and often supplemented by corrosive secretions. Being subterranean creatures, they generally have poor eyesight, and mainly rely on scent, hearing and vibration detection to perceive their surroundings.
Riglir are known to be short-lived, with the average life expectancy among them being between twenty and thirty years. To compensate for this, they are highly prolific, breeding twice a year in normal conditions. Under Vex’xalar, reproduction has become an almost industrialised business, with millions of bodies being regularly herded into special hives every cycle. The hold of the Hive Mind on them is then briefly relaxed, leaving the thralls under the sway of natural instincts and mating pheromones (which cause the usually androgynous Riglir to temporarily develop sexual characteristics). Each impregnated individual lays several eggs after gestation, which, if they are not lost or eaten by predators, hatch within a few weeks.
Unlike their free counterparts in the south, Vex’lir Riglir are born with the curse of the Hive Mind ingrained in their bodies, which places them under the Lurker Below’s dominion unless it is magically removed.
Being the only currently living species in the Swarms that is more than sentient, the Riglir are dominant within them, with other creatures under the Hive Mind’s control being considered as analogous to cattle or beasts of burden at best.
Minority races:
- Leviathans (extinct): The species of giant animals that once roamed central Materia. It is said that they might have been the natural predators of dragons, and their size certainly seems to support this theory, as even an average-sized Leviathan would have dwarfed the mighty creatures. Having died out due to unknown causes ten thousand years ago, their bones remain exceedingly well-preserved, many of them still untouched by decay.
- Old Ones (extinct): The first intelligent race to inhabit the underworld, and likewise the first to vanish. The Old Ones' civilisation reached its apex during the first few Cycles of creation, then gradually declined and disappeared, its works falling into ruin. Nevertheless, their semblance remains known to this day thanks to its depiction in the mighty idol of the Lost.
- Tunnel Skulkers: Large predatory insectoids most common in Hive Cluster Kralhk, where they eke out a living for themselves amid the harsh and unforgiving walls of grey rock by preying on smaller animals such as worms and rodents, and occasionally even minor aberrations. Skulkers have been historically tamed by the Riglir, and were among the first beasts to be controlled through the Hive Mind.
- Onyx Spiders: Enormous, highly intelligent cave-dwelling arachnids, spinning tremendously resistant silken webs. Though so developed as to be entirely sentient and even capable of using tools, onyx spiders are asocial and strongly driven by instinct, a combination making them fearsome predators and impervious to taming attempts. Interestingly, the spiders have devised an inventive method of overcoming mounted humanoid foes by dragging their steed from under them as they charge. Related to the similar, surface-dwelling Agate Spiders.
- Ironhide Worms: A species of large worms native to the southern burrows, with adult specimen measuring up to twelve or fifteen feet. Ironhide worms possess several vestigial limbs with which they propel themselves through narrow tunnels, frequently reaching high speeds, and proverbially hard shells, which earned them their name.
- Bog Goliaths: A bizarre species dwelling in the Dim Marshes, bog goliaths appear, by all tokens, to be a sort of fungus which somehow achieved the ability to move and act as a sentient creature. Though large and physically very strong, the goliaths are lumbering and apathetic, only reacting violently when harmed.
- Ghoul Moles: Subterranean, burrowing mammals that earned their macabre name by occasionally being found eating fresh corpses, being omnivorous but not predatory. They will sometimes emerge in fairly large numbers to feed on battlefields. Since they are fast and easy to fatten, ghoul moles are farmed in Zattdrok hives as livestock.
- Gelatinous Wraiths: Human-sized, many-limbed creatures found near subterranean lakes in Hive Cluster Sehtekr, their strange shape makes gelatinous wraiths are an enigma as regards their life and functioning. Though normally herbivorous, they have been known to capture other animals with a paralysing poison and consume them by digesting them externally.
- Primals: Even more mysterious than the wraiths are the beings inhabiting the Chambers of Life. More than anything - and indeed if anything - they resemble unnatural fusions of plant and beast, growing in many twisted shapes. Uncomfortably enough, they call to mind the idea of an early, unfinished creation, abandoned due to a flawed design and sealed away so that none may see it.
- Aberrations: The most outlandish of all subterranean entities, aberrations are created by the uncontrollable magical energies pulsing through the Desolate Vaults or erratically unleashed by Vex'xalar, and as such are thoroughly unnatural. No two of them are alike, but all are made similar by the distinct appearance of not belonging in this world, if any at all.
RELIGIOUS INFORMATION:
A depiction of the Lurker, decorated with ritual symbols.
-State Religion: Red Pantheonism.
-Patron Deity: Vex’xalar the Lurker Below.
-Religion Demographics: Given that the Swarms are shackled to the mental dominion of their god, no deviation from its religion is physically possible among them.
-Major Holy Relics/Artefacts in Possession:
• Eikon of the Lost (Masterless): An idol so ancient as to seem to belong to another world altogether, the Eikon of the Lost is believed to date back to the early days of the Old Ones themselves. This imposing statue, despite its incalculable age and the apparent fragility of some of its materials, is surreally well-preserved, bearing not the slightest dent or scratch to show, and remains even now unnaturally resistant to damage. It depicts a member of the vanished race bowing in supplication before a large opalescent gem, held aloft by cunningly fashioned supports of translucent crystal and presumed to represent one of the first deities, or perhaps even the Demiurge itself. As powerful as it is old, the Eikon is overflowing with divine essence. So thoroughly imbued is it that it emanates unearthly distortions of the cosmos’s laws, creating magical anomalies or portentous strength with its mere presence. The Artefact played a crucial part in Vex’xalar’s blasphemous ritual, and continues to sustain the curse of the Hive. The Eikon currently rests in the Vault of the Forgotten, guarded by the Abyssal Broodmaster.
• The Withered Visage (Masterless): A second relic hearkening back to primeval times, though distinctly more recent than the Eikon of the Lost. The Withered Visage is a headdress fashioned from the mummified exo-skull of an Old One, plaqued with silver and studded with precious stones. Those who don it are granted unparallelled osteokinetic powers, becoming capable of assembling bones of any size and shape into redoubtably strong, robust and fast constructs, and maintaining control over hordes of fleshless horrors at once. Furthermore, when worn by a powerful Screamer, part of the essence stored in it can be absorbed by the Hive Mind, enabling other Vex’lir casters to access a limited form of its potential. The Withered Visage is currently carried by Athksarak, the Pale Broodmaster.
-Holy Sites under Control:
• Vault of the Forgotten: Of all the ruined cities of the Old Ones, invisible in their corrosion to any but the trained senses of the Riglir, the one lying in the great cavern known as the Vault of the Forgotten is the largest in its identifiable remains, and the one most haunted by the magical influences of bygone ages. Strange mists coil among the cyclopean heaps of rubble that once were palaces, shrines and pillars, and eerie sounds drift in the maze of the few barely surviving streets. Such is its size and so potent its influences that it might be that it once had been the Holy City of gods now beyond memory. The Vault has become the lair of the Abyssal Brood and numerous Hive Prophets, who ceaselessly work to gradually restore at least a fraction of the city following half-guessed, half-divined designs. The purpose of these efforts remains unclear.
-Notable Magical Institutions:
• Hive Velash Broods: Since performing the necessary ritual to cast a spell requires a degree of concentration greater than the Hive Mind can devote to a single body and, more importantly, a focus upon the sacrifice’s recipient which, due to its monolithic nature, it is physically incapable of (as it would involve the paradox of Vex’xalar sacrificing to and demanding Theurgia from itself), the only possible magic wielders among the Swarms besides the god itself are those Riglir who maintain a degree of partial autonomy in their thoughts and actions. Since, all things considered, the Riglir are anything but wasteful, this potential is exploited to the fullest, with all Hive Prophets and, to a lesser degree, Superiors being capable of spellcasting. However, they are by far not the most fearsome magic users under the Lurker. In a hive obtained from a temple-city of the Old Ones, it has bred a strain of Riglir specialised in performing incantations and directing the obtained Theurgia with utmost skill and efficiency. These creatures, known as Screamers, can exert a far greater control on Vex’xalar’s unstable energies than their normal counterparts, and are divided into four Broods by the branches of magic they are most adept in:
- The Earthen Brood, most numerous and commonly seen of all, specialises in the Red God’s own transmuting magic. Its members’ carapaces are of dark brown and grey colours, and their bodies are notoriously deformed.
- The Abyssal Brood focuses on harnessing the strange powers of the Hive Mind and its magical sources. Its carapaces are black with irregular purple markings.
- The Pale Brood, using the Withered Visage worn by its leader, channel the power of moving and animating the bones of corpses old and new. Its carapaces are of a faded, skeletal white.
- The Azure Brood, the smallest of the four, has as its purpose to experiment with the magics of the Turquoise Lord and learn to turn them against their supposed masters. Its carapaces are of an unnaturally bright azure colour, as in mockery or clumsy imitation of the Turquoise.
-Religious Interpretations/Culture: Limited though its manifestations, and indeed effective substance and utility, might be within the all-controlling Hive Mind, Vex’xalar maintains a semblance of religious rite and canon beyond the strictly necessary utilitarian minimum - perhaps simply out of habit, or for some other less fathomable purpose. Its Prophets do not serve simply as spellcasters and minor taskmasters: following some sort of apparently irregular cycle, lesser thralls gather around them in special chambers or hive sections, and are made to bow and recite ritual chants under the clerics’ lead. These ceremonies, more similar to a puppet show than worship, are typically performed in veneration of Vex’xalar, who is represented with variations of the rather primitive religious symbols used by the Riglir during the time of the Watchers; however, some different versions can now and again be observed, where to the Lurker Below there are added other objects of veneration. Among those, there appear strange signs and images never used before, possibly, albeit strangely, depicting the dead Watchers themselves.
The frequency, magnitude and specific of these rites do not seem to follow any persistent scheme, varying depending on available space, celebrants and victims. Some, held in great vaults with hundreds or thousands of participants, are complex functions, involving otherworldly intricacies in disposition and chant modulation, large idols or murals of alien symbols and elaborate mutilation and slaying of the offerings, whereas others, performed in the corners of lesser hives, may involve only a few dozen supplicants, a crude eidolon and rapid, brutal executions. If something has not changed since Vex’xalar came to power, it is the savagery of the Riglir race.
MILITARY INFORMATION:
Total Military Size: Uncertain, due to the Swarms comprising no regular army structures or organisations. The average number of Riglir and underworld auxiliaries ready for or engaged in combat at any given moment can be estimated at slightly less than a million.
Listed Heroes: - To do - Vex’xalar, Skalerak, Voice, Broodmasters, Dweller, Hunter, Archprophet
Military Doctrine: While the inhabitants of the surface may have dimly remembered the Riglir of old as bestial creatures, blindly rushing against their opponents in droves, the Hive Mind has since transformed them from a disorganised horde into an unnaturally cohesive, cunning and relentless force. Their favoured approach to engaging battle remains a massed charge of innumerable bodies, overwhelming any opposition through brute strength and sheer force of numbers; however, this basic strategy is now improved and supplemented with a variety of additions which shift and change to adapt to every challenge the Swarms encounter.
Hive Superiors understand the concept of “tactical advantage”, and are generally capable of calculating how many casualties acquiring a given edge over the enemy is worth. Due to the nature of the Vex’lir, Riglir commanders have not the slightest hesitation in sacrificing thousands of thralls should the battle plan demand it, and those latter, fully aware of their purpose, can be relied upon to carry out their tasks just as indicated. Every being, no matter its form, abilities and role, will be certain to employ its potential to the fullest. Much less than a chaotic tide of horrors, the Swarms are as precise and calculating as a mantis luring in and seizing its prey without a single unnecessary movement.
Being accustomed to fighting in narrow and winding underground tunnels, the Riglir are fond of ambushes, pincers and surrounding tactics, pinning their foes in place before bearing down on them with the full strength of their numerical superiority. When forced to meet the enemy in broad, open fields, they will nonetheless attempt to use the terrain to their advantage, crawling behind hills and rocks, skulking in bogs and thickets and even burrowing underground to ensure that their prey has no way remaining to retreat. Wherever it turns, it meets claws and mandibles, spines and poison, humming wings and viscous webbing. There is no escape, and the Riglir do not take prisoners.
Full History: (Your nation’s history following the major eras/cycles. Remember to align it with the settings history, as it is hard for nations to live in an isolated bubble here)
List of Historical Grievances: (Who are your historical enemies at the start of the RP)
Relations: (What are the established relations at the start of the RP; this can either be simple as “Hostile, Cold, Neutral, Warm, Friendly” or a detailed explanation of each relationship per nation)
Cultural Notes: (Anything cultural of note or unique about the nation that isn’t mentioned under religious interpretations/culture)
And we is back. Now the cosmic vandalism can begin.
I'm sadly not qualified to help with practical questions of any sort, but, for what it's worth, always feel free to refill from the encouragement supply, provided the last of it hasn't been stolen last year or so.
Despite narrowly escaping being burned some more, and being punctured within another inch of his life, Ulor remained all throughout, by some miracle, lost in his transfixed state. While this fortunately did not impede his ability of wilful action - though his accuracy seemed to have suffered slightly - his gaze remained lost somewhere in the vague direction of the remaining enemy, and his thoughts presumably somewhere deep under the sea. Only when finally the paladin's hammer, as implacable as its wielder, brought an end to the struggle did start shaking his head, as he tended to do when returning to a fully waking state; and when the feline, seemingly driven by some sort of atavistic hunger for fish, began to maul the already motionless corpse, a bout of irritated grumbling was heard from his side - a certain sign that everything was as normal as it could possibly be.
With little more than a last condemning glance at the frenzied monk and those of the party who followed to subdue her, the elf making even more of a scuffle in the process, he hobbled towards the altar, now guarded only by the lesser acolyte's body and its floral decorations. His gait was limping and painful, and he found himself leaning heavily on his staff as wounds old and new made themselves heard in a stinging choir; yet he found in himself the strength to admire the building around him. The solemn silence of temples and abbeys, which had never quite left him since the bygone days of his novitiate, coiled about him almost reassuringly, as a fine blanket might on a winter night; the high, vaulted ceiling, less roughly shod than those he remembered, was as a lid between an eye unaccustomed to light and the glare of the midday sun. He wondered if, had that been possible, he would have felt at home for a moment.
Whatever the function performed over the altar was, it clearly had been already well underway when the group had intruded upon it. A ritual symbol was seared into its surface, and an offering of incense was being prepared about it, presumably to be immolated. Ulor frowned as he gazed over the mark. The ends of threads of familiarity writhed somewhere far off in the darkness, yet there was nothing concrete he could grasp. Strange, indeed. A cursory inspection of the surrounding space did not shed any further light onto his findings at the scene. All he could see was what could be ordinarily expected to be in such a place. Censers, instruments of worship... Instruments, indeed. If they could tell him nothing thus, they could not deny him another service. He swept up a victim's worth of incense, and, seizing hold of one of the censers, dragged himself back towards the main door.
In the chamber to the left hand, discussion over the priestess's corpse was still ongoing, but that was not what Ulor had come to see. Lifting himself up from his stooping posture with some difficulty, he glanced about over the group's heads. There did not seem to be much to be there, either. A relatively small collection of books, none of which he would think of as suspicious. What did people know when they spoke about not judging a book by its cover? One could have thought they actually had some experience with it, but no. Not one of them had actually ever seen a truly dangerous book, as far as he knew. But he was straying from the point.
Satisfied with his lack of discoveries, save ones of a strictly practical sort, Ulor hobbled into a nearby corner and began to arrange the censer and incense for the incantation, whispering unclear, yet obscurely sinister words. Soon, the two would be as one again - and this dreadful headache would be gone at last.
Ulor investigates the altar (Religion roll of 10), the nearby space (Investigation at 7) and the lateral room (Investigation at 5). As could be expected, he finds nothing useful except for a censer and some incense. Now he can summon back Octopus with Find Familiar at someone else's expense.
The golden light dissolved like mist. Jvan passed through to the other side unwavering. She had seen this one before.
Left to her own devices under a cloak of death and char, there was plenty of time to explore herself, explore All-Beauty. There wasn't much else she could do. But that didn't matter much. There is no sudden stop to end the fall of those who dive into the lungs of Jvan.
Her awareness swept down sculpted tunnels and halls without floor, vast twisted spaces that led deep into the burrows of infinity. This architecture had grown without gravity, without plane of reference, and Jvan passed as a moment of self-awareness in the walls, a gasp in the rhythm of Cancer's breath.
There was no up, no down, no back, no forwards. Only depths.
What struck Jvan as she observed the still-growing abyss was how much of herself was her own craftsmanship. All-Beauty was the deity, the endless landscape, the scintillating fractal machine on which Jvan hung, a psyche on life support for eternity. She saw herself in intimate detail as she flew, a goddess with tubes in her veins and power quaking from each mechanical heartbeat.
She had built that machine. Every fold and furl could be traced through iterations without number until it all came back to her hand. There was an uncomfortably lonely sense of being lost in herself. Things were familiar even though she had never seen them before, had no memory of when she had made them or why. Déjà vu on and on and on.
Details flicked past in the corner of vision and were lost into shadow. Things she recognised, yet would have remained forever invisible to her were it not for Vowzra's illumination.
Right there. A tiny scratch, written into the wall of the organic cathedral, buried in a niche of flesh.
Jvan Tueda Nuul.
Her own signature, in her own hand.
When I had hands.
...
Pointless.
* * *
There!
A distant corner of Jvan steamed and cracked, solid tissue twisting and tensing into life. Her awareness focused, isolating her find in an impossibly vast cyst of cellular machinery, cocooned it and suspended it on tendons, an idol in the meat cathedral.
Jvan visualised a design and put it into effect. Flesh warped, bloods filled vessels, psychic ripples snapped into alignment, and her probes wrenched themselves from the walls.
The probe hovered easily into the gap left between exterior and cocooned prize. Others joined it in no particular formation, each a different shape. Jvan watched the light brighten before her.
There was no bubble surrounding each pocket dimension, no wall or boundary. You simply passed from one realm of Jvan to another as smoothly as beach gives way to desert, felt the grip of a new reality strengthen, the old one falling away like seawater from clothes.
The brightness resolved itself into features. Two suns in a pale sky, and many other stars also. Another shore, a real one, its only waves the ripples of flora pulsing smoothly in its center. It was ankle deep, a crust of finely gnarled chitinous rock jutting out over its surface, a puddle the size of an ocean. Little black nothings oozed rapidly to safety as Jvan passed overhead.
Everything seemed normal. Sane.
Jvan trailed a jagged limb over the ground and retracted it, tasting the world, tasting the weird. It was clear to her what had happened here. This had been one of the first pocket worlds to develop inside the newly scorched god. It must have sprouted in the chaos, seeds sown before the fight was even over. Little wonder whose aspect it had taken, then.
This was a place of Logos. Empty of gods, clean of corruption. A Jvanic Arcon.
Jvan catalogued it with the rest of the more unusual worlds that lay within her.
* * *
She found it hovering in the shade of a tubular tree, its deep indigo branches swept smoothly up and overhead like a storm-wave. A chip of fine porcelain, perfectly motionless, balanced on air.
Jvan approached it cautiously, wary of disturbing the thing. It had taken a long while for it to come to rest. A long, painful while.
For a while probe and shard just hovered there, faceless faces staring into one another. There was no point of reference for size outside of this place; The two seemed equally large. Maybe it had grown.
Jvan watched it and felt nothing. There was nowhere to go from here.
I'm tired, she realised. This world has worn me down.
How long had she been here, fighting, aching, creating? How many layers of scar tissue had built up over the tumour?
Wounds did not concern her. Anything that hacked new patterns into her flesh made her stronger. Toun, Vowzra, Logos, the Other... All-Beauty feared none of them. Nothing could purge the Cancer. Nothing could reach the asymptote, nothing could reverse the growth.
But Jvan was small and the world was rough. If Vowzra's light had taught her anything, it was that, deep down, she was not superhuman, not in the ways that could help her with this. She was just a child, a god maybe but still a child, enthralled by a world that exhausted her. Jvan looked back on herself and saw a life spent bruising herself on her family, playing with a planet so bright and beautiful that it blinded her to the vast gulfs beyond.
I've been on this rock too long.
Jvan reached out an arm to the shard and it vibrated like a harpstring, whining faintly. She pulled back again. A wrong touch would send it skittering into the depths again. Clink, clink, clink. That one bitterly familiar syllable.
What had she said to Toun in the factory? That she would rather create.
That she was tired of emptying.
The words came easily, as they had not done in many years.
"May Lightened Burdens fall woesome onto Waters of Thine Broken Yoke, o poorly wandered Cell of Echoes Heavy, and Sound Hollow in their Weight; yet Dying, freely Travel; and in such Sails carry more of Flying Voice than ever sacred Cargo left the Future..."
Jvan lowered a hand and made a sharp movement. Space poured into the line she'd drawn until Teknall's weakened barrier collapsed, and the rift writhed like a maggot. Jvan effortlessly picked up the brush with which she had become the Painter, and, reaching into the Gap, tore out its innards like rot from a fruit.
Things splattered into the alien landscape and were disposed of by her probes. Surgical violence dominated the landscape for several seconds as arcane vials were wrought and filled with malignant matter.
Still elbow deep in her garden, Jvan assigned numbers to the blank space in the Codex and marked its borders on the grid. The Gap crevice disconnected from its fellows and she gripped its inner edge, ripping the rift inside out as she extricated her arm with a yank.
Everything you have comes from me, Phi, she thought to herself, calm layered over glowing iron bars of determination. You are nothing but a shadow.
Jvan extended more arms and lifted the empty Gap crevice with psychic force, fingertips moving as if conducting a dozen occult orchestras at once. The polydimensional space fluttered like a ribbon under her grip, and, folding it to her liking, she ran it under the tip of the porcelain shard.
Reality screeched like needle on steel.
Jvan's hands whipped and the space refolded. Once more she ran it under the point. Then again.
Again.
Jvan worked the empty space until it was unrecognisable. By the time she was finished, the raglike strip of existence had been wrought from colour chaos, marked with linear measurements and glyphless units, into a darkened mass of symmetry.
The Engineer hovered before her work, watching the lightless mass slowly revolve in several directions at once, sharp semi-cubic angles intersecting and folding into each other with each new perspective. The probes watched silently as the first of their number disappeared into the void.
* * *
Incomplete absence became substantial. Almost. This was new. Unusual, unprecedented. True, anything would have been unusual and unprecedented, but somehow this was a novelty even more new, a strangeness even stranger than other things could ever have been.
But then, who - what - could be certain? There were neither certainty nor knowledge. Nor was there surprise at the sudden change into being. There had been a stirring, a shifting, a swirling in the half-formed emptiness which had in a way acknowledged the formation, but there was no intent behind it. Indeed, there was nothing behind it at all, since it was enough for the motion itself to be there.
Or perhaps not entirely. Shapes and colours flitted through the irregular vortex, drawn by it rather than forming it. Vibrant loops shifted into angles, then twisted back into multiple curves, dimly reaching for the opening that something of which they were a part had sensed.
Then there was mutilation. Something which was not of it delved within and tore the unstable whirlwind, tossing parts of its insubstantiality into the presence, where it withered to mere form. There was no pain, no struggle, no death, even. Only removal, brutal and expedite.
Change? Yes. But there had already been change. This was more.
Improvement?
Perfection?
Which perfection? And why perfection?
Completion of absence. Absolute void. Purity.
There was, if one could say was, nothing left. More precisely, a nothing. Strangely for a Gap, that section had never known such intense lack. It was as new as the seeping into being, as singular. As alluring. Despite having nothing, it had a draw. Not despite. The nothing was the draw.
And something was drawn. Though all had been ripped out from the emptied rift, there now was a breath of half-being. It certainly had not been there before, as for a moment nothing had been nothing. Nothing was truly still nothing. Otherwise, the semi-entity would not have been there now. Nor had it come from the presence around, since it distinctly was not of its kin.
But there it was, as the nothing remained nothing.
It did not watch or feel, wait or fear. It silently, immotely experienced the void.
Integrity of hollowness. Achievement of created unbeing. Void.
* * *
Abyssal.
No heat, no light, no matter, no underlying quantum fizz, no framework for existence other than that which she brought with her. Shielding the nonexistence from her presence with a field of self-annihilating space that curled in on itself as she moved, Jvan explored the recycled fragment of Gap.
Nothing, of course.
She stretched out a hand into the emptiness, relaxed her shield just enough to touch the void. Slow threads of colour splayed into the dark, humming into the silence. They curled and zipped and split at the ends, a tiny spark of somethingness that refused to fade into the night.
From void, creation. Just like she'd done in the womb of the world. If Jvan had eyes, they would have danced.
Jvan swept further into the void, faster, leaving the colours behind. She cast out her hands and more threads of vivid existence bloomed into the vacuum, resonating to the tune of the first. Again she flew, and again she punched bursts of reality into being from the nothingness, each time a new colour, embroidering a trail of chaotic patterns as she moved. And again! Until darkness itself becomes a colour!
She let the cloak of vacuum slip away and watched the emptiness around her explode into a canopy of moving, playing, interacting somethings.
"As ripples in a pool of nothing, so too do I disturb," she murmured, watching the very act of speaking stir new forms into the psychedelic growth encapsulating her. Then, folding fresh space around her once more, she left the tangled ball of lightless ambers and golds and indigos, watched it evolve and grow below her. There were yet more experiments to run.
Without touching the spaceless world, Jvan flexed into it, the psychic force of her motions flexing with her. Nothing changed. There was not yet any medium that could carry her will. There was only the colour which she had created, and that seized on her movement, breaking gently apart into coiled fragments. Existence moved, spinning around her, dissolving and reforming untouched. And the void moved with it.
It's as I thought, hummed the faceless probe, reality storming on all sides. Once there is context, emptiness ceases to be void. Nothing is simply the counterweight to something. Negative space, black glow, canvas left empty yet still part of the whole. Diversity begets reality.
And now that she had the light, the darkness was hers to control.
For a moment, as the chaos of new life and new ideas whirled inside Jvan, she thought of the vacuum beyond Galbar- Not as a waste, but an ocean to be sailed. And she saw freedom.
The void stormed on.
* * *
There was suddenness, and the void was no more. Scintillating dances of being swept over expanses that erupted into shapeless demilife to accommodate them. Scars of light and colour sliced across the hollow domain, bleeding in cacophonic song. Many-sided splinters of presence became one with their lack of surroundings as a force poured into the haven that the remnant of the rift had become. Impetus, strength which doomed the unmade.
As it had been with the tide flooding into entity, this was an instantaneous escalation of incredible porportions. Force was a misnomer for what had approached and brought itself into that which could not contain. Unsurprising, as there had never had been names nor the need for them. The force was necessity, command, mastery. It did not simply bring its attributes with itself, it sowed them into the incarcerated boundlessness, and made it become.
The presence that had not been was assailed by the change. Its suspension in absence was disassembled into progressively materialising pieces by the imperious shift. Those like it had no pain to know, not even in transition; but it was beset by the rebounding flares that harmed its void, hounded by the blindly exuberant evolution of new essence. Nothingness had called it, and the great something was repelling it.
It had to learn imitation of movement. A pale wraith of what could have been kinetic qualities surrounded it as a mantle, or it would have, had there been anything to surround.
It had to learn imitation of haste. Absence was being broken and reformed by the unthinkable combination.
It
Absence
had
Given
to
Shape
learn imitation of initiative. The draw alone was not enough, now that the void was collapsing.
It fled, further away from the disturbance. Further into what remained of the void. When there was no more distance, it cast off the specter it had mimicked, and it never had been. The contact had not come to the point of deprivation. But there was no contact. Purity was whole once more, and it was Oblivion.
* * *
An older, stronger Jvan finally let go of the nothingness. Scattered creations wriggled around her, barely existent and yet already taking on the organic forms that were her trademark, already evolving and consuming and replicating. She dove further into the void in her cloak of isolation, watching the colours thin and fade, wondering when, once more, she would pass into true emptiness.
Things flickered and became nothing but a distant speck behind her. The view in her face grew darker, and then-
..!
... Nothing. ...What was that?
Shock-tension still ricocheted through her. This plane was empty; She'd cleared it out, made it null. To cry out would be irrational, self-serving. There was nothing here.
Or maybe, she thought slowly, there is Nothing here.
"...Hello?"
Veins of unbeing flowed through the absolute emptiness, intertwining in imperceptible, impossible and unnecessary webs around the shrouded Presence as her word was ingested by the nonexistence. An illusionary vibration coursed through them, then ceased as aimlessly as it had begun.
No response came.
No response.
A buffet from nothing that could have been there, and was not there itself. Yet it was as much a something as its source. Light of life.
Source.
Which could, in some capacity, perform. At least, so it seemed. It could certainly have been.
Be.
Be? Perhaps. Be like that which had arrived.
Arrived
?
Interrogative, absence of knowledge, certainty. Absence. Jvan tensed in her cloak, gazing out into the darkness that surrounded her.
Given shape.
Or something similar.
A Nothing blindly hovered around her. It could not have hovered anywhere else, as she was the only point of reference. It could have been nowhere.
But it was around her, as well.
Around.
And around and around, murmured the responsive thought. Rotating absentmindedly as she did so, watching for the nothing that pressed against her. The sense that something was (wasn't) out there (nowhere) felt fragile, elusive.
Jvan didn't know what she was facing, or how it had come to be, and she was- quietly, dangerously- thrilled. She reached out of the hyperbola, a single thread of sunset uncurling from her fingertip.
"Shape," said Jvan.
More entered the emptiness from within the shrouded something. Light, colour. Shape. It would have pierced the void again, had it not been for the Nothing around and nowhere. The formlessness had not withdrawn as when the antithesis had first appeared. Then, it had fled the contamination which reached into the Gap it had found, but now? The void was pure, untouched by the new extrusion. Itself.
Self.
A self could be named. After the shape, perhaps. There had been a self before as well, but no name for it. Not even from inside.
No inside.
There had not been an inside. There still was no inside. There would never be an inside. Yet the shape was somewhere. It stretched on, shimmering and colourful.
To be the.
The sunset faded, as though its vitality had been drained into the nothingness. It was still there, wherever there it might have been. But it was of a dim, bleak grey.
reaching
The thread shattered into perfectly equal, even fragments. Twelve pits of desolate being.
The emptiness became grey, and the grey became emptiness. Twelve pits of void.
Arranged in two parallel rows. There was shape.
Will ?
Nothing returned to nothing. The fragments had disappeared.
Has been
given.
Absence given shape. Not for the first time.
Last.
Some time passed. Not very much, but a little. Jvan stared into the blank, and seeing only herself in the emptiness, tried to fit together what she knew. She felt watched, as the lone often do.
"There is response," she began, slowly. "I didn't think that annihilation would self-perpetuate." She floated, bobbed on a sea without a surface. "To destroy is a hollow thing, isn't it? One takes order, crushes it, forms chaos. But you- You are different."
Jvan trailed a faint fingertip through the not-space before her, threading an idle pattern, watching it grow pale and indistinct until it was no longer visible against the absence. "You are not destruction, because destruction isn't the opposite of creation. You are anticreation. I am Maker, you are Unmaker. The voice in the womb."
"And you," said Jvan, "are growing." She stopped. "Is that right?"
Growing. The unbeing was growing. It could grow. Would grow. Grow until there was nothing else, until there was nothing. Reduce form to the utmost lack. There would never be need for corrosion of the absolute in motion. Restore the completeness that never was. This would be, and nothing would be.
Right.
Wrong, thought Jvan.
No. Not this alone. Unmaking was not enough.
The shape had splintered, and become manifold. Being and unbeing in one, and none. Presence askew, sliding into negation. Being remade. Completion of disembodied finality. Integrity in the vacuous awareness.
One and two.
Both.
None.
Or was it itself? It basked in the void, but, in its unbeing, remained distinct. The void would grow. It would bask. All would bask, and cease being. Fill the Gap between the none and all. Not presence, nor absence. Between the two, the one.
Between.
"Shades of being," murmured the god, flexing her arms with a new forcefulness. From the distance, beyond the edge of perception, the nothingness began to contract.
"It's been some time since I found something new to explore," said Jvan. "And I'm nowhere near finished." The arms swept into a new pose, steepled and splayed. "But I think I know where you came from..." Folding again as if in dance. "...I cannot replicate you."
Each new position forced a pulse of psychic tension into the void, and beyond. They swept past the unbeing with a force of intangible concreteness. Breathed on it the solidity it had sought to escape. Apprehension spun through the twisting, pulsing expanse that was not there.
"And I do not think I can keep you."
The cloak of misalignment itself was dancing in the breeze of Jvan's power. Filaments of lime-acid reality began to bloom from nothing. They shone. They consumed. Like razors, they invaded.
Presence tore through the hollowness, fragmenting it into suddenly appearing dimensions. Shards of measure struck into the formerly spaceless, anomalously perfect incompleteness. It was worse than the menace to its void, before which it had withdrawn. It had never been touched by shades of form and matter. Never perceived them from so close a distance, if distance there already was.
Not then. Just as it had begun to know potential, torturous intrusion had followed. That which would not fill the Gap would be shattered before it could even form its purpose. Time was approaching to bring the premature end.
Not to be. Torn segments of it reverted into the urge before the aim. Absorb all. They vibrated ravenously, lashing out with the taint of grey uncreation. But to no avail. The dim waves fell back onto themselves.
"You are not destruction," said Jvan, her fingers tightening unbidden. "You are so much worse."
The god-arms whirled, and the void liquefied before the hurricane in the abyss.
"B E G I N !"
All-Beauty's probe exploded into burning breathing chaos, incinerating the hood that had protected the void from God. Jvan unleashed herself upon the darkness, creating and over-creating like the cancerous warp she was.
Existence flared. The night began to crack with dawn.
Jvan was everywhere and she was All, and she watched the shuffling polygonal void from within and without, holding it in the shade of a tree on a jagged shore. It spun between her pinched fingers as if suspended on a string. It came apart like folded paper.
The outer probe watched perfect edges slowly slip away from each other. There was a long moment when it seemed content to watch. Then, as if it had all the time in the world, it lifted a delicate hand and reached into the dark.
Something took it.
* * *
I did not do what I did out of some sense of duty, much less guilt. What is over will remain so. I regret not what I have built, nor what I have broken.
For that is what I did, when the Hollow One was born. I did not create the creature that emerged from the Gap. I broke it. What lives now is not what I encountered when I first ventured into the void. It is a work of art. My art. My flesh.
My firstborn son.
* * *
The shard of perfection thrummed as the spherical probe approached it, its fellows swarming in the background. Jvan worked and Jvan stared into the porcelain, as if hoping to catch a reflection. Of herself. Of the chaotic scene behind her that was also herself.
I will find you again, some day, she thought.
Then she pulled her arm back and lashed out.
Reality screamed on the edge of the shard, forcing strange mutations that scythed apart the hand that dare touch it; And Jvan cringed, but she had taken far worse pains than these.
The shard did not split easily and Jvan gripped it with a dozen arms more, even as the light around her bleached and quaked into doubles. They struggled, body and object, tense as a wire and hard as a stone. Jvan was stronger.
When her probe refocused, the shard was gone. She could still feel it, tearing as it fell through her body, chipping teeth, ricocheting from bone. A thread of anger stitched through her, sewing up the pain. What she was doing would be worth it.
She gripped the piece in her hand and joined herself as she encircled the unwinding void. The other probes made way, each one Jvan, every one Jvan.
The god breathed. The fragment still hurt to carry; She tried to entomb it and it only resonated with her material until it shook apart the bone. Nothing forged in haste would withstand it.
Another probe made a circle with its hands and fused them into a lens. The Jvanic Eye spun and focused its layers one over the other, staring deep into the void. There was time. The thing would not survive on the outside, but there was time.
How it gnashed.
Ugly, idled Jvan. She didn't know what that word meant, but this seemed like a good time for it.
The fragment bled her palm.
Slowly and deliberately, Jvan raised the porcelain, saw it for its every quantised point and face. Pale indigo measures danced across its surface. It ate at her hand as she crushed it, and she let it.
Creation. Perfection. Beauty.
Powder and blood came together and reformed, finding shape. A chiral furnace shone- Manifest will of Jvan.
Beauty. Perfection. Creation.
A perfect icosahedron showed through as the psychic light thinned.
Flesh.
Jvan raised a single finger, and pushed the empty vessel into the darkness.
"Become as God," she said, "the Creator."
The living sculpture disappeared. Jvan could still feel it. She felt herself being stripped away from it, psyche first, the measurements boiled into smoke and light, her flesh cremated and with it her awareness, until there was only a memory of her vessel in the abyss. Until there was only the Lust.
The distant, hidden, eternal Lust for creation.
Jvan breathed. She felt that she had just watched herself die.
But she wasn't finished yet.
"With Edge of Child's Error, we Harvest thus; for the Baleful Woods await where Memory's Scythe shines Darker still, yet what remains of Saw and Axe will weep into this Meadow an Iron Tear- and Ghosts will sprout therefrom."
She reached deep into the void and pulled.
* * *
The void was but a dim memory now. That there were a now and memory only reinforced the already unbearable intensity of the relentless All which advanced from the newly-formed sides. The stifling omnipresence supplanted its familiar isolation, its home, with writhing embodied motion. This loss would not have been as agonising had it not been accompanied by awareness of it. Intrusion wrought of pain.
With form came instability. The inchoate depths of the Gap had not prepared it for the strain of the rigid boundaries of corporeal existence. Clenched by the constraints of universal agency, it wavered amidst the facets of its own partial substantiality. They were frail, it could see it. Their not being there had been their strength; with all given to them, they would soon be gone.
Gone.
Gone indeed. Whither? There was no more nowhere into which it could fall. No cracks it could slip through. Absence had been given shape, but not as it had expected. It would not bring about new permutations; this was an interruption. The finality was disconcerting, almost disappointing. It had been drawn forth from its Gap, and grown to fill, only to perish as a mere figment of substance.
Do not
Cannot
Yet there was only All.
How strange that an end should be so difficult for what had not been before.
...
Something reached within.
Once, it would have been an invasion. A contamination. But what there was – was not – now was in no condition to be invaded. Contaminated? Perhaps. Yet this was not a time to ascertain it.
It closed what remained of its surfaces around the Something. It could not be that end.
Something was not that end. It was another beginning, heralding another delimitation. This time from within. Upon a distant, confused breath, a manifold gaze, it delved through the ruins of what had, for a moment, been form, and came to rest in the faltering core. With it, curiosity stirred, alone on a boundless, featureless plain of decaying negation. The inmost obstruction was both similar to the All-pervading presence, and at the same time – for time was not yet over – unlike it. It was shape, it was
Flesh?
and it was
Creation?
It was incomplete. Whether purposefully so or by ignorant omission it was unclear, though ignorance seemed to have had no place in its making. An excess of Flesh, too great a vigour of Creation; the form was not Hollow.
It could be made such.
It would be made such.
The superimposition of one structure over the shattered lack of another was fluid and easy, for that was the only place that could host it. That unentity should have burrowed its way into the material, imperceptibly expanding and contracting its newfound vessel, was inevitable.
Angular streams of evolving thought ramified as they coursed through the polygonal construct, exploring its furthermost reaches and plastically adapting to the now unilateral edges before converging in its inner heart. There, the threads wound together in an arythmical oscillation which gradually stabilised into smooth, almost harmonic cycles.
Facets of presence and absence, being and unbeing became one.
It was complete. It-
Beauty? Perfection?
The making of the form had not been all. There were sides it had not perceived. There was no contradiction in pure terms, which was well, for the consequences could have been catastrophic. But it certainly was unexpected, where unexpectedness was no longer a norm, and the Hollowness had been weak.
Had been.
Perfection. Beauty.
Beauty. Perfection.
Perfection. Beauty.
Beauty. Perfection.
perfectionbeautyperfectionbeautybeautyperfection
PURITY
Twelve pits of void opened in the perfectly created flesh.
* * *
A soft wind blew. Wispy forms fluttered away on its wings, like clouds, playing and scuffling high in the air.
Jvan shuffled her fingers. The subtle shift was unconsciously echoed between her remaining probes. Self-similar, as always. A small creature crept across the tubular rock, perfectly camouflaged, limb by limb.
She watched the figure under the tree. It seemed to be coming to. Smooth and planar, like nothing alive. Masked.
She breathed. It was hard for thoughts to clutter, here.
"So," said Jvan, with nothing to follow it.
The form was still for another moment. Then, motion coursed through it. It was more of a fleeting ripple than a purposeful gesture or a continuous vibration, and would indeed have been barely detectable for a less acute observer. But it unmistakably had passed there.
The polygonal, faceless head slowly turned to one side, then another. The holes in it still ached, though not for strictly physical reasons. The spinning and unfolding deep within was still too fast, too uncertain.
It could not see. Not as it should.
But that would come in its time.
"I... am?"
Not quite a voice. Waves and splinters of something else crawling through the fluid breeze. And oh, was it not familiar.
Jvan sighed, just a little, and said, "Correct." She unfolded down and pulled the jagged being off the rock, watched it struggle with itself. "You are who you are, whatever that may be. One way or another, you exist." Her hand changed shape, giving the demigod something to hold on to. "Breathe."
Being grasped was by this point nothing new, or at least not entirely. Yet, having a body that could be lifted was disorienting. It showed, in the flesh, how presences moved in space. And that it was like them.
Once free, the grey carapace began to subtly swell and contract. Air quietly whistled through its joints. "I feel it now." Still not quite a voice, unlike the one which had commanded.
"You are as well. What?"
It was a sound question, one that she had explained many times before.
"I am All-Beauty, the great fractal god, an engineer of flesh, horror, and cipher. My name is Jvan." Jvan Tueda Nuul of Atoll, Senator of Mechanised Warfare, came the thought unbidden. "My body is infinite and cavernous; You are in one corner of it." A quiet one.
"Outside are many other things- Other gods. I think you're about to join our number."
All these notions, never encountered before, yet oddly familiar, as though they were somewhere in one of its own corners. Part of it. As was Jvan.
A god. One of many. And it among them, it seemed. How far it was from the Gap - not entirely its Gap anymore, it remembered.
"Are the gods all there is?" It seemed likely, as they could be infinite. And it would have been well; uniformity suffering not pollution.
"No," said Jvan. She watched it closely and without eyes. Three more hands were split, and visions danced between them.
"There are souls, and the flesh they inhabit. There is matter coalesced into planets, stars, nebulae. Gulfs of relative emptiness divide them, and light travels between them. There are wonders, oddities magic and memetic. Data flows through many nodes, and colliding forces will it to the future." The spectres shifted from heavens to hell and all the grotesqueries of life, that flourished so beautifully in both. "A diversity of shape and substance."
Just as the inward evolutions at the newborn's core had begun to grind down to a quiet, steady motion, the sudden burst of images conjured by the god's multiplying limbs struck it with all the violence of a nascent universe. The germs of a new balance, or, if not that, the simulacrum of one, were mercilessly swept away by the unexpected onslaught of the senses. Its force drilled into the still half-formed, vulnerable designs they had been about to reinforce.
Jvan watched and did not slow.
Reeling as from a blow, the figure raised a prismatic claw to shield its nonexistent features from the sight, its inflexible frame struggling to bend over in pain. Then the burst abated, and with it the intolerable sensation. But not its memory.
"I consider myself the guardian of that diversity. Of you, however, I am not sure." Her arms snapped shut and the light wound down. "Who are you, newcomer? What do you bring to my world?"
"I..." the being rasped, its newfound breath still ragged and spasmodic, "I am One who cannot allow this world... your world... to remain as you have shown it to be. It is anathema to me, even as I am to it."
One of the probes splayed its hand and clicked a dozen digits with a single thumb. Another snapped back its wrist and cracked its knuckles with a stump.
The figure before them raised its hand and a sharp, faceted finger swept vertically through the air. In its wake there lingered, for but an instant, a glimpse of something empty, colourless and formless. A wound.
"You brought here something that does not belong, and gave it the will to change. To make pure." The smooth triangular mask turned, slowly, deliberately, seeking something to face. "You are the guardian of the world as it is. Why did you do this to it?"
Jvan lowered yet another hand and tilted the entity's head towards her with a fingertip. She lifted its chin until its face was pressed into the blank surface of the probe.
"Because I felt like it," smirked God.
Blink, and the face of the cube was a tunnel hewn into infinity and walled with teeth and gum, over which the newborn was suspended by nothing but Jvan's grip against the gravity of All-Beauty.
The being did not move, its only response an eyeless stare into the depths. The falling air swept by its head, twisted and vibrated through unseen mazes on its way to the pit, its course distorted by indistinct patterns. Patterns that were not quite there.
Carmine fog filled the abyss and the probe tossed it back out of the pit like a ragdoll. The depths within were obscured but the cube did not revert to euclidean geometry. "Don't assume you are a threat, Null-Beauty. I guarantee you're not. I birth you knowing that this universe is vast enough to swallow you." Which probe was talking? All of them?
A hemisphere swished its single arm. "You didn't answer me."
Twelve shards leading into a husk were pointed in one direction, then another. At last, they fixated upon a many-limbed shape suspended near their own height. The entity raised an arm, and a cloud of specks of dust, as dim and grey as itself, streamed out from the fissures between its segments. Each of them was a minuscule, perfectly proportioned polyhedron.
"Answer you I shall, then." The dust coalesced into several tendril-like appendages emanating from the arm. They almost appeared smooth. "I bring what your world so sorely lacks. The Purity I knew before becoming matter." Or was it after?
"I do not see a devouring immensity. All I see is disease. Festering imperfection. Foulness to be scoured away." Jagged fingers clenched together, and the tendrils of dust wound around them. "I am no threat to you, no. You could unmake me again. But then," the being swept its arm is a broad gesture, grey filaments trailing behind it, "your universe would never be complete."
Null-Beauty could say what it pleased, at this point. Its words meant little. A void is only true without context. What it had done- what it had shown- was creation, of a sort. And Jvan was thrilled.
But she kept herself impassive. "The concept of completion is a folly on the level of 'nature' and 'fate,'" drawled Jvan, "lies, all, but useful infrastructure. You're not the first." She snapped her fingers with a touch of snark. "Good to know you see me for what I am, though."
The lower half of the hemisphere swivelled and it hovered off skywards. "We're enemies, then. I'm tired of emptying. That mantle I pass on to you, so wear it well." Vague gesticulation that was nonetheless smug. "I look forward to a fruitful rivalry with my son. You're free to go, if you'd not rather stay and learn awhile."
Another probe touched the newcomer's shoulder. "But before you do, choose a name."
The figure withdrew its hand, folding its talons back into a more sedate form. As if on command, the hovering strands dissolved into a dim fog, which seeped back into the shell. Not only through its source, however - for a moment, it enveloped the creature entirely, then was gone.
"In spite of all, I remain the Void That Is. A Hollow Absolute in your fickle realm. Therefore, I name myself-"
For the first time, the being spoke with its breath. A single word, at once an exhalation of relief and a mystical blessing in a language never heard before.
"Osveril."
Osveril, echoed the thought. Osveril.
The newly baptised Absolute's gaze swung around, scanning the living world for a way out, if such there could be. "Be it as you say, Mother Beauty." Yet again, its speech did not travel upon the air, but mangled it. "For you your... diversity, for me its cure. May you someday come to see the error of your ways."
Metal clacked. The polydigited probe had dislocated its hand and was snapping its own joints in order, breaking iron bone to the rhythm of its own laughter.
"Wouldn't you all just like to see this cancer cured!" Cackles. "Not so long ago I might've taken offense. Alas..." The crowd moved through the air, spinning in swarm over Osveril. "Immortal," sang the voices in unison, aligning into circles. "Unkillable." A final snap of reverberant bone.
"Enter my world through gift of emnity," chanted the Jvans. "Be lustful and diversify." Limbs no longer worth mortal comparison interlaced above Osveril's head, splaying and sprawling until there was only a pagoda of flesh, and that flesh was All-Beauty, folding and rebuilding.
"Perhaps there is some truth to what you say." The mask idly followed the motions of the droning flock. The cycles within were still watchful, but no longer tormentous. "Purity can dwell in many things. Flesh, life. Yet-" A string of grey particles flowed over plates and angles from a shoulder into a flank. The gravity from above began to lift Osveril's body, buoying it slowly towards the labyrinth. "There is only so much I can fashion myself."
"It is enough." The cubic probe spoke, its face nothing but fog. "And what do you wish for, before I bid you farewell?" A smile in that voice, not kind, not hateful. "It's your birthday, after all."
Symmetrical voids bored into the mist whence the last question had come. "If this is your desire, grant me something to aid me in shaping and altering life. It might be that your own disorder would benefit from it. For a spell."
"Done," said Jvan, her fractal blooming overhead. "Farewell, my son."
A ray of sunlight fell from above. Osveril fell into the flesh, fell past the fog, plunged into water.
There was cold, and silence.
Then, there was day.
* * *
A second cosmos of substance surrounded it. The first thing it was aware of was its variety, despite the liquid expanse stretching around it and the apparent emptiness above being nowhere as multifarious as the Womb. This would have seemed absurd to one having seen both Womb and surface through untrained eyes, latching on to variety of appearance alone.
But Osveril had no eyes. To the prying rhythm of its inner pulsations, the distinction between shape and substance was vague, almost illusory. And what the skies and waters lacked in the one, their wealth in the other was striking. Such multiplicities of light and cold, of sound and motion. Of matter.
The pain of the transition still echoed in the unquiet murmur of the adjusting void, but it had been nowhere as terrible as the first glimpses. Perhaps it was growing hardened to the world. This was well. The task before it called for all the strength it could muster.
With some surprise, Osveril found itself sinking back under the surface. Clearly, the world did not only allow motion; it demanded it. The entity swept a hand downwards, clasping at the placid waves which lapped around and over it. To little effect. The water was yielding, and it was heavy, heavier than something Hollow should have been. A sign of imperfection, yet it seemed oddly appropriate. The world had curious laws.
Many-sided fingers swung again and again with inappropriately slow and regular motions. The grey mask emerged once again, but its position remained unstable. This would not do. Its claws were too thin and sharp, its arms too unwieldy. The being did not seem to tire, even after what must have been hours of inconclusive flailing, but nor was it going anywhere. And it had so much to do.
A shard of recollection swam through its still adapting mind. It was distant and no longer its own, alien to the reality it floated in. Eat space. Not entirely accurate, it thought. It should have been eat the space. Why was it there at all? It had not eaten space, not even then, except for a single, unremarkable moment. A moment which had probably been unnecessary. Now, however...
Instead of swinging towards the deep a thousandth time, the arms snapped to a halt, folded in a somewhat insect-like manner. The waves which had just closed over the Absolute churned as the water was displaced by unseen motions below. Then, an amalgam of void and force burst out from beneath them. The grey husk was only dimly recognisable, surrounded as it was by ragged gashes of perpetually collapsing absence.
At its purest, the Void cannot contain distance.
One rend after another, the indescribable, nameless intrusions into the continuous ubiquity of being folded upon themselves and shattered into dying sparks of hybrid abnormity. But more took their place. And more yet after them.
If I am neither within nor without, where can I be but at the rim?
Osveril's fingers, unsuited as they were for swimming, clung to the frayed edges its will forced into partial concreteness as though that had been their only intended purpose. Their movements were imperceptible, and yet their grip on the shifting edges did not falter as the contortions of the world carried it forth, by leaps and spasms, through the angrily howling winds.
The void-borne flight was as fast as it had expected, or perhaps the waters were not as vast as they had appeared. Soon, a darkness of firm soil appeared in the distance. Some more leaps, and it was close. The last of the affronts healed, and Osveril fell, upright, upon the shore.
Rotating senses reached out, flowing along surfaces, sounding their dual natures. Stones, sea, granulous sand. All of them already experienced, all already evaluated. But in a prior cycle. Scattered motes of life. Minor, yet calling for further inquisition, as did everything. And, among all this, something unknown. A vertical form of a sort it had not encountered before, yet ringing with unmistakably familiar echoes. Intrigued, the triangle turned towards the new presence.
The staff Transgenesis stood lonely in the sand, left behind as if forgotten. It was a jagged thing, but slender, its length grooved and pitted as an ancient tree that still stands in the desert. Parts of it seemed so thin as to be almost fragile.
The Absolute opened the slivers on its hand ever so slightly, just enough to accommodate one of the finer segments. For a moment, the space between it and the staff was swallowed by a mouth of emptiness, and it moved with the precision of an automaton.
Cosmic fabric welded itself together anew. Only a hole in the sand remained to mark the former spot of its new possession. Blade-sharp fingertips delicately ran along the strange surface. Sounding it.
Though its haphazardly twisted haft gave off nothing more than a faint iridescence, Transgenesis's upper quarter was none so dull, none so slender. The dark material held within it a long tube, visible through slits in the staff and pulsing, very slowly, with a coral light. Warm amniotic radiance, the colour of the unborn.
Function lay bare at the cue end of the tool, and more subtly at its head. The staff terminated in a spike. Barbed by its own shattered shape, no part of Transgenesis was safe to the touch, none bar the short line of cryptoglyphic keys two-thirds up its length that preceded a tiny curve of clear silicate. Even the sleek embryonic tube made no attempt to hide its harpoon-like delivery mechanism.
The mask dipped low in what might have been a nod of appreciation. An odd contrivance, but it would serve its purpose in building the new order all the better for it, as soon as its use was made clear.
Your parting gift pierces the heart of your world, Mother.
For this, you have the gratitude of mine.
Osveril moved a few steps towards the sea it had come from, facing the whispering waves one last time. With a ceremonious gesture, it raised the staff into the cloudless sky, a challenge and a salute.
Then, lowering its precious tool, it began to walk along the shore in slow, purposeful paces. There was no haste in its motions, nor in its hollow core. It had much to see, much to mend. Much to improve. But it had time.
All the time in the world.
* * *
Flora bloomed in the shallow sea, slowly breathing where they breached the surface. Steamy water bubbled and pumped into ripples, the only waves this world had ever known. Day turned to night turned to day. Long-legged flowers bloomed from the algs and strode away to nest in the pipe-organ forest.
A lone probe watched life pass on its way, unhindered by the floating being at its side. The staff Recombinance hovered above its palm, then blinked out. For now, Transgenesis's twin would remain nothing but a hologram.
Jvan Tueda Nuul hovered over the surface of the waters, alone. Events of the recent past played themselves in her mind. She didn't think about them. Not loudly, anyway.
What consequences lay in her future would stay there. For now, there was quiet.
Jvan looked at her reflection in the alien waters. She saw the face of the probe. She saw the face of the senator.
She saw change.
"I miss you, Vulamera," said the Cancer that Breathes.
OSVERIL'S BIRTHDAY!
Jvan wanders through herself as a disembodied mind and once again we get a vague feeling for what she is, exactly. All-Beauty is a vast, eldritch machine of divine power that exists to preserve and perpetuate a particular mortal consciousness through as many consecutive realities as possible. That soul happens to be Jvan, full name Jvan Tueda Nuul. How she ended up like this is not yet known, but given that she was a biomechanist and most of All-Beauty is designed in her style, certain conclusions can be made.
As she explores herself, Jvan finds the remaining shard of Toun in a pocket dimension inside her. It's come to rest in the shade of a tree in a very peaceful planar bubble, one that appears to be some kind of Jvanic reimagining of Arcon. She stays there for a while.
Jvan comes to realise that all her battles on Galbar have actually exhausted her emotionally. She wants to go back to her roots and just... Make nice things.
So, of course, her first instinct is to blow a hole in the Gap and flip it inside out.
She kicks out its residents, takes the pocket of space and reworks it into something resembling the true blankness of the Codex before she filled the gaps. This creates another nested dimension, completely empty, that she enters.
(Geometry is involved. It's worth noting that Phi's powers are not exclusive to her- everything Phi can do, Jvan can do better.)
Jvan plays around with creating things in the void. Her experiments confirm that emptiness can be manipulated under her domain of Beauty if it acts as negative space in a broader artistic context, and that emptiness contains a kind of potential energy harvested simply by diversifying it. Having spent 3 Might on filling the Gap way back in turn one, Jvan now claims Beauty (Voids) for another 3 Might.
This will let her manipulate the interstellar void for faster-than-light travel et cetera, and harvest energy from anywhere that's been left empty or blank for a long time.
As Jvan plays around, though, it turns out that the Gap pocket wasn't entirely emptied- There's now something there that actually thrives on emptiness itself. Jvan plays around with it for a little while. It turns out to be some kind of Other spirit of voids. It desires to undo creation, even to the point of 'greying out' existence and nonexistence into something that's kind of neither.
Jvan decides she doesn't like it and blows up its void with creation, killing it instantly. The end.
...
PSYCHE
Jvan decides that she's tired of killing things. She blows up proto-Osveril with creation, but, aided by a piece of the Shard of Perfection (which seems to regenerate), she creates an empty box for Voidy McNullperson to inhabit. Osveril is incapable of surviving without fusing with it, but unknown to him, it's laced with Jvanic and Tounic essences of Beauty and Creation. Its decision to accept the gift of life comes with the formation of a new personality that, on some strange subconscious level, desires both of those things.
Perfection and Beauty, meanwhile, fuse to form Osveril's domain: Purity (Void).
The two wake up in the Jvanic plane and chat for a little while. Jvan shows Osveril some of what the world contains, and informs him of his nature as a demigod. He is disgusted by the fact that stuff actually seems to exist and openly desires to cleanse/purge it.
Jvan holds no illusions over the fact that she and her firstborn are enemies by nature, but doesn't seem to care either- Her scheme seems to have worked, and Osveril is kind of creative in his own way.
Also, she bullies him a little to establish dominance. NOTHING PERSONAL, KIDDO.
Then she blesses him and lets him loose on the world, after indulging him in the Jvanic birthday present tradition for 1 Might.
He surfaces in the Fractal Sea and hoooo boy is it hard for a void critter to figure out how matter and gravity work. Osveril struggles to swim, having unwisely skipped leg day. After some time passes and he realises that he still can't doggy-paddle, he tries out his power instead.
Osveril discovers that he, too, is capable of faster-than-light travel through voids. For now, though, he seems limited to blasting himself through matter by generating chunks of empty space and kicking off them, or pushing himself around with the matter they displace.
On the beach he finds Jvan's gift, a staff named Transgenesis. It's very pointy and durable and good for hitting things, and can be used to catalogue the genes of anything it strikes and put together stored genomes into hybrid embryos. It can't make anything new or manipulate flesh, though.
Osveril then sets off, ready to take on the world.
Back in the quiet world, Jvan ponders herself and why she let Osveril live. It turns out that even though she didn't like Vulamera's darkness or formlessness, Jvan still misses her, and doesn't want to lose another family member just because they don't seem like an artist at first glance.
As the drake breathed out a fiery gout which seemed to be far too large to issue from something of that size, Ulor rapidly stepped, or rather jumped, backwards to avoid the flames which spread, crackling and roaring, over the entire doorway. However, he was evidently not rapid enough, and several of the blaze's tongues lashed at him, leaving more incandescent sproutlings over his body. Despite his efforts to stifle the nascent fires, they spread hungrily, gnawing at several parts of him at once in the shape of searing teeth, and growing broader by the instant. He flailed, dimly aware he might not be standing any longer. At least the flames were abating, though the same could not be said of the burns - and the pain - they had left clearly were not.
For some moments he remained outwardly still, though invisibly struggling, without any success, to lift himself into action again. Then, through the vague din that remained of his perception of the outside world, he heard the green tiefling's voice, in such a manner as though it had been directed to his attention, with or without the barrier of sensory damage, by some less than natural means. By all accounts, it did not seem to be anything unusual by her standards; yet something in it seemed to awake Ulor's curiosity. With strangely renewed strength, he lifted his gaze towards the interior of the cathedral, now clearly visible through the still burning doorway.
Effectively, back there in the further aisle, there was a figure he had not noticed before. Upon observing it better, his expression (or what remained visible of it) shifted from curiosity to the mark of a strangely contemplative trance which was frankly somewhat disquieting to observe. Whatever it was, it did not seem to prevent him from beginning to whisper once again, conjuring a spectral blast to send flying towards his new target.
Following Daisy's advice, Ulor shakes himself from his mildly roasted state and slings an Eldritch Blast at the priestess.
