Zuldroom: The City of the Worm (That Which Hungers Pt 1)
I wanted to write something weird... so here goes. I think this will be the first of many posts for this new weird setting.
Noone is whole in Zuldroom.
It is a city based around incompleteness, around the hole in one's being, around distortion and mutation. The foul creator-gods have left us whole, and we hate it. We hate all that is properly assembled. Creation is a matter of corruption or stitching and resculpting the flesh of reality. For us to truly be what we are, we must remake ourselves, we must become aberrations of purity, hated by our own creators.
The Worm knows the truth. It burrows into the foul completeness, rending its hateful perfection.
The Worm is the way of freedom.
The Worm did not make us. We remake ourselves in its image.
The City:
The city juts forth from the Blood-Hive Mesas, like a bone hideously protruding from a broken leg. Its black and purple walls made of warp-sung alloys, like frozen vistas of boiling flesh-masses. All the city is made of this metallic nightmare organism-architecture. Shuffling people and whistling trains enter through toothy maw-gates. The buildings rise up like twisting spinal columns. Streets and bridges protrude and interlock with each other like ribs from these terrible towers. These ribs are lit by balls of glowing yellow liquid, emerging like eyes from the fleshy metal walls.
Some claim that the city undulates and breathes when the stars shine right overhead.
The People:
The average person in this city lacks organs. Some have found that legal infractions demand the surgical extraction of various internal or external organs. Others have voluntarily undergone procedures to elevate themselves towards the aberrant-perfection of the Worm.
These organs will sometimes go to the construction of homunculi. The Master Flesh-Crafters of the Volkrom School create the meager stitch-slave, a simple flesh servitor, to the great war machines, lumbering golems of meat, or squirming and oozing artillery crawlers.
What most people see on their everyday commute through the labyrinthine streets are other surgically altered humans and stitch-slaves. It is a lucky sight to catch a glimpse of the Master Flesh-Crafters or the Worm Slaves.
The average person works to maintain the city, growing food in the Meat Gardens, mining Calcified Chitin in the Blood Hive Mesas, or hunting Grackles. Grackles, though native to the area, are ceremonially unclean birds, signifying the cruelty and sense of humor of the creator gods.
The Temple of the Glorious Worm, God of Aberration and Deformity:
This is a site of pilgrimage for Worm worshippers worldwide because it is here that the Worm itself appears, emerging from the endless pit in the middle of the massive ziggurat that is the Temple of the Worm to feast upon the human sacrifices that have been assembled to feed its enormity. The Worm is the mother/father of all the great worms which burrow through the earth. It is said that it does not simply burrow into the ground but into the depths of reality itself, eating through the skin of the universe to travel through those labyrinthine realms which twist through Unreality. It is from one of these extradimensional planes that the Worm itself is said to have come.
This great, squirming, fleshy god is served by the Worm Slaves, its priests, and most devoted followers. These priests have drawn deeply upon the Worm's psychic body, consuming its metaflesh in order to use its power and morph their minds and bodies into its horrific, divine likeness.
These Worm Slaves and their acolytes are occupied by the year-long task of gathering the thousand souls needed to feed their hungry god. This is actually not a punishment. Those that are true devotees of the worm dream of being consumed by the worm in their old age. Everyone that desires this hideous honor must have reached a significant level of deformity and mutation. The old and wealthy citizens of the city, including the oldest members of the priesthood, are all eligible for consumption. If not enough appropriately warped devotees exist at the beginning of the year, the transition to consumption-status of lower ranked worshippers or the invitation of appropriate rank from places beyond the city.
When the holy day, Consumption Day, or the Day of the Worm, comes, thousands of worshippers flood the temple, seating themselves in the thousands of stone steps that fill the holy auditorium. The great yawning pit stands in the middle of this massive chamber. This pit descends into darkness. Those that have snuck past the Worm Slaves and their guardian homunculi to explore the pit, those that returned at least, have reported various things. Some report a long descent into endless subterranean catacombs. Some report a traversal into fathomless realms beyond time. The practical difference between these two reports might be minimal.
The Volcrom School:
The Master Flesh-Sculptors of this mysterious school are highly elusive. The stitch-slaves that have been allowed access into their fortress-laboratories, often have their tongues cut out or are given incredible amounts of pain from an implant in their skull when they try to remember things about the laboratories when they are not at work.
Some enterprising adventurers have returned with reports that they saw a Master during a raid. They said that he (They presumed "he" was correct even though this person's secondary sex characteristics were not entirely distinguishable in the faint light and they might have been altered anyway) seemed to have no arms or legs but his stump-body rode in a warp-sung metal chair with animate porcelain animal limbs carrying the chair aloft. It seemed as though his neck had been elongated, having added vertebrae and the proper muscular architecture for such an appendage.
He wore green, glowing goggles and his teeth were sharpened. A bizarrely elongated tongue darted out between these stalagmite teeth as he reached towards them with porcelain ape arms.
These adventurers also reported of giant vats of yellow liquid containing agonized living flesh, screaming with mouths they no longer possessed and roaming battle-homunculi, wielding crackling, electric probes.
The Warp Singers Guild:
A thousand years ago before the Temple, before the School, in the last days of the Things which honeycombed the Blood-Hive Mesas. The first Warp Singer came to Zuldroom, or rather, the spot that would be Zuldroom. It was said that it made its home in the skull of an ancient beast and began singing to comfort itself as it witnessed the dying days of its entire race. It sang and sang, its grief deepening and deepening burrowing into the skin of the universe.
The song conjured forth flesh which burbled and screamed on the stone of the scarlet mesas. The first Singer stopped and found that the flesh hardened and changed color, becoming a metallic substance. This was not only the first chunk of warp-sung metal to ever exist. This was the first time the Worm became aware of Zuldroom. It is said that the very same place the flesh comes from which built the great walls of the city is the same place that birthed the Worm. Perhaps it is even a part of the Worm.
Soon disciples came. Humans, learning at the feet of the master. They learned how to sing the song and the Guild of the Warp Singers came into being. Some say the First Singer still lives somewhere within the forbidden Guild Hall in a darkened chamber that still has that same skull and that first chunk of blessed metal. Should that chunk be found, it is priceless. Should the art of the Warp Song be discovered, many nations would empty their coffers for that secret. The Singers of the Guild cannot reveal the secret. They are bound by their terrible pact with the First Signer whether this is literally to a presently living creature or to the magic of its memory, none can say. Literally, they cannot say.
Some say that first chunk of Warp Sung Metal did not stop there but became the heart of the city, the cornerstone off of which all the rest of Zuldroom was built.
Occupations Table (1d20):
Noone is whole in Zuldroom.
It is a city based around incompleteness, around the hole in one's being, around distortion and mutation. The foul creator-gods have left us whole, and we hate it. We hate all that is properly assembled. Creation is a matter of corruption or stitching and resculpting the flesh of reality. For us to truly be what we are, we must remake ourselves, we must become aberrations of purity, hated by our own creators.
The Worm knows the truth. It burrows into the foul completeness, rending its hateful perfection.
The Worm is the way of freedom.
The Worm did not make us. We remake ourselves in its image.
By Espiritduo. Used Without Permission.
The City:
The city juts forth from the Blood-Hive Mesas, like a bone hideously protruding from a broken leg. Its black and purple walls made of warp-sung alloys, like frozen vistas of boiling flesh-masses. All the city is made of this metallic nightmare organism-architecture. Shuffling people and whistling trains enter through toothy maw-gates. The buildings rise up like twisting spinal columns. Streets and bridges protrude and interlock with each other like ribs from these terrible towers. These ribs are lit by balls of glowing yellow liquid, emerging like eyes from the fleshy metal walls.
Some claim that the city undulates and breathes when the stars shine right overhead.
The People:
The average person in this city lacks organs. Some have found that legal infractions demand the surgical extraction of various internal or external organs. Others have voluntarily undergone procedures to elevate themselves towards the aberrant-perfection of the Worm.
These organs will sometimes go to the construction of homunculi. The Master Flesh-Crafters of the Volkrom School create the meager stitch-slave, a simple flesh servitor, to the great war machines, lumbering golems of meat, or squirming and oozing artillery crawlers.
What most people see on their everyday commute through the labyrinthine streets are other surgically altered humans and stitch-slaves. It is a lucky sight to catch a glimpse of the Master Flesh-Crafters or the Worm Slaves.
The average person works to maintain the city, growing food in the Meat Gardens, mining Calcified Chitin in the Blood Hive Mesas, or hunting Grackles. Grackles, though native to the area, are ceremonially unclean birds, signifying the cruelty and sense of humor of the creator gods.
The Temple of the Glorious Worm, God of Aberration and Deformity:
This is a site of pilgrimage for Worm worshippers worldwide because it is here that the Worm itself appears, emerging from the endless pit in the middle of the massive ziggurat that is the Temple of the Worm to feast upon the human sacrifices that have been assembled to feed its enormity. The Worm is the mother/father of all the great worms which burrow through the earth. It is said that it does not simply burrow into the ground but into the depths of reality itself, eating through the skin of the universe to travel through those labyrinthine realms which twist through Unreality. It is from one of these extradimensional planes that the Worm itself is said to have come.
This great, squirming, fleshy god is served by the Worm Slaves, its priests, and most devoted followers. These priests have drawn deeply upon the Worm's psychic body, consuming its metaflesh in order to use its power and morph their minds and bodies into its horrific, divine likeness.
These Worm Slaves and their acolytes are occupied by the year-long task of gathering the thousand souls needed to feed their hungry god. This is actually not a punishment. Those that are true devotees of the worm dream of being consumed by the worm in their old age. Everyone that desires this hideous honor must have reached a significant level of deformity and mutation. The old and wealthy citizens of the city, including the oldest members of the priesthood, are all eligible for consumption. If not enough appropriately warped devotees exist at the beginning of the year, the transition to consumption-status of lower ranked worshippers or the invitation of appropriate rank from places beyond the city.
When the holy day, Consumption Day, or the Day of the Worm, comes, thousands of worshippers flood the temple, seating themselves in the thousands of stone steps that fill the holy auditorium. The great yawning pit stands in the middle of this massive chamber. This pit descends into darkness. Those that have snuck past the Worm Slaves and their guardian homunculi to explore the pit, those that returned at least, have reported various things. Some report a long descent into endless subterranean catacombs. Some report a traversal into fathomless realms beyond time. The practical difference between these two reports might be minimal.
The Volcrom School:
The Master Flesh-Sculptors of this mysterious school are highly elusive. The stitch-slaves that have been allowed access into their fortress-laboratories, often have their tongues cut out or are given incredible amounts of pain from an implant in their skull when they try to remember things about the laboratories when they are not at work.
Some enterprising adventurers have returned with reports that they saw a Master during a raid. They said that he (They presumed "he" was correct even though this person's secondary sex characteristics were not entirely distinguishable in the faint light and they might have been altered anyway) seemed to have no arms or legs but his stump-body rode in a warp-sung metal chair with animate porcelain animal limbs carrying the chair aloft. It seemed as though his neck had been elongated, having added vertebrae and the proper muscular architecture for such an appendage.
He wore green, glowing goggles and his teeth were sharpened. A bizarrely elongated tongue darted out between these stalagmite teeth as he reached towards them with porcelain ape arms.
These adventurers also reported of giant vats of yellow liquid containing agonized living flesh, screaming with mouths they no longer possessed and roaming battle-homunculi, wielding crackling, electric probes.
The Warp Singers Guild:
A thousand years ago before the Temple, before the School, in the last days of the Things which honeycombed the Blood-Hive Mesas. The first Warp Singer came to Zuldroom, or rather, the spot that would be Zuldroom. It was said that it made its home in the skull of an ancient beast and began singing to comfort itself as it witnessed the dying days of its entire race. It sang and sang, its grief deepening and deepening burrowing into the skin of the universe.
The song conjured forth flesh which burbled and screamed on the stone of the scarlet mesas. The first Singer stopped and found that the flesh hardened and changed color, becoming a metallic substance. This was not only the first chunk of warp-sung metal to ever exist. This was the first time the Worm became aware of Zuldroom. It is said that the very same place the flesh comes from which built the great walls of the city is the same place that birthed the Worm. Perhaps it is even a part of the Worm.
Soon disciples came. Humans, learning at the feet of the master. They learned how to sing the song and the Guild of the Warp Singers came into being. Some say the First Singer still lives somewhere within the forbidden Guild Hall in a darkened chamber that still has that same skull and that first chunk of blessed metal. Should that chunk be found, it is priceless. Should the art of the Warp Song be discovered, many nations would empty their coffers for that secret. The Singers of the Guild cannot reveal the secret. They are bound by their terrible pact with the First Signer whether this is literally to a presently living creature or to the magic of its memory, none can say. Literally, they cannot say.
Some say that first chunk of Warp Sung Metal did not stop there but became the heart of the city, the cornerstone off of which all the rest of Zuldroom was built.
Occupations Table (1d20):
- Temple Acolyte: Sacrificial Dagger, A Small Box, Containing a Mind-Eater Grub
- Laboratory Stitch Slave: Shock Probe (1d6), A Bloodied Lab Coat
- Flesh-Vat Stirrer Stitch Slave: Stirring Pole (1d4), A Jar of Preservative Liquid
- Train Attendant: Cudgel (1d6), A Ticket Puncher
- Lamp Globe Filler: Globe Claw (1d4), A Portable Lamp Globe (Lantern)
- Hermaphrodite Pleasure Stitch-Slave: Hair Pin (1d4), A Lovely Dress
- Singer Apprentice: Dagger, A Ceremonial Tuning Fork
- Penal Surgeon: Flesh Saw (1d4), Surgical Kit
- Blood Hive Miners: Chitin Pick (1d8), Candle-bearing Hard Hat
- Grackle Hunter: Grackle Sling (1d4), Grackle Poison Sprayer
- Meat Garden Harvester: Cleaver (1d6), Bloody Hazmat Suit
- Organ Inspector: Disintegration Probe (1d8), Magnifier Headgear
- Chemical Handler: Grasping Claw (1d6), Gas Mask and Gloves
- Homonculi Feeder: Feeding Needles (1d6), Cask of Nutrient Gel
- Chitin Prospector: Chitin Pick (1d8), Maps of the Blood Hive Mesas
- Body Collector: Gong and Mallet (1d4), Cart and Pseudobeast
- Temple Enforcer: Spiked Hammer (1d8), Worm Helm (+1 AC)
- Train Guard: Flintlock Pistol (1d8/Reload 3), Badge from the Train Authority
- Stitch Slave Assembly Line Worker: Staple Gun (1d4), Bloody Apron and Gloves
- Unreality Theorist: Ceremonial Stave (1d4), A Fancy Floppy Hat with Tassel
Weird worship of antigods is a cool setting cornerstone. My archipelago hates a whale as its primary religion.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. I might have people in this setting that worship the creator gods. I was kind of trying to avoid the Lawful/Chaotic war as my Graylands setting already was all about that, but maybe I can spin Law vs Chaos in a new way or find some way of avoiding it.
Delete