Menoch, The Chained Scholar
Menoch is an eldritch entity from the Outer Dark that feeds on madness; it pushes mortals to seek arcane secrets and forbidden magics that are likely to drive them into the throes of insanity.
• Menoch’s avatar takes the form of a man-like creature wrapped in chains, its face obscured by a hooded robe.
• Menoch is responsible for inspiring mad mages to pen grimoires containing hideous truths.
• Cults devoted to Menoch often begin as antiquarian societies and academic salons.
• Isolated hermits and eccentric magicians who devote themselves to Menoch wear shackles at their wrists adorned with hanging chains.
Morokain, The Lord of Murder
According to the Holy Blood Bible, Morokain was the first murderer, accursed with immortality and doomed to wander as a pariah.
• Morokain is said to be a brutish man with a brand on his forehead.
• Morokain’s curse grants him enormous eldritch power; it is said that there is nothing he cannot kill.
• Assassins, killers, and bandits revere Morokain as a god.
• The Skarabasca are among the most infamous of Morokain’s devotees.
Nergazu, The Demon Lord of Plagues
Nergazu is the Demon Lord of Plagues, one of the most disturbing of Hell’s demonic princes.
• Nergazu’s avatar manifests as a demon with a toad-like head and the wings of a carrion bird.
• Bodily degradation and the fear it engenders are Nergazu’s sphere of demonic influence.
• Nergazu’s cults are often small and are often comprised of outlaws, outcasts, and abject criminals.
• Nergazu’s cults engage in activities such as poisoning wells, spreading contagions, and other acts that endanger public health.
It might be useful symbolism (and a way to emphasise Menoch’s villainy) to show that there are books bound to the entity beneath his chains - and make it very clear that Menoch will never, ever explain what they are or offer to share their contents with his devotees.
ReplyDeleteMenoch probably launches into a “You must learn these secrets for yourself in order to prove that you are worthy to learn these secrets” pseudo-profound sort of rhetoric that never quite obscures the fact that even the living epitome of “Nothing is true, everything is permitted” has stuff he not only refuses to share, but might very well kill to keep secret.
I’m not sure if this qualifies as hypocrisy in the living epitome of the Quest for Forbidden Lore, but it does suggest an intelligence more manipulative (and probably exploitative) than merely subversive.
- It also strikes me that making Morokain’s curse something like “Morokain the Son of Eden by Adam, the God of thy father decrees thou hast sinned a Great Sin and this in measure shall be thy punishment: the next seed thou dost sow shall measure the days of thy life; as it grows thou shalt not diminish, but on the day of it’s reaping thou shalt be reaped in turn” (I’m assuming that Morokain was a lifelong farmer, so this would be an especially potent curse - either he lives no longer than a single harvest season or he must forsake his land, his living and very possibly the chance to feed his family to wander fruitless upon the Earth*).
*The Curse of Morokain becomes especially acute if it is understood to mean that ‘seed’ also encompasses fathering a child.
Please pardon my attempt at Old Testament phrasing, but I wanted to come up with a curse that inflicted a genuinely-painful situation on the target, whilst having a fairly potent loophole (Morokain has lived fruitless for so long that he’s acquired the knowledge of how to kill practically anything, very possibly as a way of building up to killing the god who cursed him for his Crime … now if he could only remember which one that was, it would be MUCH easier).
- I’ll bet Nergazu’s sects have a strong “Plague Daddy is good, Plague Daddy is great, Plague Daddy would never make us pollute new victims in order to distract him from us - Bad Touch? WHAT BAD TOUCH! Plague Daddy is Good, Plague Daddy is…” etc etc.
Almost forgot to add: if you wanted to throw in a ticking clock on Morokain’s curse, you could show him eventually getting the idea to plant an olive (or some other tree), which might allow him a very long life indeed - assuming that he lives as long as the tree itself does, rather than losing his life with the first crop of that tree.
DeleteThis would allow Our Heroes more of a chance to strike a blow at him, if they can only work out where the tree is (Heck, the quest to put down the First Murderer - or, from a certain point of view, release him from a fairly miserable existence - could well make for an interesting campaign, allowing the PCs to play ‘join the dots’ INDIANA JONES or DA VINCI CODE-style.
This reply is letting me know that things are working as intended: each entry is short, but hopefully inspires people to go wild with their own thing in the version of Krevborna they create for their table.
DeleteGood to know that I’m giving you the warm glow of a job well-done and not a dull headache by my posts: it always worries me that my ideas might be actively unwelcome on a blog, rather than extraneous at worst.
DeleteAlso, for no explicable reason I’m tinkering with the wording of that Divine Curse: Old Testament dialogue can be oddly fun to write (although the fact it’s Cursing a malefactor doesn’t hurt).
Yeah, my hope is that the small-but-loyal group of people who read this blog are finding stuff (big and small) that they want to throw into their games or riff off of.
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