TheLordofWormsMostTerribleInIchor

The Lord of Worms Most Terrible In Ichor

Background

Long ago, during the Age of Wonders, there dwelt a mighty Solar, and this Solar so diseased that though he lived, worms crawled in his flesh. None could bear to look upon him- he dressed in beautiful armor and brilliant robes to hide his horrific plagues and deformities, but these putrefied upon his body, so that he wore the clinging rotten remnants of godlike finery upon his weeping charnel flesh. This Solar, bitter and terrible in pain and rage, built nine great Manses in the dark places of the world, and in every month he would dwell in a different one, rejoicing in his hatred and rejection of the world which had damned him to a lonely hell of his own stinking flesh. Then came the Usurpation. The Solar was betrayed by the one person who could bear to look upon him, his Dragon-Blooded servant, for as he took his pale, dry dinner of cold meat and tasteless wine, sitting upon the obsidian veranda of one of his Manses and looking out on the barren, dry wastes below, this very same servant came, leading Terrestrials, armed and armored, shining and flashing with elemental power.

The Solar sat motionless. He did not turn to face them. "You have come to destroy me," said he, speaking tonelessly.

The fiery leader of the Terrestrials pushed aside the Solar's servant, raising a blazing sword. "Too long have you kept this land beneath your boot, tyrant monster!"

The Solar sipped of his watery wine. "Yes."

His servant spoke: "My master, I apologize that it had to become this way."

Sip. Sip. "You are not contrite. You are mocking me. I have no friends. All of my world has gone to ashes."

The leader replied: "Cease your sophistry! It is time that you were sent to Hell, where you belong!"

"So be it, " said the Solar with finality in his voice, and the cold rage-sadness of a man facing unjust mortality.

And with that the Solar was slain, a blade of flame and a blue-jade spear and many knives impaling him through the back of his chair. And as the spark of life faded in his eyes, he raised his fist at the clouded sun in ultimate defiance, and bitterly cursed the angry stars.

The buzzing, silent, not-voice of a Dead God awoke him, lying pale and nighted in the chair in which he died. His name sold, his obedience pledged, he became the Lord of Worms Most Terrible In Ichor, bloated, monstrous, horrible beyond all dreams of man, the corruption and bitterness within him boiling outward as if to reveal his shattered soul to the whole Underworld.

Description

The Lord of Worms can never be seen quite clearly, for his very presence is so abhorrent that he causes the light to flee in fear. He can be perceived only vaguely, as a massive shape like a gigantic curling worm or centipede, or as a mass of a thousand glaring eyes in a cloud of darkness. When his servants go before him, they must stand at 3,000 paces away from him, at the end of the vast, black throne hall.

The Lord of Worms is poisonously bitter in temperament, and volatile- the slightest comment he may interpret as an insult before his presence, and these he punishes with absolute annihilation. He is prone to long brooding and introspection, culturing the ultimate loneliness and pain of his soul into a fine wine of evil. He brooks no insubordination among his subjects- those who disobey he sends to the feared Khekhut Pits beneath his Manse, to be tortured for a thousand years in ways so brilliantly vile that even speaking of them causes eardrums to burst with pain.

Ultimately, the Lord of Worms is rotten with centuries of bitterness and self-alienation- his deformities have made him so twisted that he no longer even believes in acceptance. He loves no one, cares for nothing save the thought that someday, he might annihilate the world which betrayed him, to take it in his vile tendril and crush it and burn it upon the altar of Oblivion, and thence to annihilate his own pain.

Place of Residence

The Lord of Worms has a small territory, but it is rich in power. On the coast of the Southwestern lands, north of the Silent Crescent, there is a river that the natives call the River of Sorrows, a thick, black river. At its mouth, there is a Shadowland called the Jungle of Miasmas, where the rainforest is thick, tangled, and black, resplendent in shades of black, purple, and blue, glowing under a constant cloud cover, where dark, stinking clouds of moisture drift through the swampy forest boles, and vast, toothy chasms open onto fathomless black cenotes keeping secrets not disturbed since before time began. Within this Jungle of Miasmas, there stands a huge cyclopean step-pyramid, surmounted by a porticoed temple, and totally carven in every area (even on the undersides of blocks and other irrational places) with images of rot, death, worms, crawling flesh, the risen dead, and the terrible, nihilistic gods that are worshipped in this place, the Temple of Rising From The Grave. Upon and around this mighty temple to decay, there are countless temples, towers, and shrines in countless archaic and disparate styles, where pale, chanting worshippers clamor upon one another to immerse themselves in deep sarcophagi full of wriggling worms. The zombies who guard this place, their heads made from masses of maggots and centipedes, stand guard in heavy black armor, holding spiked greataxes. Beneath the Temple of Rising From The Grave, there lie endless labyrinths of deep catacombs, mazes of tunnels and tombs, vast vaulted reliquaries; a vast collection of chambers, most of which have not been used in many thousands of lifetimes. Some are used as armories and training grounds, the tombs of dormant zombies, containment for uncertain artifacts, and apartments for Abyssals and emissaries and other important individuals who may be living on the premises. Only the loathsome, pale Under-rats, who look like tiny, whitened zombies, know the way through this place, and must be paid in complements on their beauty for their skills as guides. Beneath all the rest, incredibly deep in the bowels of the hidden earth, there are the unspeakable Khekhut Pits. None who have entered here have left alive- even the torturers themselves are destroyed by their own devices when their usefulness has ceased. But there is one thing that is known of the the Pits, and that is that only those who have most angered the Deathlord are sent there, to be tortured for a thousand years in ways so unspeakable that the gods of torture themselves gasp in horror at them.

Servants

The Cardinal of Skulls

Precious Precious Fear Precious Precious Fear is a tiny childlike woman, a Day Caste Abyssal with shiny, straight hair of a bloody-red shade that hangs to her shoulders. Her small frame seems to belie her incredible physical strength, which her delicate arms could not possibly contain. Her eyes are small and almond-shaped, and are without whites- they have only black, with the colored arc of the iris. Starting between her breasts and down to her softly-curved belly, there is a line of black glyphs incised there by the Lord of Worms himself. She is his favorite servant, a peerless assassin, and some say, the Deathlord’s lover as well, though this is most certainly a rumor, for who would take such a horrible being into her bed?

He Sits Above the Crypt He Sits Above the Crypt has skin of shining ebony, and his eyes are made from carven bone. His Moonshadow caste mark can always be seen, seaming wetly and spilling streaks of liquid red down his brow and nose. The palms of his hands and soles of his feet are completely encrusted in flaking, brown, old blood. He wears only a long loincloth of papyrus upon which is inscribed a blasphemous funeral rite that was written in the desecrated tomb of the King Surtash of a long-forgotten kingdom. He Sits Above the Crypt constantly chews a dark-leaved plant which grows only in the shadow of the Temple of Rising From The Grave; this stains his teeth purplish-red and makes his saliva deadly poisonous, though he himself seems immune. He is devilishly clever and intelligent, though he lacks the physical strength of the Cardinal of Skulls or Precious Precious Fear. His greatest strength is the hypnotic characteristics of his long, slender fingers, which weave and wave and dance mesmerisingly as He Sits Above the Crypt speaks.

Work in progress!