Practical Dungeoneering - an account of better days

an account of better days

[glorantha]

An Introduction to Glorantha

Glorantha is a world ruled by magic. It’s not just part of the world, but the way the world works. The fundamental forces of Glorantha are controlled by powerful gods. Everyone in every culture interacts with magic on a daily basis. Many of the things we take for granted in the real world do not exist in Glorantha, or exist in radically different ways. So these are some of the major differences between our world and Glorantha:

Keep reading

[illithidrex]

The Mountain World

The Mountain World was not always a mountain, although no one now remembers a time when this was not the case. At its tip is the sacred land of Saranai - city of the gods. Beneath it are the Temple Lands, as close as pilgrims are allowed by the guarding spirits of the Mountain World to their gods.

The country of Nelenai takes up many miles and is home to artisans and tomb robbers who delve shallow into the mountain’s heart to reap the glories of ancient cultures whose bones lay trapped beneath the Mountain World.

Bref and Stek are two countries locked in almost perpetual conflict over who owns the Giant’s Heart which beats at the center of Bref and bestows upon them wealth and knowledge (which the Stek desperately desire).

The Sleplanders are master builders who live in cathedrals which cling precariously to the steep peripheries of the Mountain World. It is thought they made a pact with the Mountain World to weather the predations of Lowland monsters.

The Lowlands are where all monsters live. Dwarves live here, trying to dig into the Mountain World and find their lost gods and forgotten glories. Elves live here, too. They stalk the endless forests at the base of the Mountain World, desperate to one day walk on Saranai again, as did their ancestors.

[illithidrex]

A Fortuitous Visit

Cardinal Loep slumped heavily in the plastic folding chair, the seat creaking beneath his considerable bulk. An empty glass somehow appeared in his hand, though it had not yet been offered, and I nodded to one of the servants to fetch some wine. Anything to lubricate the awkward conversation I was about to endure with the man I strongly suspected had murdered my father and sent my younger sister to a far-off convent.

‘A lovely day.’ Loep suggested, casting his gaze across the gardens. ‘Very serene.’

‘We like to keep a little slice of home with us, my lordship.’ I said. Truly, the gardens had been father’s passion, but it would have sullied his memory to halt their upkeep and so it would continue in perpetuity most likely. I understood little of plants and had been home to Dirt only twice in my life. The greenery made me nervous, a reminder that mankind’s bitter seeds did not belong on this world or any other.

‘The pines are especially striking.’ He said, accepting my servant’s formal offer of wine to fill his glass. He began drinking immediately. ‘Keep it coming. I have always held a fondness for red wine.’

So they said, I wanted to blurt out, but instead I inclined my head in a non-committal nod.

‘I’m afraid young Josep that my visit today is no mere pleasantry.’ He said, his voice low and conspiratorial. ‘The gnashnabs at the Sancta have been pestering me for weeks to take the next shuttle and meet with you, and I have finally succumbed to their demands. One cannot keep the wolves at bay forever, you know.’

‘Of course, my lordship.’ I replied, giving what I hoped was a pleasant, neutral smile. ‘And how may the House of al-Yassim serve the Sancta?’

‘You have no doubt heard of the troubles on Dirt and the inner colonies?’ He asked casually, but I knew he was testing me.

‘Some small rebellions and petty heresies is what my Seers have deduced.’ I said. ‘Nothing the Guard cannot handle, or the Sancta Blessed. But we are far from the inner worlds and news takes many months to settle here.’

‘Just so.’ Loep said. ‘Just so. Rebellious elements and free-thinkers. Criminals and fools.’

‘And what has that to do with al-Yassim, my lordship?’ I asked. ‘We have provided the usual tithe of troops to Dirt and an extra shipment of worshipers for the Sancta. Above and beyond our sacred duties.’

‘Your record is beyond reproach, young Josep.’ Loep said, chins waggling comically as he shook his head. ‘But lest we forget your late father’s forays into the dark underbelly of system politics which led to his tragic demise.’

‘Tragic it may have been, my lordship Cardinal Loep, but God-sent.’ I said, hoping I put enough venom into my voice. ‘My father was a fool and a heretic and he would have dragged our whole family down with him had you not interfered. And I sing your praises each day, Cardinal. Each day.’

‘Be that as it may, young Josep, the name of the House of al-Yassim has been heard once more upon the lips of a traitor. Unrelated, of course. Possibly a friend of your father’s from before. But propriety and political pressures have led me to visit and so here I am to reassure your detractors in government that you are a pious young man of good manners.’

‘I thank you for keeping my family’s fortunes so close to your heart.’ I said. ‘You humble me and mine.’

‘And have you heard from your sister of late?’

‘We do not speak.’ I said, grinding my teeth in frustration. He was probing close to home. ‘It is better for her to spend her years contemplating her failures than fill her head with unwise hopes.’

‘A sagacious decision.’ Cardinal Loep said, guzzling more wine. ‘Shall we take a stroll by your pond?’

‘Of course, my lordship.’

‘Have you still got those birds in it? The loud ones?’

‘Ducks, Cardinal?’

‘Yes. Just so.’ He said. ‘Ducks. Isn’t God a jester at times, to gift us with such sights?’

I watched him struggle from the folding chair and begin waddling toward my house’s single yet impressive lake.

‘Indeed.’ I replied, following him, hands balled into fists. ‘As you say.’

[illithidrex]

An ancient power awakes...

This blog is not dead. Merely slumbering. It’s going to wake up soon.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #12

‘And you say the people of the valley spoke a variant of the Flerenti dialect? Fascinating. Just fascinating. And you are sure no one else knows of this? Oh, why do I ask? No reason, my friend. No reason.’ Ferantin-ssi, Truth Hunter Agent before strangling a merchant

Name: Lassamu-ssa

Habitat: Everywhere

Lifespan: 40 - 80 years

Appearance: The Lassamu-ssa possess the appearance of enormous jellyfish. Their heads are large and clear, their brains and organs floating in a gelatinous prison. They have no discernible eyes or mouths and they never seem to need to eat or ingest water. When they speak it is with echoing, forlorn voices which seem to come from all directions at once. Lives: The Lassamu-ssa are a widespread people known for their fanatical interest in the histories of the world. Most are scholars in what remains of the organised communities of the Mighty Dry. They are jealous hoarders of knowledge and will often use underhanded means to secure both data and artifacts from the jeweled lost ages of the past. It is said that more knowledge has been lost to the vaults of the Lassamu-ssa than has been discovered in the modern age.

The Lassamu-ssa are a solitary people who dislike crowds and most of all do not look fondly upon spending time with their own kind who are likely to desire their secrets. Many powers in the world have attempted to wrest knowledge from the clutches of the Lassamu-ssa, but most choose the rite of Ascension to giving up their secrets. During Ascension a Lassamu-ssa shrinks in size over the course of several hours until it disappears from the world completely. Although the Lassamu-ssa believe the rite takes them to the Everdrive where their knowledge is stored until the very last of their kind ascends and forms one perfect being, the act is effectively suicide for the physical world.

Some whisper of the Truth Hunters, an insidious Lassamu-ssa sect which not only craves and gathers knowledge, but also destroys and erases through intricate magical rituals other sources of this knowledge. Magic and assassination are not above these secretive Lassamu-ssa.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #11

'It has been decreed by higher powers than I that each of your bones be broken in three places. This is not cruelty, sir. It is destiny.'

Name: Kuzdlaki

Habitat: The Screaming Valley

Lifespan: 50 - 120 years

Appearance: The Kuzdlaki are small humanoids, at most 3ft tall. They are white of skin and black of eye. Their bodies are covered in thick, worm-like hairs which they also use to feed (rolling around in Feastpiles). They use telepathy for communication, though they are incapable of reading minds. They have three jet-black, unblinking eyes upon their spherical heads. The nails of their hands and feet are sharp spirals. Lives: The Kuzdlaki are a dark-souled folk who live and die according to a perpetually updating tome of prophecy. It tells them who will live and who will die, which of them will pair and which of them will separate. It sometimes contains details of individual Kuzdlaki speech patterns or personality quirks, and the Kuzdlaki do their very best to follow these notations (whether or not they have predilections toward the behaviours or not). Often, the book will say that a Kuzdlaki individual will die, but they have not had the good grace to do so. When this occurs, the Kuzdlaki is expected to attend to their own demise. If they refuse, the community obliges. Once, the Kuzdlaki tome of prophecy told them to be explorers of the world, to be cosmopolitan and outgoing. But it has since changed its mind and commanded all Kuzdlaki to remain in the Screaming Valley among the shattered bones of the creatures who once called it home. Any Kuzdlaki now in the world are either deviants or have simply not heard the new commands of the tome.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #10

’My head/eye/mouth spoke of great torments? How strange. I apologise for the fright it must have given you. It is an unfortunate affliction of my people. I believe wizards were involved. Care to join me in the pipe den?’ Jefu Jasu the Jebu Jam Merchant

Name: Jelu Jalom

Habitat: The Wasp Fields

Lifespan: 450 – 700 years

Appearance: The Jelu Jalom are man-sized creatures with the outward appearance of giant toads. When they open their mouths, it is to reveal a grotesque bouquet of grey and decomposing human arms which they can use to manipulate a wide variety of objects. Their two bulbous eyes are a milky blue and their eyesight overland is very poor, though they are possessed of a kind of dark vision. On the back of each Jelu Jalom there is a human face which looks as if it had just emerged from beneath the Jelu Jalom’s sticky, moist skin. A membrane can cover this face, acting like an eyelid. The Jelu Jalom often closes this eyelid to muffle any words coming from the face which are not the Jelu Jalom’s. Sometimes the eye-faces scream, or weep or gibber uncontrollably, but usually they speak in a deep, impassive voice. This is the true voice of the Jelu Jalom.

Lives: The Jelu Jalom are a cosmopolitan folk who purport to descend from holy beings. They are most populous in the Wasp Fields, large wastes littered with what appear to be enormous silver wasp’s nests. They live inside these nests, which they call ‘motherseeds’ and claim that their ancestors arrived from Heaven inside these cyclopean vessels to spread the holy message of the gods.

These days, few Jelu Jalom can agree on what exactly their message was, and this has led to a theological standoff lasting (at last count) two millennia. The Jelu Jalom, apart from their disturbing appearance are a welcoming and capable people and are often found working in underground smithies or libraries.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #9

’Dust and sand and broken glass, Gold and stone and polished brass.’ Common Iku prayer Name: Iku

Habitat: Everywhere

Lifespan: 50 - 70 years

Appearance: The Iku, also known as Sand Eaters, are strange humanoids characterised by their uncommon physiology. Though they possess two arms and two legs, their eyes (all six of them) are arranged on their chests and where their heads should be there sprout a series of muscular tentacles. The tentacles extend and are to a small degree prehensile, but are used primarily in feeding. As their common name suggests, Iku eat sand so long as it is dry, and can subsist without water for extended periods of time. Many Iku have learned to mimic the speech of other cultures (though they themselves communicate using minute variations in tentacle coloration and blinks). They achieve this effect by engorging and deflating the tentacles which sprout from their neck, releasing air and mimicking clicks. Though somewhat intelligible, the whole endeavour sounds like a bunch of steaks being slapped together.

Lives: The Iku can be found anywhere there are people along the Mighty Dry. Their small communities are focused on praying to their immediate ancestors (anyone more than a generation away is relegated to the honourable position of Scattered Ancient) and reciting religious poetry. For such an inward-looking people, the Iku have spread far and wide in the world. As a culture, it can be said that they are searching for something.

In the deepest stories of the Iku mystery cults, it is said that the world of sand and dust and heat is the best of all possible worlds. It is the Scattered Ancients’s gift to the Iku people. But it is not eternal. Through the actions of foreign deities and outer peoples, the world is dying. It is up to the Iku to find a way to preserve the Mighty Dry for an eternity.

To this end, the Iku look for ways of extending their esoteric knowledge, as well as improving their sand magic. They are consummate scholars and although they are ill suited to violence, many like to tag along with stronger adventurers in exploring the gifts of the dying planet.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #8

’Oh, what’s in that cavern? We must see. We must! Bringing light to darkness, is it not a wondrous task?’ Garudyn the Cobbler, 3 minutes before death Name: Heliothese

Habitat: Petrified Calamities

Lifespan: 80 - 105 years

Appearance: Heliothese people are human in most respects, except for their heads which are lightbulbs. Their intellects and most of their life force is contained within the glassy domes upon their heads. At times of low light, while awake, Heliothese people can use their heads as illumination. They come in various shapes and luminosity.

Lives: Heliothese people have a strict hierarchy based on their luminosity. Only the brightest can join the Council of Bright Sparks and rule the disparate communities of the Petrified Calamities. The Calamities themselves are grey, ashen places. Great monoliths pockmarked with square holes jut from the ground. It is said in Heliothese mythology that a long time ago, the Brightest lived here, but that they committed some great sin against nature and so the gods sundered their glow forever.

Heliothese citizens dress in a variety of fashions from around the Mighty Dry. You are as likely to see them in fine Besagul-styled suits or the dizzying colours of Alumdine people. Their traditional garb features the grey feathers of scraper birds and the bones of scavenger vermin.

There are some Heliothese who have ‘gone out’. Their light has dimmed or disappeared and they have not died like others of their kind. Instead, they are guided by strange voices, proclamations of the Brightest (so they claim). They no longer need to eat or drink, but they become distant and prone to occasional violent outbursts.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #7

’Yes, you speak of Xief of the Down-Below, and that is a worthy thing for a pagan preacher, but Gurrzfather did say all godlings are mere shadows of the All-Gurrz, and Gurrzfather has never been wrong.’ Zrrei the Truth-teller Name: Gurrz

Habitat: Deep Ziggurat

Lifespan: 45 - 85 years

Appearance: The Gurrz resemble nothing less than a grotesque combination of cassowary and slug. Their bodies are slimy and sticky, like a great slug or ooze, but their egg-shaped torsos are supported by two extremely powerful legs. The legs are bone-like protrusions which end in sharp, knife-like edges. A proboscis emerges from the torso, and upon it is a colossal beak, one blue eye set deep within its mouth.

Lives: The Gurrz have no single personal history of their own, and so steal the folk tales and myths of others to justify their strange place in the world. Many ages ago, the first of the Gurrz awoke from a great slumber at the heart of the Deep Ziggurat, to the east of the Mighty Dry. This being, the Gurrzfather, awoke all other Gurrz. But neither the Gurrzfather itself nor the extensive hieroglyphic incantations on the inside of the Deep Ziggurat provide any clue as to their origins.

The Gurrz are unsettled by this lack of cultural identity, and it is with great enthusiasm that they claim the customs and ideologies of others as their own. They will claim that all these are merely pale reflections of a platonic Gurrz ideal which existed before the Quiet. Indeed, many Gurrz travel as explorers of the world, attempting to find their place within it, but their appearance and insistence that all customs and beliefs are theirs makes them difficult to forge bonds with. The superstitious and poor of the Mighty Dry take such things very personally.

Even so, a few Gurrz have made an impact in these latter days. The most famous is Reazu Krrz the Psurgeon Supreme. Once captured by a council of reverse djinnis, Reazu managed to trick them into being sewn into his voluminous jacket.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #6

’Oh, I be a brief flash in the dark, but I be a bright one, effendi.’ Semaiu the Pickpocket

Name: Famosi

Habitat: Everywhere

Lifespan: 10 - 20 years

Appearance: The Famosi are the last great experiment of a coven of scientists at the sunset end of the Quiet. They resemble caterpillars with humanoid faces, and instead of legs they are gifted with 60 - 120 human-like arms. The arms and hands can be used to walk or manipulate objects. They are grey of skin and communicate with one another using a language of subtle blinks and facial expressions.

Lives: The Famosi are renowned tinkerers and scrap merchants, and their wares are sought after across the Mighty Dry. Most live in large family groups of 30 - 100 individuals and they prefer small, enclosed spaces to make their homes. Most Famosi communities therefore form in ancient sewers, abandoned towers or even (to the consternation of their neighbours) within the walls of buildings.

Their single-minded quest as a culture is to cure themselves of the curse of their short life-span, but this is a forlorn hope. Short of the discovery of some kind of wondrous artifact of the Before Times, the question of longevity is purely academical for the Famosi. None live long enough to carry out the necessary research and those who abandon their family units to do so are rarely welcomed back and thus whatever knowledge they may have gleaned is lost forever when they die.

Even so, the Famosi are able to make a great many artifacts of the past work once more. Their genius seems in-born, rather than learned and few can explain the technical details of their works once they are complete.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #5

‘When I close my eyes I return there, a wide and lush fantasy that may as well be a falsehood. We have fallen far, but I fear there are depths yet unseen in our future.’ Jue’li of the Cutting Eye Name: Elran

Habitat: The Crying Citadels

Lifespan: Indefinite

Appearance: Elran, it is said, are made in the image of ancient gods, and it is easy to believe this claim. They are strange looking creatures. Humanoid, but too long of skull and limb for comfort. Their arms and legs are skeletal, fine golden skin woven across soft and pliable bones. They move unnaturally, not like predators, not like living things at all, but the wraiths of long-gone emperors. Their grey eyes are multi-faceted and shallow on their smooth faces. They are largely hairless, though some sport fine wigs made of strange spidersilk.

Lives: The Elran are the lost children of a green world. It is written in the emerald pillars of the Crying Citadels that before the world dried up, Elrani cities grew from the canopies of mighty forests, their glorious towers piercing the heavens themselves. The Singing Fortresses and Dancing Fleets made the Elran masters of the world, for a time. But not even their greatest rhythm sorcerers predicted the sharp decline of the world.

One by one, their fleets failed and their fortresses sunk beneath the sands. Even their cities dried to dust as the unyielding heat of the sun turned the great Darare into the Mighty Dry. The Elran invested everything into the creation of the moving sanctuaries now known as the Crying Citadels. Meant as eternal habitats for the children of the gods, most have stalled or crashed to the ground. No one knows for sure why such great wonders ceased, but the Sorrow Reticulators theorise that the gods who once tended the world’s great gardens have abandoned them for some great sin of the ancestors.

The most well known Crying Citadel is the outward looking Crippled Judgment which seeks to unite the scattered Elran people and restore the world to its former state. The Caliph Council claims it has found The Rot at the Heart of the World and has begun gathering both Elran themselves and those ancient works of their former glory as can be made to function in the harshness of the modern world. To what end? Few can speculate.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #4

'I am looking at you looking at my crystal skull, and this looking pleases me not at all. I would ask that your looking relocates to safer objects.’ Dudau the Dedu Name: Dorundi

Habitat: Abandoned holds of the Duarar

Lifespan: 140 - 400 years

Appearance: Dorundi are a stout folk, like their ancestors the Duarar. Unlike the Duarar, their appearance is unfriendly to human sensibilities. Their beards are thin and mangy, the coarse feel of steel wool. Their eyes are deeply sunk into their skulls, completely black and implacable. The Dorundi skin is stretched thinly and strangely over their thick skeletons and is pale, almost translucent in daylight. Lives: The Duarar were a dying race of subterranean builders who had once hollowed out the world beneath the Mighty Dry to turn it into a glorious paradise of underground halls and cities. But much like the great river, Duarar blood was thinned by millennia of a harsh world and they faded from the pages of history. Before their demise, it is said the greatest of them sacrificed their bodies to the sand and stone and created the obsidian eggs from which all Dorundi hatch.

Dorundi now inhabit the haunting hallways of their grandfathers, a race concerned with thew acquisition of magnificent trinkets rather than their forging. Dorundi are underground scavengers, their shanty towns built in the shadows of mighty Duarar citadels, unable to access the greatest secrets of their progenitors. Dorundi are greedy and opportunistic, and many regard them as little more than thieves. In fact, it would be more accurate to call them parasites. When a family group attaches itself to some great work of the ancients or particularly wondrous dungeon, it is almost impossible to rid the area of them. They do not breed particularly quickly, but have scavenged the fallen cities of the great ones for fine weapons and destructive magicks. Many Dorundi do trade with the outside world, for their hunger for new and shiny things is not easily sated by those areas of Duarar abodes they are able to pillage.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #3

“Sorry, friendo, you have glimpsed the ritual. This is unfortunate, friendo, because Legasil liked you and appreciated your friendship. The Word is hard to bear.” Legasil Plesegul, General Trader

Name: Besagul

Habitat: Everywhere

Lifespan: 15 – 35 years

Appearance: The Besagul are rotund, almost comically spherical folk resembling large rodents. Their prehensile tails act as a balancing mechanism for the ungainly creatures as well as an extra limb to hold things in. Unlike true rats, they have six pairs of eyes and their mouth (usually filled with large, flat teeth) opens to reveal a second orifice occupied by rapidly vibrating serrated fangs. Their skin hangs in gross cascading flaps about them and when excited the skin folds tense up and emit a short squelching sound (researchers believe it is sweat related).

Lives: The Besagul are a much-liked race, spread far and wide across the scorched lands of the Mighty Dry. They are traders, entertainers and entrepreneurs. They are often affable information brokers and lovers of gossip, gathering hidden facts and daily tidbits like others gather wild berries. It is an essential part of their existence.

The Besagul practice a religion unique to their species. Each Gathering’s matriarch owns a book called the Word. Although there are some similarities between them (in terms of deep mythology and symbolism), most such tomes differ to a great degree. Theirs is a deeply personal faith most concerned with honouring the dead and remembering the names of their Mothers.

The Besagul can be found anywhere there are communities, though they prefer to stay in small family groups.

Surprisingly, they are capable fighters and have been known to venture out as adventurers, caravan guards and explorers.

Dark rumours persist that Besagul harbour strange secrets and rituals in which they eat the organs of sacrificial victims, but most pay little heed to these fringe ideas. It is difficult to reconcile the image of a jolly Besagul with such a harsh accusation.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #2

‘Yes, Festsef is the god of worms, and yes, I did partake of his parasitic gifts, but you must understand! In my vision he was wearing a crystal vest decorated with serpent eye rubies. You can’t say no to that.’ Al Kaludin Malutite, Silken Sock (and parasitic worm) Distributor

Name: Alumdines

Habitat: The Sunken Tal Alumd

Lifespan: 30 – 65 years

Appearance: Alumdines look much like the humans from which they evolved, but are possessed of hollow bones and thin, sickly-looking flesh. Their eyes bulge from their skeletal faces and their prominent noses give them a disturbing bird-like appearance. To complete this strange look, their bodies are covered with thin, wispy hairs not unlike the feathers of newborn chicks.

Lives: The Alumdines are a strange folk, eternally obsessed with appearance and just as likely to start a brief fight with someone for the offensive shade of their outfit as instantly trust another because of the audacity of their garb. Indeed, the Alumdines have fostered a colourful culture which revolves around ever-changing styles and attempting to reach the ideal of Glorious All-Season Garb. There are several competing philosophies on how this can be achieved and this is why all Alumdine conflicts are resolved in the Fashion Arena. The losers are torn to shreds by squawking, excited crowds.

The Alumdines worship all manner of Gods, classifying the many deities of the Mighty Dry as Fresh, Gaudy, Brave or Ugh. Shrines in the Sunken Tal Alumd tend to depict various gods dressed in the most stylish fashions of the day.

Few Alumdine people venture far outside their sunken city, but those who do tend to rapidly develop a broader appreciation of other cultures and a slight distaste for the extravagant displays of their homeland. No magicians have ever come from Alumdine stock, though there is no particular reason why magic would be unavailable to them.

[illithidrex]

Denizens of the Mighty Dry #1

’Yes, yes, sand-dweller. We have heard of your prophets, but what are they to us? We have been laid low already. Corrorack are pious, yes? We have little fear of divine retributions.’ Chorlad Skud, Mighty Sculptor Name: Corrorack

Habitat: Crashed City of Ulgik

Lifespan: 20 - 40 years

Appearance: The Corrorack were human once, but their hubris transmuted them into huge, flightless beetles. They retain humanoid faces still, but their bodies are warped beyond recognition. They walk on two strong legs, although they are capable of using their six limbs to scuttle about. Their upper arms are often used for Clean Work like eating, writing and carving while their lower arms are used for Foul Work like butchery, chirurgy and mating. Lives: The only time the Corrorack use their four limbs together is to roll mounds of divine dung which fall from the heavenly stables (which in turn hang above their city chained to the burning sands). From this they make their homes, crude cathedrals, lumpfortresses and divine statues. The Corrorack are a peaceful people, well adapted to the ruins of the Crashed City of Ulgik. Few of them venture out much, their short lives more concerned with preserving their habitat than exploring the ruined world outside. They are ruled by a Triumvirate of Olds, three ancient Corrorack who have been preserved by the grace of the gods themselves in bottles of holy brine and are able to recite the laws and history of their people.

[illithidrex]

Xenografters

Dark surgeries and base rituals define the degenerate lives of xenografters. In the dim places of the galaxy, beneath benighted suns and long-forgotten ruins, these wretches practice their imperfect crafts at the cost of their humanity. And for what? Some seek to improve upon the frailties of the human form while others still wish to push their flesh closer to long-prophesised nirvana. Some hope to cure their bodies of death or stave off some peculiar and alien sickness. But all are scorned by humanity at large and looked upon as tragic curiosities by the elder inhabitants of the galaxy.

Headcase: A headcase is a xenografter who has messed with the very workings of their brain, giving themselves the gifts of telemystic psychomagic. Headcases are disconcerting.

Bouncer: Bouncers have improved their reflexes with muscle grafts from various species, making them both graceful and swift. Bouncers are dreadful.

Thumper: Thumpers have been less discriminate in the quality of their grafts, but have been granted great strength instead. Thumpers are hideous.