The Campaign Builder's Guild

[ic=Warworm]Warworms are ancient constructs created in ages past by the cestoids for use in their extensive Imperial wars with other powers.  Most have been destroyed but a few of these armored hulks have been found nearly intact in the Shatters and in Etiolation, and others are scattered about the Cadaverous Earth, particularly in and around ruinous wormfolk cities.

Warworms vaguely resemble cestoids, with long, metameric bodies and hundreds of tiny legs.  Powered by eldritch batteries and puissant clockwork, these enormous machines were built to various specifications, some several hundred feet in length.  They were designed principally to carry troops, slaves, and military hardware, but also supplies; as such all have very thick armor plates like chitin, often etched with the alien glyphs of the cestoids, for whom symbol-magic was the dominant form of witchcraft.

Bristling from the front or 'face' of  a warworm is a selection of weaponry, typically acid-spurting or incendiary cannons.  Some seem to be fitted with burrowing equipment likewise relying on powerful acids (stored in huge tanks within the warworm), or on front-mounted drills.  Behind this deadly façade is the cockpit, where either cestoids or as some speculate a race of specially bred pilot-slaves (possibly mantids) would be seated.  Then come the various segments of the warworm, some equipped with weapons themselves.  These segments are jointed and flexible, allowing a warworm some degree of maneuverability on a battlefield.

Today, warworms are rarely seen in operational condition, but occasionally gangs of scavenger-bandits restore them to roughly working order (often holding them together with spit and string) and harass small settlements with them.  At least one warworm was destroyed by a Watchdog at Baranauskas, reputedly piloted by deranged wormfolk fanatics.  One warworm, Scuttling Eternity, has been rehabilitated by mantids and now roams the world, crewed by a mongrel band of nomads: mantids, zerda, humans, and renegades of various stripes, working principally as scrap-dealers.  Another inactive warworm forms the home of the hermit and mechanical savant Leopold Maximilian and his swarm of mechanoape companions and auatomaton pets.[/ic]

[ooc]Added to the Bestiary - another old cestoid weapon:[ic=Ingurgitatrix]The ingurgitatrix is a vile species of parasitoid that makes its nest in the entrails of humanoid creatures.  Possibly some malign cousin of the tapeworm, the ingurgitatrix resembles a vaguely serpentine, cartilaginous worm with a small fanged maw at one end and rudimentary eyes on the other.  It possesses animal cunning and a level of predatory intelligence; rather than hatching inside the bowels of its victims (as the tapeworm does, or the ghul-worm) an ingurgitatrix must force its way down its host's throat, usually slithering through the mouths of sleeping victims.  It quickly makes its way tail first through the digestive tract where it installs itself comfortably, nestling in amongst the intestines; its thick, membranous hide protects it against stomach acids en route.

Once comfortable the ingurgitatrix begins secreting arcano-chemical substances into its host to induce appetite.  The host will be greatly invigorated and insatiably hungry, immediately seeking out as much food as they can and glutting themselves upon it.  If no food is available the victim will become greatly agitated and will attack other living creatures; unable to resist the fiend within the host will slough off social taboos and feast on former friends or family, as well as corpses and other typically detestable or repulsive substances.  As a last resort the host will resort to auto-cannibalism.

Whatever the case, the ingurgitatrix consumes all of the food its host ingests, quickly growing to prodigious size such that its victim's belly becomes distended as if pregnant.  Once it reaches its maximum size it bursts free, killing its host.  It then lays its eggs in the corpse of its former host, persisting long enough to watch them hatch before abruptly dying.  The newly hatched ingurgitatrixes consume the corpse and their parent before moving on to find hosts of their own.

Inguritatrixes were created by the cestoid Imperium as biological weapons, designed to decimate food supplies as well as military of civilian populations.  Now the hideous parasitoids roam free, though some are trapped and used for assassinations '" slipped into a bedchamber through a window or under a door.[/ic]Working on bits of Somnambulon.[/ooc]

Awesome. Just how big are these worms before entering a host? What about ways to get rid of them? Poisoning maybe? It a patient was forcibly restrained from eating anything long enough, could the parasite be starved or would it just munch on the innards to survive? What about willingly taking in other, less deadly parasites in hopes that they would attack this one?

[ooc]I'm imagining them as the size of a small snake (like a garter snake) upon entry.

Great ideas for getting rid of them... poison could work but the risk to the host would probably be large, if you're killing something of that size.  Starvation or surgery would be better options - particularly the starvation option, though I'm not sure about the ramifications of having a dead worm-like thing lodged in your colon, undigested (nothing good, I bet).  Sending other things in sounds insane, but maybe (you'd have to find some way of ensuring that they wouldn't immediately turn on the host).

Some sort of witchcraft strikes me as the most effective cure - something that would expel the ingurgitatrix from the host, probably.  Either that or surgery followed by eldritch healing.[/ooc]

Reading the warworms entry I instantly recieved mental imagery of something awesome. They sound perfectly fearsome. I don't know if it's just me, but I would perhaps tone down the weaponry a bit and just let the hulking construct plow through enemy fortifications. Is it a purely mechanical entity, or is there some kind of bio-engineered organism involved? (that was my first thought, but rereading it it doesn't seem like it is the case).
Love the Ingurgatrix details; eyes and maw on opposed ends, the distended belly, auto-cannibalism, the name even. Reminds me (favorably) of the assassination scene from Star Wars II (the Clone Wars). Can imagine those small pests fitting into CE perfectly.
Your last paragraph on the warworms (Scuttling Eternity specifically) reminds me of Iron Council isntead.
How exactly is bio-engineering performed in your setting? Can you make a new species, or only modify an existing entity? Do you grow them in vats, or inject them with mutagens (or something else)? Is it a lost science?
 

[ooc] [blockquote=Cataclysmic Crow]How exactly is bio-engineering performed in your setting? Can you make a new species, or only modify an existing entity? Do you grow them in vats, or inject them with mutagens (or something else)? Is it a lost science?[/blockquote] I'm imagining bio-engineering as a predominantly lost science in which species could be modified practically beyond recognition, with some crude vat-grown or pieced-together bio-constructs being viable in the present day.

The warworms are mechanical - I thought anything else would either resemble a giant cestoid/dire maggot too much.  I might tone down the weaponry.[/ooc]

[ooc]Some notes on the swamps around Lophius - not intended as an exhaustive description.  Has some info on leechkin culture.[/ooc][ic=The Southern Swamps]Nameless and enormous, stretching from the shores of the Fevered Ocean and the Sallow Seas to the borders of the Firesong Marches, the southern swamps surrounding the Twilight City of Lophius are a dread place, laced with murky rivers and treacherous bogs.  Bloodwood groves, crazed leechkin, xenophobic hagmen, and hungry demons lurk in the blighted undergrowth.  Mossy ruins rise from the black and bubbling depths of hidden pools; hideous idols grin at the bottom of muddy lakes.  Most of the ruins are those of the Tsathii and the Gengrymar, though the cestoids also maintained a few Imperial forts in amongst the stagnant marshlands.  Many other ruins are those of unknown civilizations whose names and histories have been wholly obscured by time, subsumed by fungus, flooded by swamp-water.

Demons

Though demoniac entities can be found in all corners of the wastes, the brooding eaves and moist shadows of the swamps offer a haven to such creatures, who stalk the fens and the banks of the Gland in constant search of prey.  Elemental and unfathomable, of inscrutable intelligence, the swampland demons are brethren of the primal beast-gods of the sea and their lesser ilk; some say they are not otherworldly at all, but spirits of the Earth itself, stirred from some long repose in the apocalyptic dusk of the world.

The swamp-demons are mostly solitary beings.  When they encounter one another they sometimes fight, though usually they simply ignore one another.  They come in a wide variety of forms, but all are exceedingly inhuman, at least in their natural states: many have amorphous bodies, exoskeletons, or similarly aberrant physiologies.  A few have shapeshifting abilities and can assume different guises, often the forms of those they consumed, masquerading as beasts or humanoids.  Such doppelgangers are usually betrayed by a subtle squirming evident beneath the flesh of their simulacra.

Settlements

The swamps are in fact one of the more densely populated regions of the Cadaverous Earth, riddled with the settlements of the hagmen, with some naghini outposts in the southeast and a smattering of human towns as well.  Most of these are tiny villages, ragged bayou shanties or clusters of rude huts, but a few are considerably larger.

Apart from Lophius itself the largest human settlement in the swamps is Gryss, a violent, oily port along the Gland.   Skinks and tarantulas festoon the crumbling yellow walls of the place like living ornaments, and vibrant speckled mushrooms grow from every crack and crevice.  A much older city lies ruinous beneath the ramshackle wooden constructions of the modern town: here and there a glyph-carved flagstone stares up out of the lichen-covered ground, or an obelisk thrusts itself rain-worn and mossy from a street corner.  The younger town is rawer, greasier, sensual and ruthless.  Carved succubae leer from the corners of buildings, indicating brothels; shop windows display machete-swords and cruel kukris.  Witches smoke ornate hookahs on dilapidated patios and balconies peeling with strips of paint, while bravos and riverport scum swagger in and out of bars and gaming houses with knives and pistols openly displayed.  Most of the humans in Gryss are living, but grave-spawn are evident too, including a nest of eidolons scattered about the town who have long preyed on the populace, undetected.

The most important hagman settlement is concealed deep in the swamp, a secret city and a holy place '" Naresch.  Built entirely below the surface of a scum-topped lake, Naresch is nowhere near the size of the Twilight Cities but it nonetheless represents one of the largest hagman settlements.  Here the hagman cults venerate their deity, while daily droves of pilgrims and refugees seeking sanctuary slip below the putrid surface of the lake and descend into the greenish murk of the sunken city.  The priests and priestesses sternly police Naresch, and any non-hagmen who enters is slain on the spot.

Leechkin

Unlike the hagmen, the leechkin do not build: their culture vilifies labour, holding the purity of the parasite as its strongest creed.  Instead they roam the swamps in tribal bands, each led by a shaman.  Sexless, the tribes are untroubled by gendered hierarchy; indeed, the leechkin know almost no elitism, save that they accept the wisdom of the shamans.  New shamans are chosen during infancy, preferably by the current shaman or one of its apprentices, in accordance with certain omens.  A leechkin child whose hand-mouths do not cry but only feeds, whose birth heralds the finding of a bloodwood tree or a similar feast of plenty, and who kills before its first birthday is considered eligible to become a shaman apprentice.  The shamans do not lead a tribe but do provide herbcraft, medical aid, and spiritual guidance to a band.  They also deal with any demons the tribe encounters during its travels, using rituals to either deter or attract the swamp-spirits as desired.

Leechkin tribes have no chiefs or leaders, selecting their routes by a process of nebulous democracy.  They are guided predominantly by the smell of prey or by natural landmarks such as rivers.  They have no formal laws, but disagreements are settled through the ritual of zull-wrogosh which few non-leechkin ever witness: the two contending leechkin approach one another and lay their hand-mouths on their opponents bodies simultaneously, then both begin to feed.  Whoever can drain his opponent faster is considered the victor: the first to tire of sucking or to fall unconscious or dead loses.

The leechkin actively hunt animals but will ignore humanoids unless driven into bloodthirsty psychosis from want of feeding.  They do skirmish with the hagmen, though they are rarely the aggressors and generally avoid hagmen territories unless something lures them in.[/ic]

[ic=Marrowmoth]These large, bulbous insects look eerily beautiful from a distance with their expansive, sallow wings (veined with crimson) glowing in the moonlight, but their enthralling appearance belies their macabre natures.  Uninterested in flesh or vital organs, the carnivorous marrowmoth greatly prizes bone marrow, particularly red marrow.  Like the vampire bat marrowmoths seek out large creatures to prey on, especially when sleeping.  To extract sustenance they unfurl a powerful proboscis which they thrust deep into their prey's tissue, penetrating layers of skin and muscle to burrow directly into bone.  They then suck up the victim's marrow at a tremendous rate, detaching swiftly if their prey attempts to physically harm them.

Dangerous enough individually, marrowmoths often dwell in colonies, usually in hollow trees or in old tombs whose occupants they have despoiled.  Though usually these colonies are quite small, marrowmoths can swarm prey, quickly reducing them to hollowed-out, fleshy husks scored with puncture-wounds, their bone marrow sucked out like nectar.  When they can't find live prey marrowmoths subsist on carrion.  Marrowmoths can be deterred with certain pungent oils, but the best defense against them is a large, bright fire or strong eldritch light.  Like other moths marrowmoths have evolved to use the moon '" an object which for all intents and purposes is optically infinite '" to navigate and fly in a straight line.  A similarly luminous light source will attract marrowmoths, who mistake it for the moon; since the light source is not at ocular infinity, of course, they will fly directly towards it until they reach it, immolating them if the light is a fire.

Marrowmoth caterpillars are fat, glistening things that feed on rotting flesh.  Marrowmoths do not nurse their young but often lay their eggs in or near dead prey.  The cocoons of marrowmoths are hardy and durable.  Their silk, though not as smooth or shimmeringly beautiful as that of Skein, is highly prized for use as bow strings.[/ic] [ooc]They were going to be called bonemoths but D&D beat me to the punch on that one.  Their bonemoths eat flesh, however, leaving the bones behind; I think mine are cooler, sucking marrow like nectar... sort of CE's take on the stirge.[/ooc]

[ooc]I've been thinking about adding some more cities to the setting, or possibly an entire new continent on the far side of the Fevered Ocean, and maybe even incorporating Abysm (my entry for the Octoberish Contest) into the Cadaverous Earth.  Some ideas for new cities:

- One or two port cities along the Serrated Coast for Skein/Crepuscle/Lophius to trade with and for the corsairs to plunder.

- A city built around the palace of a senile, dying, leprous god covered in hideous sores that weep divine pus, collected by his priesthood (the real rulers) and used to drastically extend their mortal lifespans in a gruesome twist on liches.

What do you guys think?[/ooc]

Quote from: SteerpikeA city built around the palace of a senile, dying, leprous god covered in hideous sores that weep divine pus, collected by his priesthood (the real rulers) and used to drastically extend their mortal lifespans in a gruesome twist on liches.

You know, there is a point that the usual level of CE nastiness starts to lose its punch, and you risk going so far over the top it starts to seem like self-parody. I'm just making that observation and I'm definitely not saying this is it-- honestly I don't think it is, but it is getting kind of close.

I think that you are well-set with cities; what about more interesting terrain, forests, caverns, "dungeons", and/or geologic events.

Or perhaps pull a China Mieville and go investigate what lies in the sea and the oceans, or do more on Avian species and what lies skyward in the air?

[ooc]Not a bad idea there with the sky thing - there have been hints of stuff like that so far but nothing substantive.  Maybe more underground stuff, too.  Geological formations was partly why I was thinking of putting in Abysm... maybe I'll have to brainstorm some similar kinds of geological phenomena.  An Abysm-esque rift in the far south of the world dotted with ruinous cities, perhaps - maybe the chasm from which the jinni originally emerged, or so legend holds. [blockquote=sparkletwist]I'm just making that observation and I'm definitely not saying this is it-- honestly I don't think it is, but it is getting kind of close.[/blockquote]You could be right, here.  I might make this a smaller locale (rather than one of the Twilight Cities themselves), maybe one of the Midnight Islands (the islands which are plunged in eternal night, where corsairs lurk).  If it's more localized then perhaps it'll feel less potentially parodic.

I'm pondering one or two more cities on the coast, or maybe one on the coast and one elsewhere, simply for trading partners.  It struck me that as mapped there is probably not a huge deal of oceanic trade which makes oceanic piracy pretty tricky, which leaves the corsairs and Lophius (both of which I like a great deal) rather out to dry.[/ooc]

>>An Abysm-esque rift in the far south of the world dotted with ruinous cities, perhaps - maybe the chasm from which the jinni originally emerged, or so legend holds.

That sounds good. Very Dwarf Fortress HFS-ish with the demons coming from the Rift.

Quote from: SteerpikeI'm pondering one or two more cities on the coast, or maybe one on the coast and one elsewhere, simply for trading partners.  It struck me that as mapped there is probably not a huge deal of oceanic trade which makes oceanic piracy pretty tricky, which leaves the corsairs and Lophius (both of which I like a great deal) rather out to dry.

Piracy can just as easily focus on coastal raiding, even sudden attacks on city ports. If there is more population on the coast than inland then this could be a good way to acquire large numbers of slaves. I'd really like to see how pirates in CE would turn out like. Especially if you can avoid associating them with undeath...

Another thing different from cities that you could add is strongholds. It figures that there could be places of particular importance out there in the dangerous wilderness, that would be worth the effort and risks of guarding. Sources of rare and valuable materials for example, or occult places enabling otherwise impossible feats of witchcraft.

Also a question, will we see a CE mIRC game anytime in the future, Steerpike? Perhaps over thanksgiving if not sooner?