Snake Maze posted:

RubberBands Hurt posted:

Uhh, did you hear the foul things this "ape god" considered to be funny??

Scroll bound by a strand of kelp posted:

9th of Kisu Ux
I come from the west. My parents sold me into slavery as a babe, though the practice had been formally abolished in Perth years earlier. As a boy I cut my teeth on the reefs of the Shore of Songs, and lulled the Pale Sea to sleep with many a hymn, that she might return our sailors from the Black Stair unscathed. How the melodies whisked inside my skull even then. I was given no name at birth, but the sailors called me Catu.

At five and ten years I ran away. On Ettinspine I roosted with an eremite who ushered me into manhood. I learned to hunt, and laugh, and dream. In time I came to know of the Free City and the ingress afforded my kind. I shoved off from my stony nook, and trekked to their high gate, and settled there, though I preferred to sup with the anglers and other low folk.

In a sun-warmed pool under the rampart the Free Seer first noticed me. The slant of his neck from where he watched on the parapet presaged my movements, I still recall. I stood from my bath and shamefully padded to my discarded vest, but stopped. I saw him from that distance, his eyes tucked deep into his shorn dome, his frock as inert as a statue's, and I felt no more shame.

Under his tutelage I rose to prominence in his court. I stood by his side as he treated with the tuyuldars of Odrum, as he plotted against the southern freeholds. When a traitorous canter slipped poison into his cup, I smashed it from his hands and sundered the quisling's mind. That night, in the hour of the Beetle Moon, he introduced me to the mirth of an assembled mind. Together with the other canters we Joined, and he named me Mirthful, and raised me unto his honor guard. I would be dispossessed of it in under a year.

But I must pause now. The Cant loudens, and the Elder nears. I vow to conclude my story if I still draw breath, and if I am free.

16th of Kisu Ux

It is dusk. I sit on the bank of the River Svy, but no fire warms my bones. The risk of drawing moon-doting beasts is too great, and any aggregation of minds is sure to attract the attention of the Elder. Instead, I write by a flame kindled on my thumb.

I left off at being named Mirthful in the Hall of the Free Seer. No honor is higher for a canter of Oth. For months I trained with my masked compatriots beneath the Hall, where our clay cisterns stored the freshwater that would later haunt my dreams. In the spring a letter arrived from the Angler King. He sought a treaty with the Free Seer and invited us to a neutral council on the doorstep of Ibunudr, arbitrated by the tuyuldar of Doria. After much preparation we set out, rowing our sketties beyond the Bowl of Iris and to the frosty shores of that far tundra.

Over the course of the journey the Free Seer's disposition soured. He withdrew from the counsel of the Mirthful, even my own, and spent the better part of the wintry trek alone in his tent. At first I attributed his mood to the fragility of our diplomatic high ground, but I soon learned the true tack.

We arrived at the camp on Ibunudr on the summer solstice. The twin banners of Athenreach and Doria thrashed in the wind, and the hymns of the Eustace-Sutta carried. I remember smiling at the throaty crooning of their priests. As we studied the campground from a hillock, as the Free Seer ambled up to my side, I saw the jewel of the Hanging Hills, Nisramet, the Angler King's wife, she who cemented the peace between her father's fiefdoms and the Angler King's freehold. I saw her, and I immediately knew my own treachery. The Free Seer's gaze was acknowledgement enough.

2nd of Tebet Ux

I've arrived at Kyakukya. Kind Nuntu shares his hut with me, offers me smoked mushroom, and asks nothing in return. I write these words at his desk, and though he lusts for knowledge himself, he leaves me be to chronicle my past.

The campaign back toward Oth was grim. I awaited my fate at the Free Seer's hands, though I anticipated being given the dignity of first returning to the Hall and my home. I was not afforded so much. One dismal night, under the Beetle Moon, I was accosted in my tent by my masked brothers. To my bewilderment, the Stithening had come already. How had the Free Seer acquired the cherrydotters? Had he bargained for them at Ibunudr, or had he possessed them all along? To this day I do not know.

I remember little of the Stithening outside the beating of my own heart high in my ears. I passed out, and when I awoke next morning, the cavalcade had vanished. Only a moment did my recognition last before the chanting in my head took hold. I had heard it before, of course. All my life, in fact. It was the chanting that I weaved my melodies around on the shores of Perth as a small boy. Now, though, it was as if a single, distant canter had summoned a thousand of his kin, and they each summoned a thousand of their own. I wept, then I screamed, then I tore the hair from my head. The chant animated my bones more surely than my volition ever had. East and south, it urged. East and south. East and south. Toward Qud.

My recollection of the voyage to the Great Salt Desert is fractured and fitful. I grew sicker by the day, but the chant grew louder, and so quickened the force that compelled me. Surely I would die once I reached the moistureless plains of Moghra'yi, presumably as had my predecessors before me. Finally, I did reach them, where a salt-churned rivulet dried under a golden arch. The arch seems a thing born of my dementia but that I recall it so vividly, and that I know it's the least of the secrets kept by Moghra'yi.

24th of Tebet Ux

I edge closer to the grove of fungi and its preposterous promise. Are the whispers true? Could it be all so simple? I can feel the moistness of the Eater's flesh on my lips, though the memory is surely another's. If salvation awaits me, then I promise to take it, whether or not I deserve it. Tonight, though, the jungle shrouds me. I sit under a chrome belfry, a leech kneading at my skin. I feel no compulsion to bar its work. The companionship is welcome.

Now to awaken the past once more. Moghra'yi. O, how the dromads know!

How did I survive the Great Desert? I cannot say for sure. I owe something to the songs I sang at Perth, to the falconry I learned on Ettinspine, to the honing of my sinew under Oth. The fractured dream that was my voyage offers little elucidation. But I do remember chewing salt, and summoning gusts of wind to suck the moisture out of the dead air.

Of all the riven memories that churn in my head, Moghra'yi only accounts for a coherent three. The first is a vision of ruin at the fabled Kubrisyeti, the seat of the Wrathchild empire. Stretched across the alabaster plain were the last of their wicked structures, toppled effigies of the manscorpions themselves. I reposed there, against my will and only out of exhaustion. Fixated on the night sky in fear and fatigue, I heard the echoes of a great saltback's steps. Even those gargantuans know to avoid the place.

The second memory is the presence of the giants. Colossal skeletons in the forms of humanoids litter the desert. I had heard the accounts before, and indeed some of the specimens extend as far north as Odrum. Their history is wholly unknown to us or anyone else, but their bones provide some of the only shade on the salt pans, and so they grew to be welcome sights. So it was with horror that I discerned a truth, one night, while tucked into the rib cage of one of three cadavers in a small proximity. You see, all the carcasses shared a commonality: their orientation. East and south. East and south.

The third memory is the rust. Rusted hulls and rusted spires. It took me weeks to realize what I beheld. For all my boyhood was rife with sketties and ships, but none were of this size. I envisioned what the past must have looked like, as little sense as it made to me. Moghra'yi as a vast sea, and monstrous vessels mounting its waves. Markings and etches on their hulls had no resonance for me then. Later, though, I recognized the figure of the Spindle, and I glimpsed the importance it held for these sea-faring Eaters.

When I lurched to the ground and was righted by a brown-skinned man with a knife, a glowing cat at his feet, I knew it was a dream. It must be a dream.

1st of Shwut Ux

I owe my life to birds. In my haste to reach the fungal grove, I misstepped. My wandering and buoyant mind blinded itself to the presence of a chosen one. She neared me, set on enveloping me back into the fold, but she was intercepted by birds. For what purpose did they intercede I do not know, but they have my thanks. So must they have the Elder's ire.

I come now to Qud and the Seekers of the Sightless Way. The chanting compounded in my skull into a final ecstasy, wherein I joined an aggregate mind the likes of which I hadn't fathomed. I was primed for it, though. From my first joining on Ettinspine all those years ago, to the Rite of Mirth chaperoned by the Free Seer, I knew that sight guides us no more than salt does. There is ecstasy in the aggregate, indeed, and the Elder is as powerful a center as I've known. But a center is it still, and where there is a center, there is a hierarchy.

Which piece of my past endowed me with the wisdom to see through the ruse? Was it the boyhood memory of crashing waves on the Shore of Songs, echoed later in my vision at Moghra'yi? Was it the jealousy in the eyes of the Free Seer at Ibunudr? Or was it a mere wrinkle in the mass mind, owing nothing to my own struggle? I cannot say, but while the other canters piped their songs to weaken the Elder's prison, unknowing thralls to a greater mind, I escaped.

The Elder... no, Ptoh. I write the name in defiance of my captivity even at the risk it incurs. Ptoh knew nothing at first, but my absence dawned in time. The continuity was broken, and Ptoh sent agents to seize me. Even now, they near.

The Ides of Shwut Ux

It is too late. Though I sit near a stream of primordial soup, though clouds of spores surround me, it is too late. My invocation of Ptoh's name fixed my location and trajectory. The Eater's flesh is mine now, but the Chosen will be here in corporeal form too soon. Could I have lived outside the aggregate for very long, in any case? I do not know. The solitude wears on me as much as my flight. I've one last sundering to perform. A sundering. A memory of a distant life, a lost dream, takes hold. I sunder the mind of a foe to protect a lover.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

always be a mutant and always take Heightened Quickness and/or Multiple Legs

verbal enema posted:

I drank way too much! I vomit!

Angry Diplomat posted:

Pigbuster posted:

Die and Thirst Drown: A Caves of Qud SSLP

Across Moghra'yi, Vol. III: Oth, the Free City posted:

Preface
Obviously and unfortunately, no primary sources are available from these distant lands. Much of this record draws upon the accounts given by fungi who crossed Moghra'yi on the backs of dromad merchants.

As a matter of convention, I date all events according to their chronological distance from an event of paramount historical significance, namely the publication of these volumes. Accordingly, note that the events' parenthetical dates signify their occurrence "prior [to] publication".

Oth

Oth is a freehold in the central Sunderlies populated by the esper cult called the Tyrants. The youngest of the major freeholds in the region, it was settled by Freeman Oth in 61PP after the Lost War. The freehold consists of the furnished comb-caves along the faces of the towering bluff known as Maidencomb before the war.

Origins and the Lost War

In the early months of 62PP a mysterious figure began murdering the bandit hosts in the central Sunderlies around Maidencomb. Though the neighboring freeholds originally named the murders blessings, soon reports from river merchants of queer gatherings in the comb-caves -- howling men igniting the rivers and the night sky with fire -- disquieted the Sunderlies' seats of power. Rumors spread that esper-bandits had forsaken their bands, discarded their guns and bows, and sworn fealty to the shadowy figure.

These merchant anecdotes and rumors continued into the winter and were substantiated when several merchant sketties were captured by the dark host. From the man who identified himself as Oth the Free, the merchants learned that he had indeed organized the esper-bandits and exiled voidcanters from the fiefdoms of Odrum. Each sketty was made to return to the freehold from which it came with a document the host named the Annuls of Oth, in which Oth, a self-styled prophet gifted with prescience, recounted a series of his visions and demanded the immediate release of all espers indentured against their wills to the freeholds of true kin.

The comb kings were predictably unswayed by the Annals and ignored Oth's mandates. However, by the end of 62PP, no merchant who rowed within twenty leagues of Maidencomb was seen alive again. Dozens of sketties were found drifting downriver with the charred or drowned corpses of their rowers in tow.

About the same time, the Annals of Oth began to spread like wildfire throughout the river freeholds. Several free espers left the freeholds to join the host, while those indentured espers who were found to sympathize with Freeman Oth, as he was known in the freeholds, were largely killed or gelded.

Of particular interest to Oth and his host were the windweirds of Perth. The windweirds are a caste of indentured espers who foretell (and in rare cases alter) the strength and duration of the seasonal trade winds over the Pale Sea. Oth's host rowed westward, and his acolytes infiltrated the Seahold and roused support amongst the windweirds.

Having suffered the months-long trade blockage at the hands of the Freeman and now forced to watch Oth's seeds of discord sprout within his own kingdom, King Rhodos of Perth gathered his strength and rowed the winding canyon rivers east toward Maidencomb. A series of skirmishes ensued; the might of Rhodos's navy was such that the Freeman was forced to cede the combs he had taken and retreat to the fortifications of Maidencomb. Rhodos sieged the comb for several weeks, entreating the kings of Athenreach and Irisveld for support. When no aid came, King Rhodos chose to take Maidencomb with his own strength.

The Battle of Maidencomb lasted for four bloody days. Ultimately, Rhodos's losses were too many, and he was rebuffed and driven back toward Perth. Oth missed no opportunity. He gave chase to the weakened navy and slaughtered nearly a thousand more Perthic men. Rhodos eventually reached Perth, but the might of the espers was too great. Oth breached the combs' sapped defenses, sacked the freehold, and slew King Rhodos himself. Several of the windweirds chose to join the Freeman, while many others remained in Perth (a few left the freehold without Oth).

The espers rowed back to Maidencomb with their spoils and lifted the trade blockage, directing their efforts toward settling the comb. Oth gave his name to the freehold, and was known thenceforth as the Free Seer. He ruled the espers until his death in 38PP when his successor forsook his own given name and adopted the title of Free Seer. So that tradition continues in present-day Oth.

The name "Tyrants" itself owes its origins to an ironic interpretation of the entreaty sent by King Rhodos to King Ercarthus of Athenreach during the siege of Maidencomb. The envoy was captured by the espers before it made its way upstream toward the northern freehold. The relevant excerpt reads:

Row the Twining Thaw. Bring your sketties to bear on Maidencomb. Join
your strength to mine, that 'neath the coupled banners of the Seahold
and Athenreach we might sunder these half-men, these tyrants who would
wrest from us what is ours by right and deed.

-King Rhodos

The scroll on which the message was written still rests in the Hall of the Free Seer, along with the charred skull of King Rhodos.

Life in Oth

Oth is ruled by the Free Seer who resides in the Hall of the Free Seer deep in the heart of Maidencomb. After the tradition of Freeman Oth, the Free Seer must be psionically prescient. He may also have influence, though it is not required. The Free Seer chooses his successor, often naming the esper with the most promising precognitive abilities. Though the Tyrants are free to leave Oth at their leisure, within the freehold the Free Seer's rule is absolute.

While the Tyrants mostly pursue isolationist policies, they do trade with the neighboring freeholds. However, they only deal directly with true kin in the rarest of circumstances and they insist that merchant caravans include a mutant envoy. As for trade goods, the Tyrants rarely offer the services of their voidcanters, but people are known to come from far and wide to audit the prophecy of the seers of Oth. The Tyrants' most coveted imports are cherrydotters from Irisveld and ghost sap from the rust-caves of Qud.

Along with the Tyrants, Oth is cohabited by a caste of people (both true and mutant) with no psionic aptitude. After the Lost War, these people, called the undermensch, left Perth with the Tyrants of their own accord. They were mostly fisherfolk and craftsmen, and they serve those same roles in Oth. Their motivations for leaving Perth were never well understood; it is unknown whether they serve now as free kin or as psionic thralls of the Tyrants.

Stithening

Stithening is the name given by the Tyrants of Oth to the process of introducing a cherrydotter to a host's brain through the ear canal. The scarab-worm is attached to the host's ear where it sheds its shell, crawls toward the ear drum, and burrows into the brain. Once entrenched there, the parasite feeds on the temporal and parietal lobes, inducing several changes to the host's body including loss of hair and nail, loss of weight, and yellowing and greening of skin pigment. The changes occur gradually over a period of several weeks; immediately after a stithening, though, the host undergoes a violent period of bodily adjustment with several side-effects including vomiting and fever.

Notably, in the case of an esper host, the feeding also reduces and ultimately eliminates the esper's ability to resist the Elder Cant. Thusly all stithened espers leave Oth and venture into Moghra'yi never to return.

Stithening is usually reserved as punishment for high crimes such as treason, but some of the most devout espers choose to undergo the process. Once a year, one member of the Mirthful, the Free Seer's royal guard of voidcanters, is chosen by the Free Seer to be stithened. The esper's name is recorded for posterity in the Hall of the Free Seer; this is considered the greatest honor that may be bestowed upon an esper of Oth. A new esper is chosen to serve the Free Seer in a ceremony called the Rite of Mirth.

Evil Fluffy posted:

So is there a limit on how many followers you can have? I'm assuming so and that you can't just recruit a literal army but I'd love to be wrong.

titty_baby_ posted:

I'm trying the sort of mutant version of this with pros and beguile and a beak and legs. It took a lot of patience to really get off the ground but I feel good about my current character

E Depois do Adeus posted:

I want to play this but I'm a little leery of non-ascii tilesets

E Depois do Adeus posted:

I want to play this but I'm a little leery of non-ascii tilesets

On the Origins and Nature of the Dark Calculus posted:

Editor's note: this excerpt is published with permission from the notes of Barathrum the Old.

There's evidence in the arithmetic record that the study of formal systems reached a pernicious apex in the Long Before. Advancements made by mathematicians such as Russell, Gödel, Eisencruft, Atufu, Wheatgrass, and System Star contributed to the understanding of notions like undecidability, pointed regularism, and abyssalism. Upon reaching this minimal degree of mathematical maturity, equipped with sophisticated grammars, researchers set out to experiment with the limits of expressibility. They contrived bold research programs and galloped into the mathematical wood, unwitting of the dangers that brood there.

The record is even scarcer than usual, due to the efforts of successive generations to obfuscate the venture. As best as I can gather, at some point in the course of inquiry, a theorist from a mathematical seminary called the Cupola formulated a conjecture on the fragility of formal semantics. The conjecture ripened to a broader theory, out of which spawned a formal system called the penumbra calculus. In the few fragments of texts that predate the obfuscation, it's stated that, in the penumbra calculus, certain theorems are provable, but are falsified upon the completion of their proofs. As much as this result is at odds with the systems of thought I've encountered in my own inquiries, I find little reason to doubt the veracity of the authors. Nevertheless, it's certainly a peculiar property.

The Cupola theorist's results erupted into a grand investigation into the expressibility of the penumbra calculus. The conclusions were troubling. Pushing further, researchers constructed sister systems with alternate axioms. These systems were still more fragile, with the systems' inference rules themselves unraveling upon the completion of certain proofs.

Convinced that their discoveries were made possible by some idiosyncrasy of self-awareness, but synchronously fearful of the implications of their results, some schools of theorists engineered complex automated deduction systems to probe boundary theorems and launched them into neutron stars. The outcome is undocumented, but the result convinced theorists across the Coven to abandon research and blacklist anyone who studied the penumbra calculus and its derivative systems.

Peculiarly, support for the injunction was unanimous. Of note, even the spacefolder Ptoh agreed to abandon its investigation into the forbidden calculi from the reaches of its bleak star. Though the manner of its consent was not without controversy; to announce its accord, it inverted the color charge of quarks in a small region of space, causing a research station to collapse in on itself. Nonetheless, Ptoh's consent is testament to the degree of existential anxiety that could cause investigation into the penumbra calculus to go dark.