The Skin-Men

"Emptying the nursery"

- Goblin Proverb; to pursue victory at any cost.

    Fear of the necromancer is surprisingly isolated. Certainly many cultures do have trepidation, of course, towards those that deal with death, but the fear is the most pronounced in human cultures located within Esemeir. It is interesting then that most necromancers are from Esemeir, but not necessarily unintuitive. There is something in these cultures drawn to death, to reliving life, thus producing necromancers, which in turn produces fear of necromancers, for they wield a powerful art and can be used to cruel ends indeed. Other cultures do not fear the necromancer because they do not have the necromancer. Just the same, those in Esemeir do not fear the Skin-Men.

Northern Magic

    In the world of Coris, magic is highly regional. Much the same as martial arts develop somewhat uniquely but may happen upon convergent techniques, magic users are less likely to organize themselves into large schools, instead favoring intimate circles of practitioners, maybe twenty members large at the most. The schools of Northern Lakarta and Reskalan, particularly in the various goblin cultures of the region, tend to place emphasis on movement and vectors of motion. Magic is associated with life, speed, momentum, and growth. That last one is key here because if there is a core societal fear that exists within these cultures, perhaps it is that of stagnation, or stuckness. 

The Boogeymen

    Their arrival cannot be predicted, for their wandering is more often than not aimless. They will come over the hill on days when the sun shines bright, and the only thing that could bring spirits down is their sighting, and just the same they come in times of great loss, when not even their appearance could do more harm than that which has already been done. 

    They are a peculiar sight, no two look exactly alike, in fact, but there are some commonalities between them. Men and women who appear young and beautiful with fine luxurious clothes, save for one withered, crooked arm. If they are not full of youth, they may appear much the opposite, old and withered, far past the age that one could reasonably expected to travel alone in the wilderness (they aren't ever alone, of course). Some are simply hidden beneath thick, leather cloaks, only recognizable as a voice coming from beneath the warped and weathered garment, and perhaps the occasional glimpse of a strange, twisted arm, clawed and tumorous. If they are tattooed, they will tend towards the organic, flowing lines of rust red ink, like smeared blood just begun to dry, but scarification is more common. They are the Skin-Men, masters of flesh, mages of the dark art of growing. And they arrive to your village not to wither your crops, or lay waste to your people, but to sell their magic to the highest bidder.

    They may pitch a large tent shortly outside the perimeter of the village, if they expect lots of business, but if it is known an area is somewhat poorer or the mage is in a hurry, they may head straight to whoever they think is in charge for a more direct pitch. Their arts aren't typically cheap, so it is a safer bet that village elders or leaders will be more able to pay for such miracles. 

    And pay they do, because though Skin-Men are often frightening, they provide, in many communities, a necessary service. They can fight sickness, remove tumors, mend injuries, pull rotting teeth, all things a good doctor of this age can do with perhaps half the pain, but they also provide a more advanced art. Skin-Men work the body like clay, they can remove blemishes and scars, make you appear younger, change your features, make you more desirable to yourself and others, all the wonders of plastic surgery with none of the modern technique or technology traditionally needed to enable it, though such procedures are typically not in the cards for all except the most wealthy. These arts are not what has earned the Skin-Men their unsavory reputation, of course. There is another, more gut churning procedure which they are most known for, and that is the creation of ogres.

The Birth of a Monster

    For this act you need a child. Young, but preferably not too young. The ideal age for such an act is when a child has just stopped breastfeeding, it'll be easier to feed them this way. The older a person gets, the more likely their body is to take to the procedure traumatically, and though Skin-Men tend to hold rather loose morals, most will not perform such an act on one they deem too old for the procedure. The child will be taken away (pay no mind to their crying) and when they are returned, they will have grown. It is not uncommon for them to double in weight and size, in fact, over the course of the procedure. The child does not stop growing from there, of course. They will eat voraciously over the next period of their life, until they reach adolescence, they exist in a state of near perpetual growth, and for many it is not comfortable. Growing ogres are often wracked with pain and discomfort, sometimes their growth is uneven and takes a good while to even out. Some suffering is usually considered worth it for the end result though. Goblins are a diverse group, but the average height for many is perhaps 4 feet tall; by the time one of these children is fully grown, they will be anywhere from 8-12 feet tall. Ogres tend to be broad, and heavyset, and strong too. Part of that is the simple fact that they're massive, but a child is not often turned into an ogre on a whim. 

    Ogres are made for war, because ogres are big, and strong, and terrifying. From the moment they reach adolescence most ogres have blades thrust into their hands and armor strapped around their frames, so that if their clan ever goes to battle, they can be at the front of the charge as the biggest, meanest things around, swinging around a poleaxe the size of a small log and punting cavalrymen off their horses like they're garden gnomes. If you can get yourself an ogre, better yet, if you can get yourself several, the two timing bastard neighboring clan over the hill is gonna think twice before they try and steel your goats. It is not uncommon for clan leaders to round up all children of a suitable age they can find when a Skin-Man comes knocking. They are a coveted weapon. That's the thing though, ogres are still intelligent, but to those who covet them they are more weapon than person. They think and feel just as goblins do, just as humans do, and yet they are molded for a life of war, and slaughter with no agency.

    In that regard ogres are perhaps not so different from other goblins in their quasi feudal society. They exemplify it, they bring the problem into stark focus, but they are not inherently unique in their lack of agency. Hell, ogres in some regards have it better than the serfs. They are awarded some amount of status, fight for long enough and they'll essentially earn the status of low level nobles, they get land, horses, men to serve them. The children who become ogres are often low born, and are often given up willingly by their parents, because slaughter and bloodshed may lead them to a better life than farming. Nobles may subject their children to such a process as well, there are many second born sons who tower over their ruling siblings, leading their armies into battle head first.

    Note: Technically the art of ogremaking is not limited to only thinking mortals but the creation of ogre beasts (typically referred to as dire beasts) is a bit more thorny, and such creatures are hard for most to control, save for perhaps the Skin-Men who create them. Such animals tend to be embellished with intimidating features such as boney spines, horns, and deep red eyes. Wolves and dogs are common dire companions for Skin-Men, though some travel alongside massive horses nearly the size of elephants. When Skin-Men die, their beasts may go feral, decimating local ecosystems with their great size and ferocity, providing a suitable challenge for the enterprising adventurer looking to ingratiate theirself with a local clan.

Magicians Errant

    Skin-Men exist in a strange grey area, societally speaking, much as adventurers do. They are shunned by goblin society, for their magic is strange and disquieting, but they are fantastically wealthy. Many are essentially nomadic, picking up tokens of wealth and creature comforts when they pass through the larger northern cities. Some may find themselves settling down in such cities, living lives of luxury as strange back-alley doctors, serving both the poorest and wealthiest members of the community in kind. There are some who have formed clans of their own, their armies made up of ogres and dire beasts of strange and unique form, ingenious as they are disquieting. Few are willing to trade with them, and they always have a target upon their backs, but their armies of beasts are an effective deterrent against full frontal assault. Many Skin-Men have found themselves in the employ of the Draconic Imperium, and it is said that Aashrya, the Churning Leviathan, member of the Pentarchy up until her untimely death at the hands of a roving band of sellswords, counted herself among their numbers. Many still give their art to the imperium, creating new broods of dragonborn, and stranger beings still, if the rumors are to be believed.

One More Thing

This post is heavily inspired by this post here by Arnold K at Goblin Punch. If you haven't heard of him (unlikely, since afaik only my friends are reading about this and I talk about his work fairly often) I would recommend checking out that blog and that post! Warning for the squeamish, it's pretty gross and goes in hard on themes of child abuse at the top, but it's really really cool. That's all for now!

The Names of Blood (3/3)

When the Gods of Hell lost their war and were cast down beneath creation, a prison was created for them. The Sevenfold City was to be their cage, its bars crafted from the metaphysical skeins of reality, and it is indeed a mighty prison, but among the Athe, there was a fear that it would not be enough. 

Another prison was created, not one of walls and dimensional cages, but a leash that might follow a devil wherever they went, confining them, restricting their actions far beyond the bounds of Hell. So it was that the gods were met by Sathi.

The Bloodletter

Sathi is the goddess of blood, strife, war, and winter. Her name is a curse spoken in hushed tones, and her worship is scarcely seen during peacetime. She is an old god, perhaps one of the Elder Things, but she is also of the Athe. Myth teaches us that she was often despised by her pantheon, for she was cruel and cold-hearted, with an uncanny knack for driving men and beast towards acts of uncanny violence. She too, was an enemy of the Athe in some sense, though they had never come to blows. Despite their enmity, she offered a solution to their problem that they could not ignore.

Her proposition was thus: She would scribe the name of each devil and bind them to her own, for names the most central component of being to all gods and things of the spirit. Each devil's name would become a tool to be used against them, no matter where they were or how powerful they were, if their name was spoken aloud, they would be compelled to obey their caller. Sathi alone would know their names, and as collateral, she would fashion herself a name in the oldest tongue and bind her name to one of the Athe, thus she could never raise the armies of the Cities against the gods of the Athe. 

And so each devil's blood was drawn and with that blood their names were written into the pages of many great black tomes, which the final layer of hell would hold within great stony walls, and the armies of hell would be christened with new titles, their old names plucked from the heads of those who once knew them. The gods of hell, meanwhile, would do much the same as Sathi did. They were not stripped of their names (with one exception), but forged new, punitive ones, which would keep them bound should the walls of their prison ever fray.

Adramses, the Iron Ram, Black Hearted, the Burning King, 2nd Prince of Hell

Adramses is a cruel master to serve. Of all the gods of Hell, he is perhaps the most loathsome. His form is that of a great, scarred man with the head of a great ram, composed of molten iron. He is the god of jailers, prisoners, torture, and suffering. Fire is his weapon of choice and he is said to be an utter sadist. His devils are those are most often seen, for they crave battle, and their names may be traded amongst warring armies like weapons of mass destruction.

His layer of hell is Thrine, and it is the third deepest. Adramses delighted in the captivity of men, thus the notion that they should be free of the gods went over about as poorly as one can imagine. He led his armies against the Athe without fear, bested finally by the efforts of Natos. Though he would lose their bout, he was not felled, earning him the title of "he who would defy death." His worshippers are, similar to Urus, often the desperate. He's a god of the suffering and the downtrodden, the prisoner headed for the gallows who longs for one day more. He's a god for the executioner and jailer too, as well as the torturer. No matter what side of the cell bars you fall behind, he can serve you.

Adramses is also a friend to the summoner, as mentioned previously, his brood of devils are particularly vicious and adept in the art of war. The Sin-Eaters, those who invoke Adramses in battle are very much the archetypal diabolic spellcasters, channeling their own suffering into fell magic of fire and brimstone, laying waste to their enemies with cruelty and glee.

The Whispered, Cloak of Darkness, The Man Below the World, 1st Prince of Hell

There was only one god of the Sevenfold City who was truly stripped of their name, and he is known as the Whispered God. He is a god of wealth and the underworld, a great shadow in the darkness, a bat with eyes of gold who flew on wings of midnight and stone. The crime which cost him his name is unknown, but it is said before the war, he was among Amora's greatest allies. What drove him to betrayal is uncertain.

The Nameless God lives in the layer of hell known as Osk, a bleak and silent mausoleum. During the war, he was undoubtedly a terribly foe, but perhaps it was the fact that he was so dear to Amora that he was punished so greatly. It is said that the goddess of the sun's temper can be terrible indeed, and he was not the first to wrong her (Pity the Weaver). The Whispered God was notable for his ability to entice mortals into his service. Gold is a valuable thing to men, valuable enough that it has often made them act against their own self interests. Battles with the Nameless meant the loss of much human life, a crime that likely only served to stoke Amora's fury.

The Nameless commands all that which man covets under the earth, and that alone can be a very powerful weapon indeed, for there is a greed in the hearts of some men that cannot be satisfied so easily. It can also be a literal weapon in some cases, molten gold is certainly lethal more often than not. By invoking his unknown name, followers of the Whispered God can travel swiftly through the night as little more than a rustle in the bushes, swift as sound, and the lack thereof. 

The Nameless God is the most powerful being in hell alive for the initial war between the gods, yet in the hierarchy of the Sevenfold City, there is one that outranks him.

Cathis, the Bloody Prince, the Sword of Sathi, Lord of Hell

Sathi lives not in hell but in the pits beneath, with the rest of the Elder Things of our world, and she had little interest in changing that after her deal was struck. Not wanting to leave the throne of the final city empty, she sired a child with Adramses, to rule in her stead. He rules from the throne of Va-il, the final layer of hell, and in addition to Sathi, he may be the only being in existence who knows the names of all denizens of the Sevenfold City.

He is said to take the form of a young warrior, pale and sickly. with few other notable qualities about him. It would be a mistake to underestimate the Lord of Hell, however. He is his mother's child, and he would split you in twain and think nothing of it.