The Blood that I shed do I devote to serve within the eternal Train of Souls.

The Eyes of Flesh do I sacrifice for the gift of that immortal Eye which shall view all destruction.

The Mortal Soul do I forsake to the void which shall be filled.

My voice I raise until it shall be heard in the Paean of Destruction. My deeds shall become those of the Titan. My life shall become One Aspect of the Thousand Eyes.

The scroll describes a series of defiling rites which prepare the faithful soul of an acolyte to perform a human sacrifice (also described in precise detail) which will bind them to a greater force of chaos, becoming an Aspect of the Many Eyes and housing a “shard of the sleeping titan” in their soul.

During this final ritual and oath-taking, the acolyte cuts out their own eyes. If their faith is rewarded, a third eye opens upon their forehead from which the power of the Destroyer can be made manifest.

The brothers of the Divided Eye believe that this Third Eye of the Destroyer binds them to the Eyes of Legion, and that when the “murder of craven eyes” has been “restored through mortal flesh” the “Many-Eyed Prelate of the Blooded Death shall awake”.

THE THIRD EYE OF THE DESTROYER

(Feat)

Prerequisite: Must sacrifice both eyes and perform the Oath of the Divided Eye.

Benefit: You a gain a third eye which gifts you with darkvision 60 ft. Once per day, you can open the inner eye of the destroyer allowing you to use chaos hammer, as per the spell.

Special: This feat can be taken more than once. Each time you take the feat, double the range of your darkvision and you daily uses of chaos hammer.

Some material on this page is covered by the Open Gaming License.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

This long scroll of human skin has been stitched into a moebius strip. It speaks of dark and blasphemous rites:

In the days before the Slumber, the One Who is of Many Doors came unto those who saw the truth of annihilation. And they who drank of the Truth of Blood reached through the Mouth of the Void and grasped the Worm of Which There is One and Many, and drew it forth from that place unto this. And in that birth-death of separation-completion, the arc of wisdom leapt.

These cultists – referred to as the Followers of the Forgotten Worm – would graft the worms taken from the Mouth of the Void onto themselves and others. “And those who were touched by wisdom were one with wisdom and one with the Mouth. Their hearts were as the hearts of demons.” The cult grew strong and the scroll speaks of a time when entire cities were “enthralled to wisdom”.

Then comes the time of “the Slumber”, after which it apparently became more difficult to gain access to the Mouth of the Void. Long passages are given over to the care and breeding of the Worms that remained, but these were apparently difficult or even impossible efforts. The power of the cult was broken and their cities were overthrown.

The cult apparently now exists in small sects, perhaps prospering among the jungle isles of the southern Teeth of Light. And although the Mouth has withdrawn from this plane of existence, contact with him does not seem wholly impossible: “As he is beyond time, beyond beginning, beyond ending – so like a fractured mirror which is yet whole can he be seen beyond the borders of the possible.” References are made to a rite referred to as the “Shadow Harbinging”, although the details are not to be found here.

So he serves as the stalking herald of the Shadow That Never Passes. And those who are touched by his wisdom are blessed by that which is seldom seen in the light of darkened  days.

The end of the scroll transitions from concerns of the present into vague prophecies of a dark and terrible future culminating in “the time of greatest congregation which shall become the communion of worlds”.

So shall it be when the corona of the obscured sun shall reveal the stars which are never seen. Such shall presage the end of all slumbers.

And then, through the twisting of the scroll, the end becomes the beginning and the “time of greatest congregation” becomes the “days before the Slumber” and the scroll begins again.

DESIGN NOTES

This cult worships Dhar Rhyth (Chaositech, p. 97). I’m fairly certain that I came up with the epithet Worm of the Void and the name Followers of the Forgotten Worm, and this is another example of a chaos cult not currently active in Ptolus. (Or, at least, not connected to Wuntad’s activities.)

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

On the cover of this book, written in blood, is the symbol of a coil. On the first page is an oath:

“I pledge my body, soul, and purpose to the furtherance of chaos. We shall act as one. We shall breathe as one. We shall think as one. And in our crimson coils we shall choke out the death of those who would us bring death. We shall choke out the order which stifles life. We shall choke out the civilization which crushes liberty.”

The rest of the book teaches the ways of the Brotherhood of the Crimson Coil. The cult acts like a virus – their faces hidden; their identities submerged into the Coil itself. The members of the cult do not mix in normal society, preferring to remain cloistered in remote temples or hidden demesnes. The only time the cultists make an appearance is to carry out a Purging. During a Purging the cultists appear en masse to carry out some act of terrible destruction.

The cult chooses a target, seemingly at random, and then show up to burn down a building; set fire to a field; slaughter a family; or deface a monument. They are neither subtle nor gentle. They show neither mercy nor fear. Usually, their raids come so suddenly and unexpectedly that they meet little resistance. They usually appear in numbers so great, they simply cannot be stopped—a hundred cultists to burn down a single house, a dozen to murder a merchant  walking down the street. They disappear quickly, often using spells to cover their escape.

DESIGN NOTES

The Crimson Coil is actually a defunct chaos cult: They were destroyed many years ago by one of the Orders of Knighthood in Ptolus. So whereas the other chaos cult lorebooks are describing the current state of affairs, this one is delving into the history of the chaos cults: Where did they come from? What is their legacy?

There are, I suppose, many such cults that could be described. Unless they become relevant for the narrative, however, it generally only takes one or two such details the evoke the possibilities of this vast abyss.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

The pages of the first part of this volume are covered with an exhaustive detailing of disease – partly its symptoms, but always the methods for its spread, and never a word about its cures.

The second part of the volume espouses the teachings of the Brotherhood of the Plagueborn. These cultists seek to achieve destruction and devastation through disease and pestilence. They promote the accumulation of filth, rot, and decay. They sneak contaminated foods into marketplaces. They steal bed linens of the ill and slip them into the beds of children. They dump filth into wells.

Their temples, it seems, are almost always found in the sewers, trash heaps, and waste pits of civilization. They lurk in the places where civilization breaks down into its foulest parts and then – like vermin – seek to spread that corruption and decay to every part of the world.

Deadly Carrier
Transmutation
Level: Clr 3
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: Standard action
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: Instantaneous

You render yourself immune to the effects of a single disease you currently carry within your body. At the same time, the disease becomes twice as contagious as normal. If the disease does not already have mechanics for contagion, assume that anyone spending at least 10 minutes within 20 feet of you must make a Fortitude saving throw (DC depends on the disease) or become infected.

DESIGN NOTES

Some material on this page is covered by the Open Gaming License.

Like the Songsingers, the Plagueborn weren’t part of the Night of Dissolution conspiracy.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks

This volume appears to be a cult manual for the Brotherhood of Songsingers.

The Songsingers worship chaos in the form of the Discord – the “song of chaos”. They perceive the ways of order as the monotony of a single note beaten again and again. They see, in their acts of chaos and wanton destruction, a “changing of the tune” to include discordant notes. It this discord, they believe, which is the essence of freedom and life. Without discord, liberty would be a hollow and empty shell.

But there is also a deeper level on which the Discord exists. The book speaks of the Galchutt – “Dukes of Chaos” who “slumber in eternal aeons” in their “caverns ever-echoing”. The cult believes that, through their religious rituals, they can open their “inner ear” to the whispers of Galchutt – whispers which are, in fact, the Song of Discord and of Chaos.

In this way, the actions of the cult can be seen as variations played upon an eternal theme chanted into the world by the sleeping Galchutt.

DESIGN NOTES

This lorebook notably describes a cult which DOESN’T appear in my Ptolus campaign. It’s something of a meta-red herring. It’s like the old joke: If you want to prank someone, sneak three pigs into their house. If you want to drive someone insane, release three pigs in their house and label them One, Two, and Four.

If I gave my players a list of the chaos cults who appear in the campaign, then that list simply becomes a checklist. But if that list includes additional entries, then its sows uncertainty: Where are the Songsingers? Why haven’t we encountered them? Did we miss them? What are they plotting?

And even after the players become certain that the Songsingers are not, in fact, part of the conspiracy they’re investigating, the references continue to evoke a wider, deeper, and more mysterious world: The Songsingers were not here, but they are out there. These things that you have experienced are only one part of a larger world.

There is some risk with this technique that the players will take the bit between their teeth and go haring off looking for the thing which, technically, was not part of the current scenario. But this is hardly a bad thing. “Oh, no! The players are pursuing something they’re passionate about!” It’s easy enough to follow their lead and gin up a new scenario. Perhaps it’s only a side quest. Perhaps you (or they) can find some clever way to reflect it back into the primary scenario.

Back to Chaos Lorebooks