Let all who look upon them despair. For they are like unto perfection. For they are not of this world but of all worlds. Not of this life but of all lives. Their sight is without limit and through the Eight Eyes of the Magi the truth of all things is bared through the Touch of Chaos.

This blackened tome has a clasp of polished bone. Its pages are those of a spellbook which has been annotated to become a book of lore detailing the strange abominations that revealed the contorted rites of chaos magic which it describes.

“Know ye then the Nineteen Names of Their Power, chief among which is the word shaadom.”

The shaadom are consummate chaos mages. Their knowledge of both the crafts of spellsong and the weavings of chaos are reputedly without peer, and they can wed these paradoxical bodies of knowledge – the rigorous precision of spellcasting; the anarchic, spasming liberties of chaos – into a more perfect whole.

THE CREATION OF THE SHAADOM

“In the Book of the Akop Kings it was written that the shaadom were instruments of their own creation. So, too, reads the Prophecy of Ubala Dal: That the last of their race shall forever forge the first of their kind. They are the circle without end; sundered from this world at both beginning and end and neither. Unto themselves they have perfect knowledge, for of their knowledge they are unto.”

A hulking creature, a shaadom has two muscular arms that end in three-fingered hands. Its head is arachnoid with six eyes and a large, mandibled mouth. Its long torso ends in a squirming mass of short, wide tentacles rather than legs.

Shaadom are said to float just above the ground, “for their very being is repugnant unto this earth” or possibly “because they do not deign to touch a world imperfect”.

THE EYES OF THE SHAADOM

The eyes of a shaadom are said to be possessed of a “vision beyond vision”. Even in death, some of their supreme potency remains: When bound in a circlet of woven taurum and mithril, they can be fashioned into a crown which gifts the wearer with the “shaadom’s eye”.

Shaadom’s Eye: The circlet functions as a crystal ball of true seeing. The shaadom’s eye requires a Wisdom save (DC 21) to resist the scrying effect. In addition, there is a 10% chance each time the shaadom’s eye is used (and once per day that it is worn) that the wearer must make a Wisdom save (DC 21) or be afflicted as per a nightmare spell.

THE WEAVE OF CHAOS

“Through the arts of shaadom, the nature of the world is divided from itself and into an interstice of terror is driven the wedge of chaos.”

The shaadom’s greatest art is chaos-weaving. They able to transform the spells they cast even in the act of casting, infusing them with great chaotic energies. Mortal sorcerors attempting to pursue such arts find the results unpredictable and dangerous; but somehow the shaadom manage to create incantations which draw only strength from their anarchy: Their unpredictable nature only makes them more difficult to resist; their effects more terrible in their afflictions.

THE ANARCHY OF THE SELF

“Unto themselves they are a law. Unto themselves are they beholden. Unto themselves are they masters. Unto themselves are they tyrants.”

It is said that among the Chaos Lords, the shaadom represent individuality taken to the ultimate extreme of selfishness and obsession. They hate even each other as rivals and enemies – locking themselves into aeon-long machinations wrapped around their “twisted spires of silver-grey”. Fueled by hate, jealousy, lust, and greed – all centered around the acquisition of power – the shaadom are most often found on their own, individual quests, willing to bend all that they encounter to whatever suits their immediate needs and desires.

SPELLBOOKS OF THE SHAADOM

All of the spells described here have been woven with chaos using the arts of the shaadom. These versions of the spells are more difficult to dispel (disadvantage on the dispel check). In addition, there is always a 10% chance that the target of these spells will automatically fail their saving throw regardless of what their saving throw roll is.

However, there is a price: The chaos weaving of the spells touches upon the “web of the Demon Princes” itself. The process draws taint into the world, afflicting the caster as if they were using a tainted item each time a shaadom spell is prepared or cast.

• blessing of mutation**
• chaositech enslavement**
• chaositech enslavement, greater**
• confusion
• contagion
• darkness
• detect chaositech*
• detect evil and good
• detect mutation**
• dispel magic
• fear
• identify device*
• lightning bolt
• magic circle
• power word kill
• power word stun
• teleport

* This spell can be found in the Ptolus sourcebook.

** These spells can be in the Chaositech sourcebook.

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And as the Sleep of Ages came upon them, they placed a great burden of trust upon the greatest and most loyal among their servants. Nor did the Earthbound Demons fail them. Upon the borders of their vast caverns, they raised a Vault that would stand guard upon the aeons.

This simple volume contains much lore pertaining to the rhodintor, who are described as both “stewards of the Sleepers” and “servitors of the Galchutt”.

The rhodintor were “raised up from the dust of ages, carved from the mountains of faith, and crafted of the rock’s strength”. In a “pact of earth were they forged”, “crafty of wit and brutal of arm”. Their bodies were built for strength, and they were said to possess “veins of silver” which “carried their thought quicker than any mortal man’s” and “gifted them with great affinity for the sorcerous arts”.

THE PATHS OF FAITH

In their pursuit of magic, the rhodintor are said to take one of two paths.

The first is named Kravren, the Path of Silver. The followers of the Kravren path are warrior-mages, possessing magical abilities which enhance them physically.

The second is named Sarycal, the Path of Flame. These rhodintor are possessed of more traditional magical arts and master strange spells.

These paths appear to have been named after greater leaders of the rhodintor. They are also referred to as the Path of the Father and the Path of the Mother, but these references appear confused or perhaps even erroneous, for elsewhere it is said that the “rhodin were made to breed naught; and all the rhodin that were ever faithful or that will ever be faithful were raised up by the hand of the Galchutt”.

SARYCAL STAVES

Many among the followers of Sarycal are said to wield “staves of pure fire”. It seems that the earliest of these staves were “clenched from the Heart of All-Flame” (whatever that may mean), but it appears that most of the staves of a lesser art and craft.

Rhodintor Staves: A staff of solidified fire. These +1 flaming quarterstaffs allow the wielder to cast either fire shield, fireball, or wall of fire once per day. A rhodintor can also use this staff to create a 60-ft. cone of fire that inflicts 6d6 points of fire damage (as cone of cold, but with fire), but doing so expends one of their once-per-day spell-like abilities. If anyone other than a rhodintor attempts to use one of these staves, it will explode in a 20-ft.-radius fireball that deals 6d6 points of damage.

THE STEWARDS OF THE GALCHUTT

When “the minds of the Galchutt stepped forth from this world,” a final charge was laid upon the rhodintor: To guard the Caverns of the Galchutt until “the end of that night when the Sleep would pass and the eyes of the Natharl’nacna would be opened unto the light of the final days.”

To this end, the rhodintor “expanded their rites of territory and fortified their labyrinths of stone”. In this way the Eurl-rhodin Taurik – the “Last Cavern” or “Vault of the Rhodintor” (or, more literally, the “Cavern of the Rhodin’s Demesne”) – was erected upon the “very borders of the Caverns so as to act as the gatekeepers of their masters”. And there “great armaments of chaos were gathered”.

There, in “runed chambers of blood-red”, the rhodintor meditate upon the “scheme of all” and the waking hour of their masters (which they are charged not only to “protect against”, but also to “aid and realize”).

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

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Like an arrow drawn from its quiver, so were the carach sent forth from their towers of dread iron. And like arrows in flight, so are the carach in their pursuit – singular in their purpose, relentless in their aim, and methodical in their doom. To be carach-marked is to be carrion.

Three blood-stained scrolls have been bound together, each describing the carach: Assassins and enforcers who rank among the “servitors of the Galchutt”.

THE PAEAN UNTO DEATH

This scroll is a sequence of dark sonnets, each dedicated to describing one facet of the “glorious imperfection of tentacular destruction” which is the “carach in its grim-deathed leap”. Collectively, they describe a horrible, insectoid monster. Where its head should be, a long, muscular neck extends up to a head covered in tentacles. These tentacles surround a mouth full of teeth, with two small, beady eyes perched to either side. Four of the tentacles are particularly long and end in turgid, razor-sharp spikes.

THE BLOOD OF POISON

This scroll is a triumphant celebration of the carach’s natural weapons. Their venomous bite is described as a necrotic flaying of the flesh, forcing the body to consume itself in massive, cancerous self-destruction.

Their “tendriled mass” is nothing but a “brewing corruption” – such a violent anathema to the natural order of life itself, that its merest touch will leech enervation from the limbs of the living.

Even their very minds are poisonous – with any creature touching the thoughts of carach “damned to eternal madness.”

UNTO THE DEATH OF WORLDS

This scroll begins with a mass of poetry describing the carach hiding within their “iron towers upon the edge of all worlds”. It then describes them emerging from these towers, and the deeds of death they perform.

It appears that the carach, when dispatched upon their dire tasks, are methodical and relentless in their pursuit – surprising traits for such chaotic creatures. But in their homes, they revert to their most primal nature – fighting themselves and plotting down through the long aeons in schemes of byzantine insurrection and betrayal.

The carach are unfailing in their duties, acting without hesitation. In addition to the natural arsenals of their bodies, they will also frequently use chaositech devices.

The scroll builds slowly to greater and greater achievements of the carach, which one can only hope are exaggerated – princes are slain, kingdoms fall, empires are destroyed; even entire worlds are said to have been destroyed… “consumed unto their last mote by the dark swarms of the poisoned assassins”.

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But before they slept, they committed one last act of divine betrayal. They fell upon one of their beloved named Gellasatrac, shredding him completely so that one future day their servants could feast upon his flesh and his blood and be changed. Gellasatrac’s ebon hand would bring blessed mutation and lovely transformation, granting those who dared partake the power to free the masters once and for all.

This lorebook venerates Gellasatrac, the “Martyr of the Galchutt”, who is described as “the dead god whose flesh was of our flesh; whose will is of our will; whose power shall be of our power”. He is the one who “shall Sleep not, nor Walk not”.

THE TOUCH OF GELLASATRAC: Before he became the “Maggot of Chaos”, Gellasatrac is described as the “Disciple of Jessuk” and the “Twister of Flesh”. “Where his touch writhed, so were our mortal frames transformed and our souls the flames of crucibles.”

Those so “gifted” are described as having their very bodies transformed through his powers. Gellasatrac raised up great, slavering hordes of chaos-touched malformities and fed the armies of the Galchutt with their misshapen, empowered bodies.

THE HAND OF GELLASATRAC: “And in those times when the powers of chaos shall wax and the Night of Dissolution shall come, the Ebon Hand of Gellasatrac shall return unto those true of their faith and so shall his legacy be fulfilled.”

THE LEGACY OF GELLASATRAC: “Let his blue blood be drunk into the pores of the soul. Let his black bile be vomited from the slit-wound of the mouth. And so shall he live in your flesh.”

DESIGN NOTES

This is a natural companion piece to Touch of the Ebon Hand, the chaos lorebook describing a cult dedicated to the worship of Gellasatrac (a name given, unless I’m mistaken, only in The Night of Dissolution). The trick with this sort of thing is to include enough information so that each lorebook makes sense, while also giving each lorebook unique information so that each is a revelation to be prized.

I’m also doing some setting weaving here: Jessuk is a god from my pantheon of Demon Gods, one who has been set above the Galchutt in order to integrate them into the Demon Court.

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Above all Those Who Slumber was the power of the One Who Was Born of Destruction, the Song Render, the Ender of Souls, the Dweller in Darkness. And among those who would speak his name, his name was Shallamoth Kindred – the act of desolation given life and mutilation given flesh.

This volume is a collection of lore regarding the Galchutt known as Shallamoth Kindred. It is a mixture of texts: Some poetical, some religious, some scholastic, some bombastic.

RANK WITHIN THE HOST: The Galchutt are not given to any order or hierarchy, and yet Shallamoth Kindred is often seen as their leader. No other Galchutt has ever been known to disobey it, and one of the ancient texts cited tells that “the Dweller in Darkness shall lead the Natharl’nacna host into the heart of creation, there to deliver all unto oblivion”.

THE FORM OF MAN: Shallamoth Kindred is described as being of two forms. The first of these – the form of man – takes the shape of a tall, lithe humanoid with indistinct features. This entire form is black like the deepest part of a bottomless pit, with the exception of its dagger-shaped eyes, colored the yellow-brown of diseased teeth.

THE FORM OF SOUL: The second form – the form of soul – is that of a squirming mass of ropy tendrils surrounding a bulbous, obese, pox-covered, decaying body with a vaguely humanoid shape. In some of the grotesque illustrations contained within this volume, vestigial bat-like wings hang limply around this form.

THE SUDDENNESS OF DESTRUCTION: “And he did move with the quickness of a razor.” “And in that moment he both came and was gone, leaving a wake of black madness in his tread.” These and similar quotations attest to Shallamoth Kindred’s ability to move with blinding speed and agility. It is literally capable of being there one moment and then gone in the next.

THE FACELESS FACE: “Its face was like the mirror nothingness. Its gaze a river of fire that touched thought but not earth.” Shallamoth Kindred never displays emotion. It never grows angry and it never shows fear. It does not gloat. It does not rejoice. It is impossible to manipulate or even to reason with.

THE CITADEL WITHOUT LIGHT: “And in the palace of the Kindred of Shallamoth, the eyes of the Galchutt are shut.” This phrase stands alone in the lower left hand corner of a page otherwise covered in a strangely warped mandala. Other passages refer to this place as the Citadel Without Light, and some speak of an inner sanctum: The Tourbillion. The Vortex of the World. From this Vortex, one can “step forth into the world”.

Another fragment describes the palace as being built entirely of mirrors which sometimes reflect less than can be seen, sometimes more, and sometimes something entirely alien.

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