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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Blood gushes fresh in the mouth. Blood beats in the vein. Blood pours from the wound.  Blood roars through the brain. Blood flares in the scent. Blood thickens in death. Blood fills the throat. Blood cleanses the hunger.

Blood burns.

He is the personification of Rage. He is the Beast lurking in the heart of all men. He is the powerful, pulsing lust for domination and conquest which is coupled to every defiant breath of life. His howls are the primeval song of discord that belies all tongues.

He is Ravvan.

THE ROAR OF THE BEAST: “Though he is caged by the Sleep of the Faithful, the Beast’s rage beats upon the formless walls of that eternal prison just as the hot blood of passion beats through his veins. In spurts of rage, his will becomes manifest; whispers of the Beast that pulse through the red veils of the primal, holy fury.”

THE BLOOD OF RAVVAN: “Let his Blood be joined to your own. Let the Beast pulse through your veins. In Ravvan there is strength. In Ravvan there is life. In Ravvan there is truth. Take of his strength. Lust of his life. Heed his truth.”

THE IDOL OF RAVVAN: “And in the days of broken wisdom, we gathered the whispers of Ravvan and listened to his pulse in the many corners of the world. And we wrought of them an idol to give focus to his words that his pulse might deafen the world.”

Here the text describes – in loving, rapturous terms – a squat statue of obsidian depicting a demonic beast with slavering fangs; folded, bat-like wings; serrated horns; and long, vicious claws. “And through his eyes of ruby blood, the voice of the Beast rang true.”

THE SONG OF DISCORD: The “song of discord” appears to refer to both the “whispers of Ravvan” which can be heard “echoing through the chambers of the blood” and also to a prayer-chant:

The blood, the hunt
The dance, the fire
Return, return, return.

DESIGN NOTES

In the original Ptolus sourcebook, Ravvan appears as a beast god. I decided to slide him over into the ranks of the Galchutt because (a) it seems like a pretty good fit and (b) the Idol of Ravvan appeared in one of the adventures I was using in Act I of my campaign. I knew that the chaos cults would be featured heavily in Act II, and the connection would let me foreshadow what was coming. After the fact, the players could (and did!) look back and realize they’d been hearing whispers of the Galchutt for months before truly learning of their existence.

The song of discord is actually a secret deep cut. When I started running my first long-term D&D 3rd Edition campaign, I kicked things off with John Tyne’s Three Days to Kill. That adventure also features cultists, who put in appearance at the Festival of Plenty and sing a song:

The wine, the song
The dance, the fire
Return, return, return.

When I ran the adventure, I rewrote the lyrics. At the time, this had nothing to do with Ravvan, but as I was writing up Ravvan’s lore I felt a resonance with those older lyrics and so I incorporated them here.

I enjoy doing this sort of thing just for my own pleasure (and deep worldbuilding can turn up all sorts of interesting interconnections), but In the Shadow of the Spire also originally featured one of the players from that earlier campaign. This would have been a cool easter egg for them. Unfortunately, the player left before the group ever encountered this lorebook or heard the song’s encore.

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In the days when the Masters had passed and the Long Quiet had fallen upon all the Caverns of the Galchutt, still within the deepest clefts of the earth there labored the truest of their servitors. Within the depths of Eurl-kallat Dath – the Cavern of Dripping Darkness – the Shepherd of Malignancy tended the vile works which had been left to his care.

This slim volume – bound in a white volume sheened with a silver-grey which is slick and greasy to the touch – tells the legend of the “youngest of the Galchutt”, a shambling creature given the name of Merihim.

THE CAVERN OF EURL-KALLAT DATH: “Within the Caverns of the Galchutt there was a place where pestilence hung thick in the air. In that place of kallat dath, the Galchutt set the crafty mind of Merihim to work. There cancerous mutations were given motile form and demonic phages waged wars of fecund prosperity.”

THE WORKS OF MERIHIM: From the incubation vats and wild proving fields of Eurl-kallat Dath, Merihim perfected all manner of diseases and mutations. He “wrought the arts of Jessuk to fungal life” and “exercised the corruption of nature’s order with its own hand”.

THE CORRUPTION OF MERIHIM: Merihim was also said to bear the “touch of Abhoth”. His right arm was shriveled with palsy, for his “very essence had become unbalanced in the equations of life” – and so his left arm had grown to immense, twisted proportions.

His hunched back is described as “miasmic fecundity” and from it sprouted six prehensile, fleshy stems that ended in toothy maws. Each of these stems was a direct conduit to fetid and corrupted organs which served as the breeding ground for foul diseases. From these “maws of cancerous life”, Merihim could expel the smotherfume – a cloud of noxious, polluted disease.

THE ASCENSION OF MERIHIM: “In the time when the Princes were drawn into their web and the Masters in their chains were taken into their slumber, Merihim still labored within his cavern. And for long years thereafter, he labored still. And the Princes, though caught still in their web, looked out upon the world and saw this mighty service. And they reached out to the Shepherd of Malignancy. And in that time Merihim answered their call and fulfilled the rites of fealty unto their name.

“So he became the one who willingly entered the Slumber, pledging the vows of the Natharl’nacna even in the Time of Loss and binding himself to a servitude of oblivion. But when the Time of Dissolution comes, the truth of his service shall be remembered.

“Let all who would serve the will of Chaos think of the Shepherd. Reflect upon the Faith of Anarchy and covet only that deepest of all communions in which the will of Gods shall be forsaken as tyranny and the will of Demons hold resplendent liberty.”

DESIGN NOTES

Merihim is from The Book of Fiends. I’ve spoken many times before about how fantastic this bestiary is. This is another example of how much use I’ve gotten out of it over the years.

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