work piledrove my Muse onto the floor and gave her the People's Elbow
so as part of her rehabilitation have some more Stuff
Lumbracania
Born of Fallow Earth
Earth Elemental
The world is riddled with abandoned places. Cities and settlements that fell in the Contagion or the March that followed. Buildings eroded by time, sharp edges worn smooth and once-great walls reduced to crumbling nubs. Fields where only wild grass grows, whispering in the wind. At the height of the First Age the Exalted devised ingenious systems of agriculture. Complex creations that could casually feed millions and sustain the growth of the state. In that time the Lumbracania were driven to near extinction as Gaia's own body was developed, improved, surpassed. What need did the Host have for a humble worm whose only purpose was to till still soil? Who only existed to fertilize fallow earth? They had the finest mechanisms their minds could devise and the wisest methods of implementation. Genius piled upon genius until it blotted out the Sun itself.
Perhaps there is something to be said: the Lumbracania remains. The Host does not.
They appear as segmented worms, one head crowned in spade-like "petals" that hide a circular mouth of grinding, crushing, crystal. Traveling at great speed with a corkscrewing motion. Bodies rife with concentrated nutrients and useful elements that they impart upon the soil they devour. They rise with the Summer rains, finger-length invertebrates churning hardpacked clay into so much mud. Restoring and sustaining vitality even in dry, desiccated regions. Most do not last the week and very, very few will live to see the end of the generational cycle in the Fall. Those that do will attain tremendous size and inevitably fracture under their own weight. Forking and dividing and splitting until their front-third is a writhing tangle of elemental annelids. Gargantuan bundles Lumbracania flowing into a single tail as thick as a man's waist. Such creatures are a bounty for a region for, when they die, they leave behind massive mounds of rich loam. Somewhat naturally they are signs of good fortune. It is said that a pinch of ground crystal guts may ensure a smooth pregnancy or restore virility to the old.
However there exists a breed of Lumbracania that inverts the usual paradigm. Ashen grey or milk-white tiller-worms are symbols of dread for they have ingested corpse soil. Contaminating their Gaian essence with necromantic resonance. Gifting them with sustained longevity and a terrible hunger for rotting flesh and ground bone.
Summoning and Use: Lumbracania hold dominion over revitalizing processes and fecundity in man, beast, and earth. They may be invoked to restore health to a faltering field or gift an elderly benefactor with the pleasures of youth. Indeed many elementalists have grown quite wealthy from trading in worm-tincture and poorer-quality tillerworms may be found even in common markets. Even those sorcerers who refuse to stoop to such vulgar means find it useful to cultivate a contract or two with the tillerworms. Their manner of healing is slow but steady and as inevitable as the changing seasons. Theurges often draw the worms with offerings of heaping compost and nightsoil and drive them to the surface with stakes of humming, vital electrum. The leavings from winter's end festivals Creation-over can usually be found in carefully constructed middens by morning.
Conversely Necromancers summon Lumbracania to harvest their tainted gut-crystals for use in dark rites or as living siege weapons. Their soil-corpses are blighted things and a pinch of prepared earth drawn from such may create toxins that disrupt the body's natural rhythms. Inducing abortions and infertility in women and impotency in men.
Lonely Hearts
Dead by their Own Hand
Lesser Dead
Creation is not a kind place. The cruel prosper, injustice reigns, and what do the meek inherit save the ashes and dust swept from the threshold of the powerful? The important. Those who matter. In a world of refuse and rubbish, in a world of chaos, communal bonds are paramount: the family, the village, the guild, the caravan. A social safety line to catch those who fall. To steady them, and set them back on the righteous and proper path. Ultimately this is a system by which the world may be focused and forced into some comprehensible shape. This is We. This is where I Fit. And yet there are always those whose lifeline snaps. Who tumbles and falls into the darkness. Into the deep.
The young Dynast shunted to the side as his peers schemed and colluded, barely noticed as they fostered friendships and reaped rivalries. The craftswoman who saw the clumsiness of her own hands in every work and knew that she could be good, be truly great, if only she was just a little better. The soldier, faceless and nameless, left behind as others went on to glory and meritorious service, only a mere cog in the Scarlet's war machine. They are defined by their loneliness and isolation. Their disconnect from a world that does not welcome them. A people that do not seem to want them. Bereft of the cords that bind others they struggle and flounder. Attempting to haul themselves back up again and again until, inevitably it must seem, they cease trying at all.
In death they appear as they once did in life. Details recorded well if, at times, smudged and blurred. The marks of their demise are impressed upon them: wrists that weep black smoke. A slack noose they twirl idly between their clawed fingers. Dark water that drifts from between their lips and mingles with floating hair. Their skin is a pallid grey, their corpus trails wisps of ink and their black hearts beat soundlessly in a flayed chest. Shadow, ash, and dark water twist and tangle at their command. A multitude of boneless limbs knitted together at their weeping core. Able to wrap into an armored shell or lance out like so many obsidian spears.
Summoning and Use (Obscurity 2/3): Lonely Hearts are among the more popular servants a Necromancer may procure. Reliability is a key factor: the likelihood of them severing their fetters and abruptly transcending between bindings is vanishingly minute and they grow quite fond of a Master who showers them with attention. They dislike disappointing their summoner and so may generally be trusted with a degree of independence and autonomy. They additionally have a helpful habit of collecting plasmics as pets. Raising and training them on their own initiative, building small collections of necromantic creatures they use to aid in the completion of tasks. In a similar vein they have an almost voyeuristic tendency and will at times linger. Watching loving families at dinner, a unit at camp. Glistening eyes just beyond the firelight.
In Creation Lonely Hearts are not uncommon and many provinces have tales of a restless suicide who rose again to torment their homes. At times they are a mere nuisance, more curious than combative and may be swayed to serve a sorcerer, exorcised, or rousted to trouble some other locale. On other occasions their demise has sharpened their need for notice into a potent, calculating cruelty. These Lonely Hearts feed on the ghosts they create with their killings. Sowing and harvesting a grisly crop as they drive their objects of frustrated fascination to the brink of despair. Breaking them bit by bit so that they might understand what it is to be alone.
