A-Z Blogging challenge

W is for the Worm

"... and their brood spread across the face of the world like so many flies swarming a rotting corpse. Hearken now, for we come to the heart of the matter. At the core of this mortal plane a great nameless worm gnaws its way through the earth, hollowing it out as its diminutive brethren would do an apple, leaving naught but filth in its wake. When it has completed its lair, it will gorge itself for nine times nine days and lay its eggs beyond count, and verily the days of all creatures in this realm will be numbered, as the insatiable wormspawn will make its way to the surface world and devour it whole. Those who desire to see will be warned of its coming. When the moons wax red and the sun reaches its zenith during the longest night, when the great lakes freeze over and a thaw melts the snow on mount Ombelikos in one and the same day, those armed with the words written here will witness my foreshadowings come to pass."

- extract from Galdo Ykrahand's Codex Wyrmin, last surviving copy rumoured to be locked away in Forge's Archivarium

A-Z Blogging challenge

P is for Pandemony

Pandemony is the religious practice of worshipping a series of interdimensional beings popularly referred to as demons. As pandemony is often equated with the dark, fringe interpretation given to it by nefarious, crazed cults or unscrupulous demon summoners, it is maligned and forbidden in many civilized places, forcing even moderated practitioners to go underground, and is regularly subjected to merciless persecution by the Alkatholic Church.

Pandemonists defend their beliefs by stating that the beings they worship are not fundamentally evil, but rather are above the narrow confines of mortal morality, existing in an enlightened state where good and evil are meaningless. They interpret the negative qualities most commonly associated with demons as a part of the natural cycle of existence and thus amoral. Without death there can be life, without sorrow no happiness, and only by embracing these aspects can one truly appreciate one's existence. Nevertheless the majority of people condemn all forms of demon worship, fearful that any kind of pandemony, no matter how nuanced, will eventually inexorably devolve into dark ritualism.

Many so-called demons are the object of worship, but a select few of them, associated with important spheres of influence which these beings are said to dominate in their own realm, are awarded special reverence. These include:

Ashkalos Haltumex, force of  destruction, depicted as a minotaur;

Axzgra, scion of forgotten and forbidden knowledge, depicted as a murky body of water;

Barune, master of decay and the forgotten dead, depicted as a giant hand of ice;

Gaoss, quintessence of doom and oaths foresworn, depicted as a burning old woman in chains;

Hel Carcass, paragon of violence, depicted as a pale, beautiful naked woman;

Quintigal Rapt, totem of fears and phobias, depicted as a small child with three opaque eyes;

Radas Morkaidan, epitome of pain and sorrow, depicted as an emaciated, disemboweled man;

Senburon, exemplar of deceit and treachery, depicted as an anthropomorphized snake;

Vereculus, slave of lust and murder, described as a disembodied voice;

Vuus, patroness of disease and pestilence, depicted as a skeleton with the lower body of a giant centipede;

More so than any other beings that are frequently worshipped, these demons take an active interest in the affairs of mortals, rewarding their champions and punishing those who have displeased them in some way.

A-Z Blogging challenge

J is for the Juggernaut

The Juggernaut, also referred to as the Grey, the Tide, the Effacer and the Balancer among many other names -depending on the tradition of the particular cult or sect devoted to it - is a cosmic force presumed to reside in the aetherless void between dimensions. Nothing is known of its exact nature. The only available sources on the Juggernaut are various disparate religious texts, of which some can be traced back to ancient times, while others seem to have originated more recently from other dimensional planes. While these esoteric scriptures all have a pervading vagueness in common, and the few particulars they mention often contradict each other outright, certain recurring, shared themes can be gleaned from them. The Juggernaut is interpreted as a non-corporeal, non-aware body of energy, which throughout the aeons enters the material dimensions and purges them. On the question of the extent to and the form in which this purge takes place, there is only speculation, and this has led to vastly different groups taking up the Juggernaut as a figurehead or object of worship. Certain nefarious cabals hail the Juggernaut as a force of destruction and death, and consider it the embodiment of chaos, while to circles dedicated to maintaining the fine balance between good and evil, law and chaos the Juggernaut is the great equalizer, and thus a force of true neutrality.

Whichever faction has the right of it, the foretold return of the Juggernaut is the source of much concern by those who give credence to it, as these sages predict its passage would surely sever the link to the other planar realms and be the end of magick as it is understood today.