Written for 2024's Morktober and Bonktober
From the crypts of the doomed castle: Skeleton
From the smoking plains of the volcanic fields: Fire
Thus spake the Chroniclers:
Through the choking ashfall in the Scorcholt, one can sometimes see a lava-bright flame, white-bright and flicker-fast, moving between the endless sea of tree-corpses. Those who live in the shadow of the Great Volcano avert their eyes, though the glare not be strong- they say it is the Terebarch, the Hallowed Unburnt, and on the nights where the winds howl softly, one can hear another form of howl join the chorus. The Seyigians think them cursed harbingers, while the Heregeot clans see them as grim but hallowed signs of ancestral protection.
The Terebarch haunt the Scorcholt of the Great Volcano, flaming bones animated by unthinking malice for the living. They have an uncanny sense for cowardice, vice and discord, ambush travellers to drag them into the flaming crags of the mountain- to be puppeted again, some say, as the newest of their unholy number.
The most detailed chronicles of the Terebarch comes from the Kingdom of Seyig- they tell of a Three-Armed Lord of Kasfen, Champion of Shrin Mer Fourth-Born of a distant time, whose fortress was built in four days and two nights upon the Maw of Garahin, upon the southern Sunken Slopes of the Great Volcano. Different tales abound in the Kingdom between the House of Mentionables and Wandering Chroniclers of the Goatfish. Some bear the marks of Late Shriner hagiography, and others bear the mark of Virtue instruction.
Some say the Lord Kasfen was a virtuous, loyal, oath-sworn vassal of Shrin Mer Fourth-Born, who raised the fortress to defend Their Dominion from Zyglurg swarms and war-breathing Melitanae-in-Brass; others, that he was a greedy, grasping bandit lord who built the fortress to extract the foul gases (and attendant nanoids) for Shrin Mer Falseborn in exchange for Solar Auguries.
Some claim his soldiers stood with him as the gases ignited in the final assault, but as the Merin blessings defended faithful vassals from the dying in the line of Duty, thus were they consigned to eternal burning, losing all sense and their senses, condemned thus to haunt the slopes of the Great Volcano. Others, that the warriors' faith fled them, and they had abandoned the siege. It was for their cowardice that the ancestral spirits of the Volcano cursed them to wander the volcanic slopes forevermore, to dredge up the unworthy dead so that they would live in agonising infamy for their faithlessness.
Outside Seyig, the Chroniclers of the Heregeot Tribes and Scribes of Kyudix refute the Kasfen origin of the Unburnt- for a vassal of the Circles of Shrin Mer would never be titled Hallowed by the dwellers of the mountain. A common belief is that they are ancestral vengeance spirits arising from the cracked, boiling skin of Mother Magma. A small minority insist that the Unburnt are far more recent than these claims- the result of foul rituals of an exiled Zhadur Alchemiral from the War of the Broken Blades who sought refuge in the Scorcholt. While there is some record of such an Alchemiral, there is little reliable evidence to support this claim.
 |
Whatever their genesis, all know they are dangerous. Taking the form of flaming bone-frames, in a variety of endodermic arrangements in the body-types of almost every sapient form on the Great Island. Slipping between the charred tree-corpses of the Scorcholt, their bones click and clank, letting out guttural howls from the inner voids of their empty chests, wreathed in the white-hot flame of volcanic off-gas.
Whatever arms and armour they may once have had are melted, their arms and chests frequently covered in a single fused plate of ferric parzar'ma material. The oldest amongst them wear their 'melts' around their feet, their metal plates dripping down over the years to pool at their feet, leading to speculation that even their metal is cursed- though this does not dissuade scavengers and scraphounds bartering with it and smithing it into armour or trophies.
These elder 'tin-howls' (as called by Elders of the Stanush Redoubt) have completely bleached, brittle bones, so long and hot have they burnt that even the water spirits dwelling in the bones have fled, fusing the crystal hearts of the endodermis, creating brittler, higher-pitched clicking and clacking noises. More concerning to dwellers about the Great Volcano is that these tin-howls appear substantially more malevolent and crafty than their 'bone-charred' counterparts, working in groups, keeping silent. Only sudden rises in temperature can warn one of their approach.
Idle chatter, especially towards outsiders, brings up a most elusive claim- the King of Smoke, a claim that there is a single leader of the Unburnt. He is the subject of many legends- great disasters and miracles are attributed to this figure, which has never been definitively spotted. Rare are the sages that directly claim the King of Smoke is the legendary Lord of Kasfen- leading some sages to the idea that the latter might be a later legend reworked into existing sightings of the Unburnt.
Those who have fallen into their clutches- and not merely scavenged the aftermath of such an encounter- know that all this is idle prattle.
For all that one needs to know is that their teeth-chattering clicks and clacks are all too real
the heat they bring unbearable
and the echoing howls are all too familiar...
Thus writ of matters of combattle and war:
HP 8
Defence DR 10 / 12 / 14
Armour -d4 / -d2 / +1
Morale 10
Attack As weapon
NA:
HP 8 Morale 10 Defence DR 10/12/14 Armour -D4/-D2/+1 Weapon D6
Special:
- Haunters of the Ash: The Terebarch are uncannily silent when on the prowl, only their glow and heat marking their presence- increase chance of surprise by 1-in-6 if precautions are not taken
- To seek the Unworthy: They have an uncanny sense for cowardice, vice and discord- reaction roll -1 for each of the aforementioned behaviours in any party coming across Terebarch.
- Embrace of Garahin: When in melee range, all have 2-in-6 chance of catching fire for d4 ongoing damage.
- Aging Malice: Tin-howl Terebarch are more nimble and cunning, despite their lack of armour and brittler bones. Terebarch have higher DR with a matching lower Armour score as shown above.
- Pain Eternal: Dousing the flame can only be done by ice or water powers- the earth and air here only inflame it. Inflaming Terebarch flames will drive them berserk, dealing +2 damage. Dousing the flame calms them for 1 round as they turn catatonic, unable to comprehend the lack of pain.
