The Things Below

They are older than the world. They are primordial entities of darkness, chaos, and corruption.

When light first filled the void, they were huddled in the shadows. When matter coalesced, they were there, chewing at its edges. When the First Creators thought "I am me" and named themselves, Those Who Dwelt in Darkness sought their ruin. They whispered lies and stoked egos. They urged the Creators to war amongst themselves. To lay waste to their creations. To let chaos reign.

But the First Creators saw the lies for what they were. They saw the danger posed by the Eldest of Evils. But they saw, too, the utility of such deception.

And so, the Creators laid a trap. They came together to forge the world itself: matter and energy, land and sea and sky, life and death.

They set in motion a system so vast and intricate and wondrous that They Who Whispered could not help but be jealous, could not help but try to destroy it.

When the Terrible Ones moved to destroy the world, the First Creators sprung their trap.

They folded the world around the Things That Knew Only Hate, sealed them away in rock and stone, bound them in the earth itself. The world— this world, what would become our world—became their tether and their prison.

And they, so shackled, became the Things Below.

The Time of Cataclysm

No prison is perfect. With the slow turn of ages, the bindings weakened. The Things Below whispered once again, and those whispers found ears.

The Stone Lords learned firsthand the chaos that those whispers could unleash. They found the cracks in the world-prison and laid great seals upon them. For a time, the whispers were quiet.

But the Green Lords remembered those whispers and what they promised, and called upon the Things Below to crush the traitorous Fae. The Green Lords were ultimately defeated, but the real damage had been done: the bindings were weakened. The whispers of the Things Below had returned, had become a song.

The Stone Lords' own servants heard that song. Sorcerers arose among them, gathered followings, then cults. In secret, they laid their plans and spread their lies. When the time was right, the sorcerers broke the seals and ushered in the Time of Cataclysm.

The Stone Lords' cities sank. Mobs of their servants turned against them. In the north, a dark and terrible howling arose and the Rime Lords sacrificed themselves to stop it. A wave of horrors burrowed up from the Flats, bringing the last of the Tempest Lords low. The Things Below stoked the jealousies and fears of the Forge Lords, turning them against each other.

The time of the Makers was over.

The current age

In the aftermath of the Makers' fall, the would-be sorcerer-kings of the Barrow Builders came to dominate the World's End. For generations, the region—and perhaps the wider world—knew only horror, and suffering, and war.

And yet: the power of the Things Below waned. For centuries now, they have lain mostly quiet in the earth. What brought those dark times to an end? That's for you and your table to decide, but perhaps…

• the gods themselves intervened;
• mortal heroes worked a great binding, empowered by great sacrifice;
• the brave and the desperate rose up across the land, toppling sorcerers and banishing horrors one-by-one;
• the world began to heal itself and renew its bindings;
• the Things Below—sated on destruction and woe—simply tired and withdrew;
• some combination of the above; or
• something else entirely.

Whatever caused the Things Below to fall back, their retreat was incomplete. Some places remain touched by their influence, some creatures stained to the heart.

Objects of power linger, corrupting the unwitting, and some of these—like the sorcerers of old—dance in the dark to a nightmarish tune.

Of late, within the past generation or so, tremors have coursed through different quarters of the World's End. Do prisoners in the depths strain once more against their shackles?

Hooks

• A local unwittingly offers sacrifice to a corrupted spirit, gaining power; the spirit asks for (and offers) more
• A conundrum vexes the PCs; consulting a black menhir might help
• Crinwin have started to worship at a corrupted site becoming corrupted in turn
• An antiquarian is secretly a thrall to a Thing Below, and seeks to unleash a more powerful servant
• A spot in the fields around Stonetop goes bad, festering like an infected boil, corrupted by a discarded artifact

Lore

Everyone knows:

• Evil things are bound deep within the earth
• Sometimes, they send forth demons to wreak havoc upon the world
• Deep water is the most likely place for such horrors to emerge
• Marshedge keeps such horrors at bay by constantly burning bendis root

One might know:

• About the Time of Cataclysm and what came after
• The name, titles, aspects, powers, or minions of a given Thing Below
• How their power corrupts places, artifacts, people, beasts, and spirits
• How to bind, cleanse, or ward off their taint/power/minions
• That unclean things recoil from bendis root smoke, but truly fierce or willful ones can overcome it
• That bronze is bane to the Things Below, and that orichalcum is even more effective
• The difference between corrupted beings and emanations

Very few know:

• Of their true nature
• How they came to be imprisoned
• Any way to truly destroy one

Questions

• What frightening tale from childhood featured the Things Below?
• What little thing do villagers do to ward off their attention or influence?
• When did you first feel their presence? What happened? What still haunts you about that experience to this day?
• What place nearby is said to be tainted by their influence? What sign marks it as such?
• How do the locals speak of them? In hushed tones? In dire sermons? Somewhere in between?
• When was the last time the village dealt with a demon, cult, or sorcerer?

Demons

In truth, there's no such thing as demons. Or rather, "demon" is not a meaningful term. It's often used to refer to emanations of or beings corrupted by the Things Below. But folks might use the term to apply to any number of supernatural terrors. If it's hostile, magical, and has (or can take) a physical form, someone is likely to call it a demon.

Themes

When you introduce a Thing—or more likely, when you introduce a site, artifact, or danger associated with one—choose or roll 2 or more prompts from the theme table here. Combine the results and see where they take you. Alternatively, pick one of the established Things Below, and use its themes.

Creating a Thing

As it becomes necessary to flesh out a Thing Below, combine its themes (previous page) with 2 or more aspects to inspire your descriptions of it. Choose or roll an instinct, or invent one of your own.

If a Thing Below becomes an ongoing source of problems for the PCs (and it probably will), then give it a name and one or more grandiose titles. Write it up as a threat (a magical entity).

Names & titles

The true names of the Things Below are nigh impossible for humans to comprehend, much less pronounce. What names we have for them are crude approximations. Still, they work well enough to call upon their power.

To name a Thing Below, try one of these:

• Pick an unpleasant word or concept, translate it into a language you and your players don't know ("hunger" >> "Hlad" in Czech)
• Take the name of a supernatural entity from pop culture, literature, or another game; change it a little or a lot ("Dagon" >> "Daagon").
• Combine short, unlikely sounds, often with apostrophes to denote short pauses or inflection ("Hec'tumel")
• Some combination of the above

Then, give each Thing one or more evocative titles, keeping in mind the themes and aspects already established. Look to the lists below for inspiration, altering word forms to suit (i.e., "suppurate" might becomes Suppurating, Suppuration, or Suppurator).

Article/preoposition: the, a, an, who, which, that, of, in, on, through, with, without, o Verb: bargain, bleed, break, bring, burn, burrow, bury, butcher, chew, consume, crawl, crush, dance, deceive, deny, desire, despoil, destroy, eat, end, engulf, feed, fester, flense, freeze, haunt, hide, hoard, howl, hunger, keep, know, lack, laugh, lie, melt, offer, promise, rage, rend, roil, rot, scatter, scurry, seep, shape, shatter, sing, slaughter, sleep, slough, smother, snuff, spoil, starve, steal, strain, suppurate, swallow, swarm, topple, unravel, wallow, want, weave, whisper, wither, etc.

Adjective: all-consuming, awful, black, blackest, broken, crimson, cruel, dark, dead, desperate, eldest, false, forty, endless, first, forgotten, forlorn, gray, great, hidden, hundred, hungry, implacable, inexorable, lost, mad, many, pale, pallid, red, rusty, secret, terrible, thousand, unkind, unliving, vast, wrathful, yellow Role: child, daughter, father, heir, herald, king, lady, last, lord, master, mistress, mother, prince, princess, thief, queen, son, tyrant, etc.

Example names

Use these as a starting point to develop your own Things.

• Ha'z-Ra'iel, Herald of Grief, Thief of a Thousand Hopes
• Na'ieraak, the Liar in Shadows, He Who Freezes the Heart
• Unhlef 'k, the Nightmare that Eats, the Dream with Teeth
• Ta'l Themyin, Burning Child, Cruel Infant, Prince of Rage
• H'nisat, the Suppuration, the Wound that Festers
• Hakog, False Wind and Last Whisper of Deceit
• Lalacheewa, Who Sups on Ash and Sorrow

For We Are Many

The Things Below are legion, varying wildly in power and predilection, activity and ambition. Some are whispered of by peoples far and wide. Others are local terrors, gnawing at a single thread of the world that binds them.

Following are half a dozen Things Below that may or may not exist in your game.

Corrupted sites

These are places where the influence of the Things Below has taken hold, where their power seeps into the world. If the site itself hasn't been established, combine the terrain in which it is located with a feature.

Cleansing corrupted sites

The Things Below are loathe to relinquish what power they have in the world, but they can be bested with bravery, cunning, and knowledge. Some PCs (like the Blessed) will have powers or arcana that let them bind or contain the evil in a place. Absent such power, the PCs will need to Make a Plan. Consider such requirements as:

• You must learn the name of the Thing Below that taints this place
• You must find the seed of corruption within the site
• You must create/obtain __, with which to bind the evil (next column)
• You must repair the bindings that previously held back the corruption
• You'll need the help of a powerful spirit/Fae
• It'll take days/weeks of prayer and ritual cleansing
• You must wait until high noon/the solstice/the equinox/the full moon
• The best you can do is stop it from getting worse
• It will require burning sacks of bendis root (Value 2)
• You'll risk being corrupted yourselves
• You'll risk making things much worse To bind corruption, one might use…

• a tree, especially an elder tree;
• a large piece of stone/crystal/amber/ dark ice;
• a ring of runes, deeply etched;
• a spike/vessel of bronze, orichalcum, or black iron
• a Fae domain;
• a barrow/cairn/vault/urn/vessel, sealed and sanctified;
• a perpetual holy flame;
• the bones of a pure soul, properly carved and prepared;
• some combination of the above; or
• something else entirely.

The PCs are following the river Sruth to its source. I've decided that they'll pass a corrupted site along the river. I've no particulars in mind, so I roll a 6 for feature (tomb/barrow/memorial of the locals or their ancestors). That makes me think of the Barrow Builders.

For themes, I roll 6 (destruction/chaos/ ruin/ignorance with "fire, ash") and 8 (corruption/disease/decay with "vermin, poison, acid, filth"). I roll a 2 for the cause (attempt to wield primordial power), and a 3 for severity (a shunned place).

I discard my first instinct to make it a sorcerer's tomb and decide instead that it's a cairn on a low hill, overlooking the river. Inside lie the remains of a sorcerer-king's child. The sorcerer tried to call them back from beyond the Last Door, but succeeded only in blighting the hillside with fell power. To this day, the stones are hot to the touch, steaming in rain and snow. Nothing grows there, and a swath of sickly, barren soil runs down the hill to the river, where it becomes bubbling, poisonous muck.

Red crystal

Pulsing, warm, and thirsting for blood, like cruelty solidified. Red crystal is associated with the most violent and hateful of the Things Below. It grows in places they have corrupted, sometimes jutting from the earth in prodigious quantities. Creatures corrupted by the Things Below might have claws or fangs or antlers made of the stuff.

Red crystal has subtle effects, but can be put to many uses. For example:

• Those with power over others find it fascinating; the victimized find it terrifying (plenty of people find it both)
• It causes tempers to flare, stokes resentment, pushes folks to act on impulse
• It absorbs any blood it touches, growing warmer and glowing brighter
• Sorcerers can fashion it into potent talismans, or use it to fuel their magic
• Demon-hunters sometimes use it to lure their prey into traps

Artifacts

Various treasures

• A crude stone figurine of some beast, the claws and fangs exaggerated and seemingly stained with blood (Value 0)
• A pot full of dust◇ (3 uses, fragile, Value 1 to the right person) that causes a racking cough, weakness, maybe even paralysis
• A lantern◇ (5 hours, reach, area, magical, Value 1) made of twisted black metal; its flame casts pale light that leaches color and chills the air
• A chunk of red crystal (previous column), shaped to look like a leering skull (Value 1 to the right person)
• A ◇◇ large tome of supple vellum (best not to ask the source) full of ramblings in an archaic dialect, unsettling images, and arcane diagrams (Value 2)
• A human(ish) skull◇ but with six eye sockets and jutting lower tusks, carved with disturbing patterns and inlaid with silver (Value 3 to the right buyer)
• A twisted elder tree, found with deer licking at its sap and ignoring the approach of threats; the sap can be refined into a highly addictive drug

• Part of what you learn is false or misleading (but what?)
• You start to suffer nightmares, of horrors shifting in the earth
• The menhir asks a question about your shame, guilt, or fears—answer truly

Major arcana

These are almost certainly associated with the Things Below.

• The Staff of the Lidless Orb
• The Demonhide Cloak
• The Whispering Rocks
• The Blood-quenched Sword
• The Hec'tumel Codex
• The Red Scepter
• The Ring of Daagon
• The Hungering Maw of Hlad

Dangers

PCs and corruption

If a PC possesses a major arcana associated with the Things Below, then the arcana's mysteries and consequences reflect the PC's growing corruption. Likewise, the Thrall playbook insert (Book I, Thrall) reflects a PC being corrupted by the Things Below. If a PC has one of those arcana or inserts, allow its mechanics to drive their corruption. Don't give them additional gifts or marks unless they are corrupted in some additional way.

Should a PC become corrupted by the Things Below without gaining a major arcana or insert, then ask the player how they want to handle it.

Do they see the corruption as a threat to their character, something to rid themselves of and struggle against? If so, write it up as a threat (threat type:

affliction) and focus on increasingly problematic marks. But if the player wants to explore the power that's now available to them, and the cost of that power, then create a playbook insert for them, using the Thrall insert as inspiration.

Those who bear their taint

• Most deathless ones
• Servants of Daagon, emerging from fog or deep water
• The Fomoraij and their infected servants
• Some of the Green Lords' chimerae: llamudwr, swyn, and zrajedak
• False dead, like barrow wights, the Anan Gllo or nemurvojak
• Fen-trolls, suarachan soothsayers, maybe even fen-walkers
• Bhoka and kyaakara from the Whitefangs and beyond
• Thraulgwyn, the pale demons of the Labyrinth
• The Suileach and other horrors of the Dread River
• Possibly the crinwin, the Crombil, hdour, or the nosgalau

Solitary, spirit, devious, magical, fiery, beautiful, corrupted

HP 19; ARMOR 1 (lacks organs)

DAMAGE searing grasp d10 (hand, grabby)

SPECIAL QUALITIES tethered to its tree, fireproof INSTINCT to spread cruelty, pain, fire

> Travel freely between fires, burnt trees

> Sense resentment, anger, wrath, and cruelty

> Manifest a beautiful form of cinders and flame (unharmed by stabbing, vulnerable to water and bronze)

> Stoke the flames of conflict

> Offer affection/confidence/power in exchange for "gifts" of fire and blood