A Continent of Banalities

Dorzad, the Parasite Redeemer

In grim Allians where the wind is ceaseless torment, a hope is growing. A mad hope, but that is the sort one would expect from Allians and from this world

The entity called Dorzad lives in a pauper’stemple, and was called here by the people’s lamentations and prayers for release. Indeed it reacts to the human voice, and mutes are safe from its dubious  blessings.
Dorzad is invisible, and none has a clear idea of its shape. It has mouths and long-fingered hands, but no legs  or anything like a head. It rarely speaks, but when it does the voice is human. Never the same voice twice though.



Dorzad is growing, and has soon outgrown the main body of the temple. Its servant, a naked man with only one arm bare had a corner by thealtar in which to huddle. His name is Adlam, and he will freely tell his story. He was a successful mercenary, and there was always a petty Tveland aristocrat or vindictive Schleswiger warlord to provide well-paid work. “I gave it up” he’…

Beatricia, The Swine Witch

She shuns Galgenbeck itself, but Beatricia is known from Bergen Chrypt to Allians as a woman of great wealth and greater secrets. She shuns the filth of this world, as anyone with the riches to do so would. In her sedan chair incense is burned at all times in order to drown out the stench of man and beast. If she has to touch bare earth in order to get somewhere, someone will be made to pay for this affront.

Beatricia is a tall regal woman with a stark profile and a withering blue gaze. She always wears robes of red silk and black velvet. She is rich in the way one can only daydream about. She can be extravagant and generous one moment, only to be petty and skinflint the next, if it suits or amuses her.



On the first week of every month she pays the prize for her wealth.  As per her agreement with the demon Babionge, she transforms into a great grey boar with cracked tusks and burning red eyes, the very image of the demon itself.
The boar loves filth, blood a…

[This is a creature from Chilean folklore which I've altered a bit to suit my diabolical purposes]


The colo colo is a creature like a large rat coated with greasy gray feathers in place of fur. Its eyes are black and matted, and its mouth is a beak with serrated bone ridges. It makes a sound that is uncannily like that of a crying baby. It is most commonly found in Sarkash.

The colo colo will enter a home quietly, and will proceed to suck the blood from the inhabitants while they sleep, and at the same time inject its own saliva into their bloodstreams. This induces a light kalopsia in the victim (the delusion or hallucination that things are more beautiful than they really are).  The effect is cumulative, and victims will likely have a very skewed view of reality about a week in.



The inhabitants of the house will become listless and weak, but will also become increasingly euphoric. That, along with a smell of carrion with no apparent source, are the surest signs of colo colo pre…

Kallikan, The Ghosts of the Road
These creatures are the ghosts who died between their point of departure and destination.In that liminal space no grave is truly hallowed, and the kallikan can neither rest nor reach the destination they sought in life. They are doomed to trudge the roads until the end of days. It might not be long now.
The look as though they have slept in ditches and travelled through a rainstorm. Their hair is matted, long and wet. They do not blink quite enough. A kallikan’s clothes have transformed into iron. Woven wool becomes chains, fine silk think and rusty sheets. They are always burdened down with heavy sacks.


The kallikan may only rest if they come upon a travelers’ camp and are given leave to join. They will offer up coarse bread and salted meat from their sacks. This food is bland but nourishing. Those who eat of it often (DR12 check against Toughness) feel compelled to join the endless journey within a span of 1-6 days.
If they are refused a seat at…

Scap & Stern, The Ossuary Boys
Tweedle-Dee Dum and Tweedle-Dee Dee
They're throwing knives into the tree
Two big bags of dead man's bones
Got their noses to the grindstone.
Bob Dylan - Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
From a distance and at first glance they’re a couple of obese men with round oafish faces. Upon closer examination the illusion breaks. Their skin is sewn together and whatever stuffing is inside seems to shift like sand. At times the grey bone-meal leaks from the seams. If you let on that you have seen through the ruse, expect to be smothered or sliced up.
Scap and Stern are essentially great skin-sacks of a roughly human shapes, filled with bone and gravedust. Created by some Galgenbeck necromancer whom they simply call the master, their goal seems to be to collect items needed in his dark experiments, involving the mutable border between life and death.


Interestingly, the boys seem to be in a deep state of denial about their own unliving nature. Stern might dis…

Votura, the Sea Star

The people of Grift know starfish will, The strange five-limbed creatures are often caught in fishermen’s nets. They are quickly dumped back into the ocean, as they are believed to be spawn of Votura.
Votura dwells somewhere in the black murk of Grift’s main fishing harbor. Among seaweed and ships that sank centuries ago, when king Aegfrith proclaimed himself Emperor of All the Seas, Votura dreams. In shape it isa starfish twice again thesize of a man. It’s five arms are adorned with mouths of a strangely human cast. The drawn mouth of a Grift fishwife, next to the full lips of a Galgenbeck catamite, next to the filed teeth of a Wästland berserker. And so on. It glows a bioluminescent green when it senses prey in the water.



Votura has been there for as long as anyone can remember. Even in the stories of old, when the world had a measure of hope, Votura was hiding in the dark waters. To say that it is worshiped would be wrong. Rather it is placated with sacrifice.
…