Helloooo reprobates!!!!
The storytellers are all still quaking in their battleboots having read all of your wonderful entries for this year's Scare the Storytellers competition.
All the entries were genuinely great, but sadly we have to pick a winner. And the winner this time around is...
Afesotinuilar Matari for his myth of the Suahagan, accompanied by a spine-chilling short story: 'The Sorrow of Suaha'. Well done Sot!
Due to the very high quality of the entries, we've also decided that runners up are appropriate. Their terrifying creations will also become lore, and we'll be giving them each a prize too.
The runners up are....
Nyx T'rath
and
Alder
You can read all three of the winning entries below, and they will also be added to the wiki very soon (as well as being used in-game!)
Congratulations to all of our winners! We'll be in touch very soon to arrange prizes.
Many thanks to everyone who entered. You are all amazing <3
Many thanks to the storytellers for reading and scoring them all and being so engaged and brilliant <3
It's also occurred to me that I still haven't given out prizes from the body art contest. So I'll be working on getting those to those winners ASAP!
---------------
WINNING ENTRIES
---------------
-----------------------
::Afesotinuilar Matar::
-----------------------
Suahagan
--------
Suahagan are thin, gray-skinned humanoids with small ears, milky eyes, and mouths full of lamprey-like teeth. They are said to use floodwaters to move stealthily, snatching up people to feed on, commonly characterized as tearing prey into long strips which the Suahagan can chew with its strange mouth.
Though Suahagan abound in Krellian folklore, the most well-known story is the Sorrow of Suaha, inspiring fear of any isolated elgan. After Corwin's Flood, these fears eased as the risk of becoming isolated in a flood was reduced, but their tradition survives today to scare children that wander in the swamps.
The Sorrow of Suaha
-------------------
Long ago, the Dagan Tribe lived in Locorin Swamp. Chief Torom had died suddenly, leaving the village divided over which of her two sons would be the best leader to take her place. Being a superstitious people, they looked for an omen and found it Aygar's wife Suaha was found to be pregnant with twins, while Kayam's orchard was stripped bare by malaca.
The floods came earlier than expected, catching many of the villagers out in the swamps. Kayam used his coracle to bring stranded folk to the storehouse one by one, but to Suaha's great sorrow, Aygar was nowhere to be found.
Though Suaha was married to Kayam in accordance with tradition, hatred for his brother was rooted firmly in his heart. One night, he poisoned her with herbs, wishing that his brother's children would die along with him. After an early labor, Suahas son and daughter were grey and silent; stillborn. Being well-pleased, Kayam tossed them into the floodwaters, and using his coracle, spirited Suaha to her own half-flooded home.
When they reached her flooded home, Suaha wept for the children she wished she had been able to meet. In her anger, she shoved Kayam into the floodwaters, praying that her children would feast on the family that had betrayed them. To her surprise, the waters became violent, turning red with blood as Kayam was torn to shreds beneath the gray surface of the floodwater.
Two figures emerged once the ripples faded, with gray skin, milky eyes, and long limbs that moved with great dexterity in the swamp. Their mouths were disjointed and askew, suited only for tearing flesh, but still they spoke to her.
"Mama," they said, eyes streaming with tears, "We were lost and afraid. We never want to be alone again."
Suaha led her monstrous children into the upper floors of her drowned home. She sang them lullabies. scratched behind their ears, and loved them even as she grew weaker by the day.
"Mama," they said, noticing how frail she was becoming, "You look so hungry. We will find you some food."
With that, the two children disappeared into the night.
In the morning, they had returned, stained red and carrying a bloody haunch. At the edge of starvation, Suaha was left with little choice than to eat the raw meat. They curled up in their mother's lap again, joining her in childish verses and stories of better days.
While they were out hunting the next day, Suaha returned to the village to tell her story.
She found a nightmare.
People were torn to pieces, and in their entrails was writ a terrible tale of terror and cruelty. Each corpse was trailed by two bloody pairs of footprints, and as she walked past them, hunger pangs began to gnaw at her once again.
Following the sounds of weeping, her children found her there, gnawing on a bloody femur.
"Do not cry, Mama. We will never be alone again."
--------------
::Nyx T'rath::
--------------
The Fereshteh
--------------
The Fereshteh is said to be able to take any shape, and its original form is thought by the Jin to be ultimately unknowable. The constant between its forms is a multitude of eyes all over its body, which are said to help the Fereshteh to see not the shadow of a recent death, like the Jin's death eye, but instead to see the shadow of an imminent death. It requires the hundreds of eyes because it keeps track of the impending deaths of everyone everywhere. Although no one knows for sure what it looks like in its true form, its original form is thought to be winged, which explains why it tends to favor the form of a black bird.
The Fereshteh is said to come to Jin in their weakest, most vulnerable moment, the minute death approaches and fear and doubt enter their mind. It extends a hand to the dying and asks if they want to live. Jin, who value an honorable death above all else, are terrified of saying yes in a moment of weakness and fear, both failing to honor T'rath as well as facing overwhelming shame for the rest of their lives, knowing that the fault of missing a good death lies entirely on them. It is said to mark those that choose life over honor so that everyone else will know their shame as well.
Legend has it that the Fereshteh was once a confederate of T'rath, but that during the moment of their death (the story of how T'rath died varies wildly), the Fereshteh chose eternal life over an honorable death and now roams in haughty spite trying to deprive its dear departed comrade of those honorable souls that follow him. Any deformity is said by the superstitious to be 'the mark of Fereshteh' and Jin that are born with deformities are sometimes thought to have been marked while in the womb, the child having struck a deal with Fereshteh to cling to life when it should have died. This superstition only adds to the likelihood of such children being killed outright at birth.
---------
::Alder::
---------
Sapropheratu
------------
"A Decheeran in the Dark Brings Naught but Doom"
Many non-Decheeran are familiar with the Tal, but very few are even aware of, let alone intimately familiar with, the horror this force allows the Decheerans to combat. There is a reason Decheerans cannot be forcibly ejected from a grove--to bud without a sufficient emotional connection to other Decheerans dooms the resulting proto-Decheeran to succumb to an emptiness that consumes its mind and warps it into a ghostly white and parasitic aberration known widely as a Sapropheratu.
Barkless, fleshy, and foliage devoid, its squelching tendrils stretch and squirm along the ground as it writhes through the darkness in search of a host to tap and drain for resources. Once a host is found, this loathsome monstrosity creeps into the crowning branches and attaches, then uses the leeched nutrients to mimic the foliage or epiphytes present on the Decheeran. The name is largely a misnomer as, despite its fungiform appearance, an unrooted Sapropheratu lacks the ability to consume dead or decaying matter and can only sustain itself on the mind of a living Decheeran. Unfortunately for the unwitting victim, this causes increasingly unusual and erratic behavior, ultimately leading to total and irrevocable damage in the form of a disease known as Mind Rot.
After the first few days to a week the symptoms start with small, seemingly innocent activities like enjoying more shade than usual or being easily fatigued. As time goes on and the sickness progresses, the Decheeran becomes irritable, forgetful, and complains of an insatiable thirst. Within a month the host of this vile creature will become insufferably confrontational, leading some members of its grove to sever their connections in order to escape the torment. Eventually the victim too will willingly sunder its bond to what remains of its grove, striking out on its lonesome to bud in the darkness before fertilizing the next proto-Sapropheratu with its own withered remains.
~shudder~
You're all awful and marvellous.
Damiel <3
