Great Sea-Worms, Keepers of the Sunken Temple
Deep in the freezing depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the God of the Sunken Temple waits and dreams, sealed within the ruined, weed-wreathed buildings that were once the glory of Atlantis. Appearing in artwork and men’s dreams as a supernaturally beautiful young man, the God’s true form is unknown; perhaps the Myxinous Scions, enormous worm-like creatures that tend to the God’s temples, offer a hint to the entity’s true face.
Fat, writhing worms, 18-25 feet long and covered in wrinkled, colorless skin, the Myxinous Scions have a ring of gangly, humanoid arms around their “neck”; always an odd number, each scrawny arm ending in a delicate, two-thumbed hand. At first glance they lack a head, the neck seeming to terminate in a flabby, toothless orifice, endlessly drooling cloudy mucus. However, this is a false mouth; inside this slobbering hole, the Scion has a collection of bladed mandibles and pincer-claws held in reserve that it can extend at will. Also held within this false mouth is a ring of five glands, like the spinnerets of a spider; each of these glands can be individually aimed and is capable of squirting a thick, adhesive slime with a range of fifty feet. The Scion uses this slime to snare prey, dragging their victims into range of their savage, slicing mouthparts. A similar, though non-adhesive slime seeps constantly from pores in the Scion’s leathery hide, coating it in a slick film of mucus like a hagfish. A Scion lurking in shallower waters, such as a bay or harbor, can generate enough mucus over time to clog the water, suffocating fish and ruining ships’ screws or motors.
Dozens, possibly hundreds, of these creatures crawl over and through the ruins of Atlantis, worshiping the God of the Sunken Temple with crude and brutal ceremonies focused on human sacrifices; many of the ships that have disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle went down to satisfy these monstrous creatures’ religious needs. They also serve as intermediaries and psychopomps for the God of the Sunken Temple; when some unfortunate human finds and falls under the sway of one of the God’s many images and idols, it is a Scion that swims up to meet them on their way to the Sunken Temple.
These creatures are also sometimes sent out to retrieve the God’s images when they fall into the possession of a human who resists the God’s psychic pull. Clumsy on land and completely blind, the Scions are utterly destructive on their way towards one of the God’s idols, homing in like a bird recognizing magnetic north, and often leave a trail of innocent victims (or more often, a bloody smear and some tatters of clothing on the ground) in their wake.
One of these creatures appeared in the Bay of Ancona in the year 143 CE to retrieve one of the God’s images from the possession of a wealthy Roman art collector. The collector, recognizing a connection between the idol and water, had tried to placate the spirit he assumed was possessing the idol by placing it in the fountain of his villa; as his sanity eroded under the God’s psychic assault, the collector became severely agoraphobic, convinced that nowhere outside his own home was safe. Unable to climb the hills necessary to reach the collector’s villa, the Scion drowned sailors in the Bay and compelled fishermen and harbor-workers to bring the art collector down to the sea.
Myxinous Scion, Keeper of the Sunken Temple
STR 50 CON 70 DEX 8 INT 13 POW 18
HP 60 WP 18
Size category: Very Large.
Movement: This creature can move at 4 meters/yards per combat turn on land, but can swim at a speed of 12 meters/yards per combat turn.
Armor: 8 points of slime, skin and blubber.
Attacks:
Bite 40%, 25% Lethality
Slime Snare 40%, target is pinned unless succeeding on a Dodge roll (see below).
Skills: Swim 80%, Alertness 40%, Unnatural 25%
Slime Snare: On a successful attack, the target is pinned, caught by a streamer of adhesive mucus sprayed from the Scion’s mouth. The only way to avoid this attack is through a successful Dodge test. The Scion reels the target in through a series of opposed STR tests; each success by the Scion draws the target 10 feet closer.
Resistant to Puncturing Weapons: All damage dealt to the Scion using puncturing weapons (including firearms) is halved before being charged to the armor value. This also means that the lethality value on puncturing weapons is halved against the Scion.
Mental Control: The entity has the power to control humans via mental dominance. Resolve such attempts as an opposed POW vs POW test; if the target’s will is overcome, he or she is compelled to remain in close proximity to the area where the mental control was initiated. Once controlled, a dominated human can be mentally contacted by the entity regardless of where it is, anywhere on Earth. This communication costs the entity 1 Willpower Point.
SAN Loss: to see the Myxinous Scion costs 1D4/1D10 SAN.
William Adcock is a historian by training and a horror author by necessity.
