The Forest of Worms, continued

 

This post is dedicated to the lovely Purple. 

The Forest of Worms stretches off endlessly into the east at the border of cleared Baronial territory. It houses the worms themselves, in their teeming, uncounted millions, and the roaming bands of Little Birds, and for these reasons is commonly acknowledged as impassable. This has not stopped people from trying it. 

In the ancient days of the pre-Imperial Barony there were great heroes, ten feet tall, fifteen feet, in monstrous bronze harness and adorned in chains of cut glass and lead, who pushed the borders of the forest from the coast to where it stands today. They were invincible, they piled the bodies of worms so high that they made hills and mountains. The so-called 'Great Proscriptions' of the ancient angels designated entire territories and countries for extermination. God's design in those days required a more vigorous pruning, and men were giants then; well-practised at slaughter. So the old stories go.

In the present day, there have been many expeditions and felling operations into the woods, and nearly all of them meet with disaster and death. There are simply too many worms to kill once you get into the trees any distance. The official stance from the Capital is that attempts to change the border are illegal - the Baroness (most would say astutely) fears provoking the great hives further in to open conflict on her borders. 

Unofficially, she has sent many skilled operatives and teams into the forest - not to kill and destroy and conquer, but to gather intelligence, and perhaps even to emerge from the forest at its far side, if such a thing exists. The picture is forming, very slowly.

The Hives

After a few miles into the trees, it becomes nearly literally impossible to avoid detection by the worms. You can avoid them by staying in the tree canopy, but it is difficult and dangerous to travel this way at any speed. 

Where worm concentrations are critical they cover the floor in a literal carpet of flesh. There have been scattered reports of very large bodies, or perhaps of concentrations of smaller bodies pressed together, half buried in the earth, disgorging worms in the hundreds. 

The worm-sign pictograms begin to appear on trees, and stones, and on the bare earth, and the air gets 'heavier', the further you go in. Some of her agents swear that the sign appears on clouds, on the sun, that the sky itself twists into the terrible, elaborated letterforms. In some places the trees themselves are buried in the depth of the carpet of worm bodies. It is like hell. 

Dead Zones

Large circular spaces exist inside the woods where the worms will not go for some reason. The forest in these spaces is pristine, clear, bright, sun-drenched. No animals, no people. 

Some of them appear to built around mounds or barrows of some description, others have no clear cause.  

Worm Pattern-Body

A mess of smaller bodies complexly interlinked, sometimes mechanically via their limbs, sometimes using various specialised organs on the surfaces of their bodies. A vast system built from bodies. About twenty feet tall, and twice as broad. Usually builds worms from the bodies of other worms, and whatever other biomass that is comes across. 

HD14, d8 unarmed attacks on everything in melee contact, Maker, unarmoured, but slabs of redundant flesh and organs confer -2 damage to weapons attacks. Movement: immobile, usually actually mostly buried in the earth. Disposition: mindless, or at least uninterested in the physical world. 

Maker: every time you take damage from a Pattern-Body, you must test CHAR or lose a point of CHAR. If this ever brings would below 10, you lose your name: rewrite it as 'nameless' on your character sheet. You now lose contested CHAR checks automatically. While you sleep your body may attempt to scratch it back into your skin - this is compulsive behaviour, and will not bring the name back. 

Ancient Assassin

Truly ancient heroes from the times of madness and religious massacre. Each Assassin was given a guardian angel and a territory to subdue - the living instruments of a utopian/abstract project of levelling and rebuilding. There are none left now, for they fought and died a thousand years ago. 

HD12, Slaying Falx x3 (gigantic weapon, deals one point of radiation damage per turn to every other living thing within 50ft), Bronze Panoply as plate armour, movement: twice human, like an iron golem, the mass of heavy demolition equipment, disposition: they have a spatially-defined territory to subdue, your name is not on their short list of exceptions. 

Wyrm-Slaying Angel

The disembodied guardian spirits of the old Baronials - little in common with the timid time-travellers of the present day. An eye, and a voice, and a terrible spear, with no patience at all for philosophy or tricky theological language games. Manifest as a single floating eyeball above the heads of their sainted companions, and constantly scream praise to the coming Heaven in Enochian. 

3HD, but disembodied and not usually targetable - psychic damage and similar will do the trick. Armed with the Wyrm-Slaying Spear, unarmoured, but SINGS PRAISE, only moves with its companion, disposition: grindhouse facilitator of absolutely total war. 

Wyrm-Slaying Spear: each turn, lay down an area 100ft long and 5ft wide. Those caught beneath it take d10 radiation damage as their organs boil inside them. 

SING PRAISE: all movement toward the Wyrm-Slaying Angel is reduced by 10ft.