“…Come one, come all,
Where lost souls stand tall,
Heed the Mother’s beck and call,
Glowing bright the pale lantern’s sprawl”
“Far and wide we few are condemned. We few are cast down, at best, ignored most often, scorned. We are the bent and we are the broken. Hidden in shadow we few come together and whisper tales of the Nightmare Mother who sings songs of welcome to her children. Songs of beauty and of rage, songs of blood and songs of names. She whispers tales of lost souls and urges a task at hand. Under the auspice of her putrid bosom we few come together. US! Her Vile Children. We bear her lantern. Go forth, seek our kin! ”
-Brother Zod
Cursed Spawn
Like vermin they huddle in the lowest reeds and rushes, careful not to expose themselves or endanger their tenuous safety in whatever hovels they’ve come to call home. Her children gather in the shadows and sing their fell songs under the cover of night, their secret stories never again trusted to pen and paper. Rumors reverberate like the groans of the oldest planks amongst the docks of Dark Harbor, the truth ever obfuscated. Some believe the Hag’s Children to be cursed infants bearing wytchmarks upon twisted bodies at birth. Others whisper about blood soaked sacrament and self-mutilation. There are even tales of seemingly normal folk slowly going mad after weeks of rambling about waking nightmares and visions tormenting them in the dead of night.
There is much work to be done in Dark Harbor for the Hag’s devout. These are storied shores, filled with spirits and sacred places. It is her will, so speaks Zod, that they be brought low. The spirits tethered to the shores of the black tide, denied the embrace of an afterlife and cursed to roam the Deadlands without rest nor respite. When not reaving for lost souls, the children hone their craft. Mystics, Bards and Wytches with a flair for the unscrupulous, their fell deads are empowered by the guidance of the Awakened Dreamers- elders that are said to wander in a state of walking sleep, afflicted by nightmares that bear either the whispers of Haldora herself or tattered shreds of madness from long since broken minds.
The Isles of Sothos are crisscrossed with ancient battlefields and mass graves, remnants of armies and armadas that sought it fit to wage war in these benighted lands. When these places are christened with fresh blood, it is the Children that oft make first vigil. Scattering across the charnel like carrion birds, desecrating corpses and pilfering treasures alike. Moreover, they seek the wounded and maimed left to die by their comrades-in-arms. These freshly outcast, minds broken by pain and grief, are taken gently in hand to the fetid bosom of the Hag. However, those too weak to leave the battlefield are tortured into death. Their broken bodies defiled and their possessions fashioned into grim tokens so they might be anchored to the Deadlands, as befits Haldora’s unholy will.
Chronicles of Madness
Born of desperation and the force of will known only to those who have nothing left to lose, came the most current de facto leaders of the Hags Children. A woman called Arda and her son, Zod. Once captain of a modest merchant ship, now Arda is the Unholy High Sister, a rank she earned while in pseudo exile. At this point that particular story has been told countless times, each a little skewed with time and addled by madness but the most common tellings all reference a great storm causing Arda, heavy with child, and her crew to be marooned on a rocky little island strewn wide from the most traveled trade routes. After weeks of scavenging what paltry life clung to this sliver of rock Arda felt the life inside her weak and waning. She cried out pledging her undying devotion to any great power who would help her save her baby. That night Arda was granted whispered instructions wrapped in gruesome nightmare. She gathered the strongest of the survivors and together they fell upon their fellow crew mates and slew them and gorged themselves with meat and blood. With the strength their flesh provided, the remaining crew was able to make the repairs necessary to get their sun bleached vessel afloat and on its way back toward shore carrying now, Haldora’s most devout. Brother Zod who’s first meal was milk, pink with blood off his mothers savage breast.
Upon The Ivory the two make their way meandering from port to port, with their wretched crew. Careful to keep to the Accords in the light of day, they drift looking for work to pass their days. More than happy to adopt those who would look to them for family, they seek out the bi. But what they value even more are those that are willing to stay. To come aboard The Ivory and return ashore and share the doctrine of the Nightmare Mother with the pariah. From sermons spilling forth seeming like drivel from the addled mind of a drunk sitting on the steps of a tavern, to a final kindness shared at knife point, Haldora’s devout share their message among those that would hear it, their most important directive.
There exists a legend, that in the earliest days of their communion, some of the Hag’s Children’s eyes began to wander. They sought the love of another mother, one native and present in these lands, woven of oak and birch. Ever envious, the Mother of Nightmares cursed those children. The leader of this breakaway, a mage adept at wytchcraft and sigils both, devolved into a gibbering beast fused in body and mind with that of three apprentices. A foul amalgam of meat, writhing ever in pain, she became a living altar to the Hag and a reminder to the Children that they may never stray from their mother’s ever watchful eye.
Depraved Cunning
If vultures are Haldora’s eyes and ears in the material world, Her children are her teeth and claws. There exists levels of devotion within this debauched family. The initiates, and those that have not fully been brought into the fold are much more capable of hiding within plain sight. They are not always recognizable at a glance, though there surely exists some element that has lured them into the clutches of the Vulture, be it a mutation, a lurid compulsion, or simple madness. Once they have been elevated within their blighted commune subterfuge can become more difficult. If madness, ugliness, and wretchedness are virtues within Haldora’s temple then it is the expectation for these lost souls to maim themselves further in her name. Scars, missing limbs, melted flesh are all common traits of the Children, symbols of their divine bond made manifest.
The deformed and lost are sought out intentionally, and to show them true familial love and closeness are the greatest good one can do. The silver tongues of the Children are not to be understated, be they enchanted by strange magics or honed by years of practice, they are said to be adept at leading the lost youth and discarded wastrels of society down paths unclear to all but them. Despite direct opposition from numerous powers in these waters, the Children’s ranks grow with each passing season. Plague, war, corrupting magic all create orphans and the scarred. Brothers and Sisters waiting to be found. Loyalty is rarely an issue within the coven, for they truly do believe themselves to be closer than blood. However, like any sprawling family tree there are some…strained boughs. Echoing their dear Mother, the Hag’s Children, while capable of deep compassion, are also often prone to violence and ruin. While none of Her Children can claim innocence, there are those among her flock that would prioritize their role as shepard while others relish in their duty as harbingers of terror.
Recent Events
Some have pointed fingers at the Hag’s Children over the past few years, blaming them for spreading plagues and illnesses. They have been accused of being responsible for poisoning water supplies and other acts of sabotage, presumably in an effort to weaken and harm the “law-abiding” citizens of Dark Harbor in the hopes that sickness and squalor would lead them into Mother Nightmares’ caring embrace. The Children have said nothing about these rumors, though they never do.
In a peculiar act of cooperation, in the fall of 2264 the servants of the Vulture aided the denizens of the harbor with the removal of a potent demon, supposedly a balrog of the lower pits of the Hellstack. Harborfolk defended the Children while they wove ancient spells of blood and fire, dark Wytchcraft intended to bind the creature. As the waves of hellspawn broke upon their blade, the Children successfully captured the demon, imprisoning it within a crystal. Despite this brief alliance, many long-term residents of the Isles blame the Hag’s Children for the corruption of the island’s nature elements, a result of the lingering taint of their foul magic.