Theology

Icthara, the Voracious

Live to eat; eat to live.  Consumption is the basic need of all living things, the act of taking in nutrition to keep the body alive.  It is the current of life, cyclical, that all things need to thrive.  Eat, eat again, eat more, and grow.  Feed, consume, gorge, for you never know when you might eat again.  Next time, it might be you serving as the meal.  Bottom feeder or apex predator, aquatic flora or Vastness aberration, all must obey the most primal of all urges: eat to survive.

All exists to sate the Endless Hunger.  Not just food, but the living are to consume all that can be digested: drink, drugs, even detritus.  She is the Goddess of Gluttony, not Pride.  The sunken bodies of the dead are as much a feast to Her as the freshest roe.  Even the ley line nexuses fall prey to Icthara’s ravening.  She sups upon their puissance; and like ambrosia, She greedily gobbles it down.

The Queen of the Feast single-mindedly travels across the water world’s seabeds, consuming everything in Her wake with equal relish.

Icthara, the Voracious, the Empress of Consumption, Queen of the Feast, the Endless Hunger

Alignment: Neutral Evil
Symbol: Two rows of three orange hooks, facing downward and inward.
Domains: Animal, Destruction, Evil, Magic, Travel
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Claw.
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Prey catcher (man catcher).
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic evil, neutral evil, lawful evil, true neutral.

Sociology

Aboleth Knowledge

The Aboleths — those aberrations that are trying to fill the vacuum left behind by the extinct Kraken — know full well that the Indigo is coming.  They know where the alien mucus seeps.  They know why is slowly spreads toward the Known World. They know who causes it, and they prepare…

No fools, the puppetmasters are putting their skum thralls into positions of power with the intention of mitigating the effect of the encroaching black water.  Why not use the work of others to their own benefit.

Should the aberations be allowed to fulfill their machinations for control, or should their plans be stopped regardless of the oncoming Indigo? Which price is too high to pay when the result could mean the Endless Black?

Physics

Whispered Secrets in the Deep Sound Channel

It cannot be emphasized enough how much water engulfs the world of Elqua.  At only 5% of its surface being land, it is a world that is nearly submerged beneath vast, deep, and consequently heavy oceans.  The pull of gravity on the great expanses of water overhead makes the layers beneath become more compact.  As the accumulating weight above pushes downward, this increasing pressure makes the water below compress more and more, which as a result creates such problems for oceanic life as crushing pressure and maintaining buoyancy.  However, there exists an interesting positive effect of this highly compacted water molecules: the Deep Sound Channel.

The deep sound channel is a phenomenon where the speed of sound is heightened to a maximum due to depth pressure, water temperature, and salinity.  Water is a superior medium for conducting sound, since there more molecules closer together to propagate the sound wave.  Distilled water is approximately 4.3 times a better conductor of sound than ambient air.  Adjusting for saltwater, colder temperatures, and pressure, and that rises to over five times as conductive.  As these factors increase the deeper you go, the water takes on superior sound refracting qualities that rival sound propagation above the waves,  Sound can be carried more easily and farther at the expense of less energy.  This is the manner in which whalesong travels so far and remains viable.  And here, both literally and figuratively, is where the magic happens.

Zoology

The Aboleth: Puppeteers of the Deep

When the Kraken Empire fell, the apex predator of the Endless Blue disappeared almost overnight.  This left a vacuum in Elquan ecology that has never been truly filled.  That is, until now.  The aboleths have stirred from their “long dreaming”, and begun infiltrating their thralls into the political and social circles of the Known World.

Aboleth

Huge Aberration (Aquatic)
Hit Dice: 8d8 +40 (76 hp)
Initiative: +1 (Dex)
Speed: 60 feet (12 cubes)
Buoyancy: Shelf (adjustable)
Armor Class: 16 (-2 size, +1 Dex, +7 natural)
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+22
Attack: Tentacle +12 mêlée (1d6+8 plus slime)
Full Attack: 4 tentacles +12 mêlée (1d6+8 plus slime)
Space/Reach: 10 ft. by 20 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks: Subjugate, parasite, psionics, slime
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., ultravision 60 ft., mucus cloud
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +11.
Abilities: Str 26, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 15, Wis 17, Cha 17
Skills: Concentration +16, Knowledge (any) +13, Listen +16, Spot +16, Swim +8
Feats: Alertness, Combat Casting, Iron Will
Environment: Deep, dark waters (Shelf)
Organization: Solitary or slaver brood (1 plus 7-12 skum).
Challenge Rating: 7
Treasure: Double standard.
Alignment: Usually lawful evil.
Advancement: Huge (9-16 HD),  Gargantuan (17-24 HD)
Level Adjustment: –

History

Dreadnoughts of the Kraken

The incursion of the united Kraken species was overwhelmingly brutal.  Inhuman in their savagery, the massive squid crashed over the homeseas of the Known World like a tsunami.  Smashing settlements and reefs with indiscriminate ease, they were like an encroaching storm, unstoppable, spewing out from the Maw, effectively blotting out the light from above and eclipsing the oceans of Elqua in a languishing darkness.

Cosmology

Elsewhere — The Anathematic Ethereal Shadow

Elqua is remote, practically isolated from the metaverse of  cosmological ethos.  Not just a pale blue dot floating silently in the cosmos of stellar eternity, but a shunned pariah in the growing complexity of the multiverse.  Such abstract sophist concepts as portals to other dimension or astral travel are unknown among the philosophical thinkers of the world.  There is nothing beyond the mortal coil; there only exists what is seen and touched.  This unrelenting mentality has endured unaltered for many of Elqua’s Ages,  from before the Bronze and on into the Verdant Age.  But it was during that green age of prosperity that this naive understanding of the world — indeed, the universe — was shattered, when the realm known as Elsewhere made its first overt actions into this world and forever changing Elquan history.

Archaeology

Orbs of Krakenkind

Particularly potent relics of a time when the Elder Squids hunted the waters of the Endless Blue, each Orb of Krakenkind is a sphere about one foot in diameter.  Its out layer has a thick, unyielding texture, like slathered on shellac, that taints the viscous goo entrapped within its confines with a hue of molten amber.  Suspended in the tacky inner mucus is a free floating darkness, barely visible through the occluded sebaceous muck.  This suspended mass, untethered to the Orb’s outer veneer, weighs heavily despite the surrounding ocean pressures.  This un-anchored center of gravity makes holding either sphere balanced a difficult task, and no matter what the depth it is taken to it will always pull downward with a negative buoyancy.

Zoology

The Kraken:  Ancient Wyrms from Below the Wave

Nothing strikes utter terror into the hearts of the Known World as the mere mention of the world kraken.  Centuries of their ruthless occupation have made their name a terrifying sound, perhaps more feared than even the Vastness.  But the history of their brutality go back further than the existence of the Fluid Nation, as the depraved leviathans are far more ancient than any piscean could imagine.