Umbralocht

*"Strive. Strive! Overcome, and be overcome. Devour, and be devoured - be understood. Become. Become more! Become less. Change. Observe, obsess, consume, comprehend. Crave comprehension. The answer is here. The answer is close. Taste it. Taste it."*

These are the never-ceasing whispers of the Howling Winds, called Umbralocht, the formless God of obsession, transformation, and strife. Umbralocht is the desire for self-improvement, through overcoming and understanding. In the most extreme cases, the desire becomes passion, then all-consuming obsession. both the mental changes of ability and understanding, and the physical changes of the body, are in the domain of Umbralocht.

Scholars hear the whispers of Umbralocht, most strongly when wrangling with a difficult theorem. Warriors hear the howls of Umbralocht, most strongly as they face a superior foe. To pray to Umbralocht is to devote oneself to a puzzle, mystery, enemy, or project so intensely as to forgo food, sleep, companionship, sense and sanity.

Umbralocht is the voice that tells you to eat your enemy to gain their power.

Umbralocht is the mad winds, and a voice, and an impulse.

Cannibals hear the winds of Umbralocht most strongly, and are sacred to it. In consuming each other, and themselves, they may understand. Consume and understand. Druids and surgeons, medics and scholars, warriors and misers, all who would seek improvement or victory at the cost of everything, who seek with obsessed vigor, have cause to pray to Umbralocht.

Umbralocht desires strife, and through strife, achievement. Umbralocht desires change, and through change, understanding. Umbralocht will lead its followers to the edges of possibility, and let them become what they must to step beyond them.

## **Races Blessed by Umbralocht**

* **The Flora enjoy the blessings of Umbralocht.**When they have discovered simple machines, Umbralocht decreed that there should be geniuses among them, who will advance the Flora machine-craft by leaps and bounds, but that these geniuses shall be blighted by changes: That their skin turn grey, their feet and legs atrophy, their eyes blur, and their words be reduced to gibbering. They give up much, in pursuit of the height of their craft.

*"Aye. A curious development, these Floras. They sought, they expanded, and they found. This is a glorious change.*

*I would encourage this exploration of theirs. Let me assist.*

*Let some of them be geniuses, and advance their craft by leagues and bounds, through complete devotion to their craft. A total focus, as I can provide. All I ask is that these few be truly devoted. That they eschew all comforts in their pursuit. That they be unrelenting, and heedless of all caution, of all sense beyond the betterment of their craft of new machine work. That their feet and legs fail, their eyes blur, their skin and leaves grey, their language reduce to incoherent mumbling - for they do not need these things, they need only to tinker and scribble and invent and be possessed by their ideas.*

*And hear, always hear, the howling winds of Umbralocht, driving them to greater and greater passion."*
* **The Med'Ja enjoy the blessings of Umbralocht.** When they have discovered insect reppelant, Umbralocht decreed that there should be devotees among them, who will advance Med'Ja medicine and knowledge, that these devotees shall hear and worship Umbralocht, and be blighted by changes of toxicity. These devotees, led by the first of them, Sad'in the Wild , formed the Med'jan cult of Umbralocht .

*"A step forward. I offer a further step. Give some of them to me.*
*Some among them, devotees, followers of their craft, will eat this poison. Drink it, bathe in it. They will become toxic to parasites. Toxic, generally. Their flesh would turn a distinctive spotted-grey. Their insides will adapt. They will hunger for this wax, for other waxes, other stranger plants. These devotees of medicine will reach a deeper understanding. A small number. Only the most driven. The most possessed.*
*Those that fail and lack the drive would die, of course, succumbing to the overdose of poisons.*
*I could negotiate with Keema on their behalf, for further blessings.*
*But their devotion would be to the driving winds of Umbralocht."*
* **The Gibbering Abominations enjoy the blessings of Umbralocht.** Their writhing flesh is to be unique and different for each one, their clones and offspring, when they reproduce through the eating of other races, shall carry beneficial traits of those that were eaten with them. Thereby they will be a varied and challanging foe.

*"Consuming and cloning and mitosis? Lovely! Lovely! Accept my blessings, if you would.*
*Their writhing and unique flesh is... Mmm. Yes. Yes.*
*Let me grant them mutability; Let each clone and copy be of its parent, but not; Let them grow unique and special, based on those that were consumed in their making. With powers of transformation embedded in their flesh, their writhing should pose a challenge to all!"*
* **The Holnareem enjoy the blessings of Umbralocht.**From an accord between Umbralocht, Roxxarum the Holnareem's Creator, and Dreka the Godess of Death, the Holnareem gain the power to inscribe upon each other complex patterns that will presumably lead to magic, and to forge each other into living tools of soul and metal. These tools may live forever, so long as every 400 years they eat another sacrificial Holnareem, and they grow new capabilities over their lives and with each such sacrifice. For half of each day (which half, decided by the skilled craftsman forging them) they are dead, and wander the underworld, but while they are alive, their power is great. Umbralocht granted the Holnareem the compulsion to make such tools from their fellows, and the compulsion to be worked into such tools.

The Holnareem Accord