Various Cults Of The Elder Devourers

There are various other worlds in existance, with their own histories and rules. Many are broadly similar to our own, but one stands out as posing a unique threat.

In this particular world, predation became a vicious cycle with beings devouring one another and gaining strength from it until only seven remained, each bloated on power. None of these beings had the strength to attack and overpower any other, resulting  in a tense stalemate, and in time all seven beings drifted into a resentful slumber. They have remained dormant for thousands of years.

When the worlds were shattered, cracks formed in this reality. The elder devourers stirred in their sleep, reaching out lazilly to grope at what had disturbed them. Their unconcious probings wreaked massive devastation, and everything their raw influence touched was drawn to them and subsumed. As it became apparent that more food had become available, the devourers began to wake up.

It rapidly became clear that, in the event of the elder devourers fully waking, their strength would be sufficient to scour all life from the world to feed their rapacious hunger. Eventually, the elder who had fed fastest would turn on its companions and destroy them until there was only a single, endless hunger left in the entirety of reality. With nothing else to devour, the elder would consume itself, and so the world would end.

To prevent this from happening, various scholars formed a plan. The elder devourers would be fed a slow trickle of sustenance. If they were fed too much, they would become excited and fully awaken. If their food was cut of entirely, they would notice the change and again wake to find out where their food had gone. Instead the food needed to be a constant, soothing drip feed to keep them slumbering. As well as this, each elder needed to be fed as much as its companions; if an imbalance was allowed to devellop, the stronger devourers would consume the weaker and then turn their hunger on the rest of the worlds.

To achieve this, seven hidden societies were set up, one for each elder devourer. Each society would sacrifice souls, flesh and money to the devourers in a set of constant, ponderous rituals designed to carefully regulate the process. Each such cult went underground, so that it's mission could not be blocked by wider society, and kept only sporadic contact with its fellows to make sure the sacrifices were kept up at balanced paces. For some time, this worked very well, and as centuries passed the cults began to forget the original purpose of their rites, only certainthat the sacrifices must continue.

The problem with this set up took some time to emerge. As sacrifices were consumed by the elders, they unconciously expanded their influence to fill those voids. A cultist who cut off their hand to offer it to an elder would find an elder's probing tendril filling the space with a new hand, often demonstrating strange new abilities as the elder's power manifested. Over time, cultists began to realise that lavish, dramatic sacrifices were a quick route to power, and as more unscrupulous members rose in the organization the rate of sacrifice gradually sped up. As the elder devourers recieved ever greater tribute, they were drawn closer to waking up and their gifts became increasingly potent.

This, then, explains the current cults of the elder devourers. Various hidden cults, dedicated to offering souls to sleeping extradimensional predator-gods of horrible power. Every year, the cults grow more extreme in their practices as the elder's influence expands, and the rate of sacrifice grows until eventually, soon, the elder devourers will rise from their dreams and consume the world.

Vashti, the Shining Lady

Ungoliant, the Spider Who's Limbs are Razors

Carcharoth, the Red-mawed Wolf

Absimilard, the Cracked Alabastar Prince

Lycelius, Master of Chains of Brass

Jaharis, the Blood Queen of the Dying Son

Kulpala, the Cathederal of Flesh and Gristle