Alzria

The Waking Terror, Queen of Nightmares, Mother of Monsters, Ruler of all that is Feared.

## **Forms**

### **Base Form:**

Alzria appears as a vaguely humanoid figure, boney and lanky, almost corpse-like. Their head is covered by a large black hood, but one can see their gaunt, light purplish face, covered in scars, her eyes covered by a bloody, ragged, cloth and her mouth filled with jagged, horrific, teeth. The rest of her skin is a similar light purple and similarly covered in horrendous scars and wounds.

Upon her back sit two haggard black vulture-like wings, the feathers constantly falling off by the handful. She has a long, black and purple, chitin covered tail that ends in a blade-like point that is always covered in poison and venom. Her arms are entirely covered in a black, sick looking, chitin that has small fungi growing between its plates, ending with clawed hands. Her legs are covered from the knees down with the same ragged cloth that her eyes are covered with, and they similarly have various blood splotches at various points.

They wear a loose ragged flowing black and purple checkered robe that barely covers their form at times due to the tattered holes and their bone thin body.

(referred to by She/They pronouns btw)

### **True Form:**

Alzria’s true form is a horrific amalgamation of all that has been feared and all that will be feared, ever shifting parts that will look different to anyone who looks at them, playing into every last fear they have. The form is never the same even within the same minute, it can be a formless mass at one point, and a twisted mockery of a human or animal the next, and it will absolutely drive anyone unlucky enough to gaze upon the form into a deep state of madness and unrelenting terror.

## **Domains**

### **Nightmares**

Within the reaches of any being’s mind, sits that great unending corrupting darkness, fear. And much like how dreams become a mirror for the thoughts and memories of a being, so too do nightmares become a horrific reflection of that fear and darkness, becoming even more so twisted and hideous, akin to a mirror shattered into a thousand shards reflecting one’s face.

Yet, unlike Dreams, Nightmares are something far more than warped reflections of the truth, they are a virus, a parasitic blight upon the mind, feasting off of the fear and dread they induce from their own visions, born from the corruption of magic upon the sanctity of dreams.

The more fear one has, the more the nightmares will be drawn, hellbent on driving their victims into an unending madness, even at times able to follow into the waking world, both in hallucinations and even, with the will of Alzria, manifested as horrific beasts and monsters, born from the darkest reaches of the mortal mind, ensuring none are free of their grip.

## **Myth**

### **A Monk's Warning**

*A warning given by Monks to young children experiencing nightmares for the first time*

Beware young ones, the reach of the Waking Terror, beware those dreams turned nightmares.

Yet, let not that fear consume you, steal your souls and your minds to that darkness within.

Let not the Queen of Nightmares sense your fear and terror, for she shall pounce upon it.

Let your mind and dreams drive away the darkness, let not the consuming dread take you.

For you may then find those nightmares following you into the waking world.

And they will then soon become something far more than a mere part of your mind.

Your fears will become all too real.

## Worship

"Why would anyone seek to worship that heinous goddess and her works? They are a plague upon our world."

"Come now, they are something far more than that."

-Unknown account of a Priest speaking to a worshiper of Alzria

Alzria is not a goddes many would worship out of their own free will. Her domain harbors upon the suffering of mortalkind, something very few would willingly invite uponthemselves. Yet, there are still those who may find use in her worship: particullarly cruel rulers who may find use in nightmares to put down their opposition, insane sages who seek to covet the nightmares that brought them low in the first place, and those outcasts and "monsters" who have no other options to turn to. Yet even with these the numbers of her worshipers is small, and are rarley concentrated.

Her specific worship is rather loose, and depends often on what the worshiper desires. Those who wish to ask for nightmares upon their enemies are often required to offer up a sacrifice to her, be if of flesh, food, blood, or other, just depends on how great they want the nightmares to be. Those who are insane or seek her protection have to offer less, merely give her prayer regularly, some sacrificing must be made if they wish for something, though often those sages give it in sanity in exchange for the knowledge of the Nightmares, meanwhile the outcasts ussually give other gifts for her protection and thanks to their new mother.

## **Personality**

The Queen of Nightmares is a strange figure of contradicting personalities: to many mortals and those who seek to uphold such ideas like law, order, and “good”, she is often cruel and callous, creating the very beasts and terrors that they seek to destroy and very much fitting into her role as the Queen of Nightmares, a terror upon the world hellbent on making the lives of mortals eternal suffering. Yet, to others, mostly her fellow gods, she is a less a sadistic terror and more an outgoing being, eager to talk and interact with the other gods of the world, though if she learns they seek to remove her children and kill them, then she becomes the cruel and callous goddess most mortals know her for. Finally, to her children: the monsters of the world and those few, often insane, mortals who worship her, she is a kind and loving figure, even being extremely motherly, willing to protect and guide them as much as she can, befitting her title as “Mother of Monsters”.

## **Creations**

-The Sancturary of Vartai

-The False Moon