Akmod, the Cold Devourer

Precipitant of Desquamation

Akmod, known also as the Cold Devourer, the Master of the Repudiate and Precipitant of Desquamation was an ancient aboleth in service to The Darkbringer in its reconstituted form as Hadar.

## Appearance

Akmod was first encountered by a party exploring the flooded ruins of Mol Boramm, hoping to uncover the treasures of Thumizkreh.

*"Though through little seemed effort by its own part, the ray-like creature, bolstered to gargantuan proportions drifts without restriction through the air, hoving as though submerged within water with slick and tapered blue-black fins torn of scale and marred by continued desquamation. A wide-hanging maw, lined with rows of teeth like shards of grey-glass, glows with a faint bioluminescence, organic embers engulfed in a chilling gale. A turbid haze obscures the form, subtly-shifting as it is, coated the baleful bulk curling into a frilled and asymmetrical tail. Beneath the mass, an trio of tendrils, corded with fibrous sinew reach and grasp in discordant melody."*

## History

Akmod was described as the true servant of Hadar, sacrificing both soul and blood to achieve the goals of the one that they swear fealty. It bore the scars of this service, with pockmarked wounds upon its brow and maw, and a large scar from a strike that raked across both the left pectoral and pelvic fins.

During research completed by Siebern Kuiper on the Wayfinder Stones, he observed a creature that unbeknownst to him at the time, was in truth Akmod in the process of creating the ore by infusing the soil and stone of Ahlus with its own Far Realm essence. This would be in time refined into the Wayfinder Stones, and so deliberately laced the ore through the earth beneath the industrious mining colony of Mol Boramm as to expediate its discovery. In doing so, the Principal Races would create an arcane route of teleportation routed in the soil and stone of Caihrnn's own creation - and thus bypass the wards placed by the Lord in the Quiet Places to prevent the Darkbringer's return. Further complications resulted in the need for continued refinement of the Wayfinder Stones into the Hanbalani Cores, seeking to create a path between the Far Realms and the Prime Material Plane of Ahlus via Dal Quor, the Plane of Dreams.

### Wayfinder Research

#### Part 1

*Gloom, carrying upon it a chill unlike any mundane wind or storm.*

*Something moves within it.*

*The oppressive weight of the land above lingers above, stretching for an eternity.*

*As a bundled mass levitated psionically you float aloft, shaped from soil and stone.*

*In a garbled tongue filled with trilled cachinnation a ritual begins, the echo grows somewhat clearer, and promptly fades entirely.*

#### Part 2

*The ritual continues, the equivocal concoction of vocal and bodily intonations and inflections.*

*With each pseudo-sibilant, the earth from which you watch grows in density, condensed by magics far and foreign.*

*The obscuring fog continues to falter, the rite persists.*

#### Part 3

*The undulating of the unfamiliar utterance, mucous-moistened muscles matched by a percussion provided upon perverse pale pinions, all in perfect unison as the ritual draws to a close. The haze fades in entirety, revealing the creature beyond. A slick mass, maw monstrous and radiant with an imposing crimson-fade. Desquamating flesh and scales spill from ray-like wings, wounds necessary for such a success, such a perversion. Now they curl in prayer around the soil and stone transformed anew. A dorsal-flanked tail quivers in exaltation, a task performed, a purpose fulfilled, repudiation with principle in dedication to another. Into the maw the creation descends, infinite in potential, ebbing with an arcane sonorousness, a resonance without parallel. Together you climb, towards the sound of muffled drums and the clatter of steel against stone.*

*The next aspect begins.*

## Death

Akmod continued to serve their master faithfully, travelling with them to the final assault on Whittengrove. The last survivor of the original harbingers, Akmod was eventually slain by a combined assault by Fawn, Fonteyne, Reginald, though the final killing blow was dealt by Tianyan, who gored the aboleth to death. An eruption of cold energy harried those that defeated him, and once sundered, Akmod's body was consumed by that of Hadar, briefly bolstering the Cinder Star's strength.