Lady of the Deep

## Lady of the Deep(*Great Old One*)

Mark of Tehrlica

The Lady of the Deep is a Great Old One that is an amalgam of an ancient elemental beast, potent primal magics, and the willing host (or hosts) that are given to the beast as tribute. She resides in the deepest depths of the Material Plane of Urz, so deep that it borders the Elemental Chaos and the manifestation of Earth.

## Description

The Lady of the Deep is a massive worm-like creature measuring some 600 feet in length, though it is typically only ever seen erupting from earth or

## History

### Early Life

The entity known in the current age as the Lady of the Deep began as a primordial being of primal consumption. It predates the modern concept of history, but ancient cave markings depict the creature very similar to the mark that symbolizes her to this day.

### The Ritual

During the Lost Age, a tribe of death-worshipping zealots found a soul well in a rich and bountiful valley and perverted it with the magics taught to them by demons. They acted on behalf of an ancient demon that desired nothing more than to consume. It was the goal of the zealots to have their leader sacrificed in the ritual, allowing them to become one with the primordial worm and act as a source of destruction to be wielded by the zealots. The ritual was stopped by champions of the valley. In the end, the champions went their separate ways after this victory. One of the champions passed from Urz into a demiplane that would later be bound behind one of thirteen gates. One went on to teach the importance of teamwork to her people. Another continued on to teach the will of the ancestors. Another sang her song so proudly she was immortalized by time itself. Yet another went on to become a beacon of early mysticism related to the sidereal powers. And the last of them remained in the broken form of the worm, mourning the loss of her mother. It was this last champion who, by powerful emotional response and self-determination, joined with the broken body of the primordial worm to form the Lady of the Deep.

### Pattern of Destruction

Throughout history, there are tales of attacks by a massive sea serpent upon ships and in some cases even entire fleets. The denizens of the Foul Deep find massive tunnelways left behind by the Lady and refer to them as the Lady's Road. Her attacks and rampages are entirely random and horrifically quick. Attempts by the Grey Order to identify the near-divine nature of the attacks always lead to the aftermath of the attacks, as the Lady would retreat to hid deep in the borderlands of Urz and the Elemental Chaos and was undetectable by even the most powerful magics.

In this way, she became more of a folk story or myth than a real danger to be feared. That is to say true of any who did not come into direct contact with her. The survivors of such attacks were sometimes seen as mad or false themselves. In some instances, her attacks would wipe entire settlements off the map and erase them from history. The first worshippers of the Lady of the Deep were people who had seen her penchant for destruction first hand and be left in awe of it so fully they formed rites and structure to the worship of her. This worship soon became a means for the Lady to connect with these people and form pacts to have a more direct means of guiding her most loyal worshippers.

Throughout the ages, the Lady would shed her skin. This would involve the sentient aspects of the Lady leaving the massive worm exterior and then entering into a specially bred larvae of the primordial worm and regrowing to her full strength. This process would take place every thousand or so years and was the main reason she would surface, destroy things, and take on followers.

### Shedding Her Skin

In the year 1055 CA, the Lady of the Deep attacked a number of merfolk settlements in the waters around the Broken Blade Coast of Ocyria. She had been summoned to do so by her most devout followers, a merfolk cult in the Tidewatcher tribe of coral merfolk, of which Nimalia Tidewatcher's parents were a part of. In an attempt to widen her influence and to find a means to be reborn, the Lady granted her powers throughout the region, spurring a number of warlocks to be formed with her granted power and given the edict to seek out giant pearls. One such warlock was Terry Silvereye.

The cultists