Ghashnukriniath, Father of Fomorians

Lugoz was a fiery young Stone Giant, unbending and proud. By the tender age of 200, he had already carved mile after mile of beautiful tunnels, his reliefs depicting the old gods of the Giant Kin. He didn't believe in utilizing the mortal slaves for the artistic work; their touch on the walls sullied the beauty and cruelty a giant's chisel could coax from the stalwart rock. And his depictions were both of these. Skoraeus Stonebones, god of Stone Giants, leered out from his carvings, hiding from all Giant Kin save his beloved Stone Giants, whom he taught in the way of seclusion and artistic devotion.

But Lugoz' muse had been troubled of late. In the further corridors, his most recent work, the carvings had grown... esoteric. Hovering orbs with snakelike hair, squidlike men with quiet malice, tall menhir-shaped creatures with flailing limbs. Though he couldn't explain it, Lugoz was not only disturbed, but was convinced it was all *real*. Perhaps not yet. But eventually these depictions, these prophecies, would come to be.

Three weeks passed since the advent of these fever-dream drawings had flowed forth from his chisel, but the dread only grew. As he finished up a particularly eerie relief of a grotesquely misshapen giant-form figure, he heard a voice come from down the hallway. A voice speaking a language he was familiar with: Deurgar. Another set of hands to feed the kilns and sharpen the tools! Lugoz set down his chisel and mallet, and retrieved from his rucksack a bolas and a net, and set off down the hallway at a run, his padded footsteps making little sound. The voice kept ringing out ahead of him, but he never seemed to gain any ground. *Faster than any Deurgar I've encountered yet*, he mused as he ran. He rounded corner after corner, and began to admit he was getting winded.

He charged around one more corner and at last caught sight of his quarry. An older specimen. His eyes were rheumy and his beard was a wispy grey. How had this old, old dwarf outrun a young Stone Giant? Then he saw it- the magic. There was a purple fog drifting about the old Duergar's eyes, which only held a blank expression. No fear, no anger, no pride, just... nothing. And there was also a magical field around the creature's feet- ethereal, shimmering tentacles, which lent tremendous speed to the old fellow. Lugoz felt a single bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck. *This is no Deurgar magic. Then who...?*

Then he saw them. From six perfectly spaced corridors around him, tall, silent creatures floated forth, their tentacled faces unreadable above their purple tabards. Lugoz fell into a fighting crouch, drawing a stony dagger and baring his teeth. But the six figures didn't move. Instead, a presence descended from *above*. It looked like a pulsating boulder, drifting down slowly. As it neared his elevation, he saw first a long, crescent crack in the boulder that resolved into a smile full of sharp fangs. Above the smile was an orb-like eye, the hourglass pupil staring at him. And finally, above that terrible eye were several other eyes on stalks, taking in the entire room as it entered. The smile broadened.

"Ah, ah, good *morrow* to you, creature. You are the first of your kind to behold me"--here there was a cruel chuckle--", and as such, I would present you with a boon and a position as vassal in my court."

Lugoz' eyes grew wide, sensing the hidden malice behind the faux-courtly words. He began to edge backwards as the smile broadened. He had almost made it into the entry corridor when one of the stalked eyes whipped his way, the mad pupil pulsing with purple light. And his body simply left his control. No thought could raise his arms, no scream would leave his mouth.

The large creature turned from him dismissively, a sigh escaping his horrid mouth. "Now creature, surely you know you're not to leave the presence of a god without leave. But this I shall forgive you, and grant you my boon and my esteem all the same. But certainly not in this unusual state." The purple-lit tentacle lashed backwards, and Lugoz felt his body lurch up to its full height and dart forward as another tentacle slid his way, this one with a polygonal pupil that gave a terrible grating sound as the lid shut and opened in an agonizing blink. An eldritch beam lanced from that wicked pupil, catching his left hand, and his body was wracked with agony as the limb began to swell in areas and shrink in others. When the arm was sufficiently deformed, the eye targeted the left leg, then the right, eventually reforming all Lugoz' limbs into a horrid, twisted frame. His mind didn't snap until the stalk began to stitch its transmutation magic into his torso, and he felt his organs bubble and pop under the terrible power. Lastly, the eye took hold of his head, ballooning out his left eye and shrinking his right. His skull swelled into a hideous gourd-like shape, and his teeth sharpened into cruel knives. Then at last, both the transmuting beam and the mind-dominating beam released him, and he fell sobbing to the floor.

The torturer advanced on Lugoz and looked down on his handiwork, and in the reflection of that great, gloating eye, he saw the pathetic horror he had become.

"I have taken in order to give, my dear vassal," the creature crooned. "Yet one more gift do I have to bestow upon you. *Our will*." With that, the creature began to rise through the ceiling as it had come, and the tentacle-faced humanoids approached him, linking hands. As they began to burn away his consciousness, he heard the large creature say through grinning teeth "We shall call you Ghashnukriniath. It means 'runt-hound' in the noble tongue. Fear not- when you're finished, we shall feed you the Deurgar, and you'll feel ever-so-much better."

*Penned by Scribe Simholme, with kindly help by Hofnar Forgewife*.