IN> The River of Blood

[James Walker]

Several Millennia ago, a Discordant Samingan found his Need(Blood) causing him severe problems whenever he was recalled to Abaddon. By means long since forgotten, he forced Stigmata on Soul Grubs, keeping them in a deep cave - and nearly drowned there when their numbers grew so great that the cave flooded with blood. 

Any Damned who drink from the river instinctively know that if they keep drinking, they will develop Stigmata. The river doesn’t appear to be any special power to cause Stigmata, and blood taken from the river is completely ordinary. Current diabolical theory is that this is the flipside to the ability of the Blessed to shed Disadvantages at will; drinking puts the Damned in the mindset required to voluntarily create the Stigmata Disadvantage. The Damned seem to choose how much Stigmata they develop, and where, so this theory is probably correct. 

Soul grubs mindlessly drink from the river, swimming upstream to the submerged cave. Somehow they sense this as a place of safety. Swimming towards the cave is only possible with a Will at least twice as great as the swimmer’s total Forces, and entering it requires a Swimming roll with a CD equal or greater to the swimmer’s total Forces - putting it beyond most other beings. Here they twist and squirm, aggravating their wounds and spawning the river.

As one of the few features of Abaddon, the river sees a great deal of traffic. Harvesters prefer to hunt along the river, and then make rafts out of their victims that the current draws back to the Bone Citadel. As Stigmata makes the Damned easier to track, most drinkers are swiftly rendered down to Soul Grubs. The exceptions are those who transform into aquatic or amphibious predators, who hunt in the river. Visiting Gluttons come to drink from the river; the blood is one of the raw materials useful for manufacturing a Bathtub of Youth; and barrels of blood are transported to Shal-Mari for sale. The rare Undead who find a way to visit Hell normally visit the river as well. 

The blood of the river clots, forming scabby islands that can be ridden with a Acrobatics(Perception) check. These islands continue growing as they travel downstream, and are as large as icebergs by the time the river empties into the Cocytus. Here, the toxic acids from Tartarus break down the islands, and kill any river-bourne predators unfortunate enough to have been swept out of Abaddon.


      Get the name you always wanted with the new y7mail email address.
www.yahoo7.com.au/mail