A flint snapped in the dark. Greasy flame rip­pled over mea­gre kin­dling. Hair and pine chip­pings soaked in oil. A star­tling blaze. 

“S’bright,” mum­bled Dole, squint­ing. He pulled his min­er’s cap low.

His com­pan­ion was a spindly rag­man with a gui­tar and a sack on his back. He shad­ed his carmine eyes. “Yeah.”

They sat. Stiff, squint­ing, hunch­ing on the stone. About them, grey trunks rose in the dark, ver­tig­i­nous­ly tall. Count­less pil­lars of gran­ite. Great chains hung amidst them, their anchors lost high beyond the fire­light. Bony things dan­gled from their hooked ends.

Dole eyed those things. They were human-shaped, most­ly. Still as stone. “Who’s hung them there, Senaphor?”

“Black knights,” shrugged the rag­man, not look­ing. He plucked a long, dry bone from his sack and placed it on the fire. It caught quick­ly, crack­ing. “Built these halls, long time ago.”

“Ye ever see one?”

“Seen?” He shrugged, piled more bones on the fire. They smoked grey­ly. “Nah. Seen their stone beds, though. With them­selves carved on top like dead kings.”

“Why’d they do it?”

“Stor­age, I guess.”

They sat awhile. Senaphor piled leg­bones on the fire until it smoked and stank. Dole slouched and watched. Idly, he pulled a lit­tle round cage from his jack­et. A bat­tered toad squat­ted inside, large as his thumb. It gave a weari­some squeak.

Senaphor looked up, eyed the toad. “Chow or pet?”

“Nei­ther.” Dole frowned at the amphib­ian. “S’a mince toad. A tool.”

“What’s it do ye?” said the rag­man. He pro­duced a tin ket­tle from his sack, blew out the dust, and put it on the fire.  

Dole turned his lip. “S’meant to keep a per­son from falling down ‘ere.”

Senaphor opened a tin, shook some ground cof­fee into the ket­tle. “Lot of good it did, yeah?”

“Don’t be tellin’ me.” 

He pon­dered a bit, watched his com­pan­ion pour from a can­teen. “Mad luck I ran into you, though. S’worth mar­veling at.”

“Yeah, well,” said Senaphor. “Sup­pose it is.” 

Dole eyed the frog. It gave him a lop-eyed look of dis­taste. “I’ll set this lit­tle gob free when we get back.” He stuffed it back in his coat. “And show you a real good ale back at home, Senaphor. I’m right grate­ful.”

“Not trou­bling me,” croaked the rag­man. “Be back before long.” He stretched, groaned for his joints, drew the bat­tered gui­tar from his back. With a huff, he leaned against his sack, plucked a string, turned a peg, plucked it again. 

Dole frowned. “Some­thing gonna hear?” he said, looked about. 

Senaphore point­ed up. “Noth­ing to hear, any­more.” 

He plucked and tuned until the catgut sang an open G, began to pick out an idle tune. Strings echoed long and lone­some midst the pil­lars and the hang­ing bones. Senaphor played slow, lis­tened to every note returned from the void. 

Steam curled into the black. Bones snapped, browned, and spat sparks. The ket­tle bur­bled. Dole poured thick cof­fee into cop­per mugs. They drank grate­ful­ly, despite the grit and the taste of char. 

A crack of iron boomed over the dark stone. 

The trav­el­ers froze, lis­ten­ing. A coil­ing crash of falling chain met their ears. A sequen­tial thun­der of crack­ing links, blar­ing­ly loud over the sheer breadth of stone. It went on for sec­onds, direc­tion­less. Rever­ber­a­tions shud­dered long after it quit.

Dole’s eyes bugged. “Think some­thing did hear,” he whis­pered.

“Yeah,” scram­bled Senaphor, red eyes dart­ing. He kicked to linen-wrapped feet, hunched in alarm like a cat. He stowed his gui­tar, scut­tled to the near­est pil­lar. “Out. Out of the light.”

They scut­tled behind the dark­ened rear of a gran­ite trunk. Pressed to cold stone, they heaved ner­vous­ly, qui­et as could be allowed. For many min­utes, they hid.

Scrap­ing foot­falls gained from the black, accom­pa­nied by the slick grind of drag­ging chain. Met­al gleamed dul­ly. Dole’s eyes bugged. He tapped Senaphor and point­ed a fin­ger.

From some far angle between the fire and the trav­el­ers’ hid­ing place, there stum­bled a bony thing. An ema­ci­at­ed wreck, pegged through the col­lar­bone by a hook and iron chain. It leaned into the iron weight, drag­ging raw heels hard over stone.

Briefly, it stopped, turned to the fire. Vague light caught on its lip­less teeth, and on its eyes bolt­ed over by old steel. It walked on.

Only long after the grind­ing fad­ed did Dole dare speak.

“Blimey. What are they?”

“Sor­cery,” said Senaphor. 

Dole gulped, looked to the fire, now burned low. 

“Say we take the cof­fee and we run the oppo­site way.”

“Yeah.”

They did.

An after­noon drowse sub­sumed the lec­ture hall. Some hun­dred stu­dents dozed where they sat, backs warmed by a green sun­set fil­tered through ivy-encrust­ed win­dows. Blue uni­form jack­ets strewed the isles, dis­card­ed for cool­er shirt­sleeves. In the heat, stu­dents reclined, soles propped on groan­ing seat backs.

The door cracked open. Heads lift­ed with vague alert­ness. A mop-haired pro­fes­sor in a blue tail­coat appeared. He lugged a bat­tered brief­case and a meter-long archival box bound in brass, pant­i­ng.

“Good after­noon, every­one.”

A half­heart­ed cho­rus of “Good after­noon, Pro­fes­sor Pied­mont,” met him.

Pied­mont grinned crooked­ly. He hauled across the broad stage to a sun­lit desk, set the box down soft­ly, dropped his brief­case uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly. With a sleeve, he gave the hot black­board a per­func­to­ry, inef­fec­tu­al swipe, fail­ing to clean it at all. He turned to the class and straight­ened his coat.

“Par­don my late­ness,” he gri­maced. “I wast­ed a con­sid­er­able time con­vinc­ing our good Dean to restore my access to the Con­ser­va­to­ry archives.” He ges­tured to the box. A chuck­le met that state­ment.

“Now,” con­tin­ued Pied­mont. “I under­stand it is a love­ly day, and that the temp­ta­tion of the out­doors and the West Gar­den is like­ly dis­abling your abil­i­ty to pay atten­tion to anoth­er lec­ture about Pro­l­ish daub­ing rit­u­als.” At this state­ment, a mut­ter went up. Many eye­brows raised at the Pro­fes­sor.

“Ah, don’t be sur­prised. It was my year that start­ed all that ilic­i­tude in the first place.” * Some­one applaud­ed. Pied­mont waved it off. “So, in con­sid­er­a­tion of this dis­able­ment, I’ve elect­ed to lec­ture on some­thing else today.” He swept up his coat­tails and sat on the desk.

“If I could have every­one’s atten­tion, I think you’ll find this a relief from the daub­ing rit­u­als.” He squint­ed up and down the isles, frown­ing. “ ‘Atten­tion’ includes you, Hodgkins, Forder. Don’t think I can’t see you snog­ging.” Hodgkins and Forder blushed, quit.

“Good.” Pied­mont shift­ed, leaned back until the rapid­ly-reced­ing sun­light paint­ed him only nose-up. “To begin, let’s briefly for­get we’re study­ing ancient his­to­ry and focus on the present day.” Heads tilt­ed at him, dull-eyed.

“These days, there’s a lot of doom­say­ing going on, what with parou­sia and and the Los Lejaña epi­dem­ic. Strange times.” He ges­tured expan­sive­ly. “So, if we are to be doom­say­ers our­selves, how do we sup­pose civ­i­liza­tion might end?”

Silence. Beyond the open win­dow, a chaffinch sang briefly. Sun­light sunk fur­ther low­er, leav­ing more of the desk to shad­ow. Stu­dents shift­ed awk­ward­ly. Pied­mont looked about expec­tant­ly, drum­ming his heels against the desk. “Come now. What do we fear?”

Final­ly, a hand raised. Pied­mont beamed. “Yes, Alphons?”

“Plague, Sir?” said Alphons, qui­et.

Pied­mont raised a fin­ger. “You’re right, but plague could only play a part. He nod­ded to Johans­son. “If plague relies on us to repro­duce, there’s no sense in killing us all. Mice will remain, in any case. Any­one else?”

Anoth­er hand. “Quorelle?”

Quorelle adjust­ed her glass­es, ten­ta­tive­ly spoke. “Aggres­sions from the South?”

“Inter­na­tion­al war?”

“I guess.”

Pied­mon­t’s face pinched polite­ly, as if he were con­sid­er­ing a mouth­ful of wine. “Desta­bi­liz­ing, at most. One side will most cer­tain­ly remain, like­ly that which holds the Bay of Grey.” He looked about. “Any oth­ers?”

A pause. Peo­ple tit­tered amongst them­selves. The sun had sunk fur­ther, cast­ing their faces into back­lit obscu­ri­ty. Pied­mont sur­veyed them, hope­ful. “I promise we’re get­ting some­where, with this. Give me anoth­er.”

“Man­i­fest doom?” ** called some­one in the back, abrupt­ly.

Pied­mont grinned. “Very good.” He stood, began to pace into the beam of sun­light and back again.

“ ‘Fast is the shield against night,’ yes? One of our eldest cul­tur­al motifs: We must nec­es­sar­i­ly defeat the encroach­ing Oth­er and return to antein­ter­stic­tion secu­ri­ty.” † He stepped into shad­ow. “Lest the world of mankind fall to fairies.”

Pied­mont waved an insis­tent fin­ger. “That, accord­ing to a mil­len­ni­um of folk­lore, of tra­di­tion, of pro­pa­gan­da, would be the end of the world.” A cho­rus of nods.

“Hence, by break­ing the forests, and slay­ing the mon­sters, and build­ing our cities of salt and iron, we ban­ish the Oth­er. And ban­ish­ing the Oth­er is good.” He paused. “Right?” More nod­ding.

Pied­mont shook his head. “Wrong.”

The drowsy rows looked askance. They straight­ened, frowned, mut­tered amongst them­selves. Pied­mont grinned back at them, returned to sit on his desk.

He reached for the archival box, began to undo its clasps. “ ‘Wrong? Why wrong?’ ” he mimed. He undid the lid, rev­er­ent­ly lift­ed some­thing heavy from with­in. In the shad­ow, it was indis­tinct. Large and long in his hands. “Because the älves sup­plant­ed some­thing far, far worse.” He lift­ed the thing into light.

It was an iron helm. Near a meter long, cru­el­ly beaked like an eye­less crow’s skull. Pit­ted and black, it shone not a glim­mer in the sun­light.

“Naus­sians,” he said. “The most awful prac­ti­tion­ers of sor­cery since the Ancient Nôr.” ††

Whis­pers filled the hall, min­gled with sum­mer breeze whistling through part­ed win­dow­panes. Stu­dents leaned for­ward, no longer a hint adoze.

“Mas­ters of sor­cery before even the Præ­cant­ian Age. ‡ Not humans any longer, but sor­cer­ers. A peo­ple so rav­eled in their black art, they wore their armor as skin.” He flipped the helm over, reveal­ing pat­terns inside like spongy bone. The front rows gasped in dis­gust.

“Naus­sia ruled all the spine of the Coast for cen­turies. Not an empire, but a coven.” Pied­mont grew more riled. “Every Nauss­ian was a lord among fel­low lords. They shared their secrets of pow­er and plague; their resources; their mil­lions of chimeras and caul­dron-slaves.”

“Their union was immense. An inhu­mane mono­cul­ture to which the mere sur­viv­ing king­doms of the age paid tithes of flesh. An out­ra­geous domin­ion. They prac­ti­cal­ly ruled the world.”

Pied­mont put down the helm. “Can any­one tell me what’s so odd about this sto­ry, so far? What does­n’t add up?”

A hand shot up. “Yes, Philome?”

“Pro­fes­sor, I think it’s odd we’ve nev­er heard of it before.”

“Ah,” said Pied­mont. “That’s because it’s unpop­u­lar to teach. The Crown does­n’t real­ly approve, and you’ll see why momen­tar­i­ly. Any­one else?”

Anoth­er hand. “Daud?”

Daud spoke loud­ly. “If Naus­sia was so influ­en­tial, why are they gone? Where’re the ruins?”

Pied­mont snapped his fin­gers. “Daud’s guessed it. Where did they go?”

He began to pace again. Only a bare strip of sun still shone above the stage and black­board. “After cen­turies of dom­i­na­tion, the Naus­sians hit an obsta­cle: Some­how, they man­aged to draw the wrath of the Oth­er.”

On the dim stage, Pied­mon­t’s eyes twin­kled. “And for all their slaves, and their fire, and their iron, the Naus­sians could not beat the Oth­er. So, they buried them­selves. In the Under­world, in their fortress cat­a­combs”

“They buried their armies, their chimeras, their secrets. They shut them­selves away in black sar­copha­gi and went to sleep until the älves went away.” Pied­mont paused. “And they still sleep today.”

The hall was now quite dark. A mere orange glow lin­gered in the ivy-choked panes. Reflec­tions of eyes watched the pro­fes­sor, uncer­tain. They wait­ed.

Pied­mont care­ful­ly placed the hel­met back it its box. He resumed speak­ing, soft­ly. “If the forests are cut, and the älves are dri­ven off, and the Oth­er­world is ban­ished, Naus­sia will reawak­en. With all its sor­cery, and its chimeras, and its mil­lions risen from the char­nel pits.”

“That would be the end of the world.”

Pied­mont stood, plucked up his brief­case and the archive box. He turned to face the dark­ened rows. Silent eyes sur­veyed him. “I’ll give relat­ed read­ings on Firs­day. Enjoy your week­end, every­one.”

With that, he depart­ed.

Naussia

Sor­cer­ous cul­ture, First Mil­len­ni­um, ano ~350-900 (2,550 years ago)

Neath the skin of the world, in the dry mar­row of moun­tains’ dead bones, there lie black gates to Naus­sia.

Once a realm of august sorcery—a coven-fed­er­a­tion of unsur­passed brutality—Naussia is now a derelict. An antiq­ui­ty black with tar­nish. Sunk and sleep­ing in Under­world depths.

Before their slum­ber, the armored sor­cer­ers of Naus­sia com­mand­ed all the moun­tain­ous spine of the world. A coali­tion of cun­ning despots who in their long regime defined sor­cery for all mil­len­nia to come.

The first Naus­sians man­i­fest­ed organ­i­cal­ly. Nat­u­ral­ly, like jack­als to a car­cass. They were scav­engers, con­vened in the lat­er cen­turies of chaos fol­low­ing the Doom of the Ancient Nôr to exploit the potent wreck of that civ­i­liza­tion. They shared from the out­set a secret tongue known as Sor­dor, which was both lan­guage and social con­tract. A sor­cery in itself, to speak Sor­dor was to be affect­ed by it; to be enjoined to hate, to self­ish­ness, and to a cryp­tic suprema­cism that bound Naus­sia more effec­tive­ly than any hon­est sys­tem of law or moral sen­si­bil­i­ty. ‡‡

The found­ing Naus­sians came to pow­er in the sprawl­ing Gorathi­an Moun­tains, and claimed there a fortress-heart­land in the cor­pus of calami­tous Mount Helle­bore and its thou­sand val­leys. Their ear­ly hold­fasts in this moun­tain realm were advan­ta­geous both for their unas­sail­able height and their prox­im­i­ty to the Nôr ruins secret­ed in pro­tect­ed slopes and moun­tain val­leys. Shel­tered from the worst of the nat­ur­al dis­as­ters that con­joined the Nôr apoc­a­lypse, these were rich with tech­no­log­i­cal sal­vage, ripe for the pick­ing. From the moun­tains, Naus­sia exploit­ed also the lowli­er Nôr sur­vivor-descen­dants who lead mea­ger lives in the steppes and low­lands. They demand­ed from these frag­ile set­tle­ments a reg­u­lar price for sur­vival: A sea­son­al tithe of infants. This obla­tion would come to be known as sac­ri­fi­ci­um mon­tibus, and it defined the lives of Naus­si­a’s unfor­tu­nate con­tem­po­raries.

In those pan­de­mo­ni­um-years, ear­ly Naus­sia derived obscene pow­ers from the won­drous corpse of the dead Nôr. Unre­strained by com­pas­sion or law, they engi­neered the ante­types of today’s sor­ceries: Knuck­le­bones, incunab­u­la, and, most notably, the achieve­ment in gore that is the philoso­pher’s stone, an advance­ment they exploit­ed whol­ly and with aston­ish­ing cru­el­ty.

They brewed atroc­i­ties in glut­to­nous bio­log­i­cal caul­drons. Uncount­ed mil­lions of lives fed these ves­sels, and mil­lions more were con­vert­ed into lobot­o­mized slaves. Into an unri­valed labor force. Unseeing—their eyes shut by steel plates. Untiring—their labors pro­longed by sor­cer­ous half-life. Unwavering—controlled by pow­ers of men­tal influ­ence nev­er since repli­cat­ed. And utter­ly dis­pos­able. With these mis­er­ables, the Naus­sians cut cat­a­comb fortress­es miles deep into the gran­ite of the Gorathi­ans and fes­tered there like a can­cer in the spine of the world.

In their bas­tions, they wrought unremit­ting­ly the mak­ings of sor­cer­ous war. For sol­diers, they man­u­fac­tured caul­dron-born grues; plague repur­posed with mil­i­tary intent. For war-machines and tomb-guardians, they birthed the first chimeras—lethal hybrids cut from scor­pi­on and bull; babe and wolf; ser­pent, goat, and lion. With these armies, the Naus­sia pros­e­cut­ed war against all the North, con­fi­dent in deep­en­ing moun­tain lairs.

No foe endured these forces. No human force could endure the rav­ages of plague and end­less attri­tion. With every caul­dron-born slain, anoth­er was fed into the pots of sor­cery and rede­ployed with new life and fresh arma­ment. Ghast­ly attri­tion assured the Naus­sians every vic­to­ry, for their reserves only grew.

All the while, their sor­cery grew only more ter­ri­ble. The found­ing Naus­sians quick slipped the lim­its of death, becom­ing no longer men and women, but beings of their own design. Crea­tures of abom­inable real­iza­tion. They for­sook their mor­tal bones for those of titans, greater and more stat­uesque. They flayed their own frames and reset the flesh with plates of ebon iron. They dis­card­ed their own faces, their human eyes, choos­ing instead the beaked vis­age of high ter­ror. § All Naus­sians would assume this final form, that of the armored sor­cer­er-king; the tow­er­ing opus of dis­dain.

They cared not for low human­i­ty, let alone what remained of their own. Any and all sor­cer­er-com­rades to per­ish in the name of dom­i­na­tion and hideous progress were jeal­ous­ly dis­sect­ed, absu­tu­rat­ed into incunab­u­la of immense scale. These were books of sor­cery, sewn from the col­lect­ed brains of the most per­verse prac­ti­tion­ers to have ever worked the black arts. By these flesh­ly tomes, the knowl­edge and cul­ture of Naus­sia grew ever greater, ever queer­er with every pass­ing cen­tu­ry. §§

But before the eighth cen­tu­ry of the First Mil­len­ni­um could round, Naus­sia was met with a foe which would not be so eas­i­ly quashed nor ensor­celled: The Oth­er­world, and its fick­le chil­dren.

For brief cen­turies after the inter­stic­tion of the worlds, the Naus­sians had ruled in a rel­a­tive vac­u­um, con­test­ed only by peo­ples of mid­dling pow­er and small sor­cery. After crush­ing these, they set their dire con­quest to the world’s frayed edge: The raw bor­ders of the alien Oth­er­world, the home of älves. Black eyes in creep­ing mist, capa­ble of sud­den and vicious vio­lence when pro­voked.

The Naus­sians’ provo­ca­tion proved their undo­ing. Though the älves had no iron, no World­ly sor­cery, their coun­terof­fen­sive was dev­as­tat­ing. Nigh-invis­i­ble, immune to plague, and charged with a hos­til­i­ty so honed, so coor­di­nat­ed it could only be the prod­uct of an ecosys­tem itself enraged, the pale sol­diers of the Oth­er cut down caul­dron-born armies with one-sided ease. For the first time, Naus­sians them­selves fell in bat­tle, their iron cara­paces proof­less against the rib­bon-lances of Oth­er­world knights.

Whether by fear or by hard con­sen­sus, the Naus­sians with­drew to their fortress cat­a­combs. To the black of the Under­world they went, to their square-kilo­me­ters of chis­eled halls in light­less gran­ite, carved by mil­lions of caul­dron-slaves over an age of domin­ion. ‖

In that awful sub­ter­ranea, in uncount­ed, dis­parate tombs of unfath­omable scale and sep­a­ra­tion, the Naus­sians buried them­selves.

They locked away their caul­drons and pre­cious tomes in trapped com­plex­es of hor­rid device, guard­ed by their direst, death­less chimeras. They marched their remain­ing legions into bonepits, ossuar­ies for once and future armies. They hooked their legions of slaves by their col­lars and their thin hips, hung them by the thou­sands in stark halls, like queer sta­lac­tites. They interred even them­selves in black sar­copha­gi secret­ed in grim sep­ul­chers.

In this way, Naus­sia dis­ap­peared, came to rest neath the skin of the world for pon­der­ous mil­len­nia. It has slept, in all its strength and all its sor­cery, in the silence and the dark, unto the dis­ap­pear­ance of the Oth­er. Unto the ripen­ing of the world.

Today, the oaks are being cut. The sprig­gans trapped and skinned. The Oth­er­world and its älves dri­ven from the march­lands.

Some­where, after all this time, black caul­drons are lit anew.

Naussian Style guide

A grow­ing list of Nauss­ian top­ics, foes, and items, the bet­ter to inform the cre­ation of dun­geons. WIP.

Ruins

Immense, mind-numb­ing sub­ter­ranea. Hun­dreds of kilo­me­ters of cyclo­pean halls. Stark walk­ways over ludi­crous char­nel-pits. Frigid cryp­to­por­ti­cus­es over­look­ing moun­tain gulches brim­ming with frozen bones. Stairs where­upon exhaus­tion and col­lapse will meet your before the next land­ing. Moun­tain tow­ers clad in rime, well above the world’s blan­ket of rich oxy­gen. All hewn by a mil­lion slaves. Geo­met­ri­cal­ly bru­tal and with­out adorn­ment. Tra­vers­ing the lim­i­nal vast­ness of Naus­sia is a chal­lenge for both mind and body.

Worse still, every Nauss­ian com­plex is prox­i­mal the Under­world. One foul step through an innocu­ous arch­way may spell pas­sage into a realm where return is nigh impos­si­ble, save to the ancients who plot­ted the stone long ago.

Traps. Nauss­ian archi­tec­ture does not make notable use of traps. The super­scale of their com­plex­es was and remains ade­quate deter­rence against invaders. Even the lethal fairy-sol­diers of the Oth­er in their vic­to­ry did not dare pass the black Gorathi­an gates, did not dare pur­sue the Naus­sians into the Under­world.

Sorceries

• Sorcerer’s stones. Naus­sia is wide­ly believed to have first engi­neered the philoso­pher’s stone. With it, they achieved out­comes mod­ern prac­ti­tion­ers could not dream of, even if they held such a stone in hand. They achieved not just per­son­al immor­tal­i­ty, but a skill in bio­engi­neer­ing that extend­ed to plant, ani­mal, and fun­gus. They con­trolled mind­less plague as eas­i­ly as one might a dog, cre­at­ed the direst arche­types of chimeras, and poi­soned vast moun­tain lakes with flesh-eat­ing algae.
• Aar­time­try. First, too, were Nauss­ian sor­cer­ers the first aar­timetrists. Post-Inter­stitc­tion, the new­born Coast was awash with poor­ly under­stood adja­cen­cies, with alien worlds over­lap­ping the Coastal world’s frayed edges. Naus­sia learned to detect the thin places, the inter­stices, an art lat­er known as dows­ing. Once locat­ed, an inter­stice can be encour­aged, breach­ing the worlds (or min­i­mized and avoid­ed.) This allowed Naus­sia reli­able two-way pas­sage to and from the oth­er­wise-track­less Under­world, where they built their com­plex­es, and to breach the plas­mic realm and from it cap­ture dae­mons.
• Dae­monism. Advanced aar­time­try per­mits the draw­ing of a cruor, a quan­ti­ty of super­in­tel­li­gent dae­monism from the plas­mic realm, into a vac­u­um-mag­net­ic lacu­na gen­er­at­ed with­in spe­cial­ized ves­sel known as a res­o­nance sphere (or a Nauss­ian caul­dron.) Naus­sia first became aware of dae­monisms (known as cruores while in the Coastal world) after encoun­ter­ing their unin­hib­it­ed, awful forms ram­pag­ing in the wake of the Doom. Dae­monisms are vast­ly intel­li­gent but leap to betray­al when not con­tained. They assume ani­mal tis­sues, usu­al­ly a human body, and com­mit ludi­crous cam­paigns of vio­lence. Sev­er­al cruores entered the Coast dur­ing the Doom, and only after squash­ing their ram­pages did Naus­sia lat­er learn to draw con­tained cruores and inter­ro­gate them for their vast reserves of knowl­edge (includ­ing cen­turies of lived expe­ri­ence impris­oned by the Nôr, grant­i­ng a rich glimpse into that leg­endary civ­i­liza­tion.)
• Absu­tu­ra­tion. Naus­sia first bound human brains into the liv­ing palimpses­ts that are incunab­u­la, allow­ing their mem­o­ry and per­son­al­i­ty to exist, cor­re­spon­dent, after death. Nauss­ian incunab­u­la are, how­ev­er, dis­tinct from lat­er iter­a­tions: Each is bound from mul­ti­ple Naus­sians rather than a sin­gle dead sor­cer­er. As such, Nauss­ian incunab­u­la are huge, immense­ly rare, and unfath­omably depraved. Cor­re­spond­ing with such a thing, an act requir­ing a deep knowl­edge of the cog­ni­to­haz­ard-lan­guage Sor­dor, rep­re­sents the destruc­tion of the writer’s con­science, their psy­che, and their moral well­be­ing. It is a ben­e­fit to human­i­ty that most Nauss­ian tomes remain hid­den in the Under­world, as each rep­re­sents a unique­ly foul well of cor­rup­tion.
• Mag­ic knuck­le­bones. Nauss­ian tomb effi­gies depict them with many-joined fin­ger-talons sheathed in flut­ed steel. Flail-like, so pro­tract­ed to accept addi­tion­al mag­ic knuck­le­bones. Naus­sia cre­at­ed many grand bones using mate­ri­als and tech­niques nev­er since repli­cat­ed, but they did not per­fect the art, so con­cerned were they by the greater pow­ers of body mod­i­fi­ca­tion afford­ed by the philoso­pher’s stone. The small­est minor­i­ty of bones cir­cu­lat­ing among the Coastal digi­rati today are Nauss­ian. Most remain buried with their orig­i­nal mas­ters, cold with­in the Under­world stone.

Sleeping naussians

They sleep in their hun­dreds, down in the Under­world. In dec­o­rat­ed sar­copha­gi and high loculi. Beaked helms tucked to arched breast­plates, draped in fil­a­men­tose cere­ments of bleached human hair, and stink­ing of the ammo­ni­at­ed byprod­uct of their slow, undy­ing anato­my. The Naus­sians have slept of mil­len­nia, but they will wake if dis­turbed. Woe betide what mis­er­able invad­er sur­vives trace­less leagues of chimera-guard­ed megas­truc­ture only to awak­en the sor­cer­er-lords them­selves. Who, weak from their ages of tor­por, may still kill with a lift­ed fin­ger­bone.

minions

The min­ions of Naus­sia are large­ly pre­served, buried for future use. The chimeras yet live. The pawn grues rest in ossuar­ies.

• Chimeras. From their bio­log­i­cal caul­drons, Naus­sia cre­at­ed a vast array of chimeras, includ­ing the leg­endary pat­terns known in mythol­o­gy: Man­ti­core, cae­to­blepas, cal­ca­trix, and lam­pa­go. This last mod­el, the child-head­ed lam­pa­go-dog, is most wide­ly remem­bered in folk­lore Coast-wide. Remem­bered as a child-steal­ing famil­iar to sor­cer­er lords, the lam­pa­go accom­pa­nied caul­dron-born grues sent down from the moun­tains to demand hor­ri­ble tithes. Of the larg­er pat­terns of Nauss­ian chimera, many are death­less, fueled by half-life, and exist even now in Nauss­ian com­plex­es, sleep­ing along­side their mas­ters.
• Pawn grues. Mil­lions of grues were born from Nauss­ian caul­drons. At first, these were the typ­i­cal prod­ucts of plague: Sense­less scut­tling corpses bent on vio­lence and con­ta­gion. A con­ve­nient shock-troop to the Naus­sians, who, no longer iden­ti­fi­ably human, were immune to plague’s depre­da­tions. In time, the sor­cer­er-despots improved upon plague, pro­duc­ing a strain that metas­ta­sized more thor­ough­ly with­in the brain stem, yield­ing “pawn grues:” Skele­tons bet­ter capa­ble of human­like move­ment, tool use, and direc­tion. These “caul­dron-born” were Naus­si­a’s prin­ci­pal troops hence­forth: Skele­tal armies crude­ly armed and armored and capa­ble of the vicious vir­u­lence of plague. It is for the use of these troops that plague is pan­dem­ic today. Too, awful­ly, pawn grue genet­ics remain on the Coast: Some folk still become stum­bling, bipedal grues after death, often ter­ri­fy­ing­ly faster than the usu­al time­frame for patho­gen­e­sis.
• Soul­less. Bet­ter known as leu­comites. The slaves of the sor­cer­er lords. The hew­ers of all the deliri­ous kilo­me­ters of stone. The only ser­vants ever allowed to die. Dur­ing the Nauss­ian retreat, they were gath­ered up and hung on hooks by the hun­dreds of thou­sands and marched into char­nel pits. Hoard­ed jeal­ous­ly for no bet­ter rea­son than obses­sive con­trol, and for the util­i­ty of being able to store them­selves. Nauss­ian toys, ordered to put them­selves away when play was no longer desir­able.

Material culture and artifacts

The phys­i­cal cul­ture of Naus­sia was most­ly entire­ly unadorned unless an item was des­tined for wear or per­son­al use by an armored sor­cer­er. These sor­cer­ers, hav­ing shirked the basic needs of human­i­ty, did not often want for the uten­sils, com­forts, and cos­met­ics items usu­al­ly found left by an ancient cul­ture. Instead, they left arti­facts of pure­ly prac­ti­cal pur­pose, des­o­late and mean.

• Calathi. To find a calathus in a moun­tain val­ley is a sure indi­ca­tion of his­tor­i­cal Nauss­ian occu­pa­tion. These deep, thin bas­kets of woven met­al were used to col­lect and trans­port the sac­ri­fi­ci­um mon­tibus. Four calathi could be slung on the back of a lam­pa­go, who would trans­port them like shep­herd dogs laden with lambs to the bleak moun­tain lairs. Rarely found ful­ly intact, these are a col­lec­table antiq­ui­ty, grim­ly prized.
• Caul­drons. Only two Nauss­ian caul­drons have been removed from their ancient rest­ing places. One, the Freemont Pot, was found 63 years ago by Sven Freemont on a Gorathi­an moun­taineer­ing expe­di­tion. It resides now in a facil­i­ty on the Lel­luc Val­ley floor far below its ori­gin, where it has been stud­ied inter­mit­tent­ly since. The sec­ond, known as le chau­dron de malchance, was found in a riverbed in Draum, appar­ent­ly hav­ing migrat­ed on a glac­i­er all the way from the Gorathi­an peaks. It is so named for hav­ing no legs, and for a propen­si­ty to roll over on peo­ple. Both caul­drons are in excess of 200 kilo­grams and are con­sid­ered small, ear­ly exam­ples. Both the inte­ri­ors and exte­ri­ors are pit­ted and mul­ti­cavous in a reg­u­lar pat­tern resem­bling, to some, the mar­bling of meat, and to oth­ers a kind of botan­i­cal cross sec­tion. Most view­ers describe the caul­drons as unpleas­ant to view and weari­some to be around, insti­gat­ing a “gut feel­ing” of unease.
• Nauss­ian armor. Aban­doned on the bat­tle­field by iron-loathing fairy-sol­diers, Nauss­ian armor has exist­ed free of its dispi­teous wear­ers since their retreat. While often in poor con­di­tion, these armor ele­ments grant insight into the posthu­man phys­i­ol­o­gy of the wear­er, and are great­ly desired by the less-scrupu­lous researchers of mod­ern magi­cian­ry. Few exam­ples have entered the antiq­ui­ties mar­ket in the last cen­tu­ry, but those that do are among the most prized rar­i­ties at mod­ern auc­tion. Exam­ples in prime con­di­tion are recent­ly pried from Naus­sians spon­ta­neous­ly dead in their long sleep by skilled cut­ters, most­ly. Though few believe the rumors of slum­ber­ing sor­cer­ers awok­en and killed, a few com­plete Nauss­ian suits have emerged, of late, seem­ing­ly recent­ly sep­a­rat­ed from their under­ly­ing immor­tal flesh.

Author’s Note

This was heav­i­ly rewrit­ten and elab­o­rat­ed upon in March 2025 to bring it up to stan­dard with Beau­ty.

Naus­sians have appeared sev­er­al times in my game, though not recent­ly. They are decid­ed­ly an endgame foe. I’ll write stats for them when I com­plete the upcom­ing bes­tiary I am work­ing on.

A read­ing of this post is avail­able by Blogs on Tape, an excel­lent pod­cast devot­ed to reveal­ing the OSR via audio record­ing. It’s not an up to date record­ing, yet, though, and I am not super hap­py with it any­more. I will see about rere­cord­ing it and both­er­ing Beloch to replace it.

Orig­i­nal note:

As a world ele­ment, Naus­sia facil­i­tates ludi­crous, Mines of Moria-lev­el negadun­geons.

To stum­ble into the Under­world is already fear­ful. To fall fur­ther into a Nauss­ian tomb is a mishap wor­thy of real dread. As I’ve run it, it leads to a ses­sion or more of pan­icked escape, where­in one or more char­ac­ters often die. Those who escape often do so with lit­tle to show, save tales of dread and dubi­ous arti­facts bet­ter left under the earth. That, and a good hunk of XP under their belts. 

To go will­ing­ly into the home of Naus­sia is to tempt doom. These are delves of high­est risk, often jus­ti­fied by the acqui­si­tion of a sin­gle tome with­in. That, or meat grinder raids cru­el­ly orga­nized by banks. More on this to come.

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