Crystalvore: level 2;
health 6; Armor 4; immediate-range flame jet inflicts 4 points of damage (ignores Armor); see page 129 of Torment:
Tides of Numenera— The Explorer’s Guide for
DHIZREND
pressed from the skin of the dead. And finally, the archons are the eldest, and rule Dhizrend as unopposed dictators.
The archons reside together in a castle of petrified bone. Each wears a unique costume that often incorporates cyphers and preserved remains of long-dead humans. Though normally absorbed in individual studies of extremely rarified topics ranging from the thresholds of pain, effects of disability, philosophy of measurement, and topics hard to actually describe, the archons gather once every thirty-three days for a feast. Unlike the practice of the feeders and keepers, the archons indulge in eating the living flesh of a few unlucky dimension walkers who found doors into Dhizrend. Captives are held beneath the archon castle against the day they are eventually eaten. Captives are rarely shown mercy, because the archons, as self-appointed leaders of the syzygy, do not wish the secret of Dhizrend’s existence to become known in the Ninth World.
If solid ground exists in the limited dimension of Dhizrend, it lies beneath layer upon layer of bone dust, bones, decaying corpses, mountains of skulls, and naked arches made by rib cages of vast, long-dead creatures. The sky is a mist of grey fog lit with constantly falling burning red embers. Here and there, lone humanoids— abhumans called the syzygy—shamble about. These beings who’ve sometimes founded colonies on Earth are called “ghouls,” “eaters,” “undertakers,” and “the Night Singers,” the latter due to the dirgelike songs they sing while they gather. The syzygy claim to hold dominion over the remains of all humans and abhumans, even if they rarely assert that privilege.
The syzygy that live in Dhizrend are divided into castes. The feeders are the lowest, and scavenge the bone plains for whatever scraps they can find, or pull from intermittent doors leading to Earth. The keepers are charged with retaining syzygy lore in huge libraries filled with winding scrolls printed on vellum
Archon: level 5, one
knowledge topic as level 8; Armor 3; lunarum (bone blade) attack inflicts 7 points of damage; Speed defense rolls against the archon’s lunarum attack become one step more difficult after each attack
Keeper: level 4, two
knowledge topics as level 5; Armor 1; Speed defense rolls against the keeper’s lunarum (bone blade) attack become one step more difficult after each attack; see the Ninth
World Bestiary page 122
127
ALTERNATE REALITIES
SEKULAN
Sekulan, the realm of the Brax. Characters in Sekulan briefly exist in a higher-dimensional state than is normal for them, and thus their senses waver on the verge of being overwhelmed. But before that happens, they encounter the Brax as they truly are: many- legged spheres of color and sound three times the size of a human. A visitor also witnesses the endless fields of fledgling dimensions grown like crops on the ends of vast synth stalks, like pods on a tree.
When the Brax pull characters completely into Sekulan, it’s almost always accidental. Dimension farmers work to quickly return intruders back to their home dimension before the Brax overlords become aware of the planar transgression, and punishment ensues. Aeon Priests know of higher dimensions,
alternate worlds, and curled-up planes of existence that are not normally experienced by natives of Earth. Several of these dimensions are large (perhaps infinite). Others are in motion and only rarely intersect the world. A few are completely artificial. There are dimensions that are born, grow mature, and die in the time a human might daydream away an hour. And finally, there are dimensions that are farmed and eaten by entities known as the Brax.
The Brax breed and grow artificial dimensions for their overlords, who in turn consume those dimensions like food. The overlords are beings of perhaps boundless complexity that PCs would find difficult to comprehend. However, PCs are unlikely to ever encounter an overlord. The same isn’t true for the Brax.
When characters encounter the Brax on Earth, many don’t understand they’ve been contacted by an extraplanar intelligence. Instead of realizing that an entity from another dimension has noticed them and is trying to communicate, characters who “meet” a Brax might believe they have been colonized by a Brax brain parasite, and that the strange inner voices are hallucinations brought on by fever. According to local lore, such parasites accumulate where prior-world ruins are found.
Characters who are the focus of a Brax’s attempt to communicate are subject to unsettling hallucinations (of a higher- dimensional realm called Sekulan) until they are cured or die. The responsible Brax, for its part, isn’t trying to harm the mind. Rather, it’s seeking ineffable traits culled from the imagination of living creatures to inject into the fledgling dimensions it and its kind tend.
Sometimes characters “afflicted with brain parasites” are pulled out of the world and into