By James Gildard

Elcoroth

Is yet another in a long list of names and corresponding ideas I’ve stolen from the illustrious mr kemp of goblinpunch. Thank you again kind sir for being an inspiration and a powerhouse of cranking out content that generally fucking slaps.

As per usual, let’s take his stuff and bend it into a creation of my own particular suiting.

It will come to you in a little cloth purse, soaked from the inside by the blood that pumps out. The man you bought it from didn’t seem any more peculiar than the average traveling merchant, but then, no one in the Frontier is quite “average” are they? Thrice per day the chunk of meat will flex, squeezing more blood through its section of veins, slopping out into whatever container you’ve put it in, and then relaxing again. It will never dry out, nor rot, nor become infected. Elcoroth’s flesh is strong, and no matter how far from the source you take this piece, it will thrive.

As with any great treasure lost in the wilds of the Frontier however, the rest of the world has never heard of Elcoroth. Guild dungeoneers may manage to extract a few pieces of it and sell them at incredible prices in the mainland, but seeing as no remotely sane person would roll the dice on completely losing their mind and dissolving into a giant throbbing pillar of flesh more than once in their life, the current state of affairs isn’t likely to change any time soon. 

Anyway I bet you can imagine a whole assload of uses for a magic blood-generating hunk of meat. Most of them will apply here, plus a few more. 

It would be every surgeon’s dream to have a piece or two of Elcoroth. You could sustain a vampire indefinitely with a single piece of it. For a mage practicing blood magic, Elcoroth’s flesh could become their primary energy source. The list goes on and on.

None of these uses are what Elcoroth desires though. It wants to be consumed.

Let’s take a few steps back. What the hell is this thing I’m talking about? Well, if Yog is the maddened god-spirit of the frontier, then Elcoroth is its throbbing heart. It is known in Wildermen myth and legend as the infinite pillar of flesh. Deep, deep within the cracks and crevices of the elder earth, miles of ambiguous tissue creep along cavern walls, their many gargantuan tentacles crawling ever upward from the bottomless depths. If you were to stare down the very gullet of the underland, into the infinite depth from which Yog itself shines forth, around the edges of the mile wide cavity you would find Elcoroth’s many freight-train sized arms reaching upward, crawling past, beckoning forth, calling you to join.

Anyone who sees the pillar of flesh must make a DC 16 wisdom saving throw or instantly take two levels of cave madness, repeating the save every minute spent in the presence of Elcoroth. It will whisper to your mind directly. It wants you to step into the pillar itself and become one with it. If you listen, that is exactly what will happen.

Eating a chunk of Elcoroth does a couple of things. Firstly it heals any and all illnesses and injuries almost instantly. A decapitated man can be fed a piece of Elcoroth and regenerate the rest of his body from the neck down within a few minutes. 

Secondly the consumer takes three levels of Cave Madness straight up.

Don’t worry, I’ll tell you.

…Next time