Troglodytes of the Ebon Lake
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Slaves of their tentacled master, the Troglodytes of the Ebon Lake creep through the eternal darkness of their home searching for both new ways to reach the surface and for discarded remnants of the ancient civilisation that raised their cyclopean home millennia ago.
Society & Organisation
Primitive, even by troglodyte standards, the Ebon Lake tribe has no memory of their race’s elder glories. Squatting in ignorance among the ruins of their forebears, they marvel at the might of a people able to raise such vast, cyclopean structures. Though they have lived here for centuries uncounted, they have explored little of the extensive tunnels under the city; such fetid, claustrophobic places terrify the superstitious troglodytes.
Within the tribe might equals right, but all authority, both spiritual and temporal, flows from the tribe’s tentacled master, the elder aboleth Irfel-Thoth. He cares nothing for the petty disputes of individual troglodytes (which are frequent) and does nothing to directly govern the tribe’s daily life. He is content to direct their work in the deep tunnels and to act as the figurehead of their depraved, elder religion.
The troglodytes have forgotten the secret of fire and eat their food—mainly fish, mushrooms and fungus—cold and raw. They prize fresh meat above all other foods and regularly consume the bodies of the fallen—their fellows and fallen enemies alike. Discarded bones litter the tumbled ruins of their forefathers and the Ebon Lake’s muddied bottom.
Females roughly equal males in number. Hatchlings and eggs are numerous but mostly untended—the young are expected to fend for themselves and many die while still infants. Those who survive are treated as little better than slaves by their elders—only when they can defend themselves are they deemed adults.
Appearance: The troglodytes have been underground for so long that their rough, leathery scales have faded from dark grey, taking on a mottled light grey pattern. Males are distinguishable from females by their fin-like crest running down over their head, neck and upper back.
Amon-Pytr
Amon-Pyr is an ancient demonic power worshipped by troglodytes since the earliest days of the race’s long-fallen empire. A tentacled demon that crawled from the unknown depths of the frigid, slime-coated waters of the Sea of Perpetual Misery, Amon-Pyr is a terrible figure from the world’s pre-history. Only a few isolated troglodyte clans yet cling to his worship. Guarding fragments of ancient knowledge, these groups perform rituals the meaning and significance of which they have long since forgotten.
Portfolio: demon god of darkness, evil, madness and water Favoured Weapon: Whip
Personalities
Most of the Ebon Lake tribe are troglodytes obsessed with serving their alien, immortal lord. Even notable members of the trainer are nothing but skilled warriors or priests.
Irfel-Thoth (elder aboleth): The malevolent master of the Ebon Lake has lurked in the deep, chill waters surrounding the troglodytes’ home for aeons. Unknowably ancient and steeped in lost lore, Irfel-Thoth searches the fallen ruins for objects of ancient power while his minions creep forth at night to capture humans for food and sacrifice.
Ecology & Lair
Atop a forlorn, windswept and wave-lashed island of bare rock separated from the mainland by turbulent, treacherous waters stands a pile of jumbled, rounded boulders. Worn smooth by the wind and rain, the tumbled stones are the remnants of an ancient outpost of a forgotten, fallen folk.
Deep within the rubble (and only accessible by a narrow crawl-way), a small sinkhole drops deep into the living rock of the island. Eventually, the slippery, perilous shaft intersects a large, partially flooded tidal cavern. Here, faded alien carvings of sinister and deranged provenance cover much of the walls. The handiwork of untold generations of troglodytes, the carvings venerate strange, alien beings and depict aberrant ceremonies of shocking, primal bestiality.
Several passages tunnel deeper into the rock; most are little more than dead-ends, inundated by the sea at high tide. One plummets ever deeper over a series of treacherous escarpments. Far below the seabed, the passageway forks; one branch—by far the younger of the two and created by the tireless efforts of the tribe—follows a circuitous route northeast. Eventually, it breaks into a partially flooded ancient mine several miles southeast of Wolverton.
The other passageway—far more ancient than the first— plummets ever deeper, heading away from the mainland. The shuffling tread of countless troglodytes has worn the passageway’s floor almost smooth. Eventually, the passageway gives out into a huge cavern. Water drips from the high ceiling, filling the cavern with the thunderous sound of dripping water. A huge lake fills the cavern, and at its centre, set upon a low, rocky island, rears the squat, cyclopean ruins of the ancient troglodyte city of Kar-Loth. Immeasurably old, the ruins seem somehow wrong, as if built by a crazed madman.
Credit
This is a short extract from Monstrous Delve: Troglodyte of the Ebon Lake by Creighton Broadhurst.
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