The Children's Crusade

Four hundred years ago, the Children's crusade began, starting 'the Year of Nightmares.'

Like all the best wars, it started with romance. Babies started disappearing, vanished from their cribs in the middle of the night. Here and there, it happened at least once in each town. People began panicking, and couldn't find what was wrong, who was taking their children. Ghouls had taken them before, here and there, but it was rare. Mass kidnapping like this simply didn't happen.

The thieving of babies died down in a year or so, and people began to forget. All was quiet for about a decade, and then reports starting coming in from the east. Reports of monster children...

Ryan Yee, 'Blood Bairn' 

Investigations were sent, adventurers and soldier to investigate. The ones who managed to return spoke of fields of blood, with not a corpse in sight. The source became clear, and the dots were connected. The monster children were ghouls. But for what purpose was not known...

Ghoul children were an oddity. They did exist. They had to. But, they were rarely seen. They looked more human than their parents, unless they were feeding. They were generally cared for by their parents until they were old enough to strike out on their own. They rarely survived long on their own. Superhuman strength + a thirst for flesh + the emotions of a 10 year-old do not lead one to be very subtle.

Randis Albion, 'Spoiled' 

But not now. Adult ghouls had simply... vanished. Even those who had been outed, and lived off of corpses in relatively peaceful lives had disappeared.

An army was raised. Hundreds of knights on horseback rode out to face to coming horde. They stood, tall, proud, and only slightly shitting themselves as nearly a half-thousand blood-soaked children ran faster than any man up the hill to meet them. 

Photographer, 'Vampire Child' 

The knights had an advantage besides their superior weaponry and training. The ghouls, although hungry, were still children. The knights were large. When one of them was downed, he or she was swarmed, and devoured in less than a minute. The children, sated and no longer in a frenzy, would flee the battle. 

Some escaped. Most died. Just like that, the children's crusade was over. The mystery of where the adults went was never solved. The children were scared and confused. They told tales of waking alone in the night, watched by an enormous snake. They spoke of men made of blood, a grinning skull, and a field of corpses stretching from horizon to horizon. Blood-coloured skies flashing with red lightning, and stick-thin beasts striding through deserts of glass.

Several ghoul children were captured, and raised by an order of knights who paid homage to Gothos. They formed an elite crew of warriors known simply as 'the Crusaders' paying homage to the war they fought so long ago, for reasons they will never fully understand.

Darek Zabrocki, 'Twins of Maurer Estate.'

 STEALING SECTION

How Can I Use This? If you want to use to Children's crusade, here are some ideas for adapting it to your world or game: 

1. If you aren't using ghouls or something similar, try vampires. If you want to go for a terrifying mystery, make the ghouls into perfectly normal children, who suddenly grew unearthly strong and developed a taste for human flesh.

2. If you are playing an RPG, why not have the players take part in the groups of knights fighting in the crusade? Or, they could play the poor sods having to escort the captured child-ghouls to their new home, or even take care of them afterward. A ghoul PC could be the survivor of the children's crusade. If you want to get really weird, have the PCs play ghoul children leading up to the crusade itself.

An explanation: I'm sorry about my long absence from writing this blog, I've been very busy with writing, designing version 2 of Lint, and personal matters. I'll try and update it more frequently, and a guest author may make a post or two in the following months. Stay tuned!

The Not-Mice

They live in the dark cupboards, the cracks between the walls, and under your bed. They eat your food, and you don't see them. Your cat dies after catching a mouse, and you never suspect it might have been poisoned.

Your children complain of small hands skittering over them at night, and you dismiss it as the foolish thoughts of a child.

They come for you in the middle of the night, with poisoned needles and feral grins, and you finally believe.

 

Cinderella 1950, courtesy of Disney

"No! It's my turn to stab them!"

Nobody knows where the not-mice game from, nobody knows what they want. Anyone who tries to determine their inscrutable goals is found dead soon after.

They are susceptible to the same weaknesses as normal mice, but are far more cunning. Your cat may need to have a protective spell cast on it. They must see you eat the cheese you poisoned before they trust it. Mousetraps must be cleverly disguised.

They are evil and cunning incarnate.

Embraced and Vihe

Three hundred years ago, a colony of miners vanished off the face of the earth.

Their superiors chalked it up as a tunnel collapse, and sent more men in. They vanished as well.

A third time they sent men in, and they too vanished. The project was abandoned, the mines considered cursed, and the tunnels sealed. Everyone forgot about the incident.

But, a decade later, people in a nearby town swore they began to hear knocking underground, in their basements, in their homes. The sound of digging, and yelling down below. As though the miners were still alive and sane, ten years after being buried.

Priests were called, priests of the True god to perform exorcisms, priests of Gothos to set the angry dead to rest, and even a priest of the Drowned god was contacted, in an attempt to flood the mine. But nothing worked. All who tried to go down disappeared, and all who stayed on the surface were useless.

On night, a pickax, rotten and rusted, burst through the town's square.

People saw friends, family, all the lost miners, flood from the hole, along with everyone else who had ventured into the caverns. They were warped, changed, and disfigured. Fungus-like growths crept from their eyes, their spines, and their orifices. The guardsmen readied arms against their once-friends, their once-family, prepared for battle.

But the fight never came.

EmphasisMine, Clicker Nouveau 
Like this, with eyes

 

The humans faced their fungal opponents with weapons drawn and faces grim, and were assaulted with smiles of recognition and laughter, as they were overwhelmed. Still, they prepared themselves for death as the guards were grabbed and restrained.

But the fungal being's intentions were not to kill, but to hug.

After much screaming and crying, with the fungal beings attempting to comfort their long-lost friends and family, they were given a chance to explain.

CoconutMilkyway, 'Fungus people'

They called themselves 'the Embraced.' They spoke of an enormous cavern, full of luminescent mushrooms and strange creatures, far beneath the earth. And living in the middle of that cavern was a mass of fungus, spraying spores in every which way.

The fungus spoke to them, apologizing, saying it regretting luring them down here. But, it was lonely, and wanted company. It needed someone to be it's companion.

Lots were drawn, and a young girl, one made the equivalent of a slave for the other miners, was thrust forward, crying and screaming. She was drawn into the fungal mass, gently, but with enormous force.

The effect was immediate. The fungus's entire personality changed, becoming childlike, friendly, and very curious. It was now a near-perfect copy of the young girl. It introduced itself as 'Vihe.'

It spoke to the miners. The Embraced refused to speak of it's exact words, but what is known is that by the end of it's speech, each and every one of the miners walked willingly, with no magical coercion or threatening, into the fungus.

But instead of being absorbed, they were changed. Spores implanted in their bodies, in their brains, and took hold. Each of them had the mind of this new being riding backseat, speaking to them.

They could speak to each other, to the fungus around them, and were connected to the world. They wept with happiness, for they knew this was where they belonged in life.

And so, the first of the Embraced were born.

Jason Levesque, 'Musroom Girl', found on google images

It took over a century for the world to get over their presence. They were effectively telepathic plant-people, all connected to a hive mind being controlled by a seven-year-old. It was hard to get used to.

Many empires and cities wanted them as soldiers. They were big, strong, could speak silently, and had the confidence of a youth. They were convicted by nobles, experimented on by mages, and shunned by the common folk. But they continued on their way in the world, the same as anyone else. They became fishermen, bartenders, farmers, and tradesmen. And they took the downtrodden, beggars, serfs, slaves, and sent them in Vihe's direction.

And so, over decades, the Embraced ranks grew, and grew, and grew further still. Their numbers are still small, and so little of them actually wield any real power, but they are all family.

Many noble families have made it a crime punishable by disowning to become an Embraced.

artfulshrapnel, 'Fungal Zombies'

Vihe still resides in her underground cavern, beneath that nameless town. She is visited by all who are willing to give up their identity in order to become something more. Something that many think is better.

Although Embraced can be (and often are) sad, they are never depressed or crushed enough to commit suicide. If Vihe had been almost anyone else, the Embraced could never have been. But, due to a combination of single-mindedness, curiosity, and childlike joy, the Embraced are never sad for long. They see too much beauty in the world for anything to be really bad.

Embraced are universally curious, and optimistic. Vihe, if you get a chance to speak with her, is much the same, except in the body of a giant mushroom.

They eat food, like people. It's like a mushroom growing off of a living tree, or a baby inside a pregnant woman. It gets some of it's own nutrients, but it also draws a lot from the tree or person itself.

The Embraced fungus is a parasite of sorts. It can't actually survive on it's own (although that is not set in stone, I have some interesting ideas for fungus golems).

A starving Embraced might even be able to eat the fungus growing off of them, if they were really desperate. Most wouldn't try. They are a race of optimists, so most of them would just hold out the hope that they were getting help soon instead of tearing out chunks of hive-brain.

Otherwise, they would actually have to eat a bit more than a regular person, to account for both them and the fungus.

There has only been one time in history when the Embraced have rallied as a race, and not just as individuals. This was known as 'the Tide War.'

The Tide War
The Tide War began when a desert queen, now called Feena the foolish, decided the sight of Embraced was too much for her to bear, and the world would be better off without them. She rose an army, and set out to destroy Vihe.

The fungal goddess's response was quick, brutal, and final. Every Embraced, from all around the continent, mobilized. They set out, saying their goodbyes, and headed towards Vihe's cave. Many of them brought allies as well. Farmers brought beasts of war, merchants brought mercenaries, and city folk brought families.

The hired folk managed a proper assault on Feena's forces, but the attack of the Embraced was described as 'like the Tide.' Unstoppable. Men, women, and children hurling themselves soundlessly into their enemies, fighting until their bodies simply stopped working. Vihe had taken direct control of them, erasing all pain and fear from their minds.

Many protested her brutality, but not the surviving Embraced. they were silent on the matter, except to relay her words to any who asked.

"I had a choice. I could let Feena's army kill me, and then let the Embraced die off. Or, I could sacrifice a few willing Embraced to save us all. I do not like what I did, but I needed to do it."

Many have tried to argue, but she protects her belief with the stubbornness of a child. Her and the Embraced are alive, and to her, that is all that matters. Family.

 

Jessica Ward, 'Infected Closeup'