A Crawling Chaos (Prelude 1/4) *Moderate Entomophobia Warning: Here There be Bugs!*

As befits their nature, similarities between chaotic beings are vanishingly rare. Asking for consistency from the children of Chaos is like asking for warmth from a glacier- it is simply not possible under ordinary circumstances. Yet there is a common thread between them, if one knows where to look. Chaos is unpredictable, but never truly random. All chaotic creatures value self-determination, and share a desire to alter the status quo to fit their personal vision. The most common expressions of this are in mischief and fiery idealism. But all too often, Chaos manifests as an insatiable hunger to tear down all that is and replace it with something utterly incomprehensible, horrifying, and sometimes more depraved than anything Evil can dream of. While not our greatest enemy, Entropy represents the most blatant opposing force to the Balance.

• An excerpt from "The Balance and You: A Guide to True Neutrality" by Tarul Var.

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Zionyn, 663rd Layer of the Abyss

Usuz lazily droned across the ochre skies of what may have been the most loathsome place in existence. A rancid marsh of putrefying gore stretched for uncounted leagues below him, the manifested legacy of the sins his kind had committed before the first sunrise, and which persisted unabated to this day. Ekolids like Usuz were never known for impulse control- or anything beyond turning any non-demonic lifeforms they met into living incubators for their parasitic young, for that matter. The land teemed with octillions of insects who thrived on the further infestation of the ekolids' discarded victims.

To the staggeringly unlucky mortals who came to Zionyn, the noise and smell alone were truly nauseating, and the realization of where they originated and the implications therein invariably obliterated their sanity. Watching visitors crumble into wailing madness was one of Usuz's favorite pastimes, second only to watching those same visitors explode when the eggs he implanted in them hatched. Their blood fed the innumerable swarms vermin that blotted out Zionyn's sickly sun at regular enough intervals to generate night and day. Truly, this was a paradise of entropy, one that the rest of the planes would get to experience some day.

"As above, so below," Usuz chittered from his three irregularly spaced mouths.

To his east, the heavy waves of the Resin Sea lapped at a tidal floodplain of translucent brown polymer. The viscous ocean provided building materials for the ekolid hive-cities in the rocky badlands to the north; the demonic equivalent of mortar. The bricks in this analogy were, of course, the corpses of beings the ekolids especially despised. There had been quite a lot of those over the eons. To be an demon of any kind was to be filled with primordial, entropic hatred- for the forces of Law and Good, for the multiverse that looked at them with disgusted contempt, and for everything not of the Abyss that birthed them.

A discordant drone filled Usuz's senses, cutting through the omnipresent hum of the marshlands. In addition to the blasphemous language of the Abyss, every ekolid could produce a distinct tone that they used to communicate across long distances. This "verminsong" also induced psychosis in mortals, who would tear themselves to shreds trying to rid themselves of imaginary insects below their skin. But this droning was far more focused and insistent than any ekolid could muster, which meant it could only come from one being.

Obox-ob was calling to his children.

Usuz wheeled around and flew north at frightening speeds. In a matter of minutes, he had left the decaying marshes and entered the badlands, where the hive-cities sat. This positioning was not out of any desire to avoid the charnel swarm-pits to the south, but rather because the horrid grandeur of Zionyn only became apparent when one could survey the whole layer. Usuz tucked his wings and dived towards the amphitheater in the city of Skitterhome, the largest of the cities and the source of the dark missive. The arena was used primarily for performance hatchings, events where parasitic indulgence met art. Contestants implanted captured creatures with their eggs, and were judged based on the quality of their victims' screams. As he plummeted, he joined a swarm of thousands of ekolids, all headed for the same destination. But it was only as he alighted on the resin-entombed corpse of a long-dead paladin that served as a stadium seat that he could hear his kin buzzing to each other with a mix of excitement and trepidation.

"Obox-ob comes! O, glorious day! The Prince of Vermin calls to us!"

"I wonder what scheme our lord has planned this time. Hope it involves lots of dead mortals."

"Well, if he doesn't rip something into bloody chunks first, I'm not listening to a damn thing!"

Usuz's many eyes watched the yawning pit in the center of the arena intently. Obox-ob, the demon lord of Zionyn and father of the ekolid race, had ordered the construction of Skitterhome's amphitheater right above the entrance to his lair so that he could enjoy the screams of performance hatchings even while he plotted the downfall of order. It was considered a mark of incredible honor for a contestant when he rose from the pit to devour their victim's corpse. And just like all the other times, a hush came over the buzzing crowd when the Prince of Vermin appeared.

Obox-ob was splendid and awful to behold all at once- a massive centipede with far too many razor-sharp legs, who sported a trio of wicked scorpion stingers where his head should be and three faces stacked atop one another at the end of a neck-like tail. His mouth ran vertically up his faces, from which emerged a long tongue tipped with a corkscrew spike. The ancient demon lord's limbs undulated hypnotically as he crawled far faster than should have been possible for a thing of his size.

The Prince of Vermin surveyed the demonic swarm with satisfaction. Sensing the ekolids' tension, he extended a forelimb over the great pit. From the depths rose a gaunt petitioner; the soul-husk of a mortal who had pledged himself to entropy in life and arrived in the Abyss upon death. The man looked terrified, but also resolute. With a sharp gesture, Obox-ob seized him in a telekinetic grasp and crushed him into ichorous pulp. The swarm erupted in cheers as their lord shaped the chaotic gore into a new, familiar form: a newborn ekolid. The mortal-turned-demon took in its new, insectile form with chirps of relief, bowed before Obox-ob, and fluttered away to join its fellows. Then the demon lord spoke:

"My esteemed offspring," he chittered in a voice that every god of Law had learned to fear, "today is an auspicious day. Not just for Zionyn, nor even our kin throughout the Abyss, but for the scions of Chaos across the multiverse! Cosmic strife and repeated incursions by selfish beings have thinned the veil between the Material Plane and the rest of the multiverse. Should that veil be torn asunder, the realms of mortals shall be laid bare for any with the strength to control them. To the victor go the spoils, and we all know that the forces of Chaos are destined to be the eternal victors!"

"The other planar forces- Law, Good, and Evil- are preparing to claim the Material Plane with armies of their own. But we are not ones to shy away from adversity, are we? Imagine the despair the children of Law will feel when they realize that we have beaten them to the prize! We will swarm over the realms, shattering any who would establish a foothold on what is rightfully ours. In our wake shall come hordes of our brethren to unmake the world in our image! Chaos will be all, and all will be Chaos!"

Usuz was the first to take up Obox-ob's battle cry, inspiring the other ekolids to add their voices to the discordant choir that shook Zionyn to its foundations and echoed through the whole Abyss. Every demon in the multiverse heard the apocalyptic chant and without knowing why, joined it at once. It spread across the planes, calling every lord of disorder- from the rulers of the slaadi to the very gods of Chaos- to muster their forces for war. Even on the Material Plane, where the forces of the Outer Planes held little sway, some wizards heard a droning in their orb messages that made the inside of their skull itch. The few who understood what it foretold broke down sobbing.

Chaos would be all. All would be Chaos.

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/uw Well, that was the most unpleasant thing I've ever written. It's certainly far from the most grotesque post on the sub, but when compared to the goofy stuff that's been posted lately, it's pretty bad. Hooray for tonal whiplash! Fortunately, this is probably the worst the planar incursion event will get.

I actually had a bit of fun describing Zionyn in all of its hideous glory, though. The one flaw of the Atrax Saga was that old writer's saw: "show, don't tell." The Age of the Phoenix was a credible threat, but I think it could have been better if Atrax had made more examples to reinforce what would happen to the realms if he wasn't stopped. I don't need to do that with the hordes of Chaos. Zionyn speaks for itself.

If you want more like this (for whatever reason), I was inspired by this video by AJ Pickett. Early 2000s D&D lore gets pretty wild at times. And if you want to help squash the most fucked-up ants in the universe, stay tuned! We're just getting started here.

And before I go, let me leave you with this: