## Metadata Name: K Holding: Waystation Omicron (public), Chythys (actual) Office: None ## Background You were born on the dead planet Chythys, one of countless broken worlds trapped in the orbit of the Leviathan's Corpse. You have no idea who your family were, or how you made it through those first few years of life on your demon-haunted world. But like all those who pass through the great beast's shadow, you have been a Leviathan Cultist for as long as you can remember. Your first clear recollection is bleeding a still-gasping sacrifice across an onyx altar. In exchange for your greatest offering, a Voidstalker Admiral who made the mistake of crash-landing near you, the Leviathan granted you the ability to pass unseen under even the most watchful mechanical gazes. Now, you travel from Holding to Holding, spreading chaos, turning allies against one another, and hunting for high-quality sacrifices to your dark god. The death of the Plaguesmith may be the single greatest event since the creation of the Leviathan's Corpse. The Empress, She who killed the Leviathan and midwifed god, declared that the Plaguesmith, like all Her Wend, was an exile from death. Such proclamations have held true against incredible force for millions of years. Wend have been hit with supernovae, bound into the hearts of neutron stars, and split in half with blades-of-firmament. Nothing has ever stuck long enough for the attacker to gloat, let alone long enough for the Imperial Bureaucracy to convene a Myriadic Council, but convene a Council they have. You're here pretending to be a member of the Peripheral Society, a religious movement whose leaders you personally fed to demons. You have no idea what they believed. But you figure with their clergy gone, no one else will either, so you can make it up as you go. Coming to a place so full of powerful and influential figures is dangerous, certainly, but the prize on offer is simply irresistible. When the Empress slew the Leviathan but left its corpse to roam the galaxy forever, there were those who whispered that it was because She could not do more. They believed that perhaps not even Her power was sufficient to destroy the beast entirely. Similarly, some have suggested that the reason She makes Wend immortal is not just that She intends to inflict infinite punishment for finite wrong, but because She knows some of Her enemies are beyond Her ability to destroy. If all of that is true (an admittedly open question) and someone managed to kill the Plaguesmith, that suggests there is now a power in the galaxy greater than the Empress Herself. If you can discover the nature of this power and bring it into the shadow of the Leviathan's Corpse, the beast will be able to corrupt that power to its service like it has so many before. You don't know how your master will reward the one who makes it greater than the Empress, but you can't wait to find out. Your working theory is that the Voidsingers did it. You know from fighting their ilk across dozens of planets that even their lowest acolytes are absurdly hard to kill. The ones in charge? You've seen lone monks put down entire Leviathan Cults when the mood took them. You could definitely see them coming up with a trick to kill Her pet monster. Maybe one of the Voidsingers present on the Contemplatory will give you a lead on how it was done, if you can just figure out what to offer in trade. ## Mechanics ### Asset: [[Boon of the Beast|Boon of the Beast]] Serving the most evil and destructive power in the galaxy does have its perks. Each Leviathan Cultist makes sacrifices to the great beast, and is rewarded in accordance with the quality of their sacrifice. Some are granted forbidden knowledge, the ability to wake and command ancient, lost superweapons. Others gain new forms, shedding their human skin to stride across worlds as colossal figures of poison gas and burning tar. Each reward is distinct and powerful enough to encourage further sacrifice. Currently, you have the following boons: - Machine Invisibility: No technology, regardless of how powerful or advanced, is capable of detecting you when you don't want to be detected or targeting you when you don't want to be targeted. You can bypass any security system and cannot be targeted with advanced weaponry. Explosives, knives, and any manner of other simple weapons are perfectly capable of killing you, but an entire fleet of warships will fail to hit you with a single one of their AI-guided smart missiles. - Sinful Grin: Any time you're on the losing side of a [[Negotiation]], you may select one [[Negotiation#Minor Concessions|Minor Concession]] and strike it from the agreement without spending advantages. If asked, you may indicate that you have the [[Face-Saver]] Asset, which has a similar effect. ### Lien: [[Sworn to the Serpent]] Despite the Empress' iron grip on the galaxy, She is surprisingly tolerant of the free expression of religion. So long as a faith doesn't claim to be beyond Her power, She tends to live and let live where beliefs are concerned. There are exceptions, however, and the worship of the Leviathan's Corpse has been punishable by slow death for millions of years. That's not terribly fair, since the Leviathan's Corpse possesses the most powerful psyche-manipulating weapons ever crafted, and the Empress is the only person in history to enter its sphere of influence without being forcibly and permanently converted to its worship, but Her Majesty is not known for a sense of fair play. You are compelled to spread worship of the Leviathan, and to seek out sacrifices in its name. Whenever you participate in a [[Combat|Combat]], your side loses one advantage as you attempt to make the appropriate sacrifices without revealing your nature. If asked, you may indicate that you possess either [[Hapless]] or [[Ill-fated]], two Liens with similar effects. If you are discovered as a Leviathan Cultist, you will be killed by the Voidstalker Corps. ## Themes These themes are offered to help inform roleplay, but do not carry a mechanical effect. - Cosmic Horror - The Reverberations of Harm - The Transactionality of Evil