Gorvulax - The Otyugh
They worship it. The rats, the beggars, the ones with boils on their souls. They bring it offerings — teeth, tongues, dead dreams. And in return, it whispers to them beneath the city.
Role in Its Society:
Otyughs are usually scavengers, content to feed on refuse and rot — barely sentient and mostly solitary. But Gorvulax ascended. Somehow, this otyugh developed heightened awareness, a plague-born intellect, and the ability to infect minds as easily as it taints flesh.
Now, deep in the forgotten cisterns beneath the Sunken Ward of Brightcrown, it rules a fetid domain. Cultists, verminfolk, and desperate mortals have come to view it as a living embodiment of suffering transformed into power — a grotesque fertility god of refuse, blight, and rebirth.
It spreads infection not out of malice, but as a sacrament. Its loyal followers wear sores as medals, and dream of a day when all above will wallow beneath.
Appearance Description:
Gorvulax is bloated to the size of a carriage, covered in pale, lumpy tumors and thick mats of moldering hair and leech-nests. Its three tentacles are pocked with pus-filled nodes that burst with touch. A dozen small eyes blink from between folds of diseased skin, and its gaping maw oozes black mucus like tar. A crust of bone jewelry and rotten idol-charms dangles from its hide, gifted by worshipers.
Its stench is physical — not just nauseating, but maddening. Prolonged exposure causes hallucinations and delusions of divine insight.
Backstory:
Gorvulax was spawned in the gutters of a derelict ward of thecity, thriving on the bile and blight left behind after a planar leak poisoned the water tables. Whether through magical mutation or divine neglect, it grew intelligent — and curious.
It began speaking to rats. Then to fever-maddened beggars. Then to the dying. Over time, a cult emerged: The Hollow Feast, who believe Gorvulax is the physical embodiment of “that which cannot be cast away.” Now, he holds court beneath the city, surrounded by rot, prayer, and plague.
Some whisper that even a minor god of pestilence once tried to claim the region — and that Gorvulax devoured its avatar.
