The Web of Play

[EloHim]

THE WEB OF PLAY

[EloHim]

The Bird

"There is no Man behind this Mask. Only Death."

They are the entity(-s), also known as Executor, Muu Shuub, Courier of Death, Chief Butler of the Elder Ones. Their aim in Hamlet is to stop the Heart of Darkness - the local Elder God - from expansion, gain of power and further rampage... Either by killing it completely or by making other potential Deity consume its power and replace it.
Secondary actor, but nonetheless knows way more than primary, and allowed to dispense some hints of knowledge(no spoilers) to whom he deems worthy. Those of the thick skull or proper mental walls may impede him, but failure is unlikely. Mostly presents itself as a visual and vocal hallucination, sometimes taking place of already existing Mask(unnamed secondary NPCs). Is able to edit perception of reality of a single person, “lifting the curtain”, but is prohibited to harm the psyche and thus only able to communicate with actors using telepathy.

Not allowed in physical world, unless one of two conditions is met:
1. The Elder God to which the land belongs allows full physical presence of The Bird and its subordinates.(Passage through Hamlet and its surroundings was denied)
2. Bird can fully manifest itself within a person wearing physical copy of his full costume.

[EloHim]

The City of Gorkhon

At first there were no such thing. Just a large Steppe - that was a resting place for the Great One known as World-Bull, Bos Turoch. As he slept, the earth covered him, became him and, connected to his blood, produced many plants that could not be encountered anywhere else and the largest population of bulls and cows ever seen.

But those were not the only creations.

In the image of humans, according to legend, from the clay of the Steppe and Bull's blood, Great Priestess Bodho made Odonhe, "those who hold His horns". They were the only beings able to shepherd the bulls and cows birthed in the Steppe and collectors of many variations of the rare plant broadly known as Twir that grew in the Steppe, fed by the Bull's blood.
They were not fully human, but so close to them one could hardly discern without a closer look on anatomy and such. They hid their own shapes beneath heaps of cloth to protect their bodies from everything that might harm them, hiding their heads under the hoods.

Bodho taught women that followed her to listen to the Earth and the Bull sleeping under the Steppe and "persuade" Twir to come out of the ground by singing and dancing to it, talking and nurturing it, for every plant required care akin to a human infant, before it could grant its unusual properties to the gatherers. As a thanks to their service they gained outworldly beauty and youth.
Those women became the Brides, connected to Odonhe by unbreakable bond. They lived for as long as they didn't bear children from Odonhe, but once that happened - the daughter inherited the powers of mother, and mother was dying, putting the daughter into care of other Brides.

SPOILER: Click to show

Then humans came to the Steppe, at first because of their nature of wanderers. They started their settlement there, listening to Odonhe and Brides, worshiping Bos Turoch and his first bride, Bodho. The Uklad was established, giving humans the rules and testaments of Bodho.
The main one was that any Body and the Earth were sacred and "opening" them was considered worse than incest in their society.

Only chosen people, Butchers were allowed to cut bulls and cows for meat and give the bovine blood back to the earth. Higher than them, closest to the things they worshiped were Menkhu, a family of people that were allowed to open up a human body, for human blood and organs were just as precious to Uklad as Twir was.
The place of worship was made inside a giant rock formation on the edge of the old settlement. Ollongo, "the place where blood was given" - the closes point of access to Bos Turoch's sacred body.

The settlement continued growth attracted outsiders who were seeking to profit from the large cattle that was roaming the Steppe. They came in force, bringing Uklad to heel, forcing Odonhe and Brides out of the old settlements back into the Steppe, and forcing humans to work in the Ollongo - now rebuilt into a giant slaughterhouse and dubbed fittingly - Abbatoir. The main bulk of the bovine population was hidden in that building along with the Butchers, and the settlement started to grow into the City. Gorhon. Project of Bulls.

Each year, bovine population was growing and waning. Each year through many tunnels under slaughterhouse, bovine blood was flowing back into the veins of the World Bull, as per ancient tradition.
Each year the Twir grew abundand in the Steppe, and the air around the city became heavy, influencing the mind and body of any human who lived in it. In months of the Fall it made the weaker. In months of the Spring - filled them with strength.