Editing LeviathanTempest:ChapterFive (section)

== Stranger Things in Heaven and Earth ==

There are things in the deepest parts of the Rift and the darkest corners of the oceans that seem to be off the tribe, yet try as they might the Tribe cannot fit them under the usual Strains of Tiamat's children. It might be a simple lack of evidence, it may be centuries of myth and wishful thinking clouding the truth, or perhaps there truly are more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of in the Tribe's philosophy. 

=== The Maggot Gods ===

They call them many names: Pnthadholic Wurms, High Feeders, The Midwives of Life Within Death. But the name they are most commonly called is The Maggot Gods.

The Maggot Gods exist at all levels of the Rift, they're only rarely seen and always sighted devouring some Rift creature or remains selected according to inscrutable criteria. Sometimes a swarm will descend on a Leviathan. They also look like maggots, surprisingly they look exactly like maggots.

At least that's what the tribe can agree on, and it's enough to make most think something might be up. They're not called Gods because a single one could raise mountains and smite armies, they're called The Maggot Gods because the High Feeders have held a consistent if varyingly sized cult among the Tribe for centuries.

They're the the last children of Tiamat, stillborn within her womb at the moment of her death, chewing their way to freedom. They are creatures of the same order of being as Tiamat, scavengers who feed on her corpse and the closest living being to the holy mother known to the Tribe. They are mindless, their thoughts are hunger and their spirits hymns of gluttony. They are one mind in many parts, as far beyond us as we are beyond apes. They are destined to lead the Tribe to conquest. They are destined to devour the Tribe to the last. They are destined to consume the festering rot of the Rift and so return it to the Primordial Waters.

To the Tribe the Wurms are all these things and more, and less. Worship of the Maggot Gods stretches back further than any surviving records can attest. Eyewitness accounts, ancient records or “ancient records” as the case may be are frequent occurrences. The typical tale harks to the Maggot's ability to purify by eating rotten flesh without touching the healthy. Among the latest rumours are: They have eaten the political corruption out of a small town, a junkie's addictions and an Ahab's madness. Of course not all stories follow this model, claims of giant swarms or individual giant Midwives that stretch for miles are common while miracles ascribed to ordinary maggots are rare but not unknown, usually the teller of such stories dismisses the division between maggots and the Maggot Gods.

And somewhere, far below the debates and arguments of the Tribe, a tiny Maggot sinks its jaws into its next meal.

=== The Womb of Nations ===

They say Tiamat tore her asunder with teeth of rain-soaked continents. They say Marduk and his disciples split the sky to slay her in the greatest battle since the death of Tiamat herself. They say the first cities of man marched against her with armies, with bronze, with fire and with courage. Yet they all agree one one thing: In the early days of the world she competed for the right to rule the Earth and for her efforts she was scattered to the deepest corners of the world in the aftermath of humanities triumph.

To use her full name she is The Cnidarious Archaeology, Sister to Many and Matron of the Terrestrial who's Womb Births Nations. It's a rather long name so most shorten it to the Womb of Nations.

The Womb of Nations is a megafauna, a massive colony organism that resembles the most vibrant and alien of coral reefs. Teeming with symbiotic life both assimilated and intelligently designed for a purpose. The smallest, which can be as little as the size of a human hand, are considered by scholars of the tribe to be a larval stage and are known as Mothers of Themselves. Only when she reaches the size of a town does she come into her full glory, awaking into sentience she becomes a true Womb of Nations. A being of god-like intellect and eldrich might.

The Womb of Nations seek to engulf all life into one static biosystem. One complete, beautiful, monstrous, god-mind. Truly pan-dimensional she instinctively adapts and spreads across dimensions. Sometimes she is a cruel conqueror, her arrival heralded by miles and miles of hydras, men-of-war and legions of nine-legged venomous starfish that shatter the cities of her foes, forcibly imprinting captives with her own flesh and mind. Other times she is neighbourly content to grow in mutual coexistence. Ever patient, she plans to only wage war when the last virgin land is claimed. She gives no purpose to this quest; it is just the way of life to grow and consume.

A Womb of Nations possesses a Wake which grows in strength as she grows in size. Unlike the tribe it causes rapture and ecstasy not fear and awe. It's an insidious thing; it does not shatter minds but addicts them to its song. Be they man or beast many willingly come and allow her to grow her coral through their flesh forever joining them to the Nation.

While the Womb of Nations is unknown to human society this is merely the result of how she was driven to the deepest corners of the earth and starved into dormancy. The size and speed at which the Womb of Nations can grow would leave little room for doubt should one reach maturity. The Marduk Society however know exactly what she is and exterminate her with the same fervour they show against the Tribe. The Society also knows the other way to combat her. Should two colonies come into contact the smaller and weaker will simply lie down and die, if they are of equal strength then both will engage in total war combined with a catastrophic mental breakdown.

=== Aboleths ===

In their Apotheosis a Leviathan can travel to the deepest parts of Earth. Sometimes one takes it upon herself to explore the great ocean trenches. There in the deepest waters untouched by the light of the sun they meet the Aboleths.

Aboleths resemble a cross between an eel and a trilobite with a set of four tentacles that emerge from just behind the head. They're a quiet, almost sessile species who spend their adult lives feeding on black smokers only moving to challenge another over a more favourable resting spots. Aboleths are powerful psychics and even have their own Wake with which they lure sea-life to supplement their diet. Essentially immortal Aboleths never stop growing until they exceed their ability to feed themselves and finally starve.

The reproductive cycle of an Aboleth is an unusual one. Their eggs released in great clouds, fertilised outside the body and rise to hatch far above the sea floor. A young Aboleth is a parasite that attaches to larger lifeforms and connects their circulatory system to it's own while forcibly suppressing then duplicating the work of vital organs to force dependency. Eventually the Aboleth moves on leaving its host to a quick death. As the young Aboleth matures it becomes increasingly vulnerable to the psychic calls of its kin. It's survival depends on it's ability to resist until it is strong enough to fight and claim its own black smoker. Only afterwords will it begin to grow its characteristic exoskeleton.

Aboleths are known to the scientific community from fossils but are wrongly considered to be extinct. Naturally the fossil record didn't mention their more supernatural traits but in turn the Tribe, at least those who don't read palaeontology journals, would be surprised to learn what humanity knows about the Aboleths: As recently as around four to five thousand years ago Aboleths were much more active and their habitat stretched across the oceans.