Inspiring Illustrations - Older Than The Memory of the Dead

NOTE: These are adventure seeds and setting work for my own Hyperborea campaign inspired by the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerors of Hyperborea Gazetteer.

18). Older Than The Memory of the Dead

The foundations of Khromarium are set deeper and more firmly than bedrock. They touch upon the boundary of the black abyss and the nightmare dreams of the Elder Gods who were never worshiped by man. More terrible than the bodies of the Dead that Walk are the Blue-men who inhabit these frail shells of humanity.  That they themselves are corpses of some ancient and unknown race speaks of a terror the passing ages has allowed to endure.

The Blue-men are corrupters and desecrators. They delight in pain and the torture of the living. They trample the ceremonies and rituals of the Gods beneath their feet and scatter the offerings of the pious. Rarely seen, the Blue-men are powerful and draw energy from the power of priests and mages. The drain the life from strong warriors and wear their skin as a cloak to mask their decaying limbs. They find their ways into the very bones of men.

When and where they will appear is unknown. They prefer moonless nights but will come out in the brightest day. Singly they are a terror, but in groups of three or four they are a devastation. Wherever they come from it is deep beneath the great city, among the tunnels that wind down and down beneath the earth, swallowed in darkness, older than the memory of the dead.