Anniversary Email 70

Not an actual anniversary email, but a congratulations note I sent two recipients of a promotion at my company.

Congratulations, <NAME> and <NAME>! With your new roles come increased responsibilities. Tasks, if you will. Toils, like the heroes in some Homeric epic. Deep within the confines of the earth, the hidden things sleep. Impossible beings that should not exist. Things that by our current understanding of the sciences cannot exist. The great weeping sores that line their bodies weep sweet lacrima. When ingested, this cloudy fluid opens our minds to strange new vistas and terrifying cosmic truths that unwind human sanity and send us into a spiral of madness from whence there is no return. To sup from their wounds is to blow open the doors of perception and wrench your third eye open in blood and pain. To light your every nerve with electric current and burn away any pretense you maintain about your place in this world. You cannot call yourself fully human once you have tasted their alien fruit.

Of course, such things must be made to slumber. They are fang and claw and multitudes of limbs and mouths that will surely seek to consume all that lies before them. They hunger, and they sleep fitfully. You must descend beneath the earth, into the lightless subterranean caverns and sing them a siren song of screams of pain and terror. All that soothes these monsters are the sounds of strife and the scent of bloodshed. The taste of fear. Conflict is, to them, a sweet lullaby that gently lulls them back into complacency. Dreamless sleep.

In time you shall grow accustomed to your new home. Your eyes will fog and go dark in the depths. You will no longer need sight. You will navigate by the scent of the sleeping ones and the sound of their vast mass shifting, signaling the need for your ministrations. Eventually, as you continue to subsist on the fungus found in their caverns, a fungus fed by the secretions of the sleepers, you will begin your transformation. Finally, one day you will take your place among them, joining their ranks as we send new acolytes into that hellish chamber of lament.

Congratulations again!

Monster Drawing Club 6

A beholder, which they were calling a watcher for copyright reasons. Non photo blue with prismacolor colored pencils, with a Sharpie fine point and brush pen layered over. Not thrilled with how I shaped this one. It is pretty flat looking, and should appear more rounded.

The watcher ({beholder) for monster drawing club
The watcher ({beholder) for monster drawing club

Monster Drawing Club 5

You can see more of the rough lines on this one, likely because I got lazy and didn’t attempt to erase them. I wanted the lich to be holding his phylactery, as that is an important part of lichdom, and separates them from other types of undead. Sharpie fine again for details. I was still searching for a better method of shading at this point.

The lich for monster drawing club
The lich for monster drawing club

Monster Drawing Club 4

The wyrm. I switched to using Sharpie fine pens for this one, as I didn’t feel I could get enough detail with the brush. I am glad I did, as the teeth and claws turned out much better. Roughs were done in non photo blue and I laid pen over top of that to finish the piece. I needed a better method for shading, however.

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How to Petition Brilzug the Lord of Flaying When It is Wearing Headphones

How to Petition Brilzug the Lord of Flaying When It is Wearing Headphones Over the Sensory Organs We Might Crudely Refer to as Ears

These days, many entities who exist on the frayed edges of of our reality are cruel and capricious monsters who have turned their multitudinous eyes elsewhere in the cosmos.

That does not mean you cannot petition their favor.

Not all entities are receptive to entreaties from pitiful creatures they consider beneath their notice, and will gladly consume the minds of any who dare to speak their name, leaving an empty, soulless husk. A drooling shell of what was once a man.

However, some things from beyond the realms of humanity are eager for supplicants and vassals who will work their dark will upon the face of our world, turning it into a hellish landscape of ceaseless suffering and torment. These blighted overlords will be happy to hear your pleas and invest you with a portion of their power, blackening your soul and damning you to an eternity in their thrall in exchange for power over your own kind. The ability to subjugate your fellow humans in the dark bondage of your new master.

Of course, their willingness to hear your mewling does not mean they will not crush your flesh, leaving a ruined mass of shattered bones and bleeding tissues, your organs sent to the far flung nine corners of their domain to be gnawed on by things that cannot exist in our universe. This is the risk you take when you dare to traverse where your brethren rightly fear to tread.

Approaching and Talking to Brilzug the Lord of Flaying When It is Wearing Headpohnes

First, you must find an ancient grimoire bound in human flesh, stained with blood and the passing of ages. Within the yellowed, cracking pages, you must find a ritual called The Black Sacrament. Beware corrupted versions of this incantation, as they will surely call the unwanted notice of far fouler beasts.

The seller will likely make many demands of you. Fulfill them to your utmost, and be willing to offer anything. Have no fear, this unfortunate degenerate shall be the first to be annihilated when you assume your new form. Your promises mean nothing.

Pour out a circle of salt and stand within. As you begin chanting the blasphemous words that dance before your eyes, you will feel your sanity begin to strain and slip. At this point you may go insane, forever lost to the terrible truths to which you have opened your mind. Persist in your efforts.

Next you must produce a sacrificial dagger forced from the black ore found only in the Mines of Gibbering Madness and tempered in the blood of goats. It must be goat blood. Rams’ blood will not work. Cows’ blood will cause you to be atomized and scattered into the realms of pain, where you will be tortured eternally by the howling winds.

With the dagger, slice into the flesh of your forearm, peeling your skin back from the muscle. Continue until you are able to hold your flayed arm aloft, proclaiming you have done so in the name of Brilzug, the Lord of Flaying. It is important you not allow any blood to fall outside the salt circle. Doing so will result in you being consumed in a pillar of flame.

Summoned by the scent of your blood on the wind, you should now have its full attention. At this point, Its many lidless eyes will likely have turned to gaze upon you balefully, the full weight of Its terrible majesty made manifest through the rent you have opened into Its world. It will slowly remove the headphones that It might listen to your pitiful words. All will stand revealed as you stand on the precipice of dark apotheosis.

The rest is up to you. Speak plainly and clearly, making your desires known. Bargain wisely, as you are weak and easily destroyed by this terrible thing that should not exist. Your new life begins now, your will lashed to that of your hideous master.

Common Mistakes that Mortals Make When Approaching Brilzug the Lord of Flaying When It is Wearing Headphones

1. Approaching in a nervous manner

Only the mighty are worth of serving Brilzug. The weak are to be fodder for the strong. All shall suffer in the coming world, and the weak will be the first to fall.

2. Giving up too easily

Headphones are a great barrier between a vile thing of darkness and the world, but not as great as the void keeping our realities from commingling.

Some of these creatures are more than capable of manifesting on their own, but they want supplicants with strength and confidence, and they like to test their followers with arcane rituals and difficult acts of faith.

Those who give up too easily or feel shame at their actions are marked as cowards and will be forced to watch as they love is brought to ruin before their flesh is twisted and they are made to spend eternity writhing in endless pain.

3. Not leading the conversation

Brilzug has no need of you, human. You are weak and pathetic. You approached It. You must make you entreaties and show you are worth of Its vile caress.

4. Sticking to polite or reserved conversation

Brilzug is the lord of Flaying. Politeness and reservation went out the window long ago. Get to the point and do it quickly, meat sack, lest it grow weary of your prattling and devour you whole.

5. Not including sacrifices

Lords of Flaying love gifts. The bloodier, the better. You will be called on for frequent sacrifice while in Its thrall. You will be made to offer up that which you hold most dear. This is the price of power. These are the wages that must be paid. You shall know strength, but only at the cost of suffering. You shall be made again in Its terrible image.