Quartz 5

The Children of the Brass Worm

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tagsorganization, cult

4 min read

The Children of the Brass Worm

Long ago there lived a powerful, ancient brass dragon who had amassed a great trove of treasure and conceived a deep fondness for all elven people. Among that treasure the dragon - known to their children as Aerister (“teacher” in Elvish) - kept three powerful, dangerous, and legendary magical items, which they wished to protect through time: to be used when needed, then hidden away again.

To that end, Aerister travelled the Material Plane, siring and bearing (as whim drove them) elven children of every subrace - high, wood, drow, shadar-kai, eladrin, and more. These children were taken from their communities to live with Aerister in a desert hideout, where they were taught magic and the rules they were to live by. When the eldest came of age, Aerister chose three to lead, gave them the three legendary items, the prophecies bound up with them, and the mission to keep them safe - and then departed, never to return. These elves came to call themselves the Children of the Brass Worm.

A Cult Curdled by Time

With their dragon’s charge in hand, the Children carry an over-inflated sense of purpose. As the few chosen among a race favoured by their dragon ancestor, they are haughty toward other elves, whom they think lost and purposeless, and they think still less of other races - herds of livestock to be protected in the general way, but never worried over. This conceit has only worsened down the years.

Over the generations a well-meaning, secretive group has grown ever more cult-like, paranoid, and morally dubious. The three leaders became known as High Priests, and the awaited return of the brass dragon became the heart of a religious dogma. They abandoned traditional elven family names early on, yet keep a close and proud watch over genealogy - status flows from how many founding Children one can trace one’s lineage to.

Strongholds and the Hidden Trade

The Children hold two additional hideouts against the day their primary desert stronghold is found and stormed; guards are kept at each, and their locations closely hidden. When supplies are needed, they send disguised parties - two high-level sorcerers and some guards - to trade in major cities with elven populations by teleport, slipping in and out quickly so that a band of elves draws no interest. They sometimes fail, betrayed by archaic speech and by using the wrong surname as a pseudonym for their subrace.

The Breeding Program and the Stolen

To keep the bloodlines strong and the ranks filled, a rigorous breeding program has run since the beginning. Members occasionally mate among themselves, but more often, when numbers are needed, individuals are sent to elven communities across the realm on “Recruitment Trips.” These have left many of the more-visited communities with cautionary tales of a fairy in elf form seducing a charismatic local and stealing the resulting child (sometimes after vanishing for most of the pregnancy). Rarely a child is well enough protected, or moved beyond reach; such children are called “The Stolen,” and the cult spends great effort tracking them and bringing them into the fold if it can.

The newly taken Children are raised communally in the faith and taught magic and their great mission. Thanks to the breeding program almost all members have at least some natural sorcerous gift; those with weak or no magic remain useful all the same, rising to high station as guards for the compounds, or training in spycraft and going out into the world as rogues and bards to keep the Children abreast of current events (for the tracking of prophecy), to keep tabs on the Stolen, or to gather wealth, resources, and items. The highest-ranking guards and scouts are often gifted brass dragon scale mail made from Aerister’s own shed scales.

The Unwanted Generation

Though usually numbering between 120 and 200, about twenty years ago the Children were dealt a terrible blow, and the last thirty members barely escaped with the artifacts to their backup fortress high in the mountains. To rebuild more quickly, they sent members on Recruitment Trips to human settlements, to cut down the years of maturation. The half-elves born of those unions will be vital to the cult’s survival - yet they will forever be a blight upon its pureblood pride, and are known as the “Unwanted Generation.”

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