Grile

Subterranean devourers of emotions.

Basics

• Taxonomic Order: Illittum

• Alignment: Infernal

• Energy: Mollesse

• Lifespan: 2,000 years

• Diet: Emotion and meat

• Habitat: Subterranean Realm

Origins

The tears of a thousand lost and lonely beings pooled and gained life.

Description

Griles appear to be 8’ tall, mottled cobalt-blue-skinned and palest white beings with motes of light and shadow throughout their flesh. They have sharp claws that can rend stone and eyes made of molten metal. Their mouths are disproportionate to the size of their heads and filled with many different kinds of teeth - tusks, fangs, blunt molars, curved razors, and more. Their faces are blunt and broad, and their hair runs in a furry mane down their backs.

Procreation

Griles reproduce with one another sexually. They sometimes reproduce with demons and tantum as well, with their offspring having the same species as the birthing parent. They cannot reproduce outside their species without supernatural intervention.

Powers

Griles can breathe a blue and white flame that transforms the target’s emotions into a wave of energy that is consumed by the griles. The stronger the emotions felt by their victims, the more they can consume. They do not need to devour negative emotions, but they choose to do so culturally.

Emotional Powers

Griles can cause negative emotions with their rasping, rumbling voices. They are natural ventriloquists, bouncing their voices throughout the caverns they dwell within. They have minor empathic senses for all emotions if they are close to someone, and they can see fear, loneliness, and sorrow as auras around people.

Weaknesses

Elysian essence burns them. They hate sunlight and can only tolerate it if they find ways to block it from their eyes and shade their skin.

Nations

Griles dwell within the Lithosphere near major settled areas or in caverns where people are likely to enter and get lost. There are different nations in different areas:

• Arngotleg: a nation under Cassaru.

• Ca'zhthaeg: a nation under western and southern Palhur.

• Dha'gona: a nation under western and southern Dabusen and the central Island Bridge.

• Ellestloangh: a nation under Jesenranu, the northern Island Bridge, and Mahad.

• Glath-degg: a nation under Starfall and the Palhuric Ocean.

• Goghathak: the original nation under western Ansulym.

• Kekru: a nation under Taggarus.

• Mmactab: a nation under the southern Island Bridge and eastern Dabusen.

• Nek'sha: a nation under eastern Ansulym.

• Uggharndeg: a nation under Wymmera.

Culture

Griles of the Goghathak nation live in nomadic bands of 289. If a 290th grile is born, the parent and baby leave the band and seek another to dwell with or the baby is killed.

Every band is led by the strongest warrior. The warrior has a group of other warriors as their trusted guards and allies, and each of these has their own favored warriors, forming a group in total of 17 (the leader, four elites, and 12 guards). The rest of the band are slaves to these warriors. Slaves do all of the other work besides hunting and fighting, including taking care of the children, cleaning, building, crafting crude tools, tunnel digging, and keeping the food secure.

In theory, griles could feed each other their emotions and survive without any help or support from others. Two griles could lead long, healthy lives feeding off one another. Loving couples do this in remote places, though if they meet a grile band, they are tortured and killed. But grile culture has evolved to instead torture others to suicide in order to feed. So griles take other mortals as slaves, keep them barely fed and watered, and torment them so they may feed off them. This practice started after the original griles captured and tortured their own Manifest, driving her into hiding.

Grile children are raised by their mothers, if the mothers decide to keep their child. Anyone who cannot fight or hunt has no worth to the griles, so pregnant griles are turned into slaves even if they were warriors before, and children are at risk of being killed until they are able to contribute to the band. If they end up being too inconvenient, they are killed.

Once a grile child can fight or hunt, they are continually tested by the rest of the band, forced to prove themselves. Sometime between the ages of 12 and 20, it becomes clear to the warriors in the band if the child is worth training or not. If they aren’t, they are kept as a slave. If they are, they are trained to be a warrior.

Adult life among the griles is either one of toil and struggle for scraps of emotion, or one of gluttony and hunting and constant competition to be one of the best warriors in the band. Among the special roles for slaves, other than cooks and childcare, are those who stitch clothing for the griles out of the flesh of their victims; those who butcher hunted animals; and those who must bring psychological torment to the mortal slaves.

Because grile society is so brutal, many slave griles escape their circumstances and seek a better life elsewhere. These are hunted, enslaved, and eaten. Many who manage to escape face discrimination in the cultures they seek refuge in and are driven out. But some find meaningful lives, especially among the jark’aqana.

National Cultures

The other nations have different internal structures and relationships:

• Arngotleg: the Cassaran grile nation eschews torture in favor of mutual support. They live in matriarchal bands near the roots of the World Tree. Most of them have been hunted and killed by Glath-degg or Goghathak griles.

• Ca'zhthaeg: the Palhuric grile nation mixes use of ponomancy with their emotional devouring. They live in smaller bands and keep caverns with torture chambers.

• Dha'gona: the Dabusenese grile nation mixes use of hollow magic with their emotional devouring. They have a small underground kingdom that is constantly at war with those around them.

• Ellestloangh: the Jesenranic grile nation mixes use of uafan toxins with their emotional devouring. They drug their victims, fill them with fear, and feast upon them. They mix with the surface-dwellers in Tromlui and other nearby countries.

• Glath-degg: the Starfallian grile nation is part of Harkanheim, mixing use of blasphemous oaths with their emotional devouring. They are part of Harkanian culture.

• Kekru: the Taggaran grile nation mixes use of cacophony with their emotional devouring, breaking bones and eardrums in order to torment their captives. They are mostly loosely connected hermits.

• Mmactab: the Dabusenese grile nation mixes use of sterisi with their emotional devouring, starving and thirsting victims. They live in small, desperate bands where few others dwell.

• Nek'sha: the Ansulymic grile nation is part of the various empires of eastern Ansulym, practicing the dominant arts of those nations and mostly being a slave race.

• Uggharndeg: the Wymmeran grile nation mixes use of baleblood with their emotional devouring. They push the limits of baleblood use without becoming baleful, but they often join the Tzukan.

Esoterica

Griles are beings of mollesse and can naturally use the arts of whispering. They are also fond of using arnum, baleblood, cacophony, sterisi, slitna, stravomenos, uafas, ibbissu, imperium, quaestus, razdavit’, pravum, misfortune, Eldritch energy, d’qiarsea, oalkhaylaoataa, gebvel, emotional resonance, blood energy, Raesian energy, aifaellam, and mijjit.

Religion

Griles worship Dernier Recours, whom they call Thacyilzok, a mother goddess figure they credit with birthing them from the tears of suicides. They believe that by driving others to suicide, they honor and feed her, and therefore, they are more in her favor. Every band of griles has a hasrth, or priestess, who leads their rites.

The three most important rites in their faith are the Rite of Tears, the Rite of Scars, and the Rite of Falling.

The Rite of Tears is a sacrifice wherein everyone in the band sheds tears of molten metal, which is gathered, formed into a cup, and used to gather tears of other mortal victims. These tears are drunk by all of the warriors, giving them pure mollesse to power them.

The Rite of Scars is ritual scarification done to new warriors. Their blood is gathered before they must fight all of the other warriors in the band, and afterward, they are washed in that blood (if they survive) to make them stronger.

And the Rite of Falling is ritual suicide performed by anyone in the band who wishes to die. As this is done, they are burned by everyone in the band, having their intense emotions devoured in a great flame, as they commit suicide by throwing themselves off a high platform. Their bodies are then devoured as well.

Gender

Griles enforce a gender binary that is not accurate; they enforce the enslavement of women and the supremacy of men, with the exception of the hrasth, the priestess of the band, who can be of any gender but will be declared female.

Economy

Griles have a slave-based economy.

Military

Every grile band has its warriors who terrorize their victims, capture slaves, hunt prey animals, and fight for their band, which they view as their property.

Language

Grile language is Lovecraftian.

Trade

Griles trade slaves and meat with other bands or some other nearby nations, though very rarely outside their own species.

Occupations

Some common occupations include the following:

• Chaukhanan: butchers. Called bouchers on the surface world.

• Fhulleg: those who psychologically torture the food-slaves.

• Hasrth: priestesses of Thacyilzok.

• Mangkand: rangers of the desolation. Called bracconiers on the surface world.

• Thekkrug: warriors who gain strength from eating mortal flesh.

• Trangatk: stitchers of flesh clothing. Called tricoteuses on the surface world.

• Wegkhand: slaves who are emotionally broken and work with no willpower.

Outside View

Griles are feared by most mortals who are aware of them. Their reputation as hunters and eaters of people is borne of truth, but this has a deleterious effect on the non-cannibalistic griles in the north and others who break from their people.

Notables

• Gyghagthakhtuth, Grile Manifest, Aeonian, She in Eternal Torment

Estimated Populations

• Arngotleg: 500

• Ca'zhthaeg: 50,000

• Dha'gona: 50,000

• Ellestloangh: 25,000

• Glath-degg: 5,000

• Goghathak: 100,000

• Kekru: 50,000

• Mmactab: 25,000

• Nek'sha: 50,000

• Uggharndeg: 50,000

• Other: 100,000

Sample Stats

PRO 11
ATH 9
STR 13
AWA 8
WIL 9
PRS 6
STH 7