Hollow Child

The horrific result of drawing power from the abuse of the weak.

Basics

• Taxonomic Order: Constructs

• Alignment: Infernal

• Energy: Hollow Energy

• Lifespan: 500 years

• Diet: Emotional resonance

• Habitat: Anywhere

Origins

Hollow children are mortals who have used hollow energy to empty their bodies of internal organs and bones and replaced them with vermin.

Creation

The Ritual of Hollowing requires traumatizing the victim of the hollow mage in four ways: emotionally, mentally, physically, and metaphysically. In order for this to work, it must be done within the confines of a space marked with special sigils called hollow marks. Usually, a house or a room is marked (every wall, floor, and ceiling must have at least one mark, and every mark must be different), but sometimes an open space can be marked if a suitable boundary is identified (a clearing in the woods where every tree and the ground are marked, an island where the shore in each cardinal direction is marked, or simply a space with a circle drawn in blood or other humor).

The victim must be brought to the marked space, and then the four traumatizations must occur. The difference between emotional and mental abuse is subtle, but the demarcation is usually the difference between emotional degradation and overwhelming stress. Physical damage is very literal. Metaphysical trauma requires supernatural assault. If the hollow mage does not have the ability to do this, the ceremony thus far will allow them to do so if they have been successful. Most hedge their bets by acquiring a magical object. Sexual abuse, gaslighting, torture, and isolation are all commonly used.

There are eight hollow marks:

• Mark of the Rat: the most common and powerful, symbol of bodily harm

• Mark of the Worm: symbol of sexual abuse

• Mark of the Roach: symbol of metaphysical abuse

• Mark of the Locust: symbol of mental abuse

• Mark of the Eel: symbol of emotional abuse

• Mark of the Crow: symbol of gaslighting

• Mark of the Scorpion: symbol of torture

• Mark of the Toad: symbol of terror

Once the ritual is complete, the victim may be kept and further traumatized for greater power, if kept alive for long periods of time. As the victim is tormented, the hollow mage begins to dissolve from the inside out. Every use of hollow magic and every act of abuse liquifies the hollow mage's inside. First, the heart and lungs go. Next, the guts. Then, the eyes and tongue and upper glands. Finally, the bones. Once the hollow mage is only a pile of flesh, skin, and muscle, with some nerves and blood vessels remaining, they may use their power to summon vermin to fill their bodies, thus becoming a hollow child.

Description

Hollow children appear externally to be mortals of any species, but their bodies undulate because their insides have been replaced by hordes of vermin. Vermin include rats, roaches, worms, locusts, eels, crows, scorpions, toads, wasps, hornets, ants, termites, bedbugs, spiders, slugs, snails, mice, bats, pigeons, starlings, ticks, fleas, flies, stoats, ferrets, and sables. Rats are the most common.

Procreation

Hollow children are created when hollow mages intentionally turn themselves into hollow children by drawing so much power from abusing their victims that their mortal bodies cannot contain the power any longer.

Powers

Hollow children are hollow mages with excessive hollow energy. They can inflict trauma, fear, and control on targets by sacrificing some of their vermin, who have taken the place of their abuse victims.

Vermin

Hollow children perceive the world through the teeming mass of their inner vermin, which they can send out as agents to explore and act in the world. They are a colonial organism, and therefore, each individual vermin is also fully them. They have the full consciousness of the whole and all the powers thereof, though their bodies do not reflect the full strength of the combined being.

Weaknesses

Ujjval aatma will dissolve them into a mass of mundane vermin and lifeless skin. All hollow children eventually lose their ability to be conscious figures and become mindless figures of horror after about a hundred years, spending the last few centuries of their lives roaming the countryside and terrorizing the people.

Nations

Hollow children mostly exist as individuals, but in one country in the world, they are a fundamental part of the culture - Mal’sk, in southeastern Ansulym.

Culture

Malish culture is defined by its feudal structure. It is a kingdom ruled by a powerful tyrannical king who controls the land and serfs of the heavily forested country. Mal’sk was the home of the legendary Hollow Jack, the original hollow mage, hollow child, and now a deity used as a figure of terror and control in Mal’sk and a figure of nightmare around the rest of the world.

In Mal’sk, hollow children are part of the nobility. Any hollow child in a noble family is considered a mark of prestige. Their power is wielded and drawn from their control of their serfs, peasants, and servants (and families), and they are an integral part of the feudal power structure. Hollow mages are elites, and those who achieve hollow childhood are the most elite of the mages. The king is almost always supported by a group of hollow children who pull his strings.

Hollow mages also create the hollow knights that make up the elite military force of Mal’sk and other powerful creations of hollow energy. But the hollow children exist as the most powerful figures in Mal’sk up until about the time they reach a century (a century after whatever lifespan they had as a hollow mage), at which point they become mindless hordes of vermin that rove the wilderness and devour the weak.

Esoterica

Hollow children are beings of hollow energy, the infernal power of abuse, and they wield it more directly and powerfully than any other beings. They are literally created by the most elite mortal users of it. They can also wield all other infernal powers, shebvic powers, and nommic powers.

Religion

The religion of Mal’sk focuses on Hollow Jack, a god who defines their feudal sociopolitical structure. Their religion is an organized organ of oppression and violence designed to indoctrinate the commoners into believing they deserve their suffering. The church of Mal’sk is structured as a hierarchical religion with a network of abuse from top to bottom.

The lowest ranking members of the faith, besides commoners, are those chosen from amongst the commoners to attend to the higher ranking members of the church. These are called bí-genge, and they are promised salvation if they serve well their abusive masters. Their reward is being fed directly to Hollow Jack.

The common priests are called wurþigs. They are often hollow mages working as leaders of the faithful. The leaders of the church in general are the bisceops, and these are the most likely to be hollow children.

Sacristans serve as protectors of the sacred spaces of Hollow Jack, usually churches or hallowed grounds where wild hollow children feed. Áncers are the monks of the church, and they live in remote monasteries where they study hollow magic, find new forms of abuse to gain power, and torment each other.

Gender

Hollow children give up all conception of gender, being colonial organisms, but Malish culture is highly patriarchal, and almost all of them were male before they transformed and get referred to as such post-transformation.

Economy

Mal’sk is a feudal economy.

Military

The Malish military is dominated by the hollow knights, monstrous warriors empowered by abuse and created by hollow mages. The most powerful of them are created by hollow children. They are like mindless versions of hollow children.

Language

Malish is based on Anglo-Saxon.

Trade

Mal’sk trades agricultural products and mined materials, especially flax, iron, salt, and beef.

Occupations

Hollow children are always hollow mages, though they may take different roles in society, such as ealdor-lareows (headmasters of schools) and skin-stitchers.

Outside View

Most believe hollow children to be a myth used to scare children.

Notables

Some notable hollow children include the following:

• Diamond’s Child, Child of Bats, Hollow Chaosmancer

• Elden’s Child, Child of Moths, destroyed

• Guinevere’s Child, Child of Spiders, Hollow Puppeteer

• Guralden the Hollow King, Tyrant of Mal’sk, First King of Mal’sk

• Hollow Aleck, Keeper of Hollows

• Hollow John, Second to the Champion of Hollow Jack, High Bisceop of Mal’sk

• Hollow Tom, Proctor of Hollows, High Bisceop of Mal’sk

• Jaxon, Jack’s Child, Child of Rats, Hollow Jack’s favorite son

• Leazane, Hollow Child Manifest, Aeonian, Mother of Hollows

• Lyson, Lyzinda’s Child, Child of Centipedes, deceased

• Mstislav’s Child, Child of Scorpions, Hollow Avenger

• Nicolle’s Child, Child of Ants, Hollow Irritologer

• Remmhish’s Child, Child of Piranhas, Hollow Pedophage

• Rust’s Child, Child of Locusts, Hollow Frailthing

• Thorn’s Child, Child of Snakes, Hollow Thorn Mage

• Traa’s Child, Child of Hornets, Hollow Hexologer

• Urugual’s Child, Child of Roaches, deceased

Estimated Populations

• Malish: 100

• Other: 50

Sample Stats

PRO 14
ATH 14
STR 14
AWA 14
WIL 14
PRS 4
STH 11