The Glume
Ash and Ruin Creature Feature
This will be the first of a set of entries intended to reveal some of the world defining creatures of the world of Ash and Ruin. In the meantime, The Crucible Edition is going strong. While the project is a HUGE undertaking, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. Stay tuned.
According to the Folk, when a person dies while in extreme incongruence with their soul - perhaps not believing in their cause, acting in complete depravity, or working outside of the sanctity of their faith - they may return as a glume. The Arahetian traditions see glumes as an abandoned carapace, completely formed by sin. The Olden tradition assumes a glume to be a soul expelled from the gates of the Hallow. In their new unlife, the glume engages in ceaseless inhumane profanities and violence until they waste to nothing or are fully dispensed. Left unattended, a risen glume will seek out and ravage the innocent, the purposeful, and the righteous with some of the tools and wits they once possessed in life, but none of the remorse.
The threat of gluming has been an ever present fear for the people of the Protected Lands. For that reason, there are several rites and practices surrounding death, particularly in times of war. Adherents of Merra will chant the rites of bonded passing before each battle, reinforcing the role of the soldier within the community. Specialized agents of Merra who are both ritualist and warrior, called expiates, will walk the battlefield after a conflict, performing rituals of purification on the fallen using specialized materials. Should a glume rise, they dispatch the fiends with their honed ritual axes. While the rituals once performed by the adherents of Merra are now commonly performed by Arahetian beacons, the order of expiates have retained their sacred roles in the new empire.
Strangely, glumes are a blight unique to the Protected Lands. They are unheard of in the Treadlands and Territories.
Red Wisp
Also called the red farewell, this special solution is comprised of red thistles and an activating liquid and placed in the mouth of a corpse. When activated, a faint, red vapor wisps from the mouth and nose of the corpse. Eventually, the eyes melt and the vapor billows from the eye sockets and ears. The smell of decomposition pairs with the scent of the burnt cedar.
When this alchemical concoction is applied to a corpse, the corpse cannot animate as a glume.
