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Description

The Elder Gods of Assembly come in a variety of forms.

There are ones who are symbiotic – they receive offering, sustenance and worship from their followers and bestow beneficial miracles in exchange.

There are ones who are parasitic, convincing gullible to worship them, but only pretending to give something useful in return.

There are feral gods, who doesn't engage in any of such practices at all, and simply attack cities to consume their vital energies by brute force instead.

But then, there is the Cosmic Rot…

A thing that, despite originating from the same original material as the aforementioned Gods, had developed into something completely different. Its cousins, even the most devolved and deteriorated of them, had still remained recognizable as sentient beings – whereas the Rot had instead evolved into a form that can by most accurately described as the divine equivalent of the slime mold.

The Gods of Assembly are all made by people's hand – and the origin of Rot is said to lay in the first such attempts, discarded as failures halfway through the process and sealed shut in the darkest corners of the world. For eons they stayed there, melting and merging together – and only at the dawn of the Great Stagnation, when apathy overtook the Assembly and the vaults had fallen into neglect, the Rot had finally found strength to break free from its place of containment.

Rot's external tissues are usually comprised of black viscous material that resembles sludge or tar, whereas the insides are filled with the glowing yellowish ichor, not unlike that of most other Elder Gods. This inner material is often exposed via numerous cracks and ulcers on the Rot's surface, which frequently expel hot fumes and black cinder particles, giving the whole thing a characteristic smoldering appearance.

Rot’s behavior, as was alluded earlier, is somewhat similar to that of the slime mold:

It creeps and slithers across the planets, consuming all life on its way and seeking any signs of civilization to devour. When it does, it excite, turning from the slow mass of slimy vines into a full-blown living flood: its amorphous flesh will try to surround the city – or whatever structure it came across – and then cover it completely with its waves and pseudopods, digesting the biomechanical machineries inside. If it succeeds, it would usually form some rather spacious "lakes" in the process, which – by gradually dissolving the rock underneath – would slowly produce some truly colossal ravines and caverns, even further eroding already sterilized landscape. As it seeps deeper, it would gradually wither and disappear – but a number of particles would always remain and escape from the pits, ascending to the sky and eventually reaching the other planets to infest. Unlike some of the more intelligent Elder Gods, they can’t move superluminally by mimicking the effect of the warp engine, but can achieve something similar by performing sudden "leaps" through the space, often appearing just near the orbits of the target planets and therefore having a chance to reach surface faster than defensive systems can detect them.

When the Rot encounters resistance, however, it behavior can get noticeably more sophisticated. Its flesh would start forming tendrils and other appendages with specific functions, and sometimes would even spawn individual organisms with their own primitive minds. These creatures are usually quite simply, though: animalistic in behavior, wormlike in shape and rather unstable, existing only for a few days before dissolving back into amorphous Rot. The only exception, some say, was the legendary Claudius Cigarius – for a popular theory suggests that it started out as one of such Rot spawn, but managed to retain its integrity and mind thanks to the trace amounts of some other god’s blood.

The Rot on its own is not really sapient, but it nonetheless possesses a certain subconscious intuition. It can sense weakness of its prey, and grows more actively on the planets whose population is more apathetic, and thus less willing to resist. It also seems to be capable of recognizing defensive structures, so it can target and incapacitate them first.

Due to its growth potential, the Rot also displays one other peculiar ability, usually available only to the strongest Elder Gods – ability to manifest the exotic matter, an important part of any god’s physiology, directly from the surrounding space. For this reason, many tried to cultivate Rot as the cheaper alternative to "mining stations" – but this practice is extremely dangerous and is usually frowned upon, as a failure to contain the "crops" would always result in a new site of infestation.

All that being said, however, the Cosmic Rot is not the most horrific or powerful force that can be found in Assembly, but it’s surely some of the most persistent and exhaustive ones.

Unlike the fabled Worm , whose invasion constituted direct and immediate existential threat to the Assembly back in the day, the Rot is a threat slow and looming. It can be suppressed, and it can be beaten, but it always returns sooner or later – and in doing so, it slowly destroys the spirit of its enemies, their hope of victory and willingness to fight, allowing it to feast unhindered. And because of this nature – the quiet yet unstoppable corruption, slowly eating the universe from within – the Cosmic Rot had become practically emblematic to the current age of Assembly, the Age of Stagnation. Defining it in the same way the Age of Atheus was defined by, well, Atheus…

And lastly, it should be noted that despite all above, this "deity" has a surprisingly large number of devoted followers. But how exactly they came to be and what really is their deal would be story for another time…

Description

The Elder Gods of Assembly come in a variety of forms.

There are ones who are symbiotic – they receive offering, sustenance and worship from their followers and bestow beneficial miracles in exchange.

There are ones who are parasitic, convincing gullible to worship them, but only pretending to give something useful in return.

There are feral gods, who doesn't engage in any of such practices at all, and simply attack cities to consume their vital energies by brute force instead.

But then, there is the Cosmic Rot…

A thing that, despite originating from the same original material as the aforementioned Gods, had developed into something completely different. Its cousins, even the most devolved and deteriorated of them, had still remained recognizable as sentient beings – whereas the Rot had instead evolved into a form that can by most accurately described as the divine equivalent of the slime mold.

The Gods of Assembly are all made by people's hand – and the origin of Rot is said to lay in the first such attempts, discarded as failures halfway through the process and sealed shut in the darkest corners of the world. For eons they stayed there, melting and merging together – and only at the dawn of the Great Stagnation, when apathy overtook the Assembly and the vaults had fallen into neglect, the Rot had finally found strength to break free from its place of containment.

Rot's external tissues are usually comprised of black viscous material that resembles sludge or tar, whereas the insides are filled with the glowing yellowish ichor, not unlike that of most other Elder Gods. This inner material is often exposed via numerous cracks and ulcers on the Rot's surface, which frequently expel hot fumes and black cinder particles, giving the whole thing a characteristic smoldering appearance.

Rot’s behavior, as was alluded earlier, is somewhat similar to that of the slime mold:

It creeps and slithers across the planets, consuming all life on its way and seeking any signs of civilization to devour. When it does, it excite, turning from the slow mass of slimy vines into a full-blown living flood: its amorphous flesh will try to surround the city – or whatever structure it came across – and then cover it completely with its waves and pseudopods, digesting the biomechanical machineries inside. If it succeeds, it would usually form some rather spacious "lakes" in the process, which – by gradually dissolving the rock underneath – would slowly produce some truly colossal ravines and caverns, even further eroding already sterilized landscape. As it seeps deeper, it would gradually wither and disappear – but a number of particles would always remain and escape from the pits, ascending to the sky and eventually reaching the other planets to infest. Unlike some of the more intelligent Elder Gods, they can’t move superluminally by mimicking the effect of the warp engine, but can achieve something similar by performing sudden "leaps" through the space, often appearing just near the orbits of the target planets and therefore having a chance to reach surface faster than defensive systems can detect them.

When the Rot encounters resistance, however, it behavior can get noticeably more sophisticated. Its flesh would start forming tendrils and other appendages with specific functions, and sometimes would even spawn individual organisms with their own primitive minds. These creatures are usually quite simply, though: animalistic in behavior, wormlike in shape and rather unstable, existing only for a few days before dissolving back into amorphous Rot. The only exception, some say, was the legendary Claudius Cigarius – for a popular theory suggests that it started out as one of such Rot spawn, but managed to retain its integrity and mind thanks to the trace amounts of some other god’s blood.

The Rot on its own is not really sapient, but it nonetheless possesses a certain subconscious intuition. It can sense weakness of its prey, and grows more actively on the planets whose population is more apathetic, and thus less willing to resist. It also seems to be capable of recognizing defensive structures, so it can target and incapacitate them first.

Due to its growth potential, the Rot also displays one other peculiar ability, usually available only to the strongest Elder Gods – ability to manifest the exotic matter, an important part of any god’s physiology, directly from the surrounding space. For this reason, many tried to cultivate Rot as the cheaper alternative to "mining stations" – but this practice is extremely dangerous and is usually frowned upon, as a failure to contain the "crops" would always result in a new site of infestation.

All that being said, however, the Cosmic Rot is not the most horrific or powerful force that can be found in Assembly, but it’s surely some of the most persistent and exhaustive ones.

Unlike the fabled Worm , whose invasion constituted direct and immediate existential threat to the Assembly back in the day, the Rot is a threat slow and looming. It can be suppressed, and it can be beaten, but it always returns sooner or later – and in doing so, it slowly destroys the spirit of its enemies, their hope of victory and willingness to fight, allowing it to feast unhindered. And because of this nature – the quiet yet unstoppable corruption, slowly eating the universe from within – the Cosmic Rot had become practically emblematic to the current age of Assembly, the Age of Stagnation. Defining it in the same way the Age of Atheus was defined by, well, Atheus…

And lastly, it should be noted that despite all above, this "deity" has a surprisingly large number of devoted followers. But how exactly they came to be and what really is their deal would be story for another time…