The cultists have spoken!

The voting is in, and the winner is Agmar! This being is the creation of Marco Subias, who used Agmar in his Delta Green game, which had taken W Cell to the Dreamlands. Congratulations Marco! We offer a heartfelt thanks to the sponsor of this contest, Signal Fire Studios, and specifically Jamie Chambers and Ben Mund. And thank you to all of our submitters and voters. We have some more amazing things in the works for contests and other blasphemous workings to inflict upon our treasured listeners. We’ll keep everyone updates as things… hatch. Once again, here is our winning entry for a physical copy of the Build an Elder God card game and custom monster head card: Agmar “Our team came through the gate from New Mexico onto the alien, storm-torn beach strewn with the broken bones of countless ships. After we explored for a day, we were sighted and pursued by blood-red turbaned slavers with too-wide, toothy grins, from that terrible black ship. We narrowly evaded them, travelling inland through the temperate rain forest which grew up through ancient, broken stone roads and half-ruined buildings covered with moss and drooping lianas. We could see, here and there, carved into the stonework and just visible under the lush growth, the handsome, classical profile of some long-dead king. We were soon greeted by a many members of the tribe that inhabited these green ruins. They were a beautiful, well-formed people, adorned with fine tattoos of unparalleled quality that depicted columns, arches, and other city structures; they had blue skin, though we would never know whether this was their natural color or the result of the application of some strange dye. They made no effort to take our weapons or to restrain us. Smiling and peaceful, they escorted us inland, to the center of their lost city and to their aged chief who greeted us warmly. We had to keep the gate to Earth a secret, so when he asked us where we came from, we told him that we had been shipwrecked. Hearing this, he shouted joyously, “they are from the sea, given to us by Agmar!” The people cheered and welcomed us, throwing us a great feast. We had found a place to rest and plan the next leg of our mission. For now, we were safe.” “Two days after they had arrived, the two Delta Green agents most at home in the woods quietly left the great hall at dusk, to explore the mysteries of the City of Agmar. Soon, night’s dark cloak descended, and dim figures began to appear in the ruins, ancient echoes of a lost race from across the ages, dressed in rich and ornate flowing garb unlike any style that the agents could recall from Earth. These eerie phantoms brushed against the men, but the agents fought their fears and sat quietly, observing what seemed to be the daily life of a long-dead city. The contact from the spirits remained light, and the men did not suffer as their companion had, who had returned shaking and pitifully weak early that morning. They both soon fell into an uneasy sleep. Soon, dreams troubled them. They saw as if there a thriving port city visited by countless merchants, scholars and other travelers from across the Dreamlands, and other worlds besides. The proud, peaceful city prospered for ages, a beautiful center of life, and culture, blessed with great riches of all kinds, from gleaming gold and rich spices to sweet music and scholarly lore. There came a time though, that the light seasonal rains that brought life became even less frequent. Farmers found it hard to feed the city, and the port was quenched less often with fresh water, its clear bay giving way to noisome muck. The city’s glory waned as those who stayed were poorer with each passing year.  Priests prayed and the city’s great king, Agmar, despaired. “ “Then came a stranger from the wastes, a dark wanderer steeped in ancient power, who sought audience with the king to offer the monarch his heart’s desire. The desperate ruler, who longed for the thirst of his city to be quenched, said only, “rain.” The stranger, mockingly, whispered that the king would have his desire, and soon the rain came, more rain than ever, rain nearly every day, carried by great new storms from the sea. These made a coast which had been a haven of trade into a Jaw of Storms and a Shore of Bones. No more could ships travel safely to the great city, but were tempest-scourged and shattered. Green life choked the streets. Those few who remained became primitives, fed by verdant richness and now-flourishing wild game. Agmar did not live to see all of this come to pass. “When the great storms first came, as King, he knew in his heart and soul what had brought about and understood how his rash wish had doomed his people. He heard the dark strangers mocking laugh rumbling in the first thunderstorm. Broken and grieving, he made his way to the great well in the central square and cast himself in. Despite this, he did not die. Agmar entered a dreamlike state near death, sinking slowly into unknown depths. The cursed waters of his city for which he had rashly wished preserved him, undying, and his city as well, though like him, it persisted as a ruined reflection of what had once been. Not long after he became one with the depths of his city, a strange abstract sculpture which suggested his likeness, or perhaps that of the dark mystic, appeared to ever stand watch over the sacrificial well and the great square. The lost king was Agmar, and this would forever be god of his city, worshipped by the savage descendants of the subjects he had doomed.” While it is very rare for a human to become a Mythos creature, this can occur, as those who know of  ghouls and Deep Ones can attest. Agmar may be the only Elder God who was once a mortal man. Agmar is, at once, an ancient ruler who dearly loved his people, an insane king kept alive by magic, and a lost vampire city. In Dreamlands lore, those few who know about this cursed place call it The City that Eats Men. The god-city is only vaguely conscious of what is going on in its realm generally, though it is aware of his victims as he feeds, of anything that falls into the waters beneath the city, and of anything touched by the rain in his land that is part of his essence. His rain may bring disturbing dreams and even madness over time, so no other people stay long near where his clouds gather. Agmar’s people first honor shipwrecked sailors with great feasts, then host them warmly and attend to their every desire, as they are gifts of their god, brought be his storms. If the guest wanders at night, they may be left half-drained of life energy by the city’s memories and left paralyzed and partially mummified. The Children of Agmar will eventually find him, and joyously, singing, carry him to the well at the center of the city, the ceremony presided over by the god’s priest, The Voice of Agmar. If a guest does not ever leave the well-lit halls in which the tribe sleeps, to go out at night to be consumed, the guest will eventually be carried to and thrown into the great well. There, the sacrifice will be very slowly and excruciatingly drained of their life force, while they descend into madness. As time can pass strangely in the Dreamlands, this can take months, years, or centuries. If a guest realizes that something is amiss and runs, the tribe’s hunters will pursue them as a holy act in Agmar’s name. While served and worshipped by the tribesmen who live in the ruins of his city, Agmar has no known followers in the waking world, though Dreamers may encounter him. Still, if Delta Green fails to find a way to shut the gate to Agmar’s domain, what strange rain may yet fall in New Mexico?]]>