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The Great Game

The galaxy is sick, and has been for so long that even most of the gods have forgotten what it was like when it was healthy. If a cosmology is like an ecosystem, Golarion and its surrounding worlds have too many predators, not enough prey, too much competition, not enough mutualism. The Material Plane is a little too similar to a chaotic, evil world—like the Abyss specifically. On Golarion, it’s kill or be killed.

The reason is Lamashtu. In ages past, the Mother of Monsters ambushed Curchanus, stripping from him the portfolio of Animals and leaving him for dead. He survived long enough to pass his domain of Travel to his protégé, Desna, but Lamashtu was able to use that surge of power to claim divinity for herself and become the Queen of Demons. Since then, Lamashtu has done as she willed, fighting and fucking her way across reality and leaving thousands of new species of horrors in her wake.

But Lamashtu is a neglectful mother. Because of her influence, animals in the Material Plane are overly hostile, too aggressive, liable to pick fights that they can’t win. Animals are liable to view humanoids as prey, which leads to savage reprisals and environmental catastrophe. The species created by Lamashtu and her followers, both demonic and mortal, are born without a niche, and their shoving into the world around them leads to disruption and devastation. It’s not a coincidence that crazed wizards and misguided druids have brought so many new monsters into existence, and that one-off horrors are liable to mutate and become entire species.

But this has not gone unnoticed.

Deep within the First World lives a goddess. A Goddess of Predators, although she is only quasi-divine. For now. Mormo, the First Medusa, Goddess of Predators, has been alive since before the Age of Serpents, since before the birth of mammals. She is a primordial entity, a Great Old One, although more benevolent than most. She and Yig call each other Brother and Sister, although this may or may not represent a genetic linkage. She retreated from the Material Plane as humanity became a growing power, disgusted by the callousness of the Azlanti and the machinations of the aboleths.

But now she has chanced to gaze upon the Material again. And is horrified to see how much things have gotten worse in her absence. Mormo wants to help. And to help the best way she knows how. By killing and eating something. Someone. Lamashtu.

Mormo’s ultimate goal is to do to Lamashtu what Lamashtu did to Curchanus. Weaken her to the point where she can be fought, strip the domain of Animals from her, and ideally kill her for good. Leave the demons without a Queen, so they can go back to clawing at each other’s throats for a while. Restore the ecological balance of Golarion and allow the biological exuberance of the First World back onto the Material Plane.

But she needs help. And Lamashtu may be confident, but she’s not complacent. She knows that Mormo is gunning for her. And is bringing together allies of her own.

This is the Great Game, the cosmological underpinnings of the Age of Monsters. Gods, demigods and other entities are picking sides, or choosing to remain neutral, or remaining neutral on the surface but shoring up their favorites in secret. The teams are not defined by alignment. There are those of all alignments, of all of the planar power groups, who support Team Lamashtu or Team Mormo, in large ways or small. Any conflict where Desna and Pazuzu both have the same enemy is bound to get complicated, after all. Further articles will be posted throughout the year, tagged with The Great Game, discussing who is on who’s side, and why.

Full statistics for Mormo are forthcoming—those are likely going to be the capstone of Monster Girl Summer, posted in August. Mormo is a N great old one, with the portfolio of reptiles, terror and ecology. Her domains are Knowledge, Scalykind, Strength and Trickery, and her subdomains are Competition, Fear (modifying Trickery), Thought and Venom.

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