Journeying Jormungandr

GLOGtober 2023 #3: Journey Through Jormungandr

GLOGtober 2023 prompts are here.

5. Adventure, location, character, item, class, or whatever else based on the name of your blog.

Jormungandr, the world serpent, was a colossal beast, mightier than the gods themselves, vast enough to encircle the entire world and bite its own tale. When Ragnarok came, it engaged Thor in fated battle, to their mutual destruction. Now, centuries after Ragnarok, the blasted, ruined earth has few safe realms left - the great serpent's own venom having seeped into the groundwater and soured the oceans.

In a strange twist of fate, one of the few places untouched by the lethal toxin is within the world serpent's vast body. More than 25,000 miles long and with a girth exceeding 3000 miles (approximate radius of 500 miles), Jormungandr's body has become a sort of safe-haven for many survivors of Ragnarok.

Undying Beast

Even centuries after Jormungandr's death, many of its semidivine biological processes persist. Scholars theorize that its immortal body will persist for many millennia in an effectively vegetative state, even with its skull split open and brain crushed by Thor.

The world-serpent's breaths create heavy - but not tornado-force - streams of air through its respiratory system, consisting of alternating inhales and exhales with pauses between, with each step taking a bit over half an hour. However, its lungs no longer fully extract oxygen from the air, meaning the environment remains breathable, and this cycle is essential to keeping the corpse habitable. Ventilation channels from the respiratory tract to other parts of the body provide breathable air to the people living with the serpent.

As the beast is mostly exsanguinated, stone-hard blood vessels, some tall enough to drive a carriage through, serve as a sort of transport network. Those still connected to one of the serpent's many hearts remain (relatively) supple, but are typically stinted with supports and allowed to be half-full so the slow circulation can propel small boats and shipments along countless miles of veins.

The beast's tissues are incredibly resilient - even partially withered and with much of its innate magics faded, Jormungandr's flesh is as hard as granite, and its bones have yet to even be scratched by any mortal craft. Breaking through to the outside is a herculean effort - the scales must be dislodged from within, as they can withstand nearly any assault from without.

Places of Power

The Split Skull

Jormungandr's cratered skull is one of the great seats of power, ruled by a mighty god-blighted king who wears Thor's girdle of strength. Nine (Thor-sized) paces from the skull of the serpent lies Mjolnir, holiest of all relics, and still unclaimed - for none since Thor have had the strength of arm and might of spirit to wield the hammer.

The Great Drum

Roughly one-quarter of the beast's length from its head lies the largest of its many hearts. Still intermittently beating, the Great Drum is a nexus point for many of the largest arterial blood-rivers and vein-roads.

The Filter-Gardens

The world serpent's kidneys and livers are harvested by corpse-shapers for small biomantic engines that are used to produce clean drinking water. However, the waste they produce leads to an unusually high presence of mutants. Additionally, many mushrooms and other foods are grown here.

The Inner Farms

Roughly two-thirds of the beast's length from its head, between the large and small intestine, there is a massive farm-area growing lichen, fungi. Additionally, there are ranches of biomantically-mutated domesticated creatures.

The Tail

A massive hollowed-out section of the serpent, very near the end, mostly of slums and tightly-crammed farms and gardens, ruled over by an extravagantly wealthy splinter faction of the Veinmen's Guild.

Factions

At some point, some of these may get their own posts.

God-Blighted

Blessed from birth with a drop of the blood of Thor and cursed with a drop of the serpent's venom that slew him, the God-Blighted can call upon superhuman strength and primal storm magic, but at the cost of increasing the venom's effect.

Veinmen

Navigators, bloodboat-handlers, smugglers, rogues, and warriors - every true man or woman of the Vein has many talents and can fill many roles. Far more well-traveled than most, some Veinmen are said to have even travelled the full length of the serpent.

Corpse-Shapers

Magic users that manipulate semidivine Jormangandr corpse-matter and perform sympathetic biomancy. Corpse-shapers are essential to life within the wyrm - they make the hostile environment within the world serpent's body livable.

Mutants

Twisted by the pressures of the strange environment, many beings become twisted mutants. While many mutants live alongside the other inhabitants of the World Serpent's corpse, there are also mutant-only conclaves, often consisting of the most heavily mutated individuals.

1d6 Adventure Prompts

  1. You've lived your whole life in the tip of the tail, but an old seer has prophesied that you will be the first to lift Mjolnir since Thor. Time for a journey.
  2. The Great Drum is slowing. Find out why before the vein-river infrastructure collapses.
  3. Someone has figured out how to mass-produce god-blighted mutants.
  4. Members of the Veinman's Guild sent to a minor heart haven't been coming back. Investigate.
  5. Someone's been tainting new filters from the filter gardens with a slow-acting toxin. Who knows when they started - but the deaths have begun, and you're pretty sure you're infected.
  6. Someone assassinated the god-blighted chief of the Split Skull, and the Belt of Strength has vanished. Time for someone to fill the power vacuum...

#glogtober #rpg