The Forgochi

Full Item Description
A thick concave plate, the Forgochi is unremarkable to look upon. Bony and rough to the touch, the elements of the ages have marred its surface, causing a deeply rutted and pitted surface to appear on what was once the relatively smooth shell of a giant turtle or tortoise of some kind. One who didn't know better, would think it the remnants of some savage's ancient breakfast.

History
It screamed as the hero's blade pierced the thick, inky blackness of its chest, its very insides writhing in horrid agony as the enchanted sword slashed at the dark ichor spewing from its vile, corrupt heart.

The young warrior had stormed into the very bowels of the monster's lair, determined to end its reign of terror and free his country from its scourge. Armed with a sword infused by the very power of the war-god himself, he had finally surprised the abomination in its it's lair and wounded it mortally with his awesome tool of destruction. And now he roared in triumph as the monster crumpled in front of him, is death throes causing its bloated, amphorous body to explode into a noxious could of black vapor.

And the conquering warrior turned his back on the pathetic remains of his vanquished foe contemptuously and strode out of the chamber, eager to survey the treasure cache of the erstwhile terror he had just slain. And so that most noble and brave hero was not there to bear witness as the evil, black vapor drew together into a thickly, sludgy cloud of shifting semi-liquid matter, one that eventually assumed solid shape as it rapidly formed itself into a strange, peculiar oval shaped object..

Millennia would pass and the very memory of both the fiend and its noble slayer would sink into the hazy mists that haunt the realms of myth.

This pattern has continued, unaltered in the slightest. The Forgochi will always languish in obscurity, traces of its terrible existence erased from the minds of mortals by the relentless passage of the years, until it is reduced to a mere tale sung by passing minstrels to entertain the rural folk of the villages that they pass though. More often than not, even these sullied fragments of truth do not usually survive the ravages of time and absolutely all knowledge of the terrible menace is lost to future generations.

For eons, the same story has played out. In every epoch, the abomination arises to sow terror and devastation throughout the land, ceasing only when a courageous and noble-born hero anointed by the very gods, arises to confront and end its foul existence. And the people rejoice, blissfully oblivious to the fact that their terrible foe is not truly dead, merely defeated for the time being, but content to patiently bide his time until the opportunity of his return draws close. Their distant descendants will be doomed to confront this immortal evil.

For how can any weapon, or warrior, be they either of common mortal of exalted divine origin, hope to permanently snuff out a being that maintains its very grip on the physical world by the sustenance it draws from the hearts of men?

When the meek suffer under the whip-lashes of the proud and cruel, the haughty and sadistic ones that delight in stripping their powerless thralls of all pride and dignity, the frustrated anger and hatred of the former collects and stagnates in their hearts like a fetid pool of rankness. And it grows with each day that passes until their very prayers to the gods are filled with the feverant appeals for divine justice to strike down their oppressive, corrupt tormentors.

But the gods are deaf to the prayers of the weak that cry out for justice and vengeance. Sated by the rich offerings doled out to them by their greedy and unscrupulous mortal patrons, they are firmly entrenched in a state of indolent tranquility, basking in the warm, effusive praise that their wealthy and thus rightfully grateful clergy offer to them. A pauper's desperate petition will not touch such slothful hearts.

But there is one which will listen to what the gods disdain.
When the first primitive proto-men huddled among their grim hunting-fires, turned on their brothers in a desperate attempt to stave off the grim ravages of the great winter that held the world so long in its merciless grip, the Forgochi was spawned. Out of the victim's anguish as he found himself helpless to stop his heftier sibling from seizing the prized cache of meat he had spent so much effort and sweat in accumulating through months of patient stalking and hunting, the first insubstantial wisps of this thing were born.

Barely holding onto its existence, this infant force nursed itself on the pent-up emotions of the bullied and enslaved. It even managed to survive in spite of the presence of far mightier spirits in existence. This it accomplished by concealing itself from their eyes whenever possible, and meekly bending to their demands when evasion was no longer an option. And its own repressed anger at being enslaved in this hapless manner actually strengthened it, causing this enigma to grow stronger. Additional sustenance it drew from the misery of the oppressed and exploited mortals that wandered the earth, cursing fate and the spirits for allowing the oppressive and mightier ones among their kind to have gained such complete mastery over them.

The rest as they say, is history. Humanity multiplied and swelled in number, and the spirits were elevated to the rank of gods, with their shamans becoming awesomely powerful priests and kings. Meanwhile, inequality and oppression swelled exponentially, and with each step of progress that man-kind took into the future, the Forgochi felt its power increase even as it continued its existence as minion spirit to the gods whom in their arrogance, continued to impose their demands on it. Finally, a time came when it made a discovery that would change the course of its destiny forever.

An ominous day finally dawned when entities of an alien nature gradually begun to make themselves known to this orphan child borne of rage and pathetic impotence in the face of oppression. Drawing them with its pestilential odor of repressed fury and hatred, the Forgochi had made itself an inviting target for demons, those dreaded and despised inhabitants of the infernal realms that seek to overthrow the established order of gods and seize the power long denied to them by their former brethren. Speaking with soft, seductive words that dripped with the promise of power and vengeance, they promised this angry child the power to avenge the humiliations inflicted upon it. If it but agreed to what they had in mind for their grand plan of striking out the order among mortals that the arrogant gods had installed in place, they would forever preserve it from the fears of extinction that plagued it. Through their dark arts, they would grant this eternally weak creature a power in the physical plane so potent and enduring that not even the gods would be able to eliminate it were they to attempt to do so.

Awed by the grand promises the demons offered, the Forgochi immediately agreed.

Unfortunately for it, it had made a serious mistake in rashly agreeing to their offer. Demons are entities that thrive on deceit and twisted promises, and these were no exception. The fiends were quick to show their true nature once they had obtained what they had come for. Quickly pouncing upon the astonished Forgochi, they bound it in cruel chains, and dragged the terrified spirit with them to the very bowels of the nether world. There, the Forgochi learnt the nature of the fate that its new allies had in store for it. Watching with helpless horror, it struggled pathetically against the chains that held it a captive, as the demons swiftly put their diabolical little plan into action. One of his captors bellowed for an imp to appear before him. Clutching a frantically struggling shelled reptile in its claws, the wizened little thing appeared in a cloud of noxious smoke before its master and handed the animal to the fiend and then vanished as suddenly as it had materialized.

And in that instant, the demon cast a merry glance at the Forgochi, staring it in the proverbial eye with a delighted leer on its visage.

In that single moment, it dawned on the unfortunate spirit what would become of it. As the reptile was bodily ripped from its protective carapace by a violent motion of the fiend's clawed fist, the rest of the demonic group begun to chant their vile invocation. Before the awed eyes of the captive spirit, the unfortunate's animal's spilled life-blood gushed from its ravaged, dismembered body in such a ferocious fountain of gore that flowed into the form of a vast, bubbling noose. And then its heated coils were upon the Forgchi, seizing and forcing it into the very shell that had previously housed the unwilling donor of the sacrificial blood that now sealed its doom.

What a cruel irony that it should poses the power it had yearned or so long and futilely, only now when it was a captive in some horrid prison that twisted imagination of the fiends had devised. For the small, dark confines that was clamped painfully around its struggling form, actually radiated with the most raw power imaginable, a force of fury that suffused and filled it, expanding its might vastly, on a level it could have never conceived in its wildest delusion. All of that now possessed it with the violence of starving beasts screaming to be unleashed beyond the tiny limits of the filthy gore-spattered shell holding it. Already the infernal enchantment was seizing control of the Forgochi's very essence, warping and corrupting this avatar of suppressed rage to serve their dark, sinister ends.

The agents of chaos had succeeded in accomplishing what they had sought, and not the time had come for them to watch their plan come to fulfillment. Grabbing the bloody shell and its enraged occupant, the architects of the Forgochi's imprisonment hurled it up. Plummeting through the boundaries of the nether-world, it continued to rise until it finally slammed into the soil of the mortal world again and felt the embrace of the suns illumination

For a moment the Forgochi floundered in confusion and bewilderment, unsure of what undoubtedly terrible fate had befallen it. But it turned out to be fleeting, this weak, self-defeating fear and panic. The terrible power seething within it now, dominated the Forgochi utterly.

And for the first time in its near timeless existence, this weak hitherto spirit found all fear and confusion abandoning it, never to return. It knew immediately what it had to do, the powerful force now residing within it, imparting all that it needed to know.

A mortal was approaching, a power bereft individual whose heart still simmered with rage from the grievous indignities that had been inflicted on him by his cruel king. Only the previous day, he and his family had been forced to bear helpless witness as the divine-king that ruled over them, issued a new decree that raised the already exorbitant rice tax they were forced to pay. In all probability, many of the younger ones would succumb to starvation, the bulk of their parents harvest having been seized by greedy nobles eager to become rich by selling highly prized rice to nomad barbarians that cultivated none..

Now, as this young man walked with no direction or purpose in his mind, powerful thoughts of revenge consuming him utterly, he suddenly felt himself compelled to abruptly pause.

Like a ravenous shark swiftly pursuing the blood trail of a wounded pirate thrown overboard into the ocean, the Forgochi had latched onto the all-too familiar stream of hate and grief weeping from the young man's mind and it drew him towards where the filthy, blood-soaked shell lay, partially covered now by a swarm of hungry flies eager to lap up what traces of the wretched reptiles gore that remained.

It spoke to him in potent images and emotion rather than empty words, sharing with him of his oppressors ripped to bloody shreds and his family seizing the vast assets of their royal tormentor, and distributing those ill-gotten riches among all the weary peasants that had toiled for so long under thankless and cruel masters that treated them worse than even the lowliest beasts of burden. He saw a savage joy reflected on the faces of every peasant there, an expression that was mingled with open adoration as they thanked him with all their hearts and showered lavish accolades upon him for having come to save them. The cries of ''Savior!'' thundered in his ears incessantly.

And the young man knew instantly what to do. Grabbing the shell, utterly oblivious to the mass of filthy flies that encrusted it, he ripped off his tunic and thrust the gaping carapace against his naked chest. And the shell enveloped his chest like the jaws of a hungry leviathan, seizing his bosom within its greedy embrace as bone and shell melded to and became one with human skin..

A new champion had been born, one who would lead his people away from the tyranny of oppressive, uncaring parasites, both mortal and divine alike, into the domain of the power and wealth they had always been denied the opportunity to savor, even in their dreams.

For he was the chosen one, and his mysterious guide would make the greedy and powerful tremble before him.

Magi/Cursed Properties

The one whom the Forgochi selects for its favors, will find the shell being literally seared to his chest as he dons it at the inexorable urging of the presence that inhabits it. And from there, the dark enchantment inherent within it, rapidly begins to subject both his body and mind to a monstrous transformation. What was once human flesh and bone becomes a black, swirling mass of sludgy, infernal ichor that can shape and mold itself into whatever form the wearer desires his newly malleable body to assume. Eyes turn a blazing, hellish yellow and gleam with the repressed thirst for revenge that afflicts both human host and spiritual parasite, as the Forgochi's very own memories of forced servitude and humiliation meld with the desire of the mortal wearer to avenge the terrible atrocities inflicted on him. And its wearer's mouth looses all semblance remotely human, melting and dissolving into a large, hideous gash on its face, an inhuman maw filled with numerous rows of jagged fangs that seeks to taste the flesh of the rich and selfish. Within a matter of mere hours, what was once an angry, embittered man, has soon become a humanoid shape of shifting black energy abristle with the various weapons formed from its constantly roiling body.

Its transformation complete, this avatar of righteous vengeance returns to haunt the nearest villages, preaching the Forgochi's message to all that have suffered poverty and exploitation as the hands of much wealthier individuals. The very understandable terror that assaults those who behold for the first time this monstrous abomination that was once a man, rapidly melts away to be replaced by murderous joy as the Forgochi's minion sinks powerful mental claws into the minds of its initially unwilling audience, and lets its master do the rest. Eagerly flooding into their minds to feast on long memories of hardship and deprivation that have festered into a powerful resentment, its seduces them with its powerful promise that the murder of their oppressors, will liberate them from poverty and want by delivering into their honest but humble hands, the riches and power long denied to those condemned to a bleak existence of poverty since their birth. It shows them images of a future where their children no longer have to fear hunger or the torments of their noble overlords, a utopia where the common folk do not languish in misery or fear. A world where no one is allowed to ride roughshod over the well-fare of his fellow men through the force of sheer power and greed.

Massive peasant uprisings in the country have been sparked off by this accursed monstrosity as it leads legions of blood-crazed peasants wielding farm implements against their noble masters and the clerics who had colluded with the former to keep the common masses forever sunk in a state of poverty stricken subservience by feeding them with the unforgivable lie that every mans destiny is forever decided by the station he is born into. Nothing pleases the Forogchi more than to imagine painful deaths for these corrupt emissaries of the same deities that once used it as a slave in that dark past of servitude.

''Crush the vile elite!'', is the clarion call that resounds in the hearts of the Forgochi's soldiers, as it wields its army in a furious crusade against the forces of both temporal and spiritual slavery .

Alas, the taint of the enchantment that holds both the Forgochi and its wearer alike captive is such that no amount of wealth seized or noble blood spilled, is ever enough to sate either. In time it no longer matters that their followers and their families no longer need be subject to the ravages of want and poverty.

It the heart of the Forgochi, it has long since become paramount that the wealthy and powerful should cease to exist, given that their riches and power are an affront to those that possess none. And so the campaign of slaughter and pillage is fated to continue, led ever onwards by the fearsome black apparition that inflicts gruesome death on haughty, contemptuous noble-born knights with its numerous implements of death. Weapons and spells alike simply slam and pass through the shifting mass of its body , which then reforms again, virtually unharmed .

Only the very intervention of the gods can put an end to the Forgochi's quest, for their power is still greater than its own, despite the efforts of the infernal realm to make its chosen the equal of any noble-born young paladin that the gods choose as their avenger. And so time and time again, the Forogchi's warrior has succumbed to the blessed blade of some arrogant young noble that has solicited the aid of his aristocratic gods who care nothing for the miseries of the common folk.

But even the gods cannot put a permanent end to this champion of the meek. For the very seat of the Forgochi's power lies in the shell, and when all else has been destroyed by the divine power of a paladin that rises up to slay the monster, this single remnant will still remain, all but disregarded by the hero who walks away proudly, having the temerity to belief that he has forever rid the world of the peasant's avatar of hope. The shell is such that all mortal eyes become ignorant of its presence upon the wearer's moment of death, some sly enchantment of the demons urging the victor to stride away at once and enjoy the spoils of victory, by playing upon his deeply entrenched sentiments of greed and pillage.

But the Forgochi still survives, quietly rebuilding its depleted strength with the misery that comes from the disparities in wealth and power which will endure until the day mankind is finally extinguished.