Desire contains the seeds of its opposite, and thwarted love can easily curdle to hatred. Perhaps this is what drives some men to abandon the faith of the Promised Sun and walk a darker path. The Children pray for the extinction of Urth’s red sun and the stillbirth of the promised successor, calling instead for the ascension of the Darkling Sun, whose name shall be Wormwood, a cosmic interloper whose light shall make all reality dreams and all dreams reality. The Children hide in plain sight, gathering in cellars at night to speak feverishly of the impossible worlds that shall be revealed when the Darkling Sun rises.
Summary
An ancient cult that is proscribed everywhere in civilisation, but thrives in dark corners of Vaarn. The Children take as their sigil a rooster, headless and inverted, a charm against the rising of the Promised Sun.
The sect’s rites invoke the activation of the dreaming mind, in the hopes of hastening the arrival of the usurper star and the dissolution of reality. Junior cultists are enticed with visits to personalised dreamworlds where all their sublimated wishes are fulfilled.
The Children seek nascent psychics for recruitment by infiltrating their dreams. A town that suffers from shared nightmares is harbouring a Darkling Sun sect.
Worship of the Darkling Sun is but a mask for discordant veneration of Azathoth, the Daemon Sultan. This secret is not known to all Children, but is revealed when they achieve the rank of Ninth Mystery.
Goals
Preserve their Secrecy. The cult fears discovery and annihilation. They recruit carefully and do not reveal the true purpose of their sect until the acolyte has spent many years studying the fragmentary Liturgy of the Darkling Sun. Priests of the cult hide their identity with cowls of captured shadow.
Strengthen the Dream. The Children seek powerful psychics to empower and expand the dreamworlds their rites create. These recruits may enter the dream willingly or unwillingly, but enter it they must.
Usurp Reality. The cult’s ultimate goal is to invert reality, switching the ontological status of their shared dreams and the waking world. Urth will be captured in the orbit of the Darkling Sun, another name for Azathoth, a dreaming idiot god. This will be apocalyptic for the inhabitants of Urth, but the Children believe the ascension of the usurper star will be heaven (for them).
Allies
Court of the Jigsaw Autarch. Destabilisation of lucid reality suits the Jigsaw Autarch as readily as it does Azathoth, and the two sects often work hand-in-hand to unpick the stitches of creation, although each would betray the other in pursuit of their ultimate goal.
Other worshippers of Azathoth. The Daemon Sultan is venerated by the Moonbeasts of Luna, Star Vampires, certain Cliff Ghul families, and other unwholesome beasts. Such monsters will aid the Children when called upon.
Enemies
The New Hegemony. The Hegemon’s Inquisition is aware of the Children , although they do not know the full extent of the cult’s goals. The Hegemony know enough to sentence all Children to death, and Legionaries are trained to spot signs of cult membership during searches.
Faa Nomads. The Faa do not tolerate worship of the Darkling Sun and eliminate sects from their tribal groups.
Seekers of Eyeless Wisdom. More than any other faction, the Seekers are awake to the reality-warping threat the Children represent. The Seekers are in competition with the Children for recruitment of nascent mystics, and are able to locate Darkling Sun cabals using clairvoyance and telepathy.
The Children Triumphant
I dreamt a dream that was not a dream
The old sun sank and in her place
Rose an interloper, dark and strong
And the hills, my bones, shivered
Like children in the throes of sleep
While dark new stars ushered old along
Streams ran uphill, colours spoke
And all folk had one face, a paper mask
I cried for help but it became a song
Child of the Darkling Sun
Biological / Psychic
Lvl 3 (12 hp) / AV 11 / ML +5 / Enc d6
Atk: Dagger (d4) / Darkling Dream (Special)
Dark-robed dreamers, hooded in black silk and blinkered by their desire to transcend lucid reality.
Darkling Dream: the Child falls asleep. While they sleep, they manifest a nightmare into the waking world, with no Save possible. The nature of the nightmare varies: stairs may become slides into pits of razors, the sun may have your father’s face, doors may seal shut or open into indescribable vistas. Waking the Child (either through damage or anything else that would wake a sleeper) ends their dream’s impingement on our reality.
Nightmare Herald
Outsider / Psychic
Lvl 5 (20 hp) / AV 14 / ML +5 / Enc 1
Atk: Darkling Lullaby (EGO Save vs Sleep) / Revelation (d4 EGO damage)
The formless musicians who attend to the Daemon Sultan Azathoth in the dreaming chaos at the end of spacetime. The Children summon these pipers into our reality to aid their dream rituals.
Sleep: targets fall into a nightmare-wracked sleep and cannot act. They can be woken by direct damage, or anything else that would wake a sleeper.
Feast of Dreams: at the start of the round, a Nightmare Herald regenerates d6 HP for each nearby sleeping creature, allied or enemy. This effect can resurrect the Herald from apparent ‘death’.
VAULTS OF VAARN 