Rumours of the 15th

Construction of a false god

The Legion is up to no good. And we're finally starting to get some proof.

— Legion Resistance Operative

The Legion is the planet wide coalition military force that exists to protect humanity from the constant threat of Rendlings, the horrible monsters formed from exposure to the blood of gods, Ichor. They have bases on every continent, a say in every government, and influence with every leader. The power that the Legion holds has far outpaced that which they've needed, and in modern times that power has begun to attract corruption.
Rumours have begun to circulate that certain key leaders within the Legion's organization have put large scale plans into place that would have consequences felt all across Cathedris. People point to experimentation with humans and ichor, studies on specific God-husks and Catalurgy in general, as signs that the Legion is attempting to construct a god-like being of their own. Many have begun to call whatever the Legion is building "the fifthteenth", an artificial diety intended to replace the other 14 gods that now exist merely as husks.

Source of the Rumours

It's our 10th missing person case in as many months. It's almost clockwork. The first day of every month, someone vanishes, and then a week later a monster appears. Someone's behind this.

— Local law enforcement

Within the Legion exists a secret core of resistance members, working diligently to leak specific documents and sabotage the Legion when they can. The resistance was born out of a distate for how the Legion treats non-members and local people, and for how they weild the power they possess in an arrogant manner.
Yet as this core of resistance grew, they began to uncover the deep secrets that even most regular Legion members had no knowledge of -- terrible experiments undertaken, horrors constructed, and mind breaking artefacts collected.

Resistance members within the Legion first work together to verify claims and documents before leaking it to the general public. This is done through a series of secret meetings planned via the use of coded messages in plain site, with intentional tearing at the edges of paper posted on Legion bulliten boards.

The Legion

The Legion likes to say that they were founded on year 0, a mere 6 months after the end of The Seven Day War -- however those claims remain unverified.
From the beginning, they've been a coalition of the best warriors from every country, trained together in order to fight the Rendlings. They've always had a firm agreement that no Legion soldier is able to participate within wars between nations, which has led to some controversy on which fighters become Legionnaires and which remain loyal to the country from which they came.

Legion Leaders

The core of the Legion is comprised of 24 individuals, each from a separate country, known as the executive branch. These 24 people hold complete power over the entirety of the Legion, and dictate where Legion bases are to be built and maintained, what kind of research facilities take focus, and where to send operatives in times of need.
Not all decisions are made by the executive branch however -- delegation of lower and less important tasks or decisions happens often, so that the heads of the Legion may focus on what is important.

by Denny Müller

The Evidence

All I did was tell my neighbour that I found some really strange lookin' rock, 'n that it gave me a headache when I looked at it too long. Next day my house is swarmin' with Legionnaires, and I'm left with nothin. It just ain't right.

— Subject of Investigation, moments before apprehension and interrogation

There are a few main pieces of evidence that have been leaked from the Legion that stand as the core of these rumours. Each piece has been carefully planned by resistance operatives to come from key specific branches of Legion research, in an attempt to shine light on the entire picture for the unaware public. The important documents come from Legion research on Ichor's effects on humanity, the false-life present in discarded or lost pieces of God-husks, and the search for artifacts that predate everything.

Ichor and Humanity

It's a known fact that Ichor and humanity do not mix -- the result is a monstrous hybrid, not quite a Rendling, but something even more horrific... a Chimera.

Despite the danger and the horror, the Legion still pursues research into this reaction. Documents that have managed to leak to the public show that the Legion has been purposefully injecting human test subjects with different kinds of Ichor at different amounts to see if the resulting Chimera has any more or less intelligence.

The Legion has also been experimenting by introducing Rendling blood and Synthichor at the same time into test subjects. Both substances exhibit similar properties to Ichor, but with differing side effects that are often less severe, but still usually life threatening.

False Life of Dead Gods

Several travel logs and documents have been leaked that show intense Legion activity in areas where the most damaged God-husks remain. There seems to be a focus on collecting parts that have been severed from the main body of a God-husk -- thus the Legion scours the area near Avartarian for pieces he tears off, and they search The Teneran Deep for Miyu's Severed Head.

The scientific community agrees that it's the Ichor within the God-husks keeping them alive, in conjunction with the framework of their godly bodies. What if we were to strip the Ichor out, and replace it with something else?

— Leaked Legion Communications

Gifts from the Sky

If there's one thing that the scientific community, nor any religious organization, can agree on, it's what the actual origin of the gods really is. Theories vary from having the gods exist since the beginning of time, to having them be created from strange and powerful energies that came from outer space.
If a leaked transport manifesto and warehouse maintenance schedule are to be believed, the Legion seems to think that the second theory holds more historical weight. These documents reference the so called "Gifts from the Sky" that the Legion are scouring the planet for. They seem to believe that there are 7 of these extraordinary artifacts, and that all of them together were what created the gods in the beginning. The first object found was the Errant Thoughtseed, and it's thought to be the inciting event that started the Legion's hunt for the remaining objects.

Locations of interest

Across Cathedris, there have been a few key locations that have appeared most often in leaked documents. Appearing to house storage of top secret materials, libraries of ancient and obscure knowledge, or even entire research facilities for only the most horrific of experiments. These locations are among the most highly protected sites under Legion control, and thus most rumours regarding them have very little substance, and consist mostly of speculation and heresay of events going on within.

The Shattered Isles

Home to more Legion bases than anywhere else in the world, and also the location that sees more missing person cases per capita than anywhere else. This sea spanning nation is spread out across 33 different islands, with a Legion base upon each. The God-husk Dimiti remains stationary on one of the islands, providing a near endless source of Ichor and Rendlings for the Legion to make use of.

The Underwater Silos

The main scientific research center controlled by the Legion, located just off the shore of one of the largest of the Shattered Isle's islands.

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It's said that the majority of the Legion's stores of Ichor are found within these secret and hidden facilities, and that horrific experiments occur deep under the waves on an almost daily basis.

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