Golgari Swarm
Structure
The Golgari guild is organized more like a single organism than a collective: it has a nucleus or nerve center that drives the direction and growth of the guild; elements that collect nutrients and convert them into usable resources; defenses that resist and fight off foreign bodies; and an instinctual drive to survive, reproduce, and overcome.
Jarad maintains a council of shamans and rogues called the Cilia. The Cilia act as a combination of advisory parliament and spy agency and rarely all convene publicly or together at once. In combination with Jarad's insect minions, they act as his sensory apparatus to know what the outer reaches of Golgari are doing and as a messenger service to deliver instructions. It might be that an individual Cilium might be considered of higher rank than another by Jarad, but none know those rankings beyond the guildmaster.
The Golgari guild might have more changes in leadership than other guilds. The guild believes in the importance of continuous cycles, understands that assassination is a valid means of political conquest, and knows that being alive is not a prerequisite to rule.
Culture
The Golgari Swarm is the guild that fuses the opposite values of life and death, fostering growth in Decem Factiones's decaying communities but also fostering decay in places of growth. The elves, zombies, insects, and undead-plant hybrids of the Golgari are like one massive, growing, feeding organism, collectively spreading across the plane wherever it can fit. The Golgari provide a necessary service in Decem Factiones, in that they dispose of the carcasses that civilization leaves behind, and mysteriously they also provide sustenance for the forgotten and the needy. They are the scavengers and decomposers at the fringes of the food chain, but yearn to be the predator at the top.
The teeming hordes of the Golgari Swarm believe it is finally their time to shine. They have dwelled under the streets and under the sway of the other guilds for too long. They are convinced that Decem Factiones's institutions are now on the verge of collapse. However, the Golgari are neither surprised nor panicked by this, for they believe that all things eventually rot and die, and from this decay, new life blooms. As such, the Golgari see the looming inter-guild conflict as a necessary final push to bring about a new era - their era.
The Golgari are preparing for upheaval. They have sealed many of the passages leading into the undercity, making their territory seem like an impregnable subterranean fortress. Within it, the Golgari domain retains its grandeur, a mysterious and wondrous kingdom. The rare visitors who stumble into it are awed by its beauty and its aura of ancient power. Palatial architecture fill scavernous sewer chambers, and luminescent spores float through the air to shed an otherworldly light on the moss-covered masonry. Entering Golgari territory feels like stepping into a secret world of dangerous beauty.
Golgari Factions
The Golgari Swarm is not an easy guild to lead; the unstoppable and constantly growing sub-factions of the guild are like mindless amoebas, each with its own agenda, and almost impossible to control. Jarad has held on to his position by bringing more power to the guild by actively reclaiming derelict districts of the plane. He knows the power-hungry Devkarin elves and the decomposing Lotleth undead will eventually dethrone him; in the meantime, he works to ensure a place on Decem Factiones for the Golgari and for his own family.The Devkarin, elves of shadow.
The Devkarin are a brooding, winsome, and often ambitious race of elves who represent one of the main power groups of the Golgari. Of all of Golgari's factions, the Devkarin press most for the expansion of Golgari territory; they feel that most of the other guilds do not have Decem Factiones's best interests at heart and that the more land consolidated in Golgari hands, the better. The Devkarin elves are ruled by a high priest known as a matka, sometimes for centuries at a time; Jarad's sister Savra was a former matka. The current matka is Zdenia, a severe, black-haired young woman whose hands and arms are tattooed with images of insects and spiders.The Lotleth, the ranks of death.
The Lotleth are the Golgari's irregular faction of undead, necromancers, fungus-binders, and other members associated with the restless dead. Although most Golgari undead are mindless fungal constructions maintained by necromantic magic, the Lotleth do have some more or less intelligent undead among them, plus a few higher-ranked necromancers who speak for the faction. Generally, the Lotleth serve as a labor force for the Golgari's constant program of reclamation and expansion, or as a weapon for Jarad or some shaman's personal agenda. Sentient beings among Lotleth feel used and underappreciated within the guild, and their numbers are larger than they seem. The current leader of the Lotleth is Wratislav, a skilled but conceited human necromancer who enjoys parading his undead retinue through the streets of Decem FactionesThe Street Swarm, shepherds of the cycle.
The Street Swarm form Golgari's labor class, which helps drive the cycle of life and death by countless iterations of accelerating decay and seeding new life. This faction includes corpse scavengers, low-ranking street shamans, rot farmers, tunnel trolls, various elementals and fungal horrors, and most of the kraul (an insect-like race). Each neighborhood of Decem Factiones tends to have its own chapter of the Street Swarm, and each chapter is led by a local swarm-boss.Public Agenda
The Golgari Swarm celebrates the growth and vibrancy of the natural world, but gives equal attention to nature's facets of destruction, decay, and death. It finds allies and agents in the form of fungi, oozes, insects, diseases, and other unsavory aspects of nature, and it uses the power of nature actively toward the goal of advancing its own place in the world. But the Golgari have also learned patience from nature; they are content to work from the shadows, harnessing the energy that comes from decay while the civilization of Decem Factiones slowly erodes and destroys itself.
Type
Geopolitical, Tribe
Leader
Leader Title
Location
Controlled Territories
Notable Members
Comments