The Hunger
It's a choir of decrees all echoing in one voice but every word they speak is the same. Feed. Feed. Touching it was like falling into a well of darkness with but a single passage out. The light at the end of that tunnel is not bright but dim and red... and delicious. Can you hear it? Can you hear the voices too? Can you feel the hunger!
While the New Gods of Tairos may have been silenced by The Queen's Rebuke there is one entity that still speaks with a powerful voice to its believers. Those believers are the Sahuagin and that entity is known as The Hunger.
The nature of The Hunger was hotly debated by scholars, theologians and druidic practitioners until the collapse of civilization at the close of the Queen's War. When the Sahuagin arrived on the shores of Tairos they brought with them their belief in this force. Experts did their best to classify and study The Hunger but it did not fit neatly into any known category. The Sahuagin were able to channel spells from it just as Clerics and Paladins did yet no divine source could be found. They needed no components like typical casters and even after the Queen's Rebuke their blood magic seemed unaffected. Many conjurers tried to commune with The Hunger the same way they would with other divine beings but such connections would often end in not just failure but a toxic madness. Exposure to The Hunger caused non-Sahuagin to devolve into bestial states where feeding becomes both a constant need and a religious experience. It was a god with no face but countless voices. It was a god with no home yet it lived within every one of its followers. The only conclusion that researchers could come to was that The Hunger existed inside the thoughts and hearts of the Sahuagin, that it was born of their collective consciousness and they were both parishioner and slave to it.
Yet, there is more to The Hunger than just the drive to feed that dwells inside the Sahuagin. It seems to have developed some kind of sinister intellect as well. It pushes all of those that hear its voices to not only feed but to crave larger, more dangerous food. To perfect one's self and to learn from previous hunts. In fact, The Hunger shows many similarities to the hive-awareness of the Dyzoat but in a more developed and dangerously cunning fashion.
While The Hunger has largely been tied to only the Sahuagin there has been increasing evidence of it spreading to other races. The crews of sea vessels sailing the waters around Far Harbor have been consumed by savage urges that led them to mutilate and devour each other. Expeditions of Frostmerites in the far west of the frozen tundras have gone missing and only single survivors recovered... with bellies full of their comrades. Isolated villages have been depopulated by cannibalistic feeding frenzies from either neighboring communities or from within by their own people. No one knows by what medium The Hunger is able to infect races outside of the Sahuagin but the truth is clear, it's happening and with increasing frequency.
Tairos faces countless enemies that threaten the fragile stability that currently exists. These foes are visible and reviled by most. What makes The Hunger uniquely dangerous is that it lurks beneath the surface. It cannot be confronted, banished or killed. Only the walls of one's willpower can keep it at bay. And The Hunger sees any crack in the wall as a welcome invitation.
Structure
The Hunger is the collective consciousness of the Sahuagin race. There is no organized structure. Those among the Sahuagin with the greatest ability to interpret the urges of The Hunger are known as Hunger-Speakers. These are simply clearer channels for The Hunger to disseminate its will.
Public Agenda
Perfect of those it infects and the satisfaction of the never-ending hunger it brings with it
Demography and Population
The Hunger is made up almost exclusively by the collective consciousness of the Sahuagin. Presumably both those living along the shores of Tairos and those living elsewhere in the vast oceans of the world
Divine Origins
Believed to be birthed from the minds of primitive Sahuagin themselves that later developed into a type of psychic entity or hive intelligence
Cosmological Views
The Hunger and its believers see all other living things as a challenge to push them to more lethal levels of perfection. All creatures exist only to be feed upon by the one-soul of The Hunger and its teeth are the very beings that carry it in their hearts and minds. Thanks to the Autumn Queen it is now aware of a vast ocean in the heavens filled with waiting meals.
Worship
The only worship the The Hunger seems to care for is that of consumption. Its followers do not pray, they feed. And in doing so they earn some respite from the fire that burns in their bellies. A constant upward climb in the food chain is how followers honor their "god".
Priesthood
Hunger Speakers are the closest thing to priests. The truth is they are little more than fonts which are better able to translate the urges of The Hunger into meaningful directions.
Granted Divine Powers
Power granted by The Hunger is always fueled by sacrifice and blood. The spells it grants are very limited in scope as well and all focus on slaughter
Type
Exotic, Gestalt Consciousness
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