Moradromir
the Greyknaves
prefix mora suffix dromir
number
126
slanderer
phlegmatic
height
4 ft, 5 in
length
11 ft, 8 in
weight
244 lbs
size variance
29.8%
I.Q.
7,271
core temp.
62°F
stability
43%
prevalence
45%
constancy
67%
longevity
1-6 months
no. appearing
1-18
near
complex
physical appearance
The moradromir /'mɔɹədɹoʊmɪɹ/ is a pale and dingy, thin-striped stranger with blotch(m)e(n)s around its eyes, mouth, and the tips of its four to eight limbs. Its white skin attracts grime and airborn dusts, leading to its dingy appearance. This grubby physical form is made further foul by the stranger's slick and sour mouth, filled with rows of uneven grey and rotting๐ teeth.
๐ You know they're so decayed, you could grab onto them and pull them out. They're really rotting out. That's why it doesn't want to show them to you.
The moradromir's soft but grubby skin is not durable enough to resist bruises from rough handling, and can be torn or cut open to reveal the stranger's loose and fetid inner folds.
When it speaks, the moradromir's voice is resonant, and distorted in its depth.
Nexcore neroxii, irixanxi borenx. Pouleiri... pol bour.
environment and generation
Month-long stretches of cloudy days, dead grass grey at the edges of pavements, one and two-story concrete buildings, colorless courts, waist-high stone fences and climbable barricades, and faded white posters๐ all contribute to the moradromir's generation.
๐ It said, 'The Lost Numbers Orchestra. August 28th'. But it was already November 30th...
On flat stretches of brush, pavement, or bare soil, the moradromir fades into view. Its appearance is at first gummy and indistinct; it congeals into a solid form only with hesitance, skipping any juvenile state.
behaviour and effects
In its personality, the moradromir seems both smug, and endlessly aware of its loathsome exterior, vacillating between a cringing fearfulness, and vain posturing.
A largely inactive stranger, the moradromir spends ninety-six percent of its time in a resting๐ state, stirring only to chuckle with contempt. During rare alert periods, its primary focus falls on newspapers and flyers, which it gathers and arranges around itself, its den eventually attaining its distinguishing appearance.
๐ Actually...it's more like it's bored, or waiting for something to happen.
When not accumulating its thrown-out news, it pushes and pulls at objects within its environment in arbitrary ways. A "bored but too smug to say it" moradromir may push an empty fuel canister against a wall, turn coin-shaped rocks upside-down, or drag a branch across a patch of dusty earth.
Though individuals tend to occur near one another, the moradromir does not want to be around others of it strain. Though they don't fight per se, they will resort to pushes or strikes in order to ward each other off.
The stranger shows particular contempt for corpses of its kind, and pushes stained and crumpled papers into its face.
interactions with sensitives
The moradromir cowers and shrinks back when near a sensitive, retreating with its back to a corner, and offering only token resistance against violence or manipulation. As soon as the sensitive turns their back, however, the moradromir's smug laugh soon spills up out its vile mouth.
do you want more?
do you want to keep going?
you don't have to go that far.
โข
แบ
แบ
loosening of reality
The moradromir's presence severs the ability to transcribe realityแถ within a two hundred and five foot radius. This effects both sensitives and non-sensitives alike, who react with varying degrees of lucidity. For the vast majority of individuals, the truth is distorted so subtly that they remain naive to the moradromir's obfuscation โ yet, on a long-term scale, the effect becomes overwhelming.
แถ And they don't even realize they're doing it. They look back and think, "oh, I guess I did go to the movies, not the store." Or maybe they do try to write out the real thing, but describe it as being the worst pain... it's the most tight pressure you can imagine, and it won't let up. It's better to go along with it at this point - you don't have a choice. You'll be outnumbered eventually, but in the meantime, we can alleviate some of the symptoms with certain medications.
F. E. Wyssesion. Medical Case Files for Advanced Publication.
Even for those rare few who are aware of the stranger's mesmeric๐ influence, there appears noาฌ work-around, save for abstraction through intricate systems of metaphors, garbled๐ค words, and other transmutations.๐
๐They feasted well, they drank their fill, they always got their way until they'd swallowed up our whole domain.
๐ค Zythrovi ez with dilourent, zyth ex-TRAVEL houze helioixune. Hello, hello. Hello(w). Hell(o). [hell.] [low.]
๐ They showed us all how inhumane we'd always hoped that we could be. (The answer is, appallingly.)
aging and death
The moradromir's nature becomes more decadent as it ages, its gasping slowing to a lurid drawl. It abandons former pursuits in favor of languourish recline, and at the end of its life, dies with an unimpressive wheeze.
The moradromir's corpse remains for some time, bloating centrally but not rotting. Though it takes several months for the moradromir to deflate, once emptied of "air", it crumples into a papery material that does not withstand scrutiny.