Lindorm

Thaia-thaan’ag has many temples. Even a handful of followers in a tiny village cell need a dark place to hide, a place to hurt. These basements or barns are generally guarded by whichever cultist is furthest under the effects of whatever corrupting mechanism is devouring them.

A successful cell outgrows these humble lairs as their neighbors’ wills fail and are drawn in. Converting some abandoned house or linking several nearby cellars into a twisting midden that undermines the town are common practices. Dedicated guardians such as cockatrices or cerastes are brought to these lairs from afar by secret couriers or grown from some of the infested through rank rituals.

Even a town given over completely to the worship of dissolution needs to obscure its faith in order to draw in more guests and victims. Similarly, large city-based cells need strong protection from both government, churches, and even crime. These stout, deep holdings are often protected by nagas or basilisks and hold breeding pits for hundreds of squirming, hungry amphisbaena or jaculi.

Then, deep in the sick and maddened lands beyond the flicker of civilization, Thaia-thaan’ag has dug its true cathedrals. Here the hierophants twist and pervert life to create new terrors for the Land and beyond. Ancient secrets and weapons are held in a vast concentration of power and resources.

Accordingly, these forsaken places are guarded by lindorms.

Some thirty feet long, these monstrous serpents are plated in rugged, shimmering green scales. Alternating ribs protrude from their sides and are joined with sturdy webbing - when agitated or climbing the lindorm can scuttle along on these for short distances. A similar-looking frill runs up its back, ending on its jowled head. When it strikes, the lower jaw splays in half, presenting three sets of venom-drenched fangs.

In the tunnels of the cult’s strongholds, the lindorm is a terrible opponent. Its rapid, skittering movements are disorienting to invaders as it roars forward, nearly filling the corridor as it moves with equal ease along the floor and walls, its top uncertain from its flanks uncertain from its underside among its nearly triplicate symmetry. Weapons are turned aside by its scales and spines, while it lashes about too fast for a thing of such size, trampling those it cannot poison.