Verhu | Novus Bestiary

Prophetic head of a two-headed basilisk. A monstrous, two-headed basilisk that rose from beneath a dying world. Verhu is the head with it's crown split wide open, revealing another crown underneath. A crown covered in shifting runes – swirling symbols that float between here and there.

TRAITS Speaker of terrible truths / They are two and two-headed / Arrogant and demanding

CHALLENGE Play a one-shot of the Mörk Borg RPG and bring your favourite parts back to your main game. If that is too difficult, check out the free content here for inspiration https://morkborg.com/content/

STATS No stat blocks available

IN PLAY

The basilisks enjoy their status as dark dieties. Killing people outright is beneath them. They would much rather corrupt them or send them on hopeless quests.
Verhu and his twin-head Gorgh loath their mother. You can use the familial competition to set up your story.

HOOKS

Mörk Borg p.37 has a d20 list of demands the basilisk might make. Each of them makes a great adventure hook.
In addition to the table in the core book, the basilisks could demand: The frost-bitten hand of a virgin from Kergüs; The stigmata of your dearest friend; The world's oldest raven corpse; or a bell which rang at the moment of a child's death.
Someone in your party discovers a dark prophecy from the bottom of a long-forgotten crypt. Worse still, the beginning of it has already come true.

Verhu Lore

In the beginning, when the earth was not much more than dust, she came. She slithered out from the cracks at Bergen Chrypt. An ancient two-headed basilisk who saw the future. She saw every bleak path that the world would walk, and she saw the violent end that each path would inevitably lead to. Her heads, Lusi (Denial) and Arkh (Deception) looked upon the world with disgust. Lusi was adorned with gigantic antlers, whisps of silver hair falling from her crown. Arkh had her head split open. Inside where signs and symbols that were impossible to gaze upon, so disturbing was the movement. They set out to do the most miserable possible thing they could think of: bring life.

All her children where murdered. Thrown from the cliffs of the chrypt on which they were born. All except for one. A male two-headed basilisk survived and made his home in the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead. It's names were Gorgh (Envy) and Versu (Knowing). He crawled into the cracks between mountains, screaming curses at his mother. When a monk of the Creton order found him, he decided to do the most miserable possible thing he could think of: tell him the truth.

Verhu whispered prophecies into the ears of Anuk Schleger. The words were recorded and then lost. In time they were rediscovered and called the Nameless Scriptures. Every misery they record has come to pass. This is the only religion now. The worship of Verhu. And he enjoys his position. The monstrous lizard grins wider and wider as the people build temples in his name and carry out his ridiculous requests.

I leave you with the scripture. The unavoidable doom of this world. The Calendar of Nechrubel as recorded by Anuk Schleger when he crossed paths with the twin-basilisk Verhu.

The Calendar of Nechrubel - The Nameless Scriptures

PSALM I

1:1 The City shall be made hollow. Of those who rest in hollowness, they shall not be seen.
1:2 And the earth shall shake and be riven. And from the cracks shall rise a poisonous mist, and in ten days it will shroud the world.
1:3 Of those who build mightily, stone by stone, so shall they fall, stone by stone.
1:4 And the depths of the underworld shall bring forth flying spectres and crawling beasts. In their passing the worm grows fat, the vulture weary.
1:5 Doubt is crowned. The loyal shall turn their blades on those who silver gave.
1:6 And blood-cough shall spread like fire across the wastelands of the drought.

PSALM II

2:1 As at the beginning, so at the end, all manner of fly and wasp shall fill the air.
2:2 And the ground pale with maggots.
2:3 And from the Spears: a frost. Born from Bergen Chrypt and covering all.
2:4 And in ten days and one the writings of sorcereors will be made pale as air.
2:5 And glass shall become quartz.
2:6 And SHE shall see HIM grow stronger. And SHE reveals herself and all shall be slain.

PSALM III

3:1 At Graven-Tosk the soil shall grow warm and those who rest be made to walk.
3:2 In the heart of Sarkash fog and dusk shall breathe beneath the waking trees. That which was hewed by man shall now hew in its turn.
3:3 And hunger shall come among you. You shall dig roots and pull children from the breast. The gaunt shall prety upon the gaunt.
3:4 The great shall be made poor and the poor poorer still.
3:5 Then shall come rain unending and the day shall be made night by its coming.
3:6 Brother shall slay Brother and Sister poison Sister.

PSALM IV

4:1 For five days and five nights mothers flesh shall be the cloak of demons.
4:2 And for five days and five nights shall fathers weep.
4:3 Look to the West. Forth comes fire, and a horde, and the Kingdoms burn.
4:4 The liar, Arkh shall make knots of the hearts of men, sundering the strongest of bonds.
4:5 Behold now the Endless Sea, where Leviathan causes waves to be as mountains.
4:6 And Leviathan shall come among you. Children winter-born and fated to fall before snow, both shall it take.

PSALM V

5:1 The lake and brook shall blacken and the water become tar.
5:2 The trees shall wither, shrivel and die.
5:3 And birds shall fall dead from the sky.
5:4 In one night all those not yet of seven years and seven days shall pass. Born and unborn. And dawn shall give them life as eaters of men.
5:5 The sky shall weep fire and a great stone shall plummet as a city fallen from heaven. Its gift is Death and madness is its herald.
5:6 And the last King and the last Queen shall wither to dust. Their wretched courts are devoured by wolves.

PSALM VI

6:1 You shall know the last day is come. The sun shall set and never rise.
6:2 And day shall be as night and night as day. You shall not sleep, neither shall you wake.
6:3 Anthelia shall have her will and drink all colour from the world.
6:4 Those who walk on two legs shall be nameless as the beasts of the field.
6:5 The earth shall vein, bringing black serpents forth from within the earth.
6:6 And the unnamed enter the earth, passing through the Veil as it is sundered by Daejmon, the left underling of Nechrubel.

PSALM VII THE LAST

7:7 All praise Yetsabu-Nech, the underworld's nightmare, the black disck which stands before the sun! All praise Verhu, beaming with delight! All praise the fire which burns all! And the darkness shall swallow the darkness.

Written by Giles Ravensong.