Sealed and Salted: The Chainers

Touch: frozen iron, slimy pruned skin

Smell: rotting mussel shells, dirty copper

Sound: singing bowls humming underwater, cans crushing under pressure

Sight: bloated floating bodies, sunken skeletons tethered to the sea floor, drowned ships crusted with barnacles

They come from the ocean floor. 

Rising with rusted locks and churning sand. Inexorable and deliberate. They walk with the latent rhythm of a sleeping world. There was always an answer. We could not name it, not of our mortal power. But one day, in the lowest pit of the lowest ocean, a single man learned the true name of the world.  

From him they came. Across the Ocean they took sacred rites in the humid hulls of beached vessels. One lock for each doubt, cradled in chain and sealed in steel. Iron men of no face, no name, and no purpose. Their goal is to have no goal. To break every lock; to absolve each doubt; to ascend as the First did in the cold womb of the world.  

The Chainers, as they are called, are perhaps the most feared faction in the Ocean. Not the sort of fear that comes from violence or implied pain. The Chainers cannot be understood. Not by any sane man. They carry the fear of the true unknown, of the possibility of an answer so profound that all else loses meaning. Walking examples of human futility. 

Most do not have a face. They appear as perpetually armored men, hunched and broken by the weight of the iron they carry. Their “armor” is shoddy and misshapen, constructed from scrapped hulls and shredded buoys. Around them circle countless chains, each link held by a small iron lock. Hence the name, “chainers”. They go by no other name and call themselves nothing.  

Long ago a single man created the chainer ritual. Across the Ocean people followed, drawn by hidden impulse. To take the ritual, one must suffocate themselves in restrictive armor. Then, while they are struggling for air, they wrap themselves in chain and fasten a lock for each mortal regret. Everything that ties them to this existence deserves a lock. If the ritual is not done correctly, the initiate dies in their own armor.  

Those who make it past initiation become more than human. They do not need to breathe and do not mind pressure and cannot speak or expel anything from their sealed bodies. Their only goal at this point is to break every lock on their armor by absolving their mortal tethers.  

They do not see this as a task with a clear goal and resolution. The Chainers see themselves as a point on a circle; they have no beginning or ending. They are simply points with directives. Trying to understand what a Chainer is doing is like trying to draw a map of the currents from above water. You cannot even begin to understand the full picture. Some writhe on abandoned beaches for years on end. Some cling to the bottom of ships like barnacles. One day, they reach with withered gauntlets and snap a single lock, only to vanish back into the depths of the ocean on another quest. 

Organization 

The Chainers are the only recognizable “faction” in the Ocean that does not sail with ships. Chainers can survive on the seafloor and do most of their travel this way. Since every Chainer has their own personal quest, few organize into crews or teams. The Chainers are more of a loosely organized religious cult than an actual fleet. 

Since all Chainers subscribe to different facets of the same philosophy, in rare cases they find the need to organize. In this case, the Chainers employ a specific subgroup of initiates known to sailors as “Speakers”. Unlike other Chainers, Speakers build their iron shell with a head and a mouthpiece. Most all of these “heads” are made of tarnished temple statues. Their job is to communicate with sailors. They speak in low and measured hums that undulate with a deep rhythm. Very rarely do they ever come to an agreement with any strangers, mostly because their demands are incomprehensible and deeply unsettling. 

You can tell the age of a Chainer by the amount of locks on their bodies. Very old and successful Chainers have maybe ten or twenty. Younger ones may have hundreds. The amount of Chainers that have cleared all of their mortal tethers could be counted on one hand, if they could be found. Such a process takes millenia, a long time to be sealed in armor. The body beneath is near-dead, waterlogged and pruned with whale-white skin. Eyes sag with rheumatic mucous. To expose it to air is to die instantly. If the Chainer can pass that test, they have truly succeeded.  

Encounters with the Chainers 

They are not mortal. Not even of flesh. What need do they have of trade? Why would they fight? There is greater Work to be done.  

You would do right to leave them alone.   

Chainer Template 

Armor: As plate and shield +2 

Move: 5’ 

Morale: 12 

Chainers do not typically have classes or levels like adventurers because they are so far removed from everyday adventuring. They do not need to eat, sleep, or drink, they do not age, and they cannot speak, vomit, or defecate (unless they are a speaker, in which case they can speak and vomit also (although they do both in low and deliberate rhythm).  

Becoming a Chainer is an involved process. It requires about 100 pounds of various metals, some incense, and a proper place to meditate. Becoming a Speaker also requires 1000sp worth of incense and a suitable statue head. The character must succeed on a Magic saving throw (or difficult Wisdom check) and must answer the following question correctly to avoid suffocating immediately: 

What is the name of the waves? 

There is no correct answer, but the answer should inform the newly made Chainer’s directive. If they ever fail to uphold their values,  if they make choices based on morality or personal interest, then they lose their “trance” and begin to suffocate. Once a Chainer reaches this stage, they die in their armor. Do not be afraid to lay this on brave players who take the Chainer ritual. It is not for the mortal heart to bear.

Random Chainer Directive (translated into mortal terms)

1)Every other person is a separate instance of myself. I must remove everyone to make myself the only version of existence.

2)  Every living thing has a true name, written on their entrails. To become whole, I must spell my true name from the bleeding letters of others.

3) Every breath I took was one breath stolen from the One. I must bottle the breaths of others in order to repay my debt to existence.

4) Join hands with me. We will make a greater being. We are tendons of the muscles of the limbs of the greatest golem ever imagined.

5) My greatest sin was my own birth - I must find a way to kill my past self in order to prevent my separation from the whole.

6) If I remain completely still for an eternity, eventually I will merge with existence and exist at all points at once. Then, I can begin the true work.

7) I exist as light shining through a pinprick in reality. I must construct a lens able to dissipate my essence equally through existence.

8) North.

9) If I can compress myself into a super dense space, then I will truly be a part of the Whole. I must descend to the lowest point of the ocean possible to crush myself.

10) This was a mistake. I doomed myself to a life of unfeeling. Flesh is our gift. I must regain my body.

This is an excerpt from my upcoming Lamentations book, tentatively called the Fifth Cardinal. Nothing is final, but this should be a pretty close to what goes in the finished product. Art is by me just for fun and theme (hopefully someone can do the true idea justice). 

This is damn good music to go with this: