The Pale Titan

In the black heart of the decrepit and foul city of Gamorg rests a menacing and macabre pit of aging bones and rent flesh that gurgles in anticipation of the next feast for He Who Hungers. The locals utilize the starving pit for religious practice and celebration, so it isn’t uncommon to witness laughter, cheers, and a twisted form of merriment throughout the year as the ogres work to satiate their god below. 

Because of this, it may come as a surprise to learn that many members of the rotting city share a deep-seated fear towards the holy ground and often caution their kin to never wander the sacred space alone, particularly when the tides of Rynvale are high.

If you do, you may find yourself staring at the unblinking gaze of The Pale Titan. 

You may hear the story from those who claim to have encountered the behemoth herself or it may come from those who say she took their loved ones, but regardless of the source, the legend always stays the same. 

As you venture along the foul-smelling path towards Fort Gamorg, you will likely feel a stillness in the air. The silence of the journey not uncommon given the wasteland’s nature but it will be deafening as you become acutely aware of her own footsteps and the blood rushing in your ears. The familiar stench of the pit will linger in the air as you approach but it will share a scent of freshly cut roses. 

Coming into the clearing, things will be just as they always appear, desolate, broken, and bland… but if you turn away, be certain not to look back as you feel the intense burn of foreign eyes bore into the back of your head. Because, if you do, you will see her. 

Towering out of the pit with her midriff level to the edge of the abyss will be a massive, pale, almost perfectly white woman. Her elbows will be hovering just above the tainted soil on either side and her hands rest peacefully with open palms aiming toward the sky. Her chest is bare, and you can just faintly make out scratch marks that have come from creatures much smaller than her across her neck and bust. Her skin seems to be moist with flowing water as if she just stepped out of the ocean and you’ll feel a near painful temptation to look upon her facial features, but be warned, this is likely the last chance you’ll have to retreat. 

If you choose to face her, you will find her complexion perfect and smooth except for her lips, which are dry, chapped, and cracked. Her eyes seem… wrong. Almost as if they are made of porcelain, and the only color is a cloudy crimson red that flows like smoke in distorted patterns. Her hair is long and soaked as it hangs down her back with an almost silver reflection from the sun or moon. She has no eyebrows, and the shape of her nose seems to be so perfectly aligned with the rest of her features, that it’s hard to discern it. 

Survivors explain that once you see her entirely, she begins to retreat into the pit. Her descent is slow and somber and once eye contact is made; she never breaks it. You’ll find your feet carrying you forward to the edge of the pit as she starts to vanish below the surface, and you can see her image fading into the darkness until all that is left is that unnatural glow of her smoky red eyes staring at you from below. 

“Jump.”

The impulse seems magnetic as you feel yourself being drawn towards her and the urge to be with her causes her to question your sanity, to wonder if you’re in charge of your own body or if you’ve somehow become a pawn to her will.

This is the only part where the story sometimes varies. 

In some cases, the survivor claims they found themselves able to pull away and resist the temptation to leap. Others were stopped by patrolling warriors from the nearby fort. But some claim that just before they took the final step, they saw a final feature while staring at the titan – the unmistakable whites of a gaping maw, splashed with red. 

It does seem strange however, that all survivors claim that the entire ordeal occurred in total silence, that the titan, despite her size, never made a sound.

Some locals claim that this apparition is a manifestation of He Who Hungers and only appears when the last sacrifice was not enough to satiate his grueling starvation, but the shamans refute this claim as heresy. 

Others speculate that something beneath the surface of Gamorg releases a potent compound that causes those who stay too long to begin suffering from hallucinations, a theory often paired with the fact that intoxicating fruit is a prized treasure native to the land. 

But then there are those who contemplate that The Pale Titan is mother nature herself, damaged and battered by the forsaken actions of the ogres and the bad lands themselves, come to exact revenge upon those who take part in the cruel desecration of her beauty.