locations: rotglen, ashville ruins, elephant grave

gods: squidboots

autostrippers dispute

communist propaganda

revenant football team- dismemberments

hunter's lodge initiation

wandering merchants

From a human standpoint, the spirits might seem to be eternal and unchanging. Many of them have been around since the dawn of humanity, and the handful that still have active cults among the Echoes seem to be pursuing basically the same agendas that they always have. This viewpoint is understandable but fundamentally incorrect.

Spirits might have significantly more longevity than humans, but they are neither eternal nor entirely independent, since human belief directly gives them sustenance and power. Old spirits whose domains no longer interest humanity must change or else fade away, and new spirits spark into being all the time in response to the changing world. At no time in history has the world changed more quickly and drastically than it has in recent years, and only a fool would assume that the spiritual world hasn't been shaken up as well.

As industrialization has increasingly changed the way humanity lives and enabled different desires to come to the forefront, spirits have arisen to feed off them. A group of nine such spirits have banded together into a loose pantheon branded the 'Neozodiac', and they grant power in exchange for dark indulgence and the path of least resistance.

The Neozodiac are not (yet) worshiped in shrines or churches but in action and deed. A power-hungry bureaucrat scheming for their next promotion prays to Monkey with every smiling lie and sabotage of a rival. A corpulent diner sits down to an entire roast turkey, and every bone sucked clean is a paean to Pig. A drilling rig dumping its salt-refining effluvia directly into the swamp has praised and bolstered Crab.

As the Neozodiac's power grows, more traditional cults petitioning them for power directly have also begun to spring up. The Imperial authorities do not frown on or persecute this activity the same way they do worshippers of the Old Gods, and so the Neozodiac's tendrils have begun to permeate popular culture. You can buy Lucky Rabbit cosmetics, deposit your leftover money into your local branch of the Ratking bank, and see a Badger Power sticker on the back of several other cars on your way home.

Though they wear the likenesses of animals, the Neozodiac are close enough to being actual demons as we understand them that the differences are purely semantic. They are cyberpunk social decay personified… and then deified.

The Neozodiac are nine, but they are also one. They bolster one another symbiotically, even as they each undermine the other. Their fate as a pantheon is linked. They love and hate each other almost as much as they love and hate you, and one day they hope to supplant both the Moon Church and the Old Gods alike.

• Rat feeds off hoarding. It is the spirit of taking without giving, of more-more-more, of numbers-go-up. Rat tells you to buy extra when there's a shortage and sell it to the desperate at obscene markups. Rat wants you to sleep on a bed of golden dosh like a dragon and never spend or enjoy a single bit of it.
• Lizard feeds off prejudice and tribalism. Lizard divides people into two groups: those that you care about because they remind you of yourself, and those that can be sacrificed or ignored because their pain doesn't matter. The line of division is always moving based on a thousand different factors, and that's the way Lizard likes it.
• Badger feeds off bloodlust and conflict. Badger loves military jingoism, glorified violence, boots stomping on faces, public executions, and animal cruelty just for the sake of it. Badger wants you to kill, kill, kill and the target doesn't much matter. The act is the purpose.
• Rabbit feeds off sexual dysfunction. Rabbit is the patron of pornography addiction, of plastic surgery and penis enlargement pills and eating disorders. Rabbit urges its followers to seek out ever-greater and more forbidden thrills without ever feeling genuine connection at all.
• Monkey feeds off domination and social climbing. Monkey doesn't believe in equality, since there can be only one at the top. Take the top by any means necessary, then ruthlessly abuse everyone below you. Friendship is only useful to get others to let their guard down so you can betray them later.
• Crab feeds off waste and pollution. Crab is poison and sickness and lead in the water and microplastics climbing up the food chain. Crab wants you to throw things away the second you grow tired of them. Crab protects its followers from their malaise, but only if they actively make the problem worse.
• Pig feeds off consumption to excess. Pig is gluttony and drug addiction and self-destructive indulgence. Pig is never sharing or moderation or budgeting. Pig wants you to do what feels good, and then keep going even after it doesn't anymore.
• Chicken feeds off lies and gossip. Chicken is fake news, conspiracy theories, hateful slander, and stirring up drama because you're bored. Chicken grabs attention by any means necessary and delights in the chaos that follows.
• Turtle feeds off fatigue and apathy. Turtle whispers that there is nothing you can do, so trying is pointless. Turtle is a missed call from your mom that you will never return, the way you avert your eyes from hobos begging for change, the pillow you put over your head when you're woken up by screams in the night. While you spend your limited energy resisting every other member of the Neozodiac, Turtle sits patiently and waits to bring you back into the fold when you can't fight any more.

Limithresh is a strange spirit. For one, it doesn't go by a title and will cheerfully tell its name to anybody that asks. The fact that nobody has successfully used this fact against it means that it is either exceedingly lucky or exceedingly powerful. Second, Limithresh has clearly not tailored its appearance to be more attractive or relatable to humans, meaning that it either doesn't understand us or doesn't particularly care to. Third, nobody has ever seen an avatar of Limithresh in the flesh (so to speak): it exclusively appears in dreams.

Sometimes it shows the dreamer its home: a strange yellow city of impossible spires and strange geometries. Limithresh pleasantly whispers in your ear while you walk the streets of its domain, telling you of all the secrets that come to rest here. Whatever you desire to know, to touch, or to become can be found just around the corner. All you've got to do to get a taste is to let the city get a taste of you, too. Fair trade. This is usually the part where you wake up screaming, the exact memories of what happened vanishing quickly from your addled mind.

Most people shake it off and put the whole thing behind them, but a few are intrigued. Nobody finds Limithresh's city a second time without seeking it out of their own will. They are the ones who become its warlocks and learn to delve hidden knowledge and make the imaginary real, even as they themselves slowly become more imaginary until one day they simply vanish in their sleep.

You yourself have already accepted the first tenet of Limithresh, by the way. The mere fact that you're spending time on here reading about an imaginary world means you've accepted that imaginary things can have value and meaning. Are you absolutely sure you would be able to resist the temptation, given the opportunity?

Theurge info for Limithresh: Boon Portfolio: Scholar, Faceless, Manifestor Observances: Fall unconscious (or asleep). Tell a lie that someone believes. Crack from Stress. Taboo: Damage art.

Wandering Merchants

Moon Priestess Jasmine: Roving cleric of the Moon Church, traveling between outlying villages. Offers Healer and Helsing keystones for 1 Dosh each (has 0-2 of each in stock at any given time), will also give you 1 Dosh for 2 Provisions. Will heal anybody that needs it for free so long as she still has the Provisions necessary.

Tinker Charlie: Female vampire junk peddler. Has