Skum

“Loathsomeness waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of men.”

Skum, once known as ulat-kini, are an ancient race of green-skinned aquatic monstrous humanoids. They were created from human stock to serve as a slave race by the aboleths. Skum are perhaps the best-known of such servitor races, and represent the aboleths' ideal humanoid slave: strong, amphibious and easily controllable.

History

As they were devising a servitor race, aboleths recognized the usefulness of the humanoid form: humans breed quickly and leave behind various tools that can be used by humanoid slaves. With fleshwarping, aboleths rendered human slaves docile with alchemical reagents and their own slime, and fused them with the organs of sea monsters. After centuries of work, which saw the deaths of an untold number of human slaves, the skum were created, and quickly became important members of the aboleths' army.

Appearance

A typical skum stands half a foot taller than the typical human, but weighs nearly twice as much due to its increased muscle mass. Skum's rubbery flesh is protected by tough scales, fins, and spines, which also allow them to swim better. In order to allow them to live comfortably underwater, the skum's necks are laden with gills, and their heads were made from scratch to resemble those of fish. Skum have no external genitalia.

Society

Skum do not age, and barring death by violence or disease, they can live forever. Unfortunately, this near immortality is crippled by the fact that skum are incapable of reproducing among themselves, for all skum are male. The aboleths did not want their slave race to prosper without their permission. Yet terribly, this does not mean that skum cannot breed.

Originally created from human stock, skum can impregnate humans, and the children issued from such unholy unions are invariably deformed. Those who are not born skum undergo gradual transformations throughout their lives. When these "Tainted" would normally die of old age, such hybrids instead go through “the Change”, shedding their wrinkled flesh and transforming into one of the ulat-kini. While most skum tribes lack the drive to perpetuate their race and would prefer to languish in their hideous sunken ruins, tribes settling offshore of remotely populated coastlines seem to be on the rise. Some such communities raid villages for breeding stock, but a few more insidious tribes form alliances with these desperate folk, providing protection and bounty from the sea in return for wives.

Carrion Hill

A bloodline of hybrids within the family of Marshan possibly exists within the town of Carrion Hill.

Illmarsh

In the town of Illmarsh, they are known as "Neighbors Down Bay" and the townsfolk themselves appear to be tainted. The town also participates in practice they call the Fostering, where they give up a child to the creatures in exchange for good fortune for the town and a better life for the child.

Geographic Distribution

• Illmarsh

Related or Referenced