The Land of the Worms

Some places are truly dead: arid deserts, desolate canyons, rotten forests and so forth. These places comprise the Land of the Worms. The Land of the Worms is not a single location, despite its name. However, certainly some vampires believe that all territories given over to this bleak and blasted condition are somehow connected spiritually, and perhaps even physically.
Life may grow there, but it isn’t healthy. Leaves are curled and spotted, branches gnarled, and the wildlife limps about or suffers from strange tumors and other uncategorized diseases. (Vermin are a notable exception to this: rats and gnats, worms and germs, all do quite well in the Land of the Worms.)
The sky is typically gray. The sun rarely shines. It rains often enough — a greasy, sometimes sulfuroussmelling downpour.
It needn’t be out in the wilderness, though most of these accursed places are. Some linger in cities. Someone tries to build, to “develop,” on the Land of the Worms. It works, insofar as a structure goes up successfully. But it soon becomes a ruined place as the dead and desolate aura gathers its strength anew and reclaims the land. A fire runs through a factory, leaving it a charred and gutted husk, or a massive landfill becomes so hazardous that it must be locked away and left to the cancerous ravens that call it home.
The Sta-Au call the Land of the Worms their territory, but it seems clear that they do not make these places what they are. They simply gather there, finding a kind of sympathetic connection with such a ruined locale. In fact, the Wicked Ones accept that these places (jointly called the Land of the Worms) have always been here and will always be here: dead places favorable to dead things. Ghosts and vampires belong there. It is their monstrous land.

Geography

Grim Territory

The Land of the Worms is always marked. The Sta-Au set out obvious symbols, usually skulls and other bones painted with black ink or blood. And yet, the Sta-Au are not present everywhere. The bloodline is generally only found in North America, and the Land of the Worms bleeds its dead energies into parts of the world where the Wicked Ones have never visited. Those who know how to look for the proper signs may find that the Land of the Worms is marked in other, subtler ways. Success on a Wits + Composure roll or a focused Wits + Occult roll may alert a character to a number of odd designators that seem to mark a territory’s edge. Some examples include: a line of sun-bleached salt, a row of ants that won’t cross into the dead land, bits of shattered quartz, dead birds (non-carrion birds usually, such as doves or mockingbirds) lying about every 50 feet or so, a thin trail of foul-smelling slime (like that left behind by a slug or snail), or a creeping vine of dark and withered ivy. Certainly a Storyteller is encouraged to come up with his own mix of strange markings.
If the vampire has powers that allow her to see ghosts or spirits, merely possessing those powers grants a +3 to the Perception rolls noted above.

Localized Phenomena

Elements and Effects

When one crosses over into the Land of the Worms, the following elements and effects should be considered in play:

• Ghosts are more spiritually “in tune” with the strange land. As a result, any ghost within the Land of the Worms gains +3 to rolls made to manifest or to use Numina.
• This so-called “dead zone” exudes an enervating presence. A living creature (vampires are excluded, as they are not alive) can not heal any lethal or aggravated damage while within the Land of the Worms. Bashing damage heals, but it instead takes one day to heal a single point of bashing damage.
• The enervation has another, more sinister effect: those living creatures that lurk too long in the Land of the Worms begin to suffer from some manner of disease, whether born from an infected wound or manifested out of nowhere. Diseases are rarely deadly, but wasting: walking pneumonia, cancerous growths, rheumatoid arthritis. Generally, a creature must spend at least a full week in the Land of the Worms (of uninterrupted duration) before such malaise and sickness set in.
• Any human who perishes within the Land of the Worms becomes a ghost that is bound to the place. All such ghosts have these dead zones as their anchors.
• Food turns to ash in one’s mouth, and sleep is impossible to achieve — one only tosses and turns, unable to find restfulness. However, one doesn’t need to eat or sleep while within the Land of the Worms. A human certainly grows hungry and weary, but does not suffer penalties from hunger, thirst or fatigue. This rule doesn’t apply to vampires: vampires must slumber during the day, and must also feed on blood.
• The sun, however, is not nearly as potent in the Land of the Worms. It always seems bleary and washed-out, always concealed behind layers of haze and murk. Vampires suffer lethal damage, rather than aggravated, from sunlight.

History

Theories

So just what is the Land of the Worms? Physically and spiritually, such places exist, but exactly how and why they exist is by no means clear. The following theories are meant to help give some potential context to those characters seeking to study the mystery of these bleak and blasted lands.

• The journals of the Nosferatu, Victor Blackcloud, may provide some elucidation. Blackcloud, when human, had some Blackfoot blood in him (though he largely eschewed any connection to his native peoples). Upon becoming a vampire, Victor used the change as an opportunity to search out some of his heritage — not for genealogical interests, but because Victor’s sire was in the Circle of the Crone and he went in search of old Blackfoot magic. His Research eventually led Victor into the Land of the Worms, a place the Wicked Ones had not claimed as their territory. Victor walked the lands in search of a mysterious vampire known only as Killed Many Times, but he never found the enigmatic figure. During his many weeks within the dead zone, however, Victor kept a small leather-bound journal illustrating the nightmares he suffered during daysleep and the many hallucinations and ghostly experiences encountered at night. Victor Blackcloud never emerged from the Land of the Worms, and hasn’t been seen since. His journal, however, made it out, and has been passed around as a “curious read.” It’s filled with odd puzzles, ciphers, and symbolic drawings. Some of the journal seems to detail a belief that Victor grew to possess — that the Land of the Worms is meant to serve as a “staging ground” for some “ancient parasite” known as the Helminth. More and more, Victor became convinced that his body was home to an infestation of worms, and he tied this belief to the land which, he claimed, would one day be “teeming with Giant worms.”
• Scholars of The Ordo Dracul have posited that these places are themselves ghosts. Once, such locals were home to something or someone: powerful monoliths, ancient villages, forgotten temples. Something destroyed them, perhaps some cosmic or biological event (deluge, comet, disease), and it left these places as scars on the spiritual surface of the Earth. They are, these Damned believe, the antithesis to Dragon’s Nests.
• The Sta-Au claim that the Land of the Worms is meant to serve as a proving ground for them in particular. If they could one day move past this transitive state of existing as vampires, they would transform into something different, something greater and more pure than what they already are. Doing so would in turn transform these dead zones into glorious hunting grounds, the Blackfoot’s mythical idea of Heaven, the Sand Hills.

Related Ethnicities

• Sta-Au

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Wastelands of one Kind or Another

If you have access to Promethean: The Created, the Land of the Worms might look somewhat familiar. The Wastelands that Prometheans create don’t spring from the same source as the Land of the Worms (necessarily, though you’re free to draw a connection if it works for your chronicle), but the effects are similar. Therefore, when any of the Created enter such a place, they do not contribute to the Wasteland. These places are immune to the effect. Prometheans may very well find a kind of strange solace in such locals, and these may be some of the places where they end up when they “go to the Wastes.”

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