The Weaver Between Worlds, The Bridge-Maker, Spinner of Fates
Atlach-Nacha is a mysterious and alien Great Old One whose influence spans the waking world of Phoor and the surreal dimensions of the Dreamlands. Worshiped by cults and feared by mortal scholars, Atlach-Nacha is depicted as a colossal spider-like being, eternally weaving a vast web that bridges realities. Its motives are inscrutable, its power immense, and its influence pervasive across both dream and waking life.
The Web and Its Purpose
Atlach-Nacha’s great cosmic web connects Phoor and the Dreamlands, two realities that exist in tenuous balance. The web itself is both a literal and symbolic structure—a physical bridge that allows energy, dreams, and even physical passage between the two realms, but also a manifestation of interconnected fates and realities.
Two Perspectives:
- The Priests of the New Gods: These human priests believe the completion of the web will bring about the end of Phoor, merging it irrevocably with the Dreamlands. This fusion, they claim, would dissolve the waking world into chaos, leading to madness and destruction as the boundaries between dream and reality collapse.
- Order of the Obsidian Web: The Order maintains that the Dreamlands and Phoor are complementary, neither meant to dominate nor destroy the other. They argue that the Dreamlands provide mortals with essential escape and inspiration, while Phoor grants the Dreamlands stability and structure. Without the web, both realms would unravel—Phoor descending into insanity and the Dreamlands losing coherence.
Physical and Cosmic Form
Atlach-Nacha is often described as a spider-like entity of impossible size and incomprehensible design, with a squat, ebon body and multiple jointed legs that shimmer with a faint, otherworldly light. Its face, low among its legs, bears a semblance of humanoid features, with countless small, reflective eyes surrounding a gaping maw. These eyes are said to peer not into individuals but into their potential, observing countless paths and destinies.
Atlach-Nacha’s presence warps reality around it. Colors shift into hues that do not exist, shadows crawl unnaturally, and the air feels taut, as if the threads of its web are pulling on existence itself.
Influence and Worship
The Order of the Obsidian Web
The Driders of Atlach-Nacha and their Order serve as its most devoted followers. They view their transformation into driders as a sacred blessing, allowing them to directly maintain the ziggurats housing the web pathways to the Dreamlands. For the Order, Atlach-Nacha is a being of cosmic necessity, weaving the threads that preserve balance between realities.
Warlocks and Mortals
Atlach-Nacha is known to deal with mortals, particularly warlocks and scholars seeking forbidden knowledge. In exchange for their service, it grants visions of alternate dimensions, glimpses of potential futures, and access to unique arcane secrets. However, such bargains often come at a cost, as prolonged exposure to its presence or knowledge can strain the mortal mind, leading to madness or irrevocable transformation.
Cultists of the Spinner
While the Order works to protect the web and its balance, other smaller cults worship Atlach-Nacha for its power, seeking to hasten or obstruct the completion of its web. These groups are often fragmented and prone to internal strife, as even among its followers, the Spinner’s true purpose remains enigmatic.
Personality and Interaction
Atlach-Nacha does not communicate in traditional language but through cryptic symbols, dreams, and psychic impressions. Its “speech” manifests as thoughts and images woven into the minds of those who contact it. These messages are rarely direct, often leaving the receiver to decipher their meaning through intuition or madness.
Atlach-Nacha seems indifferent to the concepts of good or evil, focusing solely on its weaving. It is unconcerned with mortal lives except insofar as they affect the web. However, it is not without purpose: those who disrupt its work or threaten the web are swiftly destroyed, while those who aid its purpose may find themselves richly rewarded—though such rewards often come with unforeseen consequences.
The Dreamlands and Phoor
Atlach-Nacha’s web serves as a bridge between the Dreamlands and Phoor, two interconnected yet distinct realities:
- The Dreamlands are a realm of endless possibility, home to surreal civilizations, fantastical creatures, and landscapes shaped by thought and emotion. It is where mortals find escape and inspiration in their dreams.
- Phoor is the waking world, bound by physical laws and the struggles of mortal existence.
Atlach-Nacha views these realms as interdependent. To sever the connection would doom both, yet the completion of its web would fuse them more fully than ever before—a prospect that terrifies those who fear change and excites those who yearn for a new reality.
Atlach-Nacha’s Motives
The ultimate goal of Atlach-Nacha remains a mystery. Its worshipers claim it weaves not for destruction but for transformation, to create a unified existence where dreams and reality coexist in harmony. However, skeptics and adversaries argue that such a union would bring madness and chaos.
Atlach-Nacha’s indifference to mortal perspectives suggests it operates on a scale far beyond human comprehension, weaving not for Phoor or the Dreamlands alone but for the multiverse itself.
Legends and Prophecies
- The Spinner’s Final Thread: Legends say that when Atlach-Nacha weaves its final thread, the two realities will merge completely, creating a new world—or ending both.
- The Ninth Ziggurat: The ninth pathway, housed in the most ancient of ziggurats, is said to connect directly to Atlach-Nacha’s mind, allowing mortals to glimpse its true purpose at the cost of their sanity.
- The Warlocks’ Bargain: Those who make pacts with Atlach-Nacha often receive cryptic visions of their role in the web. Some are destined to strengthen it, others to unravel it, and still others to witness its completion.
Atlach-Nacha remains a paradoxical figure: a weaver of balance and destruction, an agent of chaos and order. To mortals, it is a being of both fascination and terror, its web a reflection of the infinite possibilities and inevitable connections that bind all existence.