Mala

Brood Hatcher Incubator

“Sisters! Mothers! Heed me. We all bear the wounds of this embattled world, for the path of the Worthy is hard and fraught. There are those among you who know the pain of bearing their last seedlings, or burying children lost to trails, or worse, those who have never known the joy of birth. To these sisters among our number, know that Laculathon has not abandoned you, and through me, offers you Her boundless fertility. Such is the Covenant of our Great Mother. No soul is beyond healing; no body is below service!”

— Mala, Voice of Laculathon

​Life on Nuath is hard, dangerous, and short. Between diseases, storms, and predators, Aru often find themselves wounded, maimed, or otherwise debilitated. In defiance, many “once-mothers” and “never-mothers” offer themselves to Mala’s tribe as Yatl’aoi’xlat (meaning “unconquered flower”). Reborn from the fertile pools of resin at the base of Lak’chact, Yatl’aoi’xlat join their ailing forms with lymph/womb tissue from the Blood Mother, transforming them into Incubators. In battle, these fertility witches draw blood from the fallen to aid in the siring and hatching of quitl, and in groups can overwhelm enemy positions in a tide of chittering teeth and liquified organs.​​

Exemplar of the Cycle Dread Sister

During the Battle of Izupal, then-Zenith Lord Mala abandoned the Chorus and bore the God Tree Laculathon into the Realms of Creation. She was not alone in this sacred labor; many among the Iratek’s Priesthood of the Sought Form answered their Lord’s call, spurning the teachings of the Zenith Born and embracing the Blood Mother’s transformative touch. Through their intimate bond with Mala, these matriarchs became the first Root Witches, and the First and Greatest Sisters among the Aru.

Two centuries of war, sacrificial rites, and divine meditations have shaped these individuals into fearsome instruments, whose terrible magics rip life from flesh and birth monsters from corpses. Known by their subjects as Ezlilti, or Dread Sisters, these priestesses command fear and respect among all segments of Aru society and answer only to Mala, their original Lord.