Then we found Nibiru.
Who knows if what we found was actually the planet Sitchin described in those sacks of excrement he called books. Who cares, really? It's quite possible that out our rituals _created_ Nibiru out of all our Ouranian Barbaric chanting and cut-up bibliomancy and die-roll personality creation. Once again, who cares? What mattered is that we had found a reliable way -- much cheaper than the spaceships the governments of the world had deemed too impractical -- to escape the coming death-by-crowding of our species.
We published our work, and discovered that its promise was popular. Now, we have found ourselves at the vanguard and forefront of a movement of thousands, maybe millions, from all around the world. We call ourselves the Tenth Billion, in reference to the median projected carrying capacity of Big Mama Earth as of a 2001 report to the United Nations, which was 10 billion humans. Others sometimes call us the Renegade Colonizers or the Disunited Federation of Planets.
I still call us the Only Hope. In fact, it has become my handle in the various message boards and mailing lists that dot the web, connecting our widespread network of people working to prepare Nibiru for largescale human habitation.
I think it is the only way we will survive what we have done, are doing, and will do to the planet. We are a cancer, and this is the only compassionate cure. Even if we are crazy.
*******************
After the Babylon Five discovered or created Nibiru, we began to explore it and to collect various data on the conditions and life there. One of the first entities I myself was first confronted with was an eight-limbed creature with a hard, shiny red and black carapace that looked like it might conceal wings, but it acted only as durable armor over much, but not all of its fat body. What brown, leathery skin was visible was dotted with dry, stubby warts. Only four of its limbs were normal, walking legs. Its two rearmost limbs were large and powerful legs used for the sole purpose of jumping far distances; they were held tucked up under the rear of the body when not in use. On the front of the creature, two jointed, agile, and wickedly hooked claws groped the air before its four beady, black, insectoid eyes and sharp, jagged mandible. These wide and gaping mouthparts sat below a brow ridge that formed the base of a massive, hornlike, chitinous protrusion looking for all the world like the bell of a massive trumpet, from which I could hear a faint, high-pitched warbling. This protrusion tapered above the creature's shoulders and flared out over its sharp jaws. Essentially, the creature lacked a true head; in its place is the large horn, which warbled and trumpeted when it communicated with others of its species. Its throat bulged and rippled as though it was about to croak.
I quickly fingered the small bag of apple seeds, yew leaves, and processors at my hip, reciting the Charge of the First Ancestor (translated here from the Ancient Aramaic I used in the moment):
"Oh holy, vibrating Breath Over the Unformed Waters,
You it was
Who created
my firstmost, many infinity times great-grandfather
from the red dirt.
You it was
Who had sound but not yet language,
and You it was who charged him
with finding the names of things
and speaking them to You,
teaching You,
even You,
to speak.
In gratitude for this history,
and in order to dutifully perform my species's forgotten task,
I call to You
who is now called simply
the Name.
Summon memories of my human magick from the code of my cells,
and I will teach You,
even You,
much and more names,
the names of all things,
seen and unseen,
felt and unfelt,
thought and unthought."
Upon completion of the prayer, the name "diell baeed" floated from my brain out through my lips like the dirt that has been washed from your body down the shower drain. It appeared that this was the fearful thing's name.
I became fascinated with the hideous, nauseating thing. You know, I've read and reread every account of the Garden of Eden -- the Books of Genesis and Ezekiel in at least 4 languages, surat Sad, surat al-Baqarah, surat al-A'raf, surat al-Hijr, the Doctrines and Covenants, all manner of commentaries and revelations about those accounts, and endless divinations, numerological transformations, and cryptological breakdowns concerning the Garden. The one thing none of them ever told me was the sensuous intimacy that comes in a rush with the naming of a thing. There's a kind of merging on a fundamental level that occurs.
I embarked on a study of the diell beead, arranging for repeated ritual journeys to Nibiru (alienating my coven endlessly, by the way -- I eventually began organizing trips just to get away from the endless arguing they caused) and spending my free time doing endless divinations to learn more. I rather quickly thereafter lost my job as a canvasser.
Diell beead, I learned, thrive in underground colonies, constructing immense, convoluted tunnel complexes reminiscent of anthills. Though often shy and nonaggressive, they are mindless hunters who live to breed and expand their warrens, breaking off into new colonies when one has grown too large for an area (typically when a colony has amassed more than 28 members). Diell beead have been used as mounts by many of the more intelligent races of Nibiru. Loorged scoxo have domesticated them in the past, as have some foresevu kelvlin tribes. These groups know that in great numbers diell beead only become more effective, and mounted units of diell beead riders sometimes form the elite fighting units for certain of the tribes or cities of Nibiru.
--@OnlyHope01
--@OnlyHope01
Medium-Size Vermin
Hit Dice 8d8+32 (68 hp)
Initiative +1
Speed 40 feet, burrow 5 feet
Armor Class 20 (+1 Dex, +9 natural), touch 11, flat-footed 19, CMD 21
Base Attack Bonus/Combat Maneuver Bonus +6/+10
Attack Claw +10 melee (1d8+4), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Full Attack 2 claws +10 melee (1d8+4) and bite +7 melee (1d6+2 plus poison saliva and grab), or tongue +7 ranged (grab)
Space/Reach 5 feet/5 feet
Special Attacks Fast swallow, rend (2 claws, 2d8+6), shake the earth, sonic chime, swallow whole (1d3 bludgeoning plus 1d2 acid damage, AC 14, 7 hp), trample (2d6+6, DC 18)
Special Qualities Darkvision 60 feet, immunity to sonic, low-light vision, scent, sonic healing, vermin traits
Saves Fort +10, Ref +3, Will +3
Abilities Str 18, Dex 12, Con 19, Int --, Wis 13, Cha 9
Skills Acrobatics +9, Perception +7, Stealth +3
Feats Improved Natural Attack (claw) x2 (B), Multiattack (B)
Environment Temperate land and underground
Organization Solitary or colony (7-56)
Challenge Rating 6
Treasure None
Alignment Always neutral
Advancement 9-10 HD (Medium-size), 11 HD (Large)
Combat
Diell beead in groups fight by using their shake the earth ability, attempting to knock prone as many enemies as possible. They then rush in and trample whatever foes they can before switching to claw, bite, and rend attacks. The creatures only resort to their sonic chime attacks if necessary. Although mindless vermin, diell beead fight with a certain amount of savage cunning. A diell beead's tongue attack has a range of 10 feet with no range increment.
Diell Beead Saliva (Ex): Bite—injury; save Fort DC 18, frequency 1/round for 2 rounds, effect 1d3 Con, cure 1 save.
Shake the Earth (Ex): A diell beead can channel some of the sonic energy within its body by performing a rhythmic stomping on the ground as a standard action. Any creature within 5 feet of a diell beead when it activates this ability must make a DC 18 Reflex save or fall prone as the ground lurches and buckles beneath it. Diell beead are immune to shake the earth generated by themselves or other diell beead and never need to save against the effect.
If multiple diell beead activate their shake the earth ability in the same round, the radius of the effect expands as the resonance in the ground combines. For every diell beead within 5 feet using shake the earth, the radius of the effect expands another 5 feet. Thus, two diell beead within 5 feet of one another generate a shaking that effects all creatures within 10 feet of either diell beead. Three diell beead within 5 feet using the ability would generate an effect that affects all creatures within 15 feet of any one of the diell beead.
Creatures with stability or that are considered stable against trip attempts receive a bonus on their Reflex save as if they were being tripped (so a dwarf would receive the +4 bonus on the save to resist being knocked prone). The save DC is Strength-based.
Sonic Chime (Su): Once per day, a diell beead ca emit a cone of sonic energy from the chitinous bell above its head. The cone is 15 feet long, and activating the chime is a full-round action. Creatures within the cone take 5d6 points of sonic damage (Reflex DC 18 half). A diell beead is immune to its own sonic chime attack and that of other diell beead. Diell beead attacking in numbers use this ability instinctually to heal their fellow diell beead once several have taken damage (see sonic healing below). The save DC is Constitution-based.
Sonic Healing (Su): For every 5 points of damage a sonic attack would deal to a diell beead, the creature instead heals 1 point of damage it has already sustained. If a diell beead receives more healing than its current hit point maximum, the extra hit points are wasted (the creature does not gain temporary hit points from exposure to sonic damage). A diell beead gets no saving throw against attacks that deal sonic damage.
Skills: Diell beead have a +8 racial bonus on Acrobatics, a +6 racial bonus on Perception checks, and a +2 racial bonus on Stealth checks.
