The Church of the Acarid hunches upon the foetid swampland like a bloated louse. Beneath its stones the faithful dug too deep, and stirred a long-slumbering horror. Now every soul within its walls moves only to its parasitic will.
The Infested Hosts
Acarid Parasites
The Symbiarch
Once a paladin hailed as the Sainted Mother’s champion, the warrior was carried into the swamp after suffering mortal wounds. Pilgrims raised the church above his body, believing he would be restored by miracle. But when the brood awoke, prophecy turned to horror.
A Brutelouse fused with his broken frame, merging armor, flesh, and parasite into one seamless abomination.
The Symbiarch’s upper body retains a distorted humanity, its arms wielding weapons with remembered skill. But below, his form sprawls into a mass of chitin and claw. His divine blood warped the fusion into completion, giving the hive a perfect guardian.
Acarid Altar
At the head of the ruined Church stands the Acarid Altar. A terrible locus once raised in honour of the Sainted Mother, now reconsecrated for the skittering terrors that dwell below.
Raised on mire-stone and rich hardwood brought at great cost from distant lands, the church once stood as a beacon of devotion in the swamp. Pilgrims gathered in its nave, their songs echoing against vaulted beams, while monks moved in steady rhythm to keep the floors clean, the altars polished, and the candles burning. Order and solemnity ruled the place, every corner arranged to reflect the Mother’s blessing of nurture and stability.
Now the church is a hollow shell of itself, overrun with parasites that cling and pulse where the devoted once kneeled. The skulls below no longer rest in silence, their alcoves and sconces thick with egg-clusters and chitin. The hole gapes wider than ever, no longer the passage of the dead but the gullet of the brood. It breathes with the damp musk of the infestation, and all who descend soon learn that it leads not to crypts of peace, but to the Broodmare’s throne, a door to hell carved in the heart of the mire.
Church of the Acarid: Faction Pack
Once pilgrims and warriors, now hollow thralls and monstrous guardians, the church’s brood is an entire faction of infestation.
Contains 1 PDF Booklet, featuring 5e Statblocks and Supplementary Resources for the Church of the Acarid.
