Ocola, Progeny of the Unspoken Word

There is a Demon of the Second Circle: Nilasis, the Unspoken Word, which is the Reflective Soul of Orabilis. Nilasis is a strange thing even by the standards of the Yozi realm; it is best comprehended as a word that has never been conceived of, nor spoken, by any mortal, Exalt, god, or Primordial. Some savants say that once every seven years, on the first day of Calibration, a child in Creation begins to think of the concept that would, in one year's time, germinate into the Word that is Nilasis. Nilasis must effect the destruction of this mortal before a year has passed, for were the Unspoken Word to be uttered, its most essential nature would be destroyed, and none - not even Orabilis - know whether any fragment of it would survive.

Nilasis' purpose is to grant vast rewards - kingdoms, wealth, powerful artifacts, and the like - to those who discover secret knowledge, and then, one week later, to tear them limb from limb. It will occassionally inform its victims of their good fortune, but gives no choice whether to accept it. It offers no hint of their eventual fate. Whether the recipient glories in their prize or runs from it, their end is the same; in exactly one week, Nilasis separates each limb from their body, then rips off their head, and leaves the body in a neat pile. It thinks of itself as generous, considering the violent death to be a minor technicality attached to its gifts.

Its progeny are the Ocola. In Malfeas, they are large floating eyeballs, roughly the size of a man's chest. The nerve endings attached to them trail off vaguely into the Malfean sky. When summoned into Creation, they must be bound - literally - onto an animal body in order to move; they cannot float in the air as they do in the Demon realm. Some animal's head must be sawed off, and the Ocola sewn onto it with green thread. The Ocola may then animate the body as its own; the corpse's decay is slowed to a fifth of its natural rate, but resumes its normal speed as soon as the Ocola is separated from it. Most sorcerers use human bodies for this purpose, but great apes, dogs, and the largest birds have also been used to host Ocola. Nilasis' spawn may be transplanted between bodies in about two hours.

The Ocola are obsessed with observation and information, and grow violent if not permitted to roam about freely in an area the size of a large city to observe their surroundings. Particular activities hold a special fascination to the Ocola: violence, weaving, and fishing. They may be safely trusted to engage in these acts for hours at a time, and excel at them. The Ocola possess amazing senses including a keen kinesthetic sense which, combined with their natural inclination towards acts of violence, makes them skilled fighters. However, they are not especially trustworthy watchmen, as they often strain the limits of their commands to observe an incoming enemy rather than sounding an alarm, and they resent being kept from moving about for more than a handful of hours. Ocola are not particularly intelligent.

During Calibration, unbound Ocola rush to locate and destroy the child that will destroy Nilasis; they can ferret out the mortal by instinct over any distance, but cannot express how they know where to find it. In truth, they can only sense it to within the radius of a few hundred yards; having reached this area, they will begin slaughtering any children they find. Ocola bound by a sorcerer's commands are generally unable to participate in the Hunt, but will try to if they possibly can. To be prevented causes them great pain.

Stats notes: The Ocola have very high Perception and Awareness, with relatively high combat stats and Specialties in weaving and fishing. They have few health levels, since their bodies are merely partially-decomposed animated corpses, prone to falling apart when hacked at. They have Intelligence 2.