Stonebound Thisbe

‘Eyes of granite, heart of flint, soul of marble, cold as stone. She-serpent of the dead rock of caverns unfathomable, chill breath of the cave-mouth of bottomless despair. Spirit of the Gorgoa, bless our ambitions, sanctify our spite. Give us fangs of quartz and venom to petrify the flesh.’ – Stonebound Thisbe * Before the terrible Gorgoa of the Stone Eyes was slain by <color=#774418>Pelops the Victor</color>, there existed a cult dedicated to her worship, known as the Stonebound, which survived the monster’s defeat. The cult was mainly composed of women who had been aggrieved by husbands, brothers, fathers, or patriarchs, seeking sisterhood and power to right their personal wrongs. They knelt blindfolded before the Gorgoa to learn her teachings, cryptic words of power, and the wisdom of stone. Now, as the successor to the Gorgoa, Stonebound Thisbe leads the cult in its endeavors: espionage, murder, revenge, sheltering the spurned, and mastering the power of petrification. She was once the Gorgoa’s handmaiden and trusted confidant, privy to many of the creature’s secrets of magic. She devised a way for the Gorgoa’s presence to live on, a way to become her successor and keep her sect alive: a Stonebound rite that used the petrified bodies of the Gorgoa’s foes to confer magical blessing, but transformed into an act of reverence for the source of the stone rather than spite. The mourners of the Gorgoa bore her body to a secret place of power deep within the earth, after Pelops had severed her head. The corpse had turned to stone upon the Gorgoa's death, an ironic fate for a creature that had petrified hundreds. The cultists broke her stony remains into chunks, then ground them to powder, then mixed it with water and sacred oils, making a plaster. They slathered this substance onto Thisbe, chanting and adding their blood to every scoop of flesh-stone-mortar they encased her with. After nine days thus entombed, Thisbe was changed into a being of living stone, bearing many of the Gorgoa’s former powers. Her followers perform a lesser version of this rite, using the pulverized remains of those they petrify, to give themselves superhuman resilience. With the stone of frozen victims, the effects of the rock-flesh ritual are temporary, but Thisbe wears the rocky coat made from the Gorgoa permanently. Thisbe is an uncanny, unnerving figure even to her followers, now. Her very presence interferes with conventional magic, as though her stony body with its painted arcane patterns blocks its mystic currents. She moves with unnatural precision yet without organic grace, lurching from position to position. A master of curses of all varieties, Thisbe cannot instantly petrify her targets but can cause their body to lithify at a slower, more agonizing rate. Once ‘infected’ by the spreading stone, only gruesome excision or amputation can save the victim. Conversely, rock’s power of impermeability and resilience are blessings Thisbe can bestow on her guardians and worshipers. Hostile magic has trouble sticking to those so blessed, and their wounds heal rapidly – injured body parts briefly turn to stone and then back to flesh, with cuts and bruises erased in the process.