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Description
The Crate of Horrors
Image Source: Pixabay

(---"A small, lock box wrapped in chains on which was taped a piece of paper and a scrawled message 'Warning, do not under any circumstances open this!' If one were to actually be stupid enough to ignore the warning and actually open the crate, they will unleash an evil that would cause much suffering within The Super-Sargasso Sea.

The story behind this artifact is as follows:

Several millennia ago, long before the cities we know of that came to be, The 13 Dark Gods of Sargasso and their worshipers had caused widespread havoc all across The Sea. Billions of innocent lives have been taken, either to be used for hard labor, as guinea pigs for experiments, or just as sacrifices for the gods. Fortunately, many of the old Offal Gods and their champions have fought the dark forces off from completely dominating The Sea and all within it, but they couldn't have a more lasting victory against them.

Fortunately, a new god had been born during this time of strife, one specifically created to fight and kill gods: Utznord Godcrusha, The Smasher of the Divine .

And while Utznord wasn't able to kill the Dark Gods, he was able to weaken them to the point where they can be contained within The Crate of Horrors using whatever binding incantations and restraints they could forge. Though Utznord himself had to be restrained after the battle because he was still in God Killing mode and had wiped out several of the Old Gods himself. So he himself had to be restrained alongside the Dark Gods in a separate prison.

Both of these prisons are located in The Ancient Cargo City of Ku , deep under the foundations of the city where everyone hopes that the gods will stay buried.

How Utznord escaped will be explained at another time, but how the Dark Gods ended up released goes as thus.

Some time after The Dark Gods have been imprisoned, The Cargo City of Ku ended up going through The Great Conflagration War where much of the population had been converted into The Enflamed; burning, fanatical maniacs that wanted to "Share the gods' love" i.e. set everything ablaze with their demonic flames. But even the most crazed of the Enflamed knew that opening The Crate of Horrors would be catastrophic and could doom not only them, but everyone else within The Sea. So they still kept and maintained every security measure they could find & build to make sure that the box stays shut.

Though in more recent times, someone had heard about the legend of the Dark Gods and was crazy enough to open the crate to meet his new little brothers and sisters. That "person" being T.H.O. , who on Halloween Night cleaved his way through the prison's defenses and ended up in the main chamber where the Dark Gods were kept. T.H.O. used his sword to slice through the locks on the box, and the Dark Gods had been unleashed. Though they couldn't tempt T.H.O. with whatever they could offer since he was content with what he has. He only wanted to release The Dark Gods from their prison because A: He wanted to meet his new brothers and sisters and B. He wanted to unleash them for the hell of it.

Now the Dark Gods have been unleashed back into The Sea, where billions of lives are now in serious danger.

The Dark Gods of Sargasso are as such:

(--- by Me ---)
Lonacus, The Generous Patron
The Dark God of Generosity. This god gives others a fraction of his own power with no strings attached, granting them whatever power they need. In the case of his followers, they are so generous as to "give" everything they have to others wheter the recievers like it or not. The things given can be the clothes on the followers' backs, their wealth and material possessions, the curses and afflictions that they had been afflicted by, to even their very flesh & bones. The ultimate act of generosity to Lonacus' followers is giving their very souls to him, since him giving powers to others does drain him and his followers' souls give him much needed sustenance.

Kylas, The Kind Malefactor
The Dark Goddess of Kindness. What at first glance looks like a kindly old lady, she is the literal embodiment of the phrase, "Kill them with Kindness." The antics & rituals involving Kylas & her followers revolve on doing things that one would be considered "Kind", but it will always have a sinister twist to them. Like helping an elderly lady across the street that results in said lady getting lead into a serious accident as a sacrifice. Which the god considers very kind of their followers. Another example of this is that several of this goddess's cultists worked in the soup kitchen in a local homeless shelter. These cultists prepare the most delicious buffet that the homeless had ever seen, but when the homeless consume this food, they then start to become so ravenous that they ended up trying to consume each other and everyone else around them while the cultists exit the room, satisfied with granting their god so many sacrifices at once since they enchanted the food with some kind of gluttony-based curse. The ultimate goal of Kylas is the complete eradication of all life in the universe; As she believes that she is putting the universe out of it's misery, the ultimate act of kindness.

Ezbire, The Honest Purveyor of Truth
The Dark God of Honesty. One that resembles a posh-looking Librarian, Ezbire reveal to those who worship them the secrets of everyone and everything around them when asked. From people's dirty little secrets; to the hidden histories of locations; to secrets about dark magic and how to attain it; to the forbidden secrets of The Super-Sargasso Sea and why it's inhabitants had been taken from their worlds in the first place. That being one big secret that has been known to break the minds and spirits of whoever hears it to people that pissed this god off so much that it will use this secret along with whatever harsh truths that exist. This deity gains power by listening to the honest truth of his followers like a twisted version of a church's confessional booth and falsehoods will not be tolerated.

Galdiaz, The Dutiful Stalwart of Loyalty
The Dark God of Loyalty. This Dark God is representative of the logical extreme of Loyalty. Galdiaz makes sure that all followers and all the gods stay loyal to their respective causes, no matter how detrimental it would be. Those that have broken their bond with their respective Leader, God, Friend, Ally, Nation, City, Community and Cause will be put to death by Galdiaz's followers. There are those that see Galdiaz and his followers in action as The Dark God of Subjugation due to how he wants everyone to be subordinate to their Leader, God, Cause, etc no matter what.

Antaghast, The Valourous Berserker
The Dark Goddess of Valor & Diligence. A force that represents the courage to take actions in support of one's convictions. The courage to uphold one's own virtue, even in the face of a physical or psychological threat. However, Antaghast represent the logical extreme of this concept, as they're all devout followers of the concept of Survival of the Fittest as all her followers will fight to the death, never retreating and never surrendering in their goals no matter how much is stacked against them. Both Antaghast and her followers believe in their convictions of blood sacrifice and perform it by having their victims taken to an arena, hand them a weapon to defend themselves with, and Antaghast's followers will challenge them to combat, with each spray of blood they shed from the victim grants Antaghast more power. However, if a victim is actually victorious in their fight and they shed everyone else's blood, Antaghast will welcome them into their cult with open arms. Followers who have actually dared to retreat or surrender to their enemy will be killed on the spot.

(--- by BattleAngel65 --)
Baron Whimedi, the Blessed Zeppelin
The Dark God of the Living. He takes the form of a frozen zeppelin high in the sky of Sargasso's living world. He has the power to bring the dead back to life. When that happens, they are beamed from the afterlife to the world of the living similar to how the Doomed Zeppelin takes the dead to the afterlife. Those of a more evil bent are to the Baron's liking, as villains who worship the Blessed Zepplin are allowed passage back to the realm of the living upon death. Those who are higher up in Whimedi's cult and are highly favored by The Baron are able to summon and control massive swarms of zombies. It is partially the reason why more religiously-bent necromancers favor The Blessed Zeppelin in their worship.

Yahiter, Exarch of the Status Quo
The Dark God of the Status Quo. He is considered by some to be a counter agent to the mutating energies that permeate the Sea. Yahiter doesn't maintain the status quo for his own benefit or any grand plan but because he truly believes the status quo is good for everyone and that change can be potentially dangerous. To him, tradition and what is considered the mainstream is what keeps the world safe and scoffs at things like progress and variety. However, he is misguided in his pursuits as he doesn't realise that maintaining the status quo is not always a good thing.

Athda, the Mad Princess of Peace
The Dark Goddess of Peace. This goddess opposes all forms of conflict with her definition being just as board as Saehild Warhawk's. This includes gang wars, intellectual debates, sports, games of strategy, rap battles, battles between heroes and villains, inner conflict and even struggles against ailments like cancer. She will be there to make the "fighting" stop by any means necessary.

Hepcan, the Great Builder
The Dark Goddess of Construction and Success. A rather popular Dark Goddess. Its not just physical creation of buildings that Hepcan is representative of, this can also be the creation of ideologies, cultures, traditions, arguments, wills, minds and souls. With Hepcan's skills, she can construct dark towers and bad ideologies, cultures, traditions, etc. Such as ritualistic sacrifices, slavery and genocide.

Nemedite, the Healed Maiden
The Dark Goddess of Reward and Pleasure. She is purported to be daughter of Aphrodite and Hephaetus that was said to have been so ugly, Aphrodite threw her off Mount Olympus. Fortunately, she landed in healing waters that made her beautiful, becoming goddess of reward and pleasure. Now jealous that her daughter was more beautiful than her, Aphrodite tried to hunt her down. Failing that, she opted to erase her from Greek mythology altogether. It is only now in the modern day that people even know Nemedite exists. The Goddess offers deals to villains who do her bidding in exchange for whatever pleasures they fancy.

Maltrus, the Hated
Dark Goddess of Hate, Destruction and Discomfort. Originally a child that was abused and starved, just when she was finally starting to turn her life around, her soul was spirited away to the Super-Sargasso Sea. Her arrival revitalised her spirit, generating a new body (though her right eye was still missing). She enters the world of mortals to create pain and suffering. In the afterlife, she takes spirits to her domain which is basically Hell.

(--- by BassoeG ---)
Estoxus, The Million Minds
The Dark God of Community. A contagious demonic possession hivemind. Look at sixteen-hundreds era mythology and borrow the concept of witchmarks. There's a pattern which serves as a summoning symbol. If someone gets it tattooed on them, the demonic abomination it represents takes them over. An assimilating collective mind whose members can only be distinguished from normal humans by tiny, well-hidden tattoos, which pretends to be individuals while picking people off one by one until it gets the numbers to start openly rampaging. The first one to be affected by Estoxus, the only one that was unable to die, upon his release travels from city to city, setting up a tattoo parlor where they leave their mark on unsuspecting victims until their numbers are enough to cause widespread mayhem and death.

Dyrah, The Amorphous Adaptive
The Dark God of Evolution. A monster with adaptive ability, attacking everything it encounters so they'll fight back, it'll adapt itself to survive their counterattack and become even more powerful. Before the time of it's imprisonment along with the others, this God had adapted to the point where it doesn't even resemble a humanoid anymore, more like a mass of unusual features made to deal with whatever it fights against. Those who gain the blessing of Dyrah also became able to adapt to anything they fight, though the end result of this always ends with those "blessed" ending up as giant amoebas similar to their god."---)

A kinda redo of the original Crate of Horrors. Mostly because it's October and I wanted to do something to celebrate the season. Also I want to thank the people that helped with this project, so please, you wouldn't mind checking their galleries out? I think that they would really appreciate your guys' support.

And like the other artifacts, I'll leave links to three lists of them that you can look at. And all of them I put in the public domain for you guys to use under Creative Commons 0 .

Items Part 1 , Part 2 & Part 3 .

For Artifacts with images to them, click the link down below to go to the Artifact Gallery.
www.deviantart.com/amanacer-fi…

And on one final note, If you guys have your own Dark Gods you want to contribute to this setting, please comment below.

This version of The Crate of Horrors and The Dark Gods of Sargasso are open source concepts created specifically for use by anyone. Feel free to use it any way you wish. You must also give the creators (me, BattleAngel65 & BassoeG) credit.

Description
The Crate of Horrors
Image Source: Pixabay

(---"A small, lock box wrapped in chains on which was taped a piece of paper and a scrawled message 'Warning, do not under any circumstances open this!' If one were to actually be stupid enough to ignore the warning and actually open the crate, they will unleash an evil that would cause much suffering within The Super-Sargasso Sea.

The story behind this artifact is as follows:

Several millennia ago, long before the cities we know of that came to be, The 13 Dark Gods of Sargasso and their worshipers had caused widespread havoc all across The Sea. Billions of innocent lives have been taken, either to be used for hard labor, as guinea pigs for experiments, or just as sacrifices for the gods. Fortunately, many of the old Offal Gods and their champions have fought the dark forces off from completely dominating The Sea and all within it, but they couldn't have a more lasting victory against them.

Fortunately, a new god had been born during this time of strife, one specifically created to fight and kill gods: Utznord Godcrusha, The Smasher of the Divine .

And while Utznord wasn't able to kill the Dark Gods, he was able to weaken them to the point where they can be contained within The Crate of Horrors using whatever binding incantations and restraints they could forge. Though Utznord himself had to be restrained after the battle because he was still in God Killing mode and had wiped out several of the Old Gods himself. So he himself had to be restrained alongside the Dark Gods in a separate prison.

Both of these prisons are located in The Ancient Cargo City of Ku , deep under the foundations of the city where everyone hopes that the gods will stay buried.

How Utznord escaped will be explained at another time, but how the Dark Gods ended up released goes as thus.

Some time after The Dark Gods have been imprisoned, The Cargo City of Ku ended up going through The Great Conflagration War where much of the population had been converted into The Enflamed; burning, fanatical maniacs that wanted to "Share the gods' love" i.e. set everything ablaze with their demonic flames. But even the most crazed of the Enflamed knew that opening The Crate of Horrors would be catastrophic and could doom not only them, but everyone else within The Sea. So they still kept and maintained every security measure they could find & build to make sure that the box stays shut.

Though in more recent times, someone had heard about the legend of the Dark Gods and was crazy enough to open the crate to meet his new little brothers and sisters. That "person" being T.H.O. , who on Halloween Night cleaved his way through the prison's defenses and ended up in the main chamber where the Dark Gods were kept. T.H.O. used his sword to slice through the locks on the box, and the Dark Gods had been unleashed. Though they couldn't tempt T.H.O. with whatever they could offer since he was content with what he has. He only wanted to release The Dark Gods from their prison because A: He wanted to meet his new brothers and sisters and B. He wanted to unleash them for the hell of it.

Now the Dark Gods have been unleashed back into The Sea, where billions of lives are now in serious danger.

The Dark Gods of Sargasso are as such:

(--- by Me ---)
Lonacus, The Generous Patron
The Dark God of Generosity. This god gives others a fraction of his own power with no strings attached, granting them whatever power they need. In the case of his followers, they are so generous as to "give" everything they have to others wheter the recievers like it or not. The things given can be the clothes on the followers' backs, their wealth and material possessions, the curses and afflictions that they had been afflicted by, to even their very flesh & bones. The ultimate act of generosity to Lonacus' followers is giving their very souls to him, since him giving powers to others does drain him and his followers' souls give him much needed sustenance.

Kylas, The Kind Malefactor
The Dark Goddess of Kindness. What at first glance looks like a kindly old lady, she is the literal embodiment of the phrase, "Kill them with Kindness." The antics & rituals involving Kylas & her followers revolve on doing things that one would be considered "Kind", but it will always have a sinister twist to them. Like helping an elderly lady across the street that results in said lady getting lead into a serious accident as a sacrifice. Which the god considers very kind of their followers. Another example of this is that several of this goddess's cultists worked in the soup kitchen in a local homeless shelter. These cultists prepare the most delicious buffet that the homeless had ever seen, but when the homeless consume this food, they then start to become so ravenous that they ended up trying to consume each other and everyone else around them while the cultists exit the room, satisfied with granting their god so many sacrifices at once since they enchanted the food with some kind of gluttony-based curse. The ultimate goal of Kylas is the complete eradication of all life in the universe; As she believes that she is putting the universe out of it's misery, the ultimate act of kindness.

Ezbire, The Honest Purveyor of Truth
The Dark God of Honesty. One that resembles a posh-looking Librarian, Ezbire reveal to those who worship them the secrets of everyone and everything around them when asked. From people's dirty little secrets; to the hidden histories of locations; to secrets about dark magic and how to attain it; to the forbidden secrets of The Super-Sargasso Sea and why it's inhabitants had been taken from their worlds in the first place. That being one big secret that has been known to break the minds and spirits of whoever hears it to people that pissed this god off so much that it will use this secret along with whatever harsh truths that exist. This deity gains power by listening to the honest truth of his followers like a twisted version of a church's confessional booth and falsehoods will not be tolerated.

Galdiaz, The Dutiful Stalwart of Loyalty
The Dark God of Loyalty. This Dark God is representative of the logical extreme of Loyalty. Galdiaz makes sure that all followers and all the gods stay loyal to their respective causes, no matter how detrimental it would be. Those that have broken their bond with their respective Leader, God, Friend, Ally, Nation, City, Community and Cause will be put to death by Galdiaz's followers. There are those that see Galdiaz and his followers in action as The Dark God of Subjugation due to how he wants everyone to be subordinate to their Leader, God, Cause, etc no matter what.

Antaghast, The Valourous Berserker
The Dark Goddess of Valor & Diligence. A force that represents the courage to take actions in support of one's convictions. The courage to uphold one's own virtue, even in the face of a physical or psychological threat. However, Antaghast represent the logical extreme of this concept, as they're all devout followers of the concept of Survival of the Fittest as all her followers will fight to the death, never retreating and never surrendering in their goals no matter how much is stacked against them. Both Antaghast and her followers believe in their convictions of blood sacrifice and perform it by having their victims taken to an arena, hand them a weapon to defend themselves with, and Antaghast's followers will challenge them to combat, with each spray of blood they shed from the victim grants Antaghast more power. However, if a victim is actually victorious in their fight and they shed everyone else's blood, Antaghast will welcome them into their cult with open arms. Followers who have actually dared to retreat or surrender to their enemy will be killed on the spot.

(--- by BattleAngel65 --)
Baron Whimedi, the Blessed Zeppelin
The Dark God of the Living. He takes the form of a frozen zeppelin high in the sky of Sargasso's living world. He has the power to bring the dead back to life. When that happens, they are beamed from the afterlife to the world of the living similar to how the Doomed Zeppelin takes the dead to the afterlife. Those of a more evil bent are to the Baron's liking, as villains who worship the Blessed Zepplin are allowed passage back to the realm of the living upon death. Those who are higher up in Whimedi's cult and are highly favored by The Baron are able to summon and control massive swarms of zombies. It is partially the reason why more religiously-bent necromancers favor The Blessed Zeppelin in their worship.

Yahiter, Exarch of the Status Quo
The Dark God of the Status Quo. He is considered by some to be a counter agent to the mutating energies that permeate the Sea. Yahiter doesn't maintain the status quo for his own benefit or any grand plan but because he truly believes the status quo is good for everyone and that change can be potentially dangerous. To him, tradition and what is considered the mainstream is what keeps the world safe and scoffs at things like progress and variety. However, he is misguided in his pursuits as he doesn't realise that maintaining the status quo is not always a good thing.

Athda, the Mad Princess of Peace
The Dark Goddess of Peace. This goddess opposes all forms of conflict with her definition being just as board as Saehild Warhawk's. This includes gang wars, intellectual debates, sports, games of strategy, rap battles, battles between heroes and villains, inner conflict and even struggles against ailments like cancer. She will be there to make the "fighting" stop by any means necessary.

Hepcan, the Great Builder
The Dark Goddess of Construction and Success. A rather popular Dark Goddess. Its not just physical creation of buildings that Hepcan is representative of, this can also be the creation of ideologies, cultures, traditions, arguments, wills, minds and souls. With Hepcan's skills, she can construct dark towers and bad ideologies, cultures, traditions, etc. Such as ritualistic sacrifices, slavery and genocide.

Nemedite, the Healed Maiden
The Dark Goddess of Reward and Pleasure. She is purported to be daughter of Aphrodite and Hephaetus that was said to have been so ugly, Aphrodite threw her off Mount Olympus. Fortunately, she landed in healing waters that made her beautiful, becoming goddess of reward and pleasure. Now jealous that her daughter was more beautiful than her, Aphrodite tried to hunt her down. Failing that, she opted to erase her from Greek mythology altogether. It is only now in the modern day that people even know Nemedite exists. The Goddess offers deals to villains who do her bidding in exchange for whatever pleasures they fancy.

Maltrus, the Hated
Dark Goddess of Hate, Destruction and Discomfort. Originally a child that was abused and starved, just when she was finally starting to turn her life around, her soul was spirited away to the Super-Sargasso Sea. Her arrival revitalised her spirit, generating a new body (though her right eye was still missing). She enters the world of mortals to create pain and suffering. In the afterlife, she takes spirits to her domain which is basically Hell.

(--- by BassoeG ---)
Estoxus, The Million Minds
The Dark God of Community. A contagious demonic possession hivemind. Look at sixteen-hundreds era mythology and borrow the concept of witchmarks. There's a pattern which serves as a summoning symbol. If someone gets it tattooed on them, the demonic abomination it represents takes them over. An assimilating collective mind whose members can only be distinguished from normal humans by tiny, well-hidden tattoos, which pretends to be individuals while picking people off one by one until it gets the numbers to start openly rampaging. The first one to be affected by Estoxus, the only one that was unable to die, upon his release travels from city to city, setting up a tattoo parlor where they leave their mark on unsuspecting victims until their numbers are enough to cause widespread mayhem and death.

Dyrah, The Amorphous Adaptive
The Dark God of Evolution. A monster with adaptive ability, attacking everything it encounters so they'll fight back, it'll adapt itself to survive their counterattack and become even more powerful. Before the time of it's imprisonment along with the others, this God had adapted to the point where it doesn't even resemble a humanoid anymore, more like a mass of unusual features made to deal with whatever it fights against. Those who gain the blessing of Dyrah also became able to adapt to anything they fight, though the end result of this always ends with those "blessed" ending up as giant amoebas similar to their god."---)

A kinda redo of the original Crate of Horrors. Mostly because it's October and I wanted to do something to celebrate the season. Also I want to thank the people that helped with this project, so please, you wouldn't mind checking their galleries out? I think that they would really appreciate your guys' support.

And like the other artifacts, I'll leave links to three lists of them that you can look at. And all of them I put in the public domain for you guys to use under Creative Commons 0 .

Items Part 1 , Part 2 & Part 3 .

For Artifacts with images to them, click the link down below to go to the Artifact Gallery.
www.deviantart.com/amanacer-fi…

And on one final note, If you guys have your own Dark Gods you want to contribute to this setting, please comment below.

This version of The Crate of Horrors and The Dark Gods of Sargasso are open source concepts created specifically for use by anyone. Feel free to use it any way you wish. You must also give the creators (me, BattleAngel65 & BassoeG) credit.