A little girl looked on her favorite tree. Glittering lime and emerald, the tree danced and sang in the morning breeze. She giggled and smiled, dancing along with it. The winds changed. A woman, blindfolded several times over and enrobed in what looked like stitched-together meat, sauntered over to the girl. Without moving her lips, she asked why the girl loved the tree so much. The girl pointed to the leaves and babbled in nonexistent words. The woman smiled with an expression of peace, and walked over to the tree. She lay a single fingernail into the trunk, at which point the tree contorted and wailed, turning a bright crimson and dripping with burning blood. The girl shrieked in horror as the woman lifted up one of her many blindfolds. The burgundy eye that stared at the girl reflected only the ashes of her ashes, the girl's whining having been returned to the void by the Witch's empty fire.
The Catastrophes of Brimstata were a collective of over 30 individuals bordering between monster and intelligent force of evil. While all once sharing a connection to the world's coreheart, the exact origin and goals of each Catastrophe vary wildly. The first multitude were created by the Witch of Armageddon as corruptions of concepts that she felt would scar the people of Brimstata the most. However, one other Catastrophe, the Mother of Hellfire, did have a hand in the creation of several more, even producing 12 more Catastrophes on her own.
Witch of Armageddon
Haemathesia, more commonly known as the Witch of Armageddon, represented the combination of two other terrifying evils. She was the unholy and perfect merger between cold, cruel detachment and insatiable bloodlust. Born in Brimstata's skies with a will to turn the universe around her unrecognizable, the Witch of Armageddon's true aspiration was to become queen of a realm consumed by torment and impossibilities.
The Witch herself possessed two horrifying Echo-adjacent abilities. She could distort the very fundamentals of concepts she understood and touched. A particular habit of hers before she was first sealed was learning the beauty in an aspect of nature from local Brymasti before destroying it before their eyes. The other ability she once wielded was known as the "empty fire". It was not actual fire of any sort, but the way it flowed resembled it. The empty fire disintegrated objects into ash, and then reduced the ash to a simple airy powder that smelled of regrets and grief.
As the progenitor and most powerful of the Catastrophes, the Witch of Armageddon was feared across the world, even while sealed. Though the most tame and "benevolent" piece of her soul was rent for the Vessel creation process, it is said that a little bit of her malice lingers in the souls of her Vessels to this day.
The Spawn of the Witch
The Witch of Armageddon created the majority of the other Catastrophes of Brimstata. Through her malicious wanderings, the ranks of chaos grew, festering over the world of fire. The power each one possessed varied dramatically, ranging from a simple unkillable violent beast to a threat that could end nations when pushed to its limits.
Mother of Hellfire
Amorphous Pestilence
Laments of the Departed
Dragon of the Tempest
Hadal Spectre
Lantern of Frost
Almighty Reflection
Harbinger of Drought
Grieving Sun
Onyx King
Wolf of the Typhoon
Hellhound of the Mist
Innovators of Hellfire
The Mother of Hellfire's perfectionist drive to create the true, pure flame led her to create twelve children, Catastrophes more powerful than herself, in order to reach the apotheosis of fire. She would have continued, had her twelfth creation not been too powerful for even her to handle.
Inverted Burner
Crackling Hound of Damnation
Siren of Undeath
Wanderer of Ebony
Bishop of White Embers
Eventide's Phoenix
Funerary Pyreholder
Alchemical Hellhound
Angel of the Night
Divine Burning One
Cosmic Serpent Mooneater
Dragon of the Infernal Grove
Commissions of the Mother
Three times, the Mother of Hellfire begged for the Witch of Armageddon to give her new Catastrophes to study, to give her concepts that could be altered to help create the perfect fire. Three times, the Witch obliged, delighting in the Mother's maddening spiral of research and toil. The most unusual of the Catastrophes, these three bore the parentage of the Witch and the Mother, neither of whom acted to raise the damned curses.
Paladin of the Heavens
Monk of Inversion
Palladium Scales
| Name | Rank | Primary Power Name | Origin | Vessel |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Witch of Armageddon | 1 | Empty Fire | Original | Meirritz Zayshylor |
| Dragon of the Infernal Grove | 2 | Grove Inferno | Mother | Shu'dai Orikawa |
| Cosmic Serpent Mooneater | 3 | Violet Flames of Lunation | Mother | Adrian Iophetix |
| Hadal Spectre | 4 | Depth Glimmers | Witch | Mirosi Vien |
| Divine Burning One | 5 | Godflame | Mother | Ana Makataru |