In the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the Astral expanse was explored in "The Plane
Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea" a resource that becomes once again very topical and handy
when exploring 5th editions return to off-world adventures in Spelljammer.
One of my favourite and very interesting races found in that book are known as the Quom,
and today, we are going to learn all about them, so grab yourself a tasty beverage, put
your mental feet up on the comfortable recliner of your imagination, we are about to get deeply
nerdy.
The Quom are a mortal race of humanoids that are native to the Astral sea but travel freely
all across the multiverse, they are widely feared by many for their sudden and violent
encounters and their strange, fanatical obsession with collecting a mysterious substance that
can be contained in powerful magical relics, and even inside living beings; the extraction
of which often leads to destruction and death, but, the full story of the Quom is a tale
of terrible tragedy, great injustice and one of secret shame for none other than the platinum
dragon god, Bahamut.
Back when the astral plane was first created, through the disastrous attempt by a race called
the Spellweavers to all ascend to godhood at the same time (a subject of a future video
that is sure to change the way you think about the various iterations of the Dungeons & Dragons
multiverse), this realm of imagination made manifest spawned countless parallel planes,
now referred to as the upper or lower planes, or the outer or inner planes of existence,
the realms that in turn spawned who knows how many new gods in the outer planes, and
new primordial powers in the inner planes, the spellweavers, or those very few who survived
their cataclysm, now considered their reality shattered and entered the era they call the
Scrambling, desperately seeking some way to reverse what they did and restore, from their
perspective, the original and correct state of the Dungeons & Dragons multiverse.
Largely ignorant of this, the gods and primordials inevitably came into direct conflict with
each other, the primordials were supreme engines of wanton creation and destruction, thriving
on the power and chaos of elemental forces on the prime material plane, while the gods
sought to preserve and protect the law and order of reality, because they were reliant
on the belief of living beings within the prime material plane to provide them with
their divine power and maintain their existence, the actions of the primordials were very often
extremely hostile to mortal life, but mostly the gods just fought the primordials out of
a more selfish motivation of protecting themselves.
In one such epic battle, toward the end of these years of the great conflict between
the forces of law and chaos, the powerful primordial being of pure nothingness, named
Nihil engaged in an epic final battle with the god Bahamut, paragon of law and order,
they pitched their forces against each other across multiple planes of existence and eventually,
they met in battle in person, unfortunately, neither side exactly picked where this battle
was to take place and by sheer chance, they had crashed through planar barriers and ended
up plummeting through the cool green mists and into the living plane of Lakal, home and
creator goddess of the Quom.
Now up until this point, the Quom were one of the most highly regarded races of pure
benevolence and goodness in the multiverse, you see, they ventured out from the living
paradise of Lakal with no other intention than to be of the most service and benefit
to all other goodly forms of life, if an individual Quom achieved significant and meaningful acts
of supreme kindness, mercy and support for others, they were rewarded with a one on one
personal communication with lakal herself, and so, they were incredibly dedicated.
When Bahamut and Nihil smashed into Lakal, there were a great number of them away on
missions of support, diplomacy and healing on the very front lines of the raging cosmic
battle, having worked tirelessly as best they could to try and prevent the outbreak of war
between the primordials and the gods, they instead did their best to help all other mortal
races simply survive.
And then, in the climax of the battle, Bahamut unleashed his full and devastating power of
destruction, his miles-long breath weapon beam of disintegration, destroying Nihil,
shattering its body, and causing shards of its deceased non-being to permeate the pure
body of Lakal.
On that day, Lakal died a most horrific and gruesome death and the living realm exploded
into a thousand comets and countless smaller particles.
Everyone present in the realm died instantly of course and across the Astral sea, the only
quom left were the thousands that had spread out through the silvery expanse and realms
contained therein to tend to the wounded.
To say they keenly felt the death of Lakal is quite an understatement, the loss was profound
beyond words, their mother, their home, their reason for existing was screaming into their
very souls, and then suddenly she was gone, like their very souls had been torn from their
bodies, leaving them empty and worthless husks.
Everywhere the wandering Quom could be found, they were incredibly traumatized and raced
for their home as fast as they possibly could when they could manage to do anything at all
beyond scream and sob uncontrollably... the devastation they found when they arrived was
absolute and worse still, lakal had died for nothing (in fact, her death may have shattered
the boundary between the prime material plane and the far realm, or at least many sages
speculate this to be a major factor).
To quote directly from the source material, "As Lakal’s dying shrieks reverberated in
their heads, the surviving quom chose, as one, to set aside the ways of peace.
From that day forward, they vowed to heal only their own.
With unyielding determination, they sought to revive Lakal by tracking down and reassembling
her sundered parts, slaying anyone who stood in their path without mercy or moral purpose,
just as their families and their deity had been slain.
If those victims were innocent bystanders in a greater struggle, so be it.
They were in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as Lakal had been.
The quom call their project to reassemble all the parts of Lakal “the unsundering.”
They work ceaselessly to gather up every fragment of Lakal, no matter how small.
The largest parts were long ago discovered.
Now, the quom comet-hunters, as they are called, track down tiny shards.
When a hunter is within 15 feet of one, he or she is capable of perceiving a speck of
Lakal as tiny as a pinpoint.
The unsundering puts the quom in conflict with all other inhabitants of the Astral Sea.
Many of the tiny motes of Lakal that the quom now hunt have long since integrated themselves
with other objects.
They are often found in magic items that have been scattered throughout the known realms
over the years.
It is entirely possible that a magic ring purchased in Sigil or found in a mortal-world
dungeon contains a long-lost speck of Lakal matter.
Lakal-matter also functions as a nutrient, and as such it can be found in edible plants
and the bodies of living animals.
Many creatures have infinitesimal bits of Lakal embedded in their bodies.
Although a small incision might be sufficient to remove a mote of Lakal matter lodged in
the skin or a surface muscle, a spot in one’s lungs or heart requires an extraction that
proves fatal to the patient.
The quom perform these murderous surgeries without hesitation.
One or more characters, or their equipment, might be targeted by the quom.
The quom have enough experience with adventurers to realize that few such individuals allow
one member of their band to be singled out and destroyed, so an adventuring party that
has one member targeted by the quom is likely to be attacked en masse.
Even if they aren’t being targeted at a given time, characters need to be on their
guard around the quom.
One peaceful encounter with a quom does not guarantee that a future encounter will not
lead to violence since in the intervening time one or more characters might unknowingly
ingest motes of Lakal.
Fragments of Lakal large enough to be seen look like softly glowing crystals.
When quom comet-hunters find new motes, they press them against the hull of their comet-ships,
growing each ship one tiny piece at a time.
On the day when all the pieces are finally gathered, the ships will be set on a collision
course with one another, and Lakal, the realm and the deity, will be reborn.
Some say that before Lakal can be fully reconstructed, Bahamut will have to die, to atone for his
unthinking role in her doom."
Originally a cast-based society of healers, diplomats, scholars and explorers, due to
the cataclysmic death of lakal, most of the Quom not present in Lakal at the time of the
cataclysm were the diplomats, with their light turquoise skin and the healers, who have a
violet skin tone now comprise most Quom alive today, but there are others and anyway, the
color of a quom's skin these days means very little, they are a merit based culture, only
individual accomplishments matter, ones family history or current relatives means next to
nothing to them.
Quom have a distinctive appearance, they are thick, broad-shouldered and burly like a dwarf,
but are the same height as a human and they have almost no body hair at all.
Symmetry is extremely important to them in almost every aspect of their culture, they
never have any skin blemishes and their features are exactly mirrored, one side of their body
to the other are identical.
So strong is this desire for symmetry that it's not just considered ugly, but actually,
a shocking social taboo to appear in public with something like, a scar on one side of
the face or one missing hand, they will either conceal or seclude themselves until this can
be totally restored through ritual magic, or they will go to the extreme of scarring
the other side of their body to exactly match the other scar.
Their language is also strangely symmetrical and balanced, most of their words and almost
all of their names are palindromes; A palindrome is a word, phrase, or sentence that reads
the same backward or forward, such as radar, civic and so on.
To the quom, other races are generally lopsided and unpleasant in appearance.
As you can imagine, this was a reflection of the physical being of Lakal, a paradise
of golden ratios, mirror-like reflections and geometric structures, while at the same
time being a verdant, always warm, always illuminated landscape of incredible grace
and beauty, literally glowing with divine living energy and an ecosystem in perfect
harmony.
Like a great, self-contained Dyson sphere, the quom lived within Lakal, with gem-like
moons orbiting around within the radiant essence of lakal's divine spirit, burning brightly
as a star.
Now Quom live almost exclusively onboard astral ships constructed from gathered materials
and powered by chunks of Lakal, on their endless quest they do occasionally need to refuel
the ship by the sacrifice of life force, other life froms can be used but the best results
are achieved when Quom give up their lives to power their home ship and merge their essence
with Lakal once again.
As you can imagine, the size and variety of the comet ships is staggering, some of their
vessels are more than equal to the Rock of Bral and can be found in their thousands docked
up around the moon-sized large chunks of Lakal that are densely occupied by Quom, busy devoting
time and resources constantly to the search for more fragments.
Social advancement and reputation for a Quom is all about their success in gathering more
fragments of Lakal, onboard their ships the quom raise crops and simple, small livestock
that are easy to manage, they are also known to produce and sell the finest metalwork and
ceramic containers which fetch premium prices everywhere they are found.
Quom ships are their mobile homes, each is populated not by a crew, but a community,
they are quite independent and there is nothing that really passes for a central authority
in quom culture, so, a quom vessel may identify itself with the symbol of a type of industry,
a particular animal or structure, but that has nothing to do with the culture onboard
that ship, a plow doesn't indicate those quom are better at farming than any other quom,
remember the vast majority of quom who would have been farmers, architects, lumberjacks
and so on were all wiped out, along with their knowledge and culture when Lakal exploded.
The largest chunks and fragments of Lakal have long since been found by the Quom but
they will not stop until finally, one day, one of them will be the mythical figure who
finds and collects the very last piece of their home plane and their goddess.
Every quom believes that this figure is them, and they are very close to the completion
of their eons-long quest, each generation of quom has believed this also, but who knows
how long it will take or if it is really even possible, still, there is no other option
in the minds of all quom; Lakal must be restored.
Quom ships range across the entire astral sea and often seem to have erratic flight
paths, but they are simply avoiding areas with no lakal fragments and heading to traditionally
richer hunting grounds, particularly anywhere that sees a lot of travellers from beyond
the astral sea and at any time you may fly through a distinctive kind of ship graveyard,
the vessels lifeless and seemingly torn to bits thanks to the quoms destructive search
methods.
Another fascinating feature of their species are the Durud.
"A quom of great achievement undergoes a bizarre physical transformation.
Over a period of weeks, the back of its skull begins to reconfigure itself.
A brow ridge appears, then eye sockets, and finally, a set of functioning eyes.
Eventually, the quom gains an entire second face on the back of its head, identical to
the first.
(In game terms, this change occurs when a quom advances to the epic tier.)
From this point on, the quom is capable of sensing the presence of one of Lakal’s motes
within 40 feet of itself, compared to 15 feet for an ordinary quom comet-hunter.
Quom that have second faces are known as durud.
This word means leader, hero, wise one, and priest, all at once.
When a quom becomes old and infirm, its second face fades and is reabsorbed.
It loses its durud status and enters a state of feeble-minded dotage.
This change rarely occurs, since most durud die in combat or in self-sacrifice (see below)
long before old age can creep up on them.
Males and females regard one another as equals, although durud are more important than anyone
else."
"Beyond their special enmity for Bahamut, the quom believe that all gods and primordials
share responsibility for the death of Lakal.
They say that the divide between law and chaos and good and evil is merely a story each side
tells about itself.
Morality died when Lakal was slain.
When she is restored, perhaps a new accord can be struck with those deities willing to
bow down before her and make gestures of contrition.
In the meantime, the gods and their followers deserve nothing but scorn.
Clerics, and other divine servants are treated as dupes and charlatans.
Although their goddess is dead, the quom can still wield divine power, which they derive
from the energy surrounding their ships and it is this outpouring of her divine power
that rockets their ships through the astral realms, although some small, specialist quom
raiding craft can fly in a planet's atmosphere and land or take off using VTOL jets.
The divine rocket flames are very destructive to anything caught in them and in combat with
other ships or structures, the quom simply maneuver to catch their enemies within the
flames, immolating ships, structures and people with intense fires, some ships also concentrate
and focus this fire in the form of flame lances they are aimed and fired at other vessels
much like greek fire pumps, but with much greater range and accuracy.
However, the Quom are there to collect fragments of Lakal, so they employ grapples and harpoons
of all shapes and sizes, and are particularly good at close quarters skirmish fighting with
a lot of skill in grappling and incapacitating their targets, they use paralytic poisons
and many spells that achieve the same result, an unresisting victim who they can then perform
a fragment extraction on.
Thanks to eons of encounters with the Quom, the Githyanki have developed a magical means
to detect fragments of quom, but only within very close range.
Typically when they suspect an encounter with the quom they will use this method to go over
their whole ship and any living beings onboard, then eliminating any fragments they find before
the quom do it forcibly for them.
And that's about all I have for you on the Quom at the moment, a very interesting species
with a unique worldview and tragic yet terrible motivation that drives them to become villains
in the eyes of all others.
The astral expanse is just loaded with unique cultures and such epic tales; stick with my
channel and slowly but surely, we will populate it with lore from every edition of the game
and Beyond!
In the meantime, as always, thanks for listening, I will be back with more for you, very soon.