Every year, over the course of the entire Dry Season, the Gormlings march from one side of the Mound's surface to the other in as straight a line as their little legs can muster.
Each Gormling is a little humanoid thing, usually no more than a half meter high. They have wide faces, big floppy ears, compound eyes, and a long nose-like proboscis. Their kind has lots of variance though, with each one usually sporting 2d20 additional differences from the list below. (If the same result is rolled twice, it's just really really intense or pronounced.)
- A random body part or set of parts is translucent.
- They have markings on their body resembling a face.
- They have big legs with lots of joints, good for leaping and flipping.
- They are tiny, and flit about on little fluttering scaly wings.
- They are covered in fuzzy bristles, all over their body.
- Their body sports intense and bright colours.
- They have big, bulbous, cute eyes.
- They have big, bulbous, unnerving eyes.
- Their body sports an intricate pattern or iridescent sheen.
- Their body is bulbous, squishy, and rounded.
- Their body mimics some form of plant life native to the Mound's surface.
- As they move, their body produces a funny chirp or whistling sound.
- They have dopey little antennae.
- They have plates all over their back, which they can use to roll into a ball.
- Their eyes rest at the tips of their eye stalks.
- Their proboscis is extra long and distinguished.
- They have multiple sets of eyes.
- They have multiple extra limbs.
- Their proboscis is extra curly or has an unconventional shape.
- They possess some notable injury or deformity.
The gormless little Gormlings get up to gobs of gaiety as they go.
- Of course it wouldn't be a parade without noise! Not music or instruments, but noise. Many Gormlings can make a great deal of it on their own, but those that can't usually carry some form of simple noisemaker- tooting horns, rattling snares, whistles and bullhorns and kazoos and anything else that doesn't require too much skill or care.
- They also enjoy pretty things which wave around and catch the breeze nicely. Flags and flowers and fronds, pinwheels papers purses and more.
- Gormlings don't seem to eat food, however they love stopping for a quick drink. They will swarm around whatever moisture persists into the Dry Season, reach in with their little hands, and pluck out tense little droplets that shine in the Moonlight like jewels. Often after a few laps of their whipping tongues, they get bored and proceed to have water-droplet fights instead.
- Gormlings are incapable of saying no to a good-natured game- those being any that mainly require using your imagination and running around.
When in doubt about what a Gormling would do or be capable of, ask the most readily available child of age 8 or under in your life what they would do in that situation.
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| All art in this post provided by my lovely wife <3 |
Where the Gormlings come from and where they go, nobody is quite sure. They seem to just appear randomly off on the horizon, loudly trudging their way across the surface, before disappearing again just as quickly once their few months are through.
The Gormlings themselves also aren't of much help on the subject. When asked questions like where they come from they merely say "uhh... that way!" And where they are going? "uhh... that way!"
No children have ever reported seeing or hearing about the birth or death of a Gormling, and no child has ever witnessed the same Gormling show up on subsequent years.
The rare attempts to send children into the uncharted expanse beyond the Mound to follow the Parade have been, expectedly, unfruitful. Teenagers and older children are typically not welcome beyond the limits of a town. And for young children whom do follow the Parade, as the edge approaches, the Gormlings reportedly drop to their knees and sob and plead with their guests to wish themselves back home using whatever powers they still have.
Given this and their other idiosyncrasies, many scholars hypothesise that the Gormlings are some manifestation of Monstrousness.
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| "No, don't worry about us! We'll be alright. Get out of here! Just go back to where you came from! You belong back there, not here! Go! Goodbye... my friend!" |
While the Gormlings themselves are gracious and friendly in their own way, their presence is a dangerous and destabilising force across the Surface. Wherever their Parade is found, the laws of reality seem to bend.
The older and the wiser you are, the more powerless and weak you become.
- Warriors find themselves with comically bad luck, unable to even strike still targets.
- Scholars and other wise folk become lost in thought, nostalgically remembering days gone by or idly pondering orbs and other bobbins.
- Tricksters, charlatans, and other ne'er-do-wells suffer the worst. The presence of the Parade turns all of their traps on themselves and their plans to ruin.
The younger and more foolish you are, the more powerful you become.
- Newborns seemingly warp reality around them. This would be frighteningly dangerous, if not for the fact that newborns blessedly have simple desires and limited understandings. Often they mostly just manifest blurry hallucinatory mothers that care for them, loud rumbling voices speaking unintelligible noises, and depending on their species the occasional disembodied sky breast.
- Young children are blessed with invulnerability, speed, strength, and anything their imaginations could desire. Often this means a chance to explore all sorts of adventures and wonders- within the bounds of wherever the parade is going of course.
- Soon-to-be young adults only get little sparks of power from the parade. Despite this imbalance, as "the older kids" they still hold a lot of sway over their younger siblings and acquaintances. Often this means that they become de facto rulers until the parade leaves, which is the chance for many of them to rebel a bit, get up to some light debauchery, or discover a bit about themselves.
These effects of course only last in proximity to the parade, and only last for about a day or so before they fade away.
Since the Parade loudly announces their presence, many societies prepare for the coming of the Gormlings in different ways.
- Many parents tell their children horrific little parables to try and prompt them into behaving properly. The characters and specifics often change, but usually folks can relate over the shared message in them.
- "The Boy Who Wandered Off and Died Horribly"
- "The Girl Who Regretted Killing Her Mean Aunt"
- "The Child Who Died Cold and Alone in a Monster's Dungeon"
- "The Siblings That Got Lost on the Other Side of The Mound"
- etc etc
- Some towns keep their children in the dark. They don't tell them about the Gormlings or keep them locked in until the day is over. Often this doesn't end well. Either the children unwittingly wreak havoc when a whim takes them, or some subconscious element creeps out from under their bed or in their cupboard to unleash terror.
- Rumour has it one town tried to put all of their children to sleep to avoid the Gormling Parade, but everyone disappeared by the next day.
- Evacuating town works very well- best just to take a day trip out camping or to visit family a town over then to deal with all this nonsense.
- Some try to have their children utilize this power to do some good.
- There's at least on recorded instance of a well-timed Gormling Parade causing an invading army to be defeated by six small children.
- Often, a child told to be wary of Monsters might decide to go out to try and slay the mighty beast! This rarely ends well, given the raw time and distance it takes to locate the Monster in the first place.
- Sending Gormling-empowered children as a military force often doesn't work out well, considering most other settlements you'd wish to attack also have children. It usually just results in a huge crater with some bickering kids in the middle once the dust settles.
- And any force that doesn't have children usually has enough advanced notice to plan accordingly. All they need to do is stall for a day or two, and then they have a bunch of lovely hostages ready to go...
- It is a common tradition, especially among parents whom once were children with Gormling-friends themselves, to make a formal holiday of it.
- Everyone prepares for the coming Gormlings by making mountains of food and drink and preparing parties and such.
- Outside, in the middle of town, piles and piles of sweets and treats and toys and are stacked up- along with some bowls of sweet juices for any Gormling guests.
- When the Gormlings arrive, the children are locked outside where they are free to romp and explore and run wild. The only instruction from their parents is to be safe, and to not disturb anyone indoors.
- Meanwhile the adults lock themselves inside to engage in whatever sort of celebrating they wish to do- whether that's locking themselves up alone, with friends, or even having some big central location host some kind of event.
This post © 2026 by Ro Pham is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
