Tzolkin

"This is your first blood sown into the roots. We all start on the same path - with the same kill - but now your purpose diverges."

For when a cultist swears their oaths, they sow but a drop of their blood into the roots of a sapling, binding themselves to the Black Grove. As the years pass and the roots churn, a tree rises from the earth. It becomes old-growth, ancient; a symbol unto the Khandava: our sword and shield. But when their time comes to pass and the glory of their youth has long faded, the Dryad splits the bark to devour the heartwood, and burns its dead flesh to ash.

A successor rises. They plant a seed in the ash of a dead era and water it in new blood. Another tree shall grow in its stead. Life begins anew.

All of Khandava feels the pull of the Leechwood tree. It is the pulsing of roots beneath the soil, and the stale wind whispering amidst infested trees. It is the spore, the sap, and the heartwood of the Council. When a Khandavan child is born, they are blessed by the blight's offerings. When a Khandavan falls, we seed them into the roots to begin anew. Death is nothing but a force that begets life. And when that cycle is broken, it is a power that rests within our hands. Blood follows blood.

Within the gloaming bowers of the Black Grove, we pay homage to the Leechwood, whose boughs we sow our blood. Seeded anew each time an oath is taken, a cultist's tree is razed to ashes when their time has passed. This is what binds the Grove to the Council. This is what binds us, one to another. That is what the heartwood whispers to the Tzolkin beneath the low autumn moon, amidst the dead and dying leaves. This is the sound of the roots, churning beneath the blackened soil. "You are us," they seethe, burrowing down into the Pit.

We are the Tzolkin. The Tzolkin are Khandava.