Deep in the Adirondack we investigate the chilling hierarchy of the Flayed Hand cult, led by the reclusive sorcerer Malachai and his polished, cruel lieutenant, Demetri Saev. Discover the cult’s final ambition in this exploration of the Ævum Malum modern, dark urban fantasy campaign setting.
About Ævum Malum
Ævum Malum is a modern, urban dark fantasy campaign setting where hidden powers, forbidden knowledge, and living myths collide in a world held together by lies, secret societies, and the desperate effort to delay an inevitable unmaking. It was created by Adam P Campbell in 2025.
Transcript
Cold Open
In the crumbling silence of Tahawus, the Flayed Hand is carving a new language into human flesh—and the universe is starting to listen.
Intro
Welcome to Eviliv3 Play, a celebration of my favorite tabletop role playing games. This is a sister channel to Eviliv3. Subscribe if you’re new to the channel, because today I am presenting The Flayed Hand, a cult from Ævum Malum, my modern, urban dark fantasy tabletop roleplaying game campaign setting.
Discussion
Deep in the Adirondack heartland lies a scar on the map called Tahawus. Once an industrial powerhouse of iron and titanium, it is now a skeleton of rusted steel and rotting timber. But Tahawus isn’t empty. In the shadows of the old blast furnaces, something has taken root. A group known as The Flayed Hand has claimed these ruins, transforming the industrial decay into what they call the ‘Temple of Sensation’. They don’t worship gods of light or nature. They worship the limit of human endurance. They believe that the body is a cage, and that the only way to pick the lock is through the calculated application of agony.
Every cult has a heartbeat, and the Flayed Hand has two. First, there is Malachai. He is the sorcerer-priest, the silent architect of the Temple. He is rarely seen, residing in the deepest bowels of the ruins where the air smells of ozone and copper. To his followers, he is a man who has transcended the need for skin. But a ghost cannot run an organization. That task falls to Demetri Saev. If Malachai is the soul of the cult, Demetri is its polished, cruel face. He is the one who handles the logistics, the recruitment, and the ‘disappearances’. He moves through the world of the sane in bespoke suits, his calm exterior betraying nothing of the horrors he oversees in the Adirondacks.
What separates the Flayed Hand from a common gang of sadists is their obsession with Macabre Geometry. In the Temple of Sensation, pain is a science. Malachai’s modifications are not random acts of cruelty; they are precise. He carves sigils into the flesh of his initiates—patterns that follow the unseen ley lines of the universe. These aren’t just scars; they are ‘antennas’. They believe the universe is a symphony, but a symphony that has gone horribly out of tune. By reshaping the human form into specific, jarring angles, they claim they can catch the ‘notes’ that no one else can hear. They are turning the human body into a tuning fork for the dark spaces between worlds. Rumor suggests these blueprints weren’t conceived by human minds at all, but were whispered to Malachai through contact with extra-dimensional powers that exist far beyond our understanding of physics.
The cult operates in three distinct tiers of initiation. First are the Aspirants, the thrill-seekers and the broken who come to Tahawus looking for a feeling to fill the void. Beyond them are the Harvesters. Led by Demetri, they witness the ‘Miracles of Malachai’ and identify ‘vessels’—the outsiders—to bring to the temple. Deepest of all is the Ossuary, the inner sanctum that understands the truth of Malachai’s sorcery. Within the Ossuary, they manage victims kept in a state of magically sustained, perpetual trauma. These victims serve as ‘Batteries,’ literal energy sources for the cult’s dark ambitions.
But the ‘Batteries’ are only the beginning of a much grander, more terrifying design. The Flayed Hand does not just want to experience pain; they want to weaponize it to overwrite reality itself. Their ultimate goal is to transform our world into a pain-fueled nightmare, a living hell on earth where they can reap the rewards of the infernal powers they have courted. They believe that by shattering the barrier between our world and the extra-dimensional void, they will earn the right to stand alongside these horrific entities as rulers of a new, broken existence. They are trading the world we know for a seat at the table of the eternal.
Why would anyone do this? Why build a temple of pain in a forgotten town? The Ossuary speaks in hushed tones of a ‘Resonance’. They are building something in Tahawus, a bridge made not of steel, but of dissonance. They are trying to anchor something to our world, using the collective agony of their ‘batteries’ to keep a door propped open. They think they are the masters of this power. They think Malachai is the ultimate authority. But as the shadows lengthen over the Adirondacks, one has to wonder: if you spend your life screaming into the dark, eventually, something is going to scream back. And it might not be a sound any human was ever meant to hear.
Outro
Thank you for watching today’s Ævum Malum episode. Subscribe and ring the bell if you are new to the channel. Don’t forget to click the like button and comment to let others learn about this dark and engaging, modern urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game campaign setting. You can join my actual plays and get $10 by signing up to StartPlaying.Games, and even pick up other ttrpg’s using my affiliate link in the description below.
Thank you Creator Patrons Aaron Hardy, D. Robert Handy, & ShakyManor and Developer Patrons Chris Androu & Sam Ruiz!
And as always, remember that evil spelled backwards is live, so get out there and Be Evil!