The Legend of Corn-chan

One fateful night, our group was playing in our first Eberron campaign when Infosec Thought Leader Taylor Swift made a fateful boost: a shitpost about "Corn-chan". Infosec Thought Leader Taylor Swift frequently posted about American's obsession with corn.

Origins

This post came at the perfect time: one of the party members had abandoned their first character: a warforged toilet, judged too unwieldly. The lack of legs meant stairs were a CR20 encounter.

Replacing the toilet was a farmer named Dale O'Hale, who was pissed off at the Boromar¹ for muscling in on his farmin' business. Instead of taking it lying down, Dale traded in his spade for a shotgun (some some warlock magic).

Being a farmer, Dale knew corn, and added a second vendetta against the Boromar due to their use of Blue Corn from the Talenta Plains instead of good, Sovereign-Host-fearing yellow corn grown around Sharn.

But, as soon as we saw the post, a Corn-chan dakimakura was quickly found in an NPC's shop. Dale takes her everywhere, and begins setting up a cult to worship the pillow. Some of the quest givers offer huge sums of gold in exchange for new intel on House Cannith's operations, but Dale instead demands followers for his Cult of the Corn.

Under her silk.

The tenants of the Cult are simple: yellow corn is the best crop, and give unto Corn-chan two thirds of your income². Farming is a business, and Dale was good at business!

The religion really took off when Dale converted two people at a public event held in Sharn, venerating Corn-chan. He managed to put a ghost to rest using corn-chan bath water³. This demonstrated to the citizens than Corn-chan was a real deity, far superior to the adherents of turnip-kun, who had demonstrated no divine miracles during their protest.

Unfortunately for Dale and his burgenoning religion, the very next session was the occassion upon which the entire party died horribly. Dale O'Hale and the original Corn-chan dakimakura were lost to the aberrations attacking Lower Dura.

The Cult Lives On

Dale's death did not stop the religion from thriving. The replacement character was Lady Noire, persuing rumours of a new and dangerous cult rising in Sharn.

Unfortunately for her, the campaign took us to Xen'drik, so that investigation never got far. We do know that the cult had given rise to "corn porn" in circles of higher learning, which involved autoerotic aspyxiation. The practices had spread beyond Sharn, to the university in Aundair.

Sharn's chapter of the cult is presumably destroyed when we accidentally 9/11'd it after our return from Xen'drik.

How far it spread is an open question. There were rumours of the cult in Salvation, on the edge of the Mournland, several years after Sharn's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The cult had made the jump to the Forgotten Realms for our Avernus campaign: one of the first things the Flaming Fist had us do was clear out some dangerous religious fanatics who had taken over a basement temple-complex⁴ located in a bathhouse.

This cult was kidnapping, torturing, and murdering bath-goers. Under her silk. They were somehow wrapped up in Grand Duke Vanthampur's plot to do something in Elturel. We never figured out what⁵, but killing everybody and bringing the broken Corn-chan idol back to the Flaming Fist captain was good enough to get us paid.

Here's a delightful interaction I put in my notes, from the end of that dungeon:

"God damnit," said Nowhere, throwing the corn-chan idol that Garrick handed him back into the tub. He wiped his hands on his tunic, hoping the sticky glaze wouldn't stain. "Why do we need this anyway?"

Garrick grinned. "It's like an ear for a bounty!"

"Well, why don't we bring them an actual ear," Nowhere bit back. He paused. "Wait, no, shit, that is an ear, isn't it?"

Golarion

Our current campaign, Blood Lords, is set in the undead nation of Geb. Greydirge is a farming town, and shockingly enough, Corn-chan has not had a prominent role to play in our story. I assume it's only a matter of time.

In preparation for moving to Golarion, I came up with a setting-appropriate manifestation: Corn-chan as an aspect of Urgathoa, goddess of excess, disease, and undeath. With all the undead farmers around, I figured they'd be partial to a deity that understands how to raise a barn. Zazi did a fantastic job on this piece:

The party in my new 1-Star Dungeon campaign are good(ish) characters in Otari, but I've got some plans for Corn-chan, Aspect of Urgathoa to interfere in their adventure. If we ever run this prequel adventure, I'll have her set up in Otari a few years ahead of Gauntlight re-lighting.

But I don't want to say too much about that story-to-be until it plays out.