A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

Summary:

A whip recovered from a masochistic cult

A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

Alen Gracias 10 Jan 2020 18:31

A whip recovered from a masochistic cult has the ability to turn any person whipped with it into a mutated version of themselves that lives only to feel pain. The whip and cult have their own backstory revolving around a sadistic eldritch god that feasts on human suffering.

This is my first idea and post on the SCP wiki, I hope it's good and also not been done before.

So my idea for an SCP is a flogging whip that secretes a fluid, which I call SCP-XXXX-1, that when absorbed into a flesh wound of a human, will begin to alter the physiology and psychology of that person in a number of ways, all with the purpose of making the person experience as much pain as possible. However, before the mutation process takes place, the affected will succumb to neurogenic shock and faint for a period of 10-15 minutes before awaking in a crazed state and with a great desire to feel pain(explained later). I called this mutated being SCP-XXXX-2.

More

Changes include:

• The multiplication of nerve endings in all part of the body to increase sensitivity;
• The atrophy of the digestive tract and lungs to deprive the body of sustenance;
• The inactivation of the immune system, making SCP-XXXX-2 susceptible to any disease;
• increased generation of blood to prevent death from exsanguination, rapid regeneration that will only occur to prevent death;
• a constant impulse to injure or inflict pain upon SCP-XXXX-2's self, however it will avoid death at all costs;
• loss of the ability to communicate with others, only muttering verses of the cult's(mentioned later) texts;
• extreme endurance that allows SCP-XXXX-2 to last months without food or oxygen;

The story behind the whip is that it was recovered from the raid of a cult called “The First Penitents”(WIP name) that essentially worship a sadistic entity called (idk yet) that feeds on human agony. Basically, they believe that humanity itself is a sin and must be repented for. (I will develop this idea more) The entity will return and judge those, both living and dead, who have properly paid repentance for their sins, which can only be done through immense physical pain, in their lifetime. Those who have properly atoned for humanity's sins will be ascended to the level of the gods, while the rest will be chained to the earth and be subject to the worst possible suffering. Those who are affected by SCP-XXXX-1 go into neurogenic shock because for a brief fraction of a second they experience what the ultimate suffering will feel like. Thus, they desire to feel as much pain as possible to avoid this fate as no earthly pain can come close to it. The whip is believed to be a gift from the god to save them from the ultimate suffering.

Edit: I made some revisions to this backstory bellow.

If reviewers approve the idea, I plan to first give the item description and add the story about the god through documents recovered from the same place the whip was as well as some experiment logs to explain some of the technicalities of the whip, like how long SCP-XXXX-2 instances can survive without food, water or air for several months.

Thank you for reading, I'm excited to read any critiques I get.

---

Revisions

I was thinking of adding a secondary effect to the whip in which the fluid of the whip is incredibly volatile, causing it to evaporate into small particles that have the ability to surpass any filter. If you smell the fluid you begin to feel an immense burning throughout your entire body. Essentially, it is a very dilute version of the ultimate suffering felt when the fluid is absorbed in your blood except it is constant. You begin to hear the whispers of the sadistic god telling you that the only way to end the suffering is to whip yourself. I think that it makes sense that if a god wanted to create a whip to cause suffering, it shouldn't be easy to stop. Do you think this is a good idea?

I was also thinking of focusing on the fluid itself as the anomalous object. So what if the fluid can turn other whips into instances of SCP-XXXX if the tendrils of the whip are exposed to it. Perhaps the fluid itself was the gift from the god and the cult was instructed to imbibe a whip with it. Any instance of SCP-XXXX will constantly secrete the fluid which, like I said before constantly evaporates. I would also switch my terminology and make the fluid the SCP and the whip SCP-XXXX-1.

Backstory Revision

So originally I didn't really have much of a story for this idea aside from what was mentioned above and so I thought of this backstory:

So I was thinking that the origin of the cult was a catholic priest who, along with other priests, secretly used church funds to support a human trafficking ring that he frequently "exploited". For years he would preach about how to be moral by day and by night completely disregard those morals. The guilt built up upon him until he started to punish himself physically while still continuing to run the trafficking business to somewhat ease his conscious. He wrote extensively about this in his journals. The punishment slowly escalated in intensity until people started to notice the wounds. The regretful priest started to grow spiteful of the other priests who also ran the ring who seemed to be unaffected by their immoral actions. Eventually, the ring was exposed and all of the priests blamed the regretful one and since he clearly was punishing himself. He was cast from the church and spent his life punishing himself while also harboring spite towards the other priests. Eventually, he began to dabble in dark magic from old texts he previously found in an old library of religious texts. He created the whip and returned to the church, exacting his revenge and at the same time finding a way to fulfill his desire for self-punishment. These priests began the cult and the original regretful priest formed the beliefs of the sadistic god to justify the whip's existence. He eventually started to believe his made-up religion himself and killed himself via crucifixion believing he was basically the Jesus of this new religion. How he was able to kill himself despite making himself practically invulnerable by the whip is unknown. In the same way, Jesus is also God according to Christianity, the regretful priest basically was the sadistic God he made up. He then became a figure of worship amongst the cult.

Revision of the reason why people want to hurt themselves

New Reason:
So I was thinking to match more to the revised backstory that instead of convincing you that you must avoid the ultimate suffering, the whip makes you witness a god who seems perfect in all ways, constantly watching the Earth which is dwarfed by its magnitude, but of all the people it stares at you, silently judging. This judgment makes you feel incredible guilt for all of your sins. Thus the more gruesome sins you've committed, the more you seek repentance. You also feel as if everyone is watching you and judging you. You will feel as if every crime you've committed is written on your skin and everyone can see it. (might link that last bit to the backstory more, maybe the priest carves the names of those he trafficked into his skin)

Previous Reason(slashed out above):
The entity will return and judge those, both living and dead, who have properly paid repentance for their sins, which can only be done through immense physical pain, in their lifetime. Those who have properly atoned for humanity's sins will be ascended to the level of the gods, while the rest will be chained to the earth and be subject to the worst possible suffering. Those who are affected by SCP-XXXX-1 go into neurogenic shock because for a brief fraction of a second they experience what the ultimate suffering will feel like. Thus, they desire to feel as much pain as possible to avoid this fate as no earthly pain can come close to it. The whip is believed to be a gift from the god to save them from the ultimate suffering.

Last edited on 26 Jan 2020 02:56 by Alen Gracias Show more

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

MalyceGraves 11 Jan 2020 18:41

<placeholder>

So, kinda like Slaanesh + the Cenobites?

Not gonna lie, this sounds super edgy in the whole "my life is literal suffering" kinda way.

Anyway, let's break it down ->

A whip recovered from a masochistic cult has the ability to turn any person whipped with it into a mutated version of themselves that lives only to feel pain.

Masochism

1. the derivation of sexual gratification from being subjected to physical pain or humiliation by oneself or another person. 2. pleasure in being abused or dominated : a taste for suffering

I think you should be careful in how you word things. This isn't so much a masochistic cult but a self-flagellating one. They practice ritual self-mortification, and that's specifically not masochistic. Nit picky, maybe, but it really popped out at me.

This is my first idea and post on the SCP wiki, I hope it's good and also not been done before.

Very rare to have an idea that hasn't been done before. The trick is to tell the story in a way that no one has done before.

So my idea for an SCP is a flogging whip that secretes a fluid, which I call SCP-XXXX-1, that when absorbed into a flesh wound of a human, will begin to alter the physiology and psychology of that person in a number of ways, all with the purpose of making the person experience as much pain as possible.

Compulsion is a trope that is heavily overdone. I think that if you write this in a way that the cultists choose to do this of their own free will then it makes the entire scenario much more… unsettling? There are cults and major religious groups all over the world that have people in it that intentionally and voluntarily engage in mortification of the flesh as a part of their religious practice.

We are really good for coming up with reasons for doing a lot of self-harm, so my advice would be to tap into that instead of relying on compulsion to accomplish your goal.

However, before the mutation process takes place, the affected will succumb to neurogenic shock and faint for a period of 10-15 minutes before awaking in a crazed state and with a great desire to feel pain(explained later). I called this mutated being SCP-XXXX-2.

Why faint? If the end goal is suffering, why give the afflicted a breather from it in the form of unconsciousness? Also, I think the focus should be on the desire to self-flagellate, not the desire for pain itself.

loss of the ability to communicate with others, only muttering verses of the cult's(mentioned later) texts;

I was with you for most of these, but this one doesn't make much sense. I'd make it religious fervor that draws the supplicant into long stretches of religious ecstasy, not a degradation of their mental faculties. Personally, I find that to be significantly more impactful than "Well, now we've lost James to the mumbles."

extreme endurance that allows SCP-XXXX-2 to last months without food or oxygen;

Why oxygen? Doesn't follow, really.

The story behind the whip is that it was recovered from the raid of a cult called “The First Penitents”(WIP name) that essentially worship a sadistic entity called Nyarlathotep(WIP) that feeds on human agony.

Nyarlathotep is a figure from the Lovecraftian mythos that focuses primarily on madness and chaos. I'm not saying that using the name is inappropriate, but be aware that I can't think of a single instance of Nyarlathotep being the foci for a mortification cult.

Basically, they believe that humanity itself is a sin…

I can get behind this.

Those who are affected by SCP-XXXX-1 go into neurogenic shock because for a brief fraction of a second they experience what the ultimate suffering will feel like.

I think that instead of fainting, my personal choice would be to have them frozen in a trance-like state as they experience this, the anomalous nature of the fluid preventing them from succumbing to the relief of an unconscious state. Personal opinion only.

The whip is believed to be a gift from the god to save them from the ultimate suffering.

I think it is important to keep clear (at least in your head) the differences between "reality" and belief. Obviously there will be a lot of intersection, but in reading this I'm not clear on whether or not this eldritch horror feeds on suffering or wishes to prevent people from experiencing TRUE suffering. Also, keep in mind that a lot of these types of beings are utterly unknowable, so assigning meaning to their choices is often a trick that people do to try to make sense of the chaos.

If reviewers approve the idea, I plan to first give the item description and add the story about the god through documents recovered from the same place the whip was as well as some experiment logs to explain some of the technicalities of the whip, like how long SCP-XXXX-2 instances can survive without food, water or air for several months.

Remember the Foundation is rarely cruel without purpose. In my own headcanon I see the Foundation observing these guys for a bit rather than subjecting test subjects to figuring out what the whip does. The cult exists, they have test subjects enough without having to introduce new ones.

Also, is the goal here to prevent incursion by containing the whip, or is it just containing the whip?

If you can make this not be an edgelord article and rather an exploration into this bizarre and rather unsettling cult, this could be a great skip.

Greenlight.

Last edited on 11 Jan 2020 20:16 by MalyceGraves Show more

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

Alen Gracias 11 Jan 2020 22:46

Thank you for your critiques and the greenlight!

I agree with most of your suggestions and I just want to ask you what you think of my revisions.

Said Revisions

So first, like you said masochism seems to be the wrong word so I won't use that since the cult members don't do it for pleasure. Also, being in the frozen trance from the pain is a great idea.

Also when you asked about the oxygen, my idea was that if you want to avoid the ultimate suffering you have to suffer as much as possible but if you die then you can no longer suffer and like I said they believe he will judge both living and dead. Being able to not die of starvation or suffocation was to allow the person suffering to be almost immortal as well as subject themselves to know more forms of torture without dying. Does that make sense?

Like you said, eldritch beings are usually unknowable and I was thinking to keep it ambiguous whether what the cult believes is the truth or if the being isn't actually going to end the world. The only thing that is known is that the being requires suffering for whatever purpose and the whip exists to fulfill this requirement. The ultimate suffering just might be how the whip convinces the person being whipped to subject themselves to harm. Also, I don't intend to use the name Nyarlathotep as I am well aware of its lore and just used the name as a placeholder.

Since the fluid causes great suffering it would be immoral to really test it on anyone. If the SCP Foundation created one instance of SCP-XXXX-2 during testing which I imagine happening, do you would they continue to perform test on it or would they just contain it since they can't really kill it?

These are some changes I thought of making while thinking about your suggestions.

I was thinking of adding a secondary effect to the whip in which the fluid of the whip is incredibly volatile, causing it to evaporate into small particles that have the ability to surpass any filter. If you smell the fluid you begin to feel an immense burning throughout your entire body. Essentially, it is a very dilute version of the ultimate suffering felt when the fluid is absorbed in your blood except it is constant. You begin to hear the whispers of the sadistic god telling you that the only way to end the suffering is to whip yourself. I think that it makes sense that if a god wanted to create a whip to cause suffering, it shouldn't be easy to stop. Do you think this is a good idea?

I was also thinking of focusing on the fluid itself as the anomalous object. So what if the fluid can turn other whips into instances of SCP-XXXX if the tendrils of the whip are exposed to it. Perhaps the fluid itself was the gift from the god and the cult was instructed to imbibe a whip with it. Any instance of SCP-XXXX will constantly secrete the fluid which, like I said before constantly evaporates. I would also switch my terminology and make the fluid the SCP and the whip SCP-XXXX-1.

Thanks again for reviewing my idea, I would appreciate it if you could give your thoughts on my revisions.

Thank you for reading

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

cybersqyd 20 Jan 2020 07:41

[Noting a PM request to take a look]

I agree with MalyceGraves that this seems super edgy and not really in a good way.

For me, a lot of the strength of this will come down to what you do with the documents recovered from the same place as the whip and the experiments. My concern with the first is that the whole suffer enough to maybe ascend to become a god feels a little cliche perhaps but it also feels like there's not quite enough story there to carry it? I'm not sure how you're going to give it enough stakes to really feel meaningful to the reader?

With the experiments, I'm really not sure there's enough depth to the idea to like, really make them interesting to read? I'm also not sure how you'd like, blend the two together tonally/narratively?

(Uh really what I'm asking for here is a little more detail about what you want to do with this, rather than saying you can't do what you want to do).

Last edited on 20 Jan 2020 18:14 by cybersqyd Show more

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

Alen Gracias 25 Jan 2020 19:52

So originally I didn't really have much of a story for this idea aside from what was mentioned above and so I thought of this backstory:

Backstory

So I was thinking that the origin of the cult was a catholic priest who, along with other priests, secretly used church funds to support a human trafficking ring that he frequently "exploited". For years he would preach about how to be moral by day and by night completely disregard those morals. The guilt built up upon him until he started to punish himself physically while still continuing to run the trafficking business to somewhat ease his conscious. He wrote extensively about this in his journals. The punishment slowly escalated in intensity until people started to notice the wounds. The regretful priest started to grow spiteful of the other priests who also ran the ring who seemed to be unaffected by their immoral actions. Eventually, the ring was exposed and all of the priests blamed the regretful one and since he clearly was punishing himself. He was cast from the church and spent his life punishing himself while also harboring spite towards the other priests. Eventually, he began to dabble in dark magic from old texts he previously found in an old library of religious texts. He created the whip and returned to the church, exacting his revenge and at the same time finding a way to fulfill his desire for self-punishment. These priests began the cult and the original regretful priest formed the beliefs of the sadistic god to justify the whip's existence. He eventually started to believe his made-up religion himself and killed himself via crucifixion believing he was basically the Jesus of this new religion. How he was able to kill himself despite making himself practically invulnerable by the whip is unknown. In the same way, Jesus is also God according to Christianity, the regretful priest basically was the sadistic God he made up. He then became a figure of worship amongst the cult.

What do you think? Too edgy?

Last edited on 26 Jan 2020 02:17 by Alen Gracias Show more

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

nut_aficionado 27 Jan 2020 00:44

I don't know what cyber thinks but to me it fits great with the theme of the story. Maybe you could say he got it from the Library, to explain why noone did it before.

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

nut_aficionado 25 Jan 2020 20:28

Love the idea!
You could write it so that the description says the effects are memetic but a higher clearance collapsible reveals that all victims passed the memetic screening, like a coverup to prevent people from joining the cult.
If you want to change the name of your entity from Nyarlathotep like Malyce suggested to another eldritch-sounding name I recommend either Uitzilcapac, Lord of Pain, which appears as a six-legged lizard, or something from this generator
Also, will the location the whip was recovered from be the only cult property? Asking for no reason in particular.
except that I'd love to write something to do with The First Penitents

Last edited on 25 Jan 2020 21:25 by nut_aficionado Show more

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

BleachyKeen 25 Jan 2020 21:30

Regarding the compulsion element of this, I agree that it could be much more interesting if they A: experienced something that made them want to self flagellate and B: can talk about it.

When I read this I picture someone being struck by a sudden epiphany, or realizing some secret truth. Perhaps it's a realization that is unique to each person, perhaps it makes people understand or believe that humanity itself is a sin. Maybe they want to share that truth with others, and therin lies the temptation. I also feel like that fits in with the Lovecraftian themes of forbidden knowledge.

I also think it could be interesting to emphasize the redemption aspect of the act of self flagellation. I feel like it would give them a frightening sense of purpose.

I'm also wondering how organized and widespread the cult is. Are they a small cabal of fanatics, or are they organized and widespread?

Anyway, just some thoughts as I read this. Good luck with it!

Re: A Whip That Causes Its Victims To Mutate Into Beings Of Agony

TheMightyMcB 01 Feb 2020 20:42

Noting a PM request to review this.

First off, holy ballsack dude trim this shit down. Your idea pitch is 1386 words long. I have like 6 different articles posted on the site that are shorter than that. The rule for this forum is 500 words, but honestly, if you need more than 250 to explain your concept, you probably don't understand it well enough to write flash fiction about it.

As for the idea itself:

+ Crit

A whip recovered from a masochistic cult has the ability to turn any person whipped with it into a mutated version of themselves that lives only to feel pain. The whip and cult have their own backstory revolving around a sadistic eldritch god that feasts on human suffering.

I will admit that the idea of a whip that causes a person to warp into some twisted visage that worships an elder god isn't really an idea that interests me on the surface. It's edgy, utilizes a basic compulsive/transformative effect, and leans on the boogeyman of an eldritch horror incredibly hard.

I plan to first give the item description and add the story about the god through documents recovered from the same place the whip was as well as some experiment logs to explain some of the technicalities of the whip, like how long SCP-XXXX-2 instances can survive without food, water or air for several months.

This feels unfocused. If you're gonna do a thing like this, you want to narrow it down as you construct your narrative. Having the article be both about -2 and about the gods will not work, and it'll leave the reader feeling lost, like you're just vomiting information at them. A good example of what you're trying to do here would be SCP-2191. We have multiple scp entities, but only one of them is pulling the strings this whole time. It gives us information on the entities, lore about how they came to be, a look into the people who worship them, and lastly, a high-stakes climax that wraps it all up. There was an express purpose to all of that wordcount; it set up the plot for said epic climax. Without the atmosphere and world building, it wouldn't have hit as hard. Given your penchant for being long-winded, as evidenced by your pitch, you'll need to take care not to waste a reader's time with anything. Waste their time and you will lose their interest.

I was thinking of adding a secondary effect to the whip in which the fluid of the whip is incredibly volatile, causing it to evaporate into small particles that have the ability to surpass any filter.

This is a confounding detail, it doesn't help your story at all.

I was also thinking of focusing on the fluid itself as the anomalous object. So what if the fluid can turn other whips into instances of SCP-XXXX if the tendrils of the whip are exposed to it.

Same thing here. You're getting scatterbrained and all it'll do is make your readers lose interest.

He created the whip and returned to the church, exacting his revenge and at the same time finding a way to fulfill his desire for self-punishment.

This here would tie your cult very much to this priest as opposed to the god. That's fine if you want this figure to be more important to your story, but it isn't if the god is ultimately the most important part of this all.

Honestly, this idea is all over the place, and it's not doing you any favors. Stay focused. Hone in on one story that you want to tell, one facet of this religion or belief system. Once you've narrowed it down, then tell your story about that, and only hint at the greater narrative you may have planned for this group. A giant expo dump of information on this cult we know nothing about and don't care about won't go well, but a taste of why this group may be interesting could be exactly what you need to get off the ground.

No greenlight, this needs to be severely pared down and focused first.

Last edited on 01 Feb 2020 20:42 by TheMightyMcB Show more