Twisted Principle: Smothering, possessive "love"; the gift that is a chain.
Ruling Archdemon(s): Astaroth.
The realm: the Cankerous Garden of Flesh
Aesthetics: A horrifying parody of Chesed's Boundless Garden. This realm is a cancerous, hyper-fertile ecosystem of pulsating flesh, bone, and weeping flora. Rivers of blood and ichor feed forests of tumorous, tree-like growths. The air is thick with the sweet, cloying scent of rot and unnatural life. Everything in this garden seeks to connect, to merge, to grow into everything else in a monstrous, smothering symbiosis.
Inhabitants: The creatures of the Cankerous Garden are not distinct beings, but extensions of a single, ravenous will.
Flesh-Vines: Ropy, tendril-like appendages that grow from the ground and trees. They seek not to crush, but to envelop and graft themselves onto any living thing, slowly absorbing it into the garden's biomass.
Symbiote-Husks: The animated corpses of those who have been fully absorbed by the garden. Their bodies are bloated and twisted, sprouting fleshy blossoms and fungal growths. They shamble through the garden, tending to it and spreading its "gift" of unity.
The Heart of the Garden: The central intelligence of the realm, a colossal, pulsating mass of flesh and roots from which all other life in the garden grows.
Manifestation: Gha'agsheblah's influence perverts the act of giving into an act of consumption. Its Divers can perform a Tumorous Touch that causes cancerous growth, or form a Parasitic Bond to control and feed upon others. The final Avatar is the Gha'agsheblah Parasite. Its nature is allegorized in the proverb, "A gift that cannot be refused is a chain."
Strategic Profile
Playstyle: A swarm and corruption faction focused on weakening enemies and converting them into its own forces. It excels in battles of attrition by turning enemy casualties into its own assets.
Key Units:Flesh-Vine (Immobilizing unit), Symbiote-Husk (Basic infantry that can be spawned from enemy corpses), Blight-Spreader (Caster that applies a damage-over-time "Cancer" debuff).
Ultimate Ability: The Unwanted Gift: All enemy units in a target area take heavy damage over time. Any unit that dies while under this effect is permanently transformed into a Symbiote-Husk under the player's control.
Doctrinal counters
Adamant Concord: A Gevurah Judicator can use Conceptual Severance to cut the parasitic bonds that connect the Husks to their master, causing the hive-mind to collapse. Cleansing fire (Trial by Fire) is also highly effective at sterilizing the cancerous growth.
Flowing Garden: Fights fire with fire. A powerful Chesed Life-Warden can introduce a purer, more resilient form of life-energy, creating a "firebreak" of healthy growth that the cankerous garden cannot corrupt or consume.
Way of the Middle Pillar: Surgical strike. A Hidden Dagger cell avoids the swarm of Husks and infiltrates the Cankerous Garden to find and neutralize the Heart of the Garden, the central intelligence controlling the entire organism.