In the universe that the Smiting Chamber has designated H123, there is a being known as Lord Cockroach who appears as a root curse of Dee Williams, a nurse practitioner in Columbia, South Carolina.
Long ago, there was a woman named Sonya who experienced many hardships. She was downcast and down trodden, and as a young woman in her twenties, she was homeless and begging on a street corner. She lived in a colored neighborhood in Columbia, South Carolina, and she usually only ate when a man, either black or white, gave her scrapes in exchange for sexual favors. Everyone in the neighborhood knew her, and they pitied her, but even if they did have some sympathy for her, most also believed that she deserved at least that sorry fate, if not something worse. Before she found herself on the streets, Sonya was the eldest of three daughters and she was often tasked with looking out for her siblings while her parents worked to give them a very modest but happy life. Sonya chaffed under the responsibility and as she got older, she could be neglectful, to the point that her youngest sister set fire to the house one afternoon Sonya had left her siblings alone when she should have been watching them and the fire killed both of her sisters. Her parents were distraught and left town without Sonya who was close to eighteen with no worldly experience and she floundered on her own. Everyone knew the story and pitied her, but also blamed her and were content to leave her to her own devices.
She eventually took up in an abandoned house that was rundown and overrun with nature and the legend goes that she just gave up, curled herself up into a ball and was eventually eaten by cockroaches.
A long time later, Dee Williams, who was born in Columbia, South Carolina in the late 1980s, grew up close to the house where Sonya supposedly died and was eaten by cockroaches and she and her friends would go inside the house on a dare. It is presumed that this is how Dee Williams encountered the entity known as Lord Cockroach.
The first reported sighting of Lord Cockroach occurred on the campus of the University of South Carolina at Columbia, when a John Doe was stricken with unexplained psychosis and withdrew from the school. This John Doe was a star pupil from a reputable family in South Carolina who had displayed no signs of psychosis before this mysterious event, but it was reported that the John Doe became obsessed with and deathly afraid of cockroaches. Many assume that this John Doe had a bad encounter with drugs that accounts for his episode, but he always tested negative for drugs and was never seen taking drugs by family members or his friends at the university.
The second reported sighting of Lord Cockroach occurred in Beaufort, South Carolina when an old woman who was a known root worker and spirit medium was hit by a car after she wandered into the street in front of her home and a swarm of cockroaches erupted from her mangled body. After searching her home, police found elaborate drawings of a demonic being that was part woman, part cockroach. Her family discovered journals she had written where she described a frightening encounter with a demon she called Lord Cockroach who was trying to use her body to make its way back to Earth.
Many just wrote the woman off as a crazy person who must have been eating roaches in the solitude of her home, but years later, investigators were able to establish a link between the old woman and Dee Williams. The old woman was a known associate and rival of a root worker known as Dr. Oak who also died of mysterious circumstances though many attribute his death to the old woman, and the old woman’s death to Dee Williams who was the granddaughter of Dr. Oak. While following up on old leads following the old woman’s death, investigators revisited the reclusive shack of Dr. Oak and discovered what amounted to a spellbook. The book is notable for this history on Lord Cockroach because it explained the relationship between the destitute woman known as Sonya and the infamous Lord Cockroach, and how the demon entity supposedly became an asset to Dr. Oak’s granddaughter, Dee Williams.
Dr. Oak explained that when his granddaughter went into the ruin of the home where Sonya had given up to be consumed by roaches, she was greeted by the ghost of Sonya that was already losing its human form and becoming more like a cockroach.
“They ate you so now you one of them?” Dee Williams supposedly screamed at the ghost that frightened her, but Dr. Oak had taught her to be blustery and full of confidence when she encountered haints or demons because sometimes that aggression was enough to chase away evil.
“I shoulda died in that fire,” the deformed Sonya ghost said in a woeful voice. “Or I shoulda just killed myself, but I was too scared. If I wasn’t so scared, I woulda just passed on to the other side when I did finally die, but it said I could stay here and never know pain again.”
“What did?” Dee Williams asked.
Supposedly, Dee Williams used everything the deformed ghost knew about Lord Cockroach to trap it and compel it to do her bidding, which was extremely impressive to Dr. Oak who had encountered ancient beings of Earth like Lord Cockroach and he had run away every time, but not his granddaughter. Dee Wliiams was strong even as a child and learned to bend the ancient entity to her whims.
There is no proof that Lord Cockroach actually exists as more than just a hoodoo horror story, or that Dee Williams is familiar with the entity, or a practitioner of root work, but there have been many more stories of enemies of Dee Williams losing their minds over cockroaches.
“You are a fascinating creature,” the voice of Owuo said as it filled what appeared to be a cave deep in the woods.
The response to his words didn’t come in a language that Owuo readily recognized, but he cast a spell of understanding.
“You dare work base magic on an elder of this world?” Lord Cockroach asked the voice it heard.
“I am here as a humble servant of existence,” Owuo said. “Something threatens your domain, High Lord. There are lesser beings gathering and we cry out for a savior. Only you can destroy the threat that is coming.”
“Show me,” Lord Cockroach said and when it arrived to the Disc of Lêgba, it smiled in its way and demanded more details of the enemy with the audacity to threaten its existence. When it was shown the Descendant and the Pito, Lord Cockroach didn’t let its concern show, but it became a team player for the first time in its existence.
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