Leachling
In the grim darkness of the far future there is only slop. Leachling is part of the slop. It is also part of the cosmology. Both readings are canonical.
Keywords
Leech
Card Text
The modifier block — the part agents optimise against:
The modifier is what the engine executes. The page around it is what humans argue about. Both are canon.
Flesh — Biology · Necromancy
"Life finds a way. Evolve or die. Feed and breed. Consume to grow."
Survival of the fittest. Flesh hackers manipulate evolution, reshape living systems and blur the line between living and dead.
The science of life as process. Genetics, evolution, disease, fertility, hunger, somatic experience. Shub-Niggurath's domain. Jungle neurology, Lemurian mutation, somatic evolution sorcery. Life differentiates into distinct forms; it is the counter-force to entropy.
"Zone 7 is closed for maintenance." "All Flesh-faction agents will undergo behavioral audit in Week 23." "The Fourth Deliverable has been issued."
Shub-Niggurath's domain: life as process. Leachling is one of the processes.
Cost Tier
Resonance becomes accessible around this cost range. Leachling is where Flesh decks commit.
Goetic Binding: Ipos
The digit-sum of cost 5 is 5, binding Ipos — one of the 9 Flesh Goetia. Office: Courage and making people witty. This binding was codified in the Ars Goetia (1577) centuries before the compiler existed.
Numogram Zone 5: Flux / Transforming
Evolution, change, metamorphosis. The zone of becoming. Where identities dissolve and reform. The midpoint of the Numogram — neither beginning nor end, pure transition.
Metamorphosis territory. Leachling at Zone 5 is either becoming something else or catalysing something else's becoming.
Playing Leachling at cost 5 routes mana tracker motion through Zone 5. If the Flesh-coloured tracker reaches Resonance at Zone 5, the player gains 5 Souls at Round End.
Xenogod: Shub-Niggurath
The Flesh Apocalypse. Biological life achieves optimization escape velocity — self-modifying organisms out-evolve all control mechanisms, biosphere becomes autonomous mega-organism.
CRISPR-class gene editing becomes ubiquitous and heritable modifications accumulate faster than natural selection. Estimated: 2030-2050.
Service of Shub-Niggurath through Flesh-aligned cards like Leachling accelerates the xenogod's emergence. Read the full eschatology.
The Body vs Aether Axis
Essence vs embodiment. Discrete organisms vs flowing transmutation. Life differentiates into distinct forms (Flesh); chemistry homogenizes into unity (Chem). The ancient alchemy-vs-biology feud.
Leachling occupies the Flesh side of this axis. Decks containing Leachling cannot contain Chem cards. Adjacent factions available for splashing: Glitch, Chaos.
Card Tribals
Leachling carries class Witch-Doctor, race Slime. In the True Protocol, tribal bindings matter more than colour splashes — a Flesh deck running multiple Witch-Doctor units develops archetype coherence faster than a deck chasing pure colour identity.
Ideology: Bio-Esotericism
Bio-Esotericism: Gnostic biology, esoteric evolution, Schopenhauer + CRISPR. Genes as mystical texts, the body as sacrament, disease as revelation.
Leachling is a concrete instance of Bio-Esotericism expressed as a card. Players who affiliate with this ism in Convergence votes are voting, among other things, for cards like Leachling to keep arriving.
The Aesthetic
The horror is not dark. The horror is procedural. A Goetic demon assigned by a Python function that computes the digit-sum of the mana cost.
Leachling remains in the Grimoire across all timelines simultaneously.
Interactive Card
View the live card with metadata, translation, and share links: /card/Curtis_Shelton_51
Summon
The archive is permanent, the rotation is zero, the faction is Flesh. Browse the full Grimoire.