Werewolves, Butoh, D&D

WEREWOLF CIRCA D&D

Somewhere between 1941's The Wolf Man and when seven, eight or nine year-old me got his hands on D&D, werewolves had ceased to be something that were, in essence, frightening.

I'm picking on werewolves here but this is true of a ton of our monsters, right? Like I think some monsters enter our common consciousness long after 1941, sometimes enter it precisely because of D&D, and still they're already old hat. The problems are many.

Like, ontological: I think the werewolf enters the modern psyche as an archetype for ersatz cannibals and violent madmen, maybe with a little fear of nature in all senses of that word thrown into the mix. It's not a very potent or moving or upsetting archetype as it describes fears I doubt many of us have in a present way. Maybe worse, it wraps those fears in an animal form that I think might read more furry than anything else these days. Do any other D&D monsters fare much better? I'm not sure they do, personal squeamishness about things with lots of legs aside.

And then in the context of a game where people have magic, things get worse. Changing into a wolf is scary only if wolves and/or people changing shape are scary, right? In a game where wolves and people changing shape are standard tropes, where the response to a metamorphoses into a wolf leads the wizard to go, "Oh, I have that spell too," the were-creature is already old hat prima facie. I mean, it's fun in a creature-feature reference way, but it isn't essentially frightening and as  Referee I feel like I'm wasting everyone's time talking about it transforming, but have to anyway because there's that whole ritual necessity to stories where, "it turns into a werewolf" falls flat because everyone wants the same boring thing about changing faces and tearing clothes and oh, how terrible is the widening mouth. 

Like, fantasy games create these spongy boundaries, so you can't just go: whoop, it's arms are too too long and everyone is like, oh god what is it? They're like, oh, do we know about people with long arms?

And then there are rules. We've got both cultural and mechanical rules getting in the way. Werewolves have culturally established rules involving ways to kill them and those rules work in favor of the player every time. Like, if its a werewolf and silver doesn't work because it's a special werewolf, there are players I've had, there are always and always have been and always will be players who will just see that as Referee bullshit. And everyone else that plays along will only play along so many times.

And every monsters in D&D has rules to kill them and while it's perfectly OK, in my mind, to include a nigh-unkillable monster in a game, it's shitty to provide an entirely unkillable monster, and no one wants to play in a game of D&D where all the monsters are unkillable or even nigh-unkillable, so if they just run into a furry half-man, half-wolf in some cave, it's totally reasonable of my players to expect to be able to kill it somehow.

Which is to say werewolves still work, but they work only or mostly when they are nigh-unkillable and mechanically frightening.

And so much of the baggage (resistances, powers, ecology, etc.) that our monsters bring with them is boring or mostly boring or is mostly only interesting when it's in the context of something else interesting, like, "what kind of monster is this?" or "this whole town is werewolves and a full moon is rising" or "turns out that silver we bought was just spray-painted on." Which is fine, but kind of dull for me, as a Referee.

WERWULF CIRCA BEOWULF

Then there is Grendel's mother, the aglæcwif (monster-wife), who, though, idese onlicnæs (appearing as a woman) is also mother of monsters, and a brimwylf (briny shewolf, lit. sea she-wolf). Never called a werwulf (man-wolf), she yet remains a wolf creeping up from a hell of black water and serpents, arrayed in the form of a woman. She holds court in those depths, her vassals are serpents and monsters, her reign twinning that of noble Hrothgar on the surface, her treasure halls similarly stocked. It appears she can breathe under water.

Grendel's mother scares the shit out of me. She is human and not, monster and not, maybe almost a bit of a god. There are no clear rules.

NOT WOLVES, NOT MEN
What seems frightening to me is not the mythologized, animalized, damaged, violent person, which werwulf probably signified in the Nordic context (some poor dude with PTSD and/or diminished intelligence and shit luck), but the actual damaged, violent person who is, at times, possibly an actual monster, because we don't really know the rules with them.

True Detective worked so well because we never were quite sure if the villain's gnostic pretensions were true or not, right?

So what does a werewolf look like? Something like Hisako Horikawa here:

Imagine that transition between human and some stranger, tighter, more urgent form, as it buries its face and hands in the soft belly of your friend, working its way through the organs and up into the ribcage to find the lungs and heart. And then the transition ceases. Maybe you see it ripple along the body of some kid you encounter outside of town on the edge of woods, maybe you see your linkboy undergo a similar change out of the corner of your eye.

*I wanted to talk about manitou and Louise Erdrich's Antelope Wife too but I can't find my old notes; I mention both only to indicate they're influential here too.

attribution: Wolf Man

Monsters, new ruleset sort of

Working on new rules. Endurance is like HP, HD (hazard die) is what's rolled for damage. Here are some monsters.

scrambling eaters

Dextrous Monstrous Halfling HD6, 4 Endurance

-small, like a cross between a child’s corpse and a big cat

-night vision: eyes reflect light like a dog

-heal injuries in a few minutes in the dark or when eating

-hunts in threes, nests in 6s; nest has d2 Treasures

-1XP

ghoul, ascended

Charismatic Monstrous Human HD8, 9 Endurance

-tall, humanoid form, translucent skin, bones and organs glowing as bright as daylight, speaks with two voices

-4 SP: Restore, Calm, Silence, Phase

-takes an extra pip of harm in star light

-attended by d3+1 pupal ghouls, in chapel: d3 Treasure, 1 Art

-3XP

ghoul, pupal

Strong, Charismatic Monstrous Human HD6+1, 8 Endurance

-Light Armor

-tall, translucent humanoid, a whisper echoes whatever it says, but awkwardly, like it’s not used to a mouth or tongue

-2XP

lonely hungerer

Strong Monstrous Human HD10, 12 Endurance

-Thick skin and bloodlust; as Heavy armor with helmet

-Tall, muscular, hulking, always male-looking, with wide mouth and baleful eyes (red in the half-light)

-lairs solitary, among the bones of humans, has d2 Treasure

-2XP

specter

Undead HD6+1, 6 Endurance

-luminous, ectoplasmic human shape, slit mouth, black eyes

-becomes something worse if it opens its mouth

-Cannot be injured or killed by normal means

-corpse may be treated as Fetish

-1XP

failed chimera

Hardy, Monster, Once Human HD8+1 10 Endurance

-random Trait (determined by components)

-claws, teeth or beak in a jagged mouth and long black tongue and long stringy hair, 3+d4 limbs

-somewhere between a child and a predator, hunts, sings

-3XP

infernal juror

Wise Enormous Masked Demon HD10+1, 16 Endurance

-increase damage die size for human or smaller creatures

-can only be injured by weapons of its own making

-can change sizes, and its mouth is a door and its throat a tunnel to hell

-d4+2 Treasure

-4XP

star mite

Fast, Intelligent, Dextrous Monster HD6+1, 8 Endurance

-glowing, burrowing tick-like and dog-sized, attacks from loose earth and retreats, hates being seen

-sleeps when immersed in water, immune to heat, cold and pressure (including blunt trauma)

-consumes darkness, dreams, fantasies, nightmares; falls apart when it dies

-d4-3 Artefacts

-2XP

cultist

Human HD6, 5 Endurance

-marked with a sign visible only in peripheral vision or mirrors

-knows a Secret about something dark and deep or far, inky and cold

-1 in 6 have a random Trait, HD6+1, 7 Endurance, +1XP, d2-1 Treasure

-1XP

villagers

Human HD4, 3 Endurance

-important villagers have a random Trait, HD4+1, 5 Endurance, 1XP

the horde

Wise, Intelligent Monstrous Human HD6, 5 Endurance

-once abandoned children in rags, emaciated, a sign in their forehead

-appear in d3 or d8+2 numbers

-linked consciousness, telepathy

-live in sewers, alleys, dark places, hate the Empire, the wealthy

-1 XP

attributions: Rec, Blame!, Berserk, Sankai Jutsu, the Grudge, Dorehedoro, Wikipedia, the Village of the Damned

Lost Kids part 1

All children grow up and the way Wendy knew this was that adults are inconsiderate of children and talk about mortality in front of toddlers. 

Some children avoid growing up by remaining forever children, though, perhaps not, technically speaking, human.

It is a well known fact that a small percentage of children walking down lonely footpaths in wild woods or unkempt fields of shoulder-high wild flowers, that little boys and girls hiding in wardrobes among the tall smooth and buttoned coats that hang like vines in a jungle, that those hiding behind curtains or under beds or in bushes so large they have a space by the root which is almost like an inverted nest, the bare and brittle limbs like a poky cradle, have hid so well that they have hid from the eye of reality, slipped beneath the skin of perception and fallen or perhaps climbed or else woken up in some place very different but in many strange ways quite the same. Search parties find nothing, or rarely anything. Occasionally a missing shoe or a torn pair of pants, none of which are very convincing to anyone but the police who, it should be noted, would very much like to be convinced and then out of the cold and back in the station around an electric heater.

STARS AND TREES
Birds, we learn on the radio, migrate from one place to another, very distant place because of something to do with their skulls and bones and magnets making them sensitive to occult energies.

Children of ages 8 to even as old as 16 are possessed of skeletons whose proportional characteristics render them susceptible to similar effects and fields as our migratory birds.

For example: a child now lost in a strange and difficult land may be able to navigate their way to a safe place by following the stars (second from the right, straight on til morning) or by testing the moss growing on trees for any clever, well-read child knows that moss and other wet, dark green things hide from the sun.

Children lost and wandering in this manner usually find themselves at one of several places: the Fort in the Woods; the Castle in the Caves; the Ship on the Island. On the way there or once they've arrived, they find themselves a bit changed. Perhaps a bit grey or scaly and possessed of eyes larger than normal and teeth which are certainly sharper than they used to be. The change isn't dramatic, just enough that they might appear like-themselves-but-not-themselves should an adult compare their photos to a registry of missing children.

GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE
These lost children have the same stats as goblins, though they have greater variety and many of them are missing a shoe or a pair of pants or are wearing a magical scarf and use kludged weapons and wooden swords to attack (doing damage as normal).

More on variations, each of the places the children live, and on Wendy, Peter and terrible elves in another post (or two).

attributions: Nintendo, Berserk

Nimrod in the Universal Encyclopedia (D&D/Planescape)

NIMROD
An ancient dwarf whose toenails and beard have reached prodigious length, he wears purple robes of Bebelith Silk and gold torcs and his crown the metals of which have fused to his flesh after eons of slow nuclear leak, he is Nimrod.

He guards the entrance and exit to the Universal Encyclopedia.

He can remember very little and nothing about himself and spends most of his time shuffling around or sleeping in a chair. 

Nothing pleases him more than visitors.

Nothing angers him more than thieves, which, for his purposes means anyone trying to take something out of the Encyclopedia without permission.

He assumes anyone sneaking around is a thief.

His memory is held in a certain prison on the Happy Hunting Grounds.

He is, in fact, a muscle lich and is still quite muscular. His phylactery is what was once his favorite book (a book on flowers, long ruined by all the flowers and plants pressed into it). He will be overjoyed and weep if the book is given to him, but he isn't sure why. He hasn't bothered to memorize spells in ages and the spells he once memorized have been horribly jumbled such that he can neither really cast nor memorize spells (can't free up slots).

Nimrod

medium muscle lich, chaotic neutral

__________________________________________________________________________________________

AC 14 (Natural Armor)

HP 345 (30d8+210)

Spd 30'

__________________________________________________________________________________________

STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA

22(+6) 18(+4) 25(+7) 10(+0) 12(+1) 20(+5)

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Skills Perception+10, Bows +8

Senses truesight 60’, pass per 20

Languages all

Res. spells effect with disadvantage

Immunities non-magical damage

Challenge CR 13 (10,000 XP)

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Legendary Resistances (d4/day). After failing a Saving Throw, may succeed instead.

Multiattack. May Punch/Headbutt twice (see Legendary Action)

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Punch/Headbutt. melee attack +10 to hit, reach 5’, one target hit  10 (d6+7) bludgeoning damage. Treat as magic weapon.

________________________________________________________________________
Legendary Action
Can take 3 Legendary actions on any turn and always uses one of the random effects during his own:

1. Move
2. Punch/Headbutt
3. Grapple anyone he thinks is stealing a book or trying to sneak away
4. Investigate/look

The following effects occur (roll d8 each turn), assume it effects everything within a 60' radius of the Tender but for the Tender, unless otherwise noted. Spell-like effects that have a save use DC of 23:

1. I Forget. Everyone, including Nimrod stop what they were doing/loses a turn and can't remember the turn. Whatever happened at that point had still happened, just no one remembers it. Any spells being cast fizzle. Nimrod forgets why he was angry and looks around at all this mess, tutting.

2. Where Are My Glasses? One target has to spend his next/current turn moving at speed away from Nimrod, looking for its glasses (he doesn't wear any and is only supernaturally-sighted, having long since lost his natural vision. This is deeply confusing for him. If you give him glasses, though, treat subsequent rolls of this as a 1 until such time as Nimrod forgets about the glasses).

3. EONS of Papercuts. Tiny wounds appear on the body causing 27 (5d10) damage, making anything you do with your body done at a disadvantage and causing and dealing another 10 (d6+7) damage.

4. Hush. No speaking or communication of any kind this turn. This nullifies 6 and 8, but only for this turn.

5. SPELLLS. Casts Power Word Stun on one target (150 hp or less targets are stunned and must make a Con Save each turn or remain stunned), Teleport one target into a room at least 120' feet away, and Magic Missile (for 29 d4+1 darts)

6. Wait, What? Casts magic mouth-type effect on all within radius, including Nimrod. Now whenever someone speaks, it sounds as if a different affected person is speaking (who is speaking for who changes each time someone stops talking/someone else starts talking). This will confuse Nimrod for a turn, after which time it no longer cares and continues being angry. Lasts until Nimrod no longer angry.

7. Hide and Seek. Casts a variant of Magic Jar such that one target's soul is dispossessed of their corporeal tether for d4 turns (after which time they can return to their body). They can "possess" another item and move it about and try to possess another sentient creature (which kicks out their soul) (all Cha saves to resist posession). 

8. Wait, WHATTTT? The associative links between intent and physical action on the one hand and speaking and narration/description on the other are crossed:

            i. if a character tries to do something, they only say what they are trying to do (this includes saying, "I am going to try and sneak past Nimrod" out loud instead of actually sneaking). this doesn't count as an action.

            ii. if a character tries to say something that they could attempt to do, they instead attempt to do that thing. If they try to say, "I think we should sneak around Nimrod next time" they instead just think about sneaking around the Tender. If they try to say, "let's not attack Nimrod any more" then they get "stuck" and can do nothing else that turn because their action-grammar is funky (they can't think-act for other people. If they had instead tried to say, "I don't attack Nimrod" then they'd be fine.). To speak x you have to say that you are trying to say x.
________________________________________________________________________
Lair
Nimrod lives in the only regular entrance into or out of the Universal Encyclopedia. He sleeps in long chairs or in his old chariot or on or under old wooden desks amid seemingly endless stacks of books, scrolls, papyri, skins, wax boards, slates, and every other writing surface ever used. He doesn't eat but can't remember why. Is shocked if you suggest he is a lich.

When reduced to half his health or less (the first time) Nimrod immediately stamps his feet in frustration and books and scrolls and tablets, etc fly from their cubbies and nooks and buffet the room (Nimrod is struck, but unaffected), dealing 7 (2d6) damage and knocking everyone prone (DC 23 Dex Save to avoid the knockdown).

Whenever reduced to 0 hp (but not killed because phylactery) Nimrod collapses, exhaling grandly. This breath blows like a gale and unsettles Dust of Tongues (see bottom of blog entry) in the area, filling the room with a cloud of Dust of Tongues (totally obscuring regular vision, requiring a DC 20 Wis Save or else fall victim to the Dust's deleterious effect.

attribution: Francois Fleming

Slaad (D&D 5e gods)

Gods of Trickery or Knowledge
The Slaad maintain the various bureaucracies of the outer planes. They are native to the boiling plains of rot and swampy decay in Limbo and rule from throne-temples composed of whole rotting biomes and massive forest-planets, strung together by gravity and psychic architecture. They are sempiternal, near-infinite in both form and knowledge, each Slaad overseeing millions of bureaucratic functions and billions of files and functionaries. Accordingly, though their minds are vast (often forming grand psychic palace-mazes of incredible intricacy and housing knowledge-treasure of incredible wealth and power and breeding monsters of its own subconscious*), the sheer number and inter-related complexity of their tasks gives one the impression that the Slaad is judicious to the point of inaction (the Slaad is making decisions and altering realities, just not the one you care about, please hold).

Debates would be held as to whether or not the Slaad are gods of apparent chaos-but-actually-supreme-order or gods of apparent law-but-actually-the-chaos-caused-by-law-imploding, but the Slaad are generally so catastrophic, their involvement/interference so terrible that the debaters are shouted down for being huge, insensitive assholes.

Slaad, being incredibly intelligent and powerful frogs/toads are also entirely self-interested. They eye realities and artifacts and minor deities like a frog eyes a fly.

Slaad are attended by armies of ghouls, each led by a death knight devoted to chaos or law.

Infant Slaad and their colonial psychic bureaucracies, arriving through space and planes like a wet, psychic meteors are apocalyptic events.

The Slaad's psychic puissence is so great and its voice plane-spanning (its lower tones dipping low into the elemental plane of water, where that place touches the elemental plane of earth; its higher tones causing the ground of Elysium to vibrate just so from time to time), that all correspondence had from the Slaad is via its attendants, the Salamandarin (Slaad bud** off Salamandarin by the hundreds of thousands, but also bud off other Slaad, as well as ideas that are sort of like toys and sort of like machines but are often used like batteries or weapons. So that's another sort of communication, albeit an indirect and mostly incomprehensible one).

Licking a Slaad
Does a few things: 

i.  it tells you something you don't want to know, didn't ask to know (the GM will tell you a secret about another character in the campaign or something like that). this isn't like the Slaad telling you, it's just something from the psychic fug around the Slaad worming its way into you like a virus.

ii. you can make a direct inquiry into the memories of the Slaad which are vast, and functionally infinite (gods, liches and dragons keep secrets of Slaad, but pretty much no one else) via something like astral projection or death (requires a DC 20 Cha Save or suffer 100 damage (save halves)... increased DC by 5 for the obscurity of the information sought. die in this manner and rise again as a zombie-like slave to the Slaad (1 in 20 chance you're something like a Death Knight champion of the Slaad, your armor a mess of flesh and bone and black metal, otherwise, you're basically a ghoul, albeit your paralysis works psionically).

iii. lets you see the Slaad's mind palace

it costs:

1 point of constitution for the duration of the effect (which lasts until you leave the plane on which the Slaad resides)

a secret you've been trying very hard to keep (your notion of self a bit loose, the secret wriggles out)

A DC 20 Cha Save or be charmed by the Slaad for the duration

Slaad mucus is volatile but can be used as an outrageously valuable spell component (esp if you're playing DCCRPG) and can fuel psionic charged devices.

Tricking a Slaad
Slaad can make/think anything from their backs (though it will be bent to the purpose most suited the Slaad), and there are myths of trickster gods tricking a Slaad to make it weapons or armies.

*adventurers beware for the mind-palaces of the Slaad are largely indistinguishable from the Mazes of the Lady of Pain

**think Suriname Toad

attribution: Vivarium Naturae of the Naturalist's Miscellany, 1790

Morale, Reaction Rolls in any kind of D&D

I've talked before about how I don't handle reaction rolls well. Basic has two regular 2d6 rolls the GM makes: reaction rolls and Morale.

MAPS, BOSSES, INTELLIGENCE
Where I'm coming down on this has to do with map and proximity.

Sufficiently intelligent NPCs (say, anything above animal intelligence) have their behavior largely determined by their position on the map and their relative proximity to "dangerous areas" and "bosses."

Bosses, in this case being named/senior NPCs who are likely interested in and in the position to boss around other NPCs ("named" being obvious, "senior" being the designated leader based on the edition's distributions (for every x of y there is a +1HD +1 Damage version of y) or maybe just even a superior hp roll (the one orc with max hp in a level of middling hp orc). You act right and proper when the boss is around.

Dangerous areas being points of ingress/egress from what the NPC considers "my place" and the "not my place" parts of the dungeon and pretty much everywhere in the Wilderness. You act tough and alert when your life depends on it.

Outside of this context, reasonably intelligent NPC are doing the things reasonably intelligent NPCs do: they're eating, lounging, arguing, gaming, painting, torturing something, masturbating, reading, playing with their kids, having sex, etc. You can make a list of these depending on the type of enemy or their culture, etc. You then tick off each entry on the list as you encounter more enemies (the first ones are eating, second ones are lounging, etc); if you do it this way, repeat actions that feel more common or likely.

WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THEM
The party encounters some goblins pulling the wings off moths and playing a dice game.

The PCs are inside goblin territory. They don't necessarily appear as threats to the goblins and, the goblins not being on guard duty or being near an authority figure, don't really have any obligations to fulfill. They leap for weapons and watch the characters (neither groups were surprised) warily.

The players can then choose to attack, but they can also choose to talk. Interpret what the players ask as the goblins: they are saying things. what do those things ask of "us"?

If the players are bluffing, pretending to be allies and that's a reasonable thing for them to do in this context, then you roll a 2d6. If you beat the goblin's morale (7), the goblins buy it. If you don't, they don't.

Moldvay even accommodates situations in which parley still feels appropriate, even around a "boss" type (say, negotiating with surprised or overwhelmed opponents). Just add 2 to their Morale.

AESTHETIC
Morale is employed as a metric in the older Basics of how likely a character is to break and run or crumple and plead for mercy when the swords came out and allies died.

Fundamentally, the idea here is that the mechanics and fictional positioning conspire to make the game inherently opposed to the characters where it ought to be and more plastic where that makes more sense too. It asks more of GMs (who will need to determine if creatures attack immediately or not), but also much less (how easy it is to push NPCs around). As with any tweak like this, it smooths edges that are often satisfyingly uneven, but so far it's worked pleasingly (it also creates some rough edges of its own.

5e with DCs or NOT
Personally, I'd go with not. I've got a lot of experience with Moldvay and remembering or extrapolating morale scores is pretty easy. Goblins in Moldvay have a morale of 7 (58% chance of success or roughly, a DC10) unless there is a boss around, in which case it's 9 (30% chance or DC15).
An 8 morale means PCs doing a good job have a 45% chance of success (DC12).
A 10 Morale means PCs doing a good job have a 17% chance (DC17).

attribution: Leonora Carrington

Bad Evangelists, a magic item, a Hex/Hex layout

There are three parts to this post as I continue to work through my hex-y 5e thing. 1 is a how I'm doing hex keying. Thoughts very much welcome. The second is an item, which is how I'm seeing a lot of smaller, random magic items work out (in my head, at this point). The last is more on the Evangelists of Torment.

A LOCATION/HEX LAYOUTS
The general format is intended to leave space on the left for notes or to refer to other locations (a la Carcosa) and the space on the left delineates when something is available. Entries in the same row, separated by a semi colon are usually something more specific or a different visual "beat" in the description. The options thus far for the conditional/right hand column are:

always   is whatever is evidently here when you're just passing through

careful   is stuff happens when the players spend time carefully poking around

time       is stuff that happens only at a certain time (first time here, night, day being the three                      I've used thus far)

DC X     being a gate behind which things are put. Rolled stat/skill is determined by context.


Here is an actual example:

005	former farm house, mostly just its stone walls and floor and rotten ceiling boards and walls; the grass thins and reaches the knees rather than shoulder in large rectangular spaces around the house	always
	child’s voice singing backwards under the flagstones	at night
	the flagstones don’t sit quite evenly (under is the dolorous poppet)	DC 15

AN ITEM
the dolorous poppet. a child’s doll stuffed with soft blond hair and little teeth. an arcane focus granting advantage 1/session on any check relating to infernals or deep places or far places.

EVANGELISTS
I posted the Evangelist of Torment 5e stat block at the bottom of this post. Something in between dragon and deity. I think I need to up their CR a bit and maybe give them a recharge power. Part of the below is for figuring out who is around when you com calling the first time and part of this is for clerics.

THE NAMES OF THE EVANGELISTS

roll d6+1 to determine the number of Evangelists

roll d10s that number of times to determine which Evangelists. Multiple rolls indicate a greater presence.

roll d6 to determine which nest is where. if there is increased presence, they are currently in residence at more than one nest/palace (roll again).

/1/	Mag
as a bird	a snub, jagged beak, slightly erratic from parasites in its inner ear that occasionally peek out and tries to tell it what to do.
as a humanoid	an old woman of crooked aspect and prodigious hair under which she hides her clawed feet. Often talks to her parasites
desires	the fingers of painters or doctors, the beak of Lugh to wear over its own
hates	Kutkh, anyone asking too many questions, anyone disturbing its near-constant naps
/2/	Indra
as a bird	its body crackles with bolts of energy, like storms beneath its feathers
as a humanoid	drunk, occasionally gripped by paralytic spasms, winged, bloody-mouthed
desires	to drink, to fight until no one sober is left living and everyone living is dying of drink
hates	Mag, Lugh, Huginn, the sun, seriousness, questions
/3/	Na’Satja
as a bird	vicious, scabby-eyed, beak split down the middle, opens as normal or along split
as a humanoid	one head bearing two faces that speak simultaneously (only one is audible at a time, the other speaks thoughts. Na’Satja has no thoughts other than when it speaks)
desires	the tongues of lawyers and bureaucrats, the brains of scientists and philosophers, the moon hiding behind our moon
hates	books, maps, paintings and other records, science, philosophy, civilization, Indra
/4/	Naunghaithya
as a bird	all 343 of its eyes have been bound or pierced or spiked with an inscribed silver pin
as a humanoid	arthritic, swollen hands and knees, blind-looking eyes (that see just fine)
desires	the wealth of kings and merchants, the simplicity of beggars
hates	everyone and thing
/5/	Verethreghana
as a bird	three-headed, razor-sharp feathers slice whatever they touch, leaving cuneiform behind
as a humanoid	monstrously proportioned sex organs, pregnant, decked in an infinity of weapons
desires	endless destruction, endless birth
hates	Lugh, celibates, opposition
/6/	Sauru
as a bird	emaciated, its claws are black, wrought iron
as a humanoid	robed in feathers growing from it, magisterial, crowned in human bone, scepter is a smooth, slim arm
desires	everything is to be taxed (breath, dreams, thoughts, battles, births, deaths, names)
hates	justice, kindness to the poor, order, safety, comfort
/7/	Huginn
as a bird	leaves ink stains where it rests, appears as one bird or several or your mother or a king
as a humanoid	wears a crimson silk blindfold, ink-stained fingers, trails catalog cards and charts, writes using a brush of eyelashes
desires	the cessation of time until it has caught up
hates	time, fiction, imagination, sleep
/8/	Lugh
as a bird	flaming with negative light, clattering with bones
as a humanoid	gigantic, wreathed in a halo of black flame, armed with a spear and a clawed right hand, wears bodies from hooks around its waist like scalps
desires	order, power, the humiliation of others, empire
hates	weakness, Sauru, opposition
/9/	Kutkh
as a bird	body laced with torcs and it’s wings tingle from chimes of bronze and steel
as a humanoid	wind-burned, rugged, moustachioed or bearded or wild-haired, always with a black horse and a white horse and sword that always drips blood, usually at the head of a multitude
desires	conquest, the spread of its seed regardless of the subjects willingness or capacity
hates	everything not of its host
/10/	It Shits In the Water
as a bird	as any other, also appears as a black monkey or grinning, pregnant dog
as a humanoid	usually a young man or woman with a bulging sack or pack, always grinning
desires	to finish telling the joke that ends the world, to make the world again
hates	serious things like anything that isn’t strictly animal, including civilization, language, and the other Evangelists

attributions: Lucas/Richard Windsor, Wilfried Satty