Page 290 - Hunter - The Vigil

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD
ELDER DEMON
True Name:
True Name: Bekard-Ardad
Fiendish Flaw:
Fiendish Flaw: The Disruption
Attributes:
Attributes: Power 10, Finesse 5, Resistance 10
Willpower:
Willpower: 20
Essence:
Essence: 25
Initiative:
Initiative: 15
Defense:
Defense: 10
Speed:
Speed: 0 when not manifested, 20 when made manifest
Virtue: Fortitude
Virtue:
Vice:
Vice: Envy
Morality:
Morality: None
Size:
Size: 10 when manifested, fi ve square miles otherwise
Corpus:
Corpus: 20
Bans:
Bans: Cannot physically harm one whose Vice is Envy (Ban of torment);
cannot abide the sting of holy water (Ban of torment); must always be
truthful to those with no points in the Resources Merit (Ban of task).
Dread Powers:
Dread Powers: Animal Control Numen (••), Damnation •••••, Fury •, Telekinesis
Numen (••)
serve any purpose, though, it’s to maintain the quiet of the
neighborhood. Someone may hear you scream, but no one Two Flavors
will come to your rescue. of Madness
Note that Bekard-Ardad does not hate its residents. If
Cults appear in two broad types. One type of cult serves
anything, it loves them. Loves them (and their covetous urg-
one or several monsters (be it something that walks the earth
es) so well it won’t let them get caught. In every room, from
or something that lurks in some “other” realm), while another
every window, it watches them, shelters them, mothers their
cult is purely human and has crafted its own dogma.
jealous hearts.
The first type serves its monster in various ways. The adher-

ents may bring it food. They may do its dirty work. They may
Cults simply worship it. The fiend gains something, whether as blood

(drained as wound levels) or as Willpower (granted as one point
In a dark barn down a closed-off road are the owls with per 10 cultists worshipping the monster, gained once per week).
the human eyes. The farmers who gather there worship these Cultists here can gain up to fi ve dots of Dread Powers if the
owls and bring them food, and in return reap a bountiful monster so chooses: note, however, that only rarely do all cultists
harvest. The owls like little girls best. Halfway across the within such a group gain that benefi t. Usually it’s only reserved
world, in Rome, a broad cabal of blind librarians lives be- for the leaders or those who truly “please” the beast.
neath the Vatican, eating pages from sacred books. And in The second type cobbles together its own insane
the big city, you might find a butcher’s shop owned by vam- dogma (think Jonestown, the Branch Davidians, the Aum
pire ghouls, a sewer tunnel dammed up by servants of some Shinrikyo cult), though it may believe that its members
half-dead sorcerer, or the lust-maddened keepers of some in- serve some kind of god or being. Cults of this stripe may
fernal legacy. be religious, scientific, political, social, academic — any-
Cults exist. Some of them twist existing religious or sci- thing, really. Cultists of this type do not manifest Dread

entific dogma into something deeper, darker, more dangerous Powers nearly as often, though some still develop strange

to those within and outside the cult. Others are far more fla- powers as a provenance of their devotion to the cause.
grant and diabolical, serving monstrous lords or otherworldly Any time one of these cultists degenerates after having
deities. A cult might be born from a rehab clinic. A cult might performed in action in service to his cult, he may gain a
be born from the belly of a serpent cast to the Earth by the new dot in a Dread Power, though he may never gain more
gods in the heavens. than three dots total (not three dots in a single Dread
But all told, cultists are just people. They have pulses. They Power, but comprising all Dread Powers).
breathe air. And they are irretrievably devoted to their cause.
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