Page 312 - Hunter - The Vigil

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T THE INSIDE TRACK|SETTING THINGS RIGHT
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low men and women, in no way the body they inhabit; in all Most Reanimated gather at the first tier — they wander

ways a simple being straight out of that Mary Shelley novel. alone or in rough groups, passing through towns and cities
Most pretenders take power from something outside like so many shades and mad wanderers. Their goals are so in-
themselves. Vampires steal our blood. Changelings are trans- tensely personal and morbidly quixotic that they can become
formed by passages through paradises and labyrinths —prob- very curious antagonists in a story because of their desires.
ably the same places from which mages call forth their evil. At the second tier, the Reanimated maybe start to gather.
The Reanimated, though, are different. They don’t need to They start to develop philosophies; they trade writings and leave
eat...trash or twigs’ll do them as well as a Big Mac. They weird messages for one another scrawled on walls. They enter-
don’t tire...just lair up a while to fi gure where they’re going. tain something called “The Pilgrimage,” some sloughing journey
In a word, they’re powered from within, and that’s what toward becoming more or less like humanity. They might tie
makes them so horrible. Inside each Frankenstein’s monster themselves to mortal sorcerers or alchemists, even other so-called
is a little reactor of hate and destruction, an unquenchable “demiurges” who would or could give life to more Reanimated.
fire that slowly burns the world around us. Everywhere they The Reanimated at tier three represent an organized move-

go, these golems and zombies cause strange events and leave ment, degrading zombie armies following their alchemy-based
spiritual scars. philosophies (refining death into life, the soulless into the

Anybody who gazes upon one can’t help but feel the pity, the souled). Because of their effects on the world and people, they
hate, the rage. Is it so sad that you just want to beat its poor face in must truly gather en masse and, by dint of this, cause massive ri-
with a shovel? Is it just so unnatural that its only future lies on the ots, cataclysmic weather and swift decay on a widespread scale.
autopsy table? Is it just so pretty you want to hold it and hug and
it until you’ve wrenched its head off its neck? The Reanimated Setting Things Right
stir emotions that are unnatural. They surely don’t mean to, be- Hunting the Reanimated is easier than one might think.
cause those emotions seem pointed at them. Worse, at rare times, a Hunters can get friends, the police, even a whole commu-

hunter will see the creature for what it really is...dead skin, sloppy nity on their side, with only the flimsiest of lies about what
stitches, porcelain face...but only for a moment. The difference it is they’re hunting. And the hunters might start to believe
this time? So can everyone around you. their own lies, and why is that, exactly? Because the Reani-
mated aren’t meant to exist. They should be dead, and this
Powers of Reanimation gross contravention of natural law leaves both people and the
Reanimated don’t need to eat anything but what’s in world around them hating them unnecessarily.
front of them (roadkill, garbage, moldering leaves), don’t Anybody who comes into contact with a Reanimated
suffer from diseases and don’t worry about penalties caused must succeed on a Resolve + Composure roll versus 10 minus
from fatigue. Worse, they can heal levels of damage by feed- the creature’s own Resolve + Composure pool (to a minimum

ing electricity into their own bodies (which makes sense of 1 die). If the human succeeds, he is not filled with detes-
when you picture Frankenstein on the slab, lightning cours- tation and abhorrence toward the monster. If the monster

ing through his mortified flesh). One damage from electricity succeeds, he stirs within the human a powerful loathing that

heals a bashing point, and two damage from electricity heals manifests as any number of dark emotions (hatred, abuse, mob
a lethal point. Note that, when healing or using any Dread justice, tainted love, utter disgust). The human must act on
Powers, the Reanimated lose any human illusion and appear those emotions (think the torch-bearing mobs pounding on
as the grotesque, stitched monstrosities they truly are. the doors of Castle Frankenstein). Whole communities can
Common Dread Powers include (but are not limited to) rise up swiftly and suddenly to destroy or cast out such a crea-
Giant Size, Strange Form, Terrify, Tendrils, Unholy Attribute ture. In a way, it gives hunters the edge, but sometimes those
(Resolve, Stamina, Composure) dark emotions linger if they can’t put the creature down.
This is made worse by the fact that any place a Reanimat-
The Inside Track ed stays in for more than a day starts to “go bad.” Bad weather
The Reanimated are actually human bodies reanimated rolls in. Items and buildings start to rot. People get cancer.
through any one of many arcane or alchemical surgeries. The longer the creature stays, and the more of them that stay
Sometimes, they’re made by human beings, most often as there…well, the worse it gets. Then again, this makes it easy
proxies for lost children or lovers. Other times, they’re made to find where such a being might be hiding. Just look for the

by their own kind, who have an almost obsessive desire to hurricane’s eye or the most decrepit building in town.
create partners and companions. Putting down a Reanimated isn’t easy. They’re tough,
Some are huge, furious brutes, like Frankenstein’s mon- strong, or just know how to stay hidden. But some hunter
ster. Others are broken succubi with alabaster flesh almost as stories say that fire does the trick really well. For as much as

smooth as graveyard marble. Quite a few of these cobbled- electricity heals them, fire seems to do quite the opposite (do-

together living corpses seem to seek a human life or a human ing aggravated damage).
soul (which, to a hunter, might be worth a moment of sorrow, That said, if a hunter can stomach it, Reanimated make sur-
or might just stir further revulsion), but just as many are hap- prisingly good informants. They tend to be starved for human con-
py to let the world rot around them…possibly even seeking to versation, and are willing to ramble on a long while. And because
tear it all down themselves. they tend to create and attract unnatural events, they can often
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