Page 16 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

Not all of them are people.
How many hunters have had that thought, watching a nightclub,
searching for the thing that leaves bloodless bodies in dumpsters all
over town? How many of Network Zero’s members watch endless
hours of security footage, trying to find the one person that isn’t a
person among the throng?
It can be a comforting thought, too. A Task Force: VALKYRIE
team blows up a building, almost assuredly catching a few normal folks
in the blast while they take down a pack of werewolves. The thought
that lets the soldiers sleep the next night — well, the thought along
with a handful of pills — is: “Not all of them are people.”
This thought leads to alienation. It leads to suspicion and
paranoia and uncertainty. Worse, some of the creatures within the
World of Darkness amplify those feelings. These creatures are born
— well, made — in the Uncanny Valley. Stitched together from dead
flesh or soldered together with metal and plastic, these Created
beings look like people…until a hunter gets to know them. Then
the truth becomes horrifyingly clear. They are monsters. They are
undead. They are automatons.
Fortunately, they burn just fine.

The Enemy:

Mad Science

and Old Legends

Those stalwart few that have taken up the Vigil know many of
the creatures they hunt resemble — impersonate — human beings. Vam-
pires, shapeshifters, witches, and many other obscene creatures blend
into society perfectly well, and finding them often proves to be one of
the most challenging phases of the hunt. As such, the fact that artifi-
cial people who lurk on the fringes of humanity can blend right in
isn’t the most terrifying thing about them.
The most terrifying thing about the Created is that they seem
fascinated by people. They want to learn about humanity, but to
what end? Do they want to perfect their masquerade? Do they study
people to find weaknesses? Or is their thought process so alien that
they watch people, observing human behavior like a naturalist watch-
ing monkeys in the jungle, piecing together recognizable patterns of
the way people act?
Hunters don’t have any answers. Fortunately, these beings are Most of us do not have room
rare, which means it’s difficult to draw any strong conclusions. But sto- in our Monkeysphere for our
ries of false people — living statues, automatons given freedom, people friendly neighborhood sani-
made from the bodies of the dead — have circulated for centuries. tation worker. So, we don’t
These creatures, it seems, have always been here. think of him as a person. We
The Created think of him as The Thing That
Makes The Trash Go Away.
The Created are false people, hideous mockeries of human — David Wong,
beings made from dead flesh and animated by the so-called Di-
vine Fire. They fancy themselves pilgrims, on some inane quest to “What Is the Monkeysphere?”
achieve the humanity they have no right to claim. Hunters, how-
ever, rarely see this Pilgrimage. What they see is the carnage these
monsters create.