lb:no.nwod:17
Differences
This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.
Both sides previous revisionPrevious revision | |||
lb:no.nwod:17 [2025-04-30 17:39:41] – removed - external edit (Unknown date) 127.0.0.1 | lb:no.nwod:17 [2025-04-30 17:39:42] (current) – ↷ Page moved from playground:no.nwod:17 to lb:no.nwod:17 ninjasr | ||
---|---|---|---|
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
+ | ====== Changing Breeds Part XV: Ha Ha Ha! Birdmen. ====== | ||
+ | This is gonna be a big one, folks. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The opening fiction for the Wing-Folk section actually shows some promise and creepiness compared to the standard this book has set, with a mortally wounded soldier seeing an ethereal nurse at the foot of his bed who resembled a nurse on staff, except for the fact that her arms split into wings of hundreds of feathery arms and hands, which she uses to choke him to death in an embrace, the beating of wings the last thing he hears as she carries him to the afterlife. | ||
+ | |||
+ | The book talks about the roles birds and bats have taken in mythology, from psychopomps to heralds to omens to tricksters to embodiments of fate to embodiments of good or evil. The book raises an interesting point that man is still, on some level, averse to killing birds as rampantly or directly as other animals. Those we kill or consume on a regular basis are normally flightless or ' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The homes of the Wing-Folk tend to be open, spacious, and full of trinkets they find interesting. Most feral Wing-Folk are often kleptomaniacal and Kender-esque in what they define as theirs. They also flock to where their animal forms are viewed with the proper respect - Corvidae prefer the Tower of London, crane-folk prefer Japan, etcetera. They' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Wing-Folk are rather gluttonous and gourmands of the weird, liking food that most Westerners find strange, like candied ants wrapped in leaves or poached field mice. They sometimes cannibalize smaller Wing-Folk when enraged or half-mad, and don't have strong rivalries with many other shifters, too busy fighting themselves. They do, however, creep out fish and snake shifters, and shy away from cat and rodent shifters. They inspire extreme devotion in their animal kin, but bird-folk mostly view their feral cousins as disposable, unbothered by anything short of systematic purges of their populations. Bat-folk are much more protective of their relations. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Some breeds view themselves as representative of the spirits or gods (or God), and get into extremely violent arguments with other shifters (or creatures) who claim to be the true inheritors of divine wisdom. Some take their psychopomp role in mythology equally seriously, ranging from genuinely empathetic participants in assisted suicide to serial killers who justify what they do as easing suffering. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Bird-folk usually gather in small groups of mated pairs, which may be paired for life (leaving the survivor to remain celibate or commit suicide when their partner dies) or may be a pair of serial monogamists (always in a single relationship, | ||
+ | |||
+ | > Stereotypes\\ | ||
+ | |||
+ | The first breed are the **Gente Alada**, the Bright Assassins, and these guys are rad as fuck. Their animals are the quetzal bird and the hummingbird. The book mentions a Guatemalan tale that the quetzal bird used to sing the most beautiful song in all the world, but when the Spanish conquered the Americas, its grief caused it to only sing with harsh screams from then on. Once its people are free from the oppression forced upon them, it will sing its song once more. Its shock of red feathers on its chest comes from when it dipped itself into the blood of a fallen Mayan warrior prince who fell in combat with the Spaniards. Huitzilopotchli, | ||
+ | |||
+ | The birds together form a sect, the vastly more populous hummingbirds believing themselves to be the returned warrior souls of the honored dead come to reverse the dominion of Man over nature. The rare but powerful quetzal shifters are the assassins and terrorists of the sect, preferring to kill single targets to consume their heart as tribute to Quetzalcoatl and Huitzilopotchli and gain the victim' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Gente Alada are, as you can imagine, mostly in Central America, with the quetzal-shifters having roots in Guatemala. They train all their children in the arts of war and the lore of their people, except the Mictlantecuhtli guys, who murder any human children they have because they hate humans that much. Their cousins look at this as depraved at best and sacrilegious at worst. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Quetzal shifters wear red shirts and vests to honor their animal selves, and their warform is a man with green wings, a crest of feathers, a trailing tail of feathers, and rows of feathers on their arms and legs. They traditionally paint their chests red with blood before battle. Hummingbird warriors are small and slight in warform, but their beaks are sharp enough to pierce and pluck out a man's heart. Those who follow Mictlantecuhtli wear bland clothing and paint themselves with ash before battle, preferring to be ghostlike instead of HERE I AM LOOK AT ME WHILE I MURDER YOU | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mechanically, | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{ https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next up, the **Corvians**. The book talks at some length about the legends of Crow and Raven, especially those from Native American mythology. They' | ||
+ | |||
+ | They' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Due to the myth that Raven never loses his temper, the Corvians do not have warforms, instead becoming bird-men that look like they crawled out of a Bosch painting, man-sized ravens, or giant swarms of crows and ravens. They are able to hide well, and are able to get the Bag of Tricks aspects like the Laughing Strangers are due to the history of crows and ravens being tricksters. Their animal forms are decidedly middlin' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next are the **Chervaliers Rapace**, the raptor-folk (not those raptors) and Ministers of War. They' | ||
+ | |||
+ | The Ministers arrange marriages between families to consolidate power, killing the children if they object, and otherwise stay out of each others' | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next are the **Vagahuir**, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Their animal forms are giant-ass bats and bat-people who sadly do not look like Batman. Think more Man-Bat (an actual character.) They' | ||
+ | |||
+ | {{ https:// | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next are the **Strigoi**, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Their animal forms are large screech owls and the thing you see in the picture above. Statistically, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Lastly we have the **Brythians**, | ||
+ | |||
+ | Mechanically, | ||
+ | |||
+ | ...wait, that's it? That's the whole chapter? There was nothing flagrantly stupid or terrible? What the hell is this, a decent book!? No, seriously, this was actually a good chapter and if the rest of the book had been up to this quality it'd be far less painful. | ||
+ | |||
+ | Next time: the catch-all breeds, and then the example characters, and then I'm free! Holy shit! | ||
+ | |||
+ | <WRAP rightalign> | ||
+ | |||
+ | Previous: [[lb: | ||
+ | |||
+ | </ |