Bestiary

A Histpah character is made the same as any Bastet character but has an additional Yava. The Histpah may never reveal the true answer to a secret. This applies to all forms of communication — the Histpah is prevented in word, thought or deed from sharing the truth.

Histpah can be tricked into revealing an answer — for example by another character presenting a series of choices and watching the Histpah’s involuntary reactions carefully to discern the truth. Unfortunately for the corrupted werecat, even involuntary revelation violates the terms of her geas.

Any violation of this Yava starts to unravel the Histpah’s existence. She suffers one level of unsoakable aggravated damage per day and appears increasingly translucent until she dies and fades away to nothingness, becoming a secret whose existence Calash has scrubbed from history. Other Bastet may have vague memories of the Histpah and search for proof she existed, but such secrets are very hard to find.

The Histpah may halt the dissolution by destroying everyone who learned the secret she carelessly revealed. Though individual Histpah may find such killing distasteful, few are willing to sacrifice themselves when others could die in their place. Fortunately for the Histpah, the nature of her curse leads her in the direction of the closest victim, but how she gets there is up to her.

The doomed werecat can indulge in straightforward murder if only one person knew the secret, but if more than one person knows, or if those people told others, the Histpah must slaughter her way to safety or accept the dissipation of her being.

Some Histpah, desperate for release, delight in revealing what they know to helpless victims who will soon die by the Bastet’s claws. This outlet relieves a tremendous amount of stress for the werecat, but many Histpah have learned to their regret that fate sometimes conspires to give their doomed victims a chance to escape, in turn dooming the incautious Histpah. Whether this ends the victim or the werecat, the Wyrm is sated as long one dies.

No tribe of Bastet is more likely to fall victim to Cahlash’s temptations than the others — Father Night intimately understands the curiosity of the werecats and knows how to twist his tantalizing secrets to attract the attentions of any tribe. The Bastet themselves tend to believe Bubasti fall to the Wyrm more than the other tribes, but this is simple prejudice spread by the Histpah to protect their own fallen existence. In fact, the Bubasti are better at uncovering their fallen cousins than other tribes but they have difficulty sharing this knowledge due to the mistrust. Cahlash delights when his fallen children use Bastet pride and arrogance to turn suspicion on innocents.