Bestiary

The Bone Woman, La Huesera, collects the bones of discarded and forgotten beings, and then sings them back to life. Despite surface appearances, though, she is not a legend of death, but rather a keeper of memory. She does

not collect the remains of just any dead person or animal; instead, she seeks out animals who are disappearing (such as wolves, cougars, and polar bears), and people whom no one has time to remember (like street people, or women from minority communities who were murdered and discarded). La Huesera sees no distinction between animals and human beings; they’re all just different kinds of “peoples” in her eyes.

Although tales of her powers have inspired more than a few grieving souls to seek her out, Bone Woman has never been known to assist anyone in returning their loved ones to life. La Huesera does not concern herself with the loss of those who will be remembered, so if someone cares enough to seek her out then the memory of the dead person already lives on inside of them. Some people who’ve come seeking Bone Woman’s help in returning life to their lost ones wind up dismayed when she ignores them entirely and chooses instead to fret over the yellowed bones of a dog for weeks on end.

When La Huesera collects enough of the remains of the deceased, she attempts to put them back together in some fashion. Sometimes she wraps them with beads and binds them together; sometimes she carves a wooden frame, bound with the remains, that resembles the living form of the dead. She’s been known to piece bones together with bits of foil, wire, and other scraps of refuse. La Huesera spends weeks, sometimes even months, stitching a corpse back together. And each time, she sings.

La Huesera almost always sings in indigenous languages of the region she appears in, and while some witnesses claim that her songs are simple and repetitious — “Flesh to bone! Flesh to bone!” — the truth behind the song is more complicated. The words the Bone Woman sings are sacred (some would say magickal) songs and stories; she sings of the past of the corpse, and its life before, and she sings of its life to come, after it breathes again and changes shape. When the sacred song is complete, the corpse comes back to life, but is changed.

All evidence of death’s traumas is erased by the song. The new life is nearly always a much stronger, healthier version of what the dead person was before their death. A wolf that died of starvation might return larger, with a lush coat, and might even be a more skilled hunter than he was before death. A woman who lived on the street and carried its many scars is returned to life with gleaming hair and radiant skin. The beings resurrected by the Bone Woman are so dramatically transformed that anyone who knew them before could never hope to recognize them now. The resurrected people often return to their old communities as newcomers and live entirely different lives. Always, they remember what La Huesera did for them, but never do they betray her secrets.

Willpower 8, Rage 4, Gnosis 8, Essence 50

Charms: Materialize, Re-form, Spirit Away

Materialized Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3; use Gnosis for Social and Mental Traits