Bestiary

Obsidian Butterfly, Knife Wings, Mother of the Hunt, Bearer of Stars, Murderer of Men, Serpent Killer… Itzpapalotl has hundreds of names. She is one of the first stars, and she’ll continue to burn long after the people have fallen to ash and the land has been scoured away. She will shine brightly when the fires consume the world, and the floods drown it out. Itzpapalotl cares little for the fear of death that lingers in the hearts of men. Men are small and fragile things. Her patience for them matches their stature. Itzpapalotl is a Tzitzimitl, and the greatest in power amongst them. She is the queen of their home, Tamoanchan, a sacred place of genesis. Tamoanchan is a paradise where life no longer exists. It is where children sleep before they are born, and sometimes it is where women sleep after they have died. Tamoanchan is neighbor to Mictlan, but not a place necessarily allied with the Land of the Dead.

In the beginning, the dust of the bones of the last people was brought from Mictlan to Tamoanchan. Picturing in her mind the beauty, grace, and divinity of women, Itzpapalotl took

the dust and transformed it into the first of the people. Men came as well, but Itzpapalotl chooses not to speak of their evil origins. Tamoanchan is open to good women and children after their deaths, but only if the Tzitzimimeh choose to lead them there instead of to Mictlan. As people grow more numerous on earth, and the death tolls rise, Tamoanchan grows… and when Itzpapalotl learns the manner in which women and children are dying, she grows more and more interested in raining down fire and spears of obsidian upon the evils of the world. The more death is fed to her, the sooner she will bring death to the world.

The Mother of the Hunt appears similar to other Tzitzimimeh, but her skeletal frame is carved from shining, razor-edged obsidian. Her spindly, knife-like fingertips split the flesh of the living without effort, and she pierces the hearts of the unworthy to draw them out and judge their evil. The Serpent Killer also bears a fan of massive butterfly wings: black, shimmering, and sheer as the volcanic glass she is named for. Giant silkworm moths with rust-colored wings flutter about her, emitting a keening, breathy whisper as their wings brush her obsidian bones. The Bearer of Stars wears a long cloak sewn of the scales of the foul serpents she slew. The monsters from which she peeled the scales were so terrifying that light itself shies away from even their remains. Her cloak, when wrapped about her gigantic frame, renders her completely invisible, even to spirits and the dead. The only possible sign of her presence is the eclipse of moths that follows in her wake.

Itzpapalotl’s concerns primarily reside within the cosmos. She considers the rise and fall of the sun, and when her sisters will rip it from the sky to fall down to earth and punish the evils of men. And so, she considers her thousands of children — twinkling and winking and sometimes dying in the night. She doesn’t wish to waste her time with a race that only sheds its flaws in death… but when she must, her revenge is swift and decisive. The Mother of the Hunt intends to be present when the last of humankind is brought to Mictlan, and she’ll assist in the grinding down of their bones.