Bestiary

Corvia calls the crowstorm with a sly grin and a wave of her hand. They wheel and crackle from the sky, a torrent of feathers and avian wit bringing gossip from distant corners of her neighborhood. This crow tells her of the squashed rabbit in the gutter three blocks away; that one comments on those damn gulls and how the rival birds keep jockeying for territory again. A bystander would hear harsh cries and fluttering pinions, wincing at the reckless flight and inevitable mess of droppings on the ground. Those damn birds again — what does she see in them, anyway, and why does she keep messing up the street that way? For Corvia, though, the crowstorm is information, fellowship, and a reason to laugh at a world that looks so small as it passes below their wings, disappears into their beaks, and is gone.

Close to Home, and Far Away

There are monsters in our homes. Monsters next door. Monsters in the shadows. Monsters in the skies and streets. Sure, these “monsters” look like animals more often than not; what, though, is an animal if not a living reminder of what we are without our high-flown pretentions and bizarre priorities? As we saw earlier, “monsters” reveal the truth. And so, as we

comfort ourselves with cat videos online, scratch our dogs behind the ears, leave a plate of fresh rice out for the household yokai, or hear the maddening whine of skymurmurs as we try to fall asleep, the truth stares back at us, refusing to be wished away, often ready to scratch our face or tear our throat out if we forget our place and truly piss it off.

Natural Animals

Strangers, familiars, monsters, and occasional gods — our an imal kin are all of them and more. In Paul A. Trout’s book Deadly Powers: Animal Predators and the Mythic Imagination, Trout traces human magic and evolution to the influence of animals who could,

and often did, kill and eat our ancestors. The cat snoozing next to your computer these days might not seem like a god incarnate; for beasts in his weight class, though, he’s an apex predator whose metaphysical shadow still colors the Awakened world.

Animals, in a mage’s world, can become totem-spirits, mortal companions, pets, antagonists, and more. Certain mages can become animals, or at least access their own bestial aspects with magick. The Animalism practice and its related paradigms in The Book of Secrets (pp. 195-199), and the “Shapechanging” section of How Do You DO That? (pp. 19-25) show how a mage can bring out the beast in herself, while the “Bestiary” and “Animal Spirits / Totem Spirits” sections of Mage 20 (pp. 618-620 and 632-636) provide an overview of common animals, their basic game statistics, and some spiritual aspects they might assume. An array of other non-magical animals can be found below.