Bestiary

As the world grows ever warmer, hurricanes, typhoons, and other terrible storms increase in instance and magnitude. Communities that have withstood the test of winds for centuries are suddenly unequipped to ride out the weather, and communities that have never known the ferocity of the angry skies are now forced to learn to survive them or be destroyed. As the weather transforms into something so much more dangerous than ever before, ancient tales of the Ravening Winds are once again sung on the lips of the people who have known them since the time before people knew how to sing.

Many tale-speakers suspect the increasing madness of natural phenomena is a result of the planet’s sickness: humankind. The temperatures rise with the waters to drown out a disease that exists in numbers too great (or merely too greedy) for Earth to support. The coming cataclysm is a fever burning out the actual disease. The huge weather-related death tolls are but symptoms of the land’s illness. Memory-keepers know this to be true, and the stories about living creatures who’ve been found bloodless, or fleshless, or who’ve simply disappeared in the wake of these natural disasters are not mere coincidences or urban myths. They speak the truth about the consuming skies: the Ravening Winds.

support. The coming cataclysm is a fever burning out the actual disease. The huge weather-related death tolls are but symptoms of the land’s illness. Memory-keepers know this to be true, and the stories about living creatures who’ve been found bloodless, or fleshless, or who’ve simply disappeared in the wake of these natural disasters are not mere coincidences or urban myths. They speak the truth about the consuming skies: the Ravening Winds.

After the passing of a storm, when survivors come out of the woodwork to see what’s left of their homes, families and lives, animals and people are sometimes discovered dead and drained of blood. Sometimes, stripped skeletons are found twisted into piles of rubble or wrapped around the branches of leafless trees. Thousands of animals and people have gone missing in the wake of life-taking storms. Usually these deaths are attributed to the violence of the storm itself; in a sense, this suspicion is not wrong.

Riding the gyrating winds of the storm are disease-hunters known as Ravening Winds. When a storm approaches, some people swear they can hear the keening and wailing of miserable souls. In truth, Ravening Winds are not miserable, nor do they mourn. Their howls are gleeful; they look forward to hunting their quarry and stealing life from it. Each kill is another chance for their mother to live. Each bloodless body no longer poisons her blood, but returns to her instead, to nourish her back to life. Ravening Winds cannot, and will never, see the sorrow inherent in a loss of life. To them, the creatures that take sustenance from the blood of their mother are as gnats or bacteria are to human beings, negligible and forgettable.

Once, there were days where the storms were small and brief enough that the murderous rampage of Ravening Winds was hardly a concern. But as those storms grow larger, longer, and greater in number, the Ravening Winds who ride the tempests run down living things with joy in their hearts and laughter on their lips.

Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 5, Stamina 2, Charisma 1, Manipulation 2, Appearance 3, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3

Abilities: Athletics 4, Awareness 2, Brawl 5, Intimidation 2

Willpower: 5

Health Levels: OK, OK, ‒1, ‒2, ‒2, ‒2, ‒5, Dissolved

Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total)

Powers/Advantages: Rip skin off with wind and debris, inflicting Strength + 1 lethal damage per turn / Alacrity (2 pts.); Aura; Blending; Intangibility (10 pts.); Elemental Touch (10 pts.)