Crossover question on creating Heroes and starving Beasts

[Joker]

Quick question about creating Heroes.
I am in the planning stages of a mortal CoD campaign right now (~1851, small hamlet in the Erzgebirge). For their first mystery to solve I have been thinking about a Hero working as a teacher in their hamlet who abducted a young teenaged Beast. He noticed that starving Beasts create Heroes and because he wants there to be more Heroes he is testing out if locking up a Beast and having their Horror run wild would work.
One of the PCs is the disppeared's former teacher (Hero took her job) so there would be a personal connection to motivate her to investigate.

My question is, would that actually work? Would a Hero locking up and starving a Beast be able to create more Heroes?

Followup question: we later want to transform the campaign into a Mummy the Curse game, by having the PCs give up their bodies for the reincarnating Arisen. Which means the PCs already have the Vision dreams sent from Duat by the Arisen. I have some ideas, but I am looking for others' take on how it might look when a starving Horror invades these visions and alien forces fight it out in the PCs dreams. Might use that special interaction as the reason why the PCs know something weird is up with the disappeard teenager and maybe get a message from them to the PCs

[Stupid Loserman]

Beasts don't actually create Heroes, to my understanding (though the original draft of the book was different, and some references snuck into supplements being worked on early in publication). Heroes are naturally occurring. Beasts attract Heroes; preexisting Heroes notice the disturbance in the Dream and come investigating.

Many Heroes are lone wolves without much of a shared mythology, though, so it's conceivable that a Hero might believe, at least for awhile, that he's calling new Heroes to the vocation and not just pounding in the ears of every Hero in the region.

[Heavy Arms]

My question is, would that actually work? Would a Hero locking up and starving a Beast be able to create more Heroes?

To expand on Stupid Loserman's response, Heroes have their own connection to the Primordial Dream that has to exist before they can become one. If nobody around has that connection, no new Heroes are going to crop up just because a Beast is hunting in one form or another in the area. It's just that the rate of latent potential Heroes among humanity is pretty high, so it's unlikely to find somewhere where nobody's a potential Hero-to-be. So thinking Beasts creating Heroes is a simple causation vs. correlation mistake people can easily make.

That said, locking up a Beast like that probably isn't going to work well on a few levels.

First, detaining a Beast isn't easy. Without extensive knowledge of the Beast, keeping them out of their Lair is a tall order. Esp. since low Satiety Beasts are least impacted by any Anathema placed on them.

The next big issue is that this will eventually kill the Beast. While how long a Beast can hold out would depend on how tough they are (but tough means locking them up is all that much harder), eventually the lethal damage they take from not feeding on a regular basis is going to get them. A Beast with 7-8 Health is probably looking at around a month before they're dead despite their Horror trying to feed itself by stalking local dreams for some Satiety.

And of course, remember that to most people, locking someone up like that isn't going to go over well. So the Hero needs to juggle their livelihood, keeping the Beast locked up, and keeping anyone else from finding out about it. Esp. since Beasts don't just exist in a vacuum, they have human family and friends (and generally supernatural family and friends too).

...but I am looking for others' take on how it might look when a starving Horror invades these visions and alien forces fight it out in the PCs dreams.

It seems extremely unlikely a Horror would bother. A Horror in this state is looking for quick easy meals from local dreaming human nightmares. Someone having visions like this is going to have the Horror looking for easier snacks. The Horror has no reason to get into some big dream fight when it's already hungry, there are normal human dreams around to find food in.

[nalak42]

True that Beasts no longer create Heroes, so you would be dealing with a delusional Hero. Not impossible or even that unlikely you would just need to have it be a situation where the Hero has noticed the most fledgling Heroes functioning as their competition around Beasts that haven't hunted a while. This allows the advantage of making the Hero older and giving them some extra powers. I forget the exact rules on the ability, but there was one that made normal people into the Hero's followers which could easily function as the handwave for how the Hero took the PCs job and maybe got more assistance in a plan that involves keeping a person in a cage for months on end. The feeding interval for a Lair 1-3 beast is weekly, so while it is trying nightly to feed, every time the Horror manages a successful nightmare feeding its another week before the Beast drops into Ravenous and the process begins again. Stronger Beasts are more problematic Lair 7-9 Beasts trigger the Nightmare Hunt on an hourly basis,* but comes with the problem that a Lair 7-9 can probably just burrow through freaking steel with their fists (no claws or digging motion just titanic strength atavism and punch a damn tunnel out.)

There's also the risk that the Beast might claim the location they're imprisoned in as a chamber at which point they could just leave.(Depending on how they're captured or contained it is possible, but its been noted that containment is tricky, and that's one of the risks. You will also need something to be done to keep the Beghotten alive as they're taking damage ever feed interval at Ravenous which at the lowest rate is still 1 lethal a day.(pg 99 of the core has Ravenous feed intervals). So not impossible, but you are going to need explanations and tricks for the Beast portion the longer you've got this going on for.

*Lair 10 just says it tirggers immediately at Ravenous, so I don't even want to guess how often a roll would technically need to be made for that to happen. Then again a Lair 10 Beast would be hell on earth to fight let along contain and a Hero that can do that is probably way above the party's paygrade.

[Joker]

So what I get from this is that the Hero would be even more delusional than planned (which I'll consider a plus) and that the regular lethal damage puts the PCs on a timer of about a month. That's pretty great, thanks.

The ravenous Horror somehow interfering in their Dreams still seems one of the simpler ways of getting the PCs on the Heroe's trail. True, there the Horror has no reason to invade their dreams if there is another power actively interfering. It makes more sense if the Arisens' visions just have the side effect of making the PCs more open to the Horror accessing them. Like its hitchhiking on the signal or the PCs minds are like antennas that are already primed to receive other signals. Could still lead to some weird mashup dreams.

[nalak42]

So what I get from this is that the Hero would be even more delusional than planned (which I'll consider a plus) and that the regular lethal damage puts the PCs on a timer of about a month. That's pretty great, thanks.

The ravenous Horror somehow interfering in their Dreams still seems one of the simpler ways of getting the PCs on the Heroe's trail. True, there the Horror has no reason to invade their dreams if there is another power actively interfering. It makes more sense if the Arisens' visions just have the side effect of making the PCs more open to the Horror accessing them. Like its hitchhiking on the signal or the PCs minds are like antennas that are already primed to receive other signals. Could still lead to some weird mashup dreams.

Well I will be the first to admit I know basically nothing about Mummy from a mechanics standpoint, but if you want the explanation for how the Beghotten might start a trail on the person what about them using some relic that belongs to one of the Arisen? Be some weird ritual the Hero is doing with it because "These are necessary steps that I in my brilliance have figured out to facillitate the rise of my brethren." Which doesn't actually do anything to make more Heroes beyond screwing with the trapped Beast and making it so they can't just open the door into their Lair and bail out and can't be used for that afterwords because Mummies are not keen to let people use their stuff in ways it isn't supposed to be used to get effects it shouldn't be doing. (Of you need a handwave on that part) If I'm not mistaken Mummies have means of detecting their relics, which means the Beast PCs can just recognize the Mummy and use the Mummies ability to track their mutual target.


Have your group already made PCs for this or are you in the groundwork phase?

Addendum, another option for getting the PCs hunting this person specifically will be the Hero, or its minions if it has any, continuing to hunt Beghotten for captures. As noted the Beast isn't going to live forever in a Ravenous state and is only gonna trigger the Nightmare feeding at specific intervals with potential cool downs if it actually succeeds. Consequently this will not be deemed the most efficient method of making new Heroes as either the Beast is lucking out in the Nightmare Feed or there will need to be methods of keeping the Beast alive during the Nightmare feeding period. In either case having a backup Beast would not be deemed an unwise method as that could double the hunting or just hopefully end with at least one being in Ravenous when the other isn't. You don't need to have the Hero having succeeded in the capture, particularly if that would put more Beghotten in the area than you'd like for your game, but these could function as hooks for the PCs to follow.