Beasts as other monsters

[wyrdhamster]

Imagine that you have a monsters group – coterie, pack, cabal, etc. New member joins it – one of the Beasts. Who is he? What is his Family? Why do you choose it?

In other words – This topic is what are iconic Families related to monster Kin. I would focus on Families, as almost any monster type can have any Hunger work for it.

Here are mine examples for Big Three:

• Vampires – Ugallu – Many Nightmares can be connected to the Kindred, but most basic is that they can snatch you anywhere. And they are, in reality, everywhere. They treat you like birds of prey, circling their victims from the skies they build in human cities. Also, they Kin is strongly associated with Strix, and by those smoke born Owl spirits of Lilith – Dark Mother they share with Raptors.

• Werewolves – Eshmaki – There are things in the night. Distant howling. Shadow of inhuman figure. Perfect hunters under the auspice of the Moon. Uratha are the reason you are afraid of darkness and loneliness – and they will gladly remind you about this. More of that – they really are always near you – when they not look like one of Horrors born from Primordial Dream – they could be your sibling, partner, friend or even just random men on the street. And you will do not know until it’s too late…

• Mages – Makara – Nightmares of Depths are siblings to Awakened, as they understand one another the best. Both members of family know things better left under the waves, both dwell in the human subconcises, memories and things best forgotten. They uncover ancient places of lost knowledge and power. And both have a yearning Abyss close to them. Only Makara embrace it in contrast to most sorcerers. Still, Supernal Souls of mages are entrenched in Ocean Ouroboros – place where Makara swim like a fish in a big pond.

[VoidDrifter]

Well, my personal thoughts are that most of the Kin are best looked at as a hybrid of Families - that it's this blending of fears in just the right way that allowed them to split from the Begotten and become their own races. At least, for those other than the core three. Leaving out Demons, due to the fact that they're explicitly not Kin; they may have fear-roots, but it's in much more modernistic fears than the others.

* Mummies - Makara and Anakim - The Depths can mean more than just the ocean, they can also mean the subterranean labyrinths and the depths of time. Mummies are creatures out of the primordial darkness from before human history, emerging from the land of the dead and through their tombs to terrorize the living. They also represent the crushing, overpowering force of death itself. Nothing can stop them, nothing can overcome them; they are as certain as death itself. Inevitable and eternal. A mummy is a force you cannot stop, hailing from the forgotten times and embodying forgotten knowledge and ancestral evils.

* Sin-eaters - Anakim and Eshmaki - The Sin-Eaters represent the inevitability of death & decay, the hunger of the grave and the idea you can be harmed by forces you neither understand nor defeat. They are the devouring force that consumes all things and sweeps away everything, abandoning existence into nothingness.

* Prometheans - Namtaru and Eshmaki - The very foundational force of the Prometheans is the Fear of the Other, and the Fear of the Ruin that they bring. They are Walking Wastelands, creatures that pervert, defile and decay with their presence alone, and this is the source of their fearfulness. To stare at a Promethean is to see something else staring back at you, and to know that its malign purpose is to destroy you.

* Changelings - Anakim and Ugallu - The Changelings can be tied to many, many fears, but as a unifying force, they are twofold; the fear of being snatched away at any time from any place, and the fear of being completely and utterly helpless before something so vast and powerful it can do anything that it wants with you.

[wyrdhamster]

* Prometheans - Namtaru and Eshmaki - The very foundational force of the Prometheans is the Fear of the Other, and the Fear of the Ruin that they bring. They are Walking Wastelands, creatures that pervert, defile and decay with their presence alone, and this is the source of their fearfulness. To stare at a Promethean is to see something else staring back at you, and to know that its malign purpose is to destroy you.

Eshmaki now are not Nigtmares of Ruin, they are Nightmares of Darkness, of loneliness. I totally suppor Namtaru as general Family most a like to Created, but I cannot see Eshmaki - in new write-up Lurkers are that - lurking in the darkness hunters. They work with Werwolves, they do not with Prometeans.

[malonkey1]

Shmaki now are not Nigtmares of Ruin, they are Nightmares of Darkness, of loneliness. I totally suppor Namtaru as general Family most a like to Created, but I cannot see Eshmaki - in new write-up Lurkers are that - lurking in the darkness hunters. They work with Werwolves, they do not with Prometeans.

You specifically mentioned loneliness as part of Eshmaki's new portfolio, and you don't see how they match with Prometheans, one of the loneliest creatures in the World (of Darkness)?

[atamajakki]

Mummies are Makara for sure, lost in the ocean of sand, worn away by thr infinite nothingness of passing time and one's own cosmic insignificance.

[wyrdhamster]

You specifically mentioned loneliness as part of Eshmaki's new portfolio, and you don't see how they match with Prometheans, one of the loneliest creatures in the World (of Darkness)?

Eshmaki make YOU feel lonely, not that they are lonely. Typical Eshmaki monsters are Werewolves packs hunting in night or Boogymens under your bed. They are those things in the darkness that stalk you when you think you are alone. Prometheans want to be part of group. Want to be part of humanity, not hunt on it's outskirts. That's why I think they work much better as pure Namtaru Kin.

[wyrdhamster]

Where I agree, mostly, with your arguments, I see to this day list looks like this:

• Vampires - Ugallu
• Werewolves - Eshmaki
• Mages - Makara
• Prometheans - Namtaru
• Changelings - Ugallu ( rather as victims of Nightmare in form of True Fae )
• Sin-Eaters - Eshmaki
• Mummies - Makara
• Demons? - Anakim? ( They are not Kin, but if they would be, they probably be this )

From this write-up looks like next nWoD game will be about Nightmares of Hopelessness or Revulsion.

Edit: More thining about it, I changed Sin-Eaters to Eshmaki - they represent Ghost-stories, in the end. Tales of things that linger in darkness and an be when you are thinking your alone. They are counter Anakim, as they give you hope you are not done after death.

[GibberingEloquence]

Vampires = Anakim + Eshmaki. Titanic might of body and personality. Centuries of experience in subjugating the will of the most stalwart. They come out at night, in the places where they can strike without resistance. Their thirst for blood might go out control in a decade, tomorrow, or right now.

Werewolves = Ugallu + Eshmaki. Finding you is always a matter of when for them, never if. They are always watching, can slip between worlds and shapes, and come back from death's door with nothing but more fury. You are as a bleeding rabbit to them.

Mages = Anakim + Ugallu. They know innumerable eldritch secrets that drive lesser men insane and tear their souls to shreds. With a gesture, a whisper, a thought, they can turn blades to dust and men to stone. Their gaze looms over the most distant stars and our innermost lies. The universe is their playground of clay, and we are figments of their imagination.

[ajf115]

Where I agree, mostly, with your arguments, I see to this day list looks like this:

• Vampires - Ugallu
• Werewolves - Eshmaki
• Mages - Makara
• Prometheans - Namtaru
• Changelings - Ugallu ( rather as victims of Nightmare in form of True Fae )
• Sin-Eaters - Eshmaki
• Mummies - Makara
• Demons? - Anakim? ( They are not Kin, but if they would be, they probably be this )

From this write-up looks like next nWoD game will be about Nightmares of Hopelessness or Revulsion.

Edit: More thining about it, I changed Sin-Eaters to Eshmaki - they represent Ghost-stories, in the end. Tales of things that linger in darkness and an be when you are thinking your alone. They are counter Anakim, as they give you hope you are not done after death.

I'd peg demons as Eshmaki, being that they are inhuman biomechanical monstrosities hiding in plain sight behind a cover made of traded human souls.

[GibberingEloquence]

I'd peg demons as Eshmaki, being that they are inhuman biomechanical monstrosities hiding in plain sight behind a cover made of traded human souls.

Very accurate. I'd say they are Eshmaki + Makara. Their plans and lies go as deep as any ocean, and their true colors are hidden far beneath a seemingly placid surface.

[GibberingEloquence]

Would changelings tap into the same fear of the Other as prometheans? The fae are a strange people with rules and laws that outsiders might find shocking. Their Miens, when not ouright hideous, have an eerie beauty instead of conventional attractiveness. They can bind and drown you in magical restraints with every poorly thought out word you say, while slipping out like phantoms when you try to do the same to them. As a last resort, they can escape to or throw you in the Hedge, where the saying of "nothing is as it seems with the fae" is taken up to eleven, and one can become trapped like a man holding onto flotsam in the middle of the ocean. In a nutshell, there's almost always a ghoulie behind the glamour.

Would that make changelings Namtaru + Makara?

[WarDragon]

Werewolves are probably Anakim instead of, or in addition to, Eshmaki. Once they've found you, they're pretty straightforwardly brutal.

[Nyrufa]

I thought those filthy Demons weren't part of the family. They're "creations" of the God Machine, not the Dark Mother.

[ajf115]

I thought those filthy Demons weren't part of the family. They're "creations" of the God Machine, not the Dark Mother.

They are. This is all just hypothetical.

[ArcaneArts]

I'd argue that vampires are closer to the Makara family and Mages are closer to the Ugallu Family.