What Fearful Symmetry: the Thallain

[Dataweaver]

This thread is intended to provide a place to post your home-made Thallain Kiths, and/or any Thallain-related house rules you may have, and any observations you might have concerning the Thallain. In short, it's All Things Thallain.

To start, here are the Kiths that have Thallain counterparts:

Kithain	Thallain
Boggan	Boggart
Clurichaun	Bodach
Eshu	Aithu
Nocker	Goblin
Piskie	Spriggan
Pooka	Beastie
Redcap	Ghast
Satyr	Nasty
Selkie	Kelpie
Sidhe	Sevartal
Sluagh	Bogie
Troll	Ogre
Ghille Dhu	Mandragora
Merfolk	Merrow

Two of the Gallain have Thallain counterparts:

Gallain	Thallain
Nunnehi	Skinwalkers
Menehuni	Huaka'i Po

There are three Thallain without counterparts:

• Lurks
• Night Hags
• Weeping Wights

And there are six Kiths without Thallain counterparts:

• Korred
• Morganed
• Oba
• River Hags
• Wichtel
• Wolpertingers

In addition, the Inanimae and Hsien do not have Thallain counterparts.

[Eldagusto]

Those six I believe are Gallain in c20.

I was thinking of thallian I will make for my game, Wendigo, Hanya(as thallain for an Oni Gallain sub kiths of the trolls.), disir a thallain to the Norns/Swan Maidens/Valkyrie. Wyrms as a thallain for whatever I use for dragons.

And a few others I am considering if I will make them Thallain to just unseelie favoring kiths. Berghasts, which may get Kerberoi, though it may be reverse with them where the Thallain line is the Main Line and Kerberoi are a minority offshoot. And Imps. But I may make imps just unseelie and maybe make devils or fiends be a thallain if Imps aren't Thallain to Angels. Doppelgänger may be Thallain or Gallain. And Shaitan/Iblis/Gul as Thallain for Ifrits/Murids/other Djinn.



P.S. Man my phone auto correct really hates the word Thallain!

[Lian]

While skinwalkers are tied to Native myths I wouldn't say they are tied to a particular Nunehei family so they don't quite match up. Similarly while the Hsien don't have Thallain they do have Dark reflections in those empowered by the Yama Kings

[Dataweaver]

While skinwalkers are tied to Native myths I wouldn't say they are tied to a particular Nunehei family so they don't quite match up.

Not a particular family, no; the Nunnehi as a whole.

Similarly while the Hsien don't have Thallain they do have Dark reflections in those empowered by the Yama Kings

Any differences?

[Urabyfirst]

I and the crew working on the Book of Modern Dreams project had a few dark-kin in the works. Wether or not we keep them is up for debate now, as some of the ideas seem to have now been covered in C20, but here's what we were thinking of:

Slender - nothing in the Modern Dream has terrified like the slendermen, and this dream has manifested in the Slender. Like all the 'modern' thallain, there is a question as to if they are actually new, or just an old kith that has found new form in an urban legend. Either way, these stealthy kidnappers are the embodiment of the 'fear of the stranger'. The nameless face in the crowd that wishes you harm for no known reason

Rippers - Nightmares of brutality and torture, they are the Hook-man at Lover's Lane, Freddie and Jason, or the malformed hill-billie that mutilates its victims.

Darkly - Dark reflections of ourselves, the Darkly are able to enter a pocket realm of the dreaming that is connected to the Autumn world through mirrors. They can posses a reflection to learn the owners darkest secrets, and then use that knowledge to torment their victims.

We were also developing a Thallain counterpart to a Modern Dreams kith based on aliens. The gallain kith is called the Grey, and their dark counterpart are based on Giger and Lovcraftian horror, and are the fear of the unknowable and completely alien.

There were some other ideas being batted about, but they were in other sections of the project that I was less directly involved with, and thus would not be able to do any justice.

PS. if anyone is interested in helping, we are trying to revive the project #shamelessplug

[PookaKnight]

Those six I believe are Gallain in c20.

Nope, they're Kithain. They're just either rarer kiths in general (river hags, oba, ghille dhu), or they're kiths that aren't as common in Concordia (but are elsewhere — korred, merfolk, morganed, wichtel, wolpertinger).

The korred, morganed, wichtel, and wolpertinger almost certainly have a Thallain counterpart of some sort. River hags and oba are sub-kiths of redcaps and eshu. Their counterparts may just be ghasts and aithu, but who knows what strangeness might come out of the Dreaming.

[Firkraag]

PS. if anyone is interested in helping, we are trying to revive the project #shamelessplug

Do you plan to show it publicly in blog or something, while you make it?

It might gather some decent attention/following in a form of public collaboration.

I must admit, I find the idea of Modern Dreams to be very intriguing.

[Deathevn]

Any differences?

If I remember my Thousand Hells stuff correctly, they're basically an evil infernalist style reskin called the Kura Sau (Their leaders call themselves the Okuma, I think)? They have a thing that is like Nei Tan (with no actual rules, but a suggestion that it basically be largely the same but evil), but is not Nei Tan, called Hac Tao, and it's big advantage was that you didn't need to maintain a semblance of balance to get the end-level power, which was the Blood-Jade Dagger instead of the Jade Key

They're not remotely like Thallain. They don't have an Anti-Kith thing going on. They're a strange form of investment-free infernalist.

[Nitenshi]

Night Hags are not the Thallain counterpart of the River Hags ?

[Eldagusto]

Night Hags are not the Thallain counterpart of the River Hags ?

That's racist!

[Urabyfirst]

Do you plan to show it publicly in blog or something, while you make it,

It might gather some decent attention/following in a form of public collaboration.

I must admit, I find the idea of Modern Dreams to be very intriguing.

It was up on SnE but if people are genuinely interested here I'll suggest it to the team.

[Lian]

If I remember my Thousand Hells stuff correctly, they're basically an evil infernalist style reskin called the Kura Sau (Their leaders call themselves the Okuma, I think)? They have a thing that is like Nei Tan (with no actual rules, but a suggestion that it basically be largely the same but evil), but is not Nei Tan, called Hac Tao, and it's big advantage was that you didn't need to maintain a semblance of balance to get the end-level power, which was the Blood-Jade Dagger instead of the Jade Key

They're not remotely like Thallain. They don't have an Anti-Kith thing going on. They're a strange form of investment-free infernalist.

When the protoHsien had just fallen from grace and were still sort of working out chi balances, their version of the Changeling way etc some of them went fully to the Yama Kings. While yes a Nyan Hsien and an Nyan Kura Sau did both sort of start as a Nyan spirit they both have grown, developed and changed over thousands of years and one side has specifically kept chi imbalances along with being in service to everything evil. So while its not one for one the Kura Sau are dark Reflections of the Hsien proper..

[Deathevn]

When the protoHsien had just fallen from grace and were still sort of working out chi balances, their version of the Changeling way etc some of them went fully to the Yama Kings. While yes a Nyan Hsien and an Nyan Kura Sau did both sort of start as a Nyan spirit they both have grown, developed and changed over thousands of years and one side has specifically kept chi imbalances along with being in service to everything evil. So while its not one for one the Kura Sau are dark Reflections of the Hsien proper..

They're traitors more than natural opposites. All Mu court things are supposed to be there for tragic battles with your old allies. Sure, they're dark reflections of the Shinma, but they don't feel like Thallain.

I think this may just be another thing where the Hsien don't really fit into Changeling at all. Anyways, I should stop cluttering this thread with unrelated discussions. Thanks for getting me to look through Lo8MD again, though.

[FallenEco]

The Diatyas Mu Courts are better dark reflections than the Kura Sau. The later have exactly one write up in cannon; in Sunset Empires. They are called out as incapable of learning Alchemy. In fact, said write up has them knowing Kuei-Jin disciples and suggests black magic from the Yama Kings. Lian's references to chi imbalances apply here, as the Kura Sau only have Yang or Yin.

Daityas however, can learn Alchemy (both internal and external), have to be very careful with their Chi balance and are called out as being able to recall past lives more easily. (Kura Sau automatically do so, since they spend their time between bodies in Yomi.) Both Mu courts can pick their next human body...via ritual murder.

If you want parallels then the Daityas Courts are Unseelie. They have turned their backs on Heaven and Hell but weild similar power to the Hsien. The Kura Sau are practically a breed apart, and could be argued as Thallium, having sworn erternal allegiance to the enemy and have been twisted into something almost unrecognisable.

[Deathevn]

Interesting Hsien Stuff.

Hsien talk has taken over the thread and I apologize in advance. Feel free to smite me.

I've never seen their write-up in Sunset Empires, only the sidebar in Thousand Hells. I feel like that sort of makes the Kura Sau LESS Thallain, though. One of the big things about Thallain is that they use the same powers of the Kithain, because dreams and even glamour are also dark things. If they have literally NO Wu Tan, and instead use KJ disciplines granted them by the Yama Kings, I feel like that makes them even MORE infernalist archtypes. Also, the Shu Shen are the explicitly called out as the Unseelie analogue at this point, which feels right to me. The Daitya seem like they fill the "role" of Thallain more as they're directly opposed to what the Shinma want, rather than just being slaves of their enemies.

That said, I'm still arguing the idea that the Shinma don't have Thallain, simply because the Thallain: A) Predate the Kithain and B) Originate as those beings. Neither of the Mu Courts share any of these common threads, and yes, I get that it could be because the Hsien don't fit in right in the first place.

Surely the Kura Sau represent disharmony and blasphemy, and the Daitya represent a dark mirror to the Shinma's original duty and the perversion of their nature into one of free-willed greed and abuse, but they're representative of the fact that distant spirits ruined the cycle and the celestial order. They're not representative of the dark dreams of humanity. The Yama Kings are an awkwardly easternized take on the Maeljin Incarna, not the Elder Darks. In the end, I feel like the localized cosmology of the "east" in WoD sort of ruins working these things in well, since the Dreaming just isn't a thing to them. Except that it is. But it isn't.


Actually, let me TL;DR this. Hsien don't have Glamour, or Banality, or interact with the Dreaming directly. It would not make sense for them to have a Dark Dream analogue. Thus, while they have a Dark Reflection, it should be no more a creature of the Elder Darks or Nightmare than they are of the Tuatha.