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Here's something I've been working on for a while now. A fanmade Idigam, she's part of a bigger project I have in mind but, because she's the lynchpin of it and the writers are doing a great job at getting us excited for the Idigam Chronicles, I've forced myself to finish at least this part of my plan and share it, since I could not wait for the book to be released
The Obsidian Butterfly is my first Idigam, so criticism is even more welcome than usual. The main inspiration behind her is quite obvious, starting with the name, but I hope I made something original enough to be interesting. Enjoy!
Itzumazah, the Obsidian Butterfly
"I'm afraid that's not enough, my dear. If I want to open the Gate, I'll have to ask something more from you. Now, behave and let me try again. Now please remember to scream as loud as you can during the process: it makes the whole thing easier and a lot more enjoyable. For me, at least"
Aliases: The Obsidian Butterfly, Death's Handmaiden, the Blood Drenched Lover, the Shadow Behind the Stars
This story is true. But the Uratha do not know it: this story belongs to others.
No one could tell how old the Butterfly was or from where it came from. It just wandered across the land looking for something. When other spirits noticed it and began to wonder about that powerful creature, they could tell only two things: that it was in love and that it was insane.
Itzumazah was insane because it was in love, but its soulsmate could not be found. The Butterfly waited eons for it to return, but it was only on the first days of Pangea that it embarked on a quest to find him. It soon proved to be a desperate research: no one, neither the weakest nor the mighty Incarna, remembered its lover. Places where the Idigam was absolutley certain to find some traces, proved to be false tracks. It fearlessly sought answers around all the corners of the world, from the lairs of the earliest Maeljin to the courts of the Celestines, without success. Then, Itzumazah convinced itself that the other spirits were lying, and that it was all part of a plan to keep them apart. That's when it got angry. The Idigam declared war to the world, enslaved an army of lesser spirits and devastated entire continents. Father Wolf tried to kill it dozens of times, but thanks to its ever changing nature, it always managed to escape and rebuild its forces. Every time the God of Wolves and his bastard sons vanified its efforts, it grew more and more hateful, coming to see Urfarah as the the most blatant tool of its tormentors. Its crusade only endend when Itzumazah dared to attack Helios himself, murdering every single member of the Sun Choir it managed to find and even trying to cross the coldness of space to fight him. The Butterfly clearly remembered that its lover used to delve in the exact same place of the spirit of the Sun, so it concluded he had to be part of the conspiracy, probably the mind behind it. Helios responded by incinerating the whole army as soon as it left the atmosphere, stripped the flesh from the Idigam's bones and hurled it back to the Earth's surface.
Completely charred and barely alive, Itzumazah was forced to pause for a moment and think. Perhaps the search for its lover had been doomed to fail since the beginning. Perhaps it was as the other spirits said. It was not dead or imprisoned: it was not real. Itzumazah was the only one who remembered it. The Idigam was certain to be right but at the same time, most of the things it was ready to swear to be true, seemed to never have happened in the first place. Yet, it all seemed so real, and there where moments when it almost felt as it was about to wake up from a dream and return to a world that corresponded to that of its fractured memories. Unable to ease the struggles that plagued its mind, Itzumazah, now known as the Obsidian Butterfly, for the color of its carbonized skin, looked for the deepest chasm it could find. Here, in a desperate attempt to put an end to its sufferings, it ripped her hearth from its chest and threw it into the abyss. Feeling the blood flowing from her body and into the depths of the world, for an instant it almost hoped it could finally find peace into the cold embrace of death. Sadly, the protean nature of its kind betrayed Itzumazah and, when it noticed that its shape shifted and healed its wounds, a rain of black tears emerged from its countless eyes, and no one could say how long it stood there.
While on the run from the fangs of Father Wolf, some other Idigams happened to ran into the grieving creature. They warned it that, with the help of Luna, the God of Wolves finally managed to find a way to imprison their kin. Itzumazah quietly got up, and walked away. It then approached Urfarah, surrendered and asked to suffer the same fate of her brothers. Father Wolf hurled it on the lunar surface, and here is where its story really diverges from those of other Idigams. You see, turns out the Butterfly was able to leave the moon.
EXILE
Itzumazah spent the first few centuries alone, crying, not paying attention to its brethen and their conflicts. Its exile was, in a way, a voluntary one, and thus felt no need to rage against its captors. It was a broken being. After a while, the Butterfly finally accepted the fact that its lover was not real, at least not in a conventional sense. It took a lot of time and of careful meditation, but it managed to remember enough. Like many Idigams, the Butterfly was as old as the cosmos, a monster spawned by the primordial ooze.It just happened to be a little older than most and somehow able to remember another reality; a world that could have been but that, when the reality came together and manifested, became only a discarded possibilty. And that's where its lover was trapped, The Obsidian Butterfly set forth, determined to find a way to break the walls of this reality.
This is where the stories about the Butterfly disagree. All concur that Itzumazah left the Moon at this moment, as if it was never truly imprisoned. The reason behind this is the true point of the discussion. Perhaps its innate connection with the void of space and the darkness of the blackest nights allowed it to flee. Or maybe it struck a deal with Luna, suggest the Pure. Perhaps it was only a mere trick of fate. Some even say that Itzumazah found something buried under the lunar surface, something that it considered a kindred spirit and that showed the Idigam a way to bypass the wards created by Luna and carry on with its agenda. The true reason notwithstanding, the Idigam could roam free.
The Butterfly rarely returned to Earth. Itzumazah thought that the answers it was looking for could not be found only on a single small planed and thus it spent most of the time exploring the dephts of cosmos, trying to understand the nature of this universe and how to tear it apart. During its brief visits, it shaped a few spirits to do her bidding and gather all knowledge they could found. At the time of its first visit, Father Wolf was already dead and the Gauntlet was born from his death cry. The Idigam was intrigued by this barrier between world and studied it carefully for a while, but eventually returned into the blackness of space.
The Butterfly spent millenias across the stars. It witnessed the birth and death of many stars, observed the fate of countless worlds and rode the waves of the supernovas. It warred against alien spirits and drained the Essence of unawakened suns. Even then, while it indeed discovered more about the nature of this universe and the Shadow world than generations of Ithaeur may ever hope to, nothing of what it had learned could help her to achieve her goal. The doors to the other dimension were too well hidden to be found. In order to get some results, the Butterfly had to thread where even the rules of this reality break down: it had to dive into a black hole.
In order to do so and have the dimmest hope of returning, Itzumazah kidnapped five ethereal spirits of the stars and twisted them into an unholy court of abominations. Those five, the Handmaidens, would wait for their liege just on the outskirts of the black hole and pray for its return, acting as an an anchor. As the place of this desperate act, the Obsdian Butterfly choose the massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. A return to its roots, in a way. After travelling to the outskirts of the event horizon and bidding farewell to its handmaidens, the Idigam plunged herself into the darkness.
No one can say what exactly happened to the Obsidian Butterfly when it was inside the black hole. To its minions, Itzumazah tells that after a seemingly neverending pain and a series of events that cannot be properly explained to mortal minds, it managed to get a glimpse of the universe she sought so much, a dark and twisted place where the stars shone darkness instead of light and devoured everthing that came close to them, where it finally met its lover and all those spirits it remembered and spoke briefly with them before being forcibly expulsed from there and returning to our reality. The Butterfly says they revealed her that it had to tore this universe apart, for the deathcry of this reality would open the door to the other. One cannot exists while the other lives, and each drop of blood spilled in this universe would be a step into the right direction. Many of those who know the story insist that madness was the only thing Itzumazah could find in there, and that all the stories it tells and the spirits it tries to recreate are only a manifestation of its shattered mind. The results don't change much: the Butterfly entered a black hole and coalesced there only to return, reforged both in body and mind. The Obsidian Buttterfly took its Handmaidens and created an army of dark spirits with their assistance. Most of them would infest the cosmos and wait for her orders. The Butterfly itself returned to Earth, determined to win her battle in the same place of her original defeat. it made an oath to exterminate the spawn of Father Wolf that obstacled her so much in the days of Pangea, to make Luna fall from the sky and, most of all, to extinguish the light of Helios in order to prepare the universe for the arrival of its beloved: Anthelios, the Black Sun.
RETURN
Itzumazah finally returned to Earth, only to find that the discendants of Father Wolf were now confused, weaker, always at each other's throat. They have forgot most of what they knew about the Idigam. What surprised the Butterfly most was that some of its brethen evaded from the lunar prison as well. This chaotic situation suited her just fine, since the Butterfly modus operandi certainly is not among the most subtle ones. To put it bluntly, it planned to destroy everything, to kill everyone she could and to paint the Gauntlet with the blood of those who made it suffer. Nice stuff all around, with the added benefit that, aside from the ordinary powers of the Idigam, it could use this suffering to call strange spirits from "the Other Place" and further its plans.
Itzumazah is not the strongest Idigam on Earth, not to mention some of those still imprisoned on the Moon, but it's vicious, motivated and crazy enough not to care about the consequences of it actions. A fearless being with eons of of experience and an army of spirits at its orders, the Butterfly is a force to be reckoned with. Itzumazah does not exactly stroll into a city only to tear the Gauntlet down and feast on Uratha entrails, but discrection and careful planning only work so far when you're a bloodthirsty homicidal fanatic: Werewolves will notice its presence soon or later, or at least that's something really bad is happening. If they can act before it's too late or if they can even hope to fight Itzumazah...well, that's a whole different story.
DESCRIPTION
Itzumazah is a terrifying creature. Sometimes it appear as a really tall tall woman with complexion as as black as the night, covered with little stars that shine an eerie light. Other times it is a giant man made of darkness, dressed with an ornate armor of obsidian that resembles no existing culture. Sometimes, she's just a humanlike silhouette which eats all the light around it, like a humanoid black hole. Beautiful, in its own sinister way. But those are only facades, optical illusions that fall as quickly as a flayed skin thrown aside: Itzumazah is a skeletal horror, a monster made of charred bones that look like onyx at first sight. A wide pair of butterfly (or bat, some would say) obsidian wings, as sharp as the sharpest blade, sprout from its back. It is costantly surrounded by a cold blue flame and often a swarm of small dots of darkness, like small black suns, follow the Idigam wherever it goes. A nightmarish figure, the Butterfly moves like a broken marionette who wails and cries until it finds its next victim, at which point it emits a blood-chilling howl and leaps forward, claws unsheathed.
SECRETS
Itzumazah hates the Uratha, the Pure and all the other mongrels of Father Wolf's family and would gladly erase them from the face of the Earth but, to be honest, they're not the main target of its hate. Like those conspiracy theorist who might hate the law enforcement but ultimately recognize them only as a tool of the oppressor on the top of the pyramid, the Obsidian Butterfly feels that the Uratha are only a piece of a bigger mosaic. Those who are really behind it all are, according to Itzumazah, Luna and Helios, Especially Helios. The Butterfly despises him with all its might and considers the spirit of the Sun as the main reason because its lover cannot manifest in this universe, as a thief with delusions of grandeur that took a place that did not belonged to him and convinced all the other spirits to help him keep such position. Father Wolf was a foolish bully with no right to decide what was wrong and what was right, the entitled Uratha are even worse, Luna is a whore, but Helios is the worst of them all. Naturally, this means Itzumazah plans to destroy the Sun. It has no idea of how to do it yet, but it is amassing power and exterminating all the Helions it crosses by in the meantime. Eventually, if left unchecked, the Idigam will find a way and plunge the Sun into the maw of oblivion.
RUMORS
"That thing thinks it is free and doing its own business but, as if that wouldn't have been bad enough, it's only a pawn of the Maejlin. You've have seen what it does on both sides of Gauntlet. Hell, i would almost be disappointed if the area is not corrupted enough to open a Wound every time it comes around. What? Don't make that face. I was just kidding!"
While Itzumazah does not work for the Maeljin, it is true that its actions spread huge amounts of negative resonance and makes easier for the Shadow to fester into a true Wound. The Butterfly will probably kill any Bale Hound that comes looking for an ally, but it is not unreasonable for an uninformed werewolf to draw a connection between the Idigam and the Lords of the Wounds. In truth, all the pain it causes is only a mean to an end, a mean it enjoys, but a mean nevertheless. When the time will come, even the Maeljin will have to perish along the rest of the cosmos.
"Idigams are mad, no doubt with that, but this one is crazier. I've been collecting all the fragment of its rants I could from the tales of the survivors and those depict an insane scenario. Yes, I know about those spirits that follow it but, come on, don't be stupid. They are only the results of the experiments of that monster. I don't care what you think you saw:: it does not work that way"
Again, who knows? Itzumazah believes in its lover and its otherwordly prison and all that matters is that it wields enough power not to question the menace it poses. These strange spirits come from somewhere, but they enter the world only through the Obsidian Butterfly. It must be stopped: if the aliens spirits are born from its madness and not from a cancerous reality that only wishes to replace ours, all the better. If that's not the case...let's face a problem at the time, ok?
"I've been lucky, I know. We found its underground nest and we we're bold enough to think that, with the help of some other packs, we could surround the Idigam and kill it. We accepted the fact that many of us would have not returned, but underestimated that monster. It was not alone: they were not spirits, not exactly, but there were plenty of them and they were on their home turf. I remember only being surrounded by sharp fangs and the sound of leathery wings, just before the light turned out. What were they, you ask? Bats, my friend. The thing created a damned Bat Shartha back in Pangea and they were only waiting down there for it to return"
Long ago, Itzumazah ripped its hearth off its chest and threw it into a deep chasm, renouncing to a major amount of its powers. Nothing really disappears, and that amount of hateful energy transformed itself into something different. Born after the defeat the Butterfly suffered at the hands of the Sun, the Suthilu, the Bat Host, grew underground and hid beneath the eyes of the Uratha, emerging only with darkness to hunt and feed. Their istinctive imperative is simple: make this world bleed and drain it. When Itzumazah returned and found about these unexpected sons, the Idigam was simply delighted to notice that it could use them as well.
(The Suthilu are the Bat Host I've been working on. Inspired by Mike Mignola's Baltimore vampires with a dash of Black Spiral Dancers from Werewolf the Apocalypse, I intend to post them as soon as possible)
"The time is coming. The Obsidian Butterlfy and her cohort are only waiting for the stars to be right. If we don't prevent it, the next solar eclipse will be our last one, as they will descend from space and devour us all. But don't fear! All we need to quench her thirst is blood. Lots of blood, i know, but still better than the alternative. We all have to made some sacrifices, after all. Now please don't move: this will hurt a bit"
Itzumazah is clever and so are its Handmaidens. They sometimes appear to suggestionable mortals (or even not so suggestionable ones) and tell them this sort of story, only to wait for the things to evolve into the most obvious direction. They don't give much attention to this cults and expect them to be eradicated soon enough but, when your goal is to rewrite reality, any help is welcome.
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