[Idigam] Itzumazah, the Obsidian Butterfly

[Cinder]

Damn. I just saw the updates to the Obsidian Butterfly, and I can safely say she's even more terrifying than before. Moreso with her Handmaidens. A quick question, though. How would you translate the idigam's 1E power, Caress of the Dead Stars? As a Dread Power, I imagine?

Yes, a unique Dread Power. And I agree that the new rules make her even worse.

I'm not sure what's scarier, that the Butterfly managed to subdue its five Handmaidens, or the Handmaidens themselves being a thing.

(Nitpick: Willpower only goes up to 10 dots for Ephemeral Beings of up to Rank 5.)

That's what happens when you try to write stuff when you should go to bed. Thanks for making me notice.

Edit: I also forgot to write a new list of Numina and Influences for Itzumazah, considering that many of the old ones were replaced by Manifestations. It's done now, but the fault is all mine.

[YeOfLittleFaith]

I'm not sure what's scarier, that the Butterfly managed to subdue its five Handmaidens, or the Handmaidens themselves being a thing.

(Nitpick: Willpower only goes up to 10 dots for Ephemeral Beings of up to Rank 5.)

[Deionscribe]

Damn. I just saw the updates to the Obsidian Butterfly, and I can safely say she's even more terrifying than before. Moreso with her Handmaidens. A quick question, though. How would you translate the idigam's 1E power, Caress of the Dead Stars? As a Dread Power, I imagine?

[Cinder]

Since I have just finished writing the Bat Host I promised doing long ago, I took some time and came back working on their progenitor as well.

Aside from adding rules to adapt the Obsidian Butterfly to the Second Edition and the new and improved Idigam rules, I also wrote a description of her five Handmaidens. It's just a bit of new material but gives you a better look of the forces Itzumazah can deploy. Enjoy!

[wyrdhamster]

Sure. It just takes a careful and smart Bale Hound to contact it.
To hope to speak with Butterfly, a Bale Hound would probably have to approach it carefully, leaving gifts at first (the sort of gifts a Bale Hound could make to a bloodthirsty Idigam), solve some of the problems Itzumazah may have in the local area then have some spirits intercede for him. Spirits the Bale Hound does not care much for are probably the best choice. Then, after meeting the Butterfly,such Bale Hound would have to convince the Idigam that they share a common goal and that, even if most Bale Hounds serve the Maeljin and have no interest into destroying the world completely, his pack and his allies. on the other hand, are willing to listen and help.
If you flatter it enough. keep your head down and don't show any sign of disrespect, all while offering her plenty of victims to do her thing, the Obsidian Butterfly might be willing to play with the Bale Hounds for a while. It will not thrust them at all, and it will continue to create its spirits and increase its control over the area. It won't have much patience and would probably prefer to speak only with a limited number of Bale Hounds but, if the werewolves convince the Idigam of the fact that they can be used to further its goals and won't interfere with its agenda, the Butterfly might be convinced to not destroy them. The Bale Hounds will only have to be worried about keeping the Idigam entertained and having a good escape plan in case they succeed in their work and become the only available target around.

As I'm coming to start 2nd Act of mine game were players will facing the Bale Hounds themselves, I come to rethink idea of Obsidian Butterfly involvement. I non-sane werewolf would summon this entity - but they could be fooled. What if not Itzumazah working for Demon Princess, but the other way around. Or rather, they both used each other?

Obsidian Butterfly wants something from Inferno Legions, and Malejins is using her for they own mark. Maybe real, biblical Apocalypse? Or making as large havoc and misery to make they work even more simple.

What do you think about this take on this? What could be reasons for cooperation of Demon Lords with Idigam?

[StSword]

While I understand the point you are trying to make, it is a bit out of the werewolf raison d'etre. second sight is a generic book despite it's overly friendly to mage.

[Cinder]

Just a quick thing before going to bed, because if you found some time to comment, I feel like the least I can do is to answer. I may expand on this tomorrow when my eyes don't close themselves.

Why would the GM want to let an Abyssal Lord to mess with his status quo? he has already enough problems trying to maintain it with those pesky supernaturals glitches and rogue demons viruses around?

As I said, the GMC option is totally viable, but your doubts are understandable. My take on the Black Sun is still in the brainstorming phase, but I can say this for now:

I tend to draw heavily from mythology, especially when I'm working with Werewolf and Changeling. I change many things and adapt the others to the WoD, but if you know where to look, it's easy to track it back to the original source. In Aztec mythology, the Black Sun is indeed a symbol of death and fear, but also of rebirth (like butterflies). Likewise, in alchemy, the Black Sun, is the first step of the process to obtain the philosopher's stone, the destruction before the creation.

With that in mind, I would personally suggest that the GM, a subroutine of it or a program big enough to act on its own while still inside the system (like Death), might indeed have an interest into letting the Black Sun into our world. After all, if you have too many glitches and viruses, perhaps it's time to format and reboot the system. Nothing says that Anthelios would agree with being used this way, though...

Yeah, the fluff screams abyssal to me to, but hardly necessary.

There are also the reality bending lovecraftian horrors from Second Sight.

Perhaps the OB's schnookums has a cult with weird and horrific abilities that would be more than happy to arrange a reunion.

Through the werewolves a curveball, since I don't think most idigam would even consider mere human minions.

Of course. If you prefer to consider it a Second Sight horror, that's certainly an adequate solution. You don't have to bring other gamelines into this.

As for the cult, I don't have plans to describe a specific one for now because I've written an Idigam cult not long ago for Mussughana, the Locust Host patron, and, even as a great fan of Lovecraft, you can only write a certain number of hidden cults before your ideas begin to overlap. Perhaps in the future, when the well of ideas I use for cultists refills a bit.

in that case, I'm going to follow your material for the "black sun chronicle". Since it was hinted in the Slasher book that there is some "race" for completing the "black sun map", I'm pretty obsessed with anything (both canon and fanmade) which could be added to that head canon of mine- and your Butterfly fits right in :P

Glad to hear that. The Black Sun map the Driver is looking for is going to be mentioned for sure. Gotta love Slasher

[LostLight]

in that case, I'm going to follow your material for the "black sun chronicle". Since it was hinted in the Slasher book that there is some "race" for completing the "black sun map", I'm pretty obsessed with anything (both canon and fanmade) which could be added to that head canon of mine- and your Butterfly fits right in :P

[Cinder]

hey- it's a personal interpretation, and I don't claim it to be Cinder's true intention. It is simply that when you add the Black Sun, Death, a Butterfly, Aztec mythology and the Moon, you get something that sounds.. familiar (a.k.a, the "Butterfly Grave" and Death from the God Machine's story), plus the fact that one of the possible reasons for how she left the Moon was through the help of a "kindred spirit". For why would the God Machine would do it- I don't know. I'll have to make a chronicle around it to discover, which may contain other people who seek after the "black sun" (which we already have 3 canon ones) :P

It's up in the air, actually.

I mean, I know which answers I would use in my games and I have a series of reasons you can use to justify any option I offered but, following the great NWoD tradition of not giving blunt solutions to big mysteries, I preferred to leave it vague. To be fair, my first draft was a straight GMC story, with the Death option as the only "canon" one, but it felt really forced and awkward as I was writing it, so I restarted from scratch. I can tell you how I would introduce it in a chronicle, but it's only one of the possibilities.

As for Anthelios, well, that's even less defined, mainly because I'm still far from writing about it. It all started from the Bat Host and then went upward the WoD food chain. It is probably going to be a major Abyssal being, but all I have right now are a lot of little ideas that span across most of the gamelines (if the Sixth Mummy Guild turns out to be made of astronomers, I'm going to have a lot of fun) and I'll probably have to write some of those before I have a general picture good enough to show the entity behind it. This sort of "Black Sun Chronicle" it's without doubt my most ambitious project to date and, considering I write other stuff too, tend to get easily distracted and jump from an Onyx Path gameline to another without any reason, I don't think I'm going to finish it but, hey, you've got to try to raise the bar sometimes.

That being said, I thank everybody for your criticism and/or your appreciations and I'm glad it's sparking some discussion, in a way or the other. It's motivating, to say the least.

[Korogra]

Can't wait for the Bat-Hosts

[Furrly]

I admit that's something that came to my mind as well, not gonna lie.

I was aiming at something similar at the relationship between Marvel's Thanos and Death (not intentionally, but after you brainstorm a while and that's what comes out, you have to be honest with yourself) and kept the Butterfly a female because her blatant mythological inspiration is, but I can definitely see what your point is. Unfortunate implications that happen when you reverse the genders, too bad. I hoped that I could manage to write the Idigam without giving the wrong impression, but I guess I was not successfull. The sexes are indeed not meaning much when talking about spirits and the Butterfly is mad for reason that have nothing to do with her gender, but if that's only implied and my write-up sounds fishy, then I guess it's better to review it a bit. Apologies for screwing this up: I aknowledged the risks but ignored them.

I like you work asit is , great job

[LostLight]

Why would the GM want to let an Abyssal Lord to mess with his status quo? he has already enough problems trying to maintain it with those pesky supernaturals glitches and rogue demons viruses around?

hey- it's a personal interpretation, and I don't claim it to be Cinder's true intention. It is simply that when you add the Black Sun, Death, a Butterfly, Aztec mythology and the Moon, you get something that sounds.. familiar (a.k.a, the "Butterfly Grave" and Death from the God Machine's story), plus the fact that one of the possible reasons for how she left the Moon was through the help of a "kindred spirit". For why would the God Machine would do it- I don't know. I'll have to make a chronicle around it to discover, which may contain other people who seek after the "black sun" (which we already have 3 canon ones) :P

[StSword]

Yeah, the fluff screams abyssal to me to, but hardly necessary.

There are also the reality bending lovecraftian horrors from Second Sight.

Perhaps the OB's schnookums has a cult with weird and horrific abilities that would be more than happy to arrange a reunion.

Through the werewolves a curveball, since I don't think most idigam would even consider mere human minions.

[Raistlin]

Why would the GM want to let an Abyssal Lord to mess with his status quo? he has already enough problems trying to maintain it with those pesky supernaturals glitches and rogue demons viruses around?

[LostLight]

Oh, crap. Her lover lives in the Abyss... AND SHE WANTS TO LET IT IN! :0

you meant- her lover is in the Abyss, she wants to let him in and maybe the God Machine is giving her an hand. Idigam+ Abyss+ God Machine= there is nowhere to run... No wonder I had a nightmare about her last night ::P