Axel's Beast Rewrite

WHAT A BEAST IS

In the great expanses of the cosmic dark, a Beast is a fire; a flame; a light that is not lost to the darkness. Beasts are souls born of the Dark Mother, so vibrant and brilliant that shadows would dance in their presence and calcify into shapes which are pleasing to them. In the Age Before Ages, they ruled the world as immortal gods, perhaps even birthing the very shape of the world itself if their own legends are to be believed.

If such days ever were, they are no more. Beasts are no longer the pure souls they once were but wear the Shroud of the Flesh, hiding within the shadows they once commanded into form and force. Humanity has stolen the world from them, stolen their immortality and agelessness, and forced them into hiding. The world belongs to the Beasts no longer and they must even take their captor's hated form just to survive.

In this fallen age, Beasts cannot enter the world as they once did; naked, incarnate souls of terrible power. Instead, each follows the call of the blood of Kin and takes on Flesh, becoming born in the shape of the Enemy. Born (or reborn anew) in this way, Beasts grow as humans do until they come of age and achieve their Homecoming; a kindling of their great souls that shapes the cosmic dark and gives form to their Lairs. Mere Flesh no more, the Beast is reborn and ready to face the world as themselves once again.

The question is what they will do.

THE DARKLING BLOOD

All Beasts are born knowing Her name. At least, one of Her names. She has so many, some of which are known to Man and other speakable only in tongues foreign to humanity. Lilith, Echidna, Tiamat, these are mere archetypes and titles for what every Beast knows Her to be by instinct: The Dark Mother.

The Dark Mother is to Beasts both ancient archigenitor and cosmic principle; the source of all their kind, their patron goddess, and their one source of salvation against humanity, so their myths say. It was She who first birthed their kind eons ago, and She who wrapped them in the Shroud of Her own sacred darkness. It is Her blood that ran through their veins and still does to this day.

Yet despite this, Beasts know truly little of the Dark Mother. Her name, far from being a suggestion of evil or malice, is a reference to this; She is dark because She is in shadow; occulted; hidden; concealed. The Dark Mother acts, of this Beasts are sure, but how, why, in what way and to what purpose, these things are beyond them. The Cenobites, one of the many Tribes of Beasts, seek to know Her ways and mysteries, but even they can only guess at whatever Her true motives may be.

FAMILY VALUES

Beasts are not made. They are born. Every Beast is the heir to an ancient lineage, stretching back to before the Dawn of Man. They are, body and soul, forged by the Dark Mother and are born with a sense of this understanding. This chain of connection, these ties of family, are manifest in their daily condition; Beasts cannot escape knowing that they are connected to others of their kind, and disconnected from the masses of humanity at large, even those whom the blood runs thick enough to be called Progeny.

These ties of family are Beast's natural links to one another, and it is the forging of families into Tribes of shared belief and purpose that give them the strength to be more than mindless savages or brief curiosities; an unbroken connection of blood, lineage, belief, and purpose. These are things which will outlast any nightmare. Immortal as Beasts claim to be or have been, they are not islands any longer. Humanity is too powerful and dangerous to be faced alone.

ENEMY MINE

Humanity is a paradox to the Begotten; individually weak, yet collectively mighty. The human soul is a small spark beside the Beast's raging flame, and yet these sparks may come together and cry out as one, and raise one of their own above them all to become a towering inferno that can loom over the fires of the Kin. These greater flames are called Heroes; the collective outcry of human souls against the Other.

Heroes are a threat to Beasts, but not one without warrant. Many Beasts see the rise of Heroes as a natural response; an act of collective self-defense by the super-organism of humanity. Beasts are a threat, and Heroes come into being far more often from a Beast's actions than not. For those Beasts who believe in co-existence with humanity, attempts at reasoning can sometimes see a bloodless resolution of conflict. Yet more often than not, such attempts end only in one party dead and the other wounded far more than they would have been had they simply shot first. This sort of risk to rationality sets the stage for the tribalist feud that has persisted between two species for as long as any can remember.

Yet humanity is not the sole foe which Beasts face. Threats can come from within. Even were Beasts not often territorial creatures driven by abiding passions, it would be inevitable that conflicts of ideology would lead to struggles. Such internal dickering is nothing, however, compared to the threat posed by those Beasts who incarnate completely intact; those whose souls recall the Age Before Ages. These terrible and wondrous beings, the Oldest of the Kin, remember a world that knew them as its masters... And they are not so content as their younger siblings to wait to have it return to their hands.

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THE BEASTLY CONDITION - HOW A BEAST IS BORN

In the cosmic dark that is her cold and echoing womb, the Dark Mother moves and creates a spark. This is the first birth of a Beast.

On our world, as they do every day, two humans of opposite sex do as instinct commands. A familiar, sweaty ritual is completed, and a new life takes shape. It gestates and grows within its mother. This new life bears an ancient taint; its blood is thick enough, by cultivation or chance, that it calls to the light. The light follows the call, and hides itself inside the Flesh. This is the second birth of a Beast.

Years pass. The Flesh is grown. It has felt all its life the stirrings of its true soul, but the Shroud has kept its nature secret even from itself. It establishes itself amidst the masses of humanity, following the strange visions calling in its wildest nightmares, until, one day, it is called Home. The soul awakens, tears open a hole in the world, and walks outside it. The soul blazes. The Flesh is transformed. This is the third and final birth of a Beast; its Homecoming.

For Beasts born outside the clutches of families of Progeny, a high number indeed in this day and age, the Homecoming comes as a surprise. Barring chance encounters, they grow up likely thinking of themselves as strange but human. They may feel their entire life as if they do not fit in, with strange and possibly morbid obsessions, diagnosed with a litany of mental ailments and disorders, but few actually expect that they are the dragon they dream of at night. This can make the actual transformation into that dragon an understandably traumatic event; equal numbers of Beasts describe their Homecoming as an astonishing relief and awful shock, with many of these agreeing to both.

Once the Homecoming is complete, it can be a long time before a Beast actually sees one of their kind. Typically, they spend a long time trying to adjust until their Hunger begins to gnaw behind their eyes and they start acting on long-restrained impulses. Most Beasts, being largely human, have trouble understanding how to cover their tracks, and are either found by their own kind or end up slain by a Hero within a year of their first feeding.

If a Beast is found by one of the Kin before then, what follows is usually something of an initiation, backed by an offer that cannot be refused. Either the new Beast will listen to the wisdom of their elders - at the very least as friendly advice - or they will be put down as a risk to the Tribes. Even dragons are afraid of other, bigger dragons.

This is usually where a Beast learns of the Shroud, the Tribes, and the Dark Mother.

THE SHROUD

In the recounting of Bestial lore, there are many tales of the origin of the Shroud. The Cenobites tell one tale that, in the dying days of the Age Before Ages, when it was clear the Beasts were losing the war for the world and walked the edge of extinction, one of their number (alternatively called Grandmother or Granddaughter Night) performed a series of desperate rituals to call out to the Dark Mother to save Her children.

She answered.

Tearing loose a piece of Her own occultation, the Dark Mother wrapped the Kin within it like a swaddling cloth, and allowed their mighty souls to hide within the Flesh. This became known as the Shroud.

The Shroud takes the form of two powerful pieces of magic that protect Beasts from recognition by humanity. The first and most dramatic of these is the Binding; the thing which ties the Soul to the Flesh. A Beast's soul is a powerful and mighty thing that exudes reality, but naked and vulnerable to the weapons of Heroes, and so it ties itself to the Flesh, hiding within it until it is strong enough to allow the first true merger of the two within the Lair. After this, the Binding still remains, so that, when outside the Lair, the Beast's Flesh retains a human(oid) form. This limits its powers - Atavisms and Nightmares - to a significant extent, but also makes it actually possible for a Beast to hide amongst the world of Men.

The second half of this magic is the Caul, a magical illusion that shields the Beast from the eyes of humanity. With the Binding in place, the Caul causes the humanoid form of the Beast to seem outright human. This illusion is not perfect; any who are touched by the world's magic may see through it without issue, and it evaporates like mist either if the Beast wills it or if they unleash their powers. Yet it is sufficient that a careful Beast may actually hide amidst the masses of unaware humanity well enough to avoid their own extinction. The Dark Mother provides.

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SIDEBAR: How alien is the alien?

Beasts are not human. No matter how much they look like one or act like one, they are not. Barring some absolute miracle, they never will be, and few of them would ever want to be, any more than a human might wish to be a fish. Yet despite the protests so many of them make, Beasts and humans are not completely alien to one another. Just how far apart are they, really?

This rewrite does not attempt to answer this question for you, it will vary from game to game, Beast to Beast. It does, however, take the position that no matter how loudly some Beasts protest, there is a reason this question has never been put to bed. Even if Beasts and humans are different from one another on some basic, fundamental level, they can still see eye to eye enough for Beasts to be raised by human parents, to share common interest and understanding, to experience sympathy and even empathy for each other's weaknesses and fears, and to fall in love.
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THE LAIR

In the Age Before Ages, the Reclaimers say, Beasts did not have Lairs as they do now. The soul of a Beast exudes reality around it, creating for itself a place to exist - a process Makara liken to reef-building corals. The fossil record, to these philosophers, represents the thought processes of eons of their kind, thinking, creating, dreaming.

In this debauched era, they say, such a thing is now the effort of a lifetime, and fraught with peril. For their own safety, the Beast's Soul must hide itself, away from the world, extending itself into it only through the pathways built by the Flesh, which acts as guardian to that sacred space.

A Beast's Lair is where it is at its most puissant, and its most vulnerable. Here, it is strongest, and yet most susceptible to its permanent death. Beasts claim they are immortal and eternal, for the death of the Flesh is little more than a temporary inconvenience, but the death of the Soul is a true and final end. A Beast invites others into its Lair at its peril.

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THE BEASTLY NATURE - HUNGER, FAMILY, AND IDENTITY

Beasts are living things. In their lives, they will be and do many things. Yet in them all, they shall, inescapably, always be Beasts; mighty souls born of a Dark Mother who are ruled by terrible passions. Every Beast is born into this world knowing the name of their passions and, even at a young age, they understand them, if not completely. The all-consuming scope and breadth is something that manifests only after they mature after their Homecoming. These Hungers will define them from there on, from cradle to grave.

Yet it is not Hunger alone that defines a Beast. They are still creatures with a will of their own. How they indulge their Hunger is something they choose to define, and some Beasts manage to attempt something possibly even approaching nobility or heroism through theirs. Likewise, life is not solely about feeding; one can eat to live, not live to eat. Beasts find themselves (re)born into a world that was once theirs, surrounded by their kin and Kin, as well as legions of human beings. They are tied by blood and action to all these people, and they must decide what and who they feel is worth embracing as family.

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SIDEBAR: Can Beasts be good?

This is something of a loaded question, and any in-depth answer is beyond the scope of this rewrite but, in a word, yes, Beasts can be conventionally good. Beasts don't need to be unsympathetic, ravenous monsters. They certainly can be, and some of them (and not just the Oldest) definitely are, but they don't have to be. A Beast is in charge of its own destiny. There is no reason that a Beast who hoards knowledge cannot become a wise teacher; no reason that a Beast who brings ruin cannot tear down unjust institutions and build virtuous ones in their wake; that a Beast who punishes cannot seek out genuine criminals who would otherwise evade the long arm of the law.

Are these still good deeds when compelled by some wild, terrible instinct deep within their soul? Perhaps. But at the very least, most people will consider them good enough to introduce some grey into the conflict between Hero and Beast. For more on this, see the Mechanics section.
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ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY

Beasts live something of a paradox. In the World of Darkness, they are one of the few supernatural entities whose genesis lies not in the covetous action of some other supernatural being (well, not any more than the birth of any human does, at least), nor in some astonishing revelation. Beasts are truly born into this world as Beasts. Yet despite this, Beasts are also frequently born into this world alone. The Progeny - those whose blood runs thick with the Dark Mother's taint but possess a human soul - are rare in this world and not every Beast is born into these ancient clans. True Kin are rarer still. How can one's own parents and childhood playmates seem as strangers?

Beasts resolve this paradox by seeking out the family they know will understand them. They gather cults, raise families of Progeny, and look for the elders of their kind to teach them their ways. Over time, these efforts have managed to coalesce into a series of continuous, living traditions; the Tribes of the Beasts.

The Tribes are today a shadow of what they once were; the world has gotten smaller, and there are fewer places to hide than there once were. Still, they remain. Composed of collections of incestuously-preserved clans of Progeny, a diverse assortment of cults, and the Beasts who guide them, the Tribes are family, ideology, and mystery cult all rolled into one.

Cre Oga - The Reclaimers

Sobriquets: Reclaimers, World-Singers, Coral-heads (vulgar)

This world once belonged to the Beasts. It can again. It will. This is what the Cre Oga will make true. In their legends, they speak of the Titan Gaia, for whom the world was her skin, populated by her children. Then, there came gods in human likeness that drove her great children underground and set them in chains. Now the chains are loose, and the Titans have learned from their failure. When the next Titanomachy comes, they shall be the victors.

The Reclaimers, more than any other Tribe, believe in the idea of Titanomachy; a war between Beasts and humanity. More than any other Tribe, they take an antagonistic view to the relations between Beasts and humanity, with co-existence as a pipe dream and an inevitable destiny of one winning out and exterminating the other. Generally speaking, when a Beast snaps and decides to slaughter every human they can get their jaws around, the families of the Tribes set their eyes squarely on the Reclaimers.

Despite this stereotype, however, the impression is probably unfair. The Reclaimers have long since learned that simply murdering humans at every turn is a quick path to being curbstomped by a veritable mob of Heroes. Likewise, even the most staunch Reclaimers must admit that, for the moment at least, they need humans to allow for the rebirth of their own souls and the birth of new Beasts. This is even before getting into the varied but usually favourable impressions about Progeny. Many Reclaimers even manage to actually be friendly with humans; hating humanity as a whole but making exceptions for individuals. They're not all bad, right?

Goals and Methods

Reclaimer goals are largely split into two camps: Preserving/reclaiming the lost history of their kind, and preparing for the Titanomachy. Both these goals are readily served by similar methods. With the power of Inversion in their talons, Reclaimers learn to extrude their soul into the world more than most other Beasts, and gain some measure of dominion over a territory. In these places, they become gods of weather, fertility, and wealth, founding dynasties of Progeny. Typically, such places are located near ruins or relics of the Age Before Ages, secluded from the destructive hands of Man, and thus further secured against the predations of Heroes. When seclusion is not enough, fire and lightning aren't bad fallbacks. Some day, they hope, these hidden places will provide a beachhead for their kind into the world, and the Kin will number enough to overwhelm the teaming masses of humanity.

Reclaimer cults are often apocalyptic and martial in temperament. The Titanomachy could come any day now, and those lucky chosen who will live to see this final battle must be ready. Often, such apocalyptic cults do not outlast their patrons, but they rarely fall apart when they have living, incarnate proof of their divine patron. Those that do outlast their patron's demise, however, become entrenched in the Tribe, and are some of the most resilient and insular families of Progeny.

Feeding

In keeping with their dedication to reclaiming their lost history, Reclaimers add to their feeding opportunities the capacity to satisfy their Hunger using pieces of their lost history or rebuilding it. Hunger for Hoard, for example, is always satisfied by collecting relics from the Age Beyond Ages. The Tyrannical Hunger is always served by any action that cements the Beast's control over a ruin or a site created by Inversion.

Who Are You to Us?

In places where the Begotten congregate, Reclaimers often act to cement their hold over a territory. Even when not overly martial in tone, Reclaimers tend to be the most possessive of Beasts and are fiercely protective of what they see as theirs. This, in turn, can make them the most loyal of companions in a Band.

Stereotypes

Cainteoiri Fear: There's wisdom in knowing your enemy. This is just climbing into bed with them!

Cosantoiri: We have magic enough of our own... But show me how you did that.

Sagairt: Even if you aren't as active as we'd like, we would be lost without you.

Cainteoiri Fear - The Humanists

Sobriquets: Humanists, Soul-Drinkers, Mongrels (vulgar)

The world once belonged to Beasts. Then they lost it. To humanity, of all things. This is a lesson the Cainteoiri Fear have never forgotten. Their legends are not tales of great individuals, but of families; of mothers- and fathers-of-monsters, whose offspring changed the world. The fossil record is something of a symbol to them, a lesson taught by humanity: Individuals come and go, but communities can forge something grander that lasts and overcomes even tremendous disaster.

Humans are such small things, yet these small things slew dragons, toppled giants, and hauled leviathans up from the sea. It defies conception, and yet it happened! It is enough to make one laugh to tears. Humanists, though, cannot laugh; they are too busy being curious. Something - something - allowed humanity to rise up and overwhelm beings that even now many of them worship as gods. What is it? What is this thing which spawns Heroes? And can it ever be used to empower Beasts instead?

The Cainteoiri have spent millennia trying to answer this question with muddled success. Their Tribe claims to be the first to have ever produced Progeny; the synthesis of Beast and human. This is, even by their own standards, not considered to be a successful realization of their goals, but no Tribe can be said to have shunned this gift, and the Cainteoiri have, in their secretive experiments, taken it even further still. Magical rituals and selective breeding has produced some true marvels and horrors, and their spiritual (and often biological) parents can but look on with joy.

Goals and Methods

Humanity has something special. The Humanists want it. Just what it is, they're truly uncertain, but that hasn't stopped them looking for it. Just what they'd do if they found it is a matter of speculation, but common ideas are the hope to create Heroes who fight for Beasts rather than humanity, or even to innoculate themselves against whatever instinct causes humans to become Heroes in the first place. What comes next varies from Beast to Beast; those with Reclaimer sympathies might see this as a step towards victory in their prophesied Titanomachy, but far many more Humanists come to find humanity too fascinating to desire to do away with it. Many outright seek to emulate it, or at the very least are so intrigued as to desire peaceful coexistence.

The methods used to attain this goal vary immensely, and run the gamut from the exceptionally hands-off (a Beastly Jane Goodall writing "Humans In The Mist") to the shockingly disquieting (vivisection, forcing humans into awful trials, etc.). The most successful experiments thus far have been in selective breeding and eugenics, but such methods are so slow that most Beasts tend to take up a more immediate goal to ensure the long-term success of their experiment; infiltrating human society and the like.

Humanist cults tend to be experimental and transcendental; claiming some aspect of the human experience is key to self-realization, from worshiping a deity or living a paleolithic lifestyle. Most also have programming included to keep them on alert for Heroes, who are treated with special curiosity.

Feeding

Humanists, as the name implies, are interested in humanity. They feed best when focusing on something that represents some possible clue in their quest for a deeper understanding of human beings. A Hoarder might acquire a famous painting, and spend hours trying to discern what it meant to the painter; a Nemesis could study and enforce the laws of the polity they live within, and try and learn the meaning humans take within them.

Who Are You to Us?

Humanists readily become the public face of any Band of Beasts. Their fascination with humanity leads them to study and learn until they react to social cues and details without even thinking. Their talent for Adoption allows them also to expand cults and Progeny lines with remarkable ease, and their ability to infiltrate human societies makes them invaluable when it comes to acquiring the resources and favours needed to keep a Band hidden from those who may hurt them.

Stereotypes

Cre Oga: We want the world back as well. Does the revolution have to be bloody?

Cosantoiri: You see something special too, I think. You're just looking at the wrong half.

Sagairt: We aren't the only children of our Mother.

Cosantoiri - The Abnormal

Sobriquets: Abnorms, Darwinists, Orphans (vulgar)

The world once belonged to Beasts. Now it doesn't. They failed. They were not strong enough; not capable enough. It's a lesson that the Cosantoiri can't forget. The Shroud is a daily reminder that they are a people constrained; trapped in bondage by the ever-present threat of humanity. They seek to overcome; to rise above; to make themselves immune to this threat by becoming something grander. From the top of this fortress of the self, they will watch the masses of humanity break themselves upon the walls. Their myths are of personal striving; of creatures bloodied but unbowed, who rise up to overcome that which tried to break them.

The Abnorms bear a superficial similarity in belief to the Cainteori; both acknowledge their present state as a loss and defeat, and see humanity as possessing something that makes it more capable than the Kin. However, whereas the Humanists believe this strength to be worthy of emulation, perhaps even seeking synthesis with humanity, the Darwinists see their current state as a degradation. Perhaps Beasts could find some state of grace that way, but they would lose their essential selves and natures. If Beasts are to survive, it must be as Beasts or not at all.

To this end, Darwinists shun the Dark Mother's gift of the Shroud, in theory if not in practice, and the human Flesh. They become cheerleaders for inhumanity, and seek out methods to make themselves better Beasts. They experiment on themselves and others,  they throw themselves into agonizing trials, they seek out the other sources of magic in the World of Darkness, all in the hopes of transcending the weakness that is the Shroud. Whether this is so that they may rule the world once more, or simply so that they may cease to hide their true selves and be known as something other than a mask, varies from Beast to Beast, but it is rare to not find one who is a bit of both.

Goals and Methods

The Abnorms don't believe the Shroud is a gift. It is a necessary precaution but so is surrendering one's wallet to a mugger. If they had their way, they would tear off the Binding and live as they pleased without fear of lesser humanity; laughing at the mugger's blade as they show off their armoured skin. Until that day comes, those who wave the Cosantoiri flag bear the burden of having to achieve that victory. Rather more individualist and isolated than most Beast Tribes, common interest is the thickest rope in what binds them together. Abnorm families and cults gather in places that are naturally "thick" with some sort of magic other than the Beastly variety, where the Kin may examine whatever phenomena they've come to see.

Abnorm experiments can take many forms. Of any group of Beasts, they are by far the most likely to come into contact, regular or not, with the other supernatural inhabitants of the World of Darkness. If the Abnorm doesn't try to drag these creatures into their Lair and run excruciating trials to see how they respond, these contacts can often be friendly and long-lasting. Many such contacts tend to quickly find either comfort or discomfort in the Abnorm's outlook; cheerleaders for inhumanity can be welcome company or disquieting reminders. Vampires in particular seem to be accepting of the presence of a creature whose name and existence so well symbolizes their own internal struggles (in some cities, the Ordo Dracul practically has a hotline), while Changelings and Prometheans are some of the least so. Mages can often be friendly enough, but Abnorms tend to dive for cover on meeting one of the Awakened; humans with strange magic and a curiosity about Beasts strike a little too close for home.

Abnorm cults tend to be composed of loners and outsiders; more odd cliques than cults. Transhumanists and occultists alike tend to be attracted by the Beast's siren call promising evolution and growth. While typically smaller than most, Abnorm cults also tend to have far higher rates of membership amongst those who have actual supernatural power and seek out company of those who understand. A sneering attitude towards "norms" is not atypical in these circles, and help further cement the family bond.

Feeding

Trial stands out as the method of choice for self-improvement amongst the Abnorms; the hunt makes the meat taste sweeter. Abnorms make frequent habit of setting a challenge for themselves when seeking out their food and, if they manage to endure it, they feed particularly well. Rather than gaining new feeding opportunities, they make old ones satisfying when they might otherwise not be, by introducing a new challenge to the mix.

Who Are You to Us?

The Consantoiri are outsiders amongst outsiders. When one does join a Band, it's usually because they see something in the group that they value, or at least for mutual protection. Naturally given to subtlety and observation, they are capable investigators. Their strange Evolutions also allow them to provide a few unique solutions that might have been otherwise unavailable.

Stereotypes

Cre Oga: Repeating the same mistakes will get us nowhere. Still... I'll stick around to watch.

Cainteoiri Fear: Stockholm Syndrome is a hell of a drug.

Sagairt: The Dark Mother could have saved us. She didn't. We are forsaken.

Sagairt - The Cenobites

Sobriquets: Cenobites, Celebrants, Fatalists (vulgar)

The Beasts once ruled the world. Yet before there were Beasts, there was the Dark Mother. The Sagairt will never forget this. They will never let anyone forget this. Before there was the world, before there was light, there was She. From Her womb spilled all things; not just crude matter, but concepts and thoughts. Still, She stirs; the eternal Mother, birthing new whispers into the cosmic dark. Since the Age Before Ages, there have always been the Sagairt; devotees and celebrants of the Dark Mother. They claim Granddaughter Night as one of their number,  and to this day they follow her example; praising the Dark Mother as they eagerly devour Her secrets.

For Cenobites, the priests of the Beasts, life is difficult. Faith is not an easy thing, even when one is born speaking the name of their god. The Dark Mother is a mysterious and enigmatic goddess and Her ways are not easily understood. Though it is dogma that She cares for Her children (the Shroud is proof, after all), priests must still wonder why their people must live in the shadows, afraid of the masses of humanity. For some, who feel enough empathy for humanity that aspects of their Hunger give them uncomfortable pause, they may even wonder why the Dark Mother made them this way at all. Much of this unquiet, the Celebrants keep to themselves and share only in private moments with one another; the Kin must see them to be strong. They must be unwavering in their faith to the Dark Mother if they are to keep receiving Her blessings, and the priests must lead by example.

Cenobite cults are invariably religious in nature, and frequently depict the Beast at their head not as the focus of worship but as merely an emissary for the Dark Mother. Their doctrines are varied, but they all set the Dark Mother as a demiurge and sustainer of the Beasts as a whole. These cults then act as hands of their high priest/ess's will, shaping the world in the likeness of the world's true goddess.

Goals and Methods

The Sagairt are as varied and diverse in their goals as they are their faith, but certain themes are common. Typically, they try to act as unifiers of the Begotten's makeshift society; calling the families of the Tribes together and ensuring their Bands work towards common benefit rather than merely using one another. They do not always take leadership positions, but it is rare that a Cenobite does not act as an advisor to whomever does; that secret knowledge and divine insight cannot be ignored. When not unifying the Kin, they are working to further their understanding of the Dark Mother and expand their rolls of rituals.

The biggest influence on the Sagairt and their goals will inevitably be their belief of humanity's place in the Dark Mother's grand scheme. For the sake of diplomacy, the official line of the Celebrants is to call humanity a threat to the Kin, but the doctrine within the Tribe itself is much more nuanced than this. Humanity's mere existence asks questions about the Dark Mother; of omnipotence, omniscience, and benevolence; a kind of Beastly Problem of Evil. Why does She simply not wipe them out? Why does She allow them to hunt the Kin? Every Sagairt must find an answer to these questions and it is this answer which must inevitably shape their callings. Most daring and heinously heretical of all is the claim that humanity is one of the Mother's newest creations, and perhaps that she favours them over Beasts...

Feeding

Mystery is the watchword of the Sagairt. They seek it out; they crave it. They have to know! The Dark Mother's cosmic plan unfolds and they, like eager children, wish to know what the next chapter will hold before it is written. Uncovering secrets makes their souls blaze. The Sagairt may feed more deeply when they must uncover the source of their food.

Who Are You to Us?

The Sagairt are the spiritual center of their Bands; the hope for horrors, giving faith to fiends. They provide a visible, concrete reminder of the action and presence of that distant Mother whose name they all know. Their rituals are shadowy miracles that provide insight and guidance for those who might otherwise feel as if they are alone and abandoned in a world no longer made for them.

Stereotypes

Cre Oga: May all our faith be vindicated.

Cainteoiri Fear: Do you shepherd new children to the flock, or debase yourself with vermin? Time will tell.

Cosantoiri: They cry like children before our Mother's blessing. Perhaps not without reason...

An Duine Is Sine - The Oldest

Sobriquets: The Oldest, the Feral, the Unbroken

The Oldest are not a Tribe. They are not a family. They are an echo of a memory; a painful recollection. They are souls who have been reborn, without ever forgetting who they were. They are true monsters even amongst monsters; the demons that demons fear.

Few Beasts alive today recall the Age Before Ages, and those who do recall them only as hazy memories of a past life, with more the quality of a dream than a memory. The An Duine Is Sine do not have such a luxury; they are born remembering a world that was theirs with painful clarity and a burning sense of loss. This clarity inevitably fosters into hatred and rage; not only for humanity but for the quislings who apparently refuse to join them in their war. They are cannibal nightmares that devour human and Beast alike in their quest to reclaim the world, and their souls burn so brightly that it is impossible to ignore these elder terrors.

When one of the Oldest emerges, it is as a roving natural disaster that strikes Beast and Man alike. Fear their coming.

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THE BEASTLY BROOD - PROGENY, HUMANITY, AND HEROES

Once, Beasts were born bright, naked souls, but no longer. Under the Shroud, they are born into this world in the Flesh. Even were this not world-shaking for the Beasts themselves, it has... Consequences.

The Progeny

When Beasts incarnate, their Flesh is not merely human. Their soul suffuses every aspect of their being, even their blood, and that blood passes to their children. The thicker the blood that passes through them, the greater the chance the child has of calling the soul of a Beast into its Flesh. Even so, the birth of a new Beast is a rare thing (typically; see Mass Births), and most children that are born have the blood of Kin but the soul of a human being. These hybrid offspring are called many names - no few Makara have called their offspring Deep Ones without even a hint of irony - but their most common identifier is Progeny. They are Kin to Beasts, and form up the largest part of membership in any given Tribe.

Being of the Kin is not without consequence. The blood of monsters cannot course through human veins without an effect. Progeny are not inhuman as Beasts are, but nor are they completely within the Enemy's camp. Progeny are, instead, tainted, body and soul, and gifted both with a measure of the power of their progenitors but also a degree of weakness, as they are corroded by a power they were never meant to contain. Added to this is the burden that Progeny blood can be preserved or diluted (typically fading to background levels within five generations of out-breeding), and the result is that most - nay, perhaps all - long-standing Progeny clans are thick with incest. The accumulation of so many generations of inbreeding cannot be expected to lack a toll, and the Progeny are often given over to extreme family resemblances, peculiar genetic oddities, and physical or mental ailments.

Amongst the Beasts, the Progeny share a special sort of place. Born with the natural capacity to see beyond the Shroud, and often possessing forms twisted by the gifts of the Dark Mother in their own right (and Shrouds of their own if they do), but bereft of any risk of becoming Heroes, Progeny become natural allies to the Beasts. So often birthing Beasts into the world, they are also seen by many as a kind of guarantee of immortality; of an assurance that the blood the Beasts rely on to incarnate shall never fade from the world. They also provide a natural source of loyal allies and companionship. Beasts will find few amongst the masses of humanity who understand them so intimately as the Progeny.

Conversely, the Progeny can also be something of an imposition on the lives of Beasts. Despite being typically weaker than the average Beast, particularly wizened Progeny can be truly dire threats if their goals and the upstart pup's do not align. Likewise, even if they are weaker on an individual level, Progeny are also significantly more numerous. They bring to bear humanity's feared numerical superiority in a way that can give even the most fearsome Beast nervous pause. The families can form significant features of a political landscape, if they see fit to throw their weight around, and the wise Beast would be careful to at least not step too hard on their toes, even if they wish to otherwise have nothing to do with the Kin.

As a final word, while the common stereotype of the Progeny family is extras from the set of Deliverance (and this stereotype would not exist if there were not at least some truth to it), this is far from always the case. For humans alone, one need only look at the Rothschilds and the Hapsburgs (or any royal house for that matter) to realize how far the influence of a single incestuous family might extend. Progeny, like Beasts, can be found in any social stratum of any region in the world.

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SIDE-BAR: MASS BIRTHS

Beasts can be born to almost anyone, anywhere. The Beastly blood is spread far and wide throughout humanity, to even some of the most isolated corners of the Earth. However, Beasts have noticed that it is far more common for them to be born into families thick with the blood. However, even in such cases, these births are rare. Despite this, there are instances of multiple births happening, with Beastly twins or triplets, or even rare instances of several simultaneous births.

Amongst the Kin, the birth of more than one Beast in a given region at a given time, much less for them to be simultaneously identified, is seen as an auspicious sign. Even when born to different families, it isn't uncommon for such Beasts to be gently nudged (or shepherded) into a Band together, in an attempt to guide them towards whatever destiny called them all into being. Oftentimes, these expectations become self-fulfilling prophecy, as omens are wont to do, and usually don't end well, but exceptions exist, as they always do.

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Humanity

Humanity is the Enemy. Simple as that.

If only that were true.

Beasts are surrounded by humanity on all sides. Seven billion human beings live on this planet, and that number only keeps rising. Even if the overall proportion of Beasts to humans remains largely uniform - and, in truth, no-one really has any way of verifying this; dragons aren't known for their gifted talent as statisticians and census takers - it's hard not to feel like the walls are closing in. The threat humans pose grows almost daily, and the secrecy Beasts manage to maintain only through illusion and magic is frighteningly thin. If humanity ever collectively discovered Beasts existed and turned its collective wrath towards hunting them down, a true extinction hardly seems in doubt.

Yet despite this ever-present threat, Beasts somehow manage to go on living. Indeed, many of them manage to live what they consider happy, fulfilling lives, and do so not only near but alongside and often involving humans. Beasts have humans (or part-humans) as parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins, friends, lovers, rivals, enemies, admired and admirer, and so on. It is inescapable that, in living in this world and under the Shroud, Beasts must deal with humanity. A part of that is dealing with the humanity they possess.

Humans are, by and large, ignorant of the presence of Beasts. Those who aren't are typically people with some measure of magical gift of their own, and either quickly learn to avoid them or seek them out and try to learn more of these mystical creatures. The majority of people a Beast meets, though, are likely to be completely unaware of just what they are. A wealthy collector doesn't know that the trader in rare antiquities she deals with is secretly a dragon; the local eco-activists have no idea that their passionate leader is truthfully a creature of living bark. This is typically how Beasts like it.

The trouble arises when a Beast inspires terror within human beings. It is, in some ways, inevitable; human beings react to fear or do not understand. Even a Beast who tries to do good will inevitably cause some sort of response. The antiquities dealer will inevitably produce for themselves a rival; the eco-leader a frustrated industrialist. Less noble Beasts cause equally obvious answers. All this fear echoes through the collective soul of humanity, and initiates the Call. Inevitably, Beasts who are not careful to hide their steps come face to face with that thing they fear most: Heroes.

Heroes

When humanity cries out as one, the soul of Man answers. The collective body of the species shudders, and annoints one of its own with power. These people - these figures - are crowned in glory and zeal, and step forth from the masses to save or lead them and destroy that thing which lurks in their midst.

This is what Heroes are; humanity's appointed and self-appointed saviors; a kind of immune response to the detection of a foreign invader. They are filled with the undeniable power of humanity as a whole, and wield that as a spear to strike at the heart of devils.

Understandably, Beasts have a somewhat different opinion on Heroes - as varied from Beast to Beast as Beasts are themselves - but they cannot deny their power. Heroes represent humanity's own collective ability to rewrite reality and, in effect, supercede and overwrite the Beast's own powers to do so. Few Heroes understand what they're really doing - their power is a gift, and often exceptionally recent - but such is apparently unnecessary to use the fantastic powers they wield to overcome and shatter the souls of Beasts.

Heroes themselves are something of a mixed bunch. Few are what one might call evil, at least at first, but they do tend towards intensity and severity that gathers a kind of momentum of its own with time. The souls chosen for ascension to Heroism tend to be drawn from those who already have something of a tribal instinct, and such instincts can be seemingly positive; far more than one Hero has been a parent believing they're protecting their family, or a priest shepherding their flock. They respond to a perceived threat to those they hold dear with the intensity only that kind of protective love can bring, and chase down the monster in their midst. When facing one of the An Duine Is Sine, this is rarely a morally complex matter, and if it began and ended there, many Beasts may even welcome the presence of Heroes as a means to curtail the excesses of their kind.

The trouble is that it rarely ends there. The tribal mindset that provokes the annointing of Heroes cannot rest once it has identified a threat. It becomes agitated, restless, until it finds the source of the monsters that imperil its community and puts them in the ground once and for all. This is the origin of the frightening intensity of Heroes; the thing which can shift previously noble intent to murderous paranoia. The need to protect is paramount. If ordinary human beings can, in times of great crisis, kill, maim, and torture to protect those they hold dear, how much further will those same people go when faced with a supernatural threat and compelled by a magical imperative that screams at them to save the world? Great tragedies are written of what happens when a Hero discovers the existence of Progeny and determines to purge these demon-spawn from the world. Such tales are inked with the tears of dragons and blood of serpents.

In the face of such relentless opposition, there is hope. While rare enough to be considered mere legendry by some, there exist tales of Beasts and Heroes uniting for common purpose, or even of Beasts swaying Heroes from their ways. Heroes are magically influenced but not compelled; their decisions, like Beasts', are their own, and their capacity for reasoning remains intact, even if somewhat compromised. Such stories are typically tragedies - with a Beast dieing to prove its sincerity, or a noble human sacrificing their life to save a Beast companion - they do at least suggest it is possible for a Hero to turn away from their incessant quest. Of course, a Hero that rejects the Call is then no longer a Hero and returns to being a (relatively) mundane person once more.

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MECHANICS - CHANGES AND NOVELTIES