Today’s post is about the werewolves, vampires, and succubi of the Ceteri setting. These monsters make up part of the “core” of civilized supernatural beings and can be found in most cities or towns.
The Forsaken
One of the largest and most organized groups of nonhumans, the Forsaken refers to vampires, werewolves, succubi, and nephilim that are descended from angel-stock.
Vampires are your standard blood drinking types, but with a few twists. They are strong, fast, and perceptive with keen senses. They are highly resistant to small arms fire thanks to DR and Injury Tolerance (Unliving) and can regenerate most wounds over night. They are vulnerable to blessed, silver, fire, sunlight, and wooden weaponry. Moreover, they can’t heal rapidly from such sounds. Additionally, they are combustible. Burning attacks or attacks they are specifically vulnerable to have a tendency to catch them on fire and cause them to burn. They are especially vulnerable to hawthorn or greenheart wood, fire, and sunlight. Immersion in running water or exposure to sunlight can severely damage them if they are not careful. They cannot abide the smell of garlic or juniper oil/wood/leaves/etc. They have a Dread of holy ground, running water, abrahamic religious symbols, and liminal energy (thresholds from my Safe as Houses article). They can drink human or animal blood, but the latter can make them sick. Blood also can fuel some of their special abilities. They lack a soul and a reflection and look extremely pale. They are allergic to tannins and thus you’ll almost never see one drinking wine or eating walnuts in the setting. There were originally seven different types of vampire clans (one for each progenitor Fallen), but only the Tarelim (a “standard” vampire) remain in great numbers. Vampires are effectively immortal unless killed. They make more of their kind by bites (it’s rare to get the virus this way) or through blood exchange.
Werewolves (or varou) are also pretty classic – they have a demon-wolf form they change into, crave human flesh, etc. They possess the ability to take on some of their demon-wolf form’s traits such as claws or fangs and can jump great distances. Their senses are highly enhanced like their vampire brethren and they can track scents for miles. They don’t live forever, but can live for 300 to 500 years. They regenerate in their human forms, but slowly and not against silver or wolfsbane attacks. The full moon forces them to shift forms. They cannot abide wolfsbane or the touch of silver and avoid both. In their demon-wolf form they are rampaging murder machines with the strength of ten men, the ability to shrug off non-silver damage or wolfsbane and continue fighting until at -10xHP.
Succubi are physical demons and not beholden to Hell. Like most demons they were human at one point, but transformed into their current state. Most are female, with incubi being extremely rare and disliked by other succubi thanks to their ability to mentally control others of their kind. Succubi possess a human “seeming” as well as their natural form. Along with oodles of charm and beauty this lets them hunt their prey as they feed on life force through contact (sexual or not). Not feeding results in them rapidly aging until they’ve feed again. They can also summon fangs, claws, wings, and a tail in either form. Most are red skinned, but some are blue, silver, or black. Like vampires they are effectively immortal until killed. Their abilities would make them incredibly dangerous to society as a whole, but most succubi want to do nothing more than eat, drink, and be merry. All succubi have movie-star looks and the bodies to go with them.
Finally, nephilim are the offspring of a mortal and an angel and killed pretty much as soon as they are discovered by Heaven. Afterall, the nephilim were the cause of the Great Flood. The nephilim are all thought to be dead and if one were to somehow have survived would be instantly hunted by the Host of Heaven as a walking blasphemy.
Picking Over the Bones
And that’s the Forsaken. Spirits. the Restless Dead, and Faeries are up next.