PARANATURAL FIELD GUIDE

by Logan Z. Hill
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CREATURE COMFORTS 1
PARANORMALLY GUIDED 2
DR. DON CAWSTON’S APS QFG A-J 2078 2
Glow Bat 2
Hodag 3
Skunk Ape 4
Snene’ik 5
Songòmby 6
Spirit Spider 7
NEW POWERS 8
Dematerialization 8
Stench 8
CREATURE COMFORTS

Baron turned the corner, sprinted from the alley and across the maintenance road. He leapt over the embankment,
grabbed the top of corrugated steel on his way down, and swung inside the culvert. He landed with a dry quiet
thud. It had been a long time since rain visited Austin.
Baron didn’t wait to listen for the sounds of the security guards. He had initially ditched them after being seen
exiting the corp’s research and development compound. The timed explosives bought him the window of time he
needed to slip down the side streets of the facility.
Now all that was left was for Baron to bring the Johnson the prototype which just meant taking a comfortable
jog through the sewer system until it met up with the city’s drainage, pop out at the right location, get in the Ford
Americar he left there, and call in the meet.
But it was a long jog through the sewers and Baron’s mind started to drift. He began thinking of ZZ and their
runs together, about how she left him for work in Seattle a few months ago and hadn’t kept in touch. Probably
keeping her head down, he thought, she was good at that. I hope she didn’t take on anything too big. I always had
to rein her in. Eyes bigger than her credstick, that’s her problem. Probably went for an MCT zero-zone. Zero-zone. Is
that why she picked her name? That could get real confusing. ‘ZZ you there’, he imagined some new teammate of
hers radioing her on a run. ‘Frag yes, hotter than we expected!’ ‘What is?’ ‘The ZZ.’ ‘You’re ZZ.’ ‘No, the facility.’
‘Who’s the facility?’ ‘ZZ’ ‘You?’
A shimmer on the floor caught Baron’s attention and the daydreaming stopped. Up ahead, on the dry dirt of the
tunnel, a glistening white tarantula, nearly a meter wide turned and faced him. Baron slowly drew his Predator from
its holster and reached for the silencer in his belt. As he started to attach the two pieces together he backed up a
step and the spider took a tentative step forward. It then shimmered and was gone. Disappeared.
The shock of seeing the monstrous spider disappear and the fear of a spellcaster casting invisibility on the thing
caused Baron to fumble with the silencer. He took another step back as he glanced frantically for the vanished
arachnid. The back of his boot met with resistance, then pressure on his calf that warmly changed to a hot pain that
swelled up and down his leg.
Baron dropped to his knees and willed himself not to cry out in pain. He kicked out and spun around looking
the spider in the eyes. Baron finished with the silencer and as he leveled the barrel at the thing it vanished again.
Fucking spiders, Baron thought as his vision blurred, fucking invisible spiders.

1

PARANORMALLY GUIDED
> Since there’s been a lot of work going into the
upcoming critters book, Howling Shadows, I figured
I’d put this up as a primer of sorts for some of the
lesser known -but still interesting and possibly
useful to you on runs- paranormal animals of the 6th
World.
The following is a ShadowSEA commented
transcript from Dr. Don Cawston’s trid show out of
Austin, CAS. He’s a bit off, to put it mildly, but he
still publishes his research in academic journals so
his efforts are often peer reviewed. He’s president
of the Austin Paranaturalists Society and they put
out quarterly simsense field guides for public and
educational outreach. I’ve only included the audio
transcript from the latest one as the video and sim
of the majority of the guide is just Dr. Cawston
sticking his hands in the mouths of things that no
one should, scooping up droppings and tasting
them, etc.
> Slamm-0!
> Dr. Cawston is a sensationalist media whore, to say
the least. While his methodologies and scientific
rigor are on par with his PhD from Emory and he is
a top-rated professor at the University of Texas at
Austin, the APS (I think he chose that acronym just
to get confused with the Astral Preservation Society)
is his own side show that he uses to get on the trid
any chance he gets, If it wasn’t for the work of his
producer, his wife, you can bet his quarterly field
guides would give Plan 9 a run for his nuyen, at
least in the biological sciences.
> Butch
DR. DON CAWSTON’S AUSTIN
PARANATURALISTS SOCIETY’S
QUARTERLY FIELD GUIDE, APRIL-JUNE
2078
>>>Begin Transcript<<<
Dr. Cawston: Hey ya’ll, welcome to another fantastic
field guide from the Austin Paranaturalists Society! This
time round we’ll be taking a look at some local varmints
as well as some other interesting paranormal species to
be found in North America. Some are metagenetic-
emergant from native species while some are non-
native and may even risk becoming invasive species
that could decimate crops and livestock.
But hell, ya ain’t here to listen to me prattle
on…let’s get started with our first critter.
2
GLOW BAT
We’re smack dab in the middle of bat season here in
Austin and bats are on everyone’s mind as the sky at
dusk darkens with clouds of them swarming over the
river. Ain’t always been the case though, what with the
constant hostilities from south of the border initiated by
their military or their local police or their local gangs
they’ve caused enough environmental trouble to have
nearly decimated the bat population here in Austin no
less than three times since the founding of Aztlan. But
for the past fifteen years the population has been
healthy and just about the size it was pre Awakening.
Now in the early 2020s, researchers started noticing
strange blue lights amongst colonies when they took to
the sky to feed in the early evenings over the Colorado
River. Course, the first thing people started saying was
aliens and UFOs. But good scientists don’t rush to
judgment. They did what I’m doing now; silently
waiting for the bats to come back to nest and then
bagging and tagging random samples to take back to
the lab. Turns out, about one in a hundred and sixteen
of every Mexican free-tailed bat is an awakened
metaspecies; Tadarida luminalis, or a glow bat.
> They taste like normal bats.
> Rio
> Who’d want to even know what normal bats taste
like?
> Piker
> Hungry folks.
> Rio
These glow bats live within normal Mexican free-
tailed bat colonies even though they’ve only been
recorded to mate with their own metaspecies. This has
led scientists to speculate that the free-tailed bat
population underwent a UGE or goblinization-like event
sometime around 2021.
> There were a lot of discoveries like that around the
world. Seemed like 2021 or there abouts magical
was all about taking one thing and making it into
another.
> DroneFerry
So what makes these little critters glow blue?
Research has found that pigments in their fur contain a
mana-sensitive bioluminescence that gets turned on
when they feed, or rather, when they hunt. The light
acts much like bug-zapper lights to attract insects. Only
instead of an electric jolt, them insects find bat fangs! So
the glow bats do this slow aerial dance within and
around the main colony’s flight and the frequency of
their echolocation differs enough from the mundane
bats that the regular bats have learned to home in on
the glow bats. So while the glow bat’s light is attracting
insects their own echolocation is telling all the other HODAG
bats where the insects are headed. And this dance Now here’s a strange one from up north. Long time
continues through the early evening hours, as the ago, almost two centuries ago, there was a conman by
mundane bats spread out then swoop in around a glow the name of Eugene Shepard. Depending on who was
bat then arc back out, then back in, and so on until their reporting about Shepard’s find, it was creature with the
hunger is satisfied. head of a bull or a frog, a manic grin like that of a man
Now the other interesting thing is the glow bats are, or an elephant, claws (they always gots to have claws, I
well more accurately their fur is sensitive to mana. If a tell you what), and spines out its back and tail. And it
magician casts a spell nearby or a spirit is close to the was all a hoax. Definitely a hoax. But that didn’t stop
bat then it starts to glow whether the bat likes it or not. the city of Rhinelnader in Wisconsin from adopting it as
This is why in some of the paranormal investigative their mascot.
shows on the trid these day, the cast carries a bat in a
cage. Those are glow bats and they’re using them like > What people will do to entertain themselves in the
the proverbial canary in a coal mine. middle of nowhere.
> Piker
> I keep a couple of these guys in some birdcages in
my bar. They make great warning lights that But then, in 2044 a couple of Wisconsin boys, Jason
something’s about to go down. Witmore and Barry Cole, were playing in their skate
> Father Gin park one summer evening when they spot, as Barry
described it, “[something] bigger than dog, like a calf or
> Not so great on a job though. They get excited and something, with spikes on its back and like, you know,
start screeching. Noisy little bastards. a big cat-like, like the Alice in Wonderland cat’s, grin.
> Magic Matt All we could see, really, was its shadow cause like the
sun was setting behind it and stuff, but that grin stood
> The dead ones are pretty quiet. out.” The boys thought it was just some prank played
> Rio by some of the older kids, so they hopped the fence
and headed over to it. Jason got mauled to death
So remember, when it’s bat season and you see almost immediately. Barry lost a leg after being chased
them glowing blue lights in and around bat colonies, down by the thing when it was done with Jason. Barry
thems a glow bat lighting the way to dinner! only survived because the owner of the Stuffer Shack
across from the skate park ran out and scared the thing
B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS off with his shotgun.
1 5 5 1 3 2 3 3 2 3 6
Initiative 8+1D6 So the locals all get together and go hunt the thing.
Movement x1/x2/+1 (x2/x4/+4 flight) They find tracks and determined that there’s more than
Condition Monitor 9/10 one of them living out in the woods but just as they
Limits Physical 3, Mental 4, Social 5 were narrowing in on it environmental lawyers and the
Armor 0
Skills Perception (Hearing, Sonar) 6 (+2),
Astral Preservation Society put a stop to the whole
Unarmed Combat 4 thing and got the area protected along with the
Powers Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses creature. Which, by that time, everyone took to calling
(Hearing, Smell, Sonar), Natural the hodag The Astral Preservation Society found about
Weapon (Bite: DV (STR)P, AP-1)
Weaknesses Reduced Senses (Vision, -4 to
eight of the critters living in the area. And ever since
Perception Tests relying on vision) then, every couple of years, few more show up in the
Notes Glow bats fur glow when they are northern UCAS and Sioux territories.
feeding as well as if they are near
magic. Active spells, Spellcasting,
crititer powers, summoning, and spirits
> Yeah, the APS sounds like the good guys, what with
will all cause a glow bat to glow if they ‘Preservation’ in their name. But these fuckers are
are within Force meters of the glow looking to make nuyen, just like everyone else.
bat. > Magic Mike

> A’yup. Lot’s o’nuyen in standin’ guard over a bunch

of dumb beasts.
> Everclear

> Well, there is if you’re the first to bring to market

magical techniques, reagents, etc., from researching
these things.
> E-E

Now the hoax creature was given the scientific name

of Bovine spiritualis, but the real Hodag, er, well, the
3
creature named after the hoax that is real and now folks
call a hodag is actually closer to a reptile than a cow.
They’re part of the Heloderma family, closely related to
the awakened gila demon of the Southwest, which
becomes obvious when you get a close look at the
hodag’s beaded scales, so they’re classified as
Heloderma witmorum. And they do vaguely appear like
large calf-sized gila monsters only with sharp spines
running down their backs and those oddly primate-like
faces with the permanent grins. Their coloration is
primarily a two tone alternating coloring of thick bands
that work as camouflage in woods and light forests. The
coloration in the scales is adaptive, albeit slowly. The
darker band tends to match the local trees while the
lighter band changes from white in the winter months
to browns and greens to suit the changing seasons.
> These fuckers are creepy as hell. Had a job to hit a
facility outside of Dearborn a few years ago. Plan
was to head in through the woods just after sunset.
Got halfway there and we stop frozen. There were
four or five of those smiles, shinning in the dark at
us. Two of my team just walk right up to them and
were torn apart. Rest of us ran. Never did finish that
job.
> Blackround
The hodag feeds by just standing there. That’s right,
it just stands there, at dusk or in the dark (most unusual
for a reptile), and waits for prey to approach it. Research
has concluded that the hodag is capable of a limited
magical influence on animals, particularly mammals,
that both pacifies the victim as well as draws them
close. Once the victim is less than a meter away the
hodag strikes out with its claws and maw in a very
violent manner akin to a gater’s death roll.
So if your ice fishin’ and see a beaming smile in the
dark pack up and walk away.
B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS
7 4 6 5 6 2 5 7 4 5 6
Initiative 11+1D6
Movement x2/x4/+2
Condition Monitor 12/11
Limits Physical 8, Mental 5, Social 9
Armor 6
Skills Intimidation 5, Perception (Smell) 5
(+2), Running 4, Sneaking 6, Unarmed
Combat 8
Powers Armor 6, Compulsion, Dual Natured,
Enhanced Senses (Hearning, Low-Light,
Smell), Natural Weapon (Bite: DV
(STR+3)P plus venom, AP-4), Venom
Notes A Hodag in its natural envoirnment (or
having lived in a new environment for
over six months) will gain a +2 to
Sneaking Tests due to its natural
camouflage.
4
SKUNK APE
Tales of the ape-like creatures in the wilds of North
America are as old as, well, as old as people have been
living here. Course, everyone knows of the sasquatch.
Hell, the U.N.’s recognized them as a sentient species
since 2042. And ol’ CAS has its fair share of squatch’s,
just go bar hopping in N’Orleans any night of the week
and you’re sure to see a few playin in the bands.
And it’s this limelight of the sasquatch is what made
identifying the skunk ape so difficult. First off, skunk
apes make sasquatches look like veritable prima donna
Southern Belle’s. Skunk apes, or Pesvastus palus, avoid
civilization like the plague…and that’s just as well for
civilization because the “Big Foot of the Swamps” has
the name skunk ape for a reason. But in the early years
of the Awakening, folks just thought skunk apes were
southern sasquatches, living in the swampy wilds and
keeping to themselves. Then in 2052 a woman by the
name of Jill Fredricks shot one on her property near
Lake Talquin, Florida, thinking it was a troll burglar or
worse. Out come the authorities and everyone agreed it
looked like a dark-colored sasquatch that smelled to
high Heaven. Being in her right to defend her property
against trespassers, no charges were brought against
Fredricks and the authorities handed the thing off to
Florida State University there in Tallahassee. Strange
thing was, even after hosing the thing off where it was
killed and transporting it and getting it ready for
dissection… it continued to smell.
The researchers there soon figured it out. This was a
whole new species and as word got out people started
calling it a skunk ape after the old legends from way
back in the 1960s. To be fair, skunk apes, at least the
few recorded so far, are very similar to sasquatches. The
primary physical differences are that the skunk ape’s a
bit shorter, standing at about 2.6 meters tall, and their
faces are flatter, similar to an orangutan. Their fur tends
to be of mottled coloration, usually blacks, browns, and
dark greens with dark flesh tones. While most public
sightings claim that the skunk ape’s eyes glow, this is
likely due to reflections off the tapetum lucidum, part of
what gives them the ability to see in the dark.
Course the big difference is that the skunk ape
stinks! This helps to explain why no one figured out
they were a separate species until just a few decades
ago. The smell is similar enough to an actual skunk that
most people will steer clear of a skunk ape as the
stench can be smelled as far away as a hundred meters
or more and only gets worse the closer you get. And
it’s this smell that has kept many from entering into the
field of skunk ape research.
Since not much is known, not much else can be said
about these elusive beasts. There have been no verified
attacks by these animals on humans but their size alone
is enough to put the fear into people. They aren’t much
of a trophy for sport hunters either, as the few that have
bagged themselves a skunk ape have thrown the corpse
out or given it over to researchers since they say they
never managed to get the smell out.
> What, no one on ShadowSEA have any comments? SNENE’IK
> Piker The Snene’ik, or Umbra lilitus, is a spirit of sorts. A
native to the astral, the Snene’ik has been identified as
> Stinky sasquatches. What’s to say? the cause for several missing person cases over the past
> Magic Mike thirty years or so. Researchers are unsure as to which
metaplane these things come from though and there
> Plural is ‘sasquatchi’, Mike. have been no reports of successful summoning or
> Rio binding of these creatures. So it’s anyone’s guess as to
how they get here. Some say they are angry freed
> Fuck off, Rio. spirits of man, others say they are the astral
> Magic Mike manifestations of children’s nightmares, others wait to
make guesses until their research is complete.
> Seriously though, any word on HMHVV and skunk On the astral, a snene’ik appears much like the
apes? nomad astral being; “an amoeboid creature of
> Piker impenetrable blackness that is perhaps 1.5 meters
across.” (to quote Paterson’s Paranormal Creatures of
B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS North America: Awakened Animals.) Unlike the nomad,
7 4 4 8 3 3 5 3 4 4 6
Initiative 9+1D6
when a snene’ik manifests on this plane it appears like
Movement x2/x4/+2 an old woman or man, of any metatype, complete with
Condition Monitor 12/10 ragged clothes and a walking stick, staff, or cane.
Limits Physical 9, Mental 5, Social 5
Armor 0
Skills Assensing 6, Animal Calls (Professional
> Nomads are not to be fucked with. And neither are
Knowledge) 8, Artisan 6, Athletics skill these. Just walk away, folks.
group 3, Perception 6, Sneaking 9 > Magic Mike
Powers Dual Natured, Enhanced Senses (Low-
Light vision), Mimicry, Sapience, Stench
(See New Powers, below, Vector:
As for their behavior, what has been pieced together
Inhalation, Speed: Immediate, from various encounters, is that the snene’ik approaches
Penetration -2, Power 10, Effect: an individual, sometimes a small group of two to three
Disorientation) persons, usually young adults and children (but cases of
Notes Skunk apes have +1 Reach. Some skunk
apes may have the Adept, Magician, or
adults being targeted have been reported), and lures
Mystic Adept qualities. them away where it feeds upon their life force over the
course of a few days.
Given that it chooses to (needs to?) target solitary
individuals and/or small groups while manifested and
that it needs a place to feed for a prolonged period of
time, snene’iks have rarely been recorded in high
density urban areas and in the few cases where it has
there have always been abandoned buildings, large
parks, or easy access sewer infrastructure nearby.
Now the history of the snene’ik isn’t well known. It
wasn’t until 2048 when Detective Juan Awatobi out of
PCC put together several missing person cases, all
involving witnesses seeing a decrypted old crone in the
vicinity. His investigations eventually took him up into
the Salsih-Shidhe nation. There he and his S-S liaison
partner finally discovered and fought the snene’ik
they’d been tracking. After that, Awatobi put together a
profile that allowed other agencies to identify and track
snene’iks.

> FFS! Dr. Cawston has left out so much of Awatobi’s

story, it’s not even funny. There was a cult helping
the snene’ik up in Salish lands and some diviner in
Pueblo told Awatobi to work with Lisa-Ann
Whitehawk in Salish, and they ended up getting
married after the whole thing was done. Check out
the docudrama, The Old Man in the Wood.
> Piker

5
 So tell your kids to be good or the snene’ik will SONGÒMBY
knock on their window late at night! Not many people see the shores of Madagascar these
days. And even less are those from that great island
B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS that see the rest of the world. But that is not the case
F F+2 F+1 F+1 F F F F F/2 F F
Initiative (F x 2) +2 + 2D6
for the dreaded songòmby.
Astral Initiative (F x 2) + 3D6 In 2053 a fisherman from Biloxi, Brad McLeash, was
Movement x3/x6/+2 (Manifested) cleaning his gear on the beach one night when he heard
Skills Assensing, Astral Combat, what he described as “a cow what been stepped on by
Perception, Sneaking, Spellcasting,
Unarmed Combat
one them Juggers, let out a moo like you never did
Powers Astral Form, Banishing Resistance, hear!” Brad looked up, “an what I saw, I tells you, ain’t
Compulsion, Confusion, Energy Drain right. Sound funny, sure. I mean, you tell me an ox
(Touch, Essence, Physical), Fear, come running down the beach at’cha like lightnin’
Immunity (Age, Pathogens, Normal
Weapons, Toxins), Innate Spell (2
down a stripper pole! Chased me right out’a there, n’
spells, GM choice), Materialization, when I came back my gear n boat were destroyed.”
Sapience
Weaknesses Allergy (Moderate, sunlight) > In that first month, those things destroyed or ruined
about 30 small time fishing operations along the
coast there. (And a “jugger” is slang for a
Juggernaut, in case you were wondering.)
> Rio

Violent, big, and territorial, the songòmby, or Bos

velocesarmis, has been sighted in the South, from
Corpus Christi to the Everglades, ever since McLeash’s
fist encounter all those years ago. Best estimate from
the biologists is that several songòmby, a native of
Madagascar, had been taken from their island to be
illegally trafficked into CAS or Aztlan. But the animals
escaped while en route, possibly thrown overboard
during a storm, and those that survived found dry
footing in Mississippi. Their numbers have steadily
increased since the mid 2050s, but they are regularly
hunted as not only are they violent, as poor McLeash
found out, but they ruin crops, chase off local livestock,
and have a nasty habit of playing chicken with
headlights; a loss for everyone involved.
Male or female, songòmby stand about 1.6 meters
tall and weigh 300 kg on average. From a distance they
appear much like a bull, though with a heavier coat like
that of a muskox. On closer inspection their snouts are
thinner and longer and they have two sets of horns; one
much like a smaller version of the Ankole-Watusi that
average about 1.2 m from tip to tip and the other set
curving around the first set much like rams’ horns.
Now songòmby are also dumber than a sinking bag
of bricks. Like I said, they’ve been known to chase after,
and towards, vehicles of any type especially at night
and they stand a good chance of surviving even head-
on collisions where the combined speeds are upwards
of 80 kph! Turns out one Awakaned quality of the
songòmby that is known for sure is that their bodies are
enhanced with something akin to an armor spell or a
manifested spirit.
The other known magical aspect of the songòmby is
their swift speed. They can run upwards of 50 kph,
which seeing something the size of a bull doing down
the highway at night is quite a sight!

6
> No kidding! I’ve seen one crumple a F-C Bison like it SPIRIT SPIDER
was paper. Grammostola spiritus, or more commonly spirit spiders
> VaporVapor or ghost tarantulas, were first discovered in Ecuador in
2056 and were thought not to have made it further
All attempts at domesticating the songòmby have north than the Isthmus of Panama. However, in 2069
failed, but that’s not a huge loss seeing as how they’re several reports of sightings from northern Aztlan, the
lacking in nutrition and even more so in taste when PCC and western Texas emerged. Since then, they have
compared to standard bovines. Their milk is also been discovered as far north as Denver and St. Louis
terrible. Like drinking burnt urine. and as far south as Chile and Argentina.
Like most tarantulas, spirit spiders are ground
B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS dwellers and are nomadic within a limited range. They
9 4 5 7 5 1 4 6 4 5 6
Initiative 9+1D6
are able to climb walls but lack the ability to walk on
Movement x3/x9/+2 ceilings or other heavily inverted surfaces. They hunt
Condition Monitor 13/11 mainly at dawn and dusk, finding dark places to wait
Limits Physical 10, Mental 4, Social 8 out the nights and days where they also drag their
Armor 10H
Skills Perception 6, Running 8, Unarmed
meals and lay their eggs. They typically lay between
Combat 6 twenty to thirty eggs once a year, wrapping the clutch
Powers Dual Natured, Hardened Armor, Natural in heavy silk (the only time they’re known to use their
Weapon (Ram: DV (STR+5)P) silk glands), and then leaving them to fend for
themselves. The first five to ten that hatch eat the
remaining eggs before emerging from the greater sack.

> I cannot watch that video of those spiders emerging

from the sack. Nope!
> DariusXIII

> Then how do you know for sure they emerged?

> GlindaTheGood

The largest spirit spiders recorded have measured

1.2 meters from their front leg to the opposite hind leg
when standing still and weighing 40 kg. But on average
they are only, only ha!, 0.8 meters and 32 kg. Their
coloration is quite odd. The body, the exoskeleton, is a
translucent milky white, allowing observers to see
shadows of their internal organs. Their hair is also white,
with their urticating hairs being colored with dark black
bands. These urticating hairs, the ones on their legs,
they’ve been known to fling as far as twenty meters and
they pack quite a sting, though the poison itself is not
usually fatal for healthy adult metahumans. Their bite is
also painful and venomous, but again, not usually lethal.

> Nope!
> DariusXIII

If their physical appearance wasn’t enough to give

them their names, spirit spiders are also able to do
something no other animal has been known to; spirit
spiders are able to shift themselves wholly into the
astral for very short periods of time. Many research
centers around the world have been studying these
creatures in order to unlock the secret of their astral
shifting, but so far results have been elusive to say the
least.

> Nope!
> DariusXIII

7
 Luckily for metahumanity, spirit spiders are rare,
solitary, and prefer small rodents for their meals. But
this has not stopped agitated spirit spiders from
attacking metahumans or preying upon children and
infants; especially if left alone. They’re rare in urban
environments, but it is not unheard of encountering
them near parks, drainage systems, and other places
where rodents are commonly found.
> Nope!
> DariusXIII
> I’m calling bullshit on this. There’s no way a physical
animal, para or not, is able to shift into the astral. I
bet it some limited invisibility spell-like adaptation
that excited researchers just failed to recognize.
> Magic Mike
> That which is known is outweighed by that which is
not.
> Man-Of-Many-Names
> Who are you?
> Magic Mike
> Seriously?
> GlindaTheGood
NEW POWERS
DEMATERIALIZATION
Type: M Action: Complex
Range: Self Duration: Special
A critter with the dematerialization power can
move its physical form completely into the astral
for a number of Combat Turns equal to its Magic
rating. It is only able to take its own body into the
Astral this way and cannot “carry” objects or other
living entities with it. Doing so subjects the critter
to drain equal to half it’s Body which is resisted
with Willpower + Intuition (or its normal drain
resistance dice).
Once in astral space the critter is still limited by
its physical walking and running speeds as well as
being unable to move through non-astral objects
(living or otherwise). A projecting magician could
move through a wall but a dematerialized critter
could not, for example.
The critter can choose to re-materialize into the
physical world as a Free Action or wait until the
dematerialization duration is over where it will re-
materialize at the end of the last action phase for
which it has dematerialized. There is no limit to the
number of times a critter can dematerialize.

B A R S W L I C EDG M ESS STENCH

4 5 6 4 4 2 5 5 4 4 6 Type: P Action: Auto
Initiative 11+2D6
Range: Special Duration: Always
Movement x3/x6/+2
Condition Monitor 10/10 Critters with stench are particularly horrific to be
Limits Physical 6, Mental 5, Social 7 around, at least where olfactory senses are
Armor 4 concerned. The exact nature of the smell produced
Skills Astral Combat 4, Exotic Ranged by the stench power is determined by the critter.
Weapon 6, Perception 6, Running 4,
Sneaking 7, Unarmed Combat 5 On a normal day (slight breeze) a critter with
Powers Dematerialization (see New Powers, stench can be smelled up to Body x 10 meters
below), Dual Natured, Natural Weapon away. For each wind condition above None/Light
(Bite: DV (STR+2)P plus venom, AP -3), Breeze, the range is halved (but doubled in the
Natural Ranged Weapon (Urticating
hairs: DV (STR-1)P plus venom, AP -4, direction of any prevailing winds), and other
Range: Body in meters increments), factors may change how close someone needs to
Venom (Vector: Injection, Speed: be in order to smell the critter.
Immediate, Penetration -2, Power: 7, Anyone within Body x 2 meters (slight breeze
Effect: Stun damage, Disorientation)
Weaknesses Vulnerability (Fire) conditions) radius of the critter come under the
effects of the stench’s toxin effects, as listed in the
individual critters description.
Critters generally choose habitats that mimic
their stench in order to not give themselves away
as easily as if they were in an air conditioned
controlled environment. Characters may have to
make Perception (smell) Tests in order to
differentiate the critter’s smell from the background
smell of the area. The threshold getting lower the
closer to the critter one gets, with it being obvious
by the time one is within the toxin effects range.