Nightmare Fuel / Hunter: The Vigil

• Hunter: The Vigil takes all the horrors of the New World of Darkness and adds the layer of potential insanity. You can't let your loved ones know what's happening, because they'll either think you're a loony or be put in danger. Vampires could have influence over your job or the police, so you can't just go around staking every bloodsucker you see or you'll find yourself out of a job and under arrest. Werewolves are stronger, faster, and more vicious than you and won't hesitate to tear you to shreds. You can't kill ghosts with bullets, and they can possess you. Slashers generally possess nothing even resembling morals, and would just as soon slice you up as say hello. Even Prometheans are frightening, since they are aberrations from nature and reason. The changelings are probably the worst, since they had no control over what happened to them and are sometimes so twisted they cannot interact with human beings without harming them in some way. The worst part of it all is the fact that a hunter must make a moral decision, slowly wearing away at themselves until the line between man and monster is nearly nonexistent.
• Let's look at the list of horrors that being a Hunter means having to face, before and after you learn more about what they actually are from their perspective:
  • Walking, blood-sucking corpses that claim to rule the night — and there is more than boasting to that assertion. They can charm and manipulate with the skill of consummate predators; part of this is natural, but part of this is something supernatural. They can bend people's minds with a look, a word, a thought, control animals and read their thoughts, or inspire terror by their mere presence. They can become invisible, they can meld into the ground underfoot, a wall, a tree, anything. They can roam the night in the shape of a beast or as a wandering bank of mist. They can move faster than a human can blink, shrug off being hit by a car, punch through a brick wall, or worse. Their blood is the ultimate intoxicant; and drink it too often, and you become their slave, in mind, body and soul. They don't really feel pain, so unless you know their weakness, they just keep soaking up every bullet, blade, arrow, punch, anything you throw at them until they have their fangs in your throat.
    • The reality: Everything about that perception is true... except that there is a part of the vampire that is still human, still capable of remorse. However, the creature will eventually lose the battle against its utterly amoral predatory instincts. It is only a question of when... isn't it?
  • Werewolves — every nightmare you ever had about the wolf come to life in one gore-dripping package of killing machine. They could be anyone, and you won't even know it until they come for you. They can wield weapons with human skill, then turn into a monster and rend you limb from limb with bare fangs and claws. They heal almost as fast as you hurt them... and, in fact, that makes it almost impossible to hurt them seriously. Blow them up, run them over, drop things on them, shoot them, stab them... they'll just heal up and be right back after you without even being slowed down. Their mere presence makes you want to curl into a ball and weep for mercy. What's worse? They have Black Magic too! They can do...things that shouldn't be possible, and you can never tell what a werewolf is capable of until it's too late — some can hurl fireballs, others can make your weapons betray you at the worst possible time.
    • The reality: They're guarding the world against something even worse. Well, a third of them are; the rest are a bunch of fascistic, bloodthirsty nutcases who either want to revert the world to a primal nightmare in which humanity will become chattel for legions of mad spirits, or basically want to wring every last drop of goodness from the world and create an endless, unceasing Hell.
  • Witches, people who have sold their souls to the darkest powers for dark blessings and foul boons. They can raise the dead against you, turn you into lifeless stone, call down thunder and lightning, flame or worse against you. They can manipulate fate itself so that bad luck comes your way until you die — without ever tracing it back to the witch responsible — or bend time and space like playthings. They're unnatural, too powerful to trust, and could be anywhere.
    • The reality: Not only did they not get magic from making a Deal with the Devil, the truth is almost the opposite. They really got magic by undergoing a spirit quest in which they visited a higher reality and were granted power by benevolent living ideas without having to offer anything in return. Most of them envision a future where everyone can do magic. Anybody could become one. You could become one, and are more likely to than many - the mindset that makes people hunters is the exact kind of insight that interests Witch patrons. The one downside is that while the majority want to protect muggles there are still some who have gone as power mad as you thought. Except they're even worse than the previous description implies. Some want to reduce muggles to hunter gatherers or outright genocide them, some achieved immortality by discovering how to eat human souls and the biggest evil Witch faction effectively rules the world, serves malevolent living ideas of tyranny and is manipulating all muggle power structures — including many the hunters you're working for.
  • Twisted walking dead men, like a cross between Frankenstein's Monster and the Golem. They feel nothing for humans besides envy and spite and hate, so they lash out with all their awful power at random, and wherever they go, the earth itself suffers from their presence. Some poison the water into a toxic sludge, others make the wind foul or cause the very earth to rot into dust, while others cause fire-storms, rip open holes between reality and... someplace else, create the freezing desert of tainted dust that is a nuclear winter or even erode away organic matter, leaving only unliving, electrified wasteland. They transmute matter with foul alchemy, and often make more of their ilk from the remains of their enemies.
    • The reality: Most of them are almost harmless, men and women made of the dead, who seek only to purify themselves until they become a true, living human. However, even if you know this, you can't stop yourself from hating them; it's an inescapable part of what they are, that all who truly live despise them. What's more, where they walk, they awaken monsters, creatures that seek to feed on them but are forced back into sleep by normal humans... and will do anything to stop it. And some of them have abandoned their quest for humanity, embracing the monstrous nature at their core. They herd those monsters, hunting their own kind... and being everything you fear about the others.
  • Faeries who roam the street, disguised so well that even other monsters can't tell what they really are, looking to trick people into pledges that let the fairies steal their souls. Want to try and fight them? Good luck, we're talking about monsters who convince the very wind that you should be pushed away, trick light into ignoring them and letting them disappear, or sweet-talk the universe into letting them rebuild a car with pieces of scrap metal. And don't even bother trying to restrain them; they will free themselves easily from any bounds or open portals to their realm from the door of any room you'll try to lock them in— nothing can keep them trapped, period. And when they do drop the Mask, and unleash their fae selves, the human before you melts away into a fearsome beast of a person, or a living candle wick, or a cyclopean giant, ready to make you just as twisted as they are.
    • The reality: The "faeries" you're thinking of aren't the soul-eating faeries. They're the soul-eating faeries' escaped slaves. And they used to be human, just like you. Well, we assume you're human — the real faeries could have stolen the real you and replaced you with a magical android, and nobody — not even you — would know. And the thing is, just because the slaves were victims doesn't mean they aren't crazy, or dangerous. Each and every one of them feeds on uncontrollable passion to power their magic, is a Manipulative Bastard due to their inherent sense of politics and social dynamics, and the very reason they're here is that they fought and tricked their way out, despite the otherworldly madness. They're paranoid and forever wary of any threat to their freedom, and they've become alien to the world — beautifully mad. Hell, even their friends are scared of their passions — Mortal Remains tells the tale of one Spring Queen who frightened the Ashwood freakin' Abbey purely through her fetishes, to feed on their desire. The fetishes she voluntarily demonstrated.
  • "Ghostwalkers" Fog Men, Self-proclaimed ex-dead men who willingly share their bodies with... things that can only be demons, giving themselves ghostly powers that they use however they choose. They can twist their forms into monstrous shapes so horrific that the sight can drive you insane. They can make the walls run with blood. They can turn animals against you, making even a most trusted and loved pet want to kill you. They can fill your lungs with stagnant water, or light you on fire. If you shoot them or stab them, fog pours from their wounds instead of blood, sealing their injuries. If you kill them, they come right back. And that's not even getting into what they can do by commanding the dead... What might be most horrific is that they devour ghosts to fuel these powers, eating all that remains of a deceased loved one so they can do these terrifying stunts.
    • The reality: Those things are old ghosts. Ghosts so unspeakably old that most have forgotten what living is like and make their bargain just to relive their earthly desires. We'll let that sink in for a moment. Oh, and their hosts, the Fog Men, were human like you, once. They accepted the bargain because when the Reaper came knocking, they realized they didn't want to bite the dust, not in the slightest. Most use their second chance to patrol the nonliving and keep ghosts where they belong. You're probably more likely to become one than anyone else.
  • Ancient undead sorcerers whose power and might are Biblical in scale. If you value your life, never, never disturb their resting places — or worse yet steal from them — otherwise not all the powers of Hell will be enough to save you. They are relentless, implacable, and indestructible, like ancient Terminators - they will find what they're after, no matter what stands in their way. And should they reveal their true selves, the sheer weight of time will crash down on you, sending you running for your life.
    • The reality: They do this because their gods tell them to, and they cannot disobey. These ancient monsters are nothing more than tired old slaves bound to the whims of entities they can barely remember. The "lucky" ones have lost so much of their soul that they shamble through the ages as near-mindless automatons, blearily rising from their tombs only for the task that has called them back, seeking to end their tortured existence and return to the peace of death by completing what is required of them. The unlucky ones are still self-aware enough to be cognizant of the fact that they have outlived everything and everyone they ever cared about, that their world is gone forever, and that they are mere pawns to unearthly abominations who were their slave-masters in life and demand a servitude that will compel them to obey. For all eternity.
  • Demons. Literal, bona fide, goddamned (literally) Fallen Angels who rebelled against the Creator for personal reasons, and now walk the Earth as false humans. They are utterly selfish, completely amoral, and capable of perfect lying to get what they want-up to and including a a promise that will let them steal your soul, hollow it out, and then wear it like a suit so they can take over your life. Or the life of someone you know. And if you corner them, they can shed it so they may better kill you.
    • The reality: The Creator in question? We sure hope it's only a God, because frankly, their reasons for rebellion are completely legitimate. And the God-Machine isn't just amoral and willing to manipulate mortals for its own ends, it's a completely alien Eldritch Abomination that mutilates reality into orderly patterns by dint of its presence, and is willing to send similarly mechanical angels to force the issue. Demons are actually more human and given over to consciences then their "noble" brethren, and yet they're still evil by human standards-both out of desperation to remain free (or at least, rejoin the collective on their own terms) and because they literally don't have the same moral instincts as humans-their Fatal Flaw can easily be something like Generosity, since they view it as sabotaging their own work and those of their demonic friends for a quick feel-good act, and their Virtue can be literal Pride, as they assert their own self-will and that of their chosen organization against adversity and thus, their inherent "humanity", if such a term can apply to such alien beings. The only thing a demon has to really worry about when moral issues are concerned is the upkeep of the false human self he possesses, and they're always looking for a new one or parts to maintain it...
  • Living nightmares from the darkest reaches, abominations that attempt to disguise themselves as humans. They walk amongst humanity, seeking only to devour what they wish. Their very presence causes nightmares, terrorizing the dreams and souls of humans until they either go insane or are compelled to join the Hunt, and they can shed their false disguise to kill you in all manner of monstrous ways. They can open pathways to drag you into the insane, physics-violating realms they call home, where the environment itself is helping them against you. Worse, they see most other monsters as kinsfolk, and can even mimic their powers to some extent, passing themselves as them- meaning they can fool you into thinking you are hunting a vampire or one of the other creatures on this list, before dropping the disguise at the last minute.
    • The reality: That pretty much is the reality. Except that the whole "causing nightmares" thing is involuntary. If they don't indulge their beastly appetites, their soul-form will go wandering off into the dreamscape, tormenting people despite their best wishes; a lot of them actually are tormenting people in the physical world because it's the only way for them to keep control over it and avoid harming people they actually care about. And the people who join the Hunt? Yeah, you're probably better off avoiding them. Preferably by being on the other side of the state, if at all possible.
  • Rogue, insane mutants, psychics, hybrids and cyborgs who no longer think like humans in any capacity — their biology, minds, and souls have been so altered they no longer even have a true self — only a purpose. Upset them, they lose what little remains of their sanity and with it, their grip on humanity, becoming even more powerful and monstrous. Fail to kill one fast enough or break its cause before it, and you may find yourself recreating the ending of AKIRA, with you playing the part of hapless biomass for the rapidly growing cathedral of flesh.
    • The reality: Some of those mutants may have done this to themselves, but the majority were made by perfectly normal humans who decided that they cared more about results and getting what they wanted than about things like ethics or morality. They just needed a weapon or to indulge their curiosity, and abduct people and experiment on them so hard that their souls break. Some of these people are hunters. Including conspiracies, such as the one you may work for. Did we mention they want those same mutants back? And a few still work for their sociopathic masters?
  • Hunters, hunting you because you're in the way, or because you don't follow what they see as the right path of the Vigil. Even if you can justify killing vampires nightly, these guys are human, and humans count for murder. Some of them might have powers on par with what a witch might have. Others control the entire local area, police and politicians included. Maybe they have a secret you've worked hard to ignore ready to drop in the local news if you don't toe their line. Maybe they've finally snapped and decided that you need to die to prevent you from becoming a monster yourself. They might even be working with the monsters you've been trying to hunt. Others don't care about you, or anyone else. As long as they have what they want, you and everyone you're fighting to protect can die and mean nothing to them.
    • The reality: That is the reality. Still think you want to be a hunter?
• As noted above, most of these things are transformed humans so YOU could be one of them one day. The worst are probably Vampires since every one of them can make more of their kind any time they want. Maybe one day you'll piss one of them off so much he decides to see how you like being a blood sucking nightmare — or worse, impresses him to the point he wants you as his agent. And then you'll be the one having to fight off the attacking hunters. Lycanthropy is genetic but inactive until the werewolves' nutcase moon goddess decides to awaken it, so you could suddenly turn into a Wolf Man one day because you caught her eye. You could even be a nascent Beast and not know it until your Horror comes to eat and replace your soul. If you patron conspiracy is big on "upgraded" agents — say, like Cheiron is — you're always at risk of falling under the weight of the changes and becoming a broken, inhuman Deviant. And let's not forget that your extremely high chance of a horrible death makes you perfect material for becoming a ghost or a Sin-Eater. And of course there's always the chance the True Fae will come to take you to their world.
• Each tier 3 conspiracy in Hunter is nightmare fuel from an entirely human perspective, from the core six to the ones in the supplements.
  • Task Force: VALKYRIE is every dangerous conspiracy theory about the US government, and really ANY government. Their authority cannot be limited by law. Their ends just barely justify the means. They are the men in black that are all too human, and at the same time completely inhuman. They are the mysterious agents making dissenters and whistle-blowers vanishing in the night. They aren't just tapping your phones, they're watching you during every waking moment. They can make you forget anything, make you their prisoner in your own skin. All for the US of A.
  • Have you met the Cheiron Group yet? Nice guys really. A bit of a corporate culture inside the group but still a focused organization dedicated to finding some of the science behind the monsters. If you ignore the illegal surgeries on their own people. And what is essentially torture on anyone from monsters to their own people. Did we mention the pills that may or may not be made out of dried vamp blood and given to US soldiers? And the secrets that might be behind their board of directors? Sometimes you are just paranoid. This isn't one of those times.
  • The Malleus Maleficarum, which literally is the book on Church Militant. Despite what it seems, a priest admitting what is said in a confessional is a gross abuse of the Church's authority, and if a priest is willing to do that it is rightfully terrifying. But no, that's not the worst of it. The worst is that unlike TFV, you can't argue that their corruption is a result of needing money and resources. The leader of the Malleus knows how vampires work, what their blood does to him, and he still drinks it. Both power and the blood have corrupted him, warping what was supposed to be a mission of divine protection into a long, rambling struggle. They still torture with modern and "classic" methods, and a third of them are willing to wage holy war on any religion that isn't Catholicism.
  • The Ascending Ones may be one of the more diplomatic Conspiracies on paper, but in reality, what's there is scary. See, what you have with the Ascending Ones are a group made up of one third religious militants, with all of the holy war-zeal you'd expect of that, and one third of ruthless drug cartels who blithely supply heroin and worse drugs to generate funding for the "glorious hunt". That's a pretty scary combination as it is, before you wrap them all together with their various noxious elixirs and tonics that let them achieve impossible feats — let's not forget, the Ascending Ones are the Conspiracy with an Endowment that can turn a human being into a vampire. Permanently. (Granted, that only happens if something goes horribly wrong... it lasting forever, that is. The part where it turns you into one of the Kindred is the intended effect, it's just supposed to wear off at dawn.) What other sorts of alchemical horrors could they be hiding in their closet? To say nothing of the implications that, like Cheiron, they've been willing to take supernatural beings apart as alchemical ingredients.
  • The Lucifuge — they're people who sincerely, honestly believe that they have the blood of Demon Lords And Arch Devils in their veins. They have Black Magic enough to make their claims credible. And they're determined to send every other monster back to Hell first before they end up there themselves.
    • The Hunt Club from Slashers is a group of serial killers who have put a points system in place to rank their murders. Their "Stereotypes" section has the "typical" Hunt Club member talk in incredibly snide terms about several of the other groups... but when he reaches the Lucifuge, he's terrified. These guys freak out professional serial killers.
  • The Knights of St. George are, to some extent, the Protestant answer to the Malleus Maleficarum... on the surface. Under that surface, they fear and revere "the Faceless Angels", a group of beings so powerful that just trying to communicate with one is believed to have caused The Tunguska Event. These beings are drawn by magic, and the Knights hunt and slay magic-users in order to keep their gods sleeping. They have a way to draw your deepest sins and worst elements to the surface and torture you with them. The worst part of all this? Other books have hinted at just what those Faceless Angels actually are. Without even knowing it, the Knights of St. George worship the Abyss, and everything they do makes it just a little stronger...
  • Mortal Remains gives us the Faithful of Shulpae. Let's not beat around the bush here; they're a shameless Cult straight from a Cosmic Horror Story universe, and their Endowment is Cannibalism Superpower. On the plus side, they only restrict their sacred palate to monsters...because they believe the monsters (especially Arisen) are gods in the flesh, and by partaking of the Feast, they gain a special kinship with the divine in general. They're even somewhat offended by the Malleus Maleficarum's understandable squeamishness-in-the-key-of-purging (since they don't see the difference between the Eucharist and the Feast, it's just that the latter is a bit more literal), and are honestly confused as to why the Lucifuge are ashamed of their heritage (since they were born with kinship to the divine).
  • Les Mysteres, from Spirit Slayers, are a loose confederation of religious cults that have taken to worshiping the very real animistic spirits that dwell in the Shadow (though they may see them, depending on their own denomination, as Christian saints, aliens, whatever). Because of this, though, they have willingly blinded themselves to the fact that the spirits are monsters who think absolutely nothing like humans do and so exist only to promote themselves. As a result, when Les Mysteres gets a foothold in an area, chaos ensues as they do various things to feed the "holy spirits" — which can include things like committing arson and murder — and unwittingly fostering the environments that let spirits slip through into the real world to possess humans. So, the presence of a Mysteres cell means you risk ending up being overwhelmed by some alien abomination from another plane and having your body stolen — or having your soul sucked out so it can take you over entirely, or either fate happening to your family and friends. But wait, it gets worse! Les Mysteres takes a very "the spirits are good, so they have a reason for doing everything" approach to their faith, which means they tend to blame the victim. So if a spirit ruins your life, Les Mysteres don't really care if you survive their efforts to get rid of the spirits. Assuming they can even be bothered to make an effort.
    • In fact, they're so blinded to the true evil of the spirits they worship that they've actually managed to get "who's the good guy and who's the bad guy" totally backwards when it comes to Uratha. Meaning they often help and work alongside with (until they end up being useless, and get eaten) the Pure.
  • The Hototogisu, from Dark Eras. An Ancient Conspiracy of Con Men and Merchant Princes founded during the Sengoku Period as what was essentially a MegaCorp with one goal in mind; to outcompete monsters in economic matters. They don't care about justice, or humanity, just the fact that as long as monsters sniff around their back pockets, it cuts into their profits. "Okay," you may say. "They're amoral, greedy jerks who want a bigger pocketbook, so long as they keep their attentions on monsters, what's the deal? They don't hurt me." Oh, but you don't know how they deal with their supernatural rivals, do you? Not by killing them, not by driving them out, but by literally stealing their powers. Simply with a well-placed bit of Blackmail, a cuckoo can gain any of the powers on this list without losing a scrap of their humanity, giving them all the power that stopped them from total economic domination with none of the weaknesses. And then force the monsters to work for them to get their powers back. Oh yeah, and the guy who founded them, Inoue, bought immortality of some poor schmuck a while back, and he still lives in Tokyo, with a pack of monsters reliant on him to do anything with the economy. You know what type of creature that's most in thrall to him? Vampires. Read their entry again, about their sheer powers, and realize that a normal man not only matched them in ruthlessness and cunning, but now owns them.
• The potential for hunters to go Jumping Off the Slippery Slope is a subtle one, but still very real. Especially when one remembers that, when hunters were first mentioned in the Antagonists core splat, one of their viable tactics is to track down and interrogate a monster's still-mortal friends or family. Up to and including torturing or murdering them, which some hunters will deliberately do for nothing less than the psychological advantage this will give them against their quarry.
  • As scary as the above is, imagine actually being part of a cell that did such a thing, having either to deal with the guilt of being party to such an act... or being so far gone that you don't care about what you did.
  • If that's not scary enough, think on this. Some monsters are actually very protective of their mortal kith and kin, and likely to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge in retaliation for what you did. Some of the more likely candidates for this (as in, nearly assured to do so), are werewolves, Prometheans, and, oh yes, demons. Read up above on what the various children of the night are capable of. Now remember that this one has a very personal grudge against you and almost certainly has friends and favors it's willing to call in to get back at you. Enjoy your war, asshole.
    • Then there are the Beasts, who see most of the other supernaturals as extended family. Mess with a Beast's family, biological or adopted, and prepare to face a world of nightmares.
• Perhaps the scariest thing about Hunter is the fact that, no, just because you're human does not mean you're the good guy. Many hunters are no better than the monsters they fight — Ashwood Abbey are serial killers/rapists/torturers who just happen to think monsters are better prey than humans, the Promethean Brotherhood are wannabe witches who ritually murder anyone with magical powers to steal those powers for themselves, and that's just scratching the surface. Even if you start out with noble intentions, Jumping Off the Slippery Slope is very much a real thing for you.
• Four World of Darkness lines have Night Horrors books, bestiaries of possible NPCs and creatures for a chronicle. Why doesn't Hunter have one? After reading all this, why would it need one?
• Everything about Slashers. Basically, think about every Slasher Movie villain you have ever seen: the Hillbilly inbred cannibal freaks and Mutants, the Malevolent Masked Man who just won't die, the Evil Genius who kills you using elaborate deadly traps, the boogeyman with mystical powers who shows up when you repeat the right words three times, the seemingly friendly and nice guy who turns out to be a vicious serial killer. Well, they all exist in this setting in addition to all the supernatural critters. And unlike them, they are all humans; even the ones who are supernatural beings became that way not because they were turned through some form of Viral Transformation or something similar, but because they became monstrous enough to actually go through the transformation. Oh, and if you really insist on joining the hunt, you have a very high chance of becoming one of them as a result of constantly killing people.
  • According to Player's Guide to the Contagion Chronicle, Slashers don't have souls. For the record, every gameline has souls, or at least soul equivalents — Prometheans have something that might become a proper human soul, Sin-Eaters and Beasts have their Geists and Horrors acting as a replacement, and the Unchained have their Primium. Even Deviants have souls, just broken ones — which means in a sense, Slashers are even more inhuman than any of these.
• Think about what it means for hunters if the storyteller decides that fan games exist in the chronicle as well. Not only are you contending with the "usual" threats that come with being a hunter, suddenly you're up against threats that no one has ever even talked about. You may have staked vampires, filled werewolves with silver, turned witches into corpses, but suddenly, what happens to your cell? Your people are being turned into dust by some lunatic with gear out of a cheap 1950s-style sci-fi flick. Your friends are being attacked by fish-men that are driving you insane and making you incapable of doing anything. A literal dragon is burning your group to ashes, and looks like it's saving you for the meal. Either a legion of monsters from the shadow of the world or a would-be superhero who cares not for this "collateral damage" thing is after you, either because you exist or because of "the greater good" (of course, given what Hunter cells can get like, she may well have a point...) Just because you're ready for anything doesn't mean you're ready for when it, you know, finds you.
  • If we're bringing in fan-made supplements, one would be remiss to not mention the Immortals supplement for Highlanders. Sure, compared to the other factions and splats they normally keep to themselves due to their single-minded focus on the Prize or wanting to fit in. But in the event a Hunter gets on their bad side, or worse attracts the attention of one of the more immoral of their kind? They are faced with a truly implacable warrior potentially centuries old with combat experience to match. Mortal weaponry does nothing in the long term, explosions mean little and even drowning or setting them on fire is only a temporary stop-gap. Ageing does not stop them, as imprisoning will just delay the inevitable. And in the event one DOES take off their head? The Hunter, and the surrounding area, are not going to survive.
• On a flipside, Hunters can be a source of terror for the other forces of the Chronicles of Darkness. Hunters don't follow the same rules, and are willing to fight where other mortals flee. The fact that there are hunters at all terrifies a lot of monsters. It means that someone fucked up, and the mortals know.
• Since we're adding fan works here's some new slasher undertakings for your viewing pleasure:
  • Harpies are social butterflies who have ways to make people do the dirty work for them, eventually some make it to the top of the social foodchain and become Alphas who want to make sure they stay on top no matter who gets hurt.
  • Sentinels just want to be your bestest friends forever by any means necessary, until they become Wardens, who literally don't care about anyone else.
  • Strangers feel like they're missing something and kill people to find what they're looking for, some of them find it and become Transcendents and decide to celebrate being complete the only way they know how.
  • Predators fancy themselves as hunters Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, some of them get so caught up in it that they become Beasts, feral savages that kill humans for sport.
  • Splinters don't want to kill you, it's just that they NEED to, sometimes that need grows until they become The Split who act as if they had become different people entirely.
  • Chameleons are the perfect social predators, so generic to other people that they're barely remembered after a murder. You literally might not even see them even if you're alone with them. Coincidentally, this is why they murder, since they think the world has forgotten them. Boogeymen take it to another level, literally: They're able to phase in and out of Twilight and can appear anywhere.

---