Every Man His Chimera: demons from Charles Beaudelaire

When I originally wrote these monsters up I was considering the chimeras as adulterations which could be seen before the person fades into Twilight. Adulterations are the parts of a person that won’t get through the filter into Criamon’s Pure Land. Some are as a small as a little spirit, while others are….well, enough of Flambeau that it can be mistaken for him in entirety. I was also working on the idea that heartbeasts are adulterations. Then I realised it could be done far more simply: I mentioned those ideas so you can use them in your game if you prefer that interpretation. In Realms of Power: Infernal (p.72) there are tiny demons called “maggots” that burrow into the ear and influence the infected person’s mind using their Evocation power. These chimeras seem to be a huge variant of the maggot. We may assume the narrator has Second Sight, allowing them to be seen.

***

Beneath a broad grey sky, upon a vast and dusty plain devoid of grass, and where not even a nettle or a thistle was to be seen, I met several men who walked bowed down to the ground.

Each one carried upon his back an enormous Chimera as heavy as a sack of flour or coal, or as the equipment of a Roman foot-soldier.

But the monstrous beast was not a dead weight, rather she enveloped and oppressed the men with her powerful and elastic muscles, and clawed with her two vast talons at the breast of her mount. Her fabulous head reposed upon the brow of the man like one of those horrible casques by which ancient warriors hoped to add to the terrors of the enemy.

I questioned one of the men, asking him why they went so. He replied that he knew nothing, neither he nor the others, but that evidently they went somewhere, since they were urged on by an unconquerable desire to walk.

Very curiously, none of the wayfarers seemed to be irritated by the ferocious beast hanging at his neck and cleaving to his back: one had said that he considered it as a part of himself. These grave and weary faces bore witness to no despair. Beneath the splenetic cupola of the heavens, their feet trudging through the dust of an earth as desolate as the sky, they journeyed onwards with the resigned faces of men condemned to hope for ever. So the train passed me and faded into the atmosphere of the horizon at the place where the planet unveils herself to the curiosity of the human eye.

During several moments I obstinately endeavoured to comprehend this mystery; but irresistible Indifference soon threw herself upon me, nor was I more heavily dejected thereby than they by their crushing Chimeras.

***

Chimera statistics

Order: Tempters (Greater Maggots)
Infernal Might: 15 (Animal)
Characteristics: Int +2, Per 0, Pre -1, Com +2, Str +3, Sta +3, Dex -1, Qik -1
Size: -2
Virtues and Flaws: Weak Willed
Reputations: None
Hierarchy: 0
Personality Traits: Selfish +5
Combat:
Barbed Beak: Init +1, Attack +6, Defense +6, Damage +5
Hooked Claws: Init +1, Attack +5, Defense +5, Damage +8
The chimera prefers to command the victim to fight on its behalf. In a round when it attacks with its beak it cannot also whisper thoughts in its mount’s ear. It does not get its Strength scores added to the beak’s damage because its neck is thin and spindly. It cannot fight with both claws unless it releases its victim. Once it hooks a victim it can do automatic damage each round, but this can be resisted by successfully grappling with the chimera, to unhook its claws from a victim’s flesh.
Soak: +4: uses the body of the victim as armor. Players who do not care if they hit the victim reduce this to +2, and may hit the victim on fumbled Attack rolls.
Fatigue Levels: OK, -1, -5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-3),-3 (4-6), -5 (0-12), Incapacitated (13-)
Abilities: Brawl 5 (barbed beak)
Powers:
Endurance of the Walker, 0 points, Init +1, Mentem: Any creature hooked by a chimera is oblivious to pain caused while walking, or from the claws of the demon. They still suffer any Wound or Fatigue penalties caused by their injuries or malaises, but they are not aware of them.
Possession, variable points, Init +2, Mentem: See Chapter 4: Infernal Legions, Demonic Powers. Can only be used on hooked victims.
Coagulation, 1 point, Init -1, Corpus: See Chapter 4: Infernal Legions, Demonic Powers. Obsession, 1 to 3 points, Init -5, Vim: Pilgrimage. See Chapter 4: Infernal Legions, Demonic Powers. Can only use this power on victims which it has hooked with its claws.
Weakness: Abhorrent Material (fennel)
Vis: 2 pawns of Vim vis, in claws
Appearance: A creature like a deformed ostrich that rest on the bowed back of its victim and lays its head over the skull and onto the bridge of the nose..