Han'ya/Salamonster

SALAMONSTERS

The salamonster is, to the unaugmented eye, a salamander the size of a Humvee limousine with flaming skin. Bizarrely, they are found over much of Creation, rather than just in the South with the rest of the flaming monstrosities. They are known to inhabit the North, the Far North, the Scavenger Lands, the Near South, the near East, and the entirety of the terrestrial West.

A salamonster has a dangerous ability. Fully adult salamanders have three venom sacs just below their tongues, which they utilize by spitting it. The venom contained within twists the Fate of everything it comes into contact with, bestowing a powerful Doom on the victim. In the words of a seasoned salamonster hunter, "Just a little drop gets on you and your whole life turns to shit." In addition to its flaming skin and prodigious size, this makes the salamonster a formidable foe even for a Celestial Exalt.

Salamonster young are born live, and approximately the size of VW Bugs. They begin life as legless nymphs, with skin more smoldering than actually flaming. As they grow (it takes an average of ten years to reach full adulthood, and their total lifespan is somewhere in the high three hundreds) they acquire more and more legs, until they have acquired their full set of six. Their flames also grow more intense, until they are veritable walking firestorms. They are omnivorous, but require regular rations of non-avian brain matter to continue to manufacture their venom. The venom also plays a key role in the salamonster's brain chemistry, and a salamonster who cannot produce its venom will become slow-witted, cranky, and pessimistic, as well as feeling like it has a killer hangover all the time, regardless of any actual alcohol consumption. For some reason, salamonster flames do not ignite alcohol.

Salamonsters do not make nests in caves or enclosed areas, as the heat from their blaze renders it uncomfortably warm for them. Only in the far North do salamonsters dwell in caves. Rather, the usual modus operandi is to char a large area into submission and then just plop itself down there. This usually means that salamonsters are visible for miles at night, and easily locatable by the mile (sometimes multiple miles) of charred foliage around them by day. This behavior also makes them drains on the local ecosystem. Salamonster flames are hot enough to boil away light and medium rain. Only monsoons, typhoons, hurricanes, or other spectacular precipitatory events can extinguish their hide. Such an occurrence is not disastrous, since salamonsters evolved their fiery hide merely to circumvent that whole "reptiles are cold-blooded" problem. The flames allow them to maintain a pace even some mammalians would envy in their day-to-day life. Extinguishing the flames is at best a temporary solution, as the skin oil of the salamonster erupts into flame on contact with air. The flames will be back to their old strength in at most two days. While they are out, the salamonster will suffer from sluggishness and ill health, as does any reptile in the cold. Skinning the salamonster will render freezing it to death a viable option. Even when skinned, the remarkable persistent creatures will still be dangerous, and still in possession of most of their mental faculties, thanks to a low pain ceiling.

Salamonsters are by no means unintelligent. Indeed, though they are not disposed to living in close proximity to one another except when the males are driven to seek out mates (which, to phrase it simply, involves finding one of the females and depositing a small lake of sperm in a convenient location, e.g. under a tree, in her territory, then giving a good scream and trundling off. The females will amble along sometime later that day and dump three or four eggs in the puddle. Six months later, new baby salamonsters. A quick three-to-four-year upbringing from Mom, then off they go into the world.), they have a rich oral tradition and some quite intriguing philosophical thoughts sprung from their unique perspective on life. They are known to paint messages for posterity onto convenient cliffsides or large rocks using their lead-rich, nonflammable dung.

Salamonsters, by a quirk of the nature of their souls, will always utter incredibly profound and meaningful last words. In fact, they may give a speech lasting up to five whole minutes after being Incapacitated. A (Perception+Occult) roll that may not be augmented by any means, at difficulty 5, will give a witness some great insight into Charm creation, history, artifact design, sorcery, or some other pursuit, providing them a pool of 5 banked automatic successes which they may spend anytime on any pertinent roll over the next fifty years.

Crunch

Juvenile
|| Strength 6 || Perception 2 || Charisma 2 || || Dexterity 2 || Intelligence 4 || Manipulation 3 || || Stamina 4 || Wits 3 || Appearance 3 ||

|| Essence 1 || Willpower 6 ||

|| MA 4 || Lore 1-3 || Linguistics 1-3 || Presence 4 || Archery 0 (+3 Venom Spitting) || || Integrity 3 || Resistance 6 || Survival 2 || Awareness 2 || Stealth -3 ||

May spit 4-5 doses of venom per day. Must have two square meals a day to maintain that capacity.

Adult
|| Strength 8 || Perception 3 || Charisma 4 || || Dexterity 2 || Intelligence 6 || Manipulation 5 || || Stamina 6 || Wits 5 || Appearance 3 ||

|| Essence 1 || Willpower 7-8 ||

|| MA 6 || Lore 3-6 || Linguistics 1-5 || Presence 5 || Archery 0 (+4 Venom Spitting) || || Integrity 4 || Resistance 6 || Survival 2 || Awareness 3 || Stealth -(5-6) ||

May spit 12-15 doses of venom per day. Must have three square meals a day to maintain that capacity.

Venom has no health penalty, but it does impose a -2 (for juveniles) or a -3 (for adults) internal penalty to all rolls for a number of years equal to (Number of leftover successes on the attack roll+2). Needless to say, the venom is not parryable without a stunt, and any mundane implement used will be rendered junk. Any magical weapon will draw bad luck to itself. Whether or not this is bad luck for the bearer is up to the Storyteller.