Ancient Devices

Verditius magi seeking unique enchanted items as part of a Mystery Quest might learn of an ancient device made of brass and marked "Tuvulcan", but written in Hebrew and dating back to the ancient times long before legends of the Roman deity ever came to be. Perhaps this leads them to speculate that all or many of the pagan gods and goddesses of the classical world were actually the children of Lamech, and directly descended from Cain.

him into a hideous, wild creature. He fled his homeland, traveling far away, and it is said he died in the Great Flood, though whether or not he did, or passed on the curse to anyone else, is unknown. In any case, like Cain, Lamech is never mentioned in the Bible again.

Cain was shot through the heart, and he should have died. Yet he was not welcome in paradise, for he had never repented of his crime, but he had also already received judgment and punishment from God directly, and so neither could his soul be consigned to eternal damnation. Thus, Cain arose from where he fell, a shadow of himself, both living and dead but neither living nor dead, a man but not a man, a being something else entirely. He became a ghost of sorts, solid enough but also unreal and otherworldly, a living corpse forced to live in places steeped in fear and hidden by the night. In short, he became a faerie, a legendary creature of darkness and death.

Faerie Might: 10–70 (Corpus) Characteristics: Int –2, Per –1, Pre

+4, Com +2, Str +3, Sta +5, Dex

–1, Qik –1

Size: 0

Age: n/a (120)

Personality Traits: Murderous +7, Bloodthirsty +3, Envious +3, Fearful +3, Hateful +3, Reckless +3, Thieving +3, Vengeful +3

Reputations: Murderer 9 (local), Cursed by God 6 (local)

Combat:

Dodge: Init –1, Attack n/a, Defense +6, Damage n/a

Fist and Nails: Init –1, Attack +6, Defense +7, Damage +4

Bite: Init –2, Attack +7, Defense +6, Damage +8

Club: Init +0, Attack +8, Defense +7, Damage +6

Soak: +5 (Stamina)

Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6– 10), –5 (11–15), Inc. (20+)

Abilities: Animal Handling 3 (oxen), Area Lore (any) 3 (geography), Area Lore (Ancient Mesopotamia) 8 (geography), Athletics 3 (running), Awareness 5 (watching from a distance), Brawl 7 (grapples), Dead Language (Adamic) 5 (agricultural terms), Guile 5 (lying to authority), Hunt 7 (long distances), Single Weapon 6 (club), Stealth 6 (hide), Survival 8 (desert), Swim 3 (rivers), Teaching 2 (children)

Powers:

Desperate Speed, 3 points, +2, Corpus: Cain can move with astonishing speed when necessary, traveling twice the distance a normal man could move in the same amount of time and adding +7 to his Initiative.

Supernatural Fury, 3 points, +2, Corpus: When driven into a murderous rage, Cain may ignore all wound penalties and add +4 to his Attack.

Rush of Strength, 3 points, +2, Corpus: Cain summons a sudden burst of angry vigor, increasing the amount of damage his next blow deals by +4.

Shadow of Cain, 0 points, +2, Corpus: One of Cain's "shadows" separates from his body and goes elsewhere, taking away 10 points of Might and one of his +3 Personality Traits. This is for all purposes a different being, a specialized instance of Cain that is unaware of the actions of any others, with its own agenda and its own desires. It rises from Cain's body, however, so Cain cannot do this if he is bound or imprisoned. Each of these shadows can join together with the others, so that it is possible for there to be two versions of Cain in different parts of the world, one with 40 Might and another with 30. When all of his shadows are combined, he has his maximum Might Score of 70.

Appearance: Cain can appear in many forms, but most commonly he looks like a crooked old man in a dirty, kilted tunic and hood, with which he covers a black scar in the shape of the cross branded into the center of his forehead. Most of the hair on his head has fallen out, though his eyebrows are unnaturally bushy and he strangely does not have a beard. He bears signs of a nasty arrow wound on the right side of his neck. His remaining teeth are long and sharpened to points, and his fingernails are like claws. His skin is pallid and cold, like a dead body.

Cain does not regain Might like a normal faerie. He must sleep to recover lost Might, replenishing 1 Point per hour if he sleeps for more than six hours. During this time his body is indistinguishable from a corpse. Killing and eating a living thing also restores some of his Might, approximately 1 Might Point for each two points of Size above –15. If his Might Score has been diminished from its default value, each night it is increased by one. Also, he heals very quickly when he is incapacitated, completely recovering from all wounds as if they were Light Wounds, though they often leave unpleasant scars on his body.

Like other faeries, Cain does not age, and he does not suffer Fatigue. He suffers pain from exposure to the elements, but does not need warmth to survive and has no need to breathe or eat. He may walk all day and all night without stopping. If he is not sleeping, he must concentrate on remaining in one place, or he is compelled to travel. He prefers the night, since he is less noticeable then, but also prefers settlements and cities to the wilderness.

Cain's shadows wander throughout all of Mythic Europe, but he is often drawn back to Mesopotamia, his homeland. Characters investigating the ruins of Babylon or searching for the Garden of Eden may stumble across his body huddled within a Faerie aura, appearing to all medical and magical examination to be dead (apart from his Faerie Might), or discover him lurking in the dark of night, watching them from a distance.

Cain's original curse was a sort of faerie blood, which he passed on to his descendants and which associated him with the Faerie realm while he was still living. When he died, however, he became a true faerie creature, wholly belonging to that realm. This version of Cain was a very different sort of faerie from the other faeries of the time. It might be supposed that Cain was the first "dark faerie" of the ancient world.

In fact, part of Cain's curse is that there are as many as seven shadows of Cain loose in the world, each of them slightly different, but all of them wicked and frightening. All of them are Cain: they know what he knew when he died, and they want what he wanted when he was still alive. Thus, while there is only one Cain, he may appear in several places at once; this is the sevenfold vengeance mentioned in the Bible.

Cain's seven aspects usually travel individually, though they can also come together to create a more powerful whole, and in fact they always do when two or more of them meet in the same place. In the many ages since the original Cain lived, each instance has developed a particular Personality Trait, which is its primary reason for killing. These break off from the whole when Cain appears to sleep, each pursuing its own form of murder. For example, the Wrathful Cain hunts those who have slighted him, seeking revenge, while the Fearful Cain hides in shadows, striking from darkness so that he is not seen.

The main reason characters might seek out Cain is because as a son of Adam, he is a native speaker of Adamic. In fact, while he can speak and understand any language by virtue of his faerie nature, Adamic is the only language with which he is fluent, as it is the language he spoke when he was alive. When convinced

to talk, he communicates in a strange garble of words and dialects, often cursing to himself in his own tongue. Characters may be surprised to hear their own names spoken among this stream of sounds under his breath if they listen carefully, even if they have not introduced themselves to him. They may deduce that many of these words are spoken in Adamic, and through exposure to Cain's bizarre manner of speaking, they can pick up experience points in the language. This is an absurdly slow process that

Ancient Magic

may require the characters to dog his steps across all of Mythic Europe, but it is one method by which they may recover the original language of man.

A better way to learn Adamic is to convince Cain to teach them, for though he is a mediocre instructor, it is faster than picking up a word or two here and there over the course of a season. However, Cain is unlikely to do this, for he is vengeful and petty, and he may treat people with whom he empathizes even worse than those he dislikes. Yet some medieval schol-

Cain is depicted here as a faerie for several reasons. Firstly, Cain is a character of myth, though he appears in the Bible, and after his death he is primarily a bogeyman used as a frightening example of someone who committed a terribly evil act and suffered the consequences for it. It is even possible that this faerie version of Cain came into being after the real Cain's death, in response to stories told about him. In any case, this version of Cain is a legendary figure, a living character from a famous folk tale. Secondly, Cain is depicted as essentially amoral; he does not wish to corrupt others or lead people into sin, but sates his own desires. If he were a demon, it would be impossible for the characters to ever save his soul, and would conclusively answer the question of whether or not Cain had been forsaken by God. Interacting with Cain as a demon would be a mortal sin and a Hermetic crime. Thus, this version of Cain is morally ambiguous. Finally, as a faerie, Cain's appearance is mutable, so that his curse is not necessarily tied to his skin color or his nationality — the idea of Cain as a murderous being cursed by God can appear in any culture, and this makes clear that his mark is not tied to his race or tribe. This version of Cain is one taken from European myth, but as a faerie creature he could just as easily appear in a different form recognizable to people living in other parts of the world.

ars speculate that Cain still has his soul, for God has given him a different punishment than Hell for his sins, and thus he may yet be saved from eternal damnation if only he can be made to repent. If Cain understands and believes this, perhaps he would be willing to tutor the characters in exchange for their hearing his confessions. He may even enjoy it, as it gives him an opportunity to brag about his exploits. Characters who listen to him non-judgmentally may befriend him,

at least temporarily, long enough to learn what they need.

Then again, it may be that the only way for the characters to learn what they want is to force Cain to cooperate, perhaps by capturing him and threatening to hurt him. Cain is especially susceptible to the Dominion and holy things, for Divine auras cause his head and limbs to tremble and shake, and turn his voice into a series of unintelligible screams and moans. The touch of a holy relic burns him, leaving black marks upon his skin. This torture may cause him to yield, bitterly but pleadingly, though he nurses his vengeance and vows to cause his captors all the suffering they inflict upon him and more. He has all the time in the world to get even, and he ensures that those who punish him eventually suffer much, much more than he did.

Should any character slay Cain, that character inherits Cain's curse, as a kind of Greater Malediction. He becomes twisted and deformed, driven from the Dominion by the same trembling and groaning that Cain suffers, and doomed to become a shadow of himself when he dies. So too will Cain the faerie eventually raise himself from the slumber that for him mimics death, his desire for vengeance against his killer sated by passing on his curse. This process of death and rebirth might take only a few days or many generations, but Cain ultimately resumes his wanderings as if nothing had happened.