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| Species | Vishaaakaay |
| Order | Greater Undead |
| Classification | Undead |
| Dominion | Agikaani |
| Sphere | Agony |
| Origin | Arnic esotericists using special rituals of self-harm |
| Lifespan | Inmortal |
| Habitat | Subtropical mountains |
| Food | Pain |
| Description | A paler version of what they were in life, usually with extensive scarring, broken bones, missing features and limbs, and discoloration. Their teeth are black and come out as a unit. They are taller than they were in life because of being stretched. |
| Corruption | Only an intentional, self-directed ritual can turn a person into a vishaalakaay. |
| Esoterica | Vishaalakaay are beings of and created by arnum and msawhat. They were always a powerful user of both of these powers in life and continue to be so in undeath. Most also had other arts in life, and they often take up others in undeath, including self-denial, infernum, cacophony, feirua, desperation, hunger, uafas, vile energy, rending, black nommos, misfortune, gossamer light, imperium, quaestus, brown, autumn, fallow, brumal, and winter msahat, Damaskian powers, Raesian energy, entropy, emotional resonance, tears, viscera, psionic energies, and spirits. Only qi, the gates, heavenly essences, and positive resonances are impossible. |
| Special Powers | Vishaalakaay cause an intense, deep unease and overwhelming nausea in anyone who sees them. Their voices cause spinal nerve pain. Their touch is so cold it freezes flesh like liquid nitrogen. Their breath feels like insects crawling under the skin. Their bite will leave an unhealing wound that never stops hurting, but the teeth will remain in the flesh unless the vishaalakaay grab them back. However, this is the most direct way they can consume pain. If a vishaalakaay draws a circle on the ground in any bodily humor, anyone within it will experience the sensation of burning flesh though no heat is present. Using a hooked, serrated bone-dagger made from one of their own bones, a vishaalakaay can gut someone and keep them alive for years with their entrails hanging out. If they set their own flesh on fire, the fire burns as arnum and msawhat, which they can control, using as burning esoteric whips that cause pain and corruption. Every vishaalakaay has at least a 20 in various esoteric arts. |
| Necromancy | A user of arnum and msawhat must perform a ritual (28) of intricate self-harm that involves stretching themselves on a rack, tearing the flesh on their backs, breaking their own bones, hacking off at least one body part (often a finger, toe, nose, breast, or whole arm or leg--the larger the missing part, the more power invoked), and heavy self-bludgeoning. This is combined with use of chants, burnt camellia, and especially the breaking of the bones releases the appropriate energies that, if the user lived a life of torment for others, they will become a vishaaalakaay. Both energies must be present. Controlling one is almost impossible except with greater energies of msawhat or arnum (31). Summoning one is possible through a ritual of self-harm and corruption that involves torturing someone and doing then the same acts on oneself, while invoking the name of the vishaalakaay. To capture one and draw power from them requires a user to capture the teeth of the vishaalakaay and seal the rest of them away in a tomb of grey marble filled with white sand. |
| Sending | If one can capture the teeth of a vishaalakaay, place it in a jar of olive oil along with a piece of lambskin with the vishaalakaay's name on it, bury it in white sand, and then avoid being killed by the undead by the following dawn (or having the jar being dug up and destroyed), the vishaalakaay will be destroyed. |
| Weaknesses | Iremia, curacion, calm or compassion resonance are especially effective against them. Qi, the gates, other positive resonances, and other heavenly essences will also harm them. |
| Behavior | A vishaalakaay seeks to feed off the pain of anyone they can find. They do this usually by controlling other undead through their esoteric arts (sometimes demons or abominations) to have them capture victims and bring them to their mountain cave hideouts. When they must go out on their own, they do using their incredible arts to protect and disguise themselves, though their unease and nausea presence doesn't go away if they are disguised. |
| Dominion Culture | The vishaalakaay are part of the ruling class of the Agikaani Dominion. They command a hierarchy of lords, warriors, and slaves which they use to build stables of mortals to feed off of and extend their territory and power. |
| Other Dominions | If a vishaalakaay seeks to be part of another Dominion, they are often welcomed as powerful and high-ranking. Among the Raesians, they are usually stronger with the msawhat arts, and among the Srisians, they are more skilled with infernum. In Fellwood, uafas and entropy are stronger, and in Durosian, desperation and feirua. In Kaanian, they are more powerful users of pravum, in Dun they are stronger with vile energy, and in Wapek they are better with brumal aether. In Pandemonian, their entropic arts are greater, and in Campionese, they excel at parasitic arts. In Sangarian, they are revered as great users of hunger energy. They are rarely part of Qhanuum or Godless, but when they are, they are given specific roles of torment for specific people (mana users and faithful of great power). |
| Mortal Interactions | Mortals know the vishaalakay less as individual beings and more as events, something that happened to a region, an area, a place they heard of somewhere, like a plague or disaster that destroyed it. |
| Afterlife | If a vishaalakaay is sent, they end up moving through the in-between slowly as the corruption of their souls fades, spending Ages there. Once they are through, they end up in the Broken Obelisk, the Hells, or the Grey Lands. |
| Notables | Bhaag Gaya, Noseless Crone of the Weeping Mountains, Vishaalakaay Manifest; Bolekee Haddee, One-Legged Master of the Bone Hook Caverns; Gutaka, Toeless Horror of the Arid Heights; Shaukeen, the Pallid Giant, Master of the Phatahuan Ranges |
| Special Classes | Necromancer, Torturer, Mutilator, Soulbreaker, Serial Killer |
| Sample Stats | PRO 14 ATH 12 STR 14 Teeth +6/+6 AWA 20 WIL 24 ROG 13 Unease/Nausea Presence 25 Voice 20 Touch 26 Consuming Power 14 Breath 22 Bite Consuming Power 28 Circle 24 Consuming Power 18 Dagger +6/+6 Consuming Power 15 Flame 30 Consuming Power 20 |
GrandGuignol
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