TRAIL OF CTHULHU

Hideous Creatures

Hideous Creatures: Byakhee

Publisher: Cathriona Tobin

Author: Kenneth Hite

Layout: Aileen Miles

Artwork: Patricia Smith

Hideous Creatures: Lloigor is part of the Ken Writes about Stuff

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© 2014 Pelgrane Press Ltd. All rights reserved.Trail of Cthulhu is published by arrangement with
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 TRAIL OF CTHULHU

Hideous Creatures: Introduction

Lovecraft created his various “shadowy congeners” because the stories of vampires, werewolves, and even ghosts had become
too familiar and too formulaic to evoke true horror. Almost a century after he wrote, his own monstrous races have likewise
begun to seem like comfortable story furniture rather than unnerving signals that the world is horrible and wrong.

Our goal with this series is to present a comprehensive look at Lovecraft’s hideous creatures, from as many angles as we can.
Our goal is contradiction, surprise, and most especially the uncanny: the recognition of something familiar as something weird. As
in the “Gods and Titans” section of the Trail of Cthulhu core book, this series deliberately contradicts itself, blurring boundaries
and erasing certainties in the name of the uncanny. In your campaign, these variant truths might be misunderstandings, legends,
heresies, or deliberate lies spread by the creatures to lull their foes into a false sense of familiarity.

Change anything and everything in these pages, most especially the ability scores. If you need a terrifying assassin, a brief but
survivable fright, or a sanity-shattering horror, just add or subtract points at will.

Contents
Hideous Creatures: Introduction 3 Kenaima (Guiana) 8

Byakhee 4 Vetala (India) 8

Possible Byakhee Abilities 5 Investigations 8

Variations 6 Clues 8

Mythic Echoes 7 Scenario Seeds 10

Akris (Antiquity) 7 Something in Platinum 10

Camazotz (Oaxaca and Chiapas) 7 Just a Song at Twilight 11

Guiafairo (Senegal) 8 Bibliography 11

Harpy (Ancient Greece) 8

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“We … found ourselves once more astride the huge bat-winged creatures … apart from the curiously repellent feeling of human
flesh under my hands, and furred wings, I was not able to ascertain what these creatures were like.”
-- August Derleth, “The House on Curwen Street”

Byakhee are interstellar hunters, • Wings that flicker in and out • Head is soft and featureless like that
flying between the stars on vast of geometric visibility, shifting of a mole; a single hollow tooth
membranous wings. They sometimes forms from bat to crow to insect emerges from the proboscis to
carry riders, usually one apiece -- to manta ray puncture and drain foes
though such riders need protection
from the vacuum and cold from suitable • Reflect and amplify starlight, • Mouth on the long, whiplike tail
spells or potions. Byakhee do not have reddish and bluish glows coruscating
bases on earth, but sorcerers summon over the wings like phosphorescent • Slablike, built of chitin or mica
them to perform foul deeds or to serve rot on a log or sheet anthracite, resembling
as steeds. a somewhat organic helicopter
• Wings are clearly made of eyes; gunship body
Derleth describes the byakhee very faceted like insects’ or shiny like
sparingly: they are black, winged, and birds’ or wet like humans’ Note that the monstrous steeds in
furred. “Bat-like” is his most common “The Festival” have webbed feet, not
adjective. More recent authors have • Extended fins like a flying fish claws.The celebrants ride them into the
attached to the byakhee various underground river beneath Kingsport,
additional descriptors of the “trained, • Wings (and body) clearly furzed not into the skies above it. Presenting
hybrid winged things” from Lovecraft’s over with mold and rot, crusted the byakhee as enormous ducks,
story “The Festival”: decomposed, with ice, tattered by cosmic winds, however justified by the text, is unlikely
antlike, birdlike. alive with crawling alien lice to maintain the mood of horror.

These “default byakhee” -- necrotic, Vary the body and head:

insectoid vultures with bat wings – Byakhee
may not have palled on your players, • Enormous thorax and abdomen,
depending on how often they appear. like a wasp Abilities (on land/in air or
However, it’s always a good idea to have space): Athletics 5/20, Health 8,
some more possible horrors to present. • Skull head, or metal head and jaws, Scuffling 6/11
or just metal teeth and claws Magic: The alpha byakhee in a
Vary the byakhee wings from their flock has a Magic rating between 5
“bat-like” default: • Human torso with chitin sprouting and 9. It will have Summon Byakhee,
from under the peeling flesh and possibly Call Hastur or Create
• Bifurcated wings rather than a Hyperspace Gate.
single pair • Antennae, or long hair, or cilia, on
the head Hit Threshold: 4
• Wings made of chitin or crystalloids, Stealth Modifier: +0/+1
like enormous dragonfly wings • Coated with long spines like a
Weapon: +1 (claw), +0 (bite);
porcupine, the wings are very long
following a successful bite, the byakhee
• Gelid oily sheen on the membranes, spines joined by webbing
will automatically drain 2 Health per
clinging in lysergic rainbow colors
round from its victim until killed or
or crawling ultraviolet • Black flesh broken and pitted as if
driven off.
by smallpox or micrometeoroids

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Byakhee
In combat, byakhee can either strike Flock Attack: Up to four byakhee the axle or jamming the engine), and
with both claws for two attacks per (or five in midair) may attack a single yanking guns or knives out of hands, but
round, or attempt to bite and drain target in one round. The foe’s Hit not diverting lead bullets.
blood. Threshold drops by 1 against the third,
Armor: -2 vs. any (fur and hide, and and by 2 against the fourth (and fifth) Orbital Flight: Even without
an absence of vitals) byakhee. teleportation or wormhole effects, a
Stability Loss: +1 byakhee can fly into orbit and come
Foulness: All unprotected breathers down anywhere on the Earth or Moon
around a byakhee must make a Difficulty within 1 hour.
Possible Byakhee Abilities 5 Health test or be Hurt until they return
to clean air. Any food too close to the Paralysis: After scoring a Scuffling
Mix and match these abilities for beast converts itself to dextroproteins hit, a byakhee can spend (minimum 1)
the byakhee in your campaign without or simply disintegrates. Magic points to force the target to make
fear. Lovecraft couldn’t even decide a Health test against a Difficulty total
what byakhee didn’t look like, much Grasp: A byakhee can seize a foe equal to the roll plus the Scuffling and
less what they can do. If they’re ad in its claws with a successful Scuffling Magic points spent. On a failure, the
hoc constructs assembled by Hastur or test (-1 damage); that foe must spend target is paralyzed; his Hit Threshold
genegineered by the Elder Things, they 2 Athletics (3 Athletics for greater drops by 2 and he cannot move for
may have any number of possible forms byakhee, below) to do anything but the rest of the scene. (Kindly Keepers
and functions in addition to interstellar writhe uncomfortably. A seized foe has may allow an Athletics test against that
courier duty. her Hit Threshold lowered by 2. To free Difficulty every round after the first to
herself, she must defeat the byakhee in break the paralysis.)
Space-mead should also grant a contest of Athletics – but of course,
immunity to byakhee “environmental” the byakhee can simultaneously fly Regeneration: The byakhee
powers (Foulness, Interstellar Cold, thousands of feet into the air in one continues to attract and reshape new
etc.) in order to function correctly. round. matter, either detritus from its earthly
surroundings, or extraterrestrial
Cognitive Dissonance: The Greater Byakhee: For the matter through its hune, replacing any
presence of the byakhee enforces belief immense (40’ wingspan) byakhee damaged parts. It refreshes 1 Health
in and knowledge of Hastur. Humans mentioned by Howard, add +5/+10 per round until dead.
with Stability above 0 within 10’ of to Athletics, +5 to Health, and +3/+6
the beast are automatically Shaken. to Scuffling. Hit Threshold drops to 3, Scorpion Sting: In addition to
For an even crueler version (or in claw damage increases to +2. claws and jaws, the byakhee has a
places combining true despair and scorpion-like tail.When it stings, that is
impossible hope), such witnesses take Interstellar Cold: The byakhee the byakhee’s only attack for the round.
-2 Health damage per round from carries with it an aura of freezing Its tail can strike foes at up to Close
nausea, migraines, and mental anguish. cold. In addition to eerie effects on its range and does +1 damage. Every
Anyone who has read The King in Yellow surroundings, touching the byakhee round after that, the target must make
is immune to either effect, but takes +0 with unprotected flesh costs 1 Health. a test of Health or Stability (Keeper’s
Stability damage instantly upon seeing choice) with a Difficulty equal to the
a byakhee, before rolling for any other Iron Beak: Byakhee with iron or total damage done by the strike as the
Stability test. metal beaks bite for +2 damage. Their agonizing pain burns through his veins.
bite can tear through stone, concrete, Only blessed unconsciousness ends the
Diving Attack: Byakhee can dive wood, and all but tempered steel armor torment.
from thousands of feet high to Point- like a bank vault door. That takes two or
Blank in a single round, or vice-versa. even three bites. Teleport: The byakhee’s hune
A diving byakhee can spend Athletics organ (or wings, or …) doesn’t merely
points on Scuffling tests or to increase Magnetic Manipulation: Byakhee create folds in interstellar space, but
claw damage by 1 per point spent. (It can use their hune organ (or wings, or also allows it to teleport while on a
must still spend all points before rolling.) …) to attract or repel ferromagnetic planetary surface. For 2 Health or
For even deadlier byakhee, it can spend 2 metals (iron, nickel, cobalt, etc.) at Magic points, a byakhee can disappear
more Athletics points to fly back out of the cost of 2 Health or Magic per feat. and immediately reappear anywhere
range immediately after attacking. This includes stopping cars (by bending else – or nowhere!

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• A unique paramagnetic organ

How Fast Are Byakhee? called the hune occupies much
Barring questions of relativity, folded space, or other chicanery, the source of the byakhee’s opisthosoma, or
material gives a wide variety of answers: abdomen. It generates a keim,
a pattern in spacetime that the
• They are capable of interstellar flight from Aldebaran (65 light-years) to byakhee can enter for faster-than-
Earth in a few minutes. light flight.

• They carry Shrewsbury and Phelan the 3,800 miles from Arkham to Peru • The byakhee generate their keim
in “a very little time.” as a flock, creating the pattern with
their magnetic sail-wings.
• Conan’s byakhee travels 550-600 miles (five days’ nonstop ride at a
horse-killing pace) in an hour. • The hune is attuned to the galactic
magnetic field, and is propelled by
• Sandy Petersen’s Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters gives their top speed its flux. Byakhee manipulate the
near sea level as ~45 mph, increasing as air density lessens. Their top Earth’s magnetic field to hover in
interstellar speed is 400 c (a 60-day flight time from Aldebaran). terrestrial gravity.

The answer is thus “as fast as they need to be for the story to work.”Tension • Byakhee are shoggoth-like constructs
and drama are more important than physics. A byakhee that can carry a wizard built by the Elder Things as a bribe to
to New Guinea or Mars in a few minutes may have to win a contest of Athletics Hastur for his aid in their great war
vs. Piloting (or Driving) to catch a group of Investigators in a fast airplane – or against Cthulhu hundreds of millions
even a fast car! of years ago. Their forms are thus
protean and plastic.

• Byakhee are assembled by the

Variations • To summon a byakhee, drink
space-mead, blow a whistle of
Hastur-force from abandoned
and degraded matter near the
“They were not altogether crows, extraterrestrial matter, and chant Iä! summoner: grave earth, industrial
nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor Iä! Hastur! Hastur cf’ayak ’vulgtmm, waste, oxidized metal, dead organic
vampire bats, nor decomposed human vugtlagln, vulgtmm! Ai! Ai! Hastur! matter, beetles, etc.
beings; but something I cannot and must Byakhee appear out of the night.
not recall.” • Byakhee are tulpas created by the
-- “The Festival” • Imbibing space-mead is not necessary belief in the Hastur meme complex,
to summon a byakhee, but only to facets of the Hastur reality made
As with the “Gods and Titans” section survive in interstellar space. visible and horrible, given shape by
in the corebook, this compendium is the viewer’s worst fear and disgust.
intentionally self-contradictory. Its facts • Byakhee are vocal, cawing and Thus they cannot be described or
and theories come from Lovecraft and screeching. Some savants can remembered clearly.
Derleth, from later writers, and from understand their speech, or claim to.
the universe of possibilities opened up • Byakhee are servants of Tulszcha,
between them. • To him who holds the Master- the shadow-forms cast in instants by
words and Signs and the Knowledge his Green Flame and given hellish
• Byakhee are servitors of Hastur, underlying all, the byakhee are not unlife.
nesting in the space around his malignant nor inaccessible. They
home near Aldebaran. can be called by such a one in their • Byakhee are worm-beings built
own language. of dead animals by the cult of
• Byakhee nest on (or inside) airless Kingsport.
planetoids and comet nuclei. • Byakhee warp time and space
Swarms of byakhee nest in the around themselves to travel faster • Byakhee are a species of shantak-
Kuiper Belt of many solar systems, than light; time stands still while birds; they carry riders through
including our own. riding byakhee. Dream and back to Earth. The

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Byakhee
Library of Celaeno exists in the the byakhee habit of carrying off The byakhee, at their most basic,
Dream Pleaides, or in frozen Leng. the priests of Leng to serve Hastur are winged creatures ridden by wizards
upon their first death. or warlocks. Therefore, any “demon of
• Byakhee never leave the Earth; they the air” from medieval witch-lore or of
nest on the highest peaks of Leng some remote people might refer to the
or the Andes. They bring riders to a Mythic Echoes “Byakhee birds” as Derleth’s Professor
fane of Hastur in the Nameless City “There are creatures … not alone of Shrewsbury calls them. As with the
of Arabia, where the traveler lies earth and sea, but of air and the far variations and possible powers above,
down in a crystal coffin and astrally reaches of the skies as well, dwelling any given byakhee might more closely
projects to the desired interstellar apart, unguessed of men. Yet to him who match their various mythic depictions
destination. holds the Master-words and Signs and than Lovecraft’s fiction.
the Knowledge underlying all, they are
• Their name comes from the not malignant nor inaccessible.”
Thibetan bya-khyi (“bird-hound”). Akris (Antiquity)
The Thibetan Bön tradition of sky- – Robert E. Howard,
burial is a cargo-cult imitation of “The Scarlet Citadel” The Greek word akris means “locust,”
but is also applied to the winged,
tormenting beasts of Revelation 9. The
akrides are shaped like armored horses
with metallic thoraxes and scorpion
tails, sporting metallic projections and
flowing tendrils from their human-
bestial heads. “The sound of their wings
was like the sound of chariots with
many horses, running into battle.” They
emerge from smoke – a space-warp
opening? – and, unlike regular locusts,
do not feed on grass and plants.

Camazotz (Oaxaca and Chiapas)

Not to be confused with the
anthropomorphic Mayan god of the
same name, these camazotz (“death bat”
in Quiché Maya) dwell in Zotzilaha,
the House of Bats within Xibalba,
a dimension of death marked by
incredible cold – the cold of interstellar
space, perhaps. According to the Popol
Vuh, these enormous, malevolent bats
kill all those who come into their
presence with weapons “like a dry
point” (desiccated claws?). Camazotz
have snouts “like a flint knife,” echoing
the “iron beaks” often ascribed to
byakhee. Their cry of quilitz, quilitz
continues all night; one camazotz
comes “from the sky” and beheads one
of the Hero Twins.

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Guiafairo (Senegal) kenaima, implying that its “true form” for generations; that implies a ritual
is winged. The peaimen (shamans) of purpose rather than the more normal
Known as “the fear that flies by the Macusi tribe summon kenaima in slash-burn-replant cycle of the Amazon.
night,” this bat-like monster has a the form of immense winged beasts, But why a clearing, and why do they
human face, clawed feet for snatching bribing or binding them with tobacco call it the “Door to the Sky?”
human prey, and an incredibly – even water.
terrifyingly -- foul odor. It can appear Archaeology: The Parthenon was
inside locked rooms, but normally oriented to the rising of the Pleiades
dwells on rocky crags or in the tops of Vetala (India) – perhaps this temple shared the same
dead trees. Similar bat-monsters haunt alignment. In which case, the high altar
the night in the Congo (the kongamato, Sometimes spirits who possess should be over here. (Architecture,
with a long snout), the Gold Coast (the corpses, sometimes a subspecies of Astronomy)
sasabonsam, with fangs and eyebrow rakshasa or of ghoul, sometimes simply
ridges), the Cameroons (the olitiau, a monstrous sorcerer in the form of Architecture: This whole roof
with an apelike face), and Madagascar a bat, the vetala (or baital) haunts swings away – could he have planned
(the fangalabolo). cemeteries. In its bat form it seems to land an autogiro here or something?
skeletal and hideous; in corpse form
its hands and feet turn backwards. Art History: The black-winged
Harpy (Ancient Greece) Its talons carry poison; its flesh is demon tormenting St. Anthony in
green and stinking. It drinks blood or Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim
These winged and clawed monsters eats intestines, favoring children and Altarpiece (1515) is supposed to be
of Greek myth also carry a supernatural madwomen as prey. Wizards and magi the result of an ergot hallucination
foulness with them, extending to bribe and consult vetala, who know the – so why does it perfectly match the
all nearby food. They snatch victims past and future as well as much occult eyewitness’ description of the “devil
and carry them to Tartarus or other lore. The only way to capture a vetala is bird” that took Kerenyi right out from
mysterious destinations – their name to approach it in total silence. under our noses?
comes from the Greek harpazoi,

Investigations
“snatchers.” The Odyssey mentions their Assess Honesty: He claims that
kidnap habit, and connects them with the winged monsters and the flying
wind and storm spirits. The Aeneid even through space was all a dream brought
gives one Harpy’s name as Celaeno Keepers should treat this section, on by drinking “too much mead” – but
(“the black one”), connecting them and use these elements, even more he doesn’t believe his own denials! Is
further to the Pleiades. Byakhee also idiosyncratically. he crazy, or is he driving himself crazy
closely fit the description of the Furies: thinking he’s crazy?
bat-winged and dog-headed daughters
of the dead sky god Ouranos, with Clues Astronomy: Celaeno is the
snaky hair. Interestingly, the Harpies dimmest star in the Pleiades Cluster
are first described as ugly beasts (as Perforce, the clues in this section near Taurus, about 440 light-years
opposed to beautiful if foul women) mostly point to “conventional” byakhee as away. It was known as the “Hidden
in Aeschylus’ play The Furies, hinting at painted in Derleth’s Trail of Cthulhu story Pleiad” in antiquity because only those
some early confusion in Greek lore. sequence. Feel free to adjust them at will. with very keen – or magical – sight
could perceive it.
Accounting: The Professor put all
Kenaima (Guiana) his property – including his vacation Biology: The grass here was frozen
home near Dean’s Corners – into a and then broken from the top down,
These astral killers can possess any very complex trust. Essentially, his as though something unutterably cold
earthly thing from sticks to insects to money just maintains the houses and landed here. The spores growing here
people, although they are especially pays all his taxes – it’s like he expects to are new – I’ve never seen anything like
drawn to bats and birds. Death by come back after all these years and step them before, although they slightly
kenaima resembles snakebite or similar right back into his life. resemble nitrogen-fixing fungi.
poisoning. In Guiana, when the locals
kill a whippoorwill or other nightjar, Anthropology: The tribe has Bureaucracy: That’s odd – she says
they burn every feather to destroy the kept this part of the jungle cleared “Professor” Maitland has never actually

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belonged to the American Astronomical find. It could be igneous rock or clay, Occult: According to Agrippa’s
Society. See if your contacts at Yale can subjected to intense heat – possibly De Occulta Philosophia (1510-1530), a
ask around and find out if he even has meteoric in origin, as I’ve never seen properly prepared talisman “with the
a real degree. Why do you suppose an anything like it on earth. Moon conjunct the Pleiades rising or
impostor takes a job as an observatory at midheaven, preserves the eyesight,
director in Tucson? History: This whole Alsace- summons demons and the spirits of
Lorraine region was a hotbed of the dead, calls the winds, and reveals
Chemistry: The parchment and ink witchcraft outbreaks from 1410 to secrets and things that are lost.”
are absolutely authentic for a print struck 1690; testimonies (not all extorted by
in Colmar during Martin Schongauer’s torture) record witches and wizards Oral History: Talking to peasants
life (1440-1491). But why would he flying to the Bavarian Alps (or the court and townsfolk all through the area,
run off a print study of just one of the of the Devil) at unearthly speed on you notice that some families are – not
demons in his Torment of St. Anthony? their demonic steeds after drinking a shunned, precisely, but less connected
And why would it be hanging behind golden potion. to the rest of the region. More insular,
the door in the house of an astronomer? apt to marry among themselves. The
(Art History, Document Analysis) Languages: The tablet we found Weylands and the Müllers seem to be
in her sink is inscribed in ancient the leading families in that group.
Cop Talk: We’re tracking down a Babylonian, beginning with MUL.
report that somebody heard whistling, MUL, the “Star of Stars” or the Outdoorsman: “Investigators were
like from a piccolo, right before the Pleiades. The basalt stone is incredibly unable to explain certain marks about
attack. weathered, but the cuneiform looks the tent, suggesting the marks of bat
like it was carved yesterday. (Geology wings, greatly enlarged …” (Evidence
Credit Rating (5+): The only for stone) Collection)
way to find out for sure what Von
Brighoff is researching is to answer his Law: Someone has gone to a lot Pharmacy: I can’t tell what this
advertisement for a “private secretary of trouble to make sure the Professor so-called mead is supposed to be, but
and amanuensis of breeding.” That cannot be declared legally dead, no it’s not just fermented honey. Or if it
means you, college boy – your folks matter how long he stays missing. And is, the bees took pollen from a literally
were Main Line, correct? it looks like they had the Professor’s impossible collection of plants, fungi,
cooperation in doing so, given all the and epiphytes, and then added some
Cryptography: The symbol cut documents he signed or filed over the ethylene glycol and neurotoxic heavy
into the crystal is Agrippa’s emblem for years. metals to finish the job. This will either
the Pleiades. (Occult, q.v.) put you into a mild coma or give you
Library Use: This is the 1511 the worst hyperaesthesia you’ve ever
Evidence Collection: The prints Strasbourg edition of Euclid. had. (Chemistry)
generally resemble those of carrion It incorporates a number of
birds, but are not deep enough to “improvements” by the translator Photography: The camera in the
indicate anything heavy enough to Bartolomeo Zamberti taken from telescope triggers every three minutes
batter a human ever stood in them. Theon of Alexandria’s Catoptrica – the to capture possible comets – maybe it
(Outdoorsman) study of mirrors – and “Alhazen’s” caught a glimpse of the thing flying by?
De crepusculis – a treatise on shadows (Astronomy)
Forensics: The body is slashed and at twilight. Why go to the trouble to
torn almost to rags, and blood spatter get this specific edition? Does it have Physics: I don’t know how it works,
evidence indicates it was carried anything to do with the mirrors set up but this scale or feather or whatever
around the area during the struggle. to reflect the western horizon right on it is just drinks up ultraviolet light. It
Although the throat is ripped out, there the Pleiadean alignment? (Astronomy) doesn’t reflect it, or heat up, but that
is surprisingly little blood either on or energy has to go somewhere. Even
in the corpse. Medicine: She’s suffering from higher energies, like cosmic rays, might
shock and severe hypothermia – and actually affect it – or it might just shunt
Geology: This whistle isn’t made of those red spots all over her skin are them off to wherever, but even moreso.
any kind of stone I’m familiar with. It purpura from exploded capillaries.
seems like iridium-bearing ore, rather The dark tan indicates high ultraviolet Sense Trouble: A waft of icy
than the natural alloy one expects to exposure, too. air seems to rush past you, and an

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astringent smell like rotting juniper

stings your nostrils.

Streetwise: Sure, I know where

you can get ahold of some golden-eye.
Or flying honey or whatever you call it
– it’s new enough that one name ain’t
stuck yet, I guess. I gotta warn you,
though – it’s not cheap, and the supplier
is… well, he’s scary enough that
Buccola hasn’t moved in on him yet,
and Buccola hit Wallace and Solomon.

Theology: Shrewsbury’s work

references the “earth-diver” myth of
creation common amongst Siberian
and Amerind peoples, in which a sky
deity sends a (sometimes infernal
or demonic) bird to the bottom of
the ocean to raise up the land at the
beginning of time. He thus postulates a
primordial antagonism between Water-
Chaos and Sky-Art, and implies these
“demonic birds” also “dive” into our
subconscious to raise up artistic and
religious impulse.

Scenario Seeds
The most common use of byakhee
in scenarios is as transport for evil
wizards or lesser dangers in temples
of Hastur. They come more fully into
their own in adventures involving air
travel, but can be surprisingly powerful
foes even on remote Miskatonic Valley cultist of Hastur from birth. In 1919, him through the earth on paramagnetic
hilltops. These two scenario seeds offer the Peace of Versailles returned his waves. Byakhee hang from his rafters,
a “standard” byakhee appearance, and family’s refinery to him, a looted shell. hungry and eager to see their soft
byakhee as storm-crows of apocalypse. Desroches brewed space-mead and brother Desroches glisten and harden:
summoned byakhee, who carried him Under his yellow silk caftan, his flesh
to a distant, platinum-rich planet. For mummifies, his muscles atrophy, and
Something in Platinum a decade, he made constant trips back he grows a hune of his own in his belly.
and forth, bringing platinum back to He eats metal fragments and by now
Guillaume Desroches’ grandfather Metz, growing ever more addicted to disbelieves in the existence of anyone
lost his metal refinery in Metz in space-mead and comfortable with the outside his house. The Desroches et Cie
1871 when the Germans took Alsace- byakhee. senior managers pay off inspectors, keep
Lorraine. The Desroches devoted three the plant running, and don’t question
generations to the study of the occult, Now he no longer needs to travel the the frequent deaths and disappearances
hoping to undo their misfortunes. stars – constant maceration in space- of their workers … or the night-time
Guillaume was raised in Besancon, mead gives him preternatural mineral deliveries of cobalt, nickel, tungsten,
in a house of sorcery and madness, a senses, and he draws rare metals to and always platinum.

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Byakhee

Just a Song at Twilight the Investigators find some other way Trail of Cthulhu. The creatures eventually
to send the star-steeds on to the next get a name in “The Watcher From the
This scenario plays out over the stop of their migration? The answer Sky,” and appear throughout the novel.
course of and in the margins of the should tie into the ongoing campaign
rest of the campaign. A single byakhee before the byakhee gorge themselves Chaosium identified Derleth’s
flies across the moon in one adventure. on the very reality of their nest and the byakhee with the “hybrid winged
Two appear when the cultists call. In a city disappears from human memory, things” appearing beneath Kingsport
fourth scenario, a byakhee dives into the scavenged for ontological carrion by in “The Festival.” Despite the lack of
fray seemingly unprompted, eating a the steeds of Hastur. similarity between the two monsters,
wounded (or dead) Investigator. Planes the depiction of byakhee in later fiction
crash mysteriously. The Investigators’ The location of this disaster can generally adapts this Lovecraftian
contacts report seeing even more vary. Promising epicenters of byakhee taint. That said, very little later fiction
of the things across the country. infestation include artistic meccas like centers on the byakhee – even more
Sightings slow down between May San Francisco, Paris, Kyoto, Bombay, than in Derleth, they are convenient
and December – and then Aldebaran and Buenos Aires; loci of despair such escapes or generic winged horrors.
rises again, and astronomers describe as Madrid, Kiev, or Peking; or any
a magnetic storm washing down on Depression-blighted industrial wrack The byakhee return to their sword-
the Northern Hemisphere. Byakhee in the Midlands or the Midwest. If the and-sorcery roots in Ben Thomas’ “The
are everywhere; every adventure now Keeper has been using a fictional city Menagerie” in Cthulhu Unbound Vol. 1
seemingly features one – or a flock. – whether Arkham or one of her own and (even moreso) in “Surely You Joust”
devising – perhaps the byakhee “win” by Patrick Thomas in Cthulhu Unbound
The byakhee are swarming. Their and devour it, explaining why it doesn’t Vol 2. Enormous Howard-style byakhee
wings reshape and deform atmospheric show up on modern maps or memories. ridden by evil magi appear all too briefly
signals: everything from radios to in Thomas Harlan’s alternate-Roman-

Bibliography
compasses to bird migrations to auroras history Oath of Empire trilogy. Weirdly,
goes mad. Even normal eyewitnesses the best modern fictional byakhee may
now report “thunderbirds” and be the patter-comic monsters starring
“giant crows” and “vampires.” The The first bat-winged space-steed in Lucien Soulban’s “Good Breeding” in
Investigators can follow the reports summoned by a sorcerer in the Mythos Blood Lite II: Overbite.
to find the byakhee staging grounds, appears without a name in “The Scarlet
where the ultra-terrene flocks gather, Citadel” by Robert E. Howard. That Finally, Adam Gauntlett’s original
protected by a shell of dominated creature likely inspired the similar, and horrifying treatment of byakhee
Hastur cultists and an expanding fog of smaller beasts in August Derleth’s “A (and the Hastur mythos in general) in
solipsistic madness. But now what? Is House in Curwen Street,” the first of the Trail of Cthulhu scenario Soldiers
there some Thing there, some massive the linked stories in Derleth’s novel The of Pen and Ink is well worth a look-in.
alien call that must be silenced? Or can

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