Ghast

It’s hard to imagine anything more gruesome than an Unseelie redcap, but ghasts, their Thallain relatives, fit the bill. Ghasts are methodical and precise, planning out their attacks with meticulous attention to detail and accounting for every foreseeable variable. Unlike redcaps, they are cold and rational, preferring to creep into a place under the cover of darkness, take what they seek, and leave with no one the wiser about their presence. Ghasts know the kind of unwanted attention their activities bring, so they rarely remain in one location for long. They travel together in crews of three to seven, moving from town to town via trods and mortal highways, taking everything they need to hunt their victims with them. Transient ghasts are not picky about their food, and select victims from all walks of life. The few that do settle into a town are often solitary and extremely territorial. Their victims are those that society doesn’t miss: the homeless, prostitutes, junkies, and other transients. Itinerant ghasts are only tolerated for short periods of time, driven out of the resident ghast’s territory after only a day or so. Ghasts also run the black market in organ trading. Though many Unseelie changelings deny it, Treasure-crafting and chimera-breeding occasionally requires the still-beating heart of a white-haired Dreamer born under a full moon…and ghasts are the perfect choice to procure it.

Appearance

Ghasts are tall and thin, with slender fingers, razor-sharp nails, and chalk-white or milky gray skin. A ghast’s mortal seeming is unremarkable and average in every way, and ghasts pride themselves on appearing to fit in with mortal populations. Their fae mien only hints at their connection to redcaps, manifesting in a red tie or handkerchief tucked into a pocket. The older a ghast, the more skeletal it becomes: Childlings may appear as thin redcaps, but wilders and grumps have skin clearly stretched over their skulls and hands.

Endowments

Natural Surgeon: Though they turn this gift to malicious ends, ghasts can cut their scalpel-talons into a person with the steady confidence of a veteran neurosurgeon. Their dissections are swift and precise, enabling them to retrieve kidneys, hearts, and lungs undamaged. Unarmed attacks made by ghasts receive a +2 bonus to accuracy, and always cause lethal damage.

Malevolent Mists: The Dreaming blesses ghasts with anonymity, no matter how heinous or blatant their activities. Mortal victims retain no memory of how they got injured or why their kidneys are missing — they simply wake up in a panic, knowing something terrible has happened, but unable to recall a single detail. Even fae victims are affected by the Mists, and must succeed on an Intelligence + Kenning roll in order to remember the attack.

Vulnerability

Silence of Flesh: Ghasts must consume Glamour-rich flesh least once per week. For every day past the first week they do not eat the heart, liver, or other internal body part of a Dreamer or changeling, they grow increasingly sensitive to noise and sound, and suffer a +1 cumulative die of bashing damage from all sounds louder than a whisper, no matter the source. This penalty resets to nil once the ghast has eaten an appropriate meal.