Bodach

Bodachs are the creature under a child’s bed, who reach out with cold, bony fingers to grab unwary ankles and hiss unintelligible whispers in the dark of the night. They are especially adept at tormenting children, and prefer pinching babies above all other prey. Enterprising bodachs make themselves at home in children’s wards, daycare centers, and other places where children congregate, for better access to their prey. Like their distant relatives, the clurichauns, bodachs are house fae, tied to mortal populations. They creep into homes through chimneys and open cellars, lurking in damp basements and under furniture until the human residents go to sleep, and then they are free to roam at will. A bodach is a flexible boogeyman, and knows just what to do in order to terrify a child the most. It feasts on the screams of sensitive young Dreamers, and has no compunctions about Ravaging them dry. Bodachs rarely kill their victims, preferring to keep the children alive for future feeding. Some bodachs haunt hospitals, skittering behind equipment and beds in children’s hospitals to find the sickest, weakest victim they can.

Appearance

Bodachs are wizened, wrinkly, and apparently without gender. No matter their age, they appear to have wispy white hair, stooped shoulders, and sour expressions. In either mien, they rarely stand above 5’ tall. Their faerie miens have sunken cheeks, bony limbs, pointed ears and pitiless eyes. They are quicker than they look, and can scuttle like spiders on all four limbs.

Endowments

Boneless: As long as it has a hole to squeeze through, a bodach can gain ingress. Though they prefer the roominess of chimneys as their usual point of egress, bodachs have been known to enter houses through rat holes, ductwork, and even up pipes leading to toilets. In addition, they may never be grappled or clinched for more than a single turn, as their natural ability works quickly to free them.

Insight: A bodach in a social situation, or one in which it is attempting to gain Glamour, knows instinctively how to make a situation more terrifying for its victims. The Storyteller rolls its Charisma + Empathy (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower), gleaning insight into what makes its victim tick. This reduces the difficulty of a Ravaging roll on that victim by 2.

Vulnerability

Deadly Exposure: Bodachs are as frail as they look, and both health tracks are reduced by two health levels. As a result, they depend on remaining unseen in order to gain Glamour, because visibility risks serious injury or death. Homes with cats are the safest, for cats can see a bodach, no matter how wellconcealed, and drive it from the premises.