Coyotizán is the name of an Umbral Realm that links several cities in the United States. Access to it through its portal in the material world is currently being controlled by the Coyote trio.
History[]
Coyotizán is a series of pathways connecting multiple places across the United States through a network of strange spiritual trails that, for unknown reasons, all exist in an old van. The preternatural roads were found by a Mage in the 1990s, who met their end at the hand of Hunters in 2017. Three of these Hunters found the van and discovered its connection to the pathways within it, and after exploring them and learning their purpose over time, they’ve turned the van into a mobile smuggling operation that travels through Mexico offering its service where it’s needed.
Starting in 2019, a series of victims with anomalous conditions had turned up in multiple areas across the U.S. Seven such cases were reported as of 2022, and all of them were found with entire limbs completely replaced by different varieties of organic matter, from roots to beehives to cacti. All victims were Mexican, which led to the tense collaboration between the FBI’s Special Affairs Division and the Direccion de Atención a Amenazas Extranormales. These victims were only a small number out of dozens, possibly hundreds of people who were illegally sent through Coyotizán into the United States without incident.
Overview[]
Those transported to Coyotizán’s pathways find themselves surrounded by shifting alien sights. Looking at things too closely can evoke headaches and confusion as senses reject the strange colors, patterns, and geometry of the otherworld. The landscape is unpredictable, blooming into wild luminous forests, shadowy marshlands, and arid wastes within the span of a few meters at times, and seemingly extending to infinity at others. However, whoever built Coyotizán carved the pathways to be an anchor in the chaos, and so long they’re followed closely, one can exit through one of the other ends without error. The main problem is that sometimes the shifting terrain itself makes it impossible to follow the road, and any detour within the numinous realm can unexpectedly turn into an unending journey.
The realm Coyotizán crosses behaves like a massive living organism, and everything within it is being constantly assimilated by it, whether voluntarily or not. This means that those who travel or hide out there for extended periods of time risk finding themselves changed, adopting strange characteristics the landscape has at the time and, ultimately, becoming part of the terrain itself. Individuals lost in Coyotizán are unable to perceive the passage of time, but eventually (probably) return to the physical world, albeit with one or more features permanently exchanged, replaced by a part of the realm itself. On rare occasions, parts “traded” from victims can be perceived while within Coyotizán — a hand reaching out from a branch, or a head mutely gibbering at the top of a cactus.
Coyotizán is also known to have a sort of generative effect on those who travel through it: A Oaxacan woman was found dying in south Philadelphia after having been partially transmuted, but gave birth a few hours after her discovery. After the DAAE located her family in Santa Lucia del Camino, they determined that she had only 'disappeared' the day before her discovery, and was only in her first trimester at the time. This may be the timeless nature of Coyotizán warping the length of the pregnancy, or some kind of passive influence of Dynamism pervading the Realm.
The strange interstitial space that Coyotizán passes through appears to be an entity of its own, sometimes changing its surroundings in response to the emotion of those within it, almost as if trying to reach out and communicate. Any of its actual thoughts or desires elude human comprehension though, and attempting to commune with them can risk temporary (so far) dissociative state for anyone who interacts with the para-dimensional space.
Many strange denizens inhabit the van’s living elsewhere. The path of Coyotizán used to be out of the way of these creatures, but its recent increased use has drawn their attention, and now many of them prowl its vicinity in search of prey. They may be spirits, they may be something altogether different, nobody who has encountered them has survived long enough to properly relay their nature - not that most people would be able to understand what they were looking at.
Usage[]
The object connecting Coyotizán to reality is a rickety 1996 Dodge cargo van painted mostly sky-blue, with a mural of a wolf howling at the moon on one side and a white-bearded wizard on the other. It bears multiple rusty scratches and bumps across the paint job, but it has no overt indication of its supernatural nature. Anything or anyone in the back of the van when the door is closed immediately experiences a psychedelic spectacle as they’re transported to the inexplicable and discombobulating nexus of places to which the van is connected, with no direct means of return.
The Mage who discovered Coyotizán used it to move quickly between multiple locations. The path splits three ways in the middle, and the end of each route is attuned to one major city: Los Angeles in the west, Chicago in the middle, and New York City in the east. However, an unavoidable side-effect of the mutability of the strange dimension is that the exit points of Coyotizán are imprecise. Someone trying to reach New York City might end up somewhere in Pennsylvania or Massachusetts, for instance, though the destination is always near or within a city. Whether that’s just the way it works, or if there’s an element missing for it to function properly, is unknown.
References[]
- HTR: 5th Edition Core Book, p. 192-195