Witch-hunter

Witch-hunter is a term used by vampires to describe mortals that hunt down and destroy supernatural beings. Witch-hunters themselves more frequently call themselves simply Hunters. Witch-Hunters are playable characters in both Hunters Hunted and the 5th edition of Hunter: The Reckoning.

Overview[]

Although the most common single source for such individuals is to independently discover and take up arms against the supernatural, Witch-hunters are often trained by certain clerical organizations such as the Society of Leopold, secret societies like the Arcanum, or come from special government sections that focus on supernatural threats. In modern nights, many more hunters can be seen to come from vigilante groups or even corporations. Some are even criminals that have been confronted by the supernatural early in their life and have chosen to fight it on their own.

The minority of independent Hunters tend to adhere in their methods to distinct creeds, while the standardization of the majority who work within wider organizations (called orgs by other Hunters) do not allow for such individual expression in one's work to take shape. Similarly, the passion for the calling of the Hunt encourages the development of a Drive in most independent Hunters, while the same is very rarely the case for org-based hunters.

Independent Hunters require a variety of Edges to actively carry out the Hunt (access to at least one Edge often serving as an informal requirement for becoming a Hunter), whereas org-based jobbers rely on greater general access to equipment, resources and supporting personnel.

The beginning of the Reckoning, though nobody can definitely state when such a beginning occurred, has seen a global increase in Hunter activity, with both more independent Hunters than ever taking up arms against those poisons to their communities and orgs expanding in membership or even forming outright in recent years. Of course, the realistic view of things is that this increased resistance is the cause of the Reckoning and not the other way around, though many more apocalyptically-minded Hunters may frame it otherwise. The most common (and most mundane) explanation for this sudden rise is a mix of the post-9/11 global security state (as was the case with the Coalition) and the rise of the Information Age giving the supernatural less and less places to effectively hide in this new worldwide informational panopticon, though some tend to imply more conspiratorial reasons for the change...

Terminology[]

The term 'Witch-hunter' originated during the Burning Times, when the Inquisition swept across the lands and put a fiery end to the open rule of the Cainites. Vampire-hunting specialists sometimes still use it despite its modern erroneousness, though 'Hunter' is more popular among those who also take an interest in other supernatural creatures. Indeed, it denotes more often than not hunters of specifically vampires, but it's not applied to the Imbued.

Both 'Hunter' and the uncapitalized 'hunter' are frequently used. Although standardization among hunters is loose enough that both are used to refer to hunters of all stripes, generally speaking, the capital-H 'Hunter' is used to refer to those who work independently or in small cells, while lowercase-h 'hunter' refers to all hunters in general, most notably those in orgs, due to those types obviously not being independent. Org-based hunters are also pejoratively referred to by outsiders as 'jobbers'.

The vulgar argot for witch-hunter come in the form of the word Stalker.

Witch-hunters who operate alone or in small, self-reliant cells are frequently called 'Van Helsings', or more often just 'Helsings', by vampires. The term is not used by hunters themselves, as 'Van Helsing' exists among them as more of an informal title denoting extraordinary skill and experience.

List of Witch-hunters[]

Significant Individual Witch-hunters[]

Independent[]

Org-based[]

Witch-hunter Organizations[]

Although most Hunter organizations have a broad remit in terms of supernatural Quarries, it is far from unheard of for such an organization to be primarily or even exclusively focused on the undead. This means that orgs that do not prioritize vampires are often not classified as Witch-hunter groups, while the common definition of 'org' as 'predominantly mortal organization that hunts monsters' precludes many supernaturally-based Witch-hunter groups, such as the Knights of St. George and Oswobodziciele.

Viewpoints[]

Hunters, by their very nature, tend to insert themselves into the affairs of the World of Darkness' various supernatural races on a regular basis, rarely with pleasant results. Especially with the Reckoning taking hold across the world, hunters have become a major (and still growing) point of concern for virtually all kinds of supernatural creature.

Vampire perspective[]

The continuously-unfolding story of the Coalition and its crusade against blankbody-kind (as most hunters call vampires) is one of the greatest successes in the entirety of the Reckoning so far. Although the manifold orgs comprising the Coalition are notorious worldwide for refusing to cooperate with hunters not part of their alliance save for overt exploitation and manipulation, none can deny that, despite being outnumbered and (individually) outmatched, the Coalition has the greatest shot at eradicating blankbodies once and for all since the Inquisition of centuries past.

Vampires themselves, loath as they are to admit it, acknowledge the reality of this existential threat. Despite their inherent harm of surrounding mortal populations making them one of the most frequent targets of Hunters for millennia, the operations of the Reckoning, which they call the Second Inquisition, has forced them to retreat from modern technology and substantially scale back their influence in the mortal world, due to both being easy avenues for detection by hunters.

Werewolf perspective[]

(See also: Lupine hunter)

Hunters don’t generally see the world through the same animistic lens that werewolves do. That they are “servants of the Weaver” at all is more of a threatening convergence of circumstances. For the most part, as werewolves see it, Hunters want to return the world to “how it should be”: a nostalgic-imaginary state of stasis and prelapsarian utopia. The blind zeal and uncompromising nature of many Hunters means that the werewolves aren't especially far off the mark with their judgment.^[1]

The Garou generally find themselves able to make short work of werewolf hunters, but every now and then, something goes wrong: A pack underestimates the assets the hunters bring to bear; or they do, in fact, manage to wipe the floor with the hunters — only to find themselves picking up a million-plus views as a video of their carnage hits the streaming services with their faces plainly visible.