The daughters born of the Rainbow Serpent, the Yawkyawks are the protectors of the waters and all that dwell within them.
Overview[]
They can be found anywhere that water flows and pools: in rivers and streams that run whatever the season, within hidden water holes in the trackless Great Western Desert, and others even making homes in purpose-built wells. In those places, their wards are fishes and frogs, insects and plants, animals and people, whose spirits and dreams give life and shape to the Dreamtime, and the water itself, a precious resource, easily polluted and difficult to replace.
Appearance & Lifestyle[]
They can also be found wherever the sea finds the shore and in the open ocean alike. In those places, their protectorate is all that lives and thrives in the salt-spray: the creatures of the deep, the birds of the air, the people who make their living on the waves and currents. Their kindness saves the lives of lost sailors and their anger, slow to rouse but tempestuous as a typhoon, punishes those who defile the water. To befriend them is to never thirst on land or fear death beneath the waves. To make them an enemy is to know the dread of deep water and all that lurks beneath its waves in a nation cradled by the sea.
Although on land they walk on legs, when immersed in water yawkyawks shift to resemble mermaids: humanoid from the waist up and piscine from the waist down, with hair like seaweed. The tails of freshwater yawkyawks tend to be brightly colored and patterned, their hair closely resembling masses of freshwater vegetation. Seagoing yawkyawks swim with the sleek tails of marlin and sharks, glorious ribbons of green and golden kelp-hair streaming behind them. In any form, they possess a strange, compelling beauty, their skin shimmering with scales, their eyes large and magnetic, their long, webbed fingers tipped in claws.
Birthrights & Frailities[]
Birthrights[]
- Realm Affinity: Prop.
- Guardian Form: They may spend 1 Glamour to assume the form of a crocodile (freshwater or saltwater), a dragonfly, a small lizard, or a swordfish in order to blend into the world around them. They enjoy all the physical abilities of the creatures whose forms they take and retain the ability to use Arts while in those forms, though they cannot speak unless they use other powers to allow it. Yawkyawks cannot botch Animal Ken or Survival rolls.
- Stormcaller: Once per session, a yawkyawk may spend 2 Glamour to call down a storm that lasts for a scene and inflicts the yawkyawk’s Glamour rating in bashing damage per turn to the focus of its wrath. She may only target one individual per turn, but may change targets each turn. Mortal armor is only half as effective as normal in soaking this damage (round down), though supernatural protection works normally. While occasionally used to punish a transgressor of Law or an Oathbreaker, yawkyawks most commonly use this ability to destroy ships or injure people who despoil water sources and upset the balance of life.
Frailities[]
- Captive’s Command: If a yawkyawk is taken by force from the waters she calls home — caught accidentally in a net or deliberately trapped — she is compelled to serve her captor with all the powers at her disposal. She regains her freedom completely when she re-enters her own country. Yawkyawks often find ways to trick their captors into releasing them into their waters.
References[]
- Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Player's Guide, p. 112, 113.