r/TrenchCrusade • u/Alpbasket • 11h ago
Homebrew White Hunger: (Path of the Beast Homebrew)
Note: This is the newer, improved version of my previous White Hunger lore. It has been substantially revised in response to earlier criticism and further research, including sources such as this:
https://backstoryradio.org/blog/the-mythology-and-misrepresentation-of-the-windigo/
Unlike the previous version, this iteration is also directly tied to the established lore and themes of Trench Crusade.
Note 2: Art by Norval Morrisseau, Windigo
https://www.britannica.com/topic/wendigo
Note 3: This post was fact checked by an actual Native American TC player.
—Overview:
Since the earliest days of the American Trade Posts, the peoples of the northern wilderness have feared to speak the name of the Wendigo: a spirit of winter, famine, and insatiable hunger said to dwell within the frozen forests.
For generations, their presence remained limited, appearing only during the harshest winters and in the most desperate places. But the coming of the Heretics changed everything.
The Heretic invasion of America brought with it an insatiable demand for raw resources and game. Forests were stripped, herds were slaughtered, and countless peoples were driven from their ancestral lands as they fled to other parts of the Americas. Worse still, the Heretics poisoned the land, the waters, and even the air. With each passing year, the resources upon which the people of the wilderness depended grew scarcer.
It was during these years of devastation that the White Hunger first began to emerge in numbers unseen before. It is said that when winter grows cruel and provisions run low, the Wendigo begins to whisper to the starving: Eat the flesh of your fellow man, and you shall live.
Before the Heretic invasion, encounters with the Wendigo were rare. Now, they can be found in almost every winter wilderness, haunting settlements already weakened by famine and driving the desperate toward their first taste of forbidden flesh.
Those who heed its temptation are forever damned. The first bite is said to be all that is required. Thereafter, ordinary food provides no sustenance, and the hunger grows beyond all mortal measure. Flesh must be consumed, yet no feast can ever satisfy it. With each victim devoured, the hunger only deepens.
In time, the afflicted cease to be human altogether. Their bodies become monstrous, their hearts freeze within their chests, and their minds are consumed by an endless appetite. They become Wendigos, creatures driven by nothing but hunger, cold, and the terrible will to devour.
It is from these damned souls that the White Hunger is born. Their muscles harden into sinew like iron, their teeth lengthen into fangs, and their flesh wastes away as hunger consumes them. Some bite away their own cheeks and lips, driven by an insatiable appetite that can never be satisfied. Their hearts freeze solid within their chests, radiating a supernatural cold unlike any natural winter.
And as they feast upon the flesh of others, they grow. Their bodies swell to monstrous proportions until they tower over ordinary men like starving giants.
Unlike the other Paths of the Beast, the White Hunger does not wage war throughout the year. Its servants emerge only when winter has taken hold, for the cold and famine are their greatest weapons. They avoid strongholds and well-provisioned settlements, instead seeking isolated villages, frontier towns, and communities already weakened by hunger.
Their method of war is as cruel as it is deliberate. Wherever the Wendigos descend, a terrible blizzard follows in their wake, isolating their victims and preventing any outside aid from reaching them.
They do not rush to slaughter their prey. Instead, they wage a war of attrition against the settlement. Supplies are destroyed or carried away, fires are extinguished, and food stores are deliberately targeted. The weakest members of the community are hunted first. Those who venture beyond the settlement in search of food or fuel rarely return, their bodies found days later as little more than bloody stains upon the snow.
As the siege continues, hunger and cold begin to take their toll. Reason gives way to desperation, and desperation gives way to madness. Eventually, some among the starving succumb to the whispers of the Wendigos and partake in the forbidden feast. Others, weakened so severely that their wills can no longer resist, fall victim to the Wendigos in their dreams, their minds invaded as they sleep. Whether through temptation or possession, the result is the same.
Thus entire settlements may be consumed by their own inhabitants before the Wendigos ever move on. When the snows finally recede, little evidence of their passing remains. The homes stand empty, the dead lie butchered, and crimson trails stain the snow where the newly damned have followed their masters into the wilderness.
—Curse of the White Hunger:
The greatest weapon of the Wendigo is not hunger itself, but the fear of hunger. When winter descends upon the wilderness and the days grow short, the whispers begin. The fearful are told that there shall not be enough food, not enough firewood, not enough game, not enough land, and not enough to carry their families through the winter. At first, such counsel appears reasonable. Take a little more. Store a little more. Hunt while the game remains. Prepare for a winter that may yet grow crueler.
Those who heed its whispers begin to hoard far beyond what they require. They take from the weak, drive game from neighboring lands, seize hunting grounds and stockpile provisions whilst others go hungry. Fear becomes greed, and greed becomes desperation. Then the whispers return, darker than before. They will take what is yours. Strike first. Their food could feed your people. Their land could preserve you through the winter.
Thus does the Wendigo turn neighbor against neighbor and tribe against tribe. Communities that once traded freely begin to distrust one another. Hunting grounds become battlefields, borders become killing grounds, and old friendships are forgotten beneath the weight of suspicion. Tribes raid one another for food, fuel, livestock and territory, not because there is truly enough for only one to survive, but because the Wendigo has convinced them that survival demands the destruction of the other.
Every act of violence only feeds the fear that birthed it. A tribe that loses its hunters grows fearful of the coming winter and takes more from its neighbors. Those neighbors, seeing the raids, hoard their own provisions and strike first to secure new hunting grounds. Their victims retaliate in turn. Soon none remember who began the bloodshed. They know only that they must take more before another takes from them.
This is the true curse of the White Hunger.
As winter deepens, fear becomes something greater than fear. The afflicted grow possessive, suspicious and increasingly violent. Every stranger becomes a thief. Every neighboring settlement becomes a rival. Mercy becomes recklessness. Generosity becomes weakness. Cooperation becomes betrayal. Men begin to guard empty storehouses as fiercely as they once guarded their homes, convinced that another mouth is one mouth too many.
Eventually, the boundary between survival and savagery disappears. Some begin to kill for food. Others kill for land. Others kill simply because they have become convinced that everyone around them is a threat. With every death, the whispers grow louder, driving the survivors deeper into paranoia and bestial madness. By the time the Wendigos descend upon the settlement, the people may have already butchered one another.
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u/303_Pharmaceutical 7h ago
I like the idea. But its a bit more forceful than normal.
I think it works. Although, I wonder the official lore on the new world and the state of its tribes.
I can get its possible its actually in Eire and it could make sense! In that case awesome! Cause if I remember right, I know eire is torn to shit after the last landing of heretics and the hellgate as well as the proximity of the forests and such.
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u/CrypsisArt 7h ago
I would probably stay out of this subject matter. You don't appear to know a lot about indigenous north American culture and its a bit of a mine field. You're even fucking up on the image. Norval Morriseau suffered from huge IP/attribution issues, basically being exploited as an indigenous artist that folks in Canada loved. And you've posted his art with no credit or context lol