Fey Parasites: The Devilsmane Tick

Thanks to Tyler Smith for allowing me to use his piece "Tick Critter" as the art for the Devilsmane tick. Find more of his stuff HERE.

INTRO

Yes, in case you're wondering from my last post on the fey, I still hate elves.

Pop culture, with few exceptions, has homogenized elves. They're all the same waifish, elegant, mystical, aloof, beautiful creatures. They all dual-wield the same sorts of curvy plant-inspired weaponry, they all shoot their bows like they're Wild West gunslingers, they all speak a magical language that sounds like they're breathily making love to your ears and they're all terribly dull and predictable and stereotyped, and boring, and dull. And dull. And DULL. By god, they're dull.

As a result, many players find themselves operating from within the box of pop-culture dullness. "My character's name is Elfowyn D'ullass, and hes a mystic forest ranger that can see through wooden doors and dual wields elven longbows and knows the power words for charm and summon bigass animals and summon tinkling magical flowers and he's a billion years old and he never has to wash his hair and he smells like morose romance and sandalwood.

All the tropes.

But let me offer an olive branch: most people just dont know any better, and if someone doesn't know better, then how are they going to act better?

A better question is "how do we help them?"

First off, you can make an open suggestion.

"Hey. Gerald. I'm stoked to have an elf in play, but can I challenge you to make them less like a Lord of the Rings elf and more, say, interesting? Think outside the box, baby. Give me a curveball. How about...a wooden eye? Or...a family curse? Or...perhaps they think that fey creatures are loathsome, deceptive, monstrosities that need to be purged from the face of the world?" I love the direct route.

To assist players, I have redefined what it is to be "fey". To be "fey" is to have the roots of one's family tree buried deeply into the distant, mist-shrouded fey world, a place rich with shadows and light, poison and panacea, gods and demons. Dreams and nightmares are as real as the waking world, and the moon casts light over a vibrant nocturnal world.

"Fey" creatures, such as elves, do not draw deeply from the waters of the ancient fey gardens. Rather, they are related to the ancient fey in the same way you are related to Genghis Khan. Like, yeah, sure, you can trace it back if you work at it, but odds are you're taller than Genghis, fatter Genghis, and can't fire a handful of arrows from a horn bow whilst charging on a steppe pony to save your life.

Thats my world. Reframe your fey world. Or have your fey players reframe it to their own liking.

Beyond this, you can use the game itself to change them. To challenge them with the vicissitudes of the game itself, altering their character in ways that automatically make them more interesting and fun to have in play, incorporating strange and unpredictable mechanics, or secret messages for their eyes only.

Which is where the brain-eating parasite known as the devilsmane tick comes in.

The Poison Suns

-from the Book of Wretchedness-

Berolech felt a buzzing at the back of his skull and felt his eyes twitch, ever so slightly, like an itch, like a sub-musical hum. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but the vision would not dissolve. Where he knew there should have been nothing but a flat stone wall, there was a yawning arch, its internal border tangled in a glimmering, glistening mass of black vines. Beyond this arch, where there should have been dirt, or a street lined with hovels, or at the very least a sunlit urban desolation, there was a moonlit hill, covered in gently waving grass, shrouded in the dangling fronds of willow trees, with what appeared to be a huge stone altar at its crest. He stared, his heart quickening. Beside the altar there was...something...a smear of darkness...darker than darkness, a physical mass of the stuff that blotted out the black hills and forest behind it. Atop this shadow, three eyes blazed like poisoned suns.

Three malevolent lights that glowered at him from a liquid face that at once repulsed and beckoned him onwards, towards the gate, towards the altar, towards the figure's outstretched talons. He felt the vibration at the base of his skull push deeper towards the center of his skull as the pitch rose, sharp as a crystal spine. The pressure, the form with the three flaming eyes dancing in and out of focus, a vibrating needle pressing deeper, deeper…

The coarse bark of his friend Cassian broke over his shoulder. "Oi, Berolech, what's got you gobsmacked, my pretty friend?"

Berolech shook his head and the vision swam, faded, stretched, but remained, perhaps only dimmer than before. He cleared his throat, and felt a cold hollowness in his chest, like his rib cage had been emptied by a century in the grave. "You don't see...you don't see it?".

"See what, amigo? The wall?? Oh, congratulations, Bero. You've discovered masonry!"

"No-"

"Sad to say it, but there ain't much money in building huge fucking walls these days. And with those dainty string-pluckers, I don't think you'd make much of a stonemason!"

Cassian broke out in a roar of laughter that Berolech cut short with a look of confusion, panic, and terror. "No! Not the fucking wall, you prat! That thing! In the fucking glade! With the eyes! God fuck us all, the eyes!"

The eyes...the three burning eyes...they slashed him to ribbons and tore into him like spears of alien light. He felt the world around him rotting, sloughing away, being made porous by that hideous regard. The nightmares of his youth, where his bed was but a raft pitching on an ocean brimming with snapping, scaly monsters, where his closet was a conduit to a realm of hooked beaks and ripping claws, eager to claim innocent flesh as trophy, as meal, as sacrifice, all were real, all were glimpses of a world that his universe covered like cheap paint. He could smell the place, like the smell of ancient hate mixing with wildflowers on a long-forgotten battle ground.

"Riiiiight-o, Berooo!" shouted Cassian as he wound up and then slapped Berolech across the face so hard that he reeled and fell to one knee, cradling his jaw and swaying drunkenly. After a moment, sure that Berolech wouldn't draw a blade, Cassian gently guided his companion back to his feet, steering him away from the wall, and down the road.

"Lets go on and see if we can't find an inn, hey? Maybe a pint of beer? Or ten? Maybe a warm bed and a warm woman would help sooth that pretty little head of yours? Berolech mumbled what sounded like agreement, and with a steadying hand at his elbow, they two walked their swaying path, Cassian recounting with relish his many martial and carnal exploits.

Berolech wanted to tell the huge man to shut his mouth, that a strange malevolence was afoot. He wanted to scream at Cassian to draw his saber, to burn the Castigator's Incense and to throw the holy salts, but he did not, for fear that another tremendous slap would leave him no better than an unconscious pig in a sea of sharks. For as Cassian spoke, Berolech heard sounds hiding behind the words, the stealthy sounds of invisible predators drawing nearer, lurking behind beams of light, the shadows of tiny leaves, and the impenetrable bulk of the earth itself. He felt a crystalline spine at the base of his skull, and three venomous eyes burning into the back of his head.

THE DEVILSMANE TICK

Dermencentor Expoliavit, Olachan Aisling, Devilsmane Tick

DESCRIPTION

Devilsmane ticks are small insects, roughly the size of a head of a pin, with similarities to spiders and sea anemones. Their bite is rarely noticed, allowing them to invade their host unmolested. They burrow into the back of the skull, drilling through bone until they reach the visual cortex of the brain, extruding a cluster of very fine, long, silver filaments out of their tails. These threads are extremely strong and seem to be made of a conductive material, functioning not only as hair-like camouflage but as a means of communication with some other strange layer of reality. With time the host will begin to see things that would drive even the mightiest of mages to their knees as their senses are opened to the deeper, darker underpinnings of fey existence. These ancient and invisible, unknowable things will, with time, begin to take notice, to look back, to reach out.

CONTRACTION/INCUBATION

Devilsmane ticks are found in the deepest reaches of ancient forests. They are nocturnal creatures, and hunt by dangling from tree limbs by their long filamentous hairs. When a warm blooded creature draws near they begin swinging around through the air, waving their clawed forefeet in an attempt to snag the creature. After successfully climbing aboard, they slowly move towards the base of the creatures skull in order to bury their barbed, drill-like face through the occipital bone and into the visual cortex, thus satisfying their life's purpose.

Most devilsmane ticks carry with them a number of microscopic pupae that do not become metabolically active until their mother has begun feeding. Once she begins to feed, they will quickly grow and migrate to a spot on the scalp perhaps a centimeter away to begin their own tunnels which are arranged in an oddly geometric pattern relative to their mother's burrow. This phenomenon is not well understood but it is suggested that this arrangement boosts their abilities to communicate.

While devilsmane ticks are keen to afflict any mammalian host, they have a strong preference for those of fey persuasion and will dodge non-fey creatures if they detect a fey creature moving towards them.

Fey creatures, such as elves and their kin, suffer the same constellation of symptoms as non-fey creatures, though the onset is much more rapid and the outcomes are much more spectacular.

PROGRESSION/SYMPTOMS

Infestation begins with a pain-free bite at the base of the skull. Shortly thereafter a small welt will appear and from it will project several long, thin, silvery hairs. Roughly around this time, the victim will start to see glimpses of the invisible fey world around them. The darkness of the universe will become visible like vapor, the footprints of hidden creatures like sodden turf. Chaotic gods, the machinations of hags, and secret glades of fey creatures will appear at first as smudged light or vague shadows. As the tick and its children dig deeper, reaching further into the brain and outwards to the surrounding intangible world, these dreamlike visions will grow more concrete, more terrifying, until the doomed host cannot tell the difference between the nightmare and the waking world. In a matter of weeks the doomed host will live on the boundary between the waking world and the shadowy fey world where even the slightest misstep will push them forever into that eternal, Cimmerian glade.

EFFECTS

BRAIN BITERS: Devilsmane ticks bite brains, as simple as that. Rather than eating the stuff, they interface with it, transmitting information directly into the visual cortex. For sustenance, they feed on the nutrients of surrounding tissues, blood, and cerebrospinal fluid.

DOOM: One cannot long observe the fey realm without drawing its denizens' scorn. Once the threads of infestation have grown long enough, they become a transponder, marking the unfortunate creature that bears it for destruction at the coiled hands of strange beings. Once marked, removal of the parasite will only delay the many agents of destruction.

DREAM SUBLIMATION: When an infested person sleeps, their dreams, whether pleasant or horrific, can be sublimated into physical reality. This typically occurs only in the latest stages of infestation, and the tangibility of these visions progresses from vaporlike to utterly realistic.

IRE: The more active and successful an infection, the more likely its host is to draw the ire of the universe around them. Not only is an infested creature more likely to suffer from critical failures, but these failures are much more likely to be crippling and to reek of transdimensional fey malice.

PENETRATING SIGHT: Devilsmane tick filaments are like radio antennae, sending and receiving information between the host's brain and the invisible worlds around them. While unpredictable and unreliable, these visions reveal not only intangible things, such as ley lines, curses, and magical energies, but physical things that are invisible. Sometimes these visions can penetrate vast thicknesses of solid matter, though the infected person must always wonder if a given vision is indeed real or a complex hallucination.

SUCCOR: While it is rare for the intangible fey to offer aid without recompense, it is not unheard of. Critically successful actions can see the generosity of the fey press into the real world in strange and unimaginable ways.

CURES

It may be tempting to simply yank devilsmane parasites out by the roots until one recalls that the roots are buried in the tissues of the visual cortex of the brain. Some claim that applying a coal or a brand to the creature's tail will cause them to release, but in reality this will only cause them to dig deeper into the brain to flee the heat. Surgical removal, while potentially effective, may spare the victim from the parasite only for them to later of meningitis or similar infections. However, with proper sanitary technique, this is a clearly superior intervention, provided all ticks are removed in their entirety.

Advanced infections can be slowed by consuming large quantities of alcohol. Lacing this alcohol with medicinal herbs, heavy metals, and trace radioactive elements has been shown to reverse the course of infestation, though the long-term health effects of this treatment can be worse than the malady itself.

Upon discovery that one is playing host to a family of brain-invading parasites, it is reasonable for a host to simply try to either yank the parasites out by their threads or to shave the threads off at their roots. This, however, is a terrible idea, considering that the barbed little creatures are likely to shred very important pieces of cerebral anatomy on their way out or that their abdominal sections will simply come free, leaving their penetrating caudal segment to tunnel deeper and deeper and deeper.

LORE

There are many theories about the origins of the devilsmane tick, and how they developed their strange ability to communicate between worlds. Some say they were created in the beginning, soon after the World winked into existence. Others say they evolved, and somehow their evolution straddled the lines of normal matter and the shadow materium of the fey realms. Still others claim they are the work of witches, corrupted fey creatures, or mad scientists. The truth is as of yet unknown, though there are many adventurers and scholars that seek information on the origin of these strange insects; they scour ancient libraries, forgotten temples, and the darkest, most foul places of the world to chase even a sliver of information, often exposed to things far worse than the devilsmane tick. As of yet, their efforts have resulted in a swollen corpus of zealously defended yet conflicting ideas.

Locks of devilsmane threads are extremely valuable, particularly to those that have no aversion to the fey. Witches gather locks of devilsmane for use in their potions, wizards weave them into cursed items, and scientists use them in strange ways, attempting to glimpse into other worlds. Due to high market pressures, it should come as no surprise that there are many stories of devilsmane farms, where infected hosts are kept sedated and nourished, sometimes for years, while their devilsmane locks are harvested.

IDEAS TO PLAY WITH

• Not all creatures of the intangible fey world are malevolent. There are many that are willing to provide assistance, if only to disrupt the plans of their fey enemies.

• Devilsmane ticks connect the visual cortex with the ephemeral realities of the fey world, which is itself a hazy, uncertain place. This creates the potential for hallucinations within hallucinations, received through an unpredictable, janky, biological radio system.

• The longer the infestation persists, the more likely the infested person is to be directly acted upon by the intangible world. These effects may range from spiritual to psychological to physical, and may culminate in a sort of gory, horrific vignette, such as a clawed hand punching through the chest and holding the still-beating heart.

• As the GM, slide a piece of paper to the affected player describing something only they can see that forces them into a decision-making corner: tell the party they are seeing something and possibly be implicated as an agent of greater evils, or maintain silent insanity. If they know they are infected, they may connect the dots. But if they do not know that the tick has penetrated their brain, this may result in a confused, conflicted player.

• Long after the tick infestation is removed, former hosts often experience flashbacks and glimpses into other worlds. Often this results in paranoia and failing to acknowledge very real threats in time, thinking a murderous creature is a mere hallucination rather than an agent of death.

PLOT HOOKS

• There’s tell of riches untold, buried in the heart of a vast and ancient forest. It is said that the deeper one penetrates into the wood, the stranger and more surreal it becomes. A local contact is willing to fund the arming and provisioning of a band of explorers in exchange for a map to the heart and a small percentage of the profits. Unbeknownst to all, this wood is heavily infested with devilsmane ticks, and is is their predation that makes it seem that the forest is a mystical realm. Or is it?

• New to town, the heroes overhear an interesting conversation about a rash of disappearances, spread out over the last few years. Earlier this morning a little girl, long thought to have vanished, was found in the flea-infested Maze of Alleys, in a particular shape: her skin grey, her muscles atrophied, and the back of her head shaved down to the scalp with a strange array of what looked like deep puncture wounds. Her mind was gone, and all she could do was flinch and scream about indescribable terrors, but her family seemed relieved to have her back. The sheriff and his men were overheard talking about a coven that has plagued this city for many years. They are buried somewhere in the guts of the city, and the child links them to the string of abductions. Perhaps the heroes are willing to look into the matter for a pardon and a few coins? Are they witches simply harvesting devilsmane locks to sell on the black market, or are they up to something more nefarious?

• A member of a local ruling family has hired the heroes to find their adult child who went missing after a prolonged hunting trip into a famous hunting preserve. The hunting party returned to the castle empty handed after searching many days for the child. The hunting party is to be put to death on the morrow for their incompetence. Perhaps they should be interrogated first? Or brought along on the search? Are they involved in the child’s disappearance? Or are they the incompetent boobs the regents say they are?

OUTRO

Look, as with all of my posts, make this shit work for you. Make up rules and randomized tables, find fun ways to use this parasite. Change it as you see fit. Populate the fey world with recurring characters and locations or motifs. Just do what you do.

I’ll lead you by the hand to the funhouse, but you gotta go in and have the fun.

Anyhow…

Until next time…

Be creative. Have fun. Get weird.