Grindylow
Nixes, sirens, and tentacled horrors from the Deep (cf. "Murdhuaca,"
Blood-Dimmed Tides).
- Court: Unseelie
- Birthrights:
- First-Dreamt of Dagon: Grindylow gain the abilities of the sea-creatures they partially resemble (invertebrate sea-creatures: cephalopods, crustaceans, jellyfish etc.), including the ability to breathe underwater. Thus a lobster grindylow would have pincers, or a sea turtle mer an armored shell. Grindylow also gain an extra Physical, Mental, or Social trait appropriate to their sea-creature , even if this takes them over their maximum. All grindylow are nobles and thus must purchase at least one level of the Background: Title.
- Pelagic Nightmare: While the females can be strangely alluring, male grindylow have jellyfish-like flesh that make them appear skinless horrors from the waist up. (Females gain two additional "Seductive" or "Beguiling" traits, but also a "Bestial" trait; males two "Fearsome" or "Intimidating" traits, but also a "Ghastly" trait. These may surpass the trait maximum.) Both sexes are an unsettling mix of humanoid and cephalopod, jellyfish, annelid, or other such creature. Anyone seeing a grindylow in its true form for the first time must spend a Willpower trait or be frozen in shock for one turn (supernatural creatures may elect to attempt a static Willpower challenge against the grindylow before having to part with that trait).
- Frailties: Fish Out of Water: Grindylow must spend a Mana trait for each hour that they wish to breathe air; one who runs out of Mana will suffocate. This is true even if the grindylow has a human Seeming. -- Also, grindylow are out of touch with the surface world, and are one trait down for comparison when initiating Social challenges against land-dwellers (excluding challenges related to their seductive or fearsome appearance). ("Land-dwellers" do not include other aquatic fae -- e.g., merfolk, selkies and ondines.)
- Immunity: Grindylow are alien even to other fae; land-dwellers have difficulties in knowing how to approach them. When defending against a Mental or Social challenge initiated by a land-dweller, grindylow need only risk (rather than spend outright) a Willpower trait to retest. (This immunity does not apply to challenges involving other aquatic fae, but does apply to Social challenges by the merfolk, mistrusted ancient enemies of the grindylow -- excluding challenges related to Intimidation.) -- Also, of course, grindylow are impossible to drown.
- Bans: never travel more than seven miles from the sea; [and one of player choice].
- Weakness: Cold Iron
- Binding: Grindylow bound in Cold Iron cannot use their powers or spend Mana, which can be very dangerous for those trapped where they cannot breathe.
- Regaining Mana: Harvesting, Ravaging, Mana Stealing.
- Preferred Disciplines: Serpentis, Thaumaturgy (Neptune's Might, Weather Control), Vicissitude
- Origin: Most grindylow are Otherworldly. Still, in the depths of the ocean, the Gauntlet between worlds was thin even during the Separation, and there are certainly some grindylow who managed to find their way into the seas of the mundane world. Contact with the surface, however, would have been limited to abducting seagoing humans as slaves or, more horribly, as a depository for grindylow eggs. Contact with other aquatic fae would have likewise been mostly hostile.
- Appearance: See “Pelagic Nightmare” above. Like merfolk, the grindylow must pay double for their first dot in Seeming.
- Special: The grindylow have developed proprietary Devotions that combine applications of Serpentis and Vicissitude.
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