The Ragmen are very rare night stalkers, even rarer than the Velvets or the Vampires, though they bear something in common with these creatures, and with the Lurkers, oddly enough. Like the former two, the Ragmen steal the life of the living to survive, but instead of taking an even semi-tangible medium such as blood or breath, the Ragmen take the youth of their victims. An attack from a Ragman removes at least several years, if not decades from an unfortunate. This theft is blatantly obvious, the victims visibly ages the amount of time taken, creases forming in the skin, muscle degrading, eyes dimming. If the victim is a child, they do not mature into adulthood as a result of the attack, they age prematurely, becoming wizened ancients regardless of their actual age.
Ragmen (the term is all-encompasing, Ragmen not having any gender to speak of) dwell underground in this era, haunting subway tunnels and stations. They appear as horrific, ancient monsters, their flesh dried and desiccated. They bind themselves in layers of discarded cloth and old rubbish sacks, appearing as particularly well wrapped up homeless. As such everyone ignores them, no part of them visible beneath the masses of rubbish or through the deep hoods they wear. After a few years, or even months in some, rare cases, these garments bond with the undead, becoming irremovable. Eventually, in the oldest specimens, the flesh of the Ragman will almost totally disappear, leaving only the massive bundle of rags. One or two body parts will tend to remain; a few bones or withered internal organs, often hands or sometimes feet, but if these are covered by gloves and boots, they will also disappear. There is only one known example of a Ragman with no body left at all, and in this case the source is dubious.
The origin of the Ragmen as a race, if they could be called that, is unknown, long forgotten. They are thought to have existed in Egypt at least during the third dynasty, probably far, far earlier, and had some ties with the arts of mummification. They have not played much of a role in history, being solitary at best, and sociopathic at worst. During the twentieth century they seem to have grown somewhat in power, individually that is, possibly due to the increased strength and durability of the rags in that era. Even after the Fall, they remain in seclusion, and show no signs of coming out soon.
The creation of a Ragman is a very mysterious process, of which little is suspected and less known. It is not thought that it is any sort of disease or curse spread from one being to another, like vampirism or the Velvets, though there are rumours that some ways do exist for one Ragman to create another. A common theory is that eventually certain homeless people become Ragmen for no apparent reason other than a mental bonding of themselves to their garments, for it is known that a Ragmans mental state affects the transformation of their body. Other theories deal with possession by minor spirits of the aforementioned victims, or even one or two about sentient piles of cloth which engulf living victims to strengthen themselves. A theory linked to the "birthing" of one Ragman by another suggests that the aforementioned homeless person may be swaddled in cloths removed from an existing Ragman to speed up the transformation, though the idea of finding a Ragman willing to remove clothing is faintly incredulous. And the question of why one Ragman would desire another is also raised. The final theory presented is similar to the prior theory about cloth-spirits, and that is that once all a Ragmans original body has disappeared the animated robes seek out another person to fill them, and that Ragmen cannot be created at all, but the same few suits have existed since time immemorial. This would explain why no hollow ragmen have been found, but as Ragmen can be destroyed (they can), it is hard to imagine how such things could have survived for so long without dying out, and there is still the fact that it is thought that there are slightly more Ragmen about than there once were.
When hunting, Ragmen will wait until as their chosen target is alone, as the theft is awkward, and easily disrupted. A fond tactic is to wait for the "last train", and then imprison the last passenger on it. Their fond array of powers aids in this; preventing the victim being noticed, and causing them to become drowsy. Ragmen prefer sleeping targets, firstly for ease of attack, and secondly so that there is less chance of them being remembered, although the victim will normally have seen the monster stalking them, not that they are likely to remember it. Ragman stalking does not involve visibly following someone, but moving through well-known short cuts and resting so that they are permanently on the victims path. They may let themselves be noticed near the point of attack, but this is based on the individual ragman. Most of them have a fondness for those in the late teenage years, and in the very early twenties. Young children are loathed, probably for the life they represent, and are normally safe from the draining of the Ragmen, though by no means from attack.
There are very few Ragmen around, with numbers between twenty and two hundred worldwide. They do not show many signs of increasing either, as they are solitary creatures, and not really designed for birthing.
Advantages: Cast Iron Stomach [15 points]; Chameleon 3 (hard to notice) [21 points]; Damage Resistance 2 [6 points]; Dampen (Increased Range +1, Moveable Area) [24 points]; Doesn't Sleep [20 points]; Immunity to Disease [10 points]; Injury Tolerance (No Impaling) [30 points]; Life Stealing (Age 10d6 years)[15 points]; Night Vision [10 points]; Passive Defence 1 [25 points]; Temperature Tolerance 10 [10 points]; Unaging [15 points]; Zeroed [10 points]
Disadvantages: Allergic Susceptibility (Sunlight) [-15]; Appearance: Ugly [-10]; Bad Smell [-10]; Callous [-6]; Dependency (Life Stealing, weekly; aging) [-50]; Disturbing Voice [-10]; Secret (undead monster) [-30]; Sterile [-3]
Notes: This package represents a newly created Ragman. As they age, they may develop some or all of the following advantages/disadvantages, any of which may be taken during character creation. This is not a complete list, any the GM may or may not allow any others that the players desire, as long as they fit the style of the Ragmen. (No heat vision, for example, though macabre rotten cloth/plastic wings might be interesting for a particularly ancient one, with a suitably high points cost)
All Injury Tolerance, except for No Cutting, Claws (minor, in most cases, formed of finger-bones, glass or aluminium shards) [15 points], Increased PD/DR, Clinging (rare) [25 points], Strong Will, Regeneration (no more than 1 HT/hour), Silence [5 points/level], See Invisible (you're not really seeing with your eyes if you don't have any) [15 points], Doesn't Eat (eventually) [10 points], Doesn't Breathe [20 points], Mute (eventually, though something else, perhaps even telepathy may develop to replace your voicebox), Reduced Appearance (though there is a limit to how horrible a mass of filthy rags can be, it can be quite horrific to discover that it's hollow), Phobias (Agoraphobia, thalassophobia, acrophobia, rötschreck)(Some of these could even evolve into Dread), Sadism (rare) [-15 points], Frightens Animals [-5 points], Lifebane [-10 points], No Body Heat [-5], Cannot Swim [-1 points], Vulnerability (Fire or Water)[-10 points/level]
Ragmen may also buy a version of the Hyper-Reflexes advantage with the following Limitations: Costs Fatigue (requires 2 fatigue/turn) -5%, Takes Extra Time (4 seconds) -20%, Takes Recharge (1 hour) -30%. 15 x 45% = 7 points. This is normally used for a sudden burst of speed to catch up to a victim that would otherwise be lost, i.e. about to board a train. It is not often used in combat due to its activation time and the fact that Ragmen don't normally get into fights, though it has been used to take out a single opponent to prevent a fight.
One final note is a Special from of the Regeneration Advantage that Ragmen may develop, although they should be well into the transformation before being allowed to buy this, and it is not available during character generation. It is called Self-Binding, and costs 10 Points. With this form of Regeneration/Rapid Healing, the Ragman may heal itself by binding wounds with more filthy bandages or electrical tape. This is, of course, after the point where the majority of the Ragmans body is composed of wrappings. Each wrapping heals 3 points of HT, costs 1 point of fatigue, and takes several minutes, and the appropriate materials. Only one repair may be made at a time, no further attempts may be made until the Ragman is wounded again, and then no more points may be regained than were lost to the wound. Regular usage of the Power speeds up the discorporeation of the original body, as the Ragman's mind thinks of the wrappings as it's "real" body more and more.
Ragman Package: 77 points
Advantages
Ragmen were inspired by the video for the track "Be There" by Unkle, to give credit where it's due. The name is from a Magic the Gathering card, from The Dark expansion.