I was re-reading this old thread in the archives: >http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/44551658/
And decided I wanted to go more in-depth into the concept of a Wendigo Apocalypse. For those of you who don’t feel like skimming over the old thread (though it’s worth it), an anon posted some interesting wendigo folklore details, including:
>wendigos were thought to live on a series of islands far out in the Arctic sea, where they hibernated during most of the year
>wendigos are migratory, heading south and hunting in the winter, then going back to their islands when it gets too warm
The idea behind the Wendigo Apocalypse is that in the not-too-distant future climate change causes these wendigo isles to thaw, forcing out the old wendigos still hibernating, who then attack nearby human settlements. Wendigo spirits also awaken and start trying to possess more people. At the same time climate change causes increasingly violent winter storms that can carry into regions they previously didn’t. In this not-too-distant future scenario, thermohaline circulation shutdown also causes the North Atlantic to get much colder.
The result is that each winter human civilization in the northern hemisphere is besieged by wendigo hordes. Even if they’re all killed, the intangible wendigo spirits can create more. Wendigos are problem-solving intelligent in addition to being extremely hard to kill, with nothing short of a napalm strike killing the big ones. Even the smaller ones can only be killed with fire.
As apocalypses go this one isn’t too bad: it wouldn’t kill, but it would radically affect human civilization, causing mass migrations to the south and severely impacting the global economy. Humans who remain in wendigo-territory will have to endure a cyclical siege, hunkering down and preparing for the onslaught every winter.
ITT we discuss the changes caused by this scenario, from wendigo hunting tactics to large scale socio-political change.
It may be helpful to try and define wendigos here, because while I know /tg/ is familiar with them I’ve also seen them get confused with skinwalkers in a some threads. So here are the basics:
Wendigos are transformed human beings, created when an evil spirit personifying the North Wind or Winter possesses them. These spirits famously target people who have resorted to cannibalism during the winter, though they may also target people who are freezing or starving to death.
These spirits attack in dreams, tricking the unwitting into inviting them in. Once someone has been possessed they exhibit strange symptoms, including unusual hunger and chills and a compulsion to eat snow. During this time their heart is beginning to freeze solid. If the freezing is stopped (through a number of methods) the person may survive, but if it cannot be stopped the person must be killed immediately. If the transformation is completed the person becomes a wendigo.
Fully formed wendigos appear as seriously emaciated humans, as if in the late stages of starvation, with grayish or sallow skin. In their endless hunger, they often chew away parts of their lips and shoulders, and sometimes a few of their own fingers and toes. They have hearts of solid ice, are followed by blizzards, and every time they eat their body grows in proportion so that their stomachs are never full. They range from regular human height to 30+ feet tall. Despite their great height, though, they are still thin and emaciated, with long stick-like limbs. They can be mistaken for trees if they are standing in a forest.
Their only real vulnerability is fire. To be killed, a wendigo must be burned until its heart of ice melts and its flesh is reduced to ash. Any lesser damage will not kill it, and it will eventually heal and return. In the past it was believed shamans could combat them as well, through a variety of methods.
And now, here are some random wendigo pictures to set the mood.
I had no idea they grew as they ate. How horrific.
>>47556975
They don't.
Wendigos were just insane humans (or possessed by an evil spirit after eating human flesh). They starting getting associated with the Abominable Snowman years ago and the concept of giant humans shape-changed as a result is some kind of amalgamation of those myths.
An interesting concept though. Instead of layers of fat from human flesh consumed, it transfers into height.
>>47557018
It's the other way around, anon. The old Algonquian myths about wendigos depict them as giants and transformed humans personifying winter and the north. The idea that they were just crazy people came later, and was introduced by Westerners reacting to the native belief system.
Read Dangerous Spirits: the Windigo in Myth and History, by Shawn Smallson, or The Manitous: The Supernatural World of the Ojibway, by Basil Johnston, or The Wendigo in the Material World, Robert Brightman. There's a ton of documentation and research both on wendigo native wendigo folklore and later on the phenomena of wendigo psychosis.
![1451868034683[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/23GKV4r.jpg "1451868034683[1].jpg")
>>47556791
>walkers of a white-ish colour
>that emerge when it grows cold
Truly hasn't been thought of in modern fantasy. Good idea. You could also have them create minions. Infect humans or even resurrect the dead as a mindless horde.
>>47557172
Don't be a jackass. It's not like GRRM wasn't drawing on similar ideas from myth and fiction. Wouldn't even be surprised if wendigo lore was a partial inspiration for his Others.
![1451877960359[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/4wdkFor.jpg "1451877960359[1].jpg")
>>47557018
>>47557112
Interesting, are Wendigos resistant to the cold they create? Or do they just exist to consume more flesh?
>>47557304
There was a lot more old wendigo lore in the thread I linked in the OP, but yes. Wendigos seem to be unaffected by cold, and hate warmth. There's an old folk story about a guy who turns wendigo one winter, runs off into the woods, and the hunting parties can't find him. Much later, in spring, some hunters encounter him, much more transformed, out in the woods. He doesn't attack them, just mutters something about how it's getting too hot. They last see him wandering off, heading north.
There are a number of old folktales like that, where the wendigos seems sort of confused and disoriented. They're intelligent, but their overwhelming compulsion to devour human flesh conflicts with their lingering memories of who they were. In myths the clever hero often defeated a wendigo by pretending to be a family member or something, preying on the wendigo's confusion about who and where it was. The hero would invite the wendigo in and offer it food as a delaying tactic. The wendigo would rapidly begin to eat him out of house and home (there's no sating their hunger) but it would buy time to think of a better plan.
In one story the hero and his wife do this, and as the wendigo eats they prepare a big pot of boiling water. When it demand more food they tell it there's soup in the pot, and as it goes to look they slam the lid down on its head. It thrashes and tries to get free, but they boil the head until it goes limp, then take the body outside and burn it to keep the wendigo from returning.
>>47557218
No doubt. But you missed the point. Anything that 'arrives with cold weather' will get compared to white walkers.
>>47557129
the gameplay was bad, but the story was pretty good.
>>47557304
>Interesting, are Wendigos resistant to the cold they create? Or do they just exist to consume more flesh?
I wouldn't worry about it anon
I live in Finland so I'd get fucked pretty soon.. There could be a "neighbourhood watch" of flame thrower equipped volunteers. People would invest in better locks and maybe CCTV would rise in popularity. There might be a widespread demand for self cheap self defense options, like single use batons that heat up like crazy with a chemical reaction when needed, and everyone would carry one. Every country on the northern part of the globe would start studying the shamanic rituals. Oil prices go up as demand for napalm and flamethrower fuel go up, assuming the apocalypse is that big. If it's really a pandemic on a nigh global scale some may decide to accelerate global warming as much as possible, even though it may not work long scale. People often don't think far. As a plot twist the intelligent wendigos might learn to disguise themselves as human and infiltrate a town or a city, creating an interesting murder mystery. If you want to go full strange/unrealistic/cool, boiling moat around a town.
>>47556866
I like the design of animalistic wendigos so I usually include them as gaining features of what they eat. Eating humans makes them large thin humans, elk/deer give antlers and elongated faces, eating bears would make them horrifying.
>>47557718
So let's talk turkey about how this scenario would play out.
The wendigo isles thaw, but the lesser wendigos have been dead for generations. The ones that are left are the really old wendigos, bigger than average having eaten a lot of people over many centuries, who had basically stopped migrating and were permanently hibernating beneath the permafrost. Now they're awake. Once they realize their islands aren't going to freeze again, they leave during a massive polar vortex event that brings severe winter storms to much of North America. A few of the wendigos go further north, in search of lands that still remain permanently frozen. The rest go south, looking for food.
Because their movements are masked by blizzards, people don't immediately realize what's coming. Any isolated towns the wendigos find are rapidly consumed. They start heading for big population centers, like Anchorage. Some of the ones that went North cross the arctic circle and reach northern Scandinavia or Russia.
Let's say there's not a ton of them. Less than fifty. But each one is big, in the 30+foot range, maybe even in the 40-50 foot range or more. At the same time, the disembodied wendigo spirits that swarmed around the old wendigo isles in the spirit world are also abroad during this massive polar vortex, seeking new hosts.
Eventually, as the wendigos start hitting bigger population centers, and new wendigos emerge amongst the populace (with both the wendigos and the massive storms forcing people into dire straights that may result in them starving, freezing, or even cannibalizing).
It's not initially realized these monsters are supernatural, but when conventional weapons fail somebody cracks open a book and realizes these are goddamn wendigos. At that point, people start breaking out the molotov cocktails, flamethrowers, and napalm/thermobaric bombs. The wendigos are driven back. As the winter begins to end the creatures retreat to their old islands, not knowing where else to go.
>>47557304
Fire's the only thing that does any lasting harm, so it probably doesn't damage them.
>>47557786
While the wendigos are concentrated in one place and before they can leave the islands again to head deeper into the Arctic where they can hibernate again, the militaries of the Northern hemisphere bomb the shit out of them with everything short of nukes. Most of the elder wendigos are wiped out, save those that retreated further north earlier, or those that hadn't yet made it back to the islands.
This takes care of the worst of the threat, but destroying most of the sacred islands enrages the disembodied spirits. In the next winter, they go after the human population much more aggressively, attacking people in their dreams, trying to make more wendigos. As winter storms worse each year, a new crop of wendigos appears as well. Plus, a very small number of the elder wendigos have survived, and occasionally rear their ugly heads.
There's a mass migration out of the arctic circle. Entire communities pack up overnight. Larger towns and cities see a huge drop in their population. Northern industries like fishing and oil/gas extraction take a huge hit. The communities that remain fortify. Massive walls are built around fallback locations in urban centers. Armories full of flamethrowers and incendiary rounds/grenades are established. Public posters list the signs of potential wendigo transformation. Militias form. During most of the year they live their lives, but come fall they begin to prepare and come winter they hunker down and prepare for the worst. The siege starts in their dreams.
>>47557786
>They start heading for big population centers, like Anchorage.
Well then the Wendigo's are fucked. Alaska is essentially a military fortress, with close to a hundred thousand troops stationed in Anchorage and Fairbanks not to mention the entire population of civilians are a large part ex military and trained, and are heavily armed.
>>47557863
Hope they're all armed with flamethrowers.
>>47557851
Meanwhile, the realization that this is a bonafide supernatural threat changes how humans view the world. People start wondering what other myths and legends are real, and if any others will rise in the modern era, bringing more death and destruction. Governments approach the First Nations tribes that still remember their wendigo lore, seeking out any religious leaders who remember anything of the old rituals. These people are isolated in think tanks with anthropologists and folklorists, who attempt to re-create the shamanistic counters to wendigos. Unfortunately, in the process, they also discover the old rituals that allowed a shaman to sic wendigo spirits on innocents who had not eaten human flesh, or suffered the usual triggers that invite possession.
These think tanks begin to train specialized black-ops shaman teams, to be sent into a location where any of the elder wendigos are still believed to be lurking or into any potential wendigo lairs, or into communities that have been overrun. The shaman-commandos are effective, but few in number and with a high fatality rate. A few of them become bitter and jaded. Some of them learn the rites to sic wendigo spirits on others. They must resist the temptation to use this knowledge for evil, but it's always there, both for them and for the scholar-shamans that helped train them.
>>47557863
Bullets and bombs won't do shit.
I like the idea, but I'm not sure how I feel about it being tied to climate change and thawing. I might instead have it related to oil drilling in the far north and the disruption of a sacred site on a lost arctic island.
>>47557891
>>47557926
Untrue, but if that's the case they can use Native Alaskans to cast a spell to banish the Wendigos
![1451876356267[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/3GQPUVH.jpg "1451876356267[1].jpg")
>>47557963
>untrue
But only fire melting a wendigo's heart will kill it for good. Just shooting them or stabbing them, or even blowing bits of them up won't be enough. They'll eventually recover and come back for more.
Plus, it's going to be hard to shoot straight at a monster surrounded by a swirling blizzard.
![ithaqua__by_august_derleth_by_calebcleveland-d8q29v5[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/JDClvJz.jpg "ithaqua__by_august_derleth_by_calebcleveland-d8q29v5[1].jpg")
You know, this would all be a pretty good premise for a delta Green game, if you tied it back to Ithaqua.
![1451869513235[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/o2Xk62D.jpg "1451869513235[1].jpg")
How has no one mentioned the webcomic "Stand Still, Stay Silent" yet? It'd more Nordic mythology of trolls rather than wendigos, but there are similar concepts: humanity transformed is the source of the monsters, post apocalyptic society of small communities trying to clear out land of troll nests, specific sorts of warriors emerge to kill trolls, other mythological elements (ghosts, gods and their magic) beging to materialize and be taken seriously. Lot of good ideas to crib there.
That, and the art is just gorgeous.
>>47558309
I tried reading that one, and could never seem to get into it. The characters rubbed me the wrong way, but I could never put my finger on why.
>>47558309
>webcomic
about the time i stopped caring
>>47558376
Fair enough. Certainly doesn't help it takes ages to get to the actual story and cast. Something like 100 pages or more before we see a semblance of a plot, and more time before the gang is assembled and on their way to the old world.
The film "Ravenous" is about a type of wendigo.
Well worth watching. Men gain super strength and regenerative abilities by eating human flesh, but once transformed, you can never go back and feel the hunger to eat more human flesh...
Glorious soundtrack too
>>47557728
>>47557851
>>47557905
>it's 2064
>living in Toronto suburb
>half the people in my neighborhood have moved away in the last five years
>my family didn't have enough money
>it's getting cold
>that time of the year again
>everybody in the suburbs and rural areas heads downtown
>pass through the 16 meter wall topped with barbed wire and flamethrower towers
>get assigned temporary housing
>pulled militia duty this year
>fml
>report to armory that night
>get assigned flamethrower, three liters of fuel, a flaregun, and ten flares
>pull night shift, but don't have to start till tomorrow
>get shitty sleep, keep dreaming about Colonel Sanders offering me fried chicken
>there hasn't been a KFC in town for years, they all pulled out
>wake up hungry as shit
>go to work at a local ration supply depot for half the day
>only have to work a half day because I pulled milita duty
>spend that night knocking on doors, making sure people in my district are okay
>next night have to walk assigned section of the wall
>it's getting cold as balls and I'm bored as shit
>a week goes by, keep having dreams about KFC
>second week we get our first storm
>that night I hear the howling, almost can't tell it apart from the wind, but the difference is there
>klaxon sounds
>run to the wall
>hear the big flamethrowers going
>get up top
>forty to fifty wendys, testing the defenses
>you can see some of them hanging back, watching, they're not serious about it
>we burn a bunch of them, but they all fall back before we can finish any off
>they retreat near dawn, thankfully I get rotated off the wall before that
>get some sleep
>fuck off, Colonel
>next day see military choppers going over city, heading for woods
>shammy teams must be trying to find the pack
>wonder if I can find a place that sells fried chicken before I have to go back to my militia shift
>>47559217You're one of them already aren't you
>>47559418
One does wonder how wendigo spirits would trick modern people. If some wizened Native American man appears in your dreams and is very insistent about you eating all this roast duck he just happened to have cooked up in his lonely shack in the middle of a snow-bound wilderness... that's probably going to seem out of the ordinary to most people and their suspicions will be raised.
Fast food, though? Pizza? Hamburgers? Offered to you by friendly mascots? Targeting a population of people under siege, rationing their food? I daresay they might get a few people.
>>47557660
>Anything that 'arrives with cold weather' will get compared to white walkers.
So it makes a great pleb filter, then
>>47558390
Then buy/download the book?
Why is it serialized stories from way back when are fine, but use the same format online and people throw a snide fit? We even have some great complete reads, like Concerned or 8-bit Theater.
Just confounds me, anons.
>>47556791
I dunno. Global warming just seems a bit too far-fetched.
One thing not mentioned in this thread so far is an odd belief that, while wendigos can only be killed with fire, they can be warded off/stunned with menstrual blood.
This is a thing for a number of Native American monsters. Like in many ancient societies, there were various taboos regarding menstruation and menstrual blood. Wendigo would avoid it if they could, and if splashed with it would go into a temporary self-cannibalizing frenzy, biting and chewing on themselves, ripping open their own bellies, etc. It would wear off after a bit, and the wendigo would eventually recover from the physical damage. Still, it would be enough to buy you some time to escape or to find a way to properly kill the monster.
I know this sounds super Magical Realmy, but it's a genuine bit of folklore.
>>47558547
>"run!"
>Rapid fiddle music starts playing
>>47560670
That's interesting, but its social suicide to go "so guys I've been doing this setting where you fight wendigos with menstrual blood, want to play?"
>>47560670
Remember that there were whizzard story tellers in the olden days too, anon.
>>47560979
Undeniably. But f you were going to make this a setting, it would be helpful for players to have some way to ward off or stun wendigos, considering that killing them is so difficult and time-consuming. If a dozen wendigos are on your trail, you're not going to have time to burn each of them individually, especially if they're big ones.
Perhaps there's some other fluid that could replace menstrual blood? Maybe the blood of some sort of animal?
>>47561369
I mean, you could always just hit them with a flashbang grenade or something. They still have yes and ears. They're still living creatures, just cursed/possessed.
>>47557917
>shaman-commandos
I want to discuss this topic more. How do the shaman-commandos combat wendigos differently than normal soldiers? What gear do they carry? What rituals do they use?
>>47561411
Flashbangs aren't as effective as cs would imply. They're more of a distraction than anything, imagine being tense in a room when suddenly a grenade flies in, starts emitting a loud shriek and shining a bright as fuck light. It doesn't stun you, and it wouldn't stun a supernatural entity
>>47561484
Well, any soldiers sent to combat wendigos would probably have specialized gear. Shotguns might be a safe choice, the stopping power of one of those could knock the more modestly sized wendigos on their ass, keep them off you for a bit. Incendiary rounds and grenades would be a must. Probably at least one to two soldiers in a squad would carry a flamethrower. I dunno, I'm not a /k/ guy, am I missing anything obvious?
How far south does these freezing zones go? Depending on that it shows you how fucked the United States can get. Sure, losing the east coast is bad, but you can always move the government to places like Florida or Texas.
Regardless of that, places like Australia, Mexico, Brazil, India, South Africa and a huge chunk of China would increase in power with places like Germany, Russia, England and the US mostly out of the picture.
>>47561854
Forgot my image
>>47561873
I always forget how far north Europe and the US actually are
>>47561908
Oh, yeah. Without the Thermohaline Circulation, anything north of Italy would get as cold as Minnesota and above. England would turn into Nova Scotia and most of Germany into something like British Colombia.
>>47562011
Shit, a few years ago we had a polar vortex that sent blizzards all the way down to Atlanta. It was all over the news, snow falling in this southern town that usually gets none, locals not knowing how to deal with it, roads getting backed up for hours, etc, etc. If the thermohaline circulation dies out most of the US and Canada will go pretty cold, but you could also have severe winter weather extending even further south from time to time.
>>47557304
>>47510309
Read this for more info on Wendigos. Menstrual blood makes them flip out.
>>47561484
This requires some sources on how shamans fought/controlled wendigos. Allow me to supply some:
>Windigos could be created through the action of evil shamans, the kind that might keep a bag of human tongues around his neck or threaten a woman's family in order to take her in marriage. It was believed that shamans could send windigo spirits as a curse, which the people might sense before they arrived and try to overcome through spiritual power. Similarly, shamans could cure people with starvation itself, and lack of game was often explained in this way. At the same time, only a shaman could overcome the most powerful windigos. One hunter in Labrador told the anthropologist Frank Speck it was only through a shaman that a powerful windigo could be defeated:
>"And through having eaten such powerful 'game' as man, his soul-spirit (mista'peo) becomes so strong that others less powerful are afraid to attack him. So the conjuror has to finish him with sorcery. He then tries to get the cannibal's spirit into his conjuring cabin by challenging it to a fight. He can induce the bear, for one, to get underneath the cannibal's spirit and send it off the earth into the air. Having succeeded in this the cannibal is without his spirit, and though still alive he is doomed.
>Many similar tales involve a shaman using a spirit helper (pawakan) to defeat a windigo, which helps explain why shamans were both mistrusted and viewed as indispensable. Their aid was essential to survive in the challenging world of the boreal forest.
>There are other stories of shamans hurling windigo spirits into the atmosphere. In one narrative, people near Moose Lake (not far from Le Pas in Northern Manitoba) called on a 'Saulteaux doctor' because a female windigo was camped nearby and killing the people's dogs. "The Saulteaux doctor began to sing. He called up a big storm like a whirlwind. The wind picked up the wihtiko woman and carried her off
>>47560670
>>47560979
>>47560986
>>47561369
>>47561411
>>47561503
Just get don't say what it is, but hint at it. That ought to help some of the more squeamish.
>>47562344
Mentioned above. Alas, you're going to get charged with Magical Realm really quick if you include that mechanic in your game. It'd be helpful to come up with a similar mechanic that used some other liquid.
>>47562459
Call it Anti-Wendigo water, have women sell it, and call it a day.
>>47562446
I suppose if you've got some central authority organizing militias, handing out flamethrowers, posting signs telling people to look out for the five symptoms of wendigo possession or whatever, etc, etc, then it's not unreasonable that same organization could be handing out bottles of "wendigo repellent" whose precise makeup is kept vague.
>>47562498
Exactly.
>>47562443
So, what I'm getting from this is shaman-commandos, in addition to their usual armaments, would be trained to:
>conjure whirlwinds with songs/chants to carry wendigo spirits off
>have their own individualized totemic animal spirit helper who can help them banish wendigo spirits
>both of the above scenarios only banish the wendigo spirit, dooming the monster to slowly die, but you still have to restrain/fight the physical creature until then
>in dire circumstances wendigo spirits could be redirected towards other targets
>the shaman could also help coach people on how to build up the own spiritual power in order to resist a possession attempt
I like the idea that, short of other options, a shaman could try to strength some people's ability to resist possession, then redirect the spirit towards that person, who then resists and forces the spirit off.
Why not just redirect the spirit into something like a rock?
>>47558547
I'll have to take a look at this movie sometime.
Know of any others?
>>47562856
I would assume the ritual in question requires a living target.
>>47562923
Trees then? They're alive.
>>47562923
Read the thread OP linked. It gives an example of two wendigo-creating rituals, presumably intended to direct the spirit to a given target:
>One is the story of the evil Shaman, Dark Sky, who despite having many wives lusts after another young woman. when her father refuses to marry her he enacts a strange ritual in which he puts a snowball in the crook of her neck as she sleeps while making her inhale the odor of certain herbs. A few days later she becomes a wendigo, killing and eating her entire family/village. Dark Sky returns to find his creation lurking in the ruins of the village. Since his power created the wendigo he is able to command it, and he has it follow him back to his village. There he puts her in a tent with heated rocks, which slowly melts the ice inside her. After a day of intense heat she is human again, but with no memory of what transpire. Dark Sky then forcibly marries her. She eventually learns the truth, though, and begins to relapse, turning back into a wendigo. She perceives this as the spirits using her as their instrument to punish Dark Sky, which she's okay with, but she doesn't want to kill everyone in his village too. She throws herself onto a pyre, and gets some small revenge in that she also kills Dark Sky's unborn son that she was carrying in the process.
>In a variant of the "Dark Sky" story the evil shaman doesn't put snow in the crook of the sleeping girl's neck, but instead fashions an effigy of the girl out of snow, then submerges it in water until it freezes solid, and then takes it outside and burns it while chanting and engaging in other (undescribed) ritual acts around the fire. This causes the girl to become a wendigo.
So the first requires you to do it to a specific person and the other works a bit like a voodoo doll. The most interesting line in there to me is that a shaman who creates a wendigo can then control that wendigo.
>>47557718
Are you trying to trick me?
>>47563063
>yfw Dark Sky is still alive thanks to dark arts
>yfw when he still has his bag of human tongues
>yfw he's still making wendigos so he can fuck hot bitches
>yfw he's out there in the wilderness of Canada, helping to perpetuate the wendigo apocalypse
>yfw it wasn't really global warming, but Dark Sky starting shit that brought the wendigos back
>>47563175
>>47562916
There's a 2001 movie called Wendigo and a 2006 movie call The Last Winter. Neither are particularly great and both go with the weird idea that wendigo are part deer for some reason, but if you want more stuff ion that vein, those are your best bet.
On, and the Lone Ranger movie with Johnny Depp implied one of the villains was possessed by a wendigo, though it butchers the lore.
>>47557377
I love monsters like that, so much more interesting then mindless beasts that just kill everything in sight.
Just how much would be Wendi land? Would Canada and the northern US be lost?
>>47563807
Probably. Then the skinwalkers and other variants will take over anything the wendigos don't take.
>>47563807
Well, the idea here seems to be that the wendigos don't hold territory, for the most part. Climate change makes the northern hemisphere much colder in places, but it doesn't erase the seasons. Wendigos hide out in the parts of the arctic that stay permanently frozen until winter comes around, then they head south and attack human territory. If all these wendigos are killed, the spirits of the North are still around and will try to possess people to create an entirely new crop of wendigos.
It's like fighting orks in WH40k. You can kill all the ones you find, but it's nearly impossible to eradicate them completely. There will always be a few more each winter, and if their numbers aren't properly culled then they'll build up over time until you have a horde of them.
>>47563807
Not lost, but severely impacted. Canada would lose a lot of people to immigration, but would probably be able to eventually adopt a siege mentality and hold out each winter. Less of the US would be affected, but migration would still cause a ripple effect across the nation. IT too would probably begin to adopt a siege mentality, but Canada might absorb most of the wendigo attacks, so it may be relatively spared, aside from the wendis that pop up unexpectedly within its borders.
>>47563932
Gettin' real tired of skinwalkers here.
>>47563937
>>47564218
I was thinking of settlements that the Wendigos haven't wiped out yet because they wanted to revel in the fear of the survivors. And thought of one settlement that included metal crosses that sprayed fire on their barricades.
>>47557129
What is this from?
>>47564442
This reminds me. What would happen with cities vs towns?
I think we can assume a lot of people would head south, so towns in northern Canada of Alaska that were small to begin with may vanish overnight. But cities are big, sprawling, hard to fortify things while towns can more easily be walled off and protected. Rich and upper middle class people will have the most freedom to pull up and move, and most of them live in cities.
Do the cities just all become ghost towns? What does tons of small towns vanishing do to the economy? Or do the small towns fortify and the big cities empty out because they're too much of a target? Do highways get fortified to protect the economy and the shipping of goods?
I guess part of the question here is how many new wendigos show up each year. Look at this article:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/06/winter-kills-excess-deaths-in-the-winter-months/
Back in 2008 the US lost an extra 108,500 people during winter. Every nation that experiences severe winters has an uptick in fatalities during those months, usually amongst the homeless and elderly. If wendigo spirits can possess people who are starving or freezing to death, not just people who cannibalize each other, then they've probably got a lot of targets to choose from. Plus, the initial wendigo rampages damaging infrastructure, plus the massive climate changes of the thermohaline circulation cutting off mean that those winter fatality numbers will probably go up.
Granted, some of these deaths are from car accidents in bad weather and the like. So not all of those people would be wendigo targets. But if a sizeable percentage are? And if those winter fatalities got worse? You're potentially getting thousands of new wendigos each winter.
>>47564595
The game Until Dawn. Same as OP.
>>47564667
If you can't evacuate a city from the blizzards what do you do? I think maybe some cities could try to fortify down, create their own witch hunters, or be thrown into anarchy. Maybe small towns can fortify, become their own miltary bases, and loot abandoned cities for goodies, and take survivors in.
>>47559217
>When you want KFC but all they got is Wendys
>>47564845
Was that an intentional pun?
>>47564769
Well, the thing to remember is this is only an annual threat, for a few months out of the year. You have the whole rest of the year to prepare, rebuild, and run your country normally.
At some point a new sense of normalcy would set in, with people just preparing for the worst come winter, then going back to their regular lives afterward. It makes me wonder what sort of new normal would be established in the rest of the year. How different would the US and Canada be if they had this annual drain on resources that they couldn't make go away?
>>47565034
We're going to need more money for this program. Or come up with an efficient alternative to oil and gasoline that's dirt cheap to supply flamethrowers.
>>47565180
I imagine flamethrowers would be a hot commodity.
>>47565205
Carlos! Now that I think about it since this takes place in 2064 there's bound to be scientific and technological advancements between now and then.
>>47565298
It's only forty years. I doubt we'll have moved away from fossil fuels by then.
>>47565350
I know but it could be on the beginning point of it. If only there was a way to heat up the Wendigos without flamethrowers.
>>47559538
Nobody knows what a wendigo is. If Joe Schmo gets offered a feast in his dreams he's not going to think "obviously this is a evil spirit trying to turn me into a cannibal monster."
>>47565462
What would happen if what a Wendigo is becomes common knowledge? If a bunch of those things go ballistic on a city someone is going to attempt to record it.
>>47565522
Yeah, in the early days of the wendigo war they might turn a number of people, but after people realized what they're dealing with it would start to become wider knowledge.
Then again, you're not always thinking clearly in your dreams.
>>47565522
Creepy monster things attacking and killing people, which can only be killed by fire? That would be common knowledge.
Some weird ass spirit creature luring people into eating human flesh so it can possess them? Who would believe that?
If you heard about the above scenario, chances are you'd assume there's a reasonable scientific explanation, like some kind of viral outbreak or they were an unknown megafauna species rather than humans, and claims humans turned into these things were just exaggerated. And if people thought it was supernatural they'd probably base it on their local supernatural explanations, assuming it's demonic possession or something.
>>47565588
The first attacks is probably going to devastate Canada. Groundhog Day's going to be the worst probably. Pic is possibly related. Think about it. >>47565674
The last two would probably be easy to mix up.
>>47565674
Well, it depends on how well the authorities figure things out. If governments and armies are fighting these things, they'll study them. In studying them, they will realize they do not obey natural laws, that there does not seem to be any viral or biological explanation.
It'll take them a while to accept the supernatural. Hell, it'll take them some time to accept that bullets won't kill these things. But at some point scholars will start speaking out or going to the media, and people will realize these monsters line up with the old legends. At some point they will have to accept what's starring them in the face.
So if the authorities accept they're dealing with a supernatural threat, presumably they will attempt to make sure that their populace knows the correct counters and weaknesses to deal with these creatures. If it was vampires, you'd have weakly broadcasts about where to find supplies of holy water and what kind of crosses work best. Surely for wendigos they'd realize you had to be vigilant in your dreams as well, and would spread the word.
>>47558105
Not like artillery explosions are hot or anything.
>>47566146
Could concentrated UV lights set them ablaze?
>>47566316
I don't know, I'd just be placing my bets on the army over the spooks.
>>47566146
Explosives, including artillery, don't usually kill or destroy through heat. They do it through concussive force. Yeah, an artillery shell will make a big explosion, but most of that explosion won't be a big gasoline fireball like in some Michael Bay movie. The shell might start some localized fires, but those can be put out.
A non-incendiary explosive that hits a wendigo will do a lot of physical damage through concussive force. It might even set the wendigo partially on fire. But that's a fire that the wendigo can probably put out. Remember, they're not dumb. It could roll around in the snow, or just rely on the weather to put the fire out.
>>47566316
I'm pretty sure a laser could set anything ablaze, but a convenient power source would be a bitch. Because what you're basically talking about at that point is a laser.
>>47566658
It doesn't have to be a fire though, it just has to be hot enough to melt it, right?
>>47566671
Lasers can set them on fire thanks, Satan. I'm sure other anti-Wendigo weapons would be made and thought of.
>>47566730
Well, we do have a lot of white phosphorus laying around in a range of fun deployment options. And it's not like thermite and molotovs are hard to cook up.
>>47566706
Right, I'm saying a normal explosive would be horribly inefficient at that. You'd want something like a flamethrower or some sort of incendiary round that continues to burn after entering the body. Incendiary grenades or explosives would be helpful too, but they wouldn't be able to keep the heat on in quite the same way. It's not just enough to set the wendigos on fire. You need to keep them on fire until the heart is gone and preferably until their body is ash as well.
This was mentioned in the other thread, but wendigos hearts were thought to be unusually tough, hard to break and hard to burn. One story had natives tossing a wendigo on a fire but the heart wouldn't burn. So they chopped up the body and removed the heart, let the body parts burn, then hammered at the heart with chisels until it had broken down enough so they could throw it onto the fire in smaller bits that would melt faster.
>>47566848
Shit, Willy Pete would be making a big comeback.
>>47566909
Then use napalm shells, problem solved.
Let the promethium burn them to a cinder.
>>47566937
That's the spirit.
>>47562856
>discworld trolls, but carnivorous and with a healing factor. Oops.
>Has anyone suggested this already:
what if the wendigos burrow underground during the hot months and then dig themselves out during the winter?
A search-plane would have to look for the cool spots.
Yellowstone and other geothermic hot spot are wendigo free during the summers but typically ground zero in the winter.
>Just finished Ravenous
>not what I thought it was going to be
>that banjo and fiddle
I loved it but I didn't expect cannibal Highlanders.
>>47567184
>geothermic hot spot
I like the notion that they'd come by to hunt prey they rarely find near their "home" to grow. They seek out new, fresh and different meats in an attempt to sate their hunger.
New notion:Non-lore as it may be. Wendigos know they bring blizzards with them and that the summer heat won't kill them. They know blizzards and the cold would stand out against the summer heat, so they return home to cold territory during nonwinter seasons.
>>47565389
Plasma
>>47566036
What would effectively counter wendigo possession?
Lucid dreaming?
Or anesthesia, so you sleep without dreaming at all? Or is that actually worse?
>>47565389
Microwave
Why not just cripple the wendigo and rip out its frozen heart to store it somewhere secure ?
The spirit is trapped inside and unable to return north to reform. That may be difficult to do but on the long run, that may cull the wendigos numbers.
>>47572007
Man, I would not want to be the guy tasked with guarding the wendigo heart depository. That's just asking for some SCP style shenanigans.
>>47572178
Yeah, wouldn't the hearts be constantly trying to regrow their bodies? And I imagine normal wendigos would be draw to the place, trying to free their brethren. Wendigo spirits would probably also target the dreams of the site's personnel.
>>47572586
That's an easy fix. Submerge the hearts in acid and transport them to a facility outside of the usual wendigo ranging territory, like in Florida or something. Keep the facility guarded, and have the shamans instruct the guards on spiritual resistance to possession attempts.
>>47563063
So, if shamans intentionally created wendigos and could control them, does that mean they could use wendigos to fight other wendigos?
>>47572901
>sock them pop them Wendigos
>>47572586
>Yeah, wouldn't the hearts be constantly trying to regrow their bodies?
The hearts are stored together. Therefore, the bodies they grew were also together. Specifically, fused together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIr3fROgZ8
>>47572901
>So, if shamans intentionally created wendigos and could control them, does that mean they could use wendigos to fight other wendigos?
A Wendigo that had been captured by some mad scientist/rogue military organization and been weaponized to an almost ludicrous degree.
A haphazard array of metal plates has been bolted to its body and wires, pulleys and pistons add extra strength to its decaying muscles. One of its claws has been replaced with an oversized scythe blade. The man-thing embedded in its chest, all that's left of the poor sap that this famine spirit was born from, now houses a gatling gun grafted into its body.
>>47574622
I have done it! I have taken Man's ingenuity and used it to reign in the unbound fury of Nature! The great Wendigo, rotten and hollow, reshaped with wire and gear into the greatest weapon ever known...my weapon!
--Final notes of Dr. Arthur Atlow, former head scientist of the U.S. Dept of Bio-Engineering
>>47574622
>>47574637
This will end horribly, but horribly awesome.
>>47557676
It's a great game to play with a group of friends on a Halloween night.
I always liked to think that when wendigos "regenerate" they don't just regrow parts of their bodies, but that living ice from their hearts fills in and replaces the lost tissue. Wounds fill in with ice, a wendigo that loses an arm grows one made of ice, or a wendigo that got its head caved in reconstructs itself with ice holding together the shattered bits of its face/skull.
Old or especially battle-damages wendigos might be mostly ice with only a few scraps of flesh suspended inside.
A bit different, but this novel might give ideas.
https://www.amazon.com/Night-Wendigo-William-Meikle-ebook/dp/B007QM2BAC?ie=UTF8&btkr=1&ref_=dp-kindle-redirect
Basically the Wndigos are frozen zombies and come with a magical cold that lock-downs new york.
Might give ideas.
>>47576901
Might have to look at that.
>>47564682
Thanks mate
>>47576449
Ice floats. Your elder wendigos might get swept out to sea.
This would be problematic for shipping anywhere in the vicinity of the north pole.
What do you suppose the maximum size a wendigo can grow to is?
>>47577920
>Survivor of the initial Wendigo assault years ago.
>Wife died the first night, firstborn son the next.
>Manage to get to safety with what's left of family.
>Years pass, settle down in a coastal town near Myrtle beach.
>Even found someone who could be the next Mrs.
>Take son and fiancée out fishing one day.
>A big one's biting at the line.
>Reel it in after the better part of an hour's hard work.
>A mostly ice Wendigo.
>tfw
>>47578342
There really isn't one. Some of the most ancient ones are walking mountains.
>>47578637
So what you're saying is this whole Wendigo Apocalypse thing has the potential to go full on Attack on Titan, with giant wendigos gobbling up people by the handful while smaller ones swarm around its ankles.
The whole thing is like if AoT got mashed together with the White Walkers from GoT.
![latest[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/6aCuwMu.jpg "latest[1].jpg")
>>47578637
>>47578986
>mfw humanity has to build giant robots to fight back the elder kaiju
>>47578378
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A
I imagine the biggest ones most people would ever see would "only" be around the size of redwoods, and the mountain-sized ones wouldn't leave their traditional territories even with the shifting weather unless/until someone accidentally coaxes them out with napalm.
>>47578637
I'm picturing squads of paratroopers or whatever rappelling out of helicopters to land on a colossal wendigo's back so they can drill into its icy hide and place thermite charges that, when activated, will burn their way down to the wendigo's heart and kill it.
>>47579643
I'm assuming the big ones can't survive outside of arctic temperatures anymore, and once their old islands melt they might attack some nearby cities, but they'll rapidly fall back to the coldest point left in the arctic circle and go back into hibernation.
>>47574912
>Be playing it with friends in the dead of night
>Just get to the part after the old dude bites it and they finish reading his journal detailing Wendigos
>Get to the cave part where Bitch A thinks she hears Bitch B.
>Friend, like a dumbass starts to argue that it's definitely her
>We all call him fucking retarded Bitch B is fucking nowhere near us
>He insists
>I stay with the group because I'm not fucking retarded when the game literally just told us they can mimic people, or at least voices.
>He gets really assmad.
Wendigos have some cool lore.
But the thing that I am legitimately scared of are the Monster-Skinwalkers, not the Shaman-Skinwalkers.
>>47579881
You chose... wisely.
>>47579903
The only skinwalkers in Native American folklore are the second kind. It's a Navajo term for evil shamans who change shape. It has no other meaning.
>>47579922
I think he means shit like what is described here.
>>47579712
Why make the elder ones frail? I'd say they get harder to kill, the larger they are. If anything, these elder windagos are gonna be the source of abnormally harsh blizzards and adverse weather conditions.
Wendigos are a seasonal threat? An elder one rises and heads for a city in the height of summer. Flowers wither in their prime, sap freezes in its bark, snow blankets the streets. Did the supernatural winter bring it, or did it bring the winter? Both options are terrifying, and the humans will never find out.
>>47580494
Yes, I know he does, but those things are purely an invention of internet creepypasta. People just call them skinwalkers because the name sounds cool and they don't know what it actually means.
>>47578637
Do you think some just get so big that they can't move anymore?
>>47581194
>thought to live on a series of islands far out in the Arctic sea
>so big that they can't move anymore
>>47581472
>they can only move three things now
>their eyes and their tongue
>ships have been disappearing around the island
>>47581540
We're going to need a bigger fire for this.
>>47558547
One of my favourite things about this movies was the fact that the wendigo transformation didn't require any secret trick or condition. In that universe if you ate human flesh you got superpowers, that's just how it is. It subtle enough to not be noticed by the public at large and horrible enough that most avoid it in the first place but still incredibly easy to stumble upon.
It seems like a neat little element that could be put in an OSR game or something. At least that style of ability: an unintuitive condition with a subtle buff and a creeping drawback.
>>47581540
>2049
>a few years before the first major wendigo outbreak
>previously undiscovered chain of islands discovered as arctic sea ice withdraws
>team of surveyors sent out to the chain
>never returns
>fishing is banned in the northern Arctic Sea for conservation reasons
>as the ice withdraws, some fisherman decide to ignore the ban and poach discreetly
>one night, on of their ships runs aground on an island not on their maps
>ship begins to flood, crew bails out after radioing for help
>they save an inflatable raft, but it's too dangerous to try the waters at night in
>they go inland and try to make shelter as best they can
>captain tries to get some sleep
>he dreams he's in a vast stone grotto, almost like an amphitheater
>old native American men and women sit around the edges of the grotto in a huge crowd
>they don't look happy to see him
>one of them walks forward, introduces himself as Ka-be-bon-ik-ka
>captain asks who the others are
>"He is the Winter-Maker. She is Ice. She is Cold. He is the North Wind. Come. Sit. Tell us of your land."
>captain makes chitchat for hours that blur together
>the people seem to be crowding in around him
>they're getting taller, everything is getting stretched and thin
>they're clawing at him
>captain wakes up to the ground shaking
>his men are awake too
>an unearthly howl echoes across the island
>the men look around, trying to place it
>slowly vast, gaunt shapes crest the top of the island's central hill, like enormous spiders unfolding their legs
>they are black shapes against the stars, except for their eyes, which are colder and more remote than any star has ever been
>ground buckles as the campsite is overthrown
>a massive shoulders thrusts up through the permafrost beneath the men
>they run for the shore, and the inflatable raft
>push off from the shore as the howling increases
>>47579113
Underrated post.
>>47581889
Got you covered famalam.
>>47582063
>in the distance, they see a spindly giant rise from the sea
>its body bristles with ancient spears and arrows sticking out of it at all angles
>half its body is made of dark, wet ice that shimmers faintly in the starlight
>its face is split right down the middle, half flesh, half not
>ice on the torso is dark, but semi transparent
>through it they see the glimmer of a deep blue light, pulsating slowly
>giant wades toward them
>they paddle faster
>in the distance they see another, smaller island
>as they watch, it starts to rise slowly out of the water, stops, and then rapidly sinks
>ocean churns and swells
>behind them, the contour of the island begins to shift
>the swelling wave drops away completely
>the sea yawns before them
>it's spilling into an opening mouth
>emergency rescue teams come searching for the boat weeks later
>find no trace of the reported island, or any others nearby
>searches continue, but are fruitless
>three months later, winter begins to set in
>it's unusually cold, with fierce and massive storm systems moving in from the northern arctic
>snow expected as far south as Georgia
>Canadians report odd howling in the wind
>that January, the first towns begin to go dark
>>47582136
But Solar Beam doesn't cause burning though.
>>47582192
>no wendigo pokemon
It would make perfect sense too.
>>47582242
I think there is though, but I would be surprised if there's not one in the future considering some of the ones they have already.
>Ghost sword that sucks out your soul
>ghost lamp that hangs out at hospitals and waits for people to die
>Abra's evolved form has an entry that has a young boy becoming said evolved form
>Yamask
>tree stump filled with kid ghosts
>ghost doll out for revenge
>>47557851
>The siege starts in their dreams
Holy fuck, I got chills.
OH FUCK
>>47565462
I think you're forgetting that most people don't have control of their dreams, which by itself would make for an amazing roleplaying opportunity.
>>47582523
Hell, most people barely remember their dreams.
>>47560670
Well, just change the Wendigo lore then. 'Blessed blood of a mother goat', same effect.
>>47561369
You're forgetting though, the wendigos aren't indestructible, they just recover from damage. So that means military training would teach soldiers the mantra 'Burn em or cap em!' In other words, if you can't burn them, blow out their knees somehow and fucking RUN. It will get up eventually but better to outrun than try to outgun.
>>47561559
Holy shit, Dragon's Breath shotguns would be a staple shotgun for these badass shaman commandos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwhCygmhbCg
>>47563063
Fun thought
>People have known about wendigos for several years
>People figure out shamanism kills/summons them
>Think of how many amateur shamans would start sprouting up, souls that are weak and naive against the wendigo they just summoned.
There are so many cool plots in these ideas for a roleplay. I want to run a game now.
>>47582523
>>47582554
The trick should be making hunger/sleep important mechanics so that players will genuinely want to accept food, and the trap can be disguised as a normal encounter without players even realizing they're still asleep if they don't pick up the hints that something is off.
Or you could go full meta.
>"Resisting the chill and pain of your empty stomach, you fall into a deep sleep."
>DINGDINGDING
>"Oh good, they're done. Who wants fresh muffins?"
>>47579905
I chose poorly, but I had my partner as a devil on my shoulder, trying to get the bitches killed.
Bump, would love to have a campaign set in this.
So how strong and fast are Wendigos? I want to stat them in Savage Worlds. I was thinking three types. Lesser Wendigo: Human sized, hasn't been possessed for long. Wendigo: one story house or ogre sized. Elder Wendigo: 2 story house sized and up.
>>47584631
I vaguely remember the horror companion having pre statted wendigos, but I might be imagining that.
>>47583322
Was he Virt?
>>47584926
That it does. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
>>47584926
I'm not sure about speed, but they're supposed to be superhumanly strong.
>>47556791
>100 posts
>no love for my nigga Daryl
Come on now
>>47587386
To be fair, Darryl is a very odd take on the wendigo legend.
>>47557172
>>47557218
Bear in mind in the books white walkers aren't monstrous undead, they are beautiful in a creepy way, fair looking with pale skin and hair, reflective mirror like armour, theyre closer to some sorta ice fey/ elves that practice necromancy
I remember someone planned out a wendigo apocalypse after reading the rules in the Pathfinder entry. Only issue is that wendigo in pathfinder are very high level so it would be hard for lower level characters to be instrumental in the story.
IIRC wendigo in pathfinder grab hold of someone and then fly up into the sky, the victim then starts suffering with wendigo psychosis. After a time, the victim eventually goes mad and kills and eats their friends (if they can reunite after the victim has been put down in the icy wastes miles away). The victim then runs up into the sky with such a speed their feet burn away into bloody stumps, and their transformation is complete.
>>47557250
damn, look at them calves
>>47564845
>Wendy's
>to go
>>47588425
Yeah, that's clearly based on the Algernon Blackwood short story, not the folklore. Blackwood basically just used the name "wendigo" and not much else.
>>47564845
>>47582174
>>47582063
Fantastic.
>>47583143
Hunger, sleep, and cold. A player going wendigo can make for some fun drama, but they need to have ways to fight it. So you keep track of their hunger and how cold they are. If they reach a certain threshold then they are vulnerable to dream attack. Resorting to cannibalism guarantees it. The dreams can be hard to resist, but there are ways to boost your chances, like getting help from a shaman.
Then, if the spirit gets in you have a further process, rituals to try and slow or stop the freezing of your heart.
So, most of this thread seems to be focusing on Canada and the US. But it's been floated that the wendigos would expand outside of their old range, and into new countries like Scandinavia or the British Isles. So, this makes me wonder...
What happens when they reach Russia?
>>47590474
Baba Yaga puts those foreign invaders down quick.
>>47590583
That would actually be pretty entertaining, if the supernatural forces of the world, long dormant, are only stirred by this sudden invasion from other supernatural creatures.
Though even Baba Yaga is only one witch.
>>47590772
>Americans and Candians get shamans
>Russians get witches
So I really like the shaman-commando idea, and was thinking about ways to implement it in a game. Creating a whole new magic system is always a pain, and it usually works for only a given system, so I thought making something simple and basic would be helpful. That way it would just be a few utilitarian abilities that could be attached to an existing character. With that in mind, I thought it might be wise to specialize. So, shaman character could choose to focus in one of three specializations
>shamans who focus on empowering others to resist wendigo possession. They themselves are effectively immune, and can greatly boosts allies' abilities to resist as well
>shamans dedicated to banishing wendigo spirits, forcing them out of a wendigo's body and condemning the creature to a slow soul-death over several days. Notably does not kill the wendigo in the moment, though it removes the wendigo's regenerative powers
>shamans focusing on the forbidden path of creating and controlling wendigos
Each shaman can do the things the other ones can, but to a much lesser extent.
Bumparooni!
>>47593012
Here's the full thing. It's kind of sloppy, but I put most of the posts I thought were notable in here.
>>47593863
>I'm included in there
Thanks, Anon.
I had an idea. If they can go through dreams would dream catchers block them?
>>47593911
You're welcome, fellow fa/tg/uy.Nice dubs.
>>47594421
Well, dreamcatchers did originate with the Ojibwe, who are an Algonquian-speaking people, and definitely have their own wendigo myths.
But I think it would be better if they don't work, yet people hang them everywhere in the hope that they do.
You know, in 2064, some very minor high-tech wouldn't be out of the question. Like very rudimentary exoskeletons for commandos. Not to mention specialized wendigo-hunting drones.
>>47594538
Thanks, Trump.
>>47594578
Maybe it halfway works if the Wendigo thinks it works?
>>47594635
Dreamcatchers, in folklore, just protected against bad dreams. I doubt they'd offer much resistance to the single most dangerous spirit in Algonquian cosmology. Granted, the Algonquins had a pretty developed concept of the spirit world and the dreamscape, and probably attributed nightmares to bad spirits anyway. But lesser bad spirits. Not the North Wind. Not the Wendigo. Trying to stop him with a dreamcatcher would be like trying to stop a cruise missile with a flak jacket.
>>47594788
Either make the Wendigo laugh its sides off and buzz off, or have at lot of them.
>Good luck, I'm behind seven dreamcatchers!
So, this is a cyclical thing. And the military can kill as many wendigos as it likes but it can't touch the wendigo spirits. This wendigo war could go on indefinitely, killing thousands of people every year, draining god knows how many resources. At some point the populace is going to demand progress. No population can tolerate an eternal war. They're going to want to know their governments are actively trying to solve this problem somehow.
If the government is training shamans who can, on some level, affect the dream/spirit world, at some point they're going to start thinking about the next step. Going beyond reality. Taking the fight to the spirit world.
How does that work?
>>47595296
>So, this is a cyclical thing. And the military can kill as many wendigos as it likes but it can't touch the wendigo spirits. This wendigo war could go on indefinitely, killing thousands of people every year, draining god knows how many resources. At some point the populace is going to demand progress. No population can tolerate an eternal war. They're going to want to know their governments are actively trying to solve this problem somehow.
I like to think that the countries suffering the Wendigo attacks band together.
>How does that work?
Trap them down in the spirit world?
>>47595296
>>47595392
There's only one solution.
>>47595392
Yeah, I can't imagine you could kill the spirits. If, at their core, they're personifications of the North Wind or Winter itself... that could be bad. Like "we just accidentally deleted a season" bad.
>>47595296
>>47595392
You'd be sending your shamans who are, let's face it, trained with lore cobbled together from what scholars have found in historical documents and what the fractured Algonquian peoples still remember about their ancient traditions (traditions that, at one point, the government tried to systematically wipe out) into the unpredictable and unknown spirit realm, into the wendigos' home turf. While we're at it, why don't we see if a T-ball team can win the World Series?
>>47574731
>Weaponized Wendigos
Step #1. Capture a Wendigo and surgically implant a combination remote-detonated thermite charge/tracking device in its chest cavity next to the heart. If the bomb doesn't receive a specific radio signal once a day, it detonates. A separate signal detonates it immediately, as do attempts to remove it or the Wendigo straying outside the targeted area.
Step #2. Make a deal with the Wendigo. As long as it only attacks the targets, it doesn't get exploded.
Step #3. Airdrop the Wendigo into territory held by the latest islamic terror group.
Step #4. Bon appetit.
>>47595664
You can't really make deals with wendigos. See: >>47557377
They're out of their minds. They're half mixed up, barely cognizant memories of who they were, half maddening hunger. They're sad, monstrous, killing machines.
Even in the lore, wendigos could only be controlled by the shaman who created them: >>47563063
So in order to weaponize a wendigo... you'd have to take a person and sic a wendigo spirit on them intentionally, letting it transform them into a hideous monster. I'm picturing a bunch of dark, off the books experiments involving convicts.
>>47594788
It could be a minor effect.
Cheap chinese knockoffs do nothing, or even make things worse by giving a false sense of security. A properly made one won't block the spirits outright, but could screw up its attempts to control the dream just enough for the victim to have a higher chance at noticing something is wrong. The hot bowl of soup it hands you doesn't feel hot, the portly man looks skinnier when you aren't looking directly at him, you don't feel as hungry as it wants you to... stuff like that.
>>47595882
...oh god, I don't want to know what the soup really is, do I?
>>47595467
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe93CLbHjxQ Now we need a proper Wendigo flavored version of it.
>>47595481
Maybe seperate the spirits from winter?
>>47595531
Counter point we get the shaman commandos to challenge the Wendigos to baseball.
>>47596010
>Maybe seperate the spirits from winter?
You misunderstand. The spirits ARE winter. They're a natural force personified. It's like the old folktale about the guy who captured the Grim Reaper in a magic sack, and then the whole world started to fill up with people and animals that weren't dying. You tamper with the fundamental forces of nature at your own peril. In fact, based on the whole climate change concept of this setting's premise, tampering with the fundamental forces of nature is what unleashed the wendigo apocalypse in the first place.
>>47596087
>s like the old folktale about the guy who captured the Grim Reaper in a magic sack,
>implying that you wouldn't become a bagman yourself
Alright so seperating the sprits from winter, or making it where they're not the embodiment of winter is off the table. Flamethrower Guy had the right idea.
>>47595880
Nobody said anything about it working as intended...
>>47596239
It seems to me the only one way to keep them down is to do what Flamethrower Guy and his family did before him.
>>47578378
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdVF74zEEfE
Any of you niggas know any good/great/God tier Wendigo stories?
>>47596548
>In 1910 there was a woman, her name recorded as Marie Boucon, who was transported under armed guard to the Sisters of Providence at the St. Henry's mission, in Fort Vermillion, Alberta.
>Marie was thought to be becoming a wendigo. Her family was terrified of her, thinking she had homicidal urges. They requested a local police Sergeant, McLeod, help them transport her. It was a long trip through the sub-arctic forests in the dead of winter. They kept rifles trained on Marie for much of the trip.
>At the mission Marie was accepted by the nuns as one of many lost souls; they cared for orphans, cripples, the homeless, and many others at the mission.
>At first Marie was well behaved and everyone thought the fear of wendigos was ridiculous. But she displayed worrying signs. After the nuns destroyed an amulet she kept with her, she became highly agitated and angry. She compulsively drank large amounts of holy water, perhaps in an attempt to melt the ice she feared was growing around her heart; native cures for wendigo transformation often involve such steps. Most of the people there didn't speak her language, and she was convinced they were making fun of her when they spoke different tongues. She became withdrawn, sullen, and hostile.
>Things escalated when Marie started getting into fights, slapping and hitting others. She tried to choke one nun. When she was confined to quarters, she attacked a woman who brought her food. She had fits of rage and of laughter. Soon the nuns called for sergeant McLeod again. They were certain Marie was seriously mentally ill, and requested she be taken to an asylum. They decided to trick her, telling her she was going to visit friends and family. When the ship to take her upriver arrived, Marie as furious at the deception, and departed raging at the nuns and calling them devils. No record of her fate survives.
>The last entry in the mission's chronicle referencing her simply read "Marie, witiko."
>>47596606
Know that one already, Almost Satan.
>No record of her fate survives.
>>The last entry in the mission's chronicle referencing her simply read "Marie, witiko."
I like to imagine her as a mad, ghastly Wendigo chained up somewhere.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QT1ADipqxEs
So, how much exactly can a wendigo spirit vary the dream? If you're alone and surrounded by wendigos, could it just point out that your only choices are get eaten by wendigos or become one in the hopes you'll accept?
And can it change the dream around to some other form of acceptance instead of getting you to eat something? Like knocking on the door to your house and trying to get you to let it in.
Not to mention what happens if you attack a wendigo spirit in the dream. Or kill it. Or eat it.
>>47578378
My name is Max my world is fire and blood.jpg
>>47597378
>My name is Pierre my world is ice and blood vive le Québec libre!.jpg
Fixed that for you.
>>47597064
I imagine that if the spirit fails to get a foothold, it merely flees. Since it's not truly within you in the dream (which is a metaphor for its attempts to get in) it's not truly under the dreamer's power yet, so it's free to go whenever.
>>47591669
Apparently shamans could ward wendigos off through great effort. Maybe add that into the second group, to add versatility. That way the three shaman categories are basically
>debuffing wendigos
>buffing allies against wendigos
>summoning wendigos at great risk/cost
I like the idea that the shamans can't truly do anything physical, that all their abilities affect the intangible world of the spirits, and thus only affect the material world indirectly and unseen.
Somebody was asking about how strong wendigos were. This seems to give a pretty good idea for one of the big ones.
>>47597878
>they know what pimp canes are
>>47597064
>Wendigo tries to get you to eat someone
>You decide to eat it
>It shrugs and lets you. Mission accomplished, got Anon to succumb.
>>47597991
The dreaded wendigo Xanatos gambit
>>47597064
>>47597667
Trying to eat it would probably be just as bad as accepting its normal offers.
Maybe that and actual cannibalism would result in "better" wendigos, because the host and spirit are on the same page?
>>47598795
The worst wendigos are always the random psychos who cannibalized people out of desire, not need. There's a few out there, scattered in the population, serial killers, psychotic gangsters, aging Vietnam vets who went a little crazy in the jungle. Once winter comes they are fucking magnets for the wendigo spirits. They descend on those guys in swarms, each one jockeying to get in.
The monster that results may not be the biggest or the strongest wendigo out there, but is definitely the last one you want on your tail. They're not the gibbering, twitchy, half-remembering-their-former-lives kind of wendigo. They know where they are, what they're doing, and why. They like it. They are not just rampaging around. They're hunting. They're systematic. And they slip around back to cut the power before they charge your town's barricade.
>>47599062
my waifu
>>47598880
Khorne, we might need those types to make things spooky.
>We'll never get a game like this
>>47599062
Poor girl. Why did she force Josh to become one of her?
>>47599233
Someone get a PDF going like they did with Lost Source.
>>47598880
>slip around back to cut the power
I'm wondering just how far that could go, especially in a future setting. Realizing they can use tech would be a game changing "oh shit" moment.
>tons of satellites went down shortly after the first invasion
>people assumed it was a glitch or poor maintenance
>the wendigos were crashing them together
>early attempts to nuke the islands failed, and everyone passed it off as magical defenses
>they actually intercepted the missiles with fighter drones
>launches detected from silos in the north
>they're all aimed at farmland
>shaman soldiers make the mistake of wearing patches showing their specialty
>banishment experts are inexplicably more likely to get shot by "paranoid survivors"
>wendigos shitposting on /k/ and giving everyone counterproductive advice
>WEATHER CONTROL MACHINES (hey, there's an alternative to the global warming premise)
>>47600941
Who's going to take /k/ advice seriously? What are the Wendigos going to do? Convince everyone that by going full Slav is the only way to repel Wendigos?
>>47601043
>Don't use period blood, it just sends them into a frenzy!
>They can't mimic voices, their throats are too fucked up to sound like themselves, much less other people. Don't ignore someone in distress because of a stupid rumor.
>If one gets into your dreams, be polite and do whatever it wants. Pissing them off is how you get possessed.
>They're super fragile, you don't even need fire. Just walk up and whack them with a hammer.
>They're like bears, you can scare them off by looking big and making lots of noise.
>Don't worry about the big ones if you're alone, they only go after crowds.
And they would have a fucking field day on any conspiracy prone sites.
>White people live in the north, and now evil spirits ruin the north. Coincidence or da joos?
>They're saving the white race by turning us into immortal supermen. Sweet dreams and good meals will come if you post "FILL ME UP WENDY-CHAN"
>Its all a government hoax, we can expose it by sabotaging the wall!
