Inugami

stained?
Hatched on the pink super moon
black australian kelpie dog?

INUGAMI BARGHEST LORE AND LINEAGE PROJECT GENERATION IV MORGANA'S LINE "Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places." This is the tale of the Barghest, Inugami.

The Barghests were given many names, foreboding words that spoke of the power and danger they held. It was difficult to say who had given Inugami her name; she had been born in the deepest darkness of the Tangled Wood, in places so secret it was said only the Shadowbinder knew of them.

On the day Inugami first slithered out of her hiding place, she shone like the moon itself. Small creatures crept towards her, curious about this new source of light.

Their curiosity proved to be their undoing. The first of them, a bright-eyed rodent, stopped at the edge of Inugami’s shadow. It looked up at the pale wyrm, its nose gently twitching.

Inugami’s tongue twitched, too, in a motion she didn’t yet understand. She gave into it, and the motion resolved itself into words: “Come here, little one.”

It could not be rightly called a voice. It was more like a compulsion. It wrapped around the muskrat, tugging it forward, and as it drew nearer, its eyes shone silver. They reflected Inugami’s shining form, glazing over as her words took hold of it...

And it disappeared down her throat without a sound. The other beasts in the glen froze, suddenly cognizant of the danger. But before they could flee, Inugami turned her gaze upon them. Again came that velvet voice: “Come...here...”

She moved through the Tangled Wood, steadily feeding, growing in size. She had no wings, but she did not need them, for she could travel faster than flight: She could bind herself to another’s shadow and travel with them, unheard and unseen. The hapless creatures, recognizing how dangerous she was, would take flight. They would look back, and she would be gone; but no, they had to keep going, make sure they’d really left the Barghest behind...

At last, exhausted, they would rest somewhere, secure in the knowledge that their pursuer was long gone. And then Inugami would rise up from their shadows, where they’d been carrying her all along. Her victims would by then be too exhausted to flee further. They would only be able to remain frozen in fatigue, unable to escape her fearsome jaws.

There were other things in the forest that did not fear Inugami, however, things she couldn’t or wouldn’t feed on.

The first she met on a cold morning, when the Tangled Wood was thickly shrouded in mist. Out of the fog came sounds, then shapes—and then Inugami found herself surrounded by a sea of deer. But these weren’t the shy and delicate creatures she often saw. These deer stalked forward like wolves, heads sweeping to and fro as if trying to catch a scent. Their eyes, when they stared at her, bulged with murderous rage.

Looping and twirling above the herd, like a serpent on a dark sea, was another strange creature. “What are you?” Inugami asked. She did not use her silver tongue this time. She instinctively knew that this was an ancient being, worthy of even her respect.

“They call me the Deer Lord,” the creature rumbled, a strangely deep voice from such a small, slim body. He hovered before Inugami’s face, his four wings quietly beating. Deep within his cowl gleamed his large, round eyes and jagged fangs.

The lips pulled back in a smile. “You are a stranger to these parts,” the Deer Lord said, somewhat more warmly. “You have much yet to learn. Come, young one. Let us follow the herd to better grazing grounds.”

The hunger in his eyes didn’t leave much doubt as to what he really meant by “grazing”. Inugami approved. She fell into step behind him, and the deer pressed close against her sides.

The second creature she met many moons later, as the sun was setting. It dyed the trees and waters red, and that was when she appeared: sleek and slinking, many eyes blinking, myriad mouths opening and closing to reveal needle-sharp teeth.

The sun sank below the horizon, but still the creature’s skin shone red, as slick as fresh-spilled blood. Her voice, when she spoke, had a peculiar flute-like quality. “Child,” she began, “do you not fear me?”

“No, scarlet mistress,” Inugami answered, as all around them the forest beasts shifted uneasily. “Have I somehow given offense?”

“Nay, child. My query was not meant to be rhetorical. Ah...I see now that you are not of dragonkind. That answers many questions. But what are you doing here, in this dark forest?”

Inugami did not really know. She traveled, she ate, she rested...and she just kept moving. She ran into the Deer Lord and his minions sometimes, but mostly she was on her own.

She asked the smaller creature, “Might I know your name?”

“I am Circe, a Greater Fear.”

“A fear of...what?” This, too, was not a rhetorical question—Inugami had truly never known fear before.

“The Fear of Animals.”

“No, I...” The Barghest paused, struggled to put her thoughts into words. It wasn’t easy, but she tried: “Who feels...that fear?”

“Ah.” And again, the many mouths smiled. “Why, the dragons do, of course.”

~ ~ ~
Inugami encountered dragons at times. They knew well enough to leave her alone, though when she was hungry, their might and magic couldn’t save them. Still, the Deer Lord and Circe counseled her against pursuing them openly. Not all dragons were feeble fools. Some of them could be powerful foes...or friends.

It was hard to say how Inugami and her fellows formed an alliance with the Mix of Misfits. It was probably easier for them to be accepted there, for nearly all of the clan’s members were not actually dragons....

Although the three of them often roamed the forests, they did need somewhere to rest. The Mix of Misfits found a place for each of them. Inugami’s was a dilapidated old shrine in the middle of a village.

It was worth noting that the village hadn’t been there originally. The shrine stood by itself; a road had most likely been nearby, but had been swallowed up by the swamp, and the shrine had been forgotten and had fallen into decay. Inugami made her den here, and the village grew around it as she discovered her powers—and used them.

The dragons could be fearsome foes, it was true. But they were vulnerable when they were asleep, and that was when Inugami hunted them.

“Come,” she whispered, somewhere in their dreams, and she beckoned them towards the shadow-dark woods. In their dreams, the dragons heard her. They followed her through fragrant gardens and along bright, golden-bricked paths. In their dreams, they followed that silver-tongued voice, their sleeping minds brimming with fantastical visions...

In reality, they stumbled out of their lairs, past sleeping clanmates and out windows and doors. They didn’t feel the cold ground beneath their feet, the hard-packed dirt giving way to brambles, moss, and water.

They only had their dreams, and the voice drawing them deeper into the mist.

They always awoke in the darkness, lost and far from home, with the moon blazing down upon them. And Inugami, pale and cold, rising up from the ruined shrine. Eyes gleaming, fangs bared. And that voice, whispering, whispering, as she entreated the dragons to stay, tethering them so that even once awakened, they could not run away.

Many Barghests fed on flesh and blood. But though Inugami could still gain sustenance this way, she had learned that there was a far better source of energy for her.

She continued speaking to her prey, but no longer did she give instructions—now she wove a story.

“Your talons and your teeth turn blunt, your scales melt into fur. Your flesh is twisting, all your bones shrinking. You are becoming...”

Word upon insidious word, and the tale turned into truth.

Beneath the uncaring moon and stars, Inugami’s victims collapsed as her magic flowed forth. The changes she spoke of overtook each dragon, contorting them into different beasts. Hares and dogs and frogs and birds—

They screamed, they pleaded, they threatened and they cried...but the Barghest was unrelenting, and so was her spell.

And the power released by each transformation, the feral energy and the terror and magic, was what Inugami fed upon.

At last, hours later, the transformations were complete. Many of the creatures continued writhing on the ground, caught in the throes of agony. A few managed to preserve some shred of their higher instincts. They howled or brayed, pleading with Inugami to change them back to normal.

The Barghest invariably turned away, returning to the shrine to digest her meal. There would be no reversing the spell—at least for the moment—and no dragons would escape the village around the shrine.

~ ~ ~
Although the Deer Lord and Circe could be found roaming Sornieth, there were times when they returned to the village and settled down alongside Inugami. The three of them had wandered for so long and been together for some time; there was a certain camaraderie to be found in not being like anything else, and so they came to regard each other as kin.

The presence of the Deer Lord and Circe had strange effects on the land. The Deer Lord was always accompanied by his herd, those strange creatures known as the “violent deer”. It was a literal description: they looked like deer in nearly all respects, but were predatory and carnivorous. They patrolled the meadows and woods surrounding the village. Many victims that would have fallen prey to the village’s monstrous inhabitants were devoured by the violent deer instead.

Circe’s magic was even stranger, and perhaps even more terrible. She was a Greater Fear, the fear of animals—such as the ones Inugami’s victims found themselves transformed into. Whenever Circe was near, her fear infected these poor dragons. They saw themselves transforming into the very beasts they were now terrified of—and their minds would break.

It was said that dragons, once they’d entered the village, could not escape from it. This was true—for when Circe’s madness overtook them and they fled the place at last, they were no longer dragons in body and in mind. The stink of madness clung thickly to them, and the violent deer stood aside to let them pass. These unfortunate creatures could sometimes be found in the forest, making unearthly sounds and trampling everything in their way.

But perhaps the strangest inhabitants of the village were the ones whom Inugami brought there—and who chose of their own accord to stay.

The dragons were always transformed into animals at night, for that was when Inugami’s magic was strongest. If they fled into the forest, away from the enchantment, they would remain as animals forever.

But if they stayed in the village, in the daytime, they would regain their draconic forms.

The dragons remained in the village for many reasons. Some of them simply didn’t want to become beasts. Others feared the secrets hidden among the trees.

Others genuinely thought of the village as a refuge, for there were things beyond the forest that were more terrible than even Inugami and her companions.

These were the dragons who raised the village around the shrine. They built dens for themselves, they learned to live alongside each other. Whatever their reasons for staying, they became a clan.

Still, not everybody was welcome. Inugami had her own reasons for choosing or rejecting various dragons. Those whom she didn’t want in the village became afflicted with madness when they came near it. Most of them perished afterwards, torn apart by the forest beasts or lost in the Tangled Wood. A few made it back to civilization, where their confused babblings about a clan of monsters fueled other dragons’ curiosity.

The only other dragons who could enter and leave the village freely were ones from the clan Inugami owed allegiance to. The Mix of Misfits.

~ ~ ~
“What is your business here, stranger?” Inugami was stern, standoffish, towards unknown dragons. But her silver tongue compelled them to answer her. The young Wildclaw before her introduced himself, saying that he was a hunter.

“Do you require rest, young one? My village is nearby. Come and see.”

And docilely, he followed her through the woods.

Inugami left him in the village. He was shown around, distracted with friendly chatter, even offered a bed to rest in. And then the sun began to set...

That was when Inugami returned home. She’d found no other victims, but there would be more in the future. For now, she needed to attend to the one she already had.

She caught the hunter as he was trying to flee. The moon had already risen fully, and he had seen the other villagers shifting into their bestial forms. They surrounded him now as he stood rooted in fear.

Circe was present tonight, and as Inugami worked her magic, the young Wildclaw devolved into a hysterical mess. He collapsed, gouging deep furrows into the earth as he twisted and thrashed. His neck and tail shortened, his wings flattened against his body and melded with the rest of his hide. His scales disappeared beneath a coat of thick fur...and his cries for help, at last, ended in the wild, high scream of a lynx.

The wildcat bounded up, intent on escaping into the trees. But the rest of the transformed dragons moved in. A goldenbeast scooped the lynx up in one massive paw and carried it to a large pit near the center of the village. Here, the lynx joined other live animals of transformations past. These were the ones whom Circe had driven insane; even once the sun rose, they would be trapped in their animal shapes, their minds eternally locked in madness.

And there they would stay, until...

“Oh, hello...Gorge, is it?” The Tundra had been lounging on the village outskirts; now he stood up and yawned, showing off unusually long canines. The dragon before him, a dull red Coatl, remained stony-faced. “What’ve you got this time?” was all he growled.

The Tundra led him to the animal pit. The animals here were often heard growling and yapping, but they fell silent as the Coatl’s shadow fell over them. Gorge looked down at them with dispassionate eyes. He pointed out a couple of wildcats, and the attendants standing nearby hurried to prepare cages and capturing spells.

The animals were taken away, and the villagers watched them go, as dispassionate as Gorge himself. In a few days, certain items would arrive from the main lair: huge cauldrons of soup, perhaps, or frozen steaks and chops. These would be received with considerably more excitement.

Inugami would continue hunting for them. Whatever disagreements she and the other villagers had had, those were all in the past. They were now a herd, a pack, a clan...and all clans needed food to survive.

~ written by Disillusionist (254672)
all edits by other users