What tools and weapons would Leviathan hunters use to take down much larger demons?
What tools and weapons would Leviathan hunters use to take down much larger demons?
What tools and weapons would Leviathan hunters use to take down much larger demons?
(My Doskvol disclaimer bla bla bla)
A leviathan hunter thinks in terms of heavy equipment just as a construction worker thinks in terms of earthmoving machines. Hunting leviathans is only survivable for two reasons; one, the hunters offer only annoyance and arrogance and discomfort, not real threat of death. Two, because of the massive metal ships that have protective sigils ground into their hulls and carry electoplasmic generators that can be spun up into weapons and defenses.
Expecting a leviathan hunter to do without the ship and its weapon emplacements or special weapons and defenses is like expecting a construction worker to make a pond with an entrenching tool.
Sure, the hunter knows that a cabal of adepts use rituals to suss out a demonic name in the water, and trace its corruption to the source. The hunter knows that grinding the name into blades allows them to pierce unearthly hide where other weapons would bounce off, biting deep with all the power of self-hatred.
The hunter knows that there are signs in the wake of demons; misscarriages floating on the surface, flocks of dead birds, a sea of red kelp loosed from the bottom to form a twitching and thirsty undead net on the surface, sometimes a tint to the burning stars below the sea. And some of these signs follow on land. Some of the adept hunting rituals can be repurposed. A weapon with the name of the demon may strike it.
But without the massive electroplasmic cannonades and walls, or the skilled limmer crew, or the 50 foot iron hulls, or the enervating rituals that require massive sacrifices to slow the leviathan, all that’s just enough to draw the demon’s attention and make you worth the effort of killing.
You don’t hunt demons, not on land. You prepare an ambush, you ward it with human and animal sacrifices, you prepare the ground as best you can, you load up your adepts with what objects of power you can manage that are antithetical to the demon’s element, and you leave a way for the demon to escape when you’ve got what you need from it. Even then, the bookie odds top out at 5/1, and not in your favor.
Andrew Shields, your Lore is freakin CANON in our games 🙂
Nice!
I like to imagine Leviathan Hunter ships a bit like mosquitoes that latch on to Leviathans when they surface to take up blood them skedaddle before while they can. I also imagine one method of luring them up is with a Siren, a person who singing the Levithan’s Song. Those who hear it go slowly and subtly insane as the the melody hums itself on their lips. It would be an almost safe method since the Leviathan is passive for the time it is singing with the Siren, but it’s very difficult not to get the entire crew infected by hearing the Levithan’s vast rhythm reverberate throughout the ship. For that reason certain Levithan Hunters aren’t allowed to dock, but no one on board seems to mind this much. A electroplasmic drum has been devised to prevent the hearing of the Song by anyone other than the Siren, but it does cause sailors to go deaf quicker than usual.
Gorinich Serpant cool idea. I can see the Siren’s Song as a ritual performed by a skilled Whisper.