LEVIATHAN HUNTING 101

LEVIATHAN HUNTING 101

LEVIATHAN HUNTING 101

Due to my experience with ‘Dishonored’ and China Mieville’s ‘The Scar’ I have always been fascinated by the concepts of Leviathans and Leviathan hunting in BitD. Probably like many others I had at first thought of historical whale hunting as a fitting comparison. When John told us that Leviathans were immortal and that ‘hunting’ was actually rather ‘sucking like a mosquito’, I had some difficulties picturing what that actually meant. For example: How large are Leviathans in comparison to the hunting ships? Apparently they large enough that no one gets the idea of towing one back to shore. But if that is the case, how do the ships manage to keep them under control long enough to suck their lifeblood away?

I kept mulling over questions like these and over the course of a couple of weeks, some ideas congealed in my mind. So here they are, my thoughts on Leviathan hunting, unrefined like a sea beast’s oil. Feel free to modify, discard, or add to them in any way you please:

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So you want to know about Leviathan hunting? Well, first of all, one should keep in mind that Leviathans are huge. They are so huge, that most sailors have only ever seen a fraction of their body mass. Artistic or ‘scientific’ depictions can only approximate the shape of these beasts, given the fact that the images have to be put together piecemeal from incomplete descriptions of different specimen that tend to exhibit a wide variety in their overall appearance, e.g the amount, size, and structure of eyes, fins, tentacle-like appendages, bone-spurs, even the overall body shape. The only thing that can be said for certain is that the sea demons dwarf even the largest hunting ships.

So how is it possible that hunters again and again engage these beasts in a struggle for their lifeblood? The simple answer is: There is no such struggle. At least not from the sea beast’s point of view. That is, unless they are fully awake. Fortunately, they rarely are.

Which brings us to the second important fact about Leviathans: When these giants are encountered in the Void Sea, they drift through the black waves in a slumbering, almost dream-like state. The reason why is hotly debated among Doskvol’s demonologists and marinologists. Some speculate that the sea demons hunt in the deep, preying on even stranger creatures or maybe feeding from spirit-wells on the lightless bottom of the sea, and only come to the surface to sleep. Others presume that dreaming might actually be the natural state of these demons and that it is only our actions that spur them to moments of wakefulness.

Yet, while the beasts themselves might give off an appearance of serene tranquility, the same cannot be said about the sea surrounding them: Choppy waves, suddenly emerging whirlpools, eerie voices riding the winds, towering cloud formations lit from within by strangely coloured lightning – all these signs inform the seasoned hunter of the proximity of their quarry. If it is true that leviathans dream, their dreams might not be pleasant at all.

Hunting ships approach such lumbering beasts like the living islands they are. Harpoons, either thrown by hand or shot by cannon, are used to tie parasite and host together with a web of ropes, cables, and chains. Explorer crews are sent over on small boats to put foot on the beast’s back and prepare the extraction process. They bring large drills to pierce the skin of the beast and, like medical syringes, connect them with rubber hoses leading back to the pumps and tanks on the hunting vessel. After a while the leviathans lifeblood is sucked away through a dozen or so punctures. The largest ships even use cranes to lower down complex platforms, which can drive their lightning-oil-fuelled drills deeper into the leviathan’s flesh and reach richer deposits of the precious liquid.

Working on the back of a slumbering sea demon offers promise and danger in equal measures. When the drills are in place, sailors often feel tempted to saw off some of the smaller bony protusions or appendages to sell them for great reward to the superstitious or the scientifically minded. Even stranger and more rewarding treasures can often be found embedded in the ground benath the hunters’ feet: Teeth as long as swords, shimmering crystal shards, bizarre relics of obscure origin. But these treasures are invariably accompanied by great peril: Ghosts flock to leviathan blood like carrion birds while demons are known to spontaneously manifest from electroplasmic patterns on the leviathan’s back. And – frequently forgotten, yet no less deadly – there are always the more mundane danger of the sea: One wrong step on the slippery surface will send the hapless sailor beneath the ink-black waves.

When the weather phenomena and the overall weirdness increase, it is a clear sign that the monster’s slumber is growing restless. The living island will quake and even attempt to submerge beneath the waves, a pull that strong ships with an experienced crew can resist for a while. From now on it is a question of how much risk a captain is going to take to extract as much lifeblood as possible. If he disengages too soon, he will have to find another beast to fill his tanks to the brim and make the voyage profitable. If he waits for too long, the monster’s strength and wakefulness will grow to a point when lives, equipment, and even ships are lost. The floating island might suddenly vanish between the waves, pulling everything on it or attached to it down into the bottomless depths. Or the pain and ire might eventually provide enough impetus for the beast to attack its parasite. Few have seen such events and even fewer dare recall the experience.

And yet, despite all the dangers and horrors, the hunting fleets are always growing and there is no end to the number of sailors willing to risk their lives on the Void Sea, for the lifeblood of leviathans is also the lifeblood of civilisation – and it is immensely profitable.

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So, this is it. I’d love to hear some thoughts – and, of course, your own visions on how you see that dangerous trade.

29 thoughts on “LEVIATHAN HUNTING 101”

  1. Whatever ideas I did have have now been subsumed into this marvellous line of thought!

    I did introduce leviathan roe (proto-leviathans harvested by hunters) into a session a while back – which look like large eyes

  3. I hypothesize that there also exist leviathans underground, slumbering even more deeply, the world resting on their backs.

    I’ve been seeking funding for exploratory mining, but the nobility, rich on leviathan blood, has been blocking me at every turn! If only I had one of those new-fangled “Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engines” I could start work on my own. Please, if you help me, I’ll cut you in on the profits. We’ll all be rich!

  6. Donogh McCarthy Leviathan roe: Surely, only those both rich and mad enough would be willing to pay for a taste of what the sea demons’ oozing orifices have to offer.

  9. The trick is that the term “Leviathan hunting ship” marks one as an outsider: every Leviathan is unique, and every ship must specialize.

    The Dead Man’s Hand is crewed entirely by vampires and hulls, conveniently immune to Grimish the Mindtorch’s constant near-subliminal psychic keening.

    The Contessa’s Smile, on the other hand, has twice the crew of most ships her size, all of them armed with machetes and cleavers to deal with the Anglerwife’s countless thrashing tentacles.

    They say Horizoncutter is the fastest ship on the high seas, and even it can barely keep with Albix the White, relying on support ships to flank and outmaneuver it.

    Ironmast uses specialized equipment to drill through the nigh-impenetrable shell of Zatesh, The Living Island, and specialized weapons to deal with the ecosystem of strange and hostile monsters that dwell on its surface.

    And so on and so forth.

  13. I can’t speak for J. Walton, but I would be happy to consider this canon, Benjamin Hamdorf (or at least a semi-reliable narrator telling a tale of hunting)

  16. This is a great thread. Seems like there’s room for multiple competing fictions about leviathans, with players either co-developing one of the popular mythologies during character/campaign creation or finding out for themselves gradually as they encounter the beasts.

    My thinking was that the leviathans were immortal and unkillable, so drained “corpses” would sink deep beneath the waves into the unknown Lower Depths (falling to the bottom of the Faction chart that lists all the known leviathans that you can hunt) where they are rejuvenated and often transformed into more immense and substantially new horrors (how? There are many theories) that can reemerge at a later date. Consequently, like with resistant bacteria, leviathan hunting is an arms race that produces greater and greater horrors over time, requiring hunters to improve their arts with new techniques and technologies.

    Maybe also a little Pacific Rim in that story of escalating horrors.

  18. John Harper J. Walton Of course, I would be happy to have those ideas become one version of ‘how things are’ in the BitD universe. In my opinion, if we are to have competing fictions, they should be both presented as vague and unreliable, rather than outright contradictory. One of the beautiful things about your game is that, whenever the players are given the opportunity to develop the background, they work from hints and hooks rather than being presented with the choice between two or more clearly spelled out options.

    Btw, it had never occured to me that ‘immortal’ could actually mean ‘ever self-resurrecting’. It’s a cool concept, which reminds me of the Neal Asher novel ‘The Skinner’.

  19. Like the others, I love Ben’s ideas, even though I don’t see all the hunting ships specialise that way.

    Instead I’d say that the most infamously restless and dangerous sea demons have gained such respect (and their own names) that they are given a wide berth by ordinary hunters. This makes them an ideal quarry for those daring and mad enough that they are willing to develop a more ‘intimate’ host-parasite relationship. Ben Wray

  20. Ben Morgan Oh yes, and occasionally there is more than just scars to tell a tale of previous hunts: harpoons or drilling equipment deeply embedded in the beast’s flesh, restless ghosts of mariners still clinging to the place of their demise, and some hunters even whisper of leviathans towing the empty hulls of long-lost hunting ships wherever they go.

  21. Brilliant thread. I love the idea of leviathan diversity and specializations. I am beginning to think of leviathan hunting being done in seasons depending on type of leviathan. Perhaps leviathans are active depending on the constellations below the water?

    Like, oh it’s spring and Orion is in the water. Nyarloks are gonna be reaching the surface to dream. Everyone preps their ship with extra hardy pumps because the shitty thing about nyarlocks are their zit covered skin. Those things love to burst unexpectedly, emitting acidic puss ruining equipment.

    Maybe the more daring captains skip Nyarloks season and wait for the more lucrative Bansheefins come Capricorn/Summer. Maybe only the most insane captains go out in Scorpio. 

    This way I can see ships that exclusively go after one type a certain time of year while others constantly upgrade and gear up for the next big catch.

  24. Some could have their own hosts of parasitic or symbiotic entities living on their bodies that the hunters have to deal with. Like the creatures that dropped off in Cloverfield.

  25. To keep track of all this information, experienced captains – and sometimes also sailors, even though the more secretive captains consider this a punishable offense – put down everything they know in personal logbooks:

    Maps, which show the time and place when known sea demons return to the surface, descriptions of occult and more natural phenomena associated with each beast, sketches of individual leviathans detailling the best extraction points as well as certain dangers: ghostly parasites, demonic dwellers, the arcs and ranges of tentacles and other natural defenses, lists of the unfortunate souls lost in the hunt of a specific leviathan – all the pieces of the puzzle come together in the captain’s log

    And as fierce competition makes for closely guarded secrets, this tome eventually becomes a captain’s most prized possession, which also renders it a most stealable item for the enterprising thief, should he feel up to the challenge.

  29. This is very evocative, it reminds me in a way of Elminsters Ecologies [for those of us who remember that far back. ;-)]

    Well written, good job.

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