Paper Man

A Paper Man, also known as a Harbrought, Husk or Hollow Man, is a type of Other related to Vestiges.

Creation

They form after a person has most of their Self destroyed, leaving only a hardened, scorched exterior. This can be a result of Greater Powers or other major magical effect touching them, or occasionally a mundane catastrophe. Harbingers, whose every magical act is channeling a Greater Power, frequently create them whenever they use their powers to kill.

For some reason, they have become more common after the first use of atomic weapons to attack Japan, even in unrelated contexts.

Appearance

They often appear to be literally hollow (possibly filled with whatever destroyed them), or two-dimensional in some fashion.

Abilities

They are exceptionally tough, difficult to destroy (nothing most Practitioners can throw at them could match the power these fragments have already survived), but they can be contained.

They have a tendency to appear in dreams, static, stains on walls, scattered objects, etc. in the area around themselves.

In many cases they can send out ambient effects based on the power that still burns within them, whatever it is.

They can absorb power of almost any type.

When they either run out of energy, or gain so much energy that they "burn out", they are reduced to a passive presence - a shadow, a voice in the static, a person visible only from a certain window, etc. They can then reactivate from this hibernating state if given power, whether intentionally, from the attention of Innocents, or simply ambient power from magical activity happening near them.

When they "burn out" after absorbing enough energy it can unleash a burst of power, causing widespread damage, potentially even intense enough to create some more (lesser) Paper Men.

They're generally not fast-moving.

While dormant, they can sometimes be "translated" into a different form - for example, one might take a photo of them and they instinctively follow the attention, moving into the photo. This can form the basis for a binding and allow for summoning them, although they will need a potent supply of power.

Behavior

Not very intelligent, they sort of flail around causing problems.

They tend to consume lesser Paper Men of the same type, meaning they are only found alone or in matched sets.

They often leave clues as to the event that spawned them, such as obsessively writing the names of everyone who died alongside them, chanting some relevant term, etc.

Like many Others, they can sense the fires within them slowly running down. They tend to seek out whatever aspects of themselves were destroyed, in a doomed hope of repairing themselves. Alternatively, they may simply seek energy.

Variants

Awestruck

Here only the mind has been hollowed out, not the body. Basically just crazy "Aware" people who can see things they shouldn't, but with the standard Paper Man patterns of behavior. Sometimes find their way to acquiring Other abilities so they can feed and power themselves, or become Familiars.<ref>The Awestruck are Paper Men who did not have their physical bodies destroyed. They are hollowed out, haunted people who had their minds blasted out. The flailing patterns of behavior are similar, as are the tendencies to repeat patterns and evoke the name of the harbinger or contextual details of the blast. They will tend to destroy themselves in their pursuit of energy to fill the void or in chasing of the things that they are now missing. The means of resupplying their Selves typically isn’t there, however. They can often See, because their regular sight isn’t all there, which may lead them to wander into Practitioner affairs while straddling a line of being problematic but technically Innocent - with a karmic backlash if they are harmed. They may point out ‘witches’, speak of things that are there but invisible to normal human eyes, or venture to the outskirts of town and tear down wards because something is on the other side. They may also get entangled with powers or Others that give them the ability to access dreams or become more Other, whereupon they have a means of feeding and resupplying themselves. More common as Familiars than Paper Men, in which cases they act as addled or very eccentric people with lesser Practitioner abilities. -Pact Dice Bestiary: Paper Men</ref> Can also be created when an Aspirant's practice backfires and they lose their humanity.<ref name=":1">Zed paraphrased from the screen.  “It’s called a Grasping, it’s a visceral Other.  Lots of practices have a fail case.  You know, you’re looking to get power, or solve some issue, but if you lose your humanity along the way, screw up, you become something Other.  Hydes can become Fraward, the Hyde side takes over.  Aspirants become Awestruck, war mages can become a strong subvariety of Dog of War, yadda yadda.”

...

“Grasping are Collectors gone wrong.  Sometimes someone does a ritual to draw items to them, and they reach too far, or they get too weak in Self to manage their collection.  They knit together with the collection.” - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.z</ref>

Paper Thing

Just an object, rather than a person or creature, that's been hollowed out. Generally have some magical power, plus a stronger single-use power that will consume the item.<ref>Paper Things are objects with the same properties as Paper Men, though obviously not with the same mobility or personalities. They’re often indestructible, curious in their shape or properties (a partially melted landline phone that has no internals, that still works), and carry an ember of power from the blast that transformed them. They can be Collectors items of a particular (class violet) stripe, and thus have more power as a set. Typically have a function and a consumable use if it is ‘cracked open’. An example might be a doll that grows painfully hot to the touch if held, that may rotate its head to the nearest source of power and whisper rhymes about the name of that power. That doll could be cracked open to release a crowd of lesser Paper Men (well, children). -Pact Dice Bestiary: Paper Men</ref>

References

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References

• Pact Dice Bestiary: Paper Men