Oddfolk
Subhumans, Oddfolk or in more modern times the Lost Tribes<ref>I study the lost tribes, or oddfolk, or subhumans if you want to use archaic terms. People warped by a variety of factors, usually isolation- [...] -and sometimes incest," he said. - Excerpt from Poke 3</ref> are part-way between humans and Others with direct descent from humans. These creeple peoples can pop up from any veriety of factors; when a collection of feral children grow up and breed for a few generations, or when you have that small branch of the population that lives off in the middle of nowhere or on some mountaintop, left with nobody but their own family.<ref>“I didn’t tell Blake about this one, it was a subhuman, before.”
“Elaborate? I don’t know the fancy terminology you people with the books have.”
“What you get when a collection of feral children grow up and breed for a few generations, or when you have that small branch of the population that lives off in the middle of nowhere or on some mountaintop, left with nobody but their own family. Less human trappings to tie them down to reality, a lot of energy, lust, or bloodlust to stir up the spirits, and you wind up with whole families of inbred, messed up almost-humans.”
“You can summon something like that?”
“If they become Other enough, and certain conditions are met. This one is called Midge.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.7</ref> Other ways talked of in story are when they find a source that drives or innfluences them away from things.<ref>“Twist bloodlines enough, and you get subhumans. I’ve met three of these groups. A little island close to Greenland, the population center small. Toothless, wide-eyed devout worshipers of an opportunist Other they were unwittingly elevating to godhood. This is remarkably common, mind. They are often Aware, which can be fascinating, and they may resemble early practitioners. In this case, it was early worship. [...] The second was a family living in a dilapidated tenement in Europe. Afraid of the outside world, they inbred, moved in and out of various apartments, and subsisted on rats, their sickly, and their rooftop and balcony gardens. Their language had mutated as much as their features- all of them appeared eerily similar, chinless, wide-hipped, and small-eyed, their language a nonsense mishmash of nouns. Civilization found its way to them, they were split up and given care, their existence was hidden by practitioners and a city council that had ignored too many warnings about their existence. I was invited to help at a late stage, but damage had been done, their world unraveled as they were taken from one another, and they died soon after they were separated. [...] The third, I won’t elaborate much on. A group of miners found something dangerous underground. Fossils relating to practices we do not teach about at the Blue Heron Institute. They coveted them, they occupied the mine and its immediate area, contrived to hide it, and invited families to come to them. They never left. They were twisted by those fossils and by their bloodlines. The reality is that few categories we give Others are tidy. Knotted-up societies do not fit among those few. Whatever drives the knot tends to loom large and influence them. You almost never get a subhuman that is only subhuman.”
[...]
- Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.4</ref><ref>
“The Knot, then, is what happens when this visceral thing or process is twisted. When incarnations such as time, death, violence, or dream run through the visceral, they have processes. Twist the process in an unnatural way, and you twist that which is solid. When you twist it enough, you get the Knots. These can be people, Others, places, and things. Isolation from the rest of the world is often a prerequisite, or the things that would knot them would be tied down by outside connections.”
Lucy nodded a bit to herself, at the same time she studied Bristow and his mannerisms. Did his confidence slip at any point? Not really. Did he have any tells? Not really.
“Twist bloodlines enough, and you get subhumans. I’ve met three of these groups. A little island close to Greenland, the population center small. Toothless, wide-eyed devout worshipers of an opportunist Other they were unwittingly elevating to godhood. This is remarkably common, mind. They are often Aware, which can be fascinating, and they may resemble early practitioners. In this case, it was early worship.”
[...]
“That’s the first case. For the second, you can twist diet and environment enough, and you can get feral subspecies. Men with spirits and bodies changed by time and need. Eyeless men deep underground, those who live in shallow water. I know of a group of Russian offshoots who lived above the arctic circle. Gross distortions in sleep and isolation from society saw them sleeping for weeks at a time, waking to hunt with ravenous hunger. Again, whatever forces create the isolation needed for these things to happen without self-correcting, they will taint this rapid or distorted evolution. We rarely find feral variants on humanity who aren’t touched by other categories or other ways of becoming Other.”
He held up two fingers.
“That would be our second case. Third? We have the altered. Others target humans. Some powerful ones target groups of human. It is far less common today than it once was, but some succeed or succeeded. They take a distant or hard to reach village. On the rare occasion, they take a city. I was personally involved in one case where an Apsasû, a divine servant and protector of humanity, took it on herself to shelter a group of humans. She kept them in what you could describe as a Garden of Eden, curing all that ailed. Faith, physiology, and mind twisted and knotted despite or because of her efforts.”
“Balance is often maintained here. The knotted variations of humanity still use the same amount of material, but it is exaggerated in places, stretched thin in others. This can be messy, with subhuman groups having a large number of the weak, slow, stupid, and lesser in every respect, dotted with the periodic child who is incredible in one facet, strong or fleet of foot or keen in intelligence. It can also be ordered. The tenement group I mentioned had found an equilibrium, to the point they could be called something entirely different than the other.”
- Excerpt from Cutting Class 6.4</ref>
Irregardless they lack human trappings to tie them down to reality, a lot of energy, lust, or bloodlust to stir up the spirits, and you wind up with whole families of inbred, messed up almost-humans.
When they get enough Other-trappings they can be summoned. It should be noted that they are not by any means stupid, the only skill that was lost were social skill and cunning is a survival instinct. They are supernaturally good with improvised weaponry.<ref>“Why can’t she be dumber?” I asked. “Why did Rose have to pick something that could be so fucking problematic when it slips the leash?”
“Subhumans aren’t stupid, they’re socially backward,” Maggie said. She thought for a second. “Really socially backward. And they’re good with improvised tools and weapons. Supernaturally good.”
“Ah. Put a broken chair in their hands, they’re going to be better at murdering you with it than if you gave them a proper gun or knife?” Fell asked.
“Yep,” Maggie said. “And the ones who do get some crazy weapon like a jackhammer or a machete become the subhuman exemplars Rose described. Ones with actual personality, trademarks, and rituals.” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.8</ref>
Types
Subhumans come in three different categories:
- Natural: They get twisted by their environment. Built for cold, desert, for living in ravines or deep caves, inhospitable places.
- Social: They form tribes, cannibal families, or that sort of thing.
- Loners: Break from the pack, their pack dies, or they’re exceptional members of a family unit, too crazy or brutal to be allowed to mingle.
Known Subhumans
- Midge's family<ref>Interlude 11</ref>
- Mam & Pa
- Brother Mall (can passas human)
- Posie
- Midge
- Biff and Jory
- Warzenberg Clan
- Dame Metha
- Gisela
- Gernot
- Jörg
References
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