Oddfolk

Those known as the Oddfolk,<ref name=war>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.
[...]
The Warzenbergs were a Lost Tribe now. Isolation from the rest of the world, incest, association with darker Others, some practices they had picked up, and some other general influences had warped them over time. Which was pronounced considering how they had been somewhat warped from the beginning. In many cases, Lost Tribes were barbaric. Cannibal ‘rednecks’, scattered families deep in the forests, or people who hcad moved underground and mutated to the point they were blind and were more animal than they were people. The Warzenbergs hadn’t become primitive. They had been nobility, with a castle in the deep wilderness and an adjacent village, and they’d traveled the same routes as the cannibal families, the carnie tribes, or feral swamp dwellers. They were like any noble family that inbred because it was the easiest way to ensure the family kept its noble blood, but… taken to an extreme, coupled with increasing xenophobia. They had lost touch with their humanity, but they were distinct in how they had held onto culture. Sort of. - Excerpt from Poke 3</ref> alternatively Offspring<ref name=Q>In Long Shadows we list and explore some of the most common creatures that wear human guises and join human society. These include [...] those Offspring who have inbred to the point of edging out of humanity - Quasi, quoted in Bonus Material: Bedtime Reading.</ref>, or in more modern times the Lost Tribes<ref>Lost Tribes

Subhumans created when Isolation, either purposeful (self-segregating) or geographical, cuts off a particular family or small village from the rest of the world. Without reinforcement from the spirits, given generations, the spirits of humanity lose their grip or assert their grip in another way, and other traits and environmental factors take priority. As a general rule, this makes them exceedingly hardy and resistant to the elements. Consistency from parent to child will shift to maintaining and exaggerating some limited traits or patterns; this could be as simple as guaranteeing that every child will have deep blue eyes, a birthmark, or that son looks near-identical to father.

However, other things start to vary wildly from parent to child in a way one wouldn’t ordinarily see in nature, leading to some exceptional talents or biases toward one skillset. A boy born in a generation might have tremendous strength. His sister might be weak while being so perceptive she has a special variant of the Sight. This kind of result is not guaranteed, and a great many may be disabled for all conventional purposes. For Heroic mage purposes, the patterns tend to be much denser. - Wildbow on Reddit</ref> are directly descended from humans but are no longer fully human.

Abilities[edit]

They can be thought to have all the abilities of the human-animal, cunning strength coordination and similar. With the addition of something else that is a product of their origin which may mean magic of their own or abilities that resemble certain types of Aware or even Others of some specific category.<ref name=":2">“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>

There are some 'paragon's among them that may have gifts of some kind and then there are those who can operate among humans.<ref name=":3"/><ref name=hero>Where it got fascinating was that in this tangled tableau, there were patterns to be pulled out. Most members of the ‘tribe’ had fairly severe mental and physical disabilities, but in any Lost Tribe, there were individuals who stood out: monstrously strong, quick, or tough. The living Warzenberg he had met while backpacking around Europe had been a woman with some physical deformities and partial blindness, but some ability to see the future. She had started him on this puzzle, when she had casually mentioned she was the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, going back five generations. The diagramed family tree he had back in his office tracked eldest sons of eldest sons and eldest daughters of eldest daughters. It also tracked the other ‘rule’ he’d ferreted out, that those with mothers that died in the process of giving birth to them were more intelligent.

By his best estimation, there were five rules, two he knew and three he didn’t, and whenever someone was born in such a way that a rule applied, that individual was exceptional in some way. When more rules applied, as they probably had for Gisela, the individual was that much greater. It was a whole field of practice, and expert Historical practitioners knew that these kinds of patterns came up in any prominent family, usually because someone in the history had been great or terrible enough to make a mark on history and alter the tapestry that followed. Finding these histories and tracing family trees to find heroes was a whole thing, wrestling for control over heroic spirits by having a more complete history than the next family. - Excerpt from Poke 3</ref>

When they get enough Other-trappings they can be summoned, though if they are near enough just talking to them and asking for help might have a similar effect.<ref name=sof/> They are also some of the few Others that can actually have children with humans.<ref name=GP4>“But you made a life with [Gisela]. You did a lot of shit with her. The blind bitch had a garden at your old place and you watered her fucking ugly plants. You traveled around. You did stuff with her you can never do with me because she was human enough. You got engaged to the twit. Gave her a nice ring even though she couldn’t even see it. Dumbass.” - Excerpt from Poke 4</ref>

Can be familiars as can almost anything.

Weaknesses[edit]

As visceral people they can be bound by chains. Presumably human "enough" to count in various rapacious rituals. It's a coin toss whether a given Oddfolk can pass among innocents.<ref name=pd>The dominant denizens of a knotted place are often called Oddfolk or Offspring, though older texts call them Subhuman. They are often but not always the cannibal rednecks with birth defects - they could just as easily be inbred nobles in a long lost castle or people trapped underground that quickly adapted to not need or have eyes.
[...]
Fitting In:[...]Oddfolk come closer to a fifty-fifty or have even less than that who can pass, with the rest deformed or exaggerated. - PACT DICE: Knots</ref>

Formation[edit]

While exceptions exist Oddfolk are usually the result of a generational process; as in generations of people have lived and operated in specific circumstances that have pushed them out of normal human molds. can pop up from any variety 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 some secluded location, left with nobody but their own family.<ref name=sof>“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><ref name=":2"/>

Another way could be if groups of people are isolated from normal human circumstances, they don't eat the same food or live in the same place as regular humans for example, they have children and reproduce outside of the greater human culture.<ref name=":3">“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.”

[...]

“Twist bloodlines enough, and you get subhumans.
[...]
“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> Then there are the humans that are deliberately cultivated into something else by a powerful Other, for various malevolent or benevolent purposes.<ref name=":3"/>

The book Quasi covers many such creatures.<ref name=Q/>

Behavior[edit]

Whatever their specific origin these people will be 'Odd' in some way. 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 almost-humans; either in-bred clans or re-evolved competitors or some Others pet creation.<ref name=":3"/>

It should be noted that they are not by any means stupid, the only 'skills' lost were social ones and cunning is a survival instinct. Thus they can be 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>

The aforementioned exemplars may be more functional than 'common' for these creeple peoples and may similarly be able to operate in Innocent society without threatening any awareness.

Variations[edit]

A given oddfolk will come from a group that has lived the following circumstances on a generational timescale, as with everything labels may end up being less than helpful.

Knot - Those whose bloodlines have become incestuous Visceral Knots
Terroir - When the environment and nutrition are odd so over generations they twist out of humanity.<ref name=":3"/><ref>Oddfolk (that Bristow called Subhumans) come about when generations come and go in a knotted space, adapting to that peculiar environment. - Excerpt from [12.7 spoilers] Knots & Depressions</ref>
Bred - When some Patron attentions creates groups of oddfolk due to proximity; warping their ideal people.<ref name="ss"/>

Within Oddfolk groups themselves there is a hierarchy with the lowliest being children and Curs,<ref>Flock - A Conjuration practice. Call forth X minor, living manifestations of the lowest caliber for a chosen field, [...]Example summonings would be a flock of fairy, least tier goblins, fading echoes, oddfolk babies or curs, or vestiges. These typically die in one strike or have other limitations, and fade/squirm away once no longer relevant. - Pact Dice: Argumentative Practitioner</ref> the highest being something like Names benefiting from the specific family lineage rules.<ref name=hero/><ref>Oddfolk Practices emphasize the Oddfolk and can exist as an overlap with Heroic practices, but with the ‘Heroes’ in this case being the stronger Oddfolk who are alive now rather than those who died decades and centuries ago. They lean harder into Conflict, because of the typically violent stylings of Oddfolk, often drawing on the knotted flows to empower themselves and others, and into Deals, for the specific relationships with certain Oddfolk. Divine is also in the cards, which would tie into the relationship between these physically twisted people and the powers that shaped them - fish-related deformities in a fishing village controlled by a greater power from the depths, for example. - PACT DICE: Knots</ref>

Further variations exist in species outside of the human-animal; OffBreed are animal groups that have gone through similar generational changes to a similar extent to those that oddfolk communities do.<ref name=ob>“Offbreed, Lebel-sur-Quévillon,” Elizabeth went on. “Small town. Half this size.”

“Pig. Oddfolk, but animal, not person,” Eugene said. “Five headed pig, all mashed in there together, sharp teeth, strong. About five hundred pounds, I’d guess. Who?”

“The Lord isn’t named. It just says he was disembowled and dragged across town toward the woods, scared the shit out of the locals, but innocence wasn’t quite broken.” - Excerpt from Wild Abandon 18.2</ref>

Known Oddfolk[edit]

Midge's family<ref>Interlude 11</ref> (Knot)
- Fat Mam & Rackham Thin<ref>Rose intoned, “Midge, daughter of Rackham Thin, daughter of Fat Mam, drinker of blood…” - Excerpt from Subordination 6.8</ref>
- Brother Mall (can pass as human)
- Posie
- Midge
- Biff and Jory
Victims of the succubus<ref name="ss">The being we sought that night was more powerful than we had anticipated. It was intelligent enough to hide the bulk of its activities from the outside world. We expected an imp. We found something evolved enough to be birthing its own imps, to have a form and its own symbolism.

A devil of the sixth choir. The choir of man’s evils. A weaker choir, and the one most personal to all of us.

She had collected inhabitants of a small town into a cult and church, and she had done it long enough that her initial followers had descendants. Mother, father, child, grandchild. All rutted on the floors and pews of the devil’s church in a grand, senseless, ceaseless orgy, the devil herself presiding above all in naked, Wrong splendor.

A devil of incest, she had made her own monsters even before she began creating imps, by way of inbreeding and birth defects. There was only horror there, enough to sear its way into my eyes.

I will sum up that night by saying that each of us who walked in there with guns at the ready walked away alive, but we did not walk away intact.

When I think of what drove me to write this work, this event was one that remained with me. I spent some time wondering about the aftermath. It was my first eye-opening experience, and it was the last incident where I researched the long term effects.

It was only when I’d researched the events that are covered in each chapter that follows, that I let myself look into this one. I looked at the numbers, and I want to point to statistics, the increase in birth defects in that town and county. To the rise in the divorce rate, or the rates of abuse. - Excerpt from Gathered Pages: 4</ref> (Bred)
Warzenberg Clan<ref name=war/> (Knot)
- Dame Metha
- Gisela<ref name=GP4/>
- Gernot
- Jörg
Worshipers by the sea<ref name=":2"/> (Knot/Patron)
Those that hid in the city<ref name=":2"/> (Knot)
They that dug too deep<ref name=":2"/> (Knot)
Artic dwellers<ref name=":3"/> (terroir) (Ghoul)
Boob Tubers & Web Crawlers - Technomancy derived<ref>Subhumans of a specific technomancy related type. Humans that have sunken so far into the other world that their humanity has become distorted or fallen away. Summoning (as with many Technomancy related things) requires making and running the right algorithms and beating other technomancers out there to find and access them first. Then you have to wait for them to show up. Next to no grip on reality with multiple ones being able to assert a kind of 'continuity skip' where if you aren't looking they can get places where they shouldn't or faster than they should. Tubers tend to be tougher with some ability to ignore the harsher parts of reality, while Crawlers are better at working with or cooperating with ongoing technomancy practices. - Wildbow on Discord</ref>(terroir)
The Bardanes (terroir/knot) <ref>“Okay. Changing subjects, the Bardanes realms? [...] A family overseas devised a trick, and the powers of that region allowed it,” the Alabaster explained. “The family’s practitioners claim demesnes linked to one anothers’, give full access to family, and then before they die they make themselves immortal, living statues.”

“Reminds me of something a Witch Hunter had.”

“One and the same recipe. The Witch Hunters use it as a form of binding the visceral. The family uses it to their advantage. The result is a fairly extensive realm, at this stage, getting more extensive as the family grows and leaves a more or less permanent legacy, grafting each new demesnes to the last, like an endless, forking collection of bridges extended over void. There are entire segments of the Bardanes family who never leave, intermarry and breed with family.”

“Isolated, weird locations, interbreeding… Oddfolk?” Lucy asked.

The Alabaster nodded. “Yes. Some. It’s become one of the larger practitioner-made realms that interconnect with the rest of the world. Tendrils extend past the ocean and toward us, and are even invited to extend, and…”

“And we say no,” the Sable said. - Excerpt from Go for the Throat 23.5</ref>
Multifaceted Pig<ref name=ob/>

Trivia[edit]

The term Oddfolk is used over subhuman on this wiki given that subhuman has been applied to people in reality.

References[edit]