[Curseborne] The Primal #3

In our most recent Primals-focused Curseborne, we took on the Hyde family with their goals of mutation and forced evolution. From there we travel to damp family manors, abandoned docklands, and twilight-soaked shores to find our next family. Buried amid the mold and sunken in squalid mires, concealed by deep, shadowed corners, you will find…

The Spawn of Vodník

The Primals are typified by their capacity for fury and destruction, but it’s a mistake to assume that’s their only strong suit. They are at one with the elements, and there’s no element darker, more mysterious and cloying, than water. It can explode through walls as a tsunami, drowning thousands and taking bodies away from the land, or it can creep softly, slowly filling up a tub, and then a room, and before you know it, the entire house is flooded and the life you built has been lost.

Because water is fluid. It can shout or whisper, rush or seep.

The same is true of the Primals, but especially the Vodníci.

The Vodník family head is believed to be the malicious fae after whom the vodyanoy, vodník, or vodyanyk legend is named. His family came into being somewhere in Eastern Europe, bound to rivers and large bodies of water, compelled to transform into enormous amphibians and trick, harass, or abduct their victims. All Spawn of Vodník are living descendants of this family head, as unlike most other Primal families, the Vodníci are a true, blood-related family. And they’re tightly bound to each other.

It’s said by other Primals that the Vodníci bear gills on their throats and uniformly have bulging dark eyes. Whether this is unfair stereotyping or not, it’s pretty common to find Vodníci wearing dark glasses and tall collars or scarves. The Spawn of Vodník excel at not being perceived, and uniform deformities would mark them out as something to be scrutinized. They glide through the shadows and spy on their targets. They creep into stately homes, antique stores, and bank vaults and steal heirlooms, treasures, and cursed artifacts for study or resale. They act as creeping terrors among the Primals. To see a Vodníci lose their cool and burst into fury is traumatizing beyond measure, because more than any other family, the Spawn of Vodník would prefer to remain unobserved.

The Spawn of Vodník’s regional origins haven’t precluded them from spreading globally. Anywhere you might find a waterway, coast, or swamp, talk of occult treasures, or a festival for trade of ill-gotten goods, the Vodníci make themselves known. Among them, there are many dealers, private detectives, and Primals skilled in surveillance. It’s their specialty.

Our signature Vodníci explains some of this unusual family’s ambitions:

We track our prey and our desires better ‘n anyone. Nobody’s a better hunter than a Vodník. We’re masters of reconnaissance and blending in with the populace. That’s us. It’s as if when people see us, they want to look away. Something about us makes them want to ignore. Want to forget. Use that.

Listen to us tell you tales. We sing our songs and tell our stories. We know our history, and the history of all Accursed. We reach into history an’ pull it into the present with the things we find. You could learn a lot if you sat at my feet, webbed though they may be.

We share a similar curse to our peers among the other Primals, though I’d rate ours more brutal. Not the shifting, no, but the way our elders view us. Until not long ago, it was seen as a high honor to sacrifice yourself to the Forefather, to keep him healthy with your blood. Drop your body in the sea and wait for him to come up and chew. No longer. We’ve been loyal to our ancestors for too long. Now, the Spawn of Vodník charter their own course.

We may seem like bumbling, provincial, idiots. Keep thinking that! Really, please do. The longer you think we’re just local yokels, simple folk with gills and watery eyes, frogs in human form in love with the sounds of sea shanties and afraid of outsiders, the longer we can plan your end. You ever seen how a frog eats? No? Imagine a huge, gopping mouth, just clamping down over your skull…

As with all families, the Spawn of Vodník possess an Inheritance that only the most devoted Vodníci receive. When they seek to acquire an item, they can bleed away their curse and transform their magical blight into wealth. And this need not be money; wealth is whatever the other party in a deal or trade desires, from information to dreams, to more esoteric fare. What’s more, Vodníci in their wild forms are quite capable of breathing underwater, lurking unseen until it’s time to slide onto shore.

Play a Vodník if you want to…

… take on the role of a private eye, watching targets from afar.
… appraise and hoard rare and forbidden relics.
… strike quickly, quietly, and remove yourself from the scene before anyone notices.

Olivia Waites

Medical expenses can kill a person. That’s Olivia’s view, and exactly why she works in an inner city clinic, treating patients without cost. It means Liv Waites and other staff are constantly campaigning to raise funds, some of which she creams off for herself. She’s seen as something of a local hero, with a caring touch, wonderful bedside manner, and uncanny ability to recall diseases and best treatments. Nobody would suspect she’s enriching herself, or the reason she’s doing so.

The fact is, Olivia never completed medical school. And she’s never going to do so, at least for as long as her family are pulling the strings of her life. Much of Liv’s knowledge is pulled from the ether (or more commonly, the internet) and she’s only survived in her position because her immediate superior perished and her records were destroyed in an unexplained flood. A water pipe running alongside the clinic’s basement filled the room with water, leading to her boss’s electrocution and a wiping of volumes of data on the clinic’s systems. Waites attributes the unlikely event to a curse. Clearly, her manager crossed the wrong person, or made a bad deal.

That must be it.

Olivia is a Spawn of Vodník. She has the intelligence to obtain her degree and complete school, but her family intervened shortly after she started. They cut off the money faucet and pulled sufficient levers to ensure she wouldn’t qualify for student support. So Olivia knows a thing or two about having one’s life curtailed due to lack of funds.

Why, though? That’s a question Olivia often asks herself, but she’s too stubborn to request an answer from her parents, aunts, and uncles. All she knows is they must have their own plans for her (surely they wouldn’t put roadblocks in her way just to fuck with her?) and that her dream being cut short (she idolizes the character of Abby Lockhart and streams ER regularly) is what caused her first transformation into a wild creature, more frog-like than human or fish, but enormously strong and terrifyingly large.

Olivia’s aware of her precarious position, but what she lacks in qualifications she makes up for in optimism and a dogged insistence that she knows what she’s doing. She’s stacked up at least a dozen curses to assist her in her doctoring, because she can’t afford the eyes on her that a malpractice suit might bring. So what if she’s a little socially awkward, a touch “off” in appearance, and uses up her apartment’s hot water staying in the shower for hours at a time? She’s a good doctor. None of her failings are going to stop Waites pursuing her dream. Everyone has their peccadillos.

Olivia’s primary intent is to make a deal with someone or something powerful enough to spin her degree from nothingness. Such a curse is a big ask: documents are easy to forge, but a genuine degree from a genuine university means altering people’s minds — students and faculty, doctors, nurses, porters, and tutors all need at least a vague memory of who she is. So Liv knows whatever is required in return will be big, perhaps even deadly. She means to reach out to other Accursed for help, but she’ll need to know they’re trustworthy before revealing her secret. The good news for Olivia is, she has access to thousands of medical records and pretty easy access to medicines and medical supplies. She’s in a position to bargain, even if it means breaking several ethical oaths.