[Cursesborne] The Dead #2

In our first look at Dead, we learned what makes a Dead, and heard from Sam about their Damnation and what it’s like to be a ghost who haunts their own dead body.

The Dead are organized into Families around the emotion they want to invoke in others. The urge simply drives them to create an emotional response, it doesn’t care what that emotion is. It wants the Dead to feel something, anything. The Dead often choose their Family, picking one that best reflects their personal morals or preferences. Unfortunately, once you join a Dead Family, they have no inclination to let you leave. And if you find out later that you were lied to, cajoled, or someone simply didn’t tell you everything you needed to know, you can find yourself in a Family of people you don’t really get along with.

The Furies

The Furies as a Family seek to evoke anger, vengeance, and pain. They want to fight people, get themselves and others bloody, and they especially want to bring vengeance on those who they perceive to have wronged them. Some take up a cause for others, and some devolve into being vigilanties without much in the way of a code or sense of ethics.

Let’s hear from Tatyana Khrulyova, our Fury signature character:

You know how fucking infuriating it is when you feel like you’re not in control? People scream at inanimate objects, rage at traffic, and go all incandescent at the slightest scheduling mishap. Now imagine the worst loss of control in your life: your death. So many people die angry. Life was ripped right out from under them without giving a shit about what they wanted. Of course, you want revenge for that kind of shit. 

We’re the “fuck around and find out” Dead. Time to do some finding out.  

We’re attracted to pain and whip up rage. Our urge is vengeance. We want to revisit pain on the people who hurt us in life; give as good as we got. What did they think? That we’d go quietly into that good night? Get a fucking clue. 

We want them to suffer. We want their anger, their hurt, their suffering, and that all ends if they die on us. It isn’t always easy to rein ourselves in. I’ve got a fucking trail of bodies behind me. What happens after that is harder to say. If you kill your tormentor from life, then what? The Fades tell us to go on to the next. Find their loved ones, their friends, their coworkers, follow that trail down as far as it will go to get your next indulgence. That’s some bleak shit. I personally suggest finding someone who needs help getting revenge and plying your efforts there. 

Anger drives us, but it doesn’t own us. The more you indulge, the worse your anger gets. Don’t let that overtake you. You’ve got an urge, you indulge it, and you move on. Enjoy death in between. Yes, the urge is always there, but you don’t have to let that shit define your every moment. Those who do are insufferable. 

Quiet places help calm the urges. I don’t know about other Dead, but we always feel better without the constant nattering of people. I like to haunt graveyards, but you’ll also find some of my brethren chilling in churches and libraries because they’re quiet. Sometimes we’ll tell each other stories there. What? You don’t take us for the contemplative types? Fuck off.

Furies use their magic to further their revenge, supplement their fighting prowess, and bring suffering to those who they feel deserve it.

Inheritance: As with all Dead Family inheritances, the Furies can create an area effect while incorporeal. Theirs is Passions Flaring.

Play a Fury if you want to…

… Play an angel of vengeance sweeping across the city, leaving a trail of dead in your wake.
… Participate in the most manic, rage-filled raves you could imagine.
… Cauterize injustices with extreme prejudice.

Tatyana

Tatyana Khrulyova had a lot to be angry about in life, and more to be angry about in death. Her family was a disaster, with her mother working far too many hours to really care for her children, and her father being a raging alcoholic. Being Dead apparently ran in her family on her mom’s side, and neither she nor her parents had any idea. She tried to get away from her family as soon as possible, and moved in with a cousin during college. 

A year after graduating and starting a job in her chosen field of social work, her mother died suddenly. She was sure her father finally killed her, and returned home to find out for sure. Her death is a mystery to her in some aspects. She woke up dead the morning after returning to her family home and has no recollection of what happened. When her grandmother showed up to talk her through her new existence, it was a shock to say the least. Her grandmother was a Warden, and tried hard to get Tatyana to join, but she still blames her father, both for her mother’s death and her own. She intends to get her revenge, and the Furies are just the Family to help her do it.