Abesketdibu

“We realized that there was a fog descending on the city. I suppose, I would have normally gotten off work at dusk and made my way home via the carriage service. Fog was normal then. Came down from the mountains you see. Its why so many homes got the rot. All that moisture.”

“Any road, it had to be about midway through the day when my boss, she came and said my pa was there to take me home. I was surprised, but he burst in the back with my coat in hand and hustled me out the door telling me to be quiet til we got home.”

“It was so grey. Middle of the day and you couldn’t see two feet in front of you. Somehow, he knew where to go as we twisted through the alley ways and stayed off the main roads. The air was so still and you could barely hear your own feet as we shuffled along.”

“Then, must have been ten minutes since we left, I heard the first scream. Pa covered my mouth, pulled me closer, and somehow we started moving faster. I swear I could feel hot breath on the back of my neck as we stumbled in the haze. It seemed like forever we ran with a scream would puncture the silence ever few moments.”

“Then suddenly we were home, rushing in the door and baring it behind us. That was when I first realized my pa was holding his thrower. He never explained that, but when the fog lifted in a few days, we learned what the screams were from.”

“Over a thousand bodies were found in the city, desiccated like mummies. Men, women, and children dead from old age.”

~ From Taubha’s Lesser Book of Names

For such a low standing member of the House of Hnehegh, Abesketdibu has a long history of successfully abusing mortals who make their homes in or near the mountains. As they has no true substance, but hazily looks like some horrific amalgam of hunting cat and lizard man, there are very few clues to what they were before the Madness. All that can be known for sure is that they relish in abusing their victims before taking their life.

When using Abesketdibu in play, they serve two interesting functions. They can be a foreboding evil that abuses a village or town on a regular basis, and are coming soon. The entire adventure can be about how you prepare to end their reign of terror once and for all.

Conversely, they work well as a new enemy surfaced up via a Twist. Anywhere there is fog and mist, he can appear to torment adventurers. It would not be above him to appear, strike with an Unbidden Memory, then fade away to relish in the abuse he has put the party through.