Akynakiel

“I’m telling you, I didn’t kill him. It wasn’t me!”
“I know what it looks like, but you have to believe me!”
“All I saw was red. Red then the darker red of her blood.”
“He stole it from me, so he got what he fucking deserved. Fuck him.”
“When I found her with him, it was like something took control of me.”
“I don’t know how it happened. I just don’t know.”
“He is half my size. I don’t care how much blood is on me, how could I have done… that!”
“Why am I so angry? Why can’t I stop shaking.”

“And those are just some of excerpts I have collected since you have sent me here. This town is on fire with violence. I know you hoped that the reports we had received at the capital might be exaggerations, but your instincts were right. It isn’t riots and fires, but individuals giving into their anger and lashing out at others.”

“There is no pattern to who or why they give in to their rage. Men. Women. Even children I am finding. That actually is the worst of it. The children killing other children… Shit…”

…

“Again… There is no pattern other than they all act from anger. Some claim to see red, which I thought was a common metaphor or idiom… I can never get those straight… Any road, I thought it was just something people said here until I talked with the local office and they told me it wasn’t. Here, apparently, they say tasting cat gut, which is revolting.”

“I have done some digging based on this, and two of the… perpetrators? I don’t know what we should call them at this point. This is a pandemic…

“But I digress. Two of them saw a floating figure before seeing red then lashing out in rage. I suspect that either we are dealing with a mass delusion set upon the town by a rogue Wyrdmaster or something we haven’t seen before.”

“Perhaps a new Horror or an old one we have no record of?”

“As a precaution, I am isolating myself and operating through the local office. I will continue to send reports as best I can, but I fear I may be too late. I stubbed my toe this morning and I have never felt such rage. Such anger…”

“This is not a good sign, but unless you order me out, I am staying to try and find an answer.”

~ From Taubha’s Lesser Book of Names

While little is documented of Akynakiel’s actions, scholars all agree that they were once one of the leading immortals. In Testament, Kask hints at other, unnamed immortals, but leaves their identities unwritten. However, other, later texts, intimate that while they are a middle ranking member of House Tekskwiegh, they served at Goliat’s side before his betrayal.

Akynakiel is as much a force of nature as it is a monster to be defeated. A floating figure surrounded in red mists, it works to induce others to give into their baser instincts of rage and anger to perform acts of destruction and murder. They can plan the role of puppet master behind the troubles in a Town Event or be injected into an existing delve as horror accidentally unleashed once again on the world.