*****
"Much ink has been spilled over the antediluvian fall of the elven race. To your situation, very little pertains anymore. It is enough to know that your tribes have occupied their lowly estate for generations upon generations, scrabbling to survive at the edge of the world.
The human side of your lineage is anyone's guess. Mayhap one of your ancestors was captured in a raid, or was an outcast from Imperial society. Regardless, I wager all your kind are of similar mixed blood these many years.
As for your specific tribe I have no answers. You speak of cannibalism and sacrificial midnight rites - things the long-fallen are not known for. They raid and fight, especially amongst themselves, but keep to their old ways where they know how. I glimpse the taint of Chaos in this news, and I fear for your own future and that of your friends.
You know the world warms with every passing year. Rivers run high with snowmelt and crops wither beneath the sun. I am older than you by far. I remember a different age when each season kept to its own quarter of the year, not overstepping its allotted time.
Even then, some parts of the world were hotter. In the distant south beyond the reach of the Imperium, beyond your ancestral hunting grounds in the badlands, a hot and misty jungle lies. The cloud forests you visited beyond the eastern Barrier resemble the scattered reports we have of this southern land. Men lived there who bowed not to Seheitt nor any other emperor. Wild and free, as the long-fallen are, they owned only what they could take with their own hands.
Few things these men feared. Only one could be understood by our expeditions. We have no word in our language, in theirs it is forvalaka. Beasts of the jungle that stalk men with human intelligence. So fast and strong that they could pounce upon a hunting party and tear them to pieces in seconds. Impervious to weapons. Impossible to kill. Feared by all.
Animals, spirits, or demons? Their exact nature wasn't understood. Some described insubstantial ghosts, who became solid only to attack. Others said they live in the water, or in the trees. The only coherent reports we have describe them as mighty black hunting cats who stalk the jungle on all fours, but can walk upright like men.
I believe this is what your tribe's idol depicts.
The southern jungle-men said the entire evil race was destroyed by a great magic, cast by their shamans and sorcerers. Although the nature of this spell is unclear, their language seems to indicate a bane or curse was laid on the monsters since direct attacks were near useless.
How this idol left the jungle, crossed the badlands and came into the hands of your people, I cannot say. I fear its arrival cannot be coincidental. Old forces may be stirring, wakened by the return of hospitable climes and brought on the hot southern winds to our quiet homeland.
Yours,
-Nicomaeus Vantadel IV, esq.
PS: I must apologize for the vagueness of these reports - our information on the southern lands is limited by the language barrier attendant on all contacts with this distant culture and the rarity of expeditions returning home."
*****
These hew fairly close to the ones from the Black Company. Sorry/not sorry. If more people cribbed from those books, it would be a badass-er world. Of course, the idol that Vuk Thuul's elf tribe worshipped is one of the last forvalaka, turned to stone by magic. Maybe it became un-petrified and ate his whole tribe? Maybe it's coming after him now? I haven't decided yet, but... probably.
[Stats will be similar to the Jaguar from the Tome of Horrors, but tougher, more HD and a bit magically-enhanced. Lycanthrope "templates" in Pathfinder are fucking annoying, I want a monster I can use right out of the book. They need AC enough that a veteran soldier has little chance to hit. Strong and accurate enough to kill a plate-armored man with one claw, fast enough to kill more than one man in a round. Magically protected enough or with enough hit points that humans with standard weapons have a bitch of a time killing one, even in large numbers. I'll post the stats up later when I finalize and playtest them.]
Get on your motorcycle and crank this up!!!
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