The following is some source information for the Near Dark, AfterDark, Eyes in the Dark, and Loopy2: Who are You? family of games, concerning the origins of vampires, werewolves and their ilk.
Kane,
the place where monsters come from, is a world very far away from Earth, but every few thousand years or so, a "window" opens up which permits travel via a space-bridge. Kane is inhabited by kaneans (shape-shifters) and animals (including humans), with the kaneans dominant. They regard shape-shifting (not intelligence) as what separates them from these "animals." Though kaneans are diverse, they are grouped into clans with precise characters (see below.) Further, Kane is being devastated by a terrible war called the War of the Faces, and kaneans are split into two sides: the Deakand and the Gulgacht.
Kanean "technology" is very different from that of Earth, and focuses mainly around shape-shifting and other powers which resemble magic.
We know more about the Gulgacht than about the Deakand, since the PCs who have made contact have (so far) been of types normally associated with that faction. The word Gulgacht means "beasts who steal." According to legend, Deakand was given the power to shift-shape (making him superior to other animals) and Gulgacht became jealous, and stole that power. The gods were angered, and smote Gulgacht with a terrible curse. Since then, the Gulgacht have had the power to shape-shift, and immortality, but always at a terrible cost. All gulgacht must steal the lives of others to survive.
What basis this is for the War is not clear, but it is clear that the Gulgacht are motivated purely by envy. They want the Deakand's life and lands and powers, and if they cannot have them, they will wipe them from the face of Kane. Given the lifespan of kaneans, it is not surprising that the war has raged for centuries, even millenia, though it is at present a "cold" one.
The surface of Kane has been devastated by this long war, and the ecosystem is no longer able to support its population due to the pollution from the wars. The kaneans have found a way to prolong their society's life by visiting other worlds within range of their space-bridges, feeding off of them, and bringing back fresh livestock to repopulate the land (and for livestock read "people.")
We know little about the political structure of Kane or the Gulgacht, or how the war is fought, but we do know that among all the Gulgacht, the Clan Nilsferat (below) holds the most power, and that within their lands, the more powerful Gulgacht control the mortal cities like dictators. It seems, by the nature of clans and the level of technology, that the politics are basically feudal, where certain clans and houses holding sway over lands and territory, it being their job to defend them.
The vast majority of the clans of the Gulgacht cannot reproduce in the conventional sense, they must infect a mortal kanean who then becomes a gulgacht in their image. This is the inherent tragedy of the Gulgacht: Firstly, it promotes the idea that Gulgacht are not alive in the conventional sense, and completes their image as a parasite, unable as they are even to reproduce within their own species. It also means that the same creatures the gulgacht feed off are also their own children in a sense, and that every gulgacht must learn to forget his or her humanity and view his own kind as food. This might account for a great deal of the callousness, bitterness and envy of the Gulgacht.
Clan: "Nilsferat" (Vampire)
Description: Pale, fanged and dark.
Drains: Blood
Other Powers: Domination, Great Strength
Shape-Shifting: By blood. Nilsferat can assume the form of any creature whose blood they taste. Also, commonly have forms for travelling, e.g., Mist, Bat, Shadow etc.
Immortality: Ageless, undead, destroyed only if the heart is destroyed (ironic, since the heart and circulation become cosmetic after infection.)
Vulnerabilities: Dead by day, Faith creates a barrier that repels them.
Culture: Most fearsome, hated of all clans. "Scepter" of Gulgacht, leaders of the War.
Clan: "Lycaeons" (Werewolves)
Description: Feral, bestial humanoids
Drains: Eats Flesh (human)
Other Powers: none
Shape-Shifting: By flesh, Animal(s). Lycaeons may take the shape of anything whose flesh they can consumed.
Immortality: Regeneration, unkillable except by Silver.
Vulnerabilities: Lycaeons are extremely vulnerable to silver.
Culture: Most fearsome soldiers (i.e., highlanders) of the Gulgacht
Clan: "Psyker"
Description: N/A (see S/S)
Drains: Mental Energy
Other Powers: Vast mental powers
Shape-Shifting: Can jump from mind to mind, body to body
Immortality: (see S/S)
Vulnerabilities: Circles. The psyker cannot jump across a circle.
Culture: High rank, mistrusted by the other clans.
Clan: "Warwulf"
Description: Silver bird-dogs
Drains: Wears Skin -- A warwulf "slays" their victim in a unique manner leaving only the skin, which they can then wear in the manner of clothes, effectively becoming that victim.
Other Powers: The warwulfs have the ability to bridge space.
Shape-Shifting: Adopts skin, memories, skills of victim.
Immortality: Shed skin first. A warwulf is normally vulnerable, but if they are wearing the skin of another creature, the skin is destroyed first.
Vulnerabilities: none in particular.
Culture: Fun-loving, hedonistic, almost harmless. Lowest man on Gulgacht totem-pole. Legend has it they were once slaves and playthings of the Elder Gods (q.v.), now emancipated.
Clan: "Haigh" (Hag/Mummy)
Description: Withered corpses to young, beautiful people.
Drains: Age
Other Powers: Often powerful magicians, too.
Shape-Shifting: Youth
Immortality: Ageless, undead
Vulnerabilities: ?
Culture: Higher-rank (?)
Clan: "?" (Shambling Mound)
Description: Filthy, diseased humanoids to walking mounds of garbage
Drains: Clean (returns Filth & Disease)
Other Powers: ?
Shape-Shifting: ?
Immortality: Unkillable
Vulnerabilities: ? Fear
Culture: ? Horrible, reviled by both sides
Clan: "Wight" (Yeti/White Women)
Description: Shaggy giants or icy/blue-skinned humanoids
Drains: Body Heat
Other Powers: Great Strength
Shape-Shifting: ?
Immortality: ?
Vulnerabilities: High-pitched sound.
Culture: Medium Rank
Clan: "Phuka" (Water Horse)
Description: Equines formed of living water, with tentacles resembling chains
Drains: By drowning
Other Powers: Tentacles (chains)
Shape-Shifting: Amorphous
Immortality: Long-lived
Vulnerabilities: Cannot stray long from bodies of water
Culture: Very low rank, but only aquatic gulgacht, hence important during naval seige.
Clan: "The Green"
Description: (see below) Only the Green's seeds have ever been seen. The root, if there is one, has never been found.
Drains: The Green is a massive plant-like entity whose seeds duplicate and take over a human body, recreating them in every detail, but totally subservient to the Green. People so duplicated are interconnected in a mass consciousness that is The Green, serving the whole.
Other Powers: Collective consciousness.
Shape-Shifting: None
Immortality: None, except that "the body" is legion for they are many. Where The Green finds root and grows, it is nearly unstoppable.
Vulnerabilities: Emotionless.
Culture: The Green is mysterious and feared, even by fellow gulgacht, and not involved in the war except in a peripheral way.
Clan: "Rukshasa"
Description: The rukshasa is able to take on human and animal forms at will, but their preferred form is that of a human with a tiger's head.
Drains: The rukshasa drains the dreams and imagination from its victims, taking from them while they sleep their inspiration.
Other Powers: Dream walking, alter reality.
Shape-Shifting: Human and Animal forms, plus those forms in dreams.
Immortality: ?
Vulnerabilities: Rigid, inflexible thought-patterns, such as logic or science, put up a barrier that the rukshasa cannot penetrate through.
Culture: The rukshasa are reclusive and rare. Though clearly relatives of the psyker, the rukshasa are feared more though their drain is typically non-fatal to its user, for the rukshasa steals the dreams and ideas that men have. Because of their preferred form and powers, some rumor that the rukshasa are related to the Elder Gods.
We know even less about the Deakand than about the Gulgacht, but what little we know paints a picture of them as bastions of shining purity, though there is a hint of arrogance in their basic belief that shape-shifting sets them apart from ordinary mortals, but in their case not as men over animals, but more often as champions over men with a responsibility to them. All true kaneans can shape-shift in one way or another, this is how they know they are superior to animals (including Man.)
The majority of humans on Kane are ordinary folk, and they have an agrarian, low-tech existence much like Earth people did perhaps 100 or 200 years ago, except that their world is peopled by evil monsters who seek their lives, and super-mighty heroes who come to protect them. These god-like figures are the Deakand, the "children of the gods."
Some Deakand are quite friendly towards humans, whom they regard as their own kind and protect as champions (Inframen). Others are quite hostile, and more cruel than any Gulgacht could ever hope to be (Mawdryn). Deakand, despite their name, are not necesarily good. The vast majority of Deakand regard humans simply as another form of animals and don't care about them either way (Weres, e.g.)
Humans for their part, treat the various kinds of Deakand as nobles of a sort, with a great deal of respect. They vastly prefer them to the life-feeding Gulgacht, and a well- treated Deakand often will respond by protecting his area or lands from Gulgacht attacks. Unlike the Gulgacht lands which are oppressive, dark and barren, the Deakand lands are lush and idyllic, which is why Deakand do not take kindly to Gulgacht incursions into any territory they call their own.
Largely, Deakand keep to themselves, and very few of them engage in the war in earnest (much like the Gulgacht.) Unlike the desperate Gulgacht, very few clans of Deakand have visited Earth (except, as legend has it, the Elder Gods.) The Deakand do not interact with each other in a political way, at least not as much as Gulgacht do. Many Deakand are largely unaware of the other clans.
Though the Gulgacht vastly outstrip the Deakand in number, Deakand are often vastly more powerful than a single Gulgacht, not just because they do not possesses the Gulgacht's crippling weaknesses. The difference in power more than makes up for the difference in number, producing a balance of power between the two. The Mawdryn, for example, with their incredible shape-shifting technology, have almost single-handedly waged the war against the Gulgacht with very little help from any other clan, and with not a great deal of effort, either, with the mighty Inframen their unwitting soldiers.
Clan: "Inframen" (Shazam/Miracleman)
Description: ordinary mortals
Shape-shifting: Flamboyantly-clad superheroes
Other Powers: Great Strength, Flight, Invulnerability
Vulnerabilities: Infrazite?
Limitations: A spoken word to change form is common
Culture: Solitary, or small family groups sharing one form (e.g., Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. Or Miracleman, Kid Miracleman, Young Miracleman and Miraclewoman.)
Clan: "Were" (Werecreature)
Description: humanoid animals
Shape-shifting: Humans to Humanoid animals
Other Powers: Regeneration, plus powers and senses of the animal.
Vulnerabilities: None
Limitations: Pollution by the animal psyche.
Culture: Tribal, or as the animal taken. Often solitary. Also known to hide among animal population (humans.)
Clan: "Mawdryn"
Description: Virtually any form
Shape-shifting: All manner of purposeful, specially- designed forms for specific tasks
Other Powers: Able to take forms with command word
Vulnerabilities: Normal
Limitations: Must prepare forms ahead of time
Culture: Highly advanced, "Scepter" of the Deakand. (Note Inframan similarity)
Clan: "Elder Gods" (extinct)
Description: Animal-headed, or multiple arms, legs and faces.
Shape-shifting & Other Powers: Able to shape form, mind of others as well as objects, energies, time and space, not themselves.
Vulnerabilities: Decadent, yet not affected by will of others
Limitations: None
Culture: Extinct now, believed to have visited Earth long ago, a summit of shape-shifter evolution.
Clan: "The Silver Hand"
Description: Blue arabic robes, metallic purple skin & white eyes
Shape-shifting: Shape body into weapons and armor
Other Powers: Stealth
Vulnerabilities: None
Limitations: None
Culture: Clan of assassins, rare
Clan: "Meconite" (Mechanoid)
Description: Multi-colored blobs. The meconites resemble the Meer, the ancestral kanites, and may be their closest descendant.
Shape-shifting: Amorphous, total shape-shifting
Other Powers: Omni-digestion, Often mechanical aptitude
Vulnerabilities: Various
Limitations: Various
Culture: Lowest man on Deakand pole, reviled by all on Kane
Clan: "ID-Rider"
Description: Varies, often small cute humanoids
Shape-shifting: Able to possess the body of any creature at interstellar range
Other Powers: none
Vulnerabilities: None
Limitations: No body of its own
Culture: Vast. Freelance intergalactic troubleshooters (perhaps not true Deakand at all.)
All kaneans are empathic shape-shifters of some kind. It is the defining characteristic of their species just as one might say that learning or using tools is the defining characteristic of humankind. Very few kaneans can sense emotions or take any shape they wish to, just as very few humans are geniuses, but all the abilities kaneans have fit into one or other of these categories, and often both. It would be more accurate to say all kaneans have some kind of empathy, and shape-shift in some way, not that they sense emotions and can shape-shift is any way. This is an important distinction. The point isn't that the kaneans can change into anything they wish, but that they can change at all.
A quick examination of the clan listings above should make this clear. Each type of kanean changes their shape in some way, and is empathic in some way:
Kaneans regard their ability to change their shape as the way they separate themselves from animals, just as on Earth, humans use the criterion of sentience. All kaneans have the capacity to alter their form in some way, but not in any way.
So, in short, don't be fooled by the words into believing that all kaneans are mind-reading, all-powerful beings, they're not. Their ability to shape-change and react to the emotions of others is almost always limited, and has a very specific character to it.
It is worthy of note, however, that some kaneans do develop the ability to take on other forms besides the specific ones particular to their clan. This development is reserved for the accomplished kaneans, or those who specifically study shape-shifting, and usually occurs at the attainment of a new level. For example, elder vampires are known to be able to take on new forms. Some Weyres and particularly Lycaeons learn to take on new animal forms beyond their first as they develop. Among many clans, this is considered a rite of passage to a new level of awareness and being, comparable to a change from soldier to officer or promotion to manager. Few average kaneans attain new forms.
One must look on the wonder of kanean shape-shifting as one looks on the wonder of the human mind. We have seen that certain autistic children can compute prime-numbers of immense length instantly, far faster than the fastest supercomputer. Some humans seem to see the future, and hypnotists have shown that we in fact store with perfect clarity every experience we have.
So it is with kanean shape-shifting. It is obvious when looking at kaneans that that locked away in each of them is the capacity to shape-shift into whatever it is people around them are expecting, be it dream or nightmare, or into whatever they wish, but this capacity is locked away where the kanean cannot access it except on an instinctive level and it is these instincts which determine what small part of that vast power the kanean can use, just as we ourselves do not have access to the mathematical or memory powers given in the example above.
The kanean, therefore, is a creature of vast potential and little ability, even as we ourselves. A kanean learning to tap even part of his or her shape-shifting is akin to one of us mastering the skill of lightning calculation or perfect recall. We cannot simply decide to tap our full potential, nor can the kanean.
So, what happens is that for each variety of kanean they have a small instinctive window into this vast treasure-house. A form or a few forms that they can take, and this is all they will ever know. Very few are inclined to delve beyond that, or are even aware of anything else than that.
Gamemasters, however, are encouraged to keep in mind the inherent nature of the shape-shifter. At key moments in their lives, we should be reminded that it is through the influence of others that they change, and those projections limit those changes.
Let us take for example, Loopy, a deakand.
All kaneans, at some point in their lives, will have been shaped by the expectations of others.
Virtually nothing is known of kanean physiology, but compiled here for game-masters is all that has been discovered, so that they can expand upon it.
One thing is certain, you cannot separate the kanean from the empathic shape-shifter in his or her nature. Kaneans are sensitive to their environment, in particular, the thoughts, feelings and expectations of those around them impact on their appearance, the same way an object will throw a shadow on a wall. This empathy is at an instinctive, physiological level, usually quite beyond the kanean's conscious control (for those kaneans who are sentient.)
Kanean young, in particular, deakand youths on Earth are often changeling. They are raised by shapeless (non-shape-shifters) and imitate them to a very deep level. It is known that kanean young when they are born are formless, orange-gold blobs and it may be that this is the kanean's true state (witness - the formless meer, the ancestral kanean.) Shortly after birth, the infant responds to the expectation it is born into and takes a form suitable to those needs. Once done, the infant enters a period of dormancy in which they cannot change shape until they mature. It may well be in fact, that this shaping ability is not the infant's at all, but umbilical via the parent.
It is not known how kaneans shape-shift themselves and others, but anti-monster leagues on Earth (in particular the H4H and Red Moon Cult) refer to "shaper elements" in the kanean physiology. The Red Moon Cult for example have developed a deadly anti-kanean weapon which attacks and destroys these shaper-elements. Their so-called "Medusa Ray" will petrify any kanean permanently, but has no effect whatever on earth-born animals.
Since it is known that many kaneans can evade death by injury by "shaping themselves well", and since nilsferat have the physiology of a corpse, it seems sure that the lungs, blood and other organs are cosmetic at least in part to the kanean's life-processes. However, the fact that sufficient injury can be fatal, and their allergy to certain substances harmless to mankind, means that there is a dependence on the life-processes of the life-form imitated, even if only a parasitic one. To say that a kanean would die to preserve its instinctive dedication to a form it has taken is not absurd in the slightest. It is their very nature to do so.
To a kanean, particularly one with more than just a few set forms, identity can become something of a problem. As humans, we ourselves sometimes grapple with our identities, but we are always presented by the same face in the mirror, we always speak the same voice and, at least from a kanean point of view, we always have the same mind.
Almost every kanean is robbed of this luxury, and it bothers every one to a certain extent. It seems tantamount to destruction of the self that a kanean be able to assume any form. The very act of shape-shifting seems to erode and damage the self. They are sensitized to this in a way that shapeless can never fully appreciate. What for us is automatic: a face, an identity, is to them a dream they cannot reach, as impossible as changing into a bat would be for us. For them, to remain one person would be just as unattainable.
For most kaneans of limited and defined shaping ability, the conflict is a simple one, yet ever present. In the nilsferat (or vampire) it is the battle between the vampire they have become and the human they were. In the were, it is the struggle between animal and human psyches. The greater the number of shapes the kanean can take, the worse this seems to become, almost as if the self were gears in the motor of shape-changing. The more the motor runs, the more worn the gears become.
It seems impossible to become another without losing some part of one's self.
An unusual cultural outgrowth of this racial tendency is in the importance of name and title. In kanean culture, names take on a particular significance. Kaneans bestow and show affection through the granting of names, literally, the granting of identity -- a certainty upon which one you love can hinge themselves.
Kaneans are essentially a parasitic species. Their dependence on the needs of others, if nothing else, forbids them a life-cycle of their very own. After all, what is a canvas without a painter?
Gulgacht reproduction demonstrates this with disturbing clarity. Gulgacht cannot form children, rather, they "infect" a member of another species and transform them into their own likeness. It seems that the genetic material (see below) injected is quite weak, since it can only infect a member of a shapeless species who have no shaper-elements to defend against the intrusive matter. The painful product of this is an amalgam of the two.
Though it is also known than kaneans do not possess DNA, it is almost a certainty that they have genetic material of some kind, but that it operates in a very different way. This is hardly surprising considering kaneans evolved in a totally different way to life on Earth, and it takes DNA-based life-forms millions of years to evolve, whereas kaneans shapechange in a matter of seconds.
Deakand, however, have shown the ability to "mate" with other species. Though there is no question of their being able to produce DNA and actually mate-- Kanean shape-shifting is quite a gross process in biological terms, and no way that it could operate on a microscopic level!
This mating seems to be an imitation of the acts and products one would see in the species the kanean is imitating. [ Delicately put -- Ed. ] Sometimes, when conditions are right, offspring are produced. In either case, this offspring can only be bodymass from the kanean parent forming itself into small kaneans, who, like their parent, become what is expected of them. It is believed that, because of this, in nature kaneans simply "fission" into parent and child and require no external stimulus being essentially asexual, but granted this understanding might be crude. It could well be that, to the kanean parent, the "expectations" of the shapeless partner are as real a sexual impetus as eggs or sperm are to shapeless parents.
[It might be ironic to discover that the orgasm-- a biological "reward" for shapeless creatures-- may actually be the mating act for kaneans. Such a burst of emotion could not fail to register a physical effect on these sensitive creatures.]
However, beyond doubt, when and if children are produced, these children are always kanean. A kanean cannot produce non-kanean children.
It is not known if kaneans mate with each other. Infection is by far the most common means of reproduction.
Since the War of the Faces is essentially a war of religious difference, and kane is a magical/religious world more than a scientific one, there must be priests of Kane, powerful mages or wizards who divine the meanings of the Gods, however, we have not yet even heard of these.
If there are priests on Kane today, they would belong to one of the two major sects that existed on Kane, but have fallen from prominence in Kanean life next to the War (much as modern religion has on Earth.) These sects were a purification of all concepts and beliefs (since kaneans have been and known so many) down to two pure concepts: Eros, creation, and Thanos, destruction. The Erosions believe in creation and love, the Thanosians believe in death and finality.
In their day, these two great Furies were as powerful on Kane as the Wars of the Faces are now, and it is perhaps from their eternal struggle that the concepts of Deakand and Gulgacht arose. Certainly, shrines and temples of that day would remain.
We do not know if Kane is the name of the planet or of the country yet. It is unlikely that the war between the two super-powers encompasses the entire globe and is the whole of government. Somewhere else on Kane there must be other things, but these have not been touched on at all. It is next to certain that, even if they are not Deakand or Gulgacht, kaneans are shape-shifters of some kind or another.
If there are traitors and spies within this conflict, or other, smaller factions, we haven't heard of them. There is no evidence that Gulgacht betray their kind and join the Deakand, though there is at least one known Deakand who has joined the other side (unbeknownst to any PC,) or more accurately, has turned against the Deakand and fights them.
It is likely there is an underground movement of some kind that seeks to protect kanean humankind from the ravages of the Gulgacht's hunger since many of them were human themselves, once (The same feeling is prevalent in the "bastard" Gulgacht of Earth,) but as yet we have seen no evidence of it yet on Kane.
It is a well-documented fact that daemons are very interested in the doings on the busy little world of Kane, and many kaneans on Earth have already felt the sting of this interest. Daemons are not visibly involved in politics on Kane, but they often take a hand in the backwater politics of the few organized kaneans on Earth. Cabal (gargoyles/neutral) and Kerubim (angels) have only been seen from time to time. Daemons themselves are often potent shape-shifters, but it is unlikely they themselves are kanean. It is far more likely that they have stolen and improved kanean techniques for their own ends as daemons are wont to do.
All the daemons' interest in kaneans seems to be their application as soldiers in daemonic wars, as they apparently feel that kaneans are among the deadliest, hardest to kill and most versatile warriors there are. Controlling them, however, is often a problem.
The meer are to kaneans what dinosaurs are to humans, their distant ancestors. The meer are amorphous blobs that digest anything they come into contact with and grow, becoming massive. Meer, like their descendants, are immortal, and virtually indestructible. Some few meer still exist today on Kane, still tunnelling away deep beneath the planet's surface, spreading, devouring, growing.. You can imagine that archaeology is not what it is on Earth, mm? On Kane, history is hungry.
There is today on Kane a great secret being kept. Unknown to either the Deakand or Gulgacht, there exists a new faction on Kane, neither Deakand nor Gulgacht, but with aspects of both. Next to nothing is known about this secret underground, except rumors, and the secret name "The Creche" -- a nursery kept by many. It is whispered it has to do with non-native kaneans, and has deakand and gulgacht working together, and the daemons are frantic to learn its secrets, for they fear what it might be.
All materials herein are Copyright (C) 1995 Andrew Pidcock, not to be copied, redistributed or altered in any way.