Family: Cat
Type: Beastman
Habitat: Pocket dimensions; may appear anywhere humans can live
Disposition: Sadistic, intimidating, lustful
Diet: Omnivorous; spirit energy
Cats from Saturn are a subspecies of werecat that has adapted to life in non-Euclidean space. Where common werecats are carefree and playful cats from Saturn enjoy much crueler games; they delight in inflicting psychological torture, and they regard all other thinking beings as prey with which to play.
A cat from Saturn is outwardly indistinguishable from a common werecat except for a bit of unusual coloring -- multi-colored or exotically colored eyes, unnatural highlights or undertones in their fur, or skin tinted in colors that don’t occur naturally among humans. Instead of slits some of them have pupils shaped like stars, crosses, or hourglasses. The average height for cats from Saturn is taller than that for common werecats, and though they are lithe they tend to have more defined muscles. A star-cat’s most memorable feature is her facial expression, which ranges from a manic grin to a contemptuous sneer to completely expressionless depending on the individual’s disposition and rarely changes under any level of provocation.
Cats from Saturn can cross between dimensions at will, though doing so many times in quick succession is tiring. While in Euclidean space they can teleport short distances, which is even more tiring than crossing dimensions. The most powerful cats from Saturn can teleport to any location that they can see, but long-range jumps are as exhausting as running a marathon. A skilled star-cat can take one or two others with her when she teleports or crosses over. Clever cats from Saturn learn to use immediate range “blink” teleports to dodge attacks. Star-cats also have limited illusion magic that allows them to pass as common werecats.
The greatest weakness of cats from Saturn is the hatred they inspire in other feline mamono. All other members of the werecat family can instantly recognize a cat from Saturn upon catching her scent or hearing her voice regardless of any disguise, and the presence of a star-cat enrages other feline mamono. For this reason cats from Saturn hate and fear other werecats. Even with the great strength, speed, and agility common to feline mamono a cat from Saturn has no advantage over a common werecat except her magic. The magical powers of cait sith, familiars, and nekomata make them equal to star-cats while the superior strength of ocelomeh, sphinxes, and jinko means that cats from Saturn are no match for them in physical combat.
Cats from Saturn don’t have husbands. They have prey. When she finds a man who strikes her fancy a star-cat stalks him relentlessly, revealing herself from time to time just enough to ramp up the fear, and pounces at the moment of panic. Once she has her prey immobilized the star-cat takes her time tormenting her catch; cats from Saturn enjoy BDSM and orgasm denial. Any man who breaks under this treatment is fit only to be a toy for her enjoyment, but a man who endures without begging for mercy or release might earn a star-cat’s respect and be chosen to father her children… and a man who is good enough for that is good enough for the star-cat to share with her friends or siblings.
Name That Mamono: Imra
Imra has a problem. She remembers little of the fight in which she was wounded after teleporting into the midst of a pride of sphinxes, but she knows that she was near death. It was good fortune that a man arrived after her attackers left her for dead. While the man nursed her back to health he displayed a growing affection for her… and Imra found that, contrary to her predatory nature, she had grown fond of him as well. Imra had had sex before, but the first night with her rescuer was the first time she had ever made love. Crying in his arms afterward was both embarrassing and strangely liberating. Imra’s big sister Ardeen arrived a few weeks later to take her home, but Imra can’t stop thinking about her rescuer. She now has a decision to make; find her beloved and bring him back to her otherworldly home -- where the loving relationship they have would never be accepted -- or make a home with him in his world. And she has to decide soon before some other mamono finds him and claims him.
HELLKIT
Family: Dark Beast
Type: Beastman
Habitat: Forests, plains
Disposition: Aggressive, obsessive
Diet: Meat, spirit energy
Hellkits are a hybrid species; the first to be seen were born from the unions of hellhounds and youkos. A hellkit’s skin tone can vary from the charcoal dark color of a hellhound to the pale skin of a youko. They have fox tails and wolf ears while their eyes retain a hellhound's fierce fiery colors. Hellkits have the paws of a hellhound, but as they gain tails, much like their youko heritage, they have shown the capability to morph them into regular human hands and feet.
Hellkits are rather aggressive and will often get into brawls with bigger and stronger monsters over almost anything. If you somehow impress a hellkit you will find that aggression doesn't just stay in the streets as she will push you down and wrap you in her tails as she takes you, her energy flowing off her tails and infusing her scent and mana into you to mark you as hers. Once this has happened you are hers and she will cling closely to you and bare her teeth at other girls that try to get close, and often take you into her tails to dote on you. The only ways to pacify her are to put a baby in her or expose her to a bicorn's mana, but the latter will only last for so long.
A hellkit also shows the potential for great magic, but every time they cast a spell it has a chance to go out of control and become something else altogether. It is believed that, like their youko ancestors, they create a type of kistune-bi when they pour too much energy out but nothing has been documented yet.
Name That Mamono: Kenko
Kenko is a hellkit who stands at a 5’ 3” (160 cm.) in height. She takes after her youko mother in her appearance but carries her “father’s” black and orange eyes. She has two tails and multiple scars over her body from the fights she has been in. She refuses to use magic after an incident she deeply regrets and keeps her nails sharpened to have back-up in fights. She left her hometown at the age of 24 because she was tired of the same boring opponents and no one catching her eye.
The qerashim (CARE-ah-shim; singular: qerash [care-OSH]), also known as ice angels or dark sheleim, are martial upper mid-tier members of the angel family. They are the mamono counterpart to the sheleim and in many ways the polar opposites of the shinanim. Qerashim are robust and stand on average at around 180 cm (5’11”) tall. They are easily recognised by their grey, blue, or purple skin, elfin ears, and wings made of dense magical ice. Their blood is thick like an ice slush and can, oddly enough, act as a food preservative. It can also slow a human’s ageing but is less efficient at that than mermaid’s blood, hence more blood is needed to achieve the same effect.
Qerashim’s physical strength is comparable to that of dark valkyries. They are innately attuned to cryomancy and can face-tank an incredible amount of punishment -- their wings especially are tough as nails. They can ice-over their wounds to speed up the healing process and freeze their blood to prevent blood loss from deep wounds, but they cannot sculpt and replace whole body parts like the sheleim can except for their wings. Most of their senses are on par with other angels, but they can also see exceptionally well in the infrared.
Qerashim are martially oriented angels who prefer to wield polearms and wear little to no armour. Instead they rely solely on their prowess, toughness, and especially their icy wings, which they can use as shields, for defence. Furthermore they have calm, stoic personalities and put the group before the individual or even themselves, the group being either their local community or their battle sisters. Ironically this willingness to put the group before herself means that qerashim, like the shinanim, have a degree of recklessness to them, though for different reasons.
There are two situations where a qerash’s stoic nature goes out the window. First, they and the shinanim are weirdly adept at ruffling each other’s feathers. Hence, it is common for younger members of the two species to develop fierce rivalries. Yet opposites also attract, so these rivalries are notorious for how often they escalate into spectacularly intense hate sex. Also, despite their rivalry, or perhaps because of it, they often end up sharing husbands, too.
Second, qerashim that have had a taste of nookie will discover that they are a particularly lustful species and are surprisingly passionate during intimacy. A fair few of them would even qualify as nymphomaniacs. Qerashim tend to try and justify their lustful nature by rationalizing that them getting laid is in the best interest of the group, which admittedly is not untrue.
While qerashim make for fairly ordinary partners, as soon as a shinan is inserted into the equation things are about to get spicy, for their passionate side will take over. It is all but inevitable for a fierce rivalry to grow between the two angels as they vie for the human’s affection. While this constant vying for affection can be tiresome if the human is not ready for it this rivalry rarely turns malicious. Even if tensions boil over the angels are most likely to sort things out with a trib fight or a straightforward cat fight rather than scheme or to try and backstab each other.
Once the heat of intimacy seeps into their bodies qerashim temporarily lose their magic and strength. Their wings will melt, though often they violently shatter first sending a flurry of ice feathers in all directions. If an ice feather comes into contact with bare skin it will have similar effects to a raging mushroom, for it acts as a strong aphrodisiac that evaporates inhibitions, flips the power dynamic between mamono and human, and sends the affected party into an aggressive, lustful frenzy. Contact with multiple feathers results in the effects being even more potent and longer lasting. Luckily the qerashim do not lose their toughness, for they bear the brunt of their own aphrodisiacs.
Unable to resist and with a partner who is send into an aggressive lustful frenzy, intimacy for a qerash is often lopsidedly violent and painful. Rarely does she come out unscathed, but this does not deter them. On the contrary, most qerashim believe in the exaltation of pain; they believe it to be the most primal and universal of emotions, the most honest and effective teacher, and the most intense way to reaffirm one’s existence. For a qerash to receive pain is to receive a blessing. Hence most qerashim are deeply masochistic, craving and getting off on intense physical pain during sex. But simultaneously masochism for humiliation is particularly rare among them.
Their masochism goes beyond intimacy. They often let non-crippling battle injuries heal naturally rather than ice them over, just so that they scar. They do this either out of respect for a skilled opponent or to prove their dedication. Furthermore, they consider self-flagellation as the go-to way to atone for missteps and mistakes. As their masochism is one of the few things they have in common with the shinanim, and because of their fierce rivalries, they can be deliberately callous while having hate sex or a catfight with a shinan, but otherwise sadism is not more common among qerashim compared to other species.
Name That Mamono: Ragnhild the Unshattered
Ragnhild is as atypical for a qerash as it gets. As a veteran of the War of the Ancients she is old, ancient even. She is also one of the only one angels to have impressed Brynhild enough to be appointed as her right fist. Ragnhild is not the most attractive angel as her body is scarred and muscular and her face has many masculine features. She is, however, a force to be reckoned with; she wields a glaive with grand master proficiency and has mastered electromancy, aeromancy, and cryomancy.
Despite her skills, nowadays Ragnhild mostly teaches and trains the new recruits for the Winged Legion. It is Ragnhild who gets to assess their prowess and other capabilities to determine where their talents will best serve. Teaching adolescents comes with its own challenges, namely rumours, pranks, and stupid dares. The two main rumours circling around about Ragnhild are that her wings have never been shattered before and that she packs more than just lady bits between her legs. Ragnhild has never bothered to deny or confirm either rumour but has made sure no definitive proof for the rumours can be found either. Almost every generation of angels she has taught has sooner or later taken upon itself to try and get Ragnhild laid. Preferring her students busy themselves with such an inconsequential endeavour over more troublesome scheming, Ragnhild has always feigned ignorance towards their ploys. Needless to say, if what they say about her wings is true, they all have failed… so far.
