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Introduction
If you are reading this journal than one of three things has happened; I dropped it by accident (probably running from something nasty), I’m dead and you’re finding it on my body, or I consider you some sort of…apprentice or protégé or...child, maybe? At the time I’m writing this I can’t really see myself having any of those, really. But if there’s one thing this life has taught me it’s that things can change in an instant, you know? And all the knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years, I don’t want that to be lost. I mean it might be anyway, if I die in a fiery car accident or something it might burn up, but…well, this is probably more for my piece of mind anyway, really.
Anyway, before we go further if you want to understand this journal I think it’s important you understand...me.
My name is Albion Vega. I was born in 1984, and my true dad was a demon. I’m not the only one of my kind to exist, of course, and I’ve even met a few others who share my particular...heritage, let's say. But as we had very different views on Hunting we agreed to simply go our separate ways instead of fighting and destroying ourselves and everything around us.
Because when it comes to the Hunt I know it’s not black and white. Certain creatures can control themselves, or when they must hurt humans for whatever reason they find ways to take what they need from the dead or from the criminals of society. As long as they can do that I’m content to leave them alone. Seeing it as only black and white, humans and monsters, has led so many down a path of insanity or self-destruction. Or perhaps worse, they themselves become a monster (a vampire or werewolf, for example) and will kill themselves rather than try to live on because they are so convinced they have become something evil, or that those who have such a mindset will hunt them relentlessly.
Perhaps I’m not the same because I know what I am. I didn’t growing up, of course; my dad told me my mom died in childbirth, and he did what he could for me as he continued to Hunt. I was mostly left with his Hunter buddies who were more stationary, keeping vigil on their respective areas instead of traveling, until I was old enough to be left on my own in motel rooms for a few days at a time while he did what he did.
Not that I ever listened to him. When I was like nine or ten I started to sneak out and find local junkyards, making all kinds of projects that I would hide under the bed or make out back of the room near the garbage so he never found them. I was never attached to those things, I knew that in a few days, maybe two weeks, I would need to get rid of them when we picked up to head to the next job. And he never asked about the scars on my hands, or why I started wearing long sleeved shirts to hide the ones on my arms. The only time I nearly got caught I had cut my palm pretty badly on a piece of sharp metal and the motel owner caught me trying to get some medical supplies, but by then I had a small sense of my powers and was able to convince him to leave me alone. Unfortunately the man keeled over with a brain aneurysm a few hours later because I didn’t have the control I thought I did, but thankfully medical technology at the time wasn’t like it is today and they just said he was elderly and died of natural causes, and no one questioned it. Even dad was just eager to get me out before the police could ask questions and figured the guy was old and didn’t question it.
In my teens I started to have visions. I learned things that I had no way to know. The tipping point was when I was 16 and asked my dad about my mom. He told me the usual story, that she died giving birth to me, but I told him I knew the truth. That he killed her. Then he tried to kill me. And I killed him. His brain matter splattered the walls of the motel room, and his organs decorated the ceiling like Christmas tinsel.
He killed her. He was never home because he was always Hunting, and when he was home...Well, let’s just say that people didn’t think a husband could assault his wife when I was a kid, they said being legally married meant both parties always consented. Mom was miserable, she had no finances of her own and no friends, she only knew other Hunters like my dad. Hunters back then were kind of like cops, they protected each other no matter what, so she had no way to leave him.
But she had a visitor. A demon possessed one of dad’s friends and found his way in, offering her comfort when he was gone under the guise of keeping an eye on her. And when my mother ended up pregnant, my dad thought I was his. He was so sure of it. The demon was trying to help my mom escape, trying to get her to leave when she was in her last month before my dad came home, but she didn’t want to leave him. The classic case of the abused not wanting to leave their abuser.
That’s how dad found out. He killed his friend (though at that point it hadn’t been his friend for well over a year, but he didn’t know that) and then he killed my mom. And then he called emergency services and told them that his friend killed my mom and then himself, and somehow I managed to survive long enough for the ambulance to arrive and the medical staff at the hospital to cut open my mom’s dead body and save me.
I don’t know if it was guilt or what, but dad decided to keep me and raise me. Maybe he really did love my mom and knew I was part of her, maybe he knew how it would have looked if he had abandoned me after that point; the cops sure would have probably been more suspicious of him if he had. Whatever his reasons, I don’t blame him. I never blamed him. He did his best to do right by me in the way he knew how. I wouldn’t have killed him if he hadn’t tried to attack me when I confronted him with the truth, but looking back that was kill or be killed and I chose to kill. That doesn’t make me a bad person.
Anyway, after that point I took up what he was doing and began to Hunt on my own. I had his research, a lifetime of knowledge, a network of other Hunters, and the internet. I was confident I could take on anything, especially given the powers I had been displaying over time. Psychic powers, like lifting things with my mind. The ability to manipulate others, make them forget things that happened or change their perception of events. A year after my father’s death I finished a pair of mechanical wings, finally having the time, funding and space to work on a perfect pair. I used my powers to fuse them into my body, making them extensions of myself, melding them into my flesh like an elaborate tattoo when I didn’t need them. It hurt, and it took time to master flying and pulling them out without ripping clothes, but I managed.
Knowing that I would be spending a lot of time on the road I got myself a nice car. Stopping in shoddy little motels was pretty much a must; they were out of the way, less likely to have surveillance, more likely to take cash, and easier to flee if things went south. Plus sleeping in a real bed, having access to a shower, and space to pace around while thinking were also big bonuses.
And that’s been my life for the past…over two decades, now. And I wanted to have some record of the things I’ve been through, of what I’ve done. To prove that not all monsters in this world are evil; there are many who would call me one for the circumstances of my birth that I had no control over, after all. And because the internet will always have a hundred variances on things so there’s really no substitute for first hand, practical knowledge of the subject. I can’t promise any real level of organization or anything but hopefully it’s not too painful to look through at least.
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Monsters
There’s a lot in this world that’s dangerous, from the things you’ve heard of like demons, ghosts, vampires and werewolves to things far more obscure like certain lesser or minor deities or even certain specific types of ghosts, and things that popular culture has wildly misinformed people about such as shapeshifters and skinwalkers. Also just...people. Sometimes what you’re dealing with is just people, but never underestimate them because they can be just as dangerous as the things you Hunt.
So that’s what these next pages are going to be about. I’ll cover the more broad aspects of creatures and any specific types I know of, methods to deal with them that I’ve found, and probably jot down any lore that’s wrong so you don’t go making the same mistakes myself and probably a bunch of other misinformed hunters have.
I can’t promise it’ll be cohesive or really have any kind of structure to it, and maybe you won’t find it useful at all, but maybe you will. And maybe all the effort I have put into this will save a life or two someday down the road, or maybe it won’t be needed at all. You know I’ve heard in other parts of the world they don’t have monster problems like we do? That their Hunters are extremely organized, and know a threat the second it crosses their borders.
I can hold out hope that someday we’ll be the same, or maybe that even someday Hunters won’t be needed at all. Wouldn’t that be nice? That no one would have to do the job of hunting down lost souls or things that prey on humanity in the dark? I think so. But until that day comes and as long as I’m a Hunter I will do what I can, I will save who I can, and I will know that certain people have been able to live on because of my actions.
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Amazon
Make all the Wonder Woman jokes you want, these bitches are nasty and they really don’t care who they fuck up in the process. I’m not sure of their origins, but as best I can tell after a long war with their ranks depleted a group of warrior women made a deal with the Goddess Harmonia. While she presides over harmony, it’s in a cosmic sense more than anything which means in order to maintain cosmic balance she gave these women the ability to reproduce quickly (about 36 hours after conception, give or take) and age quickly (they’re teenagers within 3 days) and at that point they kill the man who fathered them and ritually cut off his hands and feet and carve a symbol into his chest.
Every two years every woman of childbearing age repeats this process so they can replenish their ranks. To avoid suspicion they move around, and when a colony of them gets too large they’ll split off. They travel around, killing innocent men who did nothing more than have a one night stand with a beautiful woman. And believe me, they are all beautiful.
So again, one of the few creatures I say kill on sight. They won’t stop, and the men they do this to don’t deserve it. And for all the fact that they are stronger than humans and age rapidly they are otherwise mortal and can be killed by normal methods. So take their heads off, stake them in the heart, eviscerate them, whatever.
The last time I had to deal with a bunch of amazons I tracked where they were staying and just blocked up all the entrances and set the building on fire with all of them inside. Quick and dirty, but it worked and wiped out their colony there which was what I was after. Saved at least a dozen men doing it too, the daughters were going to go out that night and kill their fathers. Those men are none the wiser about their possible fates, those amazons are dead, and innocent people were saved. Win-win.
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Black Dog
You’re not going to hear about these much in the US, but they do happen any at all so it’s good to know about them. They’re primarily from British folklore, tales of a large black dog that people are certain is supernatural for one reason or another – it’s eyes (though sometimes just one eye) glow with an ominous red. It has no head or two heads, it can appear out of nowhere, and/or it can change its size at will.
These dog apparitions are seen on roads or other travel paths such as bridges, and also in graveyards. Some people believe these are a Death Omen, that if you see one it means you or someone close to you will die shortly. Some associate them with the legend of the Wild Hunt, and others see them as protectors to those traveling the paths they are seen upon and as guardians of the graveyards to prevent the souls from escaping and causing havoc.
Either way, I know I’ve never dealt with a real one. Plenty of hellhounds that are easy to mistake for a Black Dog, and other creatures like a Skinwalker that could be the culprit, but actual Black Dogs seem pretty well confined to the British Isles and that part of the world, so until some immigrant brings them over somehow I think it’s pretty safe to say that’s where they’re gonna stay for now. Because the other problem is that no lore I’ve been able to dig up so far actually talks about how to deal with them; if they are Death Omens then you’ll probably want to find what’s actually killing people that they’re warning about (or in some cases you just can’t, like if they’re just warning about disease or have some manner of clairvoyance around natural deaths), and if they’re protectors then despite people’s misconceptions it’s probably best to just leave them be.
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Banshee
Originally from Scottish and Irish mythos, banshees are tied to the fairy folk in some manner usually as the name is derived from the term ben sidhe which can be translated to ‘lady of the fairy mound’, among other things.
It appears as if banshees come in two forms; one follows families around, acting as a benevolent Death Omen. When someone in the family is close to death they wail to alert everyone, and in some variations of the myth she is there to even help guide the spirits to a peaceful afterlife so they are something akin to a guardian angel.
Then you have the bad ones. I don’t know where the distinction is, if like humans some are just good and others bad, if they start good and go bad over time, whatever. And really knowing would just satisfy personal curiosity, it wouldn’t make Hunting them any easier.
The bad ones will mess with electronics, can turn into mist and get into just about anywhere, they have some kind of telekinesis that they can use to subdue victims, and they emit a high-pitched wail that causes their victims to go mad and basically crack their skull open on any nearby hard surface. Afterwards it appears these more evil banshees will eat the brains of their victims, which is just...gross. Like I don’t know why they do this, but they do and it’s disgusting.
So if you catch wind of one of these evil bitches, best be willing to put in some earplugs and try to deal with her. There’s a few Celtic sigils and spells you can use, but the most effective piece is going to be a pure gold blade right to the heart. You should always have at least one of those in your stash, because while there isn’t a lot that requires a gold blade you’re sure as fuck going to be thankful you have it when you come across something like a banshee so you can just deal with it instead of scrambling to find one or having to call in another hunter while it keeps killing innocent people.
Yeah, bad banshees are kill on sight with no exceptions. They’re pure evil and won’t stop until they’re dead, so get it done.
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Chupacabra
Translated literally as ‘goat sucker’, the chupacabra is a creature that seems to come from South America and the southern United States. In particular it was first reported in Puerto Rico and seems to be spotted in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and southern states such as Texas.
Now this thing was given its name because it seems to suck the blood out of livestock, especially goats. But it’ll also go after chickens, cows, and anything else it can get its hands on; even people. Most of the general descriptions you get will talk about them being four-legged critters with leathery skin, a few patches of scales, and sharp spines like porcupine quills running down their backs. This pretty well matches with the few I’ve killed in my day, so if you hear about that kinda thing at least it’ll give you a good idea of what you’re dealing with.
As for killing one, unlike most of what we Hunt they aren’t really too special. They’re animals as far as I can tell; twisted, mutated animals but animals nonetheless. And I don’t think they’re evil for killing livestock to survive, just as I wouldn’t call a wolf evil for taking out some cows or the farmer that comes to try and stop it. So I really don’t Hunt chupacabras, because that’s how I view them. They aren’t hunting to be malicious, and they aren’t a threat to human life unless someone gets in their way. Hunting it would be like...like going after a wolf, or a bear, or a mountain lion. They’re spreading because people are intruding into their natural territory and forcing them elsewhere, and that’s not their fault.
Personally I suggest leaving them alone, even if they have killed people. You can shoot them just like any other animal and they will die, so these guys are best left to civilian forces to handle while we focus on the things they’re going to have a much harder time dealing with.
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Disaster Causing Demons
So let’s be clear, this isn’t ‘demons’ in the way that we typically think of them. This comes specifically from Japanese lore, as in their culture demons can wander freely between the living and the dead. Some are good and use their powers to help, others are evil and just cause chaos. Among their known powers is the ability to affect natural phenomena such as the weather, and the Japanese believe these demons are the root of all disasters both natural and man made. From earthquakes and mudslides to things like car accidents, plane crashes, and even the nuclear reactor thing from some years back; they believe it’s all caused by their version of demons.
Now that isn’t to say they’re wrong, in a sense. Demons as we know them do just like to cause chaos and kill people. One nasty one I dealt with some years back liked to crash big rigs on the highways, cause multiple pileups and racked up a body count in the hundreds before a friend of mine figured out the connection and asked me to come along with him to deal with it. No one to blame there, because those kinds of crashes happen a lot but he figured a connection between all the drivers and used that to figure it out. Freaking genius he is, I swear.
So in a sense, both are true. What the Japanese consider to be their disaster causing demons are likely just demons as we know of them, but viewed through a different cultural lens and explained differently by their beliefs versus our own. Of course I could be wrong too, but from what I’ve seen in my time Hunting this appears to be the case so take that for what it’s worth.
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Ghost (General)
‘Ghost’ is a really broad term here, I think they call it an ‘umbrella term’? Anyway, you can have specific types of ghost like a Poltergeist or a Woman in White, but really those just describe how the ghost came into being or what it’s capable of.
Ghosts in general are the spiritual remains of humans, unable to move on for some reason or another. Sometimes they feel that whatever business they had in life isn’t finished, or they are simply clinging too hard to life and refuse to accept that they are dead. In most cases unless they were already prone to evil in life they don’t start out that way, but instead just wander aimlessly and are relatively harmless. However over time they grow resentful and angry, and that warps their sense of self until they become something that will just attack anything that comes near.
Some ghosts, though, are summoned. They are controlled, and don’t have a choice but to attack. These are the ones I truly feel bad for, because they don’t get a choice in the matter. Taking away someone’s free will is always an evil act, and the ghosts like this I’ve been attacked by always look like they are in so much pain. They don’t want to hurt me, and I don’t want to hurt them, but I know if I don’t do something they’ll kill me because they can’t resist.
The other thing to be aware of is that while there are some abilities the vast majority seem to have (teleportation/invisibility, lifting objects through telekinesis, things like that) there’s a good chance that each individual ghost might also have its own set of abilities based on how they died or what their reason for continuing to linger is.
For example, one time I went through and was clearing out an old psychiatric hospital. Those places really are the worst because the patients often aren’t awful, but the doctors and nurses are the worst pains in the ass to deal with. They got away with abusing innocent humans with mental disabilities and no control over themselves in life, and in death they continue to torture the souls of those patients as well, often trapping them in the hospital. When normal ghost hunters go in they’re interacting with the patients, but those patients are begging for help and just don’t quite know how to get that across and it really doesn’t help that society’s perception of the mentally ill paints them as always being violent or whatever other bullshit they can to demonize anyone who isn’t normal.
...Sorry, sometimes I get carried away like that. Anyway, I went to the place to clear it out. It was shut down sometime in the 80’s and condemned, but of course people kept finding a way in and ending up dead usually from ‘suicide’. I did a bunch of research and found out the reason it was closed was because the staff were found to be abusing the patients and overuse of restraints for long periods was the primary cause of death. Most of the staff were tried but found not guilty, though they lost their medical licenses and never practiced again, and the remaining patients were transferred to other hospitals.
Of course it turned out that the ghosts haunting the place were in this case just the people the staff had killed since they were the ones who died on the premises. I ran into the usual bits, but one who died as a result of electro shock therapy was able to channel that and gave me a pretty nasty electrocution while I was trying to deal with him. A few others had various powers related to restraints, which was interesting to deal with, and one practically made me cough up a lung because they had died of a lung infection.
Knowing exactly who you’re dealing with and how they died thus becomes important for dealing with ghosts. Also, I suggest backup; I know Hunters are supposed to work alone or in pairs or whatever bullshit they try to say but working together is makes things easier. Were I not what I am trying to clear that place without an army of Hunters would have been next to impossible, and going alone certainly would have killed me.
The other important thing is to know how to get rid of a ghost. In most cases finding the body, covering it with salt and then setting it on fire works just fine. Without the physical remains to keep them attached to the world they will vanish, and that’s that. But of course there’s always exceptions, as objects can anchor a ghost to our world too. Usually that object does have some part of tissue in it; antique dolls made of human hair, clothing that they may have frequently worn in life, things of that sort. In some cases you can reason with a ghost, get them to finish their business and choose to move on, but only if they haven’t been dead for too long.
The worst one I’ve ever dealt with? Someone who died as a result of getting hit by a drunk driver, and because they were an organ donor their organs went to a bunch of different people. And then they became a vengeful spirit and began haunting around the people that had their organs. There was a moral decision to be made there, because the ghost was hurting innocent people but at the same time it wasn’t the fault of the individuals that got the transplants. I ended up killing 6 people in a month or so and burning their bodies to get rid of the ghost, and while I know it wasn’t the ideal I also know that ghost could have killed dozens if left to its own devices and other Hunters might not have been so...shall we say, discerning? No insult meant, of course, but I’ve found most just lack tact.
Unbroken salt lines across doors and windows or in a circle will keep most ghosts out, and they are repelled by iron since it’s believed the metal interrupts the electromagnetic energy ghosts are made up of. Keeping a steady supply of both on hand, as well as shotguns with the shells filled with rock salt, is something that every Hunter should do. And lighter fluid, because it makes burning the bodies easier. And a shovel to dig up bodies.
If you think you’re dealing with a specific type of spirit you can probably find an entry somewhere else in this journal about it, but for the most part the methods listed here will work as long as you’re careful.
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Incubi/Succubi
Different names, same creature; incubus refers to the male, while succubus refers to the female.
Again something that you’ll probably read more about than you’ll ever encounter, just because the nature of them is really hard to tell from other creatures. In fact I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered one in my time, which is saying something for all the nasty out there that I’ve investigated and killed.
According to the legends the two are one in the same, a creature able to change its gender at will. The female succubus has sex with men in their sleep and steals their semen, then transforms into the incubus and seduces young women to have sex with them and implant them with the demonically infused sperm so they can make little demon babies.
Given that no one I know has ever actually seen one of these demons, however, I’m inclined to look at things from a historical perspective. It’s likely that these stories came about for one of two reasons; the first being that people couldn’t really understand the biological reason for morning wood and wet dreams back then, and as sex was seen to be some impure thing they made up reasons as to why this would happen. If a dude has a boner in the morning and can go “Oh no I must have been visited by some evil sex-demon in the night!” that’s apparently somehow less shameful than trying to hide it or whatever? Also a way for women to cover up affairs (or assault that they would have been blamed for), by going “Oh I haven’t had sex with anyone except this demon that visited me and that must be why I’m pregnant!”
The other reason is that we know demons exist. And yes, some will possess a body and decide to go all sexy on people. I think that these two reasons mixed together and birthed this creature that people had to give a name to, and so they did and decided it was distinctly separate from other demons that they knew about at the time, again likely because they just didn’t know any better.
In the end, I fully believe that incubi and succubi aren’t real, at least not in the way folklore and modern popular culture portray them. I believe they are a mixture of people of the time not understanding biological function that was equated with shame and actual demons who either were just doing what demons do or fed into the stories of the time to become the thing people were talking about by using their pretty standard demonic powers.
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Knight of Hell
Alright, so when it comes to demons these are the fuckers you really do not want to tangle with. The Knights of Hell were souls handpicked by Lucifer to become the first demons, which means they’re far more powerful than most other demons. In fact I’d argue probably Lucifer himself and maybe Lilith are the only demons more powerful than this group.
Now here’s the thing; I’m pretty sure they’re all dead. I hear the demons talking sometimes, and I’ve heard whispers of the Knights, but no one has actually seen them for a very long time. But just what I’ve heard is enough to send me running for the hills too, you know? I mean thankfully it seems like holy water and devil’s traps will stop them just as much as any other demon, but probably not for long given all their powers – I hear they’re immune to exorcism rituals, which is...not great.
The word you wanna keep an ear open for is Abaddon. I hear them talk about her a lot. I think if any are left she might be the only one, or at least the most active one. But that’s all the information I have here, just bits and pieces picked up over the years from listening in on demonic conversation. Being half demon I think lets me do that sometimes, like tapping a phone line except they don’t know I’m listening. I just hope that maybe this one little bit can be useful to someone out there, because if the Knights of Hell are still kicking around avoiding them is just flat out the best solution.
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Phantom Traveler
Phantom travelers are a specific type of ghost that often related to modes of transportation. Roads and train tracks/train stations are popular haunts for phantom travelers, usually people who died in the area for whatever reason, but of course actual vehicles such as trains, cars and even airplanes can all also be host to phantom travelers.
A popular myth usually revolves around some kind of vehicle that crashed and killed its driver/the passengers on board, and when they take parts from the vehicle and use it to repair another one the spirits of the dead begin to haunt the new one.
Another is about someone who died on a road and hitch hikes home with people, or asks people to take it home and then that leads somewhere abandoned or where the current residents don’t know the person. Usually the driver looks back and the phantom traveler is gone, that kind of thing.
For the most that second group of phantom travelers is harmless. They can scare the crap out of people who pick them up and cause some cool urban legends, but unless they’re actively hurting people it’s best to just leave them be. As for the first group, they’re almost impossible to deal with; you can salt and burn the remains as with most spirits, but in many cases parts of them (blood splatter, brain matter, etc) remain on the parts that were put into another vehicle, so unless you destroy that they’re just going to keep haunting. If it’s a car then sure, maybe, but planes and boats are where that gets sticky. The best thing you can do is try to warn people and hope they listen.
You can also, in theory, try to exorcise the spirit but that also gets sticky because sometimes they just can’t be, and sometimes the process of doing so involves a lengthy ritual you’re going to be hard pressed to get done. Still, kudos if you want to try. I know we can’t save everyone, as much as we would love to think we can, so I usually just let phantom travelers be and let someone else worry about them if they want to get involved and honestly? I suggest you do the same.
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Poltergeist
All jokes about the movie and whatnot aside, these are pretty much almost always like they’re depicted in popular culture (one of the few times they get it right, actually). The word Poltergeist is German for “noisy ghost” and that’s pretty accurate, as you can tell a Poltergeist from other spirits by the fact that they make all kinds of sounds, throw things around a room, move furniture, and things of that sort. They aren’t really known to speak, however, save for a few cases like the Bell Witch.
Now as for what makes a Poltergeist, there’s a few explanations and thus a few ways to deal with them. The first type are the malevolent spirits; these are ghosts or spirits like anything else, but they don’t care who they target and will just terrorize anyone who gets in their way or who they think might make a fun target. You can deal with them in the ways you do almost any other spirit, just salt and burn the remains and they go away.
The second type is a bit harder to deal with. Some people have a natural affinity towards having low level psychic powers, and when they don’t know that and don’t know how to control it their emotions can influence things and create a Poltergeist. This seems especially common with teenagers as their emotions run high and if they have powers this is typically when they begin to manifest. The problem with these is that you have one of two solutions; try to talk them down and get them to understand, or kill them. Now I’ve killed my share of problematic humans, but the kids always get me the worst…
Once I was hunting a poltergeist that was causing havoc in an entire apartment building. Turned out the teenage daughter of the landlord was in a lot of distress; her mom had recently passed, her boyfriend was cheating on her and then broke up with her when she confronted him and was dating the other girl, she was possibly pregnant but her dad was really strict about that kind of thing and she would have been in a lot of trouble if he found out, and all in all her life was just one series of hellish things after another. Her mother had been into the occult and had some small level of clairvoyance using standard divination methods, and passed that power on to the girl. Her high stress and those powers manifested into a Poltergeist, and when I told her this rather than be relieved that the noises and things moving could be stopped if she got some help she was…consumed by it, I guess. She begged me to teach her how to use the Poltergeist to get revenge on her boyfriend, to terrorize her dad so he’d leave her alone and stop asking her questions, things like that. When I refused she had the Poltergeist attack me, and I had no choice but to kill her. It sucked, but the haunting stopped and the innocent people in her building who had nothing to do with the situation weren’t being attacked in their homes anymore.
Another reason that doing this job will take its toll on you over time. Because you will have to do stuff like that, or get killed, or have to walk away knowing your inaction will lead to innocent people getting hurt and then another Hunter will just do what you wouldn't. One who might not be so nice, who might not give that girl the benefit of the doubt that she can reign in her powers and change. It’ll eat you up inside if you let it, and if you don’t have the stomach to handle it then I’d say get out now because whatever horror you think you’ve been through so far I promise you something will be worse.
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Unicorn
Hear me out about this one, okay? It’s really a creature you’re probably not ever going to encounter, but they are good to know about as popular creatures from folklore. Hell I’ve never seen a real one myself, just manifestations and whatnot, but knowing the folklore has saved my hide in those situations.
So let’s start with what a unicorn is – a pure white horse with a single horn on its head. They hail from European lore, there’s mentions of these creatures going back to the days of King Arthur and beyond. And if you’ve Hunted long enough you know that such lore always has a grain of truth in it, which means either unicorns are real or there was some very close approximation to what was being described by peoples of the time. I can’t say if they were (or are) real or if it was some other critter taking the form of these ‘pure’ beasts, but point being there’s enough stories to know people back then were seeing something they believed was real enough to describe.
Now the legends vary pretty wildly beyond a physical description, so it gets a bit sticky. Some say they were peaceful creatures, guardians of the untouched forested areas, things like that. Others say they were ruthless, eviscerating people with their horns if disturbed while guarding their respective areas. There’s legends that say they can only been seen or captured by virgins, and others that say only the pure of heart. I highly doubt they mean ‘virgins’ in the way we do today, though, as the idea of a ‘virgin’ stems from ‘virgin blood’ which was originally meant just to say blood that had never been used for ritual purposes. So if you had a jar of blood and used it for a ritual but another called for ‘virgin blood’ you couldn’t use that same jar, you had to get new blood. Equating the word ‘virgin’ with a sexual purity is a pretty modern concept, and it’s just meant to control and shame women for being sexually active. So I’m inclined to believe in this case when talking about unicorns in the context of European legend there is no ‘virgin’ idea, but rather only those with pure hearts and intentions could tell a unicorn from a regular horse and interact with it safely.
Either way this is good information because unicorns are such a popular part of American culture. From the classic film The Last Unicorn to unicorns as they appear in the more recent My Little Pony series and so much in between. And as I said, I’ve never seen a real unicorn myself but I’ve dealt with manifestations of various sorts that have appeared as unicorns. The big one I remember was hearing some people getting killed in a forest while trying to deer hunt during a local season; turned out that some local tree hugger types didn’t like people hunting the deer and thought it was animal cruelty, so they banded together and did some research on tulpas, built a body out of dirt and moss and stuff from the forest, and did the ritual and focused their energy on creating the unicorn as a way to kill hunters entering the forest and protect the deer. But of course their subconscious ideas about a unicorn also fed into the tulpa, and at the time I encountered it I didn’t know that’s what had happened so I actually thought I was dealing with a real unicorn and treated it as such. By approaching slowly and making it clear that I was not there to harm the animals of the forest just find out what had happened to the hunters I was able to avoid the unicorn’s wrath and do some poking around to find out the truth.
Unfortunately once I discovered what the unicorn really was I didn’t have any choice but to torch it, which I felt bad for because it didn’t do anything wrong. It didn’t ask to be created for that purpose, and it didn’t have any control over its actions. Some misguided humans who think that no one should eat meat ever because killing animals is cruel did that, and a poor creature had to suffer for their actions. I also killed the humans as well and torched their bodies in the same pyre as the body of their forest guardian just for good measure. It sucked, but I knew if left to their own devices those humans would just make another tulpa down the road now that they had the means to, possibly pass that knowledge on to others, and I couldn’t let that happen. You learn that on this job – sometimes killing humans is necessary because they will just become too dangerous for their own good. It sucks, but it’s either that or they will go on to repeat their mistakes and be dangerous to themselves and others so it’s just for the best.
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Vetala
Now here’s a nasty beast for you. These rude jerks produce a venom that can paralyze their victims, allowing a vetala to feed on them for a number of days. Much like vampires they appear to suck blood, and in fact vetala are pretty uncommon so there’s been more than one Hunter I’ve known who has mistaken some found vetala victims for a vampire nest at first.
While vetala can be solo, they prefer hunting in pairs as it gives them more power in case something goes wrong. If you suspect you’re after a pair of vetala please call some backup so you don’t end up in a bad situation. They aren’t picky about their victims, and I’ve lost a handful of friends to being cocky idiots who think they can take something like this alone and end up in over their heads.
As for how to kill one; silver blade to the heart. They’re kind of reptilian in nature, so you’ll know they’re dead when their bodies revert to this sort of weird humanoid/lizard hybrid. I recommend doing a salt and burn too, just to be safe and to destroy the bodies so the regular police can’t find them. Same with any dead victims you find; if someone hasn’t been completely drained they won’t turn into a vetala, they don’t pass along a curse like that, so any living victims should be safe if possibly a little freaked out depending, but the dead ones might become vengeful spirits or something of the sort so they’re best dealt with in the usual methods to prevent that from happening.
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Water Wraith
While the idea of a ‘water wraith’ is mostly rooted in Scottish folklore, as we all know the US is a great melting pot of cultures and it’s probable that some have been brought here over the years. Or the idea of them, passed down in family folklore, has been the focus of such stories enough to give them life.
Either way, the idea behind a water wraith is that it’s some kind of unnatural entity that poses as something not threatening such as a child or an elderly person and hangs out by waterways waiting for unsuspecting victims that it then drags to their deaths.
Now there’s a few ways to deal with a water wraith, all of them pretty standard; sometimes they’re born of angry spirits who drowned in the nearby area, so of course doing the traditional salt and burn works if you can find the body. In some cases it’s just lost, though, and in that case it’s worth seeing if they’re a vengeful spirit. If they are finding out who they want vengeance against and giving them what they want can be an effective method (yes, this requires the sacrifice of one or more humans but in most cases they are to blame for the original drowning and deserve it), you can try to bargain/reason with the entity to get it to move on, and super worst case you just torch the area it’s haunting. A bit of gas spread over the surface of the water and light it up. Yes destroying wildlife, and yes this should be the absolute last resort, but the thing is the area will recover in due time and the wraith is gone, which means it’ll stop killing innocent people. And in the end, that’s what we need happening more than anything.
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Wendigo
This is a creature specifically belonging to Native American tribes of North America. As these tribal people tell it, a wendigo is what happens when someone becomes a cannibal. In many cases these incidents were reported well in the past, when it was more common for say a party of hunters to get trapped in the snowy mountains or a long winter to force a family into starvation until one finally eats the others.
The problem is that as soon as they do this they become cursed – the act of eating another human being is seen as evil, and the person who did it is transformed into a creature that is cursed to wander the land ever seeking to sate its appetite for human flesh. In some cases they are active constantly, in others they may hibernate for years, but either way they are a problem. This is one of the few times I will ever say this; kill on sight, full stop. You can’t reason with them, you can’t cure them, and they can’t control what they are. These things are feral animals, smart as hell and some of the best real hunters out there. They will keep killing until they are killed.
How dangerous they are is another issue. They are stronger and faster than humans, they can imitate human voices to lure people into danger, and pretty much the only way to kill them is with fire. So if you think you’re hunting a wendigo then make sure you’ve got a mini flamethrower or something of a similar sort because otherwise the best you’re gonna get is injuring it and...well, when it’s injured it gets mad, and when it’s mad it’ll come straight at you.
Also don’t get fooled by geographical regions. Yes they are mostly in the Wisconsin/Michigan/Minnesota area and much of Canada, but believe me they can crop up pretty much anywhere. Caught one out in Nevada a few years ago, poor guy had been a miner caught in a cave-in and ate his crew to survive. I got wind of it because I was in the area and heard about them finally opening the cave after more than a year of trying, just hoping to retrieve the bodies basically and give the family closure. Instead they found bones piled in a heap and a few of the guys who broke through were attacked before ‘something escaped’ as the papers put it. I hunted the thing down and torched it, and I felt bad because it wasn’t his fault that he tried to survive that situation and turned into such a monster, but as I said that doesn’t matter. If a Hunter or someone else didn’t stop him then he’d just keep on killing, guy had been free a week by the time I got there and racked up almost 2 bodies a day that I was able to tell. I feel awful that his family, and the families of his victims, will likely never get closure either; the ones he killed since being freed I had to salt and burn, and the ones he left in the cave were never properly identified because there was nothing left but a mangled pile of bones. They buried the group as one grave in a memorial, and I had to sneak in to dig that up and torch what was left too. Keeps them from coming back as vengeful spirits in the future, even if it does suck in the moment.
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Woman in White
A Woman in White is a ghost, but a very specific kind of ghost. They are always female, created when their husbands cheat on them. They find out, drown their children in an act of temporary insanity, and then kill themselves when they return to sanity and see what they have done. The grief and high emotion of the situation leave them as wandering spirits – some haunt roadways near their house, other haunt wooded areas, things like that.
From what I’ve experienced these types of spirits come in two forms; the first poses as an innocent woman trying to hitchhike home, often dressed in a white gown (hence the name) or something revealing. They show themselves to men that are unfaithful to their girlfriends or wives and ask to be taken home, only to then kill the man upon arrival. If they exist long enough some might even start going after any man, and then force him to be unfaithful so she feels justified in killing him.
The second type is more like the infamous La Llorona, whose name translates to The Weeping Woman. She’s a folk tale hailing from the Hispanic regions of Central and North America about a woman who caught her husband cheating on her with a younger woman. She lured the two children she had with the man into the woods and drowned them, then hung herself as a way to take revenge on the man by taking away the things he cared about and publicly shame him for being unfaithful to her. Now she wanders the area, wailing for her lost children. People tell her story as a way to scare children into behaving kind of like the boogeyman. “Behave or La Llorona will come and drown you too!” type of situation. Which honestly? I’m not a fan of. Scaring kids by saying they need to do as they are told or some nasty monster will come out of the dark and kill them really doesn’t work and all it does is traumatize them into adulthood. So please don’t do that.
Anyway, yes the second type will go after children rather than men. They are blind to the fact that they killed their own, instead screaming for their unfaithful husbands and taking any children they can find, drowning them as revenge.
But no matter how they operate, the first way to deal with a Woman in White is to identify who she is and then salt and burn the bones, same as you would with any ghost. That works in most cases, as it does with the vast majority of spirits, so it’s a pretty safe bet. However in cases where the woman was cremated or otherwise there are no remains to destroy there's at least one other method. I’ve found success in these cases by setting up a summoning ritual for the mother and children, bringing them together and letting the children deal with her. They often want revenge for being the innocent victims of the mother’s rage and if they aren’t already at rest this method helps with that too plus gets rid of mom on top. So far both methods have worked in every case of a Woman in White I’ve encountered, which I’m thankful for because it really makes dealing with them easy.
And I know, it can be easy to feel sorry for these women. All they wanted was a happy life with their families and their husbands were jerks who decided to cheat on them. But they kill innocent people, and even if I don't personally think cheating men are innocent in most cases it's not up to us to make those kinds of moral judgments. As I said earlier in this entry, eventually they start going after men who haven’t cheated and make them cheat just so they can have a reason to kill them. Better to get them out of the way before they get to that point so no more innocent lives are lost.
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Wraith
Probably some of the more nasty creatures out there, especially as these are ones that can mimic human form so you have no idea what you're facing until you end up on the wrong end of it. The word originates from Scotland, where the people would speak of something that looked like a person but wasn't and one showing up in your village meant death was coming; not surprising, considering wraiths feed on human brains.
They have a long spike that shoots out from their wrists that they use to pierce into human skulls and suck the brains out, which is quite gross. Worse yet apparently they prefer brains that are full of awful emotions so they like to hang out in mental hospitals, elderly care homes, and similar facilities to feed on the patients while making it look like a suicide or natural causes when they die - something almost no one ever questions. And if one manages to touch you they can basically mess with your mind to make it seem like you're crazy with hallucinations and generally messing up your emotional state. Putting all those factors together makes it nearly impossible to catch them due to high security in their preferred habitats and the fact that they can just make it seem like they aren't there. One of the best ways to detect a wraith is by using a mirror to see their true form (they look gross, kinda like zombies) but if they can make you hallucinate to see them as normal...well, it's obvious how that's a problem, and if it's not then you are not cut out for this job.
Aside from mirrors to detect them, what you need against wraiths is silver. They're allergic to it, so touch some silver to their skin and they'll burn like you just put a fire against them. Stab them with it and you're going to hurt them bad, and get them in the chest or head and that'll be the end. Of course if you have an idea who the wraith is and have no silver there's another solution; serious head trauma. Decapitate them, destroy the head, whatever. Works for most things, and it works for wraiths too.
But whatever you do, no matter how tough you think you are, don't go chasing a wraith alone. Just don't. Find someone you trust to watch your back until the job is over and get them to help you. I guarantee you that wraith is going to know what's up before you do and if you're working alone that's a surefire way to get yourself killed so just don't okay?
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Items and Equipment
This next bit is going to cover the various items and equipment that you’ll probably encounter frequently as a Hunter, and before we get into that I want to talk about a Hunter’s toolkit because honestly there is stuff you should have either on your person or very close by at any given time because you never know what you’ll need when and being caught without the right equipment is a surefire way to get yourself killed.
The first thing you need to think about is how you intend to Hunt. Do you want to settle down in one place and keep an eye on the town and surrounding areas, or do you want to be on the road living mostly out of a car and motel rooms? Depending on your answer how you keep your arsenal is going to be quite different. After all in a home you have more space, you can build secret walls and whatnot, but in a car you’re going to be more limited in both aspects.
I like traveling and seeing different things, so I have a car. Depending on who you talk to every Hunter seems to have a preferred something. A trunk versus not, a mobile home or RV vs something more low profile, whatever. I’ve driven a few different babies in my life, mostly giving them up because they’ve been wrecked or whatever, and most recently what I’ve found is that people converting larger vehicles into ‘tiny homes’ is popular, so I decided to try that route and got an old ambulance. Unlike a bus or something similar it doesn’t drive too differently, and once it’s painted over and had the sirens removed and stuff it’s totally legal to drive.
Which brings me to two things I recommend no matter how you set up; the hidden weapons and the go bag. Law enforcement doesn’t take kindly to people having the kinds of weapons we do, from guns to blades and everything in between, so making sure that they’re well hidden is a must. Your go bag should contain basic supplies (salt, holy water, at least one gun and blade, ect), at least two changes of clothes, and anything that you don’t want to leave behind or have get destroyed if you have to abandon your place quickly. Sentimental things, stuff like that.
Okay, now on to what you should have at all times;
- A shotgun and a hand gun
- Regular bullets, but also shotgun shells filled with rock salt and silver bullets for the hand gun
- A large blade like a machete, and smaller blades in silver, bronze, and gold (plated works fine)
- Salt
- Holy water
- Rosary
- Book of exorcism rites
- Gas, lighter fluid, or some other kind of accelerant
And really that’s it. Anything else you want to carry is just icing on the cake, as they say. I recommend multiples of each of these items, of course, just in case one gets lost or damaged or whatever you have a backup until you can get replacements and you aren’t out there struggling to get your hands on something you need for a job.
I talked about my vehicle, and that’s the kind of setup you want. The guns, bullets and blades are hidden away in storage under my bed that you have to know is there before you go looking if you want to find it – there’s a few of those latches on the under side that they put on cabinets to prevent children or pets from opening them, you have to lift and then press them to get them to release. If you don’t know they’re there and go to try to lift the bed it seems like it doesn’t. I put some drawers closer to the floor that pull out and I keep my clothes folded in there, and there’s a few inches of gap between the bottom of the bed and the top of the drawers that I’ve explained more than once is just so the bed feels more secure and like I’m not gonna break it and fall into the drawers when I’m sleeping. That’s gone over more than well enough with the few cops that have pulled me over and searched my vehicle, so it should work for most everyone else too.
On the other side is just storage that opens from the top. The bags of rock salt I can explain as being there for the winter months in case I park and sleep overnight and have trouble getting out in the morning, the gas canister is emergency fuel, the lighter fluid is for when I park at camp grounds and want to use their barbecue or fire pits, the holy water and rosaries it’s easy to explain by lying that I’m part of the Christian faith, and the exorcism books I have hidden as Bibles which most don’t question. In fact every time I have been pulled over and questioned by law enforcement it is very easy to simply say I’m a Christian traveling across the United States from church to church, helping people where I can. Most law enforcement buys that pretty easily, and I’ve even had a few say they wish me luck in continuing that endeavor.
Because that’s the thing. If you’re gonna be a Hunter, lying has to come as naturally to you as breathing. If it doesn’t, or if you get nervous or have tells, then you’re going to get caught pretty quick and if the monsters don’t kill you then you’ll end up in prison or worse. This is not an easy life, and people do it for a lot of reasons; revenge, because they take joy in the killing, because they want to make the world a better place, or because they were raised up in the life and don’t know any different. Sometimes it’s a combination of these things, and sometimes it’s just because they can and nothing more.
Anyway, all the stuff past this point is more details on certain things and why they’re useful. I’ll go over the basics like salt and silver too, because knowing what situations to use them in is arguably the most important part of this whole thing.
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Holy Water
Honestly? This should be a basic part of any Hunter’s kit. You can get some at most Catholic churches, but you can also make your own with a rosary and some prayer as it doesn’t have to be a priest who blesses the water what matters is the prayer.
I do keep a rosary with me at all times, and I use it frequently for repelling demons as well as making holy water. It’s pretty effective against the buggers, burning in a nasty way without actually harming the host. This means you can use it to weaken them, sometimes even trap them, without risking the person they’re possessing if you think that person can be saved.
A few higher tier demons are immune, but unless you’ve gotten yourself in some truly deep shit you shouldn’t have to worry about that. Holy water is also a great way to see if someone is possessed, I keep two flasks (one for myself, one to ‘share’) and anyone I’m going to be dealing with for more than a few hours gets to drink from the one that’s not mine. It’s usually alcohol laced with some holy water, which a regular person is never going to notice but will set off a demon pretty fast. And in the event they don’t want alcohol I have water bottles with the same thing. If they refuse to drink I’ll usually refuse to work with them, or at least I’ll be very wary, because even Hunters I’ve known for years can end up not safe if they become possessed and it’s nearly impossible to tell.
So yeah, get a rosary, learn the prayer, and keep holy water on you. Oh, and that prayer is “Exorcizo te creature acquae in nomine Deo, patris omnipotentis et in virtute Spiritu Sancti” so I hope you can speak Latin! (If you can’t, learn fast. You’ll need it on this job.)
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Mirrors
Mirrors. Are. Your. Friends.
I’m serious about this. I keep a small makeup compact with a mirror and a hand mirror in my things because there is so, so much about mirrors that can be helpful to you. It’s an essential tool for your kit if you want to Hunt.
For starters, mirrors can reveal a wide variety of monsters that can hide in human form. From changelings to sirens, wraiths to certain types of ghosts, and a whole bunch more. Every time I thought I’ve dealt with something that could be revealed in a mirror I pull out my compact and take a look at them over my shoulder in the reflection to see what’s what and let me tell you that’s saved my butt more times than once.
On top of that, mirrors are associated with spirits in general. There’s a lot of folklore about how if you break one it’s seven years of back luck, some cultures say because the mirror reflects your soul and if you break a mirror you hurt your soul and it will exact revenge upon you. Other cultures say it affects your health and that in turn for seven years you cannot remedy any health issues that might befall you.
Some thought souls could become trapped in mirrors; it’s where the superstition of covering up all the mirrors in a house when someone died came from. At the time often when someone passed their house served as the funerary place, including the body being on display, rather than being moved to a morgue or similar structure as long as no one suspected foul play in the deaths. As such the tradition has kind of fallen off as society stopped doing that, but there’s still the tradition in some places even after the body has been moved as they think the spirit will return to the house for a set amount of time (a day, seven days, whatever) and if the mirrors are not covered they can become trapped.
Mirrors can also be used for communication. Some creatures, including demons, have been known to use mirrors as a means to talk to individuals. But in the course of Hunting this is not something you’ll likely encounter often, if at all, so it’s just a footnote rather than something to be actively looking out for.
Finally, there’s a belief that mirrors can show the future. Scrying practices often involve water as a reflective surface, mirrors in dark places, or blacked out reflective surfaces to try to see into the future or even the past. There is the ‘Wise Woman’ ritual where a woman takes a hand mirror in one hand and a candle in the other, staring in her reflection in otherwise total darkness as she walks backwards up the stairs. Supposedly at the top the woman would then see the face of her future husband and know who to begin looking to for courtship. She could also see the face of the grim reaper, indicating she would die before her husband, or nothing at all indicating she would never be married.
Much of this is just folklore, but remember that everything starts somewhere. Every bit of myth has a root in reality, and it’s good to keep that in mind when Hunting because sometimes those legends might just be what save you in a tight spot. Especially when you’re dealing with spirits and ghosts, because based on how many I’ve had to put down over the years a lot will have unique powers and you never know when a mirror might be the thing that literally saves you.
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Poppet
If you’ve ever heard of a voodoo doll then you have a good idea of what a poppet is – despite the fact that traditional voodoo doesn’t use poppets at all aside from dolls placed on altars to represent the spirits of voodoo. The term and use of them seems to originate from ignorance, as someone equated voodoo with traditional European witchcraft and now it’s just become a thing unto itself that further uneducated and ignorant people associate with the craft perpetuated by modern popular culture.
Anyway poppets are used mostly in witchcraft. They’re made of almost anything; cloth, clay, various fruits or vegetables, twigs or sticks tied into the basic arrangement of human form, paper, and wax just to name a few. The point is that they represent the person you’re intending to make the poppet of, and then are sealed off with a taglock of some kind such as the victim’s name carved or written into it, a photo of them stuffed inside, or physical pieces such as hair or nail clippings, blood, saliva, that kind of thing.
The intention behind this is to use the poppet as a stand-in for the individual in question to cast spells upon them, as whatever is done to the poppet is done to the individual. Stick a pin in the leg and the person will feel pain, that kind of thing. Modern witches tend to use them to torment victims without leaving a trail local law enforcement can follow and blame them for, though traditionally they’ve also been used for healing purposes, fertility rites and other such things as well.
Now, here comes the sticky part; dealing with a poppet. You can’t really destroy it without hurting the victim, but there’s a few options. The first would be removing the taglock if you can, if there’s a photo or a bit of person stuffed inside you can just take it out and that generally deactivates it. If the name is carved in or something like that, though, the next step is to go directly to the witch who cast it. Many will deactivate the spell if sufficiently threatened, but depending on how old they are or whatnot that might not work so killing them is the next step. I mean they’re witches, they should be killed anyway, but their deaths aren’t guaranteed to lift any curses or spells they cast so getting them to do that before you kill them is the best bet for deactivating a poppet.
The very worst case scenario, and one that should only be done if necessary, is to store the poppet somewhere safe. Don’t ever entrust it to the person it’s meant for, because normal people can’t really do what needs to be done. I have a bunker up in the northern parts of Michigan, secluded in the woods with the entrance almost impossible to find on land that belongs to a Hunter buddy of mine. I keep things like poppets I can’t destroy there, and every time I go back I look up the people those poppets belonged to so I can make sure they’re doing alright. If they’ve died for whatever reason then I destroy the poppets, a little salt and burn just to make sure before burying the ashes in the woods, but if they’re alive and well then the poppets remain.
Also, no matter how tempting it may be don’t go making poppets. For starters without the proper spells and demonic aid they don’t really work well, and you might attract something you don’t want trying to offer you that power. It’s a dark and slippery slope once you accept that kind of power, and you’ll probably end up on some Hunter’s radar or list eventually. Second their uses for Hunting are pretty limited. I mean yeah you could kill a vampire or werewolf with one maybe, or turn witchcraft on some witches. But there are more tried and true methods that don’t involve turning to such dark powers, and they are far more effective. The point here is to educate you about poppets and what to do if you encounter one, not teach you how to go off and make your own so just don’t do it, okay?
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Salt
The idea of using salt as a purification element is thousands of years old, though no one really knows where it originates from. But in the modern world it’s cheap and easy to get your hands on, and carrying large amounts of the right kind won’t really draw attention. I keep at least 20 pounds of rock salt (the kind they use to keep snowy roads clear) in my car at all times, as well as a few bottles of the stuff for cooking just because that’s easier to carry if I’m out on foot. If you plan to go Hunting you’ll want to pick up salt whenever you can – if you’re stopping in for some on the road groceries or something, get a thing of salt. In the winters stock up on rock salt, because it’s a bit hard to get other times of the year (at least here in the United States, I have no idea about other countries).
First thing’s first – rock salt goes in shotgun shells. Fire that at a spirit and it’ll at least temporarily disable them. It also won’t kill most people but it’ll certainly hurt a ton, which makes it useful in the event you are aiming the shotgun as a threat but someone calls your bluff and you have to fire.
Second, it’s protective. If you’re worried about something getting in and you don’t want it, lay unbroken salt lines at every window and door to the space as a way to help. Some higher level demons and a few other critters aren’t repelled by the salt, but if they can cross a salt line then at least you’ll have an idea of what else you might be dealing with.
Third goes back to the purification aspect. When you’re dealing with a ghost and you need to get rid of the corpse you don’t just put salt there for no reason. Adding salt to the remains before setting them on fire helps purify them and remove the ghost if that’s what’s gonna get rid of them. If not (such as in the case of summoned spirits or whatnot) then it really doesn’t matter if you used the salt or not burning the corpse was never gonna work and you’ll need to find an alternate workaround. Check other sections of this journal for specifics on different creatures and whatnot.
Fourth, it can help detect demons. I carry a flask of holy water with salt in it and will typically offer it before doing business with someone – even if that’s someone I’ve known for a while. Possession is nasty business, after all, and even with all my powers I can’t just look at someone and tell if they’re possessed or not. If they decline the flask then I’m usually pretty wary of them or I’ll leave, but most think it’s alcohol and are glad for the liquid that will help kill their brain cells and numb them to whatever horrible things they’ve seen and done. If they just think it tastes funny or make some joke about the holy water and salt then they’re usually good, and if they react violently then I know I’ve got a demon (or ghost, in some cases) on my hands and I’ll deal with it as is necessary.
So yeah, keep salt on you. Keep salt at all times. It’ll probably save your life more than once.
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Organizations
So there’s a lot of different groups of people you’ll run into out there, some of them good and some of them bad. Many will probably be a little more local or regional, so I encourage you to do some research into the area you’ll be Hunting in if you think that something of the sort might be the problem.
This section is more to go over the big ones that I know of, though if you’ll ever encounter them or not is debatable. Some might be defunct by the time anyone gets to read this, or have changed to the point they aren’t a threat anymore. Rather than take my word for it as always I encourage you to do your own research and see what’s going on, this is just meant to be a guideline.
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Judah Initiative
So these are some of the good guys, from what I can tell. Basically back in World War II when the Nazis were doing experiments on Jewish people a bunch of rabbis got together and made a golem to destroy the camp and help protect their people.
In the years since they’ve made it their job to hunt the Thule Society, though sadly those that remain who have families try to tell the stories and get a new generation involved only to be written off as crazies trying to cope with the horrors they went through.
They aren’t Hunters, per say, but if you run across any of them I suggest making friends. They can have valuable insight into some other things you might need, and having seen a golem work first hand let me tell you that’s not a thing you want to fight if you can help it. Like, at all. They’re practically invincible unless you know what you’re doing with them.
Oh, and study up on your Hebrew. As a Hunter you should speak many languages anyway, or at least know some basic Latin, but Hebrew is helpful too. If you ever find yourself on the wrong end of a golem it could be the thing that saves your life, you know?
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Men of Letters
So if you’ve been around America at all, you know we’re different from the rest of the world. A big part of that is in part due to the Men of Letters; specifically their absence in American culture, as their United States operation was wiped out in 1958. They still exist in other parts of the world, mainly parts of Europe such as Britain, but they were never re-established in the United States.
This of course makes information on them immensely hard to find, but what little I have uncovered suggests that basically they were a cult of mystics that understood the supernatural and used Hunters to do their dirty work while despising them for being ‘brutish’ and ‘uncivilized’. Which honestly I take offense to, but whatever.
I did manage to reach out to some contacts in London, and basically the existence of their chapters of the Men of Letters is the biggest reason the place isn’t overrun with the supernatural. They keep a careful watch on all the sea ports, airports, and means of ground travel and can pick out a supernatural creature as easy as breathing to dispatch it before it becomes a problem. Kinda the reason you won’t meet much from that part of the world too, seems they’ve got some really tight security over there.
The biggest reason they won’t extend it back into the states is that it seems even they don’t know why they lost contact with the existing American chapter way back in ‘58 and they aren’t too keen to extend themselves and possibly lose some of the tight security they’ve built for fear of a breach. Which I get, but come on; they know what it’s like here, innocent people getting slaughtered because the Hunters aren’t keen to work together on a massively organized scale like that. There’s no way they couldn’t come in, take a few years to get some influence and set something up, and have us running the way they do inside of a decade. They’re just selfish bastards who don’t want to help.
Anyway, you’ll probably run into mention of the Men of Letters from time to time if you’re combing enough historical texts, but it seems like they were mostly advertised as a sort of “Gentleman’s Hangout” situation, like we have some modern groups to that effect just without the mysticism and whatnot. They had female members, but they were few and far between as at the time being part of whatever the Men of Letters were doing was considered too dangerous for a woman. But beyond that I really don’t have any information, they appear to have kept it pretty well hidden and it may possibly have even been destroyed when they were or sealed away and yet to be uncovered – if it ever even can be, considering some of the stories I’ve heard.
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Thule Society
If you studied history at all, particularly World War II, this name might sound familiar. That’s because the Thule Society were basically the most high ranking Nazis, though the reality is that they existed long before the Nazi party and were simply sponsors in helping them rise to power. Which really should tell you everything you need to know about how awful these guys are, and I know what I said in the header about the organizations but this is one that’s probably always going to be evil.
For my part, I’ve only run across them once and it was somewhat by accident. I caught wind of some necromancers and went chasing them, only for it to be members of the Thule Society trying to chase down some artifacts in the area. They’re a right pain in the rear to deal with, you need to shoot them in the head and then make sure you burn the bodies within twelve hours. Something to do with the rituals they performed to bring themselves back as some kind of undead, though smarter and retaining more of themselves than the typical zombies you might otherwise encounter.
Regardless, these guys are bastards and are absolutely kill on sight. They aren’t human anymore, they haven’t been for a few decades, and they’ve proven time and again that if left to their own devices they are a threat and will harm innocent people so it’s just not worth the risk.
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Everything Else
And welcome to the last section of this journal, which covers things that...well, that don't fit into one of the other categories but that you should know about anyway. It’s really hard to define, and I don’t expect there will be much here to be honest. I thought maybe there could easily be some lore, but most of that is going to get tied in to its respective creature (though I’m sure some random free floating lore will find itself here). Objects sometimes that don’t relate to tools of the trade, there’s a handful of those I can think of as I jot this down. I don’t know, it’s going to take me time to list everything and deciding if it falls under one of the other three sections or not is going to be very arbitrary. Hopefully it’s helpful anyway.
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Astral Projection
There’s a few different names for this, but basically if you ever hear of people saying they had an out of body experience, they felt their soul was wandering away from their body, things like that then they’re referring to Astral Projection. A really good example of this in some more modern pop culture is the Insidious movies, the kid is Astral Projecting at night without knowing it because he hasn’t been taught about his powers. And that he goes into a coma because he wandered too far and has been captured by a demon is also pretty much what happens in the real world; while you’re in the process of Astral Projection your body will not wake up unless you come back or something else possesses it.
There’s a few ways this happens; a natural power to do so, a physical body being injured and close to death, and the ingestion of substances just to name a few. There’s a small handful of critters that can also yank your soul from your body, but they’re few and far between so they usually won’t be the reason someone ends up being able to pull this off.
Now here’s the thing – I really don’t recommend inducing Astral Projection unless you really need to. It’s dangerous for your soul to be apart from your body because you’re essentially going into the Veil where reapers, demons, and other nasty critters like to hang out. If you die while you’re doing that well there goes everything, you’re not getting back to your body. If you end up captured great, not getting back to your body until you get out. And all the tricks we Hunters use? Work on you – salt, iron, all of it. And the bad guys know it too.
Plus you’re leaving your body vulnerable unless you have someone you trust to keep an eye on you while you’re like that. If someone destroys your body that’s it, and you end up wide open to demonic possession unless you take some very specific precautions. I have several tattoos that act as possession deterrents, but as I’ve seen first hand if those become damaged in any way they cease working and it’s just a pain in the rear. And yes, I do have the natural power to Astral Project but I don’t do it unless it’s absolutely necessary and I have no other options. Like reapers I can also physically step into the Veil, so unless there’s something that I can’t do by being there physically there’s really never a need to expose myself to that kind of risk. So far I haven’t come across anything, and I just know I can Astral Project because I used to do it as a kid without knowing the full extent of my powers.
Anyway, my point is don’t. Know the signs of someone who is, and how to deal with them (kill the body or dispatch the soul) and remember that the bad guys know how to do this too and may not be as careful if they think they have the upper hand on you by doing it. Use that to your advantage to take care of them and you’ll be just fine.
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Curse
So this is a pretty broad category, but sometimes these entries will just be like that. A curse is any magical effect intended to harm someone; this can range from as small and simple as making their life miserable, chasing away a current love interest, causing them to fail tests or have some minor health issues all the way up to serious health problems and even death.
Curses can be laid in a variety of manners by pretty much anyone, and the problem is that even going about fixing a curse can depend on who cast it and what the nature of the curse is. For example Native American curses aren’t ones you break, you just get out of the way and hope it doesn’t come after you. If the caster isn’t sure what they’re doing sometimes they don’t know how to break it (or they do and are just stubborn) and you’ll have to kill the caster to break it.
Other times you can use certain rituals for protection or curse breaking, but you have to be very careful with those if you don’t know what you’re doing because you can inflict the curse upon yourself, throw it at someone else unintentionally, or even make it stronger if you screw that up.
When it comes to a curse, you really need to do your research into exactly what you’re dealing with because no two are going to be exactly the same. But I’d rather spend some time explaining that and make it clear that these are highly situational versus giving some false hope that there’s one big cure-all for curses. That doesn’t help, and if anything is only going to make it harder for you to do your job as a Hunter.
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Demon Blood
Okay so, demons can’t really take form outside of Hell. They have to possess someone, though unlike angels they can do so without asking permission as long as the host isn’t warded. So when I say ‘demon blood’ what I mean is blood from that host human while the demon is possessing them. I’ve run a few tests over the years, and once the demon stops possessing an individual their blood becomes ‘clean’, so there’s something about the way the demons possess bodies that goes right down to the biological level.
And as fascinating as that is (as much as I could ramble on about it), it really has no bearing on anything related to Hunting beyond that fact so I won’t go into any more details about it.
Because demon blood is different from human blood, however, it also means you need to be careful when hunting demons. Ingestion of their blood can give normal humans some psychic abilities that may last, but to make those abilities stronger requires frequent ingestion and worse yet demon blood can be very addicting – though if it’s the actual blood or just the powers that blood can grant I’m not sure.
What I am sure of is that if you’re thinking about it, don’t. It’s not worth the risk. Even the best intentioned use of the powers granted by drinking demon blood aren’t worth it. The addiction isn’t worth it.
I...knew someone once, in my early days of hunting. She was strong and beautiful, and everything I wanted to be some day. I watched her use psychic powers to pull demons out and kill them without hurting the host, I watched her have visions to know exactly what she was dealing with and find information in a way that was so much more natural and easy than having to interview people and comb through public records and whatever else. She never told me how she did it, and then one day I found out. Sometimes she knew that once a demon stopped possessing a host the host would die, so before that happened she would drain the host of its blood and drink it before exorcising the demon.
Hosts are alive in there. They experience everything the demon puts them through. In their last minutes alive instead of simply being put out of their misery they had to endure the pain of her slicing them open, watch as she drank their blood, and then experience everything after the demon was pulled out as they lingered before dying. I confronted her once I knew, and she said that when she was young her older brother was possessed and forced demon blood down her throat as a sick joke, and that ever since she’d been addicted. That going long stretches without was so much agony she wished she were dead. I knew it wasn’t her fault, but I also knew I couldn’t let her continue, and as she cried I snapped her neck.
Nothing was worth what she did to who knows how many people. How many weren’t dying, but because of her addiction she convinced herself that they were? How many did she hurt because of it? I have all those same powers, but I was born with them because my father was possessed by a demon when I was conceived and I’ve never had to drink blood to sustain them.
So take it from me, just don’t. Because if other Hunters find you have they’ll hunt and kill you too, and you might never forgive yourself for how many people you hurt along the way.
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EMF
EMF stands for ‘electromagnetic field’ and you might see them in context of an EMF Meter or EMF Detector, both are basically the same thing. Similar to how ghost hunters will try to record EVP, they’ll often have something for EMF as well since ghosts will give off a strong electromagnetic field that can interfere with certain devices.
Now the thing is, if you’re going to use something to detect EMF you need to get baseline readings first. Any place where there is modern electricity or that’s near power lines or cell towers or whatever is going to give off some baseline EMF that you’ll want to be wary of. It’s when you get spikes outside the norm, either up or down, that you know you’ve got something funky going on.
Also, monitoring the baseline is useful in and of itself. Low background baselines are fine, they aren’t going to affect people unless they’re super sensitive to EMF (though in that case nothing short of like moving to the middle of nowhere with no electricity is going to help them). But if you get really HIGH background baseline readings then something else could be going on; high background EMF can cause hallucinations, and even help spirits manifest. Ghost hunters sometimes use devices that generate an EMF ghosts can draw off of to help them be more powerful so they can manifest by moving objects or showing themselves or producing EVP or whatever.
If you’re getting really high background EMF and people are experiencing things, the best thing you can do is tell them to move out. It’s not going to get any better, and the longer they stay in that environment the more risks there are to their health such as cancer and other abnormal growths, among other things. High background EMF can even kill birds and other small animals, including family pets. Better that the people just leave the area entirely and don’t go anywhere near it, really.
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EVP
EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, and I know if you’ve ever seen a ghost hunting show then they use that a lot. But the reality is that it’s useful for Hunting too because a lot of times you can capture the voices of the spirits you’re trying to Hunt. It can tell you if there even are spirits worth Hunting (because sometimes a place isn’t haunted, it’s just spooky) or if those spirits have some kind of important message to say that they cannot otherwise get across for whatever reason.
Now of course, for this to be the case you need something ‘electronic’, but it doesn’t have to be fancy. People have been hearing EVP since the time of old phonographs as ghosts were able to communicate through the electrical signals and project them into the room. In more modern times cassette and CD players, phones, laptops, and pretty much anything with a microphone that can pick up sound can be used to record EVP. I’ve walked into a few situations where the ghosts were able to manipulate cell phones to call people and speak or leave messages, manipulate computers to have their voices come through the speakers, all kinds of stuff like that.
In some cases that they’re trying to say isn’t clear and you might need some kind of audio editing software to take out interference and make sense of it, I even had one where what I recorded was just backwards and all I had to do was reverse the audio to understand it. Technology and understanding how to work some basics like recording devices and audio manipulation can really be helpful and I suggest you learn them, and keep a laptop on hand as well. Make use of cloud technology and store stuff there in case the laptop gets destroyed, because on this job you literally never know. Having digital backups and copies as well as physical copies is necessary these days, and keeping up with the technological advances not only helps with Hunting down the evil in the world but also avoiding law enforcement who has no idea what’s out there and would try to stop us. You’ll be more effective as a Hunter if you keep up, even if it is hard sometimes.
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Pentagram
This particular symbol is ancient, tracing its roots back thousands of years to many pre-Christian ages including ancient Egypt. It's a five pointed star that can be drawn with one continuous line, also sometimes called the 'endless knot' and sometimes with a circle drawn around it connecting the points.
In its upright form the pentagram is a powerful symbol of protection against evil. Many Hunters, myself included, often get this tattooed onto ourselves as a way to prevent possession among other things - mine is on my chest just over my heart. Inverted the symbol is used for defensive and banishing magic as seen in many devil's traps and spells that involve those things.
I wanted to include this as an entry because unfortunately popular culture has given rise to misinformation about how this symbol in particular is used and I've seen that get other Hunters killed. So remember; upright is for protection against evil and is the one you want to use for preventing possession. Upside down is for building defenses and helping to banish something. The associations to modern paganism, especially Satanism, aren't really a thing except feeding into perceptions that it's a symbol used for evil and that's just because modern media is still mostly controlled by Christians and their need to make everything that isn't theirs into something bad so they can keep that control. Not worth watching or listening to, especially if you want to stay alive as a Hunter.
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Psychics
As I’ve said in some other parts of this journal, there are humans who are just born with some psychic abilities. But these powers are pretty low level usually (there are a few exceptions, covered elsewhere) and lead to cute things like palm readers and people who do stuff with crystals or cards or spirit boards. Sadly that also means there’s plenty of fakes out there, which gives the real ones a bad reputation.
If you don’t have such powers yourself, I’d say branch out and make a connection with a real psychic or two. They’re often more than well aware of Hunters and what we do, and they’re willing to help sometimes for the right cause. In the end they’re just people and don’t generally pose a threat, but if you’re this far in you know the drill by now; if they turn bad don’t be afraid to kill them before they go after innocent people.
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Telekinesis
So while telekinesis isn’t a power most Hunters out there are going to have for various reasons, it is still something to be aware of because a lot of what you’re going to Hunt is capable of it.
The word translates roughly as ‘distant movement’, and is most commonly defined by the ability to move objects with the power of one’s mind. Angels, demons, and many ghosts have this power; it’s how they slam doors, throw people against walls, things like that. As a half demon this is also something I’m capable of, though it’s a power I tend to reserve unless I know I have to use it because I know it can be used against me. Many Hunters are shoot first ask questions later, and if a demon escapes or something else gets wind of it they can tip others off to the fact that I’m capable and it just causes more problems than it’s worth.
Unfortunately if you’re just a regular human there’s not a whole lot you can do when something you’re up after decides to throw stuff at you or pin you to a wall or whatever. Hope that you’re not on your own, or that you can kill the thing before it kills you. And while yes, you can in theory ingest small amounts of demon blood and gain similar powers that’s not a path I advise anyone ever take; while a few drops may not seem like much it can become seriously addictive, especially as your body will crave more of it in order to feed your powers and it’s just a really horrible way to end up hurting the people around you and get Hunted so just...don’t.