Dark Chicago    This Thing of Ours    The Veil      Things That Go Bump

"Go a few blocks that way, and you gotta watch yourself. Lotta guys down there still think it’s the ’20s, and they’ll pull out a Chicago typewriter over a look they don’t like. Few blocks the other way? If you ain’t the right color, you’ll be lucky to crawl out with just a beating. But that way — you don’t ever go that way. Two blocks down, you cross a line into his domain, and the things he’ll do to you make what they did to Hymie Weiss look downright pleasant."

Of all the threats tied to the Veil, it is the creatures that breed the deepest fear. Some are ancient things, warped by exposure to currents of raw power no mortal mind was ever meant to understand. Others are newer — born from resonance storms, failed rituals, or places where the world itself has gone thin. Whatever their origin, all Veil creatures share a few terrible traits: they do not think like us, they do not hunger like us, and they do not stop.
Some stalk the forgotten corners of the city — nosferatu under the Loop, ghouls in the train yards. Others slip unseen through the cracks until it is too late. Physical weapons can sometimes kill them, but not always; often, the only defense is avoidance, containment, or bargaining — a devil’s choice at best.
Every community has its own stories: the neighbor dragged into the sewers, the child lured away by laughter that wasn’t human, the mist that rose one night and left only silence behind. In a world shaped by the Veil, monsters are not myths. They are neighbors, predators, and reminders that power always comes with a price.

Ghosts & Spirits

Ghosts are not the lingering souls of the dead — not really. They are the emotional wreckage left behind when death and the Veil collide: echoes of fear, rage, sorrow, and betrayal caught between worlds and because we got all that in abundance in Dark Chicago, ghosts are not uncommon by any stretch. Some ghosts, like the victims of the Chicago Fire, those seven poor suckers from Valentine's Day in '29 or the infamous Resurrection Mary, hold a semblance of form, recognizable enough to terrify those who cross their paths. But they do not think, and they do not reason. They follow the grooves carved by their final moments — reaching, wailing, lashing out at anything that stirs the old pain.
Others have no form at all: poltergeists that erupt in mindless violence, rooms that seem to breathe anger, streets where the air hums with despair until it breaks into sudden, deadly force. Ghosts rarely kill outright, but the terror they spread has led more than one soul to madness, accident, or a panicked death. They are reminders that not even death can always put the past to rest.
Residuals Ghosts stuck in a loop — replaying their death or last strong emotion over and over. They don't react to the living unless disturbed, but when they do, it's often violent and sudden.
Poltergeists Manifested anger or grief without a mind behind it. They lash out blindly — throwing objects, slamming doors, ripping rooms apart when emotional energy spikes.
Banshees Screaming spirits tied to death — their wails mark an impending tragedy. Seeing one usually means someone nearby isn't long for the world.
Shades Dark, formless spirits that cling to sorrow or fear. They feed on negative emotions and tend to drift through Bleed Zones or collapsed neighborhoods.
The Mourner Rare, but terrifying: a ghost that attaches to a single family line, following them for generations, drawing out their tragedies one slow, bitter death at a time.
The Echo Man A haunting that talks back — repeating voices of loved ones, luring victims closer, until the living start forgetting who they are and what's real.
Hollow Haunts Not a full ghost, but a place scarred by trauma — a room that sobs, a stairwell that breathes, a hallway where the walls seem to bleed sorrow.

The Undead

The undead are the Veil's most visible insult to the natural order — bodies that should rest, but don’t. Some are stitched back by accident, caught in a resonance storm or a botched ritual. Others are called up on purpose by fools who think they can bind death to their will. Either way, the result is the same: things that walk, crawl, and hunger without a soul to steer them.
Most undead aren’t clever. They don’t plot, they don’t scheme. They’re driven by raw, stubborn instincts — to feed, to find warmth, to scratch at the edge of whatever blurry half-memories still linger inside them. A ghoul doesn’t attack you because it hates you; it attacks because your blood smells like something it remembers needing.
Ecologically, undead cluster in places heavy with lingering resonance: old hospitals, abandoned churches, plague burial grounds, collapsed tunnels. They don't form societies or hierarchies — not unless something smarter and nastier is driving them. Left alone, most undead stay local, haunting a neighborhood or a patch of land until either the Veil energy fades or something destroys them.
Common examples include:
Shamblers: Slow, decaying corpses animated by pure Veil overflow.
Ghouls: Faster, hungrier, twisted by long exposure to corrupted resonance.
Wights: Dead that retain a scrap of cunning — enough to stalk prey, set rudimentary traps, or flee danger.
Drowned Ones: Corpses saturated by Veil-tainted waters, bloated and reeking, often carrying disease across the floodplains of old Chicago.
While rare, there are whispered reports of more intelligent undead — revenants fueled by obsessive hatred, skeletal figures who remember names and faces, and worse. If the Veil finds something powerful enough to anchor into, sometimes the dead get clever again. And clever is a lot harder to survive than hungry.

Blood Suckers

The thirst for blood isn’t a disease — it’s a wound left when something brushes too close to the Veil and tears a hole in what it means to be human. Blood suckers come in many forms, from the bestial to the beautiful, but all of them share one thing: a need to feed, not just to survive, but to exist.
Some were made — cursed by failed rituals or botched pacts. Others just are, products of the world’s wrong places where life and death blend too close. While the old tales talk about vampires charming their prey with silken words, in truth, most are closer to apex predators: cautious, territorial, and vicious if cornered.
Blood suckers are solitary by nature, though they sometimes form uneasy packs around dense populations or strong Veil resonance. Old neighborhoods, sewer tunnels, forgotten speakeasies — anywhere they can hunt unnoticed.
Common examples include:
Nosferatu: Misshapen, sewer-dwelling feeders — more rat than man.
Leeches: Sophisticated parasites that move among humans like wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Strigoi: Shapeshifting blood-drinkers known for their predatory cunning and brutality.
The Hollow-Blooded: Vampires so corroded by the Veil that they bleed shadow and madness instead of blood.

Werebeasts

Werebeasts aren’t cursed people. They’re people who’ve been torn partway out of this world — warped by resonance, infection, or ancient pacts twisted by time. Where a man ends and a monster begins is a question nobody wants to answer when there’s a werebeast bearing down on them.
Most werebeasts are creatures of hunger and rage. They are driven by raw, primal instincts: to hunt, to dominate, to defend territory. Some retain scraps of human memory and guilt; others lose themselves completely.
They thrive in border spaces — the cracked edges of city slums, the fields beyond the last streetlight, the misty marshes where the Veil hums a little too loud. Werebeasts often hunt alone but will sometimes band together for brief, brutal periods during seasonal resonance surges.
Common examples include:
Werewolves: Classic predatory shapeshifters fueled by rage and instinct.
Skinwalkers: Shamanic monsters that wear stolen skins like camouflage.
Ratmen: Disease-ridden wererats that infest sewers and abandoned rail yards.
Howlers: Half-transformed, mind-broken werebeasts who never learned to fully shift.

Devils, Demons & Infernal Entities

Not everything from the Veil bleeds or breathes — some burn. Devils, demons, and other infernal entities are not just twisted monsters; they are ideas given weight, fear and temptation and ruin dragged into flesh and fire.
Some slip through Veil rifts opened during desperate wartime experiments. Others are drawn by summoners who think they can chain hell itself to their will. Few survive long enough to learn otherwise.
Infernal creatures thrive on emotion: fear, anger, lust, despair. They don't just attack; they erode. Neighborhoods rot around them. Families tear themselves apart. Churches fall silent. They are less predators than infections, and their presence leaves scars that last for generations.
Common examples include:
Imps: Minor infernal tricksters who delight in sabotage and suffering.
Tempters: Demonic entities skilled in offering deals — and damnation.
Ruinspawn: Urban blight made flesh, thriving on decay and despair.
Pitborn: Brutal footsoldiers of the hell-realms, armored in fire and spite.

Constructs & Abominations

Some things were never born. Constructs and abominations are mistakes — deliberate or accidental. They are the leftovers of failed magic, broken promises, and hubris made flesh and sinew.
Constructs are built, often intentionally: protection golems, ritual guardians, twisted homunculi. They start with purpose — and too often lose it. Abominations, meanwhile, are what happens when resonance tears at life without design, when the Veil drags creatures together into something no sane mind would dare create.
These creatures linger near sites of major Veil disruption: abandoned factories, ruined labs, condemned churches, deep tunnels dug where no tunnel should go. They rarely reproduce, but they persist, mindless or half-aware, carrying out broken fragments of whatever purpose birthed them.
Common examples include:
Wicker-Men: Ritual constructs of wood, bone, and blood, fueled by forgotten prayers.
Homunculi: Artificial life stitched together by forbidden Veil alchemy.
Sigil-Golems: Animated guardians powered by unstable glyphwork.
Broken Things: Failed creations that drag themselves through the ruins of old magic, mutating endlessly.

The Fey

While the Veil is unpredictable, it still follows certain patterns. Spells are used because they work. The creatures of the Veil also have typical behaviors, habits and ecologies.
Then, there are the fey. The fey are different. The fey have no rules.
They defy logic. Reason means nothing to them. They are as alien to us as the elder gods — but unlike the gods, they are not remote. They walk our streets, slip between our buildings, and meddle with our lives when it amuses them.
When dealing with the fey, all bets are off. There may be a "price" — or they may forget to ask for one. There may be danger — but not the danger of a vampire’s hunger or a ghoul’s claws. The danger of the fey is the danger of a storm: utterly chaotic, beautiful, and without reason. It could level your house — or water your crops and leave you blessed for generations.
Giving a list of examples of fey isn't always the best approach because most of them seem downright appealing. If I told that if you are near the lagoon in Jackson Park and happen to see the most gorgeous woman you can imagine, laying naked and begging for you to go to here, that you should run as fast as you can, what are you going to tell me? Exactly. You can ask around, the fey got more faces then Heniz has pickles. Instead It would probably be better to tell you about some of the things they do to us mortals.
Time Distortion: A few minutes spent among the fey can translate into hours, days, or years lost in the real world. Some never fully return — their bodies age normally, but their minds remain trapped.
Memory Theft: Fey bargains often involve stealing memories — names, faces, whole lifetimes stripped away as payment, leaving victims hollowed out or convinced they are someone else.
Compelled Obedience: Those who accept even the smallest favor from a fey risk falling under binding geas-like conditions: forbidden from speaking about the favor, forced to complete impossible tasks, or suffering physical pain if they resist.
Veil Taint ("Fair-Sick"): Prolonged exposure to fey spaces or creatures causes humans to mutate subtly: eye color shifting unnaturally, skin patterns changing, emotional volatility rising. In severe cases, people become "fey-touched" — unpredictable, volatile, half-inhuman.
Debt Without Warning: The fey have no concept of "free gifts." Accepting food, shelter, a coin, or even a favor without explicit refusal creates an invisible debt — one they may call in violently, decades later.
Reality Distortion ("Mirth Zones"): Areas heavily influenced by fey presence warp reality: gravity bends, colors blur, logic frays, and human-made laws break down.