Wild Hunt
The sound of the horn signals the eager pack of hunting dogs soon coming your way, followed by the archfey that personifies the hunt itself in its purest and rawest form. The muscled presence of this bark-masked humanoid archfey, crowned with deer antlers, arrives covered in the furs of their prey, with beast heads hanging from their belt. They find thrill in the act of the hunt, tearing open their victims and leaving only the bones behind, whether animal or humanoid. Ever dangerous, this omen of death is known as the Wild Hunt.
The Wild Hunt is believed to have emerged from the spirit of the hunt itself. The Master of the Wild Hunt, armed with hand axes, knives, and spear, is also a master of the longbow and travels with three fierce but well-trained black dogs, often described as “hell-hounds.” The hounds’ fearsome reputation has been built through stories of them running at incredible speeds when they see their prey, ripping and tearing at their victim once it has been run to ground. The Master of the Wild Hunt plays with his prey, inflicting many small injuries until it’s exhausted and he closes in for the killing blow.
The Wild Hunt is one of few archfey reported to have been seen in more than one forest. It is whispered it moves within dreams to different dwimmers, and that to encounter the Hunt in your dream is an omen of your coming death. Parents in Niere tell their children to cover their ears and close their eyes when they hear the horn; blocking out the announcement of the hunt is said to remove one from any danger. Some survivors of the Wild Hunt have said that playing dead upon hearing the horn will cause the Wild Hunt to simply run over and past you.
Raymondo Johanson’s tales say the Master of the Wild Hunt uses weapons gathered from the victims of previous hunts and presumably displayed as trophies—and as a warning to any who would dare disrupt the hunt. On occasion the weapons of the procession in the Wild Hunt are infused with the magic of the fey and the dwimmer.
