Core Rulebook
Eating human flesh is taboo. Violators face a terrible curse, one that strips them of their humanity and turns them into terrifying monsters filled with an unnatural craving to eat their former kin. Driven to the hinterlands, they hibernate until winter begins to tighten its grip. With the first snows come the wendigos, and they prowl the darkest hours in search of people to snatch and devour.
The curse that transforms a person into a wendigo destroys much of their humanity, leaving behind a skeletal body, bones pressing against taut skin, and eyes sunken into skull-like visages, flicking back and forth for any signs of life. With gnarled fingers ending in long claws and mouths filled with sharp black teeth, wendigos have everything they need to pull apart their victims and stuff their greedy maws with raw flesh.
Motive: Hungers for flesh
Environment: Solitary hunters, wendigos drift like ghosts through the snow-covered plains.
Health: 20
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (5 points)
Movement: Short
Modifications: All tasks related to intimidation and perception as level 7; Intellect defense as level 6 when hungry
Combat: A reek of decay and death betrays a wendigo's approach. At first, the stench is nothing more than a malodorous presence, but as the wendigo draws nearer, the smell becomes overpowering. Any foe within a short distance of a wendigo must make a Might defense roll or become sickened. The affected victim’s tasks are hindered. The victim can use an action to roll again and shake off the effects of the stench on a success.
A wendigo attacks foes with its teeth or claws. A foe who takes damage must make a Might defense roll or suffer as the wendigo tears free a gobbet of flesh. The bleeding wound inflicts 1 point of ambient damage each round until the target uses an action to stanch the wound.
Interaction: A wendigo gripped by unnatural hunger thinks about nothing else. After the creature feeds, it becomes lucid for a while—usually no more than a few hours'before the hunger pangs return. During its lucid period, it may regret what it's become, look for those it left behind, or take some other similarly motivated Action
Use: Locals make a regular offering of flesh to a wendigo to protect their people. They prefer to use outsiders as the offerings, and the PCs seem ideally suited to keep the creature at bay.
GM Intrusion: A wendigo howl causes nearby animals to panic and flee, possibly trampling a character in their path, throwing them from their saddle, or otherwise discomfiting them.