We've had threads where we discuss vampires and werewolves. Can we have one where we discuss wendigoes?

We've had threads where we discuss vampires and werewolves. Can we have one where we discuss wendigoes?

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i don't know jack shit about wendigoes besides stories from /x/
they're from native american myths right?

Yes. spirits of cannibalism i believe.

We went through a phase a couple of months ago where there was a wendigo thread every day. I'll see what I can dig up.

That would be appreciated dode.

One of the issues with wendigos is that there isn't even a consistent origin story for them. In some areas, they're evil spirits. In others, they're corrupted humans. In others, they're humans inhabited by evil spirits. Even their size and physical characteristics are hugely variable. The only real consistent thread between all the folklore is that eating human flesh is really really bad.

While this gives you a lot of leeway to do stuff with them, it also can make your life harder because a lot of the actual lore is conflicting.

Well...I actually prefer the idea of Wendigo psychosis compared to the real thing. I find it more interesting how it's just people gone insane due to desperation.

Maybe a warp thing then. spirits that slowly break down an individuals mind until they're ripe for possession.

Not even that, though, it could also just be straight-up decided-upon cannibalism that turns people insane. I kinda like the idea of the adventurers arriving in some distant frontier town in the dead of winter, only to find out the place is in ruins and these malnourished, shambling beastlike humanoids are running around.

I like it. Nice and spooky, the real terror would be the mystery, for the game world, of whats driving these people into such horrific insanity.

>Famine victims hate him!
>Click HERE to learn how one Algonquian tribesman made dinner with the help of 2 relatives

Like, it also just ties into the mythos of the Wendigo, since it's essentially an undead creature that preys on humans and eats dead flesh, which is also an act that transforms a person into a Wendigo in the first place, hence the Wendigo psychosis thing, which is a real thing.

Do you need an origin story? What's the story for dragons?

>implying true wendigos don't still live in the Canadian wilds
>2017

In Europe Christianity has dragons as the devil, but further back than that i think the Norse had them as demons of Ragnarok.

I didn't say that, I just said the Wendigo psychosis thing is (granted, only potentially) a phenomena that can occur when a person is driven to cannibalism due to desperation. It was documented at some point in time, but I admit that those claims are potentially made up.

I kinda like the idea of their being a wendigo life cycle. Where it infects the body and makes it more beastly overtime before eventually expiring.

Veeky Forums actually had a wendigo expert.

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/44551658/#44551658

archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51148976/#51148976

Sounds plausible. I'd be pretty upset if I had to eat a person desu.

Just like skinwalkers, a few years ago they were this spooky new supernatural creature no one had heard of, and so they go overused to the point that everyone into supernatural stuff hates hearing about them.

Kinda like zombies in the early 10s.

I guess my point was more that because every tribe essentially had its own idea of what a wendigo is, if you're just discussing "wendigo lore" as a topic you're not really discussing a single mythical creature, you're discussing an archetype.

That sounds good. wendigoes start out humanish if a bit fucked up looking but over time grow more beastly and decayed like going form the ones in until dawn to pic related.

I never really liked the bestial type of Wendigo. I like the human aspect of it more.

same. still a good concept though.

When I think of Wendigoes I think of the movie Ravenous. Also the Tim McLean murder.

I use them in my games as forces of nature that even monsters fear. Fucking vampires and trolls will flee an area if a wendigo is on the move.

Pretty much, slowly its a human body being twisted by some terrible disease parasite or magic .

I remember in deadlands you could turn into one by eating flesh in the typical areas,even unknowingly however there was another type of wendigo that occurred if you hoarded food to the detriment of others.

killed one as awakening in my Hunter game.
Coincidentally, the wendigo's true identity was Shia Labeouf

Simple, you choose one of the two to be the wendigo and the other is called a ghoul

I like the Masters of Horror interpretation that gives subtle Dhalsim/stretchyarm powers to the wendigo.

>Tim McLean murder

I had never heard of this before and now I'm a little nervous to read that the dude who killed him is walking free without supervision

Well I remember a post online about you walk by about 36 murderers in ones lifetime on average.

What do you guys think of Until Dawns take at wendigoes? Know it's /v/, but it is relevant to the thread.

I liked how they moved, It reminded me of insects with the whole 'move quickly and pause'

Basically my preferred way of portraying Wendigoes in media. Love how they're just humans who gave in to starvation and retain their humanoid form.

Welcome to Canada, Land of the Progressive!

Decently spooky with a side of tragic, I liked them

Even that sarcasm felt generous to describe Canada's political system.

No

Fuck Wendigos

The part where you see the actual time lapse of the miners files in the asylum turning was creepy, especially when you walk up to see a film of a dude spasing out and climbing up a wall out of sight. Wonder if there is a gif somewhere that shows just that.

Probably.

I also just thought that part where they talk about Beth and Hannah in the mine shaft and how she turned into a Wendigo due to eating her sister's dead body due to desperation was really damn disturbing and tragic.

The best kind of horror

The bestial ones are supposed to be ones that had to eat beasts instead of humans, sort of a lesser windigo

I really liked the moment when Mike is moving through the asylum. Hell all of Mike's solo parts, its a really good representation of a relatively normal guy choosing to become a goddamn hero. Theres no sudden realisation of "I must save everyone" but just pushing down the horrific shit in your mind and focusing on living and ensuring as many people as possible survive.

True. Josh also picked the worst possible timing for an epic prank.

He was a good exception of a jock becoming a awesome dude, fighting Windigoes with his trusty wolf side kick. I now picture him on the DOOM cover in knee deep in wendigoes.

I don't dispute the dubs but, how's that work? Not paying thanks to the animal they kill or something?

Most likely its eating the meat raw and not thanking the animal spirits. Since a wendigo starts as a human whose human spirit becomes corrupted.

I like the imagery of a lanky, putrid human body with the half-rotten skull of an elk, branches for hair and long claws instead of hands.

THAT is what I picture when I read about the wendigo.

I think 4e's Demonomicon had a pretty good take on wendigoes.

I believe the diagnosis is based on voluntary cannibalism, specifically choosing to eat human flesh when there is an alternative.

It's essentially a cautionary tale, rooted in truth- "Cannibalism is bad."

Sad there's only one good movie about them

They're pretty much ghouls in low fantasy and hunger avatars in high fantasy. They're too "open source", to say it somehow, to really discuss since you can make them be and do whatever you want.

Thing is, every culture has it's origin story for it's version of the dragon, the vampire and their gods.
Wendigo is only present in north-american folklore and even then it's ridiculously inconsistent within the same community's lore.

Or like how people insisted in seeing "The Rake" despite constant reminders from the original somethingawful poster that it was a fictional piece, same with Slenderman.

Either what said, or by a hungry wendigo eating an animal after becoming a wendigo from eating a person. I don’t know how “traditional” it is, but that how I have heard of them.

Give this a read.

Ghouls are a type of low tier Djinn who joined Shaytan during his rebellion

In my setting, Wendigo are the result of a curse made by a malicious spirit called the Hollow. The spirit had been summoned by a powerful shaman, to help his people make it through the winter. While the Hollow did help, by giving them bountiful food, it demanded the offering of their last-born children.

When the winter passed, the shaman tried to sacrifice the children, but the tribe stopped him and tried to execute him, believing he was the only link the Hollow had to their world. When they buried the shaman, the Hollow used his corpse as a vessel, and attacked the village, whipping up a sudden blizzard to trap the people within.

Less than a dozen managed to escape in time. When the storm died down, the people that remained were either dead or dying. The Hollow offered the dying a chance to live, and forced them to eat the flesh of the very children they'd refused to sacrifice. The people were driven mad, and the Hollow had his payment.

After that, those that survived became murderous, insatiable cannibals, attacking other villages and eating every living thing they could find. And each time they ate, the larger they grew, until the most deadly were towering over the pines.

While the curse is limited to those of the original tribe's bloodline, the escapees were the ones who passed on their ancestry, leaving more and more other tribes exposed to becoming Wendigo. They say that those with weak wills hear the Hollow whispering to them at night, driving them to feast on the flesh of their people.

You drunk? How many mythologies ACTUALLY explain where dragons come from? The myths are as varied within the cultures as outside. And overall the algonquian natives tell the same legends about Wendigos.

Celtic myth has a dragon emerging as a result of a dwarf's accursed gold and the greed of those who take it. Fafnir's legend.

Hey so Im from Quebec so i have quite a good idea of how wendigos work. Even there i am fascinated by legends and old stories from back when Quebec was called New-france (sounds better in french desu).
The reason wendigos are so inconsistent is because its a native myth and as such passed from person to person however i do have the most common form of it so here goes.

The wendigo is a man cursed to become a extremely dangerous beast by eating the flesh of other men, usually in winter when the food is missing and the dead from starvation are plenty. The wendigo is a creature that is eternally hungry, always looking for food. The more he eats, the bigger and stronger he becomes and yet, the hungrier he is. Its even said that a nearby wendigo causes the winter to become more powerful, nonstop snowfall and hunger follow the Wendigo like flies. There is no "Source" to this curse, its simply an irrefutable law of the world. Its never really said if the wendigo has a weakness, i assume killing it the way you'd kill a moose is the only way and that would take quite some firepower to do so if the Wendigo has eaten enough.

>Fafnir
>Celtic

C'mon lad. Still doesn't explain the other dragons in Norse myth.

Depends how you use it. I'm always happy to use 'common but unfamiliar' monsters like wendigo and other native American folklore. Its pervasive enough that a player has an idea of what they are dealing with without being likely to have any idea HOW to deal with it. Unlike vampires and werewolves where everyone goes for the stake and the silver, players don't usually know something like piercing a wendigo heart with fire.

I ran a CoC game that had the players steal and transport a wendigo across the Canadian border without knowing what it was until too late.

I'll write it out when I get home later if anyone wants.

Most of them are representations of various sins or taboos (Niddhogr), or the spawn of curses of deities mistakes (Fafnir and Jormugard). It's not terribly difficult to delve deep enough to find the reasons they exist. There is usually a reason for them all, but we rarely get to find out.

I read a shitty modern supernatural-romance action..series thing once that did the wendigo interestingly. I don't know shit about them normally but this series set them up were-beasts who had eaten human flesh and died alone and unclean.

Lycanthorps had a society of some kind and put significant emphases on the soul. Even their criminals and monsters where burned in death and sent to the afterlife clean. A wendigo is something denied that. All the hunger and madness that dominated it in life linger in the cold of death. the result is a freeze-burnt corpse. Pitted by frostbite and shrouded in an aura of lethal, unnatural cold. It is rabid hunger given form.

Newsflash friendo, there ain't a single origin story for ANY fantasy creature. That's what makes it great, you can do anything you want with them.
Just don't notify "purists" (that is to say autists) on here and you'll be fine.

You're missing the other guy's point, though. This person said that we can't discuss Wendigo because the myths are too varied and have no base origin story. The guy you're responding to is pointing out the flaw in that logic because many other mythical creatures (including dragons) also fit that bill.

It was a tangent because one person refused to believe Wendigo are interesting, simply because they didn't know enough about them to be part of the discussion. Hopefully, we've ended that shit here so we can actually talk Native American myth.