01 Of 05 - Modern Compendium: Deity Family, Part 4 - Genma Headless Horseman

01 of 05 - Modern Compendium: Deity Family, Part 4 - Genma Headless Horseman

Holy crap that took a lot longer than I expected. I did not have a full appreciation for the complexity of this design. @_@

But yes! The Headless Horseman! Introduced to the United States in the early 19th century by Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the Horseman is based on a long-standing tall tale that has surprisingly deep roots in history. Irving’s version of the Headless Horseman is said to be the ghost of a Hessian mercenary who had his head blown off by cannon fire in the Revolutionary War, but there are tales of Horsemen as far back as the Middle Ages. In fact, there’s a good chance that early tales of headless riders were inspired by the long-standing Irish fairy story of the Dullahan, an animated suit of armor that rode a black steed through the countryside, and who could kill simply by speaking the victim’s name.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has always been a popular American myth, especially around Halloween, and its impact on pop culture is pretty easy to see. The Horseman appears on Halloween-themed merchandise every year, there’s a popular Disney short about him – hell, there are even high school football teams that have the Horseman as a mascot, and if that doesn’t say mainstream acceptance, I don’t know what does. The Headless Horseman is unique in one interesting way, though; it is one of the few Halloween monsters that have been able to resist the slide into kitsch. You might see cutesy ghosts and witches at Halloween, for example, but a cute Horseman is pretty rare.

As a uniquely American monster, the Headless Horseman fits neatly into the Genma family. He is right at the bottom, but the Horseman is a powerful demon for its level, and would probably qualify as one of the early special Fusions.

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our extensive Data File, right over (here).

02 of 05 - Modern Compendium: Deity Family, Part 3 - Fallen Hybrid

Say hello to the first member of the Modern Compendium’s Fallen family! In Shin Megami Tensei games, the Fallen family is populated by angels that sided with Lucifer during his rebellion against and subsequent fall from Heaven. They are sort of the Chaos aligned equivalent of the Divine family, which is full of loyal, Law-based angels. In the Modern Compendium, the Divines are benevolent aliens from the mythology of UFO religions, and so the Fallen family shifts, too, becoming a family full of antagonistic aliens. 

The stories around UFOs and aliens represent one of the richest veins of mythology in the modern mind, and one of the more popular tales people tell has to do with the Grey aliens. Often blamed for alien abductions, the Greys are said to perform elaborate and invasive procedures on the reproductive systems of the people they kidnap. These stories have led to theories that Greys are trying to create a race of Grey/Human hybrids, to infiltrate our culture and take over the world.

In fact, the actual purpose of this hybridization varies hugely depending on who is telling the story. Though many conspiracy theorists believe in the whole Greys-are-invading-our-genome-to-enslave-us idea, those who believe in more benevolent aliens tell stories of children with enhanced powers of empathy and kindness. This is best exemplified in this demon’s direct mirror in the Divine family - Indigo Children.

Anyway, I like to think the Hybrid would be roughly equivalent to Melchom or Orias; a low-level Fallen that serves as a common encounter in the early game. Although the Hybrid’s moveset kind of makes it closer to Gremlin, really.

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our extensive and expanding Data File, right over (here).

02 of 05 - Modern Compendium; Kishin Family, Part 3 - Genma Molly Pitcher

Say hello to our very first demon from the Genma family! In most Shin Megami Tensei games, the Genma family is home to demigods and half-human demons. The partially human aspect of this family is really fascinating, so I’ve given this part of the Modern Compendium over to figures from modern American folklore, which is unique in that it consists almost entirely of figures with superhuman powers, yet without an explicit connection to a god or gods.

Molly Pitcher is a particularly popular figure in American folklore. Supposedly, she was one of many women who followed their husbands off to war in the American Revolution. She worked on the battlefield tending the wounded and bringing water to the soldiers (hence Molly Pitcher), but when her husband fell in battle, she picked up his weapons and fought in his place.

Popular history says that Molly Pitcher was in fact an actual woman named Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, who fought in the Battle of Monmouth in 1778. However, there are a huge number of stories that fit the general profile of Molly Pitcher tales, and the deeds of the woman in question have grown to superhuman proportions with retellings. This makes it likely that any stories you hear about Molly Pitcher are actually composites, built from the deeds of dozens of women, not just one.

Thanks to the enduring popularity of her story, Molly sits pretty snugly in the middle of the Genma family. Like most Genma, she’s primarily a physically offensive demon, but she does have some limited healing magic to throw around, too. All in all, she’s a very solid demon for the mid-game.

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our extensive and ever-growing Data File, right over (here)!

(Incidentally I just wanted to mention that I briefly thought about designing Molly Pitcher to look like the Kool-Aid Man, as a reference to that goofy April Fool’s Day joke from a while back. But someone beat me to it. [link])

Warning! Fusion error

Warning! Fusion error

Warning! Fusion error

Program was forced to close by a remote observer Source detected 37.2350° N, 115.8111° W Message included: WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOU

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03 of 05 - ModWARNEDYOUium: KishiWARNEDYOUPart 4 - Enigma JHVH-1

A bizarre paWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUed pseudo-religion known as the Church of the SubGenius, JHVH-1 is inteWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUon of the hierarchical nature of religion. JHVH-1 is known as a cruel and capricious alien god, WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUunclear. The Church says that JHVH-1 came to Earth and reveaWARNEDYOU J.R. “Bob” Dobbs, who received WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUom the deity. The fact that Bob Dobbs looks, apparently, exactly like Ward Cleaver should tell you about how WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUelf takes these stories.

The Church is a mashWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUopular culture, adopting parWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUristianity, UFO religions, conspiracy theories, and even the Cthulhu mythos into a deliberately self-contrWARNEDYOUlogy, resulting in an overarching philosophy that parodies even itself. The Church celebrates “devivals,” urges it WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUk towards Slack, and believes in an elaborate conspiracy dedicatWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUworld and brainwashin WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOU none of these ideas are ever fully explained. It’s a little bit like if Monty Python had invented a religion – the nonsense isn’t coveriWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUonsense is the point.

Though fairly old bWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUndards, the Church of the SubGenius has maWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUopularity through the new millenium, and stilWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUfollowing. Between this and the fact that JHVH-1 fits so squarely into the Enigmas that they might as WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUanother, this deity fits nearly at the top of its family. Though WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOUWARNEDYOU would fit this deranged embodiment of chaos is beyond me.

For more info on this and WARNEDYOUWARNEDYOU the Modern Compendium, have a look at our Data File, right over (here),

Junk Data ends.

we are watching you

01 of 05 - Modern Compendium: Kishin Family, Part 3 - Drake Nucker

The Nucker is a myth on the verge of extinction. See, a long time ago, people thought every stream and lake had its own attendant serpent, and the early Anglo-Saxon people called these critters Nicor. They were said to hide at the bottom of pools of water, guarding fabulous treasure. The beast evolved over time to become a general water serpent, known in modern times as the Nucker.

These days, the Nucker is actually kind of obscure. This actually struck me as kind of weird at first; after all, it seems like every pond and lake in modern times has become home to weird cryptid snake critters, or at least sightings of them. But it occurs to me that most serpents that have surfaced in the last hundred years or so have been named beasts, with a strong connection to the area around them. They serve as a strong identifier of local culture, which isn’t something a more general jack-of-all-trades serpent can do. After all, what kind of sign would a sideshow make for a Nucker? “Come see OUR Nucker, it’s cooler than the Nucker they’ve got over in the next town!”?

Incidentally, a little further back in etymological history the word “nicor” was the Anglo-Saxon word for both “water spirit” and, for some reason, “hippopotamus.”

The Nucker is one of the lowest-leveled demons in the Modern Compendium, and one of the first demons you’re likely to ever encounter. It’s a bulky demon for its level, and actually offers some nice recovery magic for the early game, making it a decent critter to chat up for low level players. It’s also one of the few demons with an evolution, which we’ll be covering later.

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our Data File, right over (here).

01 of 05 - Modern Compendium - Fairy Little Red Cap

This WAS going to be just a reblog to show I updated Little Red Cap’s artwork, but Tumblr doesn’t let you edit your stuff that way anymore. But that’s okay, I’m not really happy with how the old post reads anyway. So let’s do the whole thing over again! 8D

Anyway, Little Red Cap, better known as Red Riding Hood, is a perennially popular figure from fairy stories. The basic story is of course well known; a young girl is sent off to bring food to her ailing grandmother, but she has to go through the woods to get to grandma’s house. Along the way, a wolf stalks her, learns where she’s going, and gets to the house first, where she eats the girl’s grandmother. Little Red Riding Hood arrives at the house and engages in a battle of wits with the wolf, with the girl suspicious of her grandmother’s new appearance. There are a lot of variations on the ending, but usually the girl and her grandmother escape unscathed.

The popularity and extremely long history of Red Riding Hood’s story means there is a huge number of variations on the story. Sometimes the grandmother is eaten, sometimes she’s just imprisoned. Sometimes Red Riding Hood is saved by a woodcutter, and sometimes she outsmarts the beast. Heck, sometimes the wolf is a werewolf and LRRH actually has no cape on. Some scholars believe the story has origins as far back as the 10th century AD, so there may be as much as a thousand years worth of variation to work with here.

There is one major defining thing about the story that never changes. The underlying message of Little Red Riding Hood’s story is that there is a clear delineation between HERE, which is safe, and the scary, dangerous, wolf-infested THERE, and that wandering into it is not a good idea. I feel like that’s a good way to start a Shin Megami Tensei story - by announcing that you’ve just wandered into a very dangerous place that you should not be.

See, Little Red Cap is the Modern Compendium’s Pixie. She’s the first demon you meet, and she’s more or less your introduction to how demon allies work. She’s also capable of mass destruction should you level her high enough, learning Megidolaon at Lv. 65, which is actually a lower level than most other demons who get the skill. I admit this is equal parts a reference to the high-powered late game Pixie of Nocturne and my own love of cute things that are secretly capable of mass destruction.

For more info on this and every other demon in the Modern Compendium, have a look at our Data File, right over (here).