Hunter: The Reckoning - Hunter Sign 01

 

In 1999, the White Wolf game publishing company published a quirky little game, Hunter: The Reckoning. In this game, your character is like David Vincent in the Quinn Martin TV show The Invaders, a lone voice in a disbelieving world warning a skeptical general public about Horrors walking among us.

Only, in this case, the invaders have been here all along. They are identifiable as vampires, shambling dead bodies, ghosts haunting places and people, beasts who shift shape to look like regular folks, warlocks and witches, and even vampires and worse.

One of the legacies of this old game is Hunter Code, first introduced in the Hunter: the Reckoning Core Rulebook. Back before Geocities was made to go away, I created a list of these Hunter signs, and posted them to one of my sites. It's been a long while, but I want to post these to this blog, and make the sign once again available to the fans of the imbued.

In 2022, Hunter: the Reckoning was rebooted, and the imbued retconned out of the game, which was kind of pointless because the game was all about them - the Nine Creeds, their powers (called edges), their mysterious benefactors (which the imbued called The Messengers or The Heralds), and most of all their lexicon of gang tags called The Word or sometimes The Code, or just simply Hunter Sign.

Recently, a sourcebook for the new game was released, Legacy of Defiance. The theme of this sourcebook was a new element to the modern Reckoning - Lineages, the titular Legacy of Defiance of the book.

This brought up the possibility that the imbued, from the 1999 book, can make a comeback - as a Lineage, with its own Culture, its own Resources, and its own Edges.

Most of all, the imbued can be brought back with a history stretching back to the time of the original game, set right at the start of the new millennium. The first imbued will be, in 2026, pretty mature - late thirties, forties, fifties, even older. A new generation of imbued have come to pass, and hopefully they have been learning from their parents' mistakes.

The imbued are making a comeback. And here are their signs, which I'll be posting over multiple parts.

The Creeds

The imbued are not a unified force. There are nine creeds, each of which serves a different funvtion in The Hunt. These creeds are:-

Avenger: The most direct creed. Usually imbued when somebody they care about is killed, or even turned, by a Hidden. Driven by the need to take back the night, and make somebody pay for what they have done.

Defender: The protectors of the imbued, these keep people, locations, entire neighbourhoods safe. They possess edges of defence and protection, and they give their clients little trinkets which confer protection on them even when their protector is not present.

Hermit: These are odd, rare hunters. They distance themselves from the general hunter and Hidden populations, because they hear a tumult of voices from the Messengers who imbued them. Their clamour only increases, the closer they get, because it turns out that they are receiving not only a stream of messages aimed for themselves, but also messages from The Heralds aimed at the other imbued in the vicinity.

Innocent: The diplomats among the imbued, these inoffensive hunters stand up in front of the Hidden, and provide them with something the Hidden don't generally have. An anchor to attach them to their humanity.

Judge: Instruments of Justice, these imbued weed out the worthy from the unworthy, sorting out the Hidden who are in the greatest need of help from those who willingly prey on the innocent. Those who derive pleasure from hurting people learn to beware the verdict of a Judge.

Judges are the third of the so-called Zealous creeds, the other two being Avengers and Defenders. Characterised by an urge to go out there and take on the night, face to face, their focus is on action.

Martyr: Selfless, devoted Hunters, these are ready to give their all to stop the Hidden. The difference between Defenders and Martyrs is that Martyrs are prepared to lay down their lives to do so. Their primary motivation is to make a positive difference, real change, and end the nightmares for someone, even if they are not spoken of, or even remembered.

They have nothing to lose, and they will go all out in their efforts to bring Light to the world.

Redeemer: The third of the so-called "Mercy creeds," these are the healers of wounds, both physical and emotional. They reach out to their fellow imbued, to bystanders, to ordinary people, and even to the thralls of monsters and the monsters themselves. Devoted to saving the world from pain and suffering.

Mercy creeds are driven to reach out to the Hidden, to their fellow hunters, and to bystanders and even the general public. Their focus is on emotion - from joy to suffering, from rage to grief, everything carried in the hearts of even the most powerful Hidden creatures that reminds them of what it meant to be human.

Visionary: The Big Picture thinkers among the imbued, these thinkers are the master strategists and community leaders. They see what the other imbued might not see, and cut through the others' laser focus to get them to attack more important targets, knowing that doing so may well help those other imbued to take down their own personal Hidden targets in the process.

Wayward: The last of the Vision creeds, the others being Hermits and Visionaries, Waywards are there to lead other imbued into war, pure and simple. The fate of humanity is at stake, and Waywards lead the way because they have no choice. Their Mission, their Hunt, is in their minds 24/7, and it takes a conscious effort to release its urgent call for even a single hour, sometimes.

Of the three Vision Creeds, Hermits and Waywards are called "The Lost Creeds" for a reason. They are among the first imbued, they could predate the imbuings of 1999 by years, and the process of imbuing traditionally leaves them kind of broken from the start - Hermits by their need to distance themselves from humanity, and Waywards with a passion and a penchant for huge violence, and a state of breathtaking desensitisation to that level of violence which gives even the most fervent Avenger or diehard Judge pause.

And these are the creeds of the imbued. I'd like to set up a fan book to bring back the imbued to the Renegade Games reincarnation of Hunter: the Reckoning as a Lineage among the Driven. They're back, and it's only right to bring this action to the new game until such time as the next version of Hunter: the Reckoning, H6, bakes them in to the new core rulebook as a Lineage. As canon.

Next: Signs of The Hunt.