LILITH
by kenneth hite cities n headers on this page KEN WRITES ABOUT STUFF
PUBLISHER CATHRIONA TOBIN AUTHOR: KENNETH HITE LAYOUT: CATHRIONA TOBIN ARTWORK: ANNA KRYCZKOWSKA KEN WRITES ABOUT STUFF Ken Hite has joined Pelgrane as a full- time writer, and we’ve come up with a clever way of using his considerable writing talents. Now, you can subscribe CONTENTS to Ken Writes About Stuff, featuring new LILITH 3 and original Hite goodness every month for twelve months. It costs $24.95 and BABYLON BEFORE AND AFTER 3 as well as giving you a generous 30% THE HERSTORIES OF LILITH 3 discount on the individual article price of $2.95, we’ll be offering an exclusive THE BURNEY RELIEF 3 extra later in the year to all subscribers. WHERE THE LILITHS BLOOM 4
Any time you order, you’ll get all the LOST IN TRANSLITERATION 4 issues of the current KWAS to date. 2 TRAIL OF CTHULHU 4 The latest edition will be added to your LILÎTU 5 order receipt page when it is released, so all you need to do is click on the link DAUGHTERS OF NIGHT 5 in your order email. (If you can’t find NIGHT'S BLACK AGENTS 6 your receipt email, you can get another one sent to you by entering your email LILITH, QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES 7 address here). ESOTERRORISTS 7
Ken describes it as so: MUTANT CITY BLUES 7 LORENA ''LILITH'' BARNES 9 “A burst of Hite goodness that you can imbibe or not as you see fit, secure in LILITH'S CHILDREN 9 the knowledge that there’s another one DYING EARTH RPG 9 coming down the pike in a month at a reasonable price. I’ll be putting about 4,000 words worth of fun together every month — maybe an optional rules system, maybe a longish DramaSystem Series Pitch, maybe a “ripped from the headlines” mini-scenario, maybe a campaign frame or a mini-setting, maybe an extended riff on some worthy intelligence organization or serial killer or astrophysical anomaly. Leave requests in the comments, and I shall take them most indubitably under advisement.” © 2014 PELGRANE PRESS LTD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 3
(“night”) (“night”) , meaning meaning , lilu lil LILITH , meaning a kind of winged demon (see meaning a kind of winged demon (see , scenario awaits those answers. scenario awaits And another part is older than of her legend the alphabet. The Hebrew name Lilith is possibly name Lilith is possibly The Hebrew the alphabet. word Babylonian the with cognate Assyrian word and certainly the with cognate lilîtu whether either Arguments still fester over p.5). the Sumeriancome from word if lil is but demon,” “female and “wind” both in the tree then she first nests in a willow Lilith, the names of the three angels. Talismans marked marked Talismans angels. the names of the three indeed turnwith those names do up in Jewish about from homes in Mesopotamia and Persia so part of the legend is the 5th century onward, “Alphabet.” older than the BEFORE AND AFTER BABYLON
Trail of Cthulhu Trail If, that is, the sculpture depicts Lilith, or rather Lilîtu. Since the “Queen of the Night” (as (as Night” the of “Queen the Since Lilîtu. rather or Lilith, depicts sculpture the is, that If, In 1933, one Roger Homsey (a Syrian importer living in London) deposited a clay bas- (a Syrian importerone Roger Homsey a clay living in London) deposited In 1933, namely Ki-lili. Just ask the angels, however: compromises with Lilith don’t work out like out like work don’t with Lilith compromises however: angels, ask the Just Ki-lili. namely do. one hopes they the item, and inexplicably the modern art dealer Sydney Burney (who left remarkably few few (who left remarkably the modern art Burney and inexplicably dealer Sydney the item, sum. unknown an for it C.B.E.)a with man a for purchased record public the in traces Norman Colville of Launceston in Cornwall, Col. sold it later that decade to Lt. Burney countrythe left almost It a with 1975 in 1974. in death Colville’s until remained it where the Did exportan grant to permit. refused government British the but collector, Japanese Why Lilith? For them? for working Burney Was Syria? Lilith into England from SIS smuggle A her to Cornwall? move the British Museum named her when finallythey did the purchase Relief Burney in 2003) of (instead goddess a as Lilîtu describes inscription Babylonian no and goddess, a clearly is Ishtar/Inanna or Ereshkigal. the Relief represents believe most scholars now a demoness), A either. inscription, Babylonian in any associated with owls never are of course, Who, of Inanna, an avatar of harlots, she is the goddess Danish scholar suggests a compromise: THE BURNEY RELIEF Soon authenticated as a genuine pieces in the British Museum. in three broken relief it depicts a nude (1792-1750 B.C.), about the time of Hammurabi from sculpture Babylonian and carries a horned crown She wears wings. and folded feet talons for owl’s with woman on She stands deities in Mesopotamian art. all emblems of rods-and-rings, architects’ two purchase to declined Museum British The her. flanking owls two with lions, two of back the the herstories of lilith lilith of herstories the Lilith flew away to the Red Sea, to to Red Sea, to the away Lilith flew and in their first month (for girls), and and in their first and month (for girls), with children marked to not kill any medicine: Sanvi (or Sennoy), Sansavi Sansavi (or Sennoy), Sanvi medicine: and Samangaleph (no (or Sanzanui), tried They get the drill). you vowels, she but Adam, to haul her back to to kill all and threatened refused, Thanks to that children. Adam’s of bargaining the angels’ Name, Ineffable threatening by but weak, position was of her demonic to kill a hundred or the or Cain, Adam, children (by Asmodeus) a day or demon Sammael, kill got Lilith to agree to only they children circumcision (for boys) before be chased down by three angels of angels of three by be chased down wife for awhile.) And the story And the story wife for awhile.) -- “Alphabet of Ben Sirach” (ca. 900 A.D.) 900 (ca. “Alphabet of Ben Sirach” -- If the “Alphabet of Ben Sirach” “Alphabet of Ben Sirach” If the “After God created Adam, who was alone, alone, was who Adam, “After God created
just keeps getting good. just keeps different deranged kabbalistic tradition tradition deranged kabbalistic different Lilith was centuries surfaced that later, God’s or deeply deranged mythopoetics, and and deranged mythopoetics, or deeply did Lilith learn just how the Ineffable (In an entirely anyhow? Name of God, er, herstory – the “Alphabet” dissolves dissolves “Alphabet” herstory – the er, It might have try it. to look at when you been written as 700 or as late as early either anti-Semitic satire it’s as 1100, boost to Jewish thought continues into thought continues into boost to Jewish the modern as neo-pagan community history – most of Lilith’s Like well.) providing a surprisingly plucky providing and sure to make female rebel sympathetic feminist (This early the story had legs. nitpicking, it’s pretty powerful. It It powerful. pretty it’s nitpicking, to warns the devout simultaneously while arguments with God, avoid it may have been the most influential the most influential been have it may as a Even dirty in history. joke example of rabbinical straight-faced was intended as a dirty joke at the intended as a dirtywas the at joke then expense of nit-picking rabbis, this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name Name she pronounced the Ineffable this, into the air.” and flew away equal to each other inasmuch as we were were equal to each other inasmuch as we But they would from the earth.’ both created When Lilith saw not listen to one another. you, but only on top. For you are fit only to to fit only are you For on top. only but you, am to be in while be in the bottom position, are ‘We Lilith responded, the superior one.’ the earth, as He had created Adam himself, Adam himself, as He had created the earth, and Lilith Adam and called her Lilith. ‘I will not lie She said, to fight. began beneath ‘I will not lie and he said, below,’ He said, ‘It is not good for man to be alone.’ man to be alone.’ for not good ‘It is He said, from Adam, for a woman He then created
First and Lady of the Night — or First Rebel and Vampires Queen of the forms: Lilith comes in many should, goddess improper a proper Like Sumeria to Red Hook. from and at her sisters in shadow faces of Lilith, a look at the many Herewith, Heroine. KEN WRITES ABOUT STUFF
garden of the goddess Inanna, under murderess.” Interestingly, the initials Isaiah, the word is variously translated as “night the opaque name ki-sikil-lîl-lâ-ke. In a that keep her at bay are S.S.M.; pretty hag,” “screech owl,” “nightjar,” and “Lamia.” In story fragment at least four thousand close to those angels’ names from “Ben the Dead Sea Scrolls containing this passage, the years old (and possibly closer to six) Sirach.” But it wouldn’t be a Lilith word “Lilith” is plural, for extra fun. Lilith is also Gilgamesh chases her (possibly in the fragment without lies and darkness: the pluralized on some of the incantatory bowls buried form of a screech owl) away from her Arslan Tarsh amulets may be forgeries, under Jewish doorways in Babylon, Nippur and nest; she flies into the desert, just as either from around 200 A.D., or from other cities of the Sassanid Empire (ca. 300-500). Lilith did after rebelling against Adam. the 1930s. Or of course, they may have These bowls contained rituals of banishment, of Over that many years, it should been dropped by hasty time travelers. protection, and even an exorcism that divorced be unsurprising that Lilith took on Lilith from the man of the house! many different names and forms, Possibly because of the translation association borrowing elements from such entities LOST IN TRANSLITERATION with the snaky Greek monster Lamia, Lilith as Lamashtu (a female child-murdering But none of those pieces actually entered the Christian world not as an owl but as a demigoddess), Ereshkigal (the goddess name her “Lilith.” That name first serpent. In many cases, as The Serpent: in imagery of the underworld), and of course appears in the book of Isaiah, in a throughout medieval Europe, the Serpent in the Ishtar. By 800 B.C., in the Aramaean chapter written around 720 B.C.: Garden has a female face and torso, and often city of Hadattu in Syria, Lilith Wildcats shall meet with desert beasts, wings to seal the deal. Michelangelo famously resembled a wolf with a scorpion’s tail. satyrs shall call to one another; There painted the Serpent as Lilith, although strangely The “Arslan Tarsh” amulets found there shall Lilith repose, and find for herself a enough nobody wrote anything about it. It’s as in 1933 incorporate a protective spell place to rest. (Isaiah 34:14) though people had learned that Lilith doesn’t like against her, calling her the “demoness Note, again, that Lilith has fled people trying to define her. that flies in the dark,” and the “robbing into the desert. In other versions of where the liliths bloom As befits a five-thousand-year- pedestal in the background. … Here lay Lilith is an entity that exists between old symbol, Lilith wears many faces. the root of a contagion destined to sicken dimensions, her phosphorescence glimmering She presents lovely opportunities in and swallow cities, and engulf nations in in mirrors and other reflective surfaces when
4 almost any game: she would make an the foetor of hybrid pestilence. Here cosmic she touches our space-time. Her primary excellent icon in 13th Age, or the ideal sin had entered, and festered by unhallowed anchor in this reality is a golden throne cast duplicitous daughter of Quandos Vorn rites had commenced the grinning march in ancient Chaldea. If it reflects no light, she in the Gaean Reach RPG. She could of death that was to rot us all to fungous is locked out of our plane. Drinking blood even be a dangerous, retired immortal abnormalities too hideous for the grave’s and marriage to human sorcerers allows her (like Flint in Star Trek) in a Halloween- holding. Satan here held his Babylonish to expand and solidify her existence here. themed Ashen Stars episode. Or use court, and in the blood of stainless childhood Lilith is an avatar or leprous growth or the body of the legend and remove the the leprous limbs of phosphorescent Lilith extrusion of Shub-Niggurath, separated from proper names. Imagine a Fear Itself were laved.” the Dark Goat by some powerful prehuman game in which the Final Girl is revealed -- H.P. Lovecraft, “The magic. She cancerously dreams of replacing as both the slasher’s ex-girlfriend and Horror at Red Hook” Shub-Niggurath, and expanding her own as a rival serial killer; or a TimeWatch identity throughout the sapient cosmos. game slowly focusing on the hunt Lovecraft only mentions Lilith once Lilith is one of the names under which the for the actual first time traveler, who in his fiction, but she takes something Great Old One Mormo is worshiped. defected from Timewatch on her first of a starring role in “The Horror at Red Lilith, the Black Madonna, is a mission and somehow took a universal Hook.” A “naked phosphorescent thing” female avatar of Nyarlathotep. time-machine override with her. who marries the reanimated sorcerer Lilith is one of the weak gods of Earth, created Herewith, some meatier Lilith fare Robert Suydam after murdering his by men’s hatred and fear of women and by for other Pelgrane games. bride and drinking her blood, Lilith women’s hatred and fear of childbirth. Her disappears after Suydam submerges her powers are greater in the Dreamlands, and throne in the black river beneath his among men and women who resonate with Brooklyn mansion. What part, if any, her hatreds. She wishes to draw such people TRAIL OF CTHULHU she plays in the larger Cthulhu Mythos into atrocities – especially infanticide – that “The shivery tinkle of raucous little bells is left unsaid. As with the discussion of they may be sealed to her. In the Dreamlands, pealed out to greet the insane titter of a the other gods and titans in the Trail she takes the form of a beautiful, dark- naked phosphorescent thing which swam of Cthulhu corebook, the following complected woman, or of a giant female gug. into sight, scrambled ashore, and climbed variations on Lilith intentionally Lilith is a Great Old One connected to up to squat leeringly on a carved golden contradict each other. Hastur, and thence to the Element of Air. lilith
Lilîtu
The lilîtu are one of three demons almost always mentioned together in Babylonian inscriptions. The lilû is a male predator on travelers in the desert, while the ardat-lilî (the “maiden” demon) causes impotence and sterility in between ecstatic bouts of … well, according to one tablet, “what your wife won’t do.” This writeup represents the original Sumerian and early Babylonian version of the lilîtu, as nearly as can be determined. (For an ardat-lilî, or for the later lilîtu that increasingly took on her characteristics along with a seductive female form, add the powers from the lamia on p. 152 of Night’s Black Agents.) The Jews of Mesopotamia combined the ardat-lilî and the lilîtu into the lilim, the Daughters of Lilith, spawned to spite God and prey on humanity. The lilim avoid the names of the angels rather than amulets of Pazuzu, of course. They also cannot prey on any circumcised male infant. The lilîtu, in her original form, was the female monster who brought disease and death to pregnant women and infants on the hot southwest wind. Winged and taloned like a vulture or an owl, with the body of a woman (or wolf, or lioness), she could enter any dwelling and steal or kill the infants within. In a modern game, the lilîtu could be part of a child-napping or baby smuggling ring, or batten on the poison infant formula spread by a vampire-controlled food conglomerate.
General Abilities: Aberrance 12, Hand-to-Hand 7, Health 8 Hit Threshold: 5 (winged, Distortion) Alertness Modifier: +1 Stealth Modifier: +2 Damage Modifier: -1 (bite), +0 (talon rake) Free Powers: Darkvision, Distortion, Drain, Wings Other Powers: Apportation (between mirrors), Control Wind, Mesmerism (eye contact or voice), Plague (fever), Read Doubts (as Mental Attack), Regeneration (heals and resurrects completely by next sundown), Stifling Air, Turn to Creature (screech owl, lioness, snake, vulture, wolf), Vampiric Speed, Venom Banes: dogwood, Babylonian or Hebrew ritual of exorcism Blocks: angelic talisman, bowl buried under threshold
Dreads: amulets of Pazuzu 5 Requirements: attack pregnant women, drink blood, drink infants’ breath or blood
Daughters of Night
To translate the lilîtu into Trail of Cthulhu creatures, begin at their beginning: as hybrid scorpion-vultures with little or no human appearance. The Keeper can even leave players assuming they’re dealing with byakhee: the two winged horrors have much in common. Indeed, the lilîtu might be a sub-species of byakhee called up by some forgotten Mesopotamian wizard, now bound to their amulets forever. Make the following changes to their statistics: Change Aberrance to Athletics, and Hand-to-Hand to Scuffling; unlike byakhee, the Daughters of Night have the same ability scores in the air or on land. Either increase bite damage to +0 or allow a second talon rake attack against a target hit by either a bite or talon rake. Bite damage still drains Health from the victim to the lilîtu. Add Armor of -2 vs. any; their tangential connection to normal space means that some blows pass mostly through. Stability Loss is +1 A Daughter of Night can absolutely move inside and between mirrors, including highly reflective surfaces like glass windows. It can still see in pitch darkness, spreads black fever, and fouls the air. Ignore the other powers, banes, dreads, etc. KEN WRITES ABOUT STUFF 6 She spreads her initiation and her I thought. "She is come to suck my blood! — doesn’t appear until the 17th century, in Jewish bargains in plagues and brain fevers and why should she not have it? — it would magical parchments in the Netherlands. blown in on the star-winds. She cost me more to defend than to yield it!" This version draws on the Romantic and modern despises Cthulhu, who imprisoned So I lay still, expecting a shoot of pain. But image of Lilith as Queen of the Vampires, not least her during his reign on Earth. the pang did not arrive; a pleasant warmth from her appearance (as the Daughter of Dracula) Saying any of Lilith’s true instead began to diffuse itself through me. in Marv Wolfman’s bravura Tomb of Dracula series names three times in front of Stretched at my back, she lay as close to me from Marvel Comics. As written, she fits the Linea a mirror summons her. as she could lie, the heat of her body slowly Dracula vampires of the Children of the Dragon Lilith is an Elder Goddess like Bast, penetrating mine ...” setting (Night’s Black Agents, pp. 143-145): her fully reachable only in ecstatic or -- George Macdonald, Lilith ability ratings present her as Vlad Tepes’ equal, similar “out-of-body” states. Her cults which fits the legend. Who, exactly, she was before use sex magic, ritual bloodletting, and It’s hard to say exactly when Lilith becoming a vampire remains a mystery, and one hallucinogenic lotus or lily blossoms to becomes associated with vampirism. that the other Draculesti want very much to solve. commune with her; she guides them The lilîtu of Babylonian lore drank Current speculation makes her either an unrecorded in the best methods of resisting the the life from children; the ardat-lilî infant daughter of Vlad by his second wife Ilona Great Old Ones. As her perspective drained various fluids in pursuit of Szilagy, born at the moment of his vampirization, and plans span millennia, her guidance their proto-succubistic habits. The or his first wife, who committed suicide and rose often includes killing those human Vulgate translation (ca. 390 A.D.) of from the dead when Vlad became a vampire. Lilith infants who show the Old Ones’ taint, her name as “Lamia” identified her seems to be dedicated to aggrandizing her own or seducing weak scions of stronger with the sometimes-vampiric monster power, creating assigns at random, and to thwarting bloodlines to breed superior cultists. of Greek myth. Rabbinic commentary Vlad Tepes’ attempts to unite the Draculesti, in no associated her with the “horse-leech” particular order. In short, she is an excellent wild with two daughters in Proverbs (30:15). card for the agents to encounter: willing to help or NIGHT'S BLACK AGENTS In a medieval Jewish tale of Lilith and betray them for reasons known only to herself. “I was wakened by something leaping upon King Solomon, she has no reflection in Lilith is entirely immune to sunlight, and appears me, and licking my face with the rough tongue the mirror. But an explicit connection in mirrors (except when she spends Aberrance to of a feline animal. "It is the white leopardess!" between Lilith and blood-drinking avoid it). lilith
down. There are indeed a lot of fetus LILITH, QUEEN OF THE skeletons on the site, but “a sacrament MUTANT CITY BLUES of abortion” is maybe too much for VAMPIRES Samuel Remarque, the stodgy gray- “My children will protect me! My haired Yale professor brought on the children! It is all for my children!” program “for another expert view” -- Lilith, Mother of General Abilities: Aberrance 50, Hand-to- to endorse. Werzeli’s halting English Demons, in Ghost Rider/Blaze: Hand 33, Health 33 keeps her from explaining more Spirits of Vengeance #17 Hit Threshold: 7 precisely on her endless round of Alertness Modifier: +3 interviews. She’s always releasing A few months back, petty thief Stealth Modifier: +3 new pictures of a “Lilith and Cats” Lorena “Lilith” Barnes broke into a Damage Modifier: +1 (talons), +1 (bite; bas-relief (already a viral Instagram samey-samey office block out by the extended canines) meme) or a “Goddess Bloodletting airport, only to find that security Armor: -1 (tough skin); Unfeeling Knife” to accompany the sumptuous was way too tight for the façade. Free Powers: Darkvision, Drain (by bite or photo spreads highlighting her own She didn’t bring anything out of the sexual contact), Regeneration (half of all damage lush brunette beauty. weird lab on the top floor of the from physical weapons regenerates immediately; It’s embarrassing how easy it is to building except a peculiar strain the rest regenerates at the next moonrise), Wings research “Werzeli’s” nonexistent c.v. of ghost flu. When the first spell (grow or conceal at will) (And indeed the debunkers, mostly broke, she had a suite of “vampire Other Powers: Addictive Bite, Body Jumping homely people on rightfully ignored powers” and an ability she didn’t (into any woman who hates her father or husband), evangelical blogs, have done so.) know existed. She can bite someone Cloak of Darkness, Control Weather, Dominance, She’s actually Anissa Beroni, an Italian (or exchange fluids in a more Infection (by blood or sexual contact), Magic, pornographic actress. She was hired intimate manner) and transmit the Mesmerism, Stifling Air, Strength, Summoning to pretend to be an archaeologist ghost flu to him – along with one (dogs, lilîtu (see p. 5), mice, monsters, owls, by the Jungend-Ruhelos (“Restless power. Which power is up to her; rats), Turn to Creature (screech owl, leopard, Youth”), an Esoterror cell that she seems to know how to “awaken” raven, cat), Turn to Mist, Vampiric Speed, Venom believes in “flooding the zone” with the chromosomes for a little over a Banes: holy symbols Jungian and other archetypal signals dozen powers. Blocks: angelic talisman, bowl buried under to break down consensus beliefs. The The effect is just as if the target threshold, cannot directly attack Vlad Tepes, artifacts are forged, some made from had the Absorption power, except stake through heart (prevents all movement) 7 other pieces actually looted in Iraq. that her transmission works Dreads: crucifixes and holy objects (Difficulty The “dig site” is a cave set and a green automatically. She can “give away” 4) screen. “Dr. Remarque” is another her Absorption pool to one or more Compulsion: kill infants, never obey a male actor, hired to put up boring straw targets, and spend an Absorption order men, look outmoded, and otherwise point of her own to extend someone’s Requirements: drink blood convince the TV audience of Lilith’s power for an hour. She can also reality. A powerful, millennia-old withdraw her gift with a Difficulty 4 symbol like Lilith has so much gravity, Absorption test. Her targets might ESOTERRORISTS the Jugend believe, that by spinning it be able to resist her influence, but up with hundreds of memetic impacts Lilith has proven quite good at picking weak, easily manipulated “The relevance of two sources previously used to they can open a rift – ideally in that cave in Iraq, where the O.V. response followers for her super-gifts. She connect the Jewish Lilith to an Akkadian Lilitu -- the runs this cross between a cult and Gilgamesh appendix and the Arslan Tarsh amulets -- will be difficult at best. They may be right: they have a gang with nothing more mutant are now both disputed by recent scholarship.” than manipulation, withholding -- Wikipedia article on Lilith accidentally convinced themselves of their own lie: that they’ve stumbled attention (and sex and powers), and rewards (such as sex and powers). It’s all over the news, and on the covers of every onto the site of the First Esoterror Operation, a literal hole torn in the Her “children” do manifest a magazine from Archaeology Today to Entertainment spectrum of flaws associated with Weekly: Italian archaeologist Stephania Werzeli Veil by Lilith just after it came down. For now, the Jugend’s increasingly the powers she can bestow, but that has found the legendary “Cave of Lilith,” an goes with the territory. They also underground matriarchal commune established maniacal Lilith cultism is drowned out in the viral sea they’ve created, tend to develop full-blown SEDS on the fringes of the first cities in Mesopotamia in after a few months of juicing – she 4000 B.C. Admittedly, the precise way in which but if the Veil doesn’t tear in Iraq, it will in Germany when they trigger a ran away from the first case, and the “mirrors, vulva icons, and owl idols” prove just blanked the second one. But the that “a peaceful society of alternate thinkers was string of serial vampire-murders in pediatric hospitals. third case she turned into a human demonized by patriarchal witch-hunters” much sacrifice, bonding her “family” to less “disprove the Book of Genesis” is hard to pin her even more tightly. KEN WRITES ABOUT STUFF 8 lilith
She got her nickname when she was doing black- cloth-of-gold gown. contains not an escape spell but a bags for some feminist animal-rights activists in A truly gifted thief, an abrupt writ of divorce from Lith (signing ’06. But as the flu keeps subtly boiling her brain, transition reveals, is one capable of herself, in full, as “Lilith”) to Chun, she identifies more and more with the rebel stealing the Robe of Eyes from Chun couched in such insulting and mother-goddess from that paperback mythology the Unavoidable. He dwells in a ruined emasculating terms that Chun’s rage book that Ariadne gave her to read back then. temple outside Kaiin – but finding is incandescent. him shouldn’t be too difficult: he is, If they do escape the mirror realm Lorena ''Lilith'' Barnes after all, Unavoidable. To give her and make their way back to Chun’s Athletics 8, Driving 2, Health 10, Infiltration 5, champion or champions (she remains temple (or to Lith’s hut) they find Scuffling 3, Shooting 3 charmingly opaque on such issues) both halves of the tapestry gone. Powers: Absorption 28, Disease Immunity 3, the necessary edge, she offers a Ring Witnesses describe a beautiful witch Fangs 2, Venom (Bite) 6 of Mirrors. Its inner edge polished to who flew away, with a rapidity Alertness Modifier: +1 mirror brightness, it can be expanded exceeded only by her obvious Stealth Modifier: +0 into a hoop of sufficient size and delight, on a sumptuous carpet not Weapon: +0 (bite), -1 (knife), -2 (kick or punch) dropped over the head of one or more an hour ago. people. Those inadvertent explorers Lilith's Children are transported to a world entirely of Possible Powers: Absorption, Alter Form, mirrors. Chun will not know which Command Amphibians & Reptiles, Command is the thief, and which is the illusion, Birds, Command Mammals, Deplete Oxygen, until too late – and without his Robe, Flight, Natural Weaponry, Night Vision, Phase, he will be easily avoidable. Lith also Sexual Chemistry, Spread Pathogen, Wind Control supplies the final element for the plan, Possible Flaws: Depression, Dissociation, a phylactery containing the incantation Erotomania, SEDS that removes the reader and his party from the mirror world, leaving Chun trapped within. The PCs locate Chun in his temple, DYING EARTH RPG lurking behind a tapestry very similar in design to that in Lith’s hut. But upon “‘I am Lith,’ said she. ‘I am what you say I am. I entering the mirror realm they discover ferment, I burn, I seethe. Yet I may have no lover but him first: that Chun can see through all the 9 who has served me.’” mirrors simultaneously, and that the -- Jack Vance, “Liane the Wayfarer” realm also holds hundreds of blinded people stumbling around insisting that As the characters wander in the forest, with this is a world of darkness. Second, only the normal concerns on their mind, they they discover that the phylactery encounter a tiny blue Twk-Man more than usually needful of a few grains of salt to help him avoid the shivering migraines that set in after a salt bender. After brutal and tantalizing negotiation, the Twk-Man reveals that his neighbor, the beautiful and wealthy Lith – who some call a witch, most likely out of jealousy at her sensual attributes -- has made it known that she is at home to suitors whose ambition ever so slightly exceeds their sense of propriety. And indeed she is, with a demeanor of almost overwhelming lubriciousness held in check only by the presence of the other PCs. Her reed hut is lined with a tapestry worked in silks of deepest umber, amber, jet, ivory, and cinnabar. But the true connoisseur’s eye goes to implements of magic that would be vulgar if not for the brio with which the sculptor shaped the raw gold. If asked, Lith avers that “any of her golden treasures might be plundered by a truly gifted thief,” gesturing with understandable if slightly untoward blatancy at her own blonde complexion and translucent