Roderick Robertson

According to noted Dara Happan naturalist Darlan var Enkorth, Guttas is the disreputable cousin of the regal Vrimak. At one time, according to Darlan, Guttas developed a taste for carrion after a battle with digijelm invaders. His cousin drove him from his court for his filthy eating habits, and Guttas is now found in the wilderness, feeding on death and corruption.

According to the Praxians, Wuyi the Vulture is the younger brother of Yayil the Condor, the “Fourth Feathered Rival”. Vulture was driven from his clan by Condor when he was caught stealing Condor’s food. Since that time Condor has kept the highest places for himself (Such as the eponymous “Condor Crags” in eastern Prax) while Vulture has lived on the Plains.

The Orlanthi say that Glytha the Vulture was created by Humakt to devour the dead bodies of the slain, preventing them from rising as the Undead. He performs an important, though disgusting, service. He, along with Raven and Wolf, form Humakt the Slayer’s entourage.

To the Monotheist cultures of the west, Vultur is universally seen as a creation of the devil, unclean and only one step above Chaos, upon which it lives (the natural decay of a dead body is seen as a “miracle” of chaos, whereby a solid object (the body) is reduced to mere slime and bones). Vultur is not itself chaotic, though it lives on the result of chaos.

Vultures are large birds, the size of large hawks or eagles, with bald heads - said variously to be the result of having his head plucked by a rival (Vrimak in Dara Happan stories; Hare in Praxian ones), or plucked by vulture himself to allow him to stick his head in the abdominal cavity of a corpse without getting his feathers clogged with blood and viscera. Vultures feed upon carrion or near-carrion (those wounded and close to death).

The Wuyani, known as the “Children of the Vulture God”, are a cross of Human and Vulture features; a vulture head perches atop a human body, with a ruff of black feathers around their shoulders. Their fingernails are more like bird talons, sharp and black. While, they are not winged and cannot fly (without magic, at least), their bones are lighter than those of humans, filled with air cavities like a bird’s. Their body can be grey or pink, depending on location – generally, northern Wuyani are white or grey-skinned, while more southern Wuyani are pink skinned.

Wuyani live in family groups of a dozen or more adults, covering a range of a about a hundred square miles. They are exogamous, taking mates from neighboring families. Wuyani normally stay in the wilderness, far from human towns or cities. Many cultures (human or otherwise) consider the Wuyani to be a form of Broo or Harpy (Sometimes they are called “Backwards Harpies”). Their habit of feeding indiscriminately on carrion disgusts almost all non-chaos races, and no-one wants their loved ones to be feasted on by semi-humans!

The Wuyani are theists, worshipping Vuyatok the Vulture God. They do not tell their god’s stories to outsiders, as evidenced by the different stories told about Vulture. Magic provided by Vuyatok includes Detect the Dead, Long Soaring (flying magic) and Long Spit (an augmentation that allows a Wuyani to spit their acidic saliva several dozen yards).

Wuyani physical culture relies on what they can scavenge from the dead around them. Tanned hides and bone implements are common, though the corpse of an intelligent adventurer can provide woven cloth, worked leather and metal weapons. The Wuyani do not need fire to cook their food, and usually only build a fire when the temperature falls below freezing. Then they use the flames both to keep themselves from freezing, and to defrost their food to allow them to eat it. They do not use pottery or baskets – they normally do not need to keep their food, as Death is all around them.

The digestive juices of the Wuyani are extremely strong, allowing them to digest flesh infected with diseases or poisons that would kill other scavengers. They can even eat the bodies of many chaos creatures, such as broo, scorpionmen or Jack-o-Bears, though not the more toxic creatures like Gorp. Wuyani are able to gauge the “chaosness” of a body, avoiding those that have a high chance of infecting the eater with disease or a chaos feature. Wuyani saliva is highly acidic, and they can spit remarkably accurately up to 2 yards, often aiming for the eyes to blind their opponent.

Wuyani are not cannibals – they will not eat one of their own dead. Instead, Dead Wuyani are left for their cousins; true, avian, vultures. They will eat any other dead creature, even the stony dwarfs and woody elves. Leading to some speculation about their origins, since vultures won’t touch those two species.

Wuyani hate Harpies with a primordial passion, and will attack harpies if they try to move in on Wuyani territory. Wuyani won’t eat the corpses of harpies, out of simple disgust. Wuyani will not normally engage in close combat, unless they outnumber their opponents by a wide margin, or the opponent is near death. Harpies are an exception to this rule – a single Wuyani will take on two or even three harpies at once, even if it kills him.

Vuyatok the Vulture God

Vuyatok has many names among the different peoples of Genertela: Guttas, Glytha, Wuyi, Vultur. To the Wuyani, he is Vuyatok, Father and creator. The Godlearners (wrongly, as usual with them) assigned Vulture to the Pelorian pantheon, cousin of Vrimak. Vuyatok is a God, a creature of the God Plane, though some, such as the Animal Riders of the Wastes, worship (or, more appropriately, propitiate) him as a Spirit.

Worship of Vuyatok is only practiced by the Wuyani and the occasional crazed Death Cultist. To the Wuyani he is the Creator, and embodies both Male and Female principles. He is also the Cleanser, fighting corruption by eating the Dead. Without his services, Death and Undeath would reign supreme in Glorantha, and plagues would spread with no check. While the rest of the world sees only the “carrion eater”, the Wuyani see the Cleanser.

The Wuyani say that Vuyatok was born in the so-called “Golden Age”, when armies clashed and creatures died (not, perhaps in Dara Happa under the “benevolent” gaze of Murharzarm, but elsewhere in the world). Vuyatok was born of the Great Bird and Old Woman Death, and found that the taste of Dead Things was preferable to that of plants or stones or living beings. Vuyatok was not a fighter, or a healer, or a lover, or a maker, but was a Cleaner, a Remover of Dead Things.

Vuyatok has never had feathers on his head (he was never plucked by another God, regardless of what other cultures may say – what do they know?). His magnificent wings are black above, white below. He can eat any dead thing, though he prefers the flesh of animals to dead wood or water or rock. He can even eat Chaos, removing it from Glorantha and shitting out non-chaotic waste. Where the chaos goes is a secret of the God –the Wuyani do not speculate on it.

Vuyatok hates the Harpies, though he will not reveal their origin (again, the God Learners and Dara Happans got it wrong – it was not Oria who created them). It is one of the few mandates of worship of Vuyatok that “Thou shalt not suffer a Harpy to live”.

Vuyatok is a God of the Wild. Though he will not hesitate to enter a town if there is Death nearby, he is found more often in the wilderness. Vuyatok can sense the presence of Death. The more Death, the sooner he can sense it – even before it happens, in the case of large battles. Large swarms of his Children will follow armies days before a battle.

Vuyatok gave birth to three children: Vultures, the Wuyani, and the Veselyu Vulture Daemons. Vultures and the Wuyani both live in the Middle world. Veselyu are Daemons and live in the God World, though they can be summoned by worshippers of Vuyatok. The Wuyani are the normal worshippers, but there have been some extraordinary vultures in times past, like Dolm the Stone Eater and Shalu Harpy-bane, who were intelligent and worshipped Vuyatok as heroes.

Worship of Vuyatok is inherent in every Wuyani. Though the eldest Wuyani traditionally leads worship services, ant Wuyani knows the rites. Most ritual objects are the remains of the dead – bones and skulls figure prominently.

Sharduk Sun-face, a Dara Happan scholar and naturalist, claims in his “Rites of Barbarian Animals” that the Wuyani perform “Death Hunt Dances”, willing death on creatures and humans. What he actually witnessed is nothing more than the “Cleansing Rite”, a way for Wuyani to find the dead, much like a Hunting rite in other cultures. They do not will death, simply find it and remove it.

Some, braver, worshippers carry replicas of the Veselyu cleavers, and are less shy about combat.

Worship of Vuyatok as described here is only practiced by the Wuyani. There are no “adoption rites” to allow outsiders access to this cult. Cult practices vary slightly over the lands of Glorantha, though in the main most worshippers will recognize these variants easily.

The cult of Vuyatok is thoroughly intermixed in the daily lives of the Wuyani – one cannot say where “Daily Life” ends and “Worship” begins. The Eldest Wuyani normally leads worship ceremonies, and is called Grandmother or Grandfather. If two bands of Wuyani worship together, the oldest performs the rites for everyone. Worship of Vuyatok provides the normal magical abilities available from a theistic cult. Special magic includes Flight, Spit, Sense Death and Eat Chaos. Affinities (For Heroquest) are Death (especially the “Separation of Living and Dead” aspect) and Bird. The Secret of the cult is to Eat and remove Chaos from the world. A Hero with this secret may remove any amount of Chaos (which it can eat) from the world permanently. Large chaos creatures might require many Wuyani with this secret to eliminate. Wuyani Worshippers travel to Vulture’s Roost in the God Plane, where they commune with Vuyatok.