Halaku, the Raven Hosts
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The day the world ends,
no one will be there,
just as no one was
there when it began.

This is a scandal.

Such a scandal for
the human race that
it is indeed capable
collectively,
out of spite,
of hastening the
end of the world
by all possible means
just so it can
enjoy the show.
-Jean Baudrillard,
"Cool Memories"
Nature: Species of cryptid (one of "the Hosts")
First Encountered: 1.4 "In Sickness and in Health" (as wedding guests)

Notable Appearances:
2.1 "Son, your mind has been transported back in time. And to Mars.", where Skadi comes across Hal having a meeting with a senator in Washington D.C., making him panic and curse her.
3.2 "But Now The Dead Begin To Rise..., where Hal is encountered during the restoration ritual.
3.4 "Ghastly Grim and Ancient Ravens is primarily about the Halaku, beginning with them acting up on Halloween, where Dances-on-Graves bit off Nathuram's finger (instead of killing him, which was the future Hermes had foreseen, and prudently warned him about), up until the PC's twilight-bombed the local "nest" the Halaku had established in the Moth summer house.
3.5 "Your Permanent Record", where Hal shows up at the auction in Prague, and buys a collection of rare minerals & alloys, and a "lesser shatterstar", while everyone is preoccupied with kidnapping, nazi gold, plague, scandinavian seers, and a car-chase through the air with tentacle-monster and fairies.
Interlude "Fall of the house of Schäfer", where Tanze auf Gräben the Gestapo-officer is seen in historical hallucination-"flashbacks", interacting with both Project Übermensch and Project Vajra.
P1.5 "The Tablets of the Hieromagus" where Tanze shows up with several Halaku minions, trying to help Sekhmet, the Seer of Project Vajra, to get hold of the Arc Spear.
4.6 "Body of Knowledge", where it's (finally) revealed that Nobel's sister has been taken over by the Halaku, though the rescue-attempt sadly fails, so hostage negotiations are begun instead.
5.1 "…Couldn't put Þrúðvangr together again", where Nobel hands over the Chariot of Thor to the Halaku in return for them releasing their hold on his sister (without really checking if this is ok with rest of the cabal first).
5.2 "There but for the grace of us", where Dorian, while accidentally visiting the post-apocalyptic future, comes across a gigantic ravine-like collapse in the Shroud separating life and death in the lower levels of Alcatraz. Coupled with the utter absence of ghosts and other necrotic energies, it makes him form the theory that both were caused by the Halaku finally achieving their "apotheosis" because of whatever downfall of civilization had happened in that future.
5.3 "Tick-tock goes the Calendar", where Nobel finally notices (/is reminded of the fact) that the Halaku-"possession" his sister suffered involved her eyes being eaten.
P2.2 "The Siege of Montségur", where Medusa sacrifices a traitor's life to the swarm of Halaku attracted to the battle & slaughter, and enter into a pact with Dances-on-Graves, giving him a name, individuality and power to act more directly in the physical world.
6.3 "Lo! Death has reared herself a throne", where the forces of darkness swarm across San Fransisco, doing some moderate harassment of the Concilium and its membership1, with Halaku being just one of the things invading2.
6.4 "The Hieromagus Cometh!", where there's a second incursion by the forces of darkness, this time doing a surgical strike against both the Shadow Directory in Paris and the Coit Tower sanctum, resulting in them stealing the Graal and Dances-on-Graves finally managing to murder Ahura Mazda3.
6.6 "The Night's Plutonian Shores", where Mazda explains about the evil scheme of the villains.

Info: A strange sort of amalgamation of spirit and flesh, formed into a type of creature which has supernatural powers akin to the former but retains a physical, corporeal body akin to the latter. The Halaku primarily look like ravens, crows and other similar corvids and carrion-eaters, and like these birds they feed off of death, albeit on a more symbolic level than is customary. By consuming the eyes of a human they can possess that person indefinitely, but as long as they do their own bird-like body lies comatose as its animating force is gone. Given that the greatest weakness they have is their tendency to catch fire and be utterly immolated upon experiencing direct sunlight it is assumed they hide their own body somewhere secluded and dark while occupying a host like this. The more powerful specimens would seem to grow strange mutations that make them even more dangerous, on one occasion simply becoming as large as a motorcycle.

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The Book, Page 106:
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The Book, Page 191:

In the beginning times when the world was new and young, with the primordium a recent nightmare and the first city barely having begun being built, the Old Gods walked the earth. Among the greatest were named Thapari4 the clever, Uth5 the glorious one, Urfarah6 the fierce, Iduth7 the beautiful, and many more, but of interest to us is Uha the wise. As brother of Thapari, he too enjoyed playing tricks and fooling others, but unlike his brother, Uha8 always had deeper reasons for what he did. His pranks were not merely done for his own amusement, but also to teach others what they needed to learn, or to give lessons in humility. He was thoughtful and forging plans even when full of mirth, for he saw many things and knew their importance.

Thus was his Nature, just as Iduth would constantly change her form, Uth would never compromise or yield, and Urfarah would always uphold the balance of the World as it should be. In the same fashion would Uha feel the shape of things to be, being neither as fast as Thapari nor as strong as Urfarah, but instead was he patient beyond the measure of all the others, willing to wait for the end of all things. For this he was also: the end of everything, feeding on death and guiding the dying through their final moments. Thus was he doom-bringer and omen seer, and he laughed at all misfortune, for he saw the truth of the world that all others missed. Yet for all this he always knew his place in the world, and never did he step out of bounds, for above all else he was Wisdom.

Now did it come to pass that many of the Old Gods begot children, lesser versions of themselves, each in his own fashion. Urfarah had his Dumusag9, whom he taught to hunt and who went with him as a pack. Iduth birthed her Lushar10, giving of her sublime gifts before leaving them when her next change took her. Uha, in turn, begot three sons, with his might and his powers divided among them. These then were the Hifira Uha11:

There was Nam Uha12, whose jests and tricks surpassed even that of his father, as did his cleverness. Also was Akalu Uha13, the Carrion Prince, whose delight in death and corruption was beyond compare. Lastly there was Uzuga Uha14, who spent more time contemplating all doom that was to come than he ever devoted to the present, seeing omens as he feasted on the entrails of others, using death to divine the secrets of the world.

Three sons, all of them reflecting their own part of their shared father, and all of them mighty and fearful. Yet the wisdom of their father was divided amongst them, with each gaining but a third of the whole, and for this reason is it that but one of them still dwells in the heavens, alive and free. For two of them stepped outside the boundaries of how the world should Be, and were harshly punished for it.

Nam Uha was a foolish being, caring more for his own amusement than his safety. Where Uha would challenge others to games of wit and skill Nam would rather ridicule, lacking the temperance of his divine progenitor. In the end one of his victims was too powerful, and Nam had gone too far, and so a great hunt began. The trickster fled, changing shape and form, hiding and deceiving, yet his pursuer was an implacable foe, and soon Nam Uha began to despair. In the end he was cornered and slain outright. Yet in his haste and desperation he hatched a desperate plan, his final trick, and roughly hid a seed of himself inside the soul of a mortal woman. As it grew and took her over he had hoped to be born again, thus surviving his own demise.

But ah, in his own cleverness he had tricked himself, for he found himself bound to the flesh of his new host and could not escape that mortal coil. He had become subject to the cycle of Life and Death as all mortals are, only able to survive by repeating his trick anew, birthing himself again and again within the human subjects he could fool into submitting. Thus began a new race, a merging of the divine and the material, constantly implanting their children-selves into select mortals, to make sure Nam Uha will never die completely. Thar Akuru are they called, and unto this day do they still seek a way to be free of their fleshy prisons and return to the pure and divine world of the Gods. And so was Nam Uha undone, in the end, by himself; the only one who could ever have outwitted him.

Less known is the story of his eldest brother, Akalu Uha, for his victims dread to speak his name, and his murderers are dust and less than dust, remembered only by forgotten tomes in lost libraries. His sin was that he grew too greedy and soon was not content to wait for things to die in their own time, and so he took matters into his own hands. At first he merely manipulated others, engineering slaughters and murders, wars and desecrations, all to sate his insatiable hunger. Yet this too soon became insufficient for the Prince of Carrion, and in the end he sharpened claws for himself and began to fell his own prey.

This was unacceptable, for as the God of Carrion he was only to feed off of Death, not cause it himself directly. And so there were those who would oppose him, and he would have ended in those times, too arrogant from his gorging to consider his own downfall, were it not for his brother, the middling Uzuga Uha. He had witnessed the death and entrapment of the youngest, Nam Uha, he saw the future dooms of other gods like Bursuma Lubalak15 and Asag Taskarin16, and he knew also that a Hunter would come and strike a death-blow upon his older brother for his transgressions.

Bonds of kinship and family urged him to act, but the knowledge that all of them would be weakened if one of the three Hifira Uha were to be gone forever is what compelled him to intervene in the end. He flew then to his brother, now grown monstrously large from his gluttony and power, and he advised the elder to seek some sort of escape or hope of resurrection should his demise draw near. Prideful he was, Akalu Uha, who was also named Pagru-Nun17, but he knew his brother saw further than any, and so he bethought himself to take certain precautions.

Sooner rather than later did the Dumusag track him down, and he fled from them. Coming upon a small human settlement at the edge of the world he decided to take them as his own, and consume. Yet this place at the top of the world was Hyperborea, and they defied the godling, refusing to let him consume them. Sent they then their greatest warrior, and armed him with their mightiest weapon. Tired and wounded already was Akalu Uha, and potent indeed was that strike, and so it was that the Prince of Carrion was slain.

But he died in the land of mortals, and there his body lay when he fell, and so ravens ate his remains and left naught but bones behind. But by doing so they took into themselves those pieces of his soul that he in his cunning had hidden within his own flesh with insidious crafts. It transformed them, but alas, each shard was not strong enough to claim them fully, though they still became more than mere ravens. Yet the folly of Pagru-Nun was that he had not done the job properly or fully, for no competent creator or innovator was he, and so his souls lay slumbering for many an age, passing from bird to egg, generation after generation.

In the end the great cataclysm struck as Atlantis fell beneath the waves, an event of destruction big enough to awaken the slumbering soul of the Prince of Carrion. Across the land his host-ravens changed and gained new purpose, and powers of divine providence. Thus were made the Halaku, and this is their plan and religion: That only by gorging themselves on the biggest devastation of all can they become powerful enough to merge together and become Akalu Uha once more. And so they act, fool and manipulate. Only by turning the globe itself into a battlefield will their appetite finally be slaked and their bellies filled enough for their apotheosis. And so to this day do they seek the end of worlds.

In the land there are therefore the Thar Akuru, seeking lore and magics to free themselves, the Halaku who spark wars and exacerbate atrocities so they can return to glory, and all the while Uzuga Uha still looks out for his brothers. He is their protector and guide, speaking to them in visions and omens when he can. He is their Totem, for as "children" of his brothers he has become their uncle, of a sort. Though he has his own affairs to tend his consort sometimes convinces him to return with gifts and assistance.

And still there is Uha.

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Known Halaku

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See also: Thar Akuru, Uhamusen, The Dread Fellowship of Apep, Nyx, Gâr, Hyperborea, Helios, Gods of the Outer void, Smart Crows

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To list of NPC's

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