The men of the east fear death. Episcopal priests, sermonizing on gilt steps in the great cathedra of the old world, apostolic monks, meditating in silence as the faithful gather on the sand below to see the withered bodies of the holy man of the pillar, restorationist pastors, delivering fiery sermons beneath moldy canvas to the humble farmers of the new colonies; their practice is dissimilar, but their object identical. The ascension holy men seek is ascension to the life immortal, ascension beyond of the ultimate fate of all men. This is the root of the law of the umbrella, the reason mankind depends on the Tathagata. Without His intercession, uncleansed by His purifying waters and unenlightened by His illuminating flame, man is doomed to moulder in the grave, to wander the land as ghosts and ghouls as their flesh rots and their memories fade til at last the world is extinguished and they with it, gone forever into the black sea of nothingness.
The five cantons of the Dileigh Confederacy have been less than receptive to this soteriology, for they do not believe in the finality of death.
When a man of the Dileigh dies, he does not rise as a ghost or ascend to the pure land of paradise. Instead, he is reborn in animal form, in the land of the dead far across the sea. When he dies in the land of the dead, he will be born again to the Dileigh as a human babe. In this way, the Dileigh already know immortality, for their souls never leave the tribe, only briefly vacation away from it. They need no external savior, for as long as their dead are buried with the mask of the animal they will become, the proper rites administered, and their soul carried off by the crows, their future eternal is secure.
The Dileigh have cousins in the land of the dead, for the reincarnation is circular and flows both ways. The animals of the present world are men in the hereafter. Each of the cantons is born as a different sort of beast when they die, and so they recognize that animal as their own kin, just out of step. They are Cougar, Bear, Wolf, Bobcat, Eagle, and Whale. They are sacred - which doesn't mean they can't be hunted, just that they need to be treated with respect. To kill an animal means to send them back to their people, after all, and it is important to ensure that their departure is properly celebrated to avoid causing offense.
All other peoples also reincarnate as animals in the land of the dead, and all the animals of the world of the living are people in the land of the dead. They don't know it, though, they have no control over the process, and so they reincarnate as prey, as deer and rabbit and salmon and turkey and all the other meat-animals placed on earth for eating. Only the Dileigh reincarnate as predators, only they the secret arts that give them mastery over the cycle and mark them as rulers of the world.
It is the natural right of the predator to take his prey, and so of course there is nothing wrong at all the slaughter either of wild game or the barbarians with the souls of such. Even for game, though, a certain level of ritual must be observed - nothing so elaborate as the ceremonies for the carnivore kin, but some basic respect is necessary, and taking in excess ought to be avoided, for when many prey die angry, the ranks of the barbarians and their hostility swells in the next world. When the barbarians swell in number, and begin to make war on the Dileigh, it is because their cousins across the sea have taken too much game, and sent their souls over without observing the proper rites. When the hunting is especially good, and game is abundant and easy to reach, it is because the same cousins have achieved great glory in war, and slain many barbarians. Thus, the cousins must be placated, for it is on their observance of the proper rites that the Dileigh of the living-world depend, and vice versa.
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The breach of the special relation can be incurred not only through communal neglect, but by individual corruption, and so to there are individual methods of subverting the cycle and reaching to the other world before one's natural time. There are three ways in which the cycle is subverted.
When one of the kin-beasts is killed with profound disrespect, to the point of active disrespect, they are carried off to the next world carrying a grudge they cannot enact. Sometimes, this grudge is of such strength that they cannot bear to pass on, and so when crow comes to carry them away, they play a trick. As soul-form, they walk away from their body, and then lie in the dirt and cry out in distress - when crow comes to collect them, they look to them and beg them for help. "Oh cousin Crow", they say, "While you carried me across the sea the spray slicked your talons, and so I slid through and fell onto the earth. While you carried me across the sea, the crack of the thunder loosened your grip, and so I slid through and fell onto the earth. While you carried me across the sea, the winds shook me out of your grasp, and so I slid through and fell onto the earth. Oh cousin Crow, pick me up once more and finish your journey, bring me to the people of this land".
And so they do, and the kin-beast is reincarnated in human form in the world of the living, not the land across the sea. The result is birth in right form but wrong world, the right sequence but the wrong step, and the person so born is a "Chugal". A liminal entity, they are born already half-dead, a ghost drawn by the order of the world to the land across the sea - their skin pale and cold to the touch, their movements slow, their speech strange, their minds overfilled, the animal memories that drove them to hang on crowding out their instincts and customs as a man or woman. This is the world they come to in the cloak of the beast, and so in donning it they can become briefly as they are meant to, a human cloak of an animal-cloaked soul inside the cloak of an animal, stalking unseen with silent pulse, slipping out alone to avenge themselves on their enemies from a past life.
When one of the Dileigh dies bearing a strong grudge, they play a different trick. They do not journey to the next world at all - instead, when Cousin crow comes for them, they rise wrapped in the skin of the beast and thank Crow for their safe delivery, laying a kiss on crow's black-feathered cheek and showering them in such adulation that Crow forgets the funeral dirge and the deceased waves them goodbye without ever being carried off across the sea. Left behind by the psychopomp, they reincarnate themselves, again in wrong world but right step. Even more fearsome than half-dead with the grudge of beast and body of man is the beast-form with human grudge, and so far worse than the Chugal is the "Tungak".
Worse is when a Dileigh dies, grudge or not, and is left unburied, never wrapped in the skin, the rites never administered, no song to call the crows, and so they cannot go to the land across the sea. They walk the land as ghosts, looking for a skin with which to cloak themselves so that they may pass on - howling in grief, flaying whatsoever they touch with teeth and nail and wrapping themselves in cooling skins - without the administration of the living, though, all of it fails. Thus even more greatly feared is the third subversion, the "Usehoh" ghosts.
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Chugal, Eagle-Canton
No. Appearing: 1, Treasure type: U
2 HD, AC: as Leather (7↧/13↥), Morale: 8
A man or woman of the Dileigh in traditional robes of barkcloth and buckskin, but with pale, clammy skin, a sharp beaked nose, and a utterly bizarre gait, legs moved as if directed by one who forgets that human legs do not bend forwards. Otherwise unremarkable, til he or she hikes up a hood of feathers and flies off in the form of a bird as large as a man.
Move: 90' (30'), Fly: 120' (40'), Intelligence: Very (12)
Attacks: 1 warclub (d6) or 2 claws (d4-d4)
Special: Can don or doff the form of a giant eagle as a full-round action, swapping legs, club, and speech for flight and claws.
Tungak, Whale-Skin
No. Appearing: 1, Treasure type: Nil
A great toothed whale, with all the fierce majesty implied, smooth, grey skin glimpsed briefly before the stroke of a fluked tail protects the awful thing beneath the waves. Not only skin, but black eyes, white flippers, and a small fin - utterly usual, save for one thing - the great teeth lining its mouth are ever so subtly heterodoxy.
13 HD, AC as Chain (5↧/15↥), Morale: 10
Move: 15' (5'), Swim: 120' (40'), Intelligence: Average (10)
Attacks: Ram (4d6, doubled against structures) and Bite (6d6, grapples)
Special: Nonmagical ranged weapon attacks against the Tungak are absorbed into the blubber on hit, dealing halved-damage. After accumulating 25 damage worth of such projectiles (before halving) the Tungak can, in addition to their normal attacks, release all absorbed projectiles from it's backside, forcing everyone within a 80' by 30' cone to save or take 2d6 damage.
Usehoh
No. Appearing: 1-3, Treasure type: U
An invisible something, visible only through the contours in the rotting, bloody hides that drape its form. It is raised upright, and seems something like a man, save the terrifying speed at which it shambles and the utter silence of its movement.
2 HD, AC as Leather (7↧/13↥), Morale: 12
Move: 150 (50'), Intelligence: Average (8)
Attack: 2 Claws (d6)
Special: At half total hp, the Usehoh sheds its skin-cloak and becomes invisible.
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