Wendigo

Pathfinder's Wendigo

Ithaqua, from Call of Cthulhu

The Wendigo is a supernatural spirit from Midwestern Native Amercian mythology that possesses those who engage in cannibalism. Descriptions of what it looks like and what its capable of vary wildly. Some say that the possessed person grows bigger and bigger every time they eat someone, til they eventually get to be kaiju size, others say that the wendigo runs so fast that its feet burn away from the friction and its legs end in ashy stumps. Lots of modern art depicts it as a sort of were-deer beastman (because when people think Canada, they think caribou), but the original legends had no association with deer.

Folklore

The Wendigo is a creature of the winter famines; those who succumb to desperation in the face of hunger and feed themselves by dining on the flesh of their own kind are possessed by an evil spirit that kills them and twists their body into a new form. For obvious reasons, the Wendigo are associated with greed, cannibalism, murder, and cultural taboo.

Folklore often serves to enforce a practical lesson, and with the Wendigo, that's obvious: don't eat other people! Besides that being incredibly antisocial, there's also legitimate health reasons to do so, as at least one kind of prion disease, Kuru, is transmitted through this kind of act -- basically, if you eat an infectee's brain, your own brain may begin rotting as infectious prions convert your neural tissue into yet more infectious prions. Granted this prion is only found in Pap New Guinea, but still.

The wendigo is actually so ingrained into First Nations culture that there exists a mental illness called Wendigo Psychosis that only affects Native Americans, wherein the afflicted either has a pathological craving for human flesh or has an irrational fear of becoming a cannibal .

Appearance

Wendigos are given different appearances in different regions, although the general nastiness remains pretty consistent. One of the more iconic versions is a emaciated, skeletal, man-deer monster, often with a naked skull for a head. Other versions include creepy giant ghoul-like monsters and frostbitten giants, sometimes with the original human form visible inside the chest (rather like the Dungeons & Dragons Devourer, actually). All Wendigos, however, are described as being enormous, towering above ordinary people. They're often described as being footless as well; their supernatural speed turning their feet into little more than bloody stumps.

Powers

Wendigos are associated with winter, and often said to be able to call forth massive blizzards and howling gales, making winter far nastier. Other common tricks include teleportation and/or moving faster than the eye can see, voice mimicry, raking claws that can rend men apart or pull out their hearts, a freezing-cold touch that lets them kill without using their claws, and the ability to induce madness and cannibalistic hunger in others.

Most tribes consider even speaking their names to be taboo, especially during winter.

Another part of a story is that if you hear your voice being called forth from the woods, you need to have your friend or family member tie you down, Chances are the wendigo will leave you alive but with a sore asshole.

/tg/ Relevance

August Derleth adapted the Wendigo into the Cthulhu Mythos, saying such myths are either misremembered encounters with the Great Old One Ithaqua, or tell of victims transformed by his malign influence. Ithaqua has appeared in multiple editions of Call of Cthulhu.

Pathfinder, given its willingness to adopt non-European mythical beasts into its ever-growing arsenal of beasties, naturally features Wendigo as one of its more prominent - and powerful! - monsters.

In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Wendigo are one of the Garou tribes. They were chill (no pun intended) Natives who got screwed over by the European Garou and are still salty about it to this day.

D&D has had two different wendigos, one in 3e's Fiend Folio, and a tanar'ri in 4e's Demonomicon.

The day in which a Neckbeard Encounters one, though this will likely result in the neckbeard being seen as a tasty treat and getting Murderfucked out of existence, because cmon when was the last time you saw a fat fuck outrun a supernatural man eating beast, never. Though the unrealistic part of this is a neckbeard being outside let alone in the woods.

The Garou Tribes
Black Furies	Bone Gnawers	Bunyip	Children of Gaia	Croatan	Fianna	Get of Fenris	Glass Walkers
Red Talons	Shadow Lords	Silent Striders	Silver Fangs	Stargazers	Uktena	Wendigo	White Howlers

Gallery

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  Call of Cthulhu

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  D&D 3e

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  D&D 4e

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  Ithaqua in Pathfinder