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