Harry Clarke Bestiary Project: The Bull-Witch

Harry Clarke

An old bull becomes crafty and cruel. He wants revenge on the men who have imprisoned him and used him all his life.

A virgin girl becomes aware of her place in the world, and rebels against it. She wants strength and masculine power, the power to run free and to destroy.

They come together to help each other. The bull knows secret arts that run deep in his veins, memories of a distant age when his kind were still wild. He teaches these secrets to the girl. With his consent she tears off his hide, leaving only a flayed corpse behind.

When she wears the hide under the moon, she becomes a bull. She breaks down the doors of her enemies and tramples them in their beds. When she wears the hide during daylight, the old bull rides her body. He uses her voice to spread lies and hatred amidst the community, spurring men to violence against each other.

As long as she wears the bull-cloak regularly, the girl will not age. To keep it fresh she must leave it hanging on a post in the woods. She must remain a virgin, or the bull-cloak will shrivel and die. Eventually her immortality will become impossible to hide, and she will flee into the forest to become a Bull-Witch.

Sometimes Bull-Witches find each other and form covens. They may be peaceful and reclusive, keepers of secret knowledge; or they may be vengeful witches who work in secret to undermine whole societies. After a Bull-Witch has lived one hundred years, her cloak gradually fades away and becomes a phantom mantle on her shoulders, visible only in moonlight. She/he can shift between forms at will, and his/her mind is one with the bull's.

Human form
HD: 2
AC: Leather
Attack: slap 1d8
Morale: 8
Move: Normal human
Silver tongue: 1/day. Target must save vs. magic or believe whatever the bull tells them. If made to believe something plainly impossible, they instead become feverishly ill for 2d6 days.
Bull strength

Bull form
HD: 4
AC: Chainmail
Attack: Trample 1d8+1 or charge 2d8
Morale: 10
Move: 1.5x human
Shadow step: When in deep shadow, can teleport up to 50' into another area of deep shadow.
Bullfear: 1/encounter. Roar triggers primal fear in humans (save vs magic or flee blindly for 1d6 rounds).

Older Bull-Witches may cast spells as per Magic-User.