Wendigo

Wendigos (wendigowak is the plural in original algonquin) are evil spirits of the native americain algonquin's mythology.

The term "wendigo" is used to designate both the evil spirit itself and the monster resulting from it possessing a human.

## Appearance

In their natural state wendigos are invisible and insubstantial spirits with no given form.

Uppon possessing someone however, the wendigo gradually transform their host every time they consume flesh. The host starts growing in size with no upper limits, becoming emaciated, loosing their hairs and nails while their phalanges grow sharp an burst out of their fingers's skin to create claws, their teeth likewise sharpen into fangs and their tongue grow in lenght. Lastly their skin harden and its texture become similar to tree bark.

A fully transformed wendigo present the general aspect of a corpse mummified by the cold, though likely much larger than a human at that point.

Contrary to modern depictions mythological wendigos do not have antlers or other deer-like features.

## Behaviour

Wendigos are ravenous creatures, perpetually starving as every meal makes them grow so that they're never satiated. As a result they are ferocious, single minded predators who will attack and devour any kind of animal, though they hunger for human flesh above all and will ignore other animals if humans are present.

Hunger makes wendigos impatient thus they normally favour direct, savage attacks when hunting. However they do have some level of animal cunning, being ale to mimic the voice of humans they often uses this power to lure their preys to them. At other times they will inexplicaly stalk a person for extended periods of time without attacking for no appearent reason, though in so doing they causes their victims to go mad and become canibalistics so this might be a way to create more wendigos.

## Characteristics

The wendigo spirit has no physicall characteristics, being an incorporeal spirit, these characteristics applies to the host.

* Size : every time the wendigo consumes flesh its size increases in proportion to its meal increasing its other atributes in turn exept intelligence with no upward limit.
* Strength : the wendigo's stenght is proportional to its size.
* Claws and fangs : after a few feedings a wendigo acquire extremely sharp claws made its fingerbones as well as sharened teeth. This caracteristic does not become greater with subsequent feedings.
* Resilience : as a wendigo feeds its skin become ever harder and more difficult to pierce, While its increased size allows it to survive injuries that would kill a smaller creature.
* Healling factor : whenever a wendigo eat it heals injuries at an accelerated rate and can even regenerate lost body parts, though not entire limbs.
* Speed : the wendigo's speed increases in proportion to its size.
* Intelligence : wendigos demonstrate animal intelligence, being able to use ambush tactics and lure their prey to them, bu lack human level intellect as their incapale of tool use or anithing more elaborate than could be expected of a predatory animal.
* Senses : wendigos possess an increased sense of smell compared to humans, which keeps augmenting with their size.
* Camouflage : after enough feedings the wendigo's skin become similar in appearance to tree bark, granting it camouflage in it's native forest.

## Powers

* Possession : the wendigo spirit can possess any human who have consumed the flesh of another, turning them into a monster. Unlike most examples the possession is permanent, once the spirit has entered the host it can't leave until the host's death. Killing the host doesn't harm the spirit (unless done through specific means, see weaknesses) but the spirit can't affect the physicall world without a host.
* Weather control : wendigos naturally make the area around them colder and can generate storms and blizzards, though they lack fine control over these phenomena, only creating them and ending them, this power is assumed to become stronger as the wendigo's size increase.
* Voice mimicry : the wendigo can mimic any human voice it has heard, often calling for help to lure preys to itself.
* Madness : by stalking a victim for prolongued periods of time the wendigo can drive them insane, they become violent and develop cannibalistic cravings.

## Weaknesses

* While the wendigo spirit will normaly survive its host's death, it won't be able to continue fighting unless another cannibal is available for posssession, which is unlikely. As a result, according to the rules of Crypto X Ing, if its host dies the wendigo will have to forfeit the fight, resulting in defeat.
* Due to their healing factor being triggered by eating wendigos are at a disadvantage in environments where preys are hard to come by, which incidentelly include their own native environement, the canadian forest in the winter.
* Wendigos are repelled by some algonquin holy sigils.
* Burning a wendigo's heart destroy not only the host but the wendigo spirit as well.