Paitejo

The **paitejo** are a race of vampire-demons in Heronoi mythology.

## Characteristics

Paitejo-mai resemble blonde, blue-eyed men wearing white uniforms. They drive trucks resembling ice cream trucks, and they emerge to kill and eat people. Their primary diet is blood: but if a paitejo eats too much ice cream or blood, it will go berserk and kill and eat anyone nearby, including other paitejo.

Paitejo-mai tend to be accompanied by cold, ice, and frost. They thrive at frozen climates, such as the ice wastes of Keratönö, located deep within Hell. They live in many tall mountain castles ("soul-forges") resembling ice cream trucks, where they extract the souls of evil people from the depths to be churned into ice cream, which is then either sold to other demons for skulls or cursed coins, or eaten on the spot. Anyone who wanders into Keratönö might also see pools of coloured ooze filled with screaming, agonised faces.

Their weaknesses include moonlight, warmth, fire, and hot climates. Sunlight can destroy a paitejo by burning its body to ash, but it becomes less effective in winter due to the colder temperatures, allowing paitejo to wander harmlessly amid the snow. Nonetheless, paitejo prefer stormy weather or night, as the lack of light allows them to stay hidden from their prey and enemies.

Moonlight is more effective against the paitejo than sunlight, because the Moon is the domain of the god Heros, and the most holiest thing of all can destroy evil, including the paitejo. In some traditions, even a simple round mirror can frighten or burn a paitejo, because round mirrors were used by Heronoi to worship the Moon.

According to legend, paitejo were born from crystals borne by icy winds. spiralling into a humanoid vampire hell-bent on eating more people. They usually appear whenever there are people with closer connections to the spirit world, such as the Heronoi.

## History

### Early history

In the early years of the kingdom of Heronoja, the nearby Norse kingdoms sought to plunder its wealth, so they sent warriors to raid the kingdom and take as many Heronoi as slaves. Among those warriors were deranged men, clad in white and bathed in Heronoi blood, to frighten their enemies by pretending to be vampires. One particular party led by a rogue huskarl of the kingdom of Voliska slew the prince as a sacrifice to Odin, smearing their chests and armour with his blood. Within days, they were driven by a desire to kill more people, that they went south and slaughtered more villages. Within the ninth day, the bodyguard of the slain prince killed the warriors and tore off the huskarl's head.

Centuries later, Heronoja was affected by blizzards, and *paitejo* appeared from out of thin air to slay anyone who was exposed to the cold. Those *paitejo* were beings of ice and magic, driven by a desire to kill and drink their victims' blood. The lighter warriors wielded swords and knives, while heavier ones (the "seekers") used axes and hammers of meteorite iron. Patrols were sent out to stop them, but the vampires were more unpredictable and furious.

To stop their threat from exterminating Heronoja, the King permitted ten bands of warriors to sail northwards to the frozen wastes to find the source. Having fought the *paitejo*, those jaded fighters were able to channel their own fear into hatred and rage against their savage enemies, although their berserk rage fuelled a sense of guilt within them. To the north, more bands of Norsemen and Rakolans went on strid-expeditions to investigate the source of the vampires: they guessed that their enemies, like the blizzards, came from the barren north.

Three of the bands were slain as they battled armies of vampires, but the rest were aided by a larger army of Norse warriors who noticed their glowing skin in the blizzard. The Norse warriors also went up north to stop the ice vampires from slaughtering their people: they were also impressed by the Heronoi's ferocity and courage, given that any typical Heronoi would flee in terror. At first, the Heronoi angrily refused to help them, but they eventually agreed to allow the Norsemen to follow them. The combined army of Heronoi and Norsemen then stormed the castle far in the frozen wastes, battling the fallen Celestial that created those vampires.

One of the members of the Heronoi expedition, Karadaru, was a wrathful man who sought to kill the paitejo with his axe-hammer: he was a member of the Royal Executioners. Even though he was clean-shaven and moderately-built, the Norse expedition admired him for his ferocity and rage. They sometimes mockingly called him "an apprentice of Thor".

### Paitejo units

* batuka - sword and shield
* zamaruti - just a sword, very agile
* sugaxakau - savage ice warriors who prefer biting over stabbing
* nabaizau - heavy axemen
* manuwaro - heavy guards with swords

## Legends

### The Lay of the Two Ghosts (Pojewa Dwokeresa)

There was one legend where a setefö was distracted from her hauntings by a rather handsome paitejo. She was drawn to his sparkling face and his chest, which was exposed when he accidentally tore his clean, bloodless shirt after he was stuck on several branches. Horrified by her face, the paitejo dropped his knife and skulls, and ran.

Over time, the paitejo wanders off, and in the process, he starts to regain his memories and his humanity. Likewise, the setefö felt a need to break away from her ghost-curse, sparked by the sight of that handsome ice vampire. She was aided by a forest wight, who showed her things that reminded her of her past life. At the same time, the shirtless paitejo started to feel warmer and warmer as he grasped at portraits and drawings of a lost family and their friends. The vampire was slowly released from his curse, seeking a friend to remedy his loneliness.

The paitejo and the setefö met under a new moon, as other ghosts wandered across the land. Having being created a month ago, the two ghosts got to know each other, blushing as they could not help staring at each other's beautiful bodies. The setefö told him that she was once a beautiful woman who was cursed to become a ghostly slave, but a forest wight helped her become free again by restoring her memories. The paitejo told her that he was just created, so he did not know anything about how to make friends with others. The two spirits slept together, with the setefö resting her head on his arms, and her hair covering the paitejo from the other spirits.

Before dawn, the setefö and her lover decided to kiss. They embraced each other, and in their excessive love, they melted into a puddle. Days later, the forest wight was sad that her friend was gone, but she saw several lost children right next to the puddle, whom she raised as her own sons and daughters.

In an alternate and happier ending, the gods decided to raise the two lovers out of the puddle, as they were touched by the ghosts' dedication to each other. They were turned into tree fairies, clad in splendid robes. Overjoyed that they were allowed to live, the lovers hugged again and followed the forest wight to her wooden mansion, where she brought them to live with her in the forest.

## Trivia

* The paitejo may be inspired by this character from the movie "Legion", Daniel from "Camp Camp", and SCP-490. Their name, "paitejo", means "frost howler" (paitexo/pajexo + jo(rewo), a kind of monster).
	+ Their name may also be derived from "paifang", a type of gate in Chinese culture.
* Pronounce its/his name as "PIE-teh-yoh".
* The name of their domain in Hell, "Keratönö" ("keh-RAH-ter-nuh"), is derived from "gelato", a word for an ice cream from Italy.
* The paitejo were influenced by Vigefionians who hunted and killed the ancestors of the Heronoi every winter. This caused the Heronoi to fear ice-cream, winter, and ice wastes, for such are the domain of the paitejo-mai where they prowl for prey.
* The paitejo invasion of Heronoja and other Norse countries, and the combined Heronoi-Norse war against the ice vampires and the fallen angel that created them, were influenced by the "Winter-Chan" meme from 4chan.

## See also

* Maikogo
* Setefö