The Hook
Artist Unknown
A boy and girl park away from town, away from lights and judging adults. As windows steam and the couple loses themselves, something is coming for them. Something with a sharp hook, thirsty for their hot blood.
Everyone knows this story. It has been retold for decades – if not centuries – around campfires, in songs, books, TV shows and movies. Every city has its own variation. It is a warning to teenagers that their budding sexual urges may have very dire, and immediate, consequences beyond babies and disease.
And it is very real.
The Hook is a body-jumping parasite that preys on young couples in the heat of passion. A single entity is responsible for every legend, every reported sighting of the Hook. It derives sustenance from the release of fear, pain and sexual pleasure, needing to do nothing more than to kill to feed. Its hunger is insatiable.
Cult: The Hook has no known cult. Certain groups have sought to control the entity in attempt to force their morality on others.
ATTACKS & SPECIAL EFFECTS:
Possession: In order to feed, the parasite must take a human host. Sexual deviant and predators are the preferred habitats, though it may be able to possess anyone it chooses. Possession is automatic, unless the intended host makes a successful POW x 5 roll.
Once possessed, the host body undergoes a shocking transformation, leaving them unrecognizable within a day’s time. The host gains the size and strength of the largest men. Their right hand atrophies and rots away. The wrist bones extend from the resulting stump, and curve into a crude hook-shape, the end becoming razor-sharp.
For all intents and purposes, the mind and soul of the host are lost. The Hook willingly release the body upon the body’s death. Spells to exercise entities from a human may work, but the victim loses 2d20 sanity, and 2d20 POW; being reduced to zero causes irrevocable insanity or death, respectively. Even if the Hook is driven out of a host before the body’s death, the physical changes cannot be reversed.
The Hook, Urban Legend Come to Life
STR: 18
CON: 18
SIZ: 18
INT: 11
POW: 30
DEX: 18
MOV: 6
HP: 18
Damage Bonus: +1d6
Weapons: Hook 50%, damage 1d6 + db
Armor: None, but weapons only do minimal damage and the Hook regenerates 1d4 hp per round. If reduced to zero HP, the host body will die and the parasite will find a new host elsewhere. If there is a way to destroy the parasite, no one has discovered it.
Spells: None.
Skills: Hide 75%, Sneak 80%
Habitat: Lonely areas where hormone-addled teenagers look to escape the watchful eyes of adults.
Sanity Loss: 1/1d6 to encounter the Hook.
Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast
