The Silver Bayonet: Canada. Trading Company Unit: A Native Supernatural Investigator / Dracula's America: Skinwalker Arcanist

on November 25, 2023

Hello everyone!

Today I invite you to see the first model that I will use when assembling do bands for a Dracula's America and The Silver Bayonet: Canada.

In Navajo culture, a skin-walker (Navajo: yee naaldlooshii) is a type of harmful witch who has the ability to turn into, possess, or disguise themselves as an animal.
The term is never used for healers.

Navajo witches, including skin-walkers, represent the antithesis of Navajo cultural values. While community healers and cultural workers are known as medicine men and women, or by other positive terms in the community's Indigenous language, witches are seen as evil, performing harmful ceremonies and manipulative magic in a perversion of the good works medicine people traditionally perform.

In order to practice their good works, traditional healers may learn about both good and evil magic, in order to protect against evil. But people who choose to become witches are seen as corrupt.

Animals associated with witchcraft usually include tricksters such as the coyote; however, it may include other creatures, usually those associated with death or bad omens. They might also possess living animals or people and walk around in their bodies. Skin-walkers may be male or female

Skin-walker stories told among Navajo children may be complete life and death struggles that end in either skin-walker or Navajo killing the other, or partial encounter stories that end in a stalemate.Encounter stories may be composed as Navajo victory stories, with the skin-walkers approaching a hogan and being scared away.

Non-Native interpretations of skin-walker stories typically take the form of partial encounter stories on the road, where the protagonist is temporarily vulnerable, but then escapes from the skin-walker in a way not traditionally seen in Navajo stories. Sometimes Navajo children take European folk stories and substitute skin-walkers for generic killers like The Hook.