Rutling

If you see a pink spark in the dark—stop whatever you’re doing. If it’s already inside you? Stop everything you’re doing and just wait it out

— Soki Noles, warning an apprentice too late

Overview

Rutlings are Quarta—minor Redspace Vermin—resonant with what scholars clinically describe as Appetitus Catlitius: the subspace distillation of the biological drive to reproduce. This has nothing to do with lineage, children, or legacy; the Rutling’s domain is the raw, unrefined urge. Lust without romance. Appetite without intimacy. Desire severed from meaning.

They appear in realspace as a dense, fist-sized cloud of gold vapor sparking with pink lightning, visible only when they choose to manifest or when exposed to strong psionic fields. Their real form exists half a millimeter “adjacent” to the prior dimension, feeding on emotional resonance the way leeches drink blood through pores.

A Rutling’s ideal meal is a spike in emotional release—ecstatic pleasure, frustrated longing, pheromonal tension—but they can subsist on almost anything adjacent: yearning, jealousy, obsessive desire, the grief of infertility, even simple boredom when that boredom carries an ache of unmet want.

Though rarely lethal, Rutlings are considered dangerously enabling. They weaken will, distort judgment, and leave targets open to far more harmful predators. For this reason, they are favored tools of Anabus, Lilin, and even the crueller Wights, who use Rutlings to soften prey before making their true approach.

To kthonikers, Rutlings are seldom valuable on their own—unless weaponized with precision.

Behavior and Ecology

Feeding

Rutlings feed by latching onto the subspace shadow of a target, nipping emotional impulses like a swarm of microscopic eels. This feeding:

• reduces Willpower
• heightens base urges
• amplifies existing temptations
• makes targets suggestible—especially to indulgence, persuasion, or seduction

While they lack consciousness as humans understand it, Rutlings demonstrate predator-like cunning: drifting toward dormitories, nightclubs, bathhouses, oases on desert worlds, anywhere emotional tension condenses.

Attraction to Redspace Entities

Rutlings are prized as “softeners”:

• Anabus cultivate them to lower inhibitions in supplicants.
• Preenwights unleash them during interrogations or dominance trials.
• Lilin use them as baits or “primers” before a Feeding.

Even some Sentients use them as mood shapers within barracks or harems.

Value to Kthonikers

On their own, Rutlings are weak.
But in clever hands, they are potent:

• They dissolve resolve during negotiations.
• They cripple discipline in opponents.
• They serve as psychological distraction devices.
• They can mask a more dangerous Calling by overwhelming the target’s self-control.

In short: a Rutling is a scalpel, not a sword.

Callings of the Rutling

All Callings involving Rutlings share a common risk: the summoner may experience sympathetic urges or euphoric spikes. This is normal—if unpleasant—and can be resisted as a Will roll at +3.

Thrust

Regular; Resisted by Will

The supplicant commands the Rutling to strike the target’s shadow with a concentrated impulse of base desire.

Effect:

• Reduce the target’s Will by 1d
• Duration: 12 seconds
• No specific action is compelled; the mind simply destabilizes

This Calling is typically used as an opener—before interrogation, seduction, intimidation, or a more destructive Calling.

Cost: 4
Prerequisite: Sense Emotion or Aura

Buffet

Regular; Resisted by Will

The Rutling floods the target with a chaotic storm of subspace urge-currents—like a “deep-tissue massage” for the animal brain.

Effect:

• Reduce Will for the duration (GM: use -3 as baseline)
• Target takes 1 Sanity Point per minute
• On a critical failure:
• Immediate 1d SP damage
• The target becomes psychically raw (–2 to resist any other mental effects for the scene)

Duration: 1 minute
Cost: 6 to cast, 3 to maintain
Prerequisite: Thrust

Spend

Regular; not resisted unless target unwilling

The supplicant invites the Rutling into their own body (or a willing ally). The Rutling induces an immediate flash of euphoria, followed by a sustained state of calm satiation.

Effect:

• Ecstasy Irritating Condition for 3 seconds
• For up to 10 minutes after, the vessel gains:
  +4 to all Will rolls to resist temptations, cravings, compulsions, or manipulation involving desire.
• This includes resisting other Rutlings.

Cost: 6
Prerequisite: Buffet
Notes: This Calling is addictive.
Each use requires a Will roll at –1 to avoid craving it the next time temptation strikes.