The Pine Folk
The Pine Folk are not like other cannibals. Lascarians kill for hunger. Raiders kill for profit. The Pine Folk kill for something they consider enlightenment, and they do it with a smile and an introduction. Scattered across the full length of the Appaloosa Expanse in independent family groups ranging from ten to forty members, they give no outward indication of their intent. They appear normal, nonthreatening, and often identify themselves to travelers by name, either hoping their reputation has not spread beyond the mountains or counting on fear to do the work before dinner.
The hunting pattern is deliberate deception. A traveler encounters what appears to be an ordinary mountain community: Mericans with some Retrograde families, going about their lives. Hospitality is offered. Conversation is made. At the moment of attack, numbers materialize from the tree line that the target never suspected. The victim is bound. Cuts of their own flesh are offered to them as a form of dark communion. Then the Pine Folk consume them alive. This is not desperation or savagery for its own sake; in the twisted theology of the Pine Folk, forcing a person to eat their own body before being consumed is a ritual of revelation, a dark notion of enlightenment that distinguishes them from every other predator in the wasteland.
Individual clans operate independently, with limited interaction between family groups. When Pine Folk families encounter each other, they tend to cluster together temporarily, sharing hospitality the way any mountain community might share a meal with visiting kin. When prey becomes scarce in the Expanse, clans extend their hunting grounds further south and north. The Pine Folk are mainly Mericans, which makes them indistinguishable from the dozens of legitimate Merican communities dotting the mountains. The only reliable way to identify a Pine Folk settlement before the ropes come out is to already know where they live, and by the time anyone gathers that intelligence, someone has already been bound to a chair and served a plate of themselves.
The hunting pattern is deliberate deception. A traveler encounters what appears to be an ordinary mountain community: Mericans with some Retrograde families, going about their lives. Hospitality is offered. Conversation is made. At the moment of attack, numbers materialize from the tree line that the target never suspected. The victim is bound. Cuts of their own flesh are offered to them as a form of dark communion. Then the Pine Folk consume them alive. This is not desperation or savagery for its own sake; in the twisted theology of the Pine Folk, forcing a person to eat their own body before being consumed is a ritual of revelation, a dark notion of enlightenment that distinguishes them from every other predator in the wasteland.
Individual clans operate independently, with limited interaction between family groups. When Pine Folk families encounter each other, they tend to cluster together temporarily, sharing hospitality the way any mountain community might share a meal with visiting kin. When prey becomes scarce in the Expanse, clans extend their hunting grounds further south and north. The Pine Folk are mainly Mericans, which makes them indistinguishable from the dozens of legitimate Merican communities dotting the mountains. The only reliable way to identify a Pine Folk settlement before the ropes come out is to already know where they live, and by the time anyone gathers that intelligence, someone has already been bound to a chair and served a plate of themselves.
Structure
The Pine Folk consist of multiple independent family groups scattered across the full length of the Appaloosa Expanse. Individual communities range from ten to forty members, with numbers swelling when visiting families join. The groups are mainly Mericans with some Retrograde families. Limited interaction occurs between clans, but when Pine Folk families encounter each other they tend to group together and extend hospitality to their own kind.
Public Agenda
The Pine Folk have no public agenda. They present themselves as ordinary mountain communities and give no indication of their practices until the moment they choose to act.
History
The origins of the Pine Folk tradition are not recorded, though their practices have become embedded in the culture of the Appaloosa Expanse. What is known is that these cannibal clans have operated across the mountains long enough that their name carries weight throughout the region. Whether that name inspires fear depends on how far word has traveled; some Pine Folk openly identify themselves to travelers, either to terrorize or because they hope their reputation has not spread beyond the Expanse.
Their methods are deliberate. Unlike raiders who attack with open violence, the Pine Folk give no indication of their intent. They appear normal, nonthreatening, and hospitable. Only when their numbers are revealed does the trap become clear. Victims are bound, offered cuts of their own flesh, and consumed alive in a practice the clans treat as a form of dark enlightenment rather than mere hunger.
Their methods are deliberate. Unlike raiders who attack with open violence, the Pine Folk give no indication of their intent. They appear normal, nonthreatening, and hospitable. Only when their numbers are revealed does the trap become clear. Victims are bound, offered cuts of their own flesh, and consumed alive in a practice the clans treat as a form of dark enlightenment rather than mere hunger.
Mountain cannibals who smile, introduce themselves, then feed you to you.
