“Give back the devil his own.”

 

Admit it. You're the type who believes in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. All of our kind do. You may be more forgiving than some or more brutal than others, but for you, justice is retribution. Chances are, even if you live someplace that doesn't practice capital punishment, you advocate it anyway. "Things wearing human faces" used to mean something different. They were rapists, serial killers, psychos who never knew what conscience was. Now you know "monster" isn't just a figure of speech, and you know how cunning the opposition is, how dangerous. What hasn't changed is how to deal with the problem. Old monsters and new ones rate the same treatment: death. In your old life, you'd have jumped at the opportunity to throw the switch or deliver a lethal injection. Nowadays, your opportunities, your choices, are swinging a blade or pulling a trigger - that, or just standing by. And that's no choice at all.
What's weird is that bloodthirstiness actually seems to preclude some people from hearing the Call with you. A buddy of mine always used to say torture was a good thing. He was there my first time, when it all went down. He didn't see or hear a damn thing, though. In fact, he was part of the crowd that rushed out of the bank. He still spouts off about criminals being killed, but he has no idea what he's talking about - and I can't tell him what's really going on. I don't think he could take the real thing, and if he knew, he might be this far from being part of the problem. You know, a rogue, somebody who goes too far and doesn't care if regular people get hurt in the process.
It's weird because, of all hunters, we're the ones likeliest to shed blood (or whatever some of those things have inside them). The others lack proportion, the idea that the punishment has to fit the crime. Of course, once you start talking about monsters against human beings, about how you "punish" something that sees you the way you see cattle, maintaining a "balanced sensibility" is tricky.
As a kid, you might've imagined yourself as a knight or maybe a gunslinger. Maybe that self-image guided you in adulthood and you became a cop or a prison guard or a bounty hunter. Or maybe it helped end your career when you blew the whistle on your employer. Or it could've remained a fantasy because you never had what it took to make others do the right thing. Then again, you could be like me - that is, nobody's paragon of virtue, but still sure that there are things you just don't do. Theft, that's one thing, but killing somebody over stuff? That's wrong and that'll get you killed. You may lie to yourself and say you don't believe in justice, but the fact is you believe in your justice. For some of us, that happens to coincide with what the courts hand out. For them, the system works and what we do is a necessary evil: "If the government had people like you and me, we wouldn't be doing this." Some see the system as ailing and themselves as the cure. And for some, "justice" is a tool of the enemy, a human idea being used by monsters to cover up the most horrible shit imaginable. You think corporate prisons are good business? Try thinking of them as game preserves.
Not that you should change your mind about anything. Folks in our "line of work" rarely do. Do people kid you about being hard-headed? Inflexible? Get used to it, because our kind has extreme views. You might meet a colleague who seems to share your perspective on the hunt, but then his ideas start to get pretty out there on other religions, races or sexual preferences. Suddenly, you see that your "colleague" is a freakin' nut. Take your beliefs to the limit and others will look the same way at you. Try to remain objective.

Weaknesses: Extremism may be what brought you into the fold, but it might be what takes you out of it, too. It seems like lots of us believed for a long time - long before hearing the Call - that whoever was running things had the wrong idea. That's why so many of us are anti-government, from white-supremacist militia members to black-separatist vigilantes, from Zapatista rebels to Irish Republican Army soldiers. The trouble here is the same as with any insurgency movement: Piss off the wrong federales and they make you their hobby. You don't want to have the authorities actively after your hide (they'll be trying to bust you regardless, so don't make it worse). Believe me, monsters are bad enough by themselves. And if you're one of those who believes monsters are the government, give me a day's notice before you come to my town, okay?
Intolerance goes hand in hand with some extremist activities. It's also part and parcel of some folk's religious beliefs. People with religious beliefs like that scare me. There are all-white groups and all-black groups and all-Asian groups who say their race is the only one that can hear the Call. Be smart and keep a clear sense of who the enemy is here. You know those murders of interracial couples in New England? The police are clueless, but everything about the crimes says it's one of us....
Obsession is a major danger for us. From lunatics who believe in preserving racial purity to nuts who'd blow up a whole building because a monster lives in the penthouse - you'll come across all varieties. Just don't join their ranks, because that makes you the enemy. And you know what that means. If you can't remember the last time you had dinner with your family, or the names of your family members, or whether you have a family (or a job, for that matter), you're obsessed.

Apocrypha: You're probably very orthodox in your attempts to explain your mission and why you were called to it. Traditional notions of good and evil are fine by you. Onward Christian soldiers. Crush the infidels. Make the world a better place. Answers to "Why now?" vary from a cleansing in preparation for the Second Coming to a simple need for humanity to finally reclaim the Earth. By this sort of reckoning, the Messengers get construed as angels, the Holy Spirit or ancestor spirits.
Yet our kind tends to believe in one thing consistently: ourselves. Maybe that's why hunter "cults of personality" tend to have Avengers at their centre. If you can ever get one of these cult leaders to be candid, odds are he'll tell you there are no Messengers, that the voices he hears are his own, that his powers are his "destiny." In all fairness, some of these folks are among the most effective hunters around - but having worshipers still makes you appear suspicious.

The Imbuing: The call to Vengeance is always violent. Someone - or something - almost always dies, whether it's some civilian, his attacker or the hunter in question. You were "reborn" amid death and consecrated in blood. Is it any wonder that the hunters likeliest to fall to the enemy's level are your own kind?

 

STEREOTYPES
Bystanders — Somebody else we'll have to avenge tomorrow. Stay home.
Defenders - While there's certainly value to having someone you can rely on to watch your back, these guys need to learn that the best defence is an ass-kicking offense.
Innocents — Figures it was one of these dumb-asses who went on TV and got himself wasted.
Judges — We can't stand around waiting for their famous "impartial decisions"; there's good and there's evil, and evil must be punished.
Martyrs — Like us, these guys are willing to die for the cause - but what good is dying if the cause fails?
Redeemers — Oh sure, let's "rehabilitate" monsters. That's the friggin' ticket. Idiots.
Visionaries — Yeah, yeah, "vigilance and vision," yada yada yada. Choose wrong and pay the price.
The Enemy - Evil is as evil does. And when it does, we come in and stop it dead.

 

Character Creation: Avengers usually possess high Physical Attributes, but can be weak or fearful people who bolster themselves with weaponry. For the latter, choose high Firearms ratings (and possibly the Arsenal Background), coupled with Wits and/ or Alertness to reflect these characters' view of the world as basically menacing. Outlaws and law enforcers are good starting concepts for this creed, though callously murderous individuals on either side of the law are not. Consider giving hunters who are cops or crooks the Contacts Background.

Starting Conviction: 4

A.K.A.: Adjusters, Knights, Soldiers, the Wrath of God, Vengadores.