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Benandanti

The Real Benandanti

The benandanti were members of a fertility cult first attested to in the late 1500s in the Friuli region of Italy, northeast of Venice. The people there are culturally separate from the rest of Italy, having their own language and currently existing as part of one of five Italian regions with administrative autonomy. The benandanti were marked at birth by a caul, and believed that their spirits travelled out during certain nights of the year to fight witches. If they won, the harvest would be plentiful. If they lost, the harvest would be bad. Women marked with the caul were also thought to be able to speak with the newly dead.

The two main sources in English on the benandanti are both written by Italian historian Carlo Ginsburg: "The Night Battles" and "Ecstacies." I've personally read "Night Battles." Guy Gavriel Kay's novel "Tigana" also features benandanti, cleaving fairly closely to Ginsburg's account of them. Wikipedia offers a summary of Ginsburg's work that mostly tallies with what I remember reading.

Benandanti in Theah

"Witch" in Vodacce is, of course, strega (or stregone, if there were ever a male witch). An interesting society of benandanti could be made that were secretly fighting the noble strega of Vodacce, but 7th Sea has quite enough anti-sorcery secret societies as it is. The witches the benandanti were fighting would have to be something else.

Northeastern Vodacce is exactly that part of Mantua where Bianco are still said to haunt the mountains. The Bianco are "officially" destroyed, so the Vaticine Church no longer officially hunts them. But in a swashbuckling, pulpy game, no evil is ever eternally destroyed, unless it be by the player characters. Clearly, there are still Bianco out there, practicing their evil in the hidden valleys of the mountains.

The Cymbr are a culturally distinct group of people within Vodacce. While there's nothing that especially indicates they're an analogue to the people of Friuli, they have an aura of "otherness" that fits in well with the unexpected beliefs of the benandanti. And as Sero the Benandanti explains in-character, the Cymbr were particularly well-suited to wander, searching for the Bianco, and their tales and questions would rarely if ever be taken very seriously by other Vodacce. They're all con artists, after all.

They have always been known for having a knack with telling fortunes, holding seances, and other such "chicanery;" those genuinely gifted were recruited by the Hierophant to make sure that the Bianco stayed gone.

The Caul

In 7th Sea canon, the caul is also known to mark out those with Sidhe blood (as described in "Sophia's Daughters"). The GM has two basic options:

1. Everyone with Sidhe blood is born with a caul, but not everyone born with a caul has Sidhe blood.

This is perfectly reasonable, biologically plausible, and likely to throw your PCs for a loop if they've read SD.

2. They really are Sidhe-blooded.

Maybe the benandanti's powers do come from a touch of Sidhe blood. If they'd been "properly" trained, they'd have become Scryers. Instead, trained up according to Cymbr folkways, their powers developed differently and they're benandanti.

The Daughters either aren't aware of the benandanti, or the benandanti are aware of the Daughters - and are hiding from them. They have their own job to do, given to them by the Hierophant himself, and these crazy fairy-ladies with their potions and prophecies just get in their way.

Benandanti Abilities

Men

Four times a year (at the equinoxes and solstices), male benandanti receive a vision of their next Bianco target in their dreams. The vision may be vague, but always includes a glimpse of a face and a geographic area. If the next vision comes and the benandanti has not yet dealt with the Bianco (a common occurance, since Bianco are frequently on the move and tracking them is difficult), the vision typically begins to sharpen up and provide more detail. If a benandanti is prevented from sleeping the night he is to receive a vision, he will experience a waking vision instead, but these are the least easily interpreted.

Male benandanti are expected to seek out the people they see in these visions and, usually, kill them. Benandanti men generally develop the skills relevant to tracking and assassinating a target to appropriate levels. They have also often acquired a good working knowledge of the occult, since Bianco sorcerors frequently end up involved in strange and twisted magics.

Mechanically, although this is a paranormal ability that might be classed as a shamanism or a Sidhe-influenced sorcery, it is not under the benandanti's control. He will get visions four times a year, whether he wants them or not. It is perhaps best represented as a version of the Visions Background. Characters with higher Backgrounds may begin to suffer ill effects if time passes and they have not removed their assigned Bianco threat. (Penalties to Traits or dice rolls could be appropriate; the GM should scale them to fit the temporal scope of the campaign.)

Women

Female benandante can speak with the spirits of the recently dead and with ghosts. This is a 20-point Advantage. If the GM decides that the benandanti are Sidhe-blooded, it is a sorcery; otherwise, it is a shamanism.

To summon a spirit, the benandanta performs certain rituals (taking at least 10 Rounds) and spends a Drama Die. She must be able to identify the spirit she is summoning, at least in general terms ("the ghost who haunts this place" is fine). If she wishes to create a protective circle around herself, she must spend another Drama Die. This circle will prevent a ghost (including mirror ghosts, Unraveled, and other Thean spirits) from harming her, so long as she remains within it. The benandanta and a number of companions equal to her Resolve can stand within the circle.

Spirits of the recently dead (killed within the same Story) remain long enough to answer three questions, or fifteen minutes, whichever is shorter. Ghosts can persist from that minimum limit to as long as they like once they are summoned, and many will wait for the benandanta to leave her circle. Spirits may only be summoned once before departing to their final reward; ghosts can be summoned so long as they continue to exist.

Neither ghosts nor spirits are compelled to answer the benandanta truthfully. Spirits know only what they knew in life, and asking them about the afterlife confuses or angers them. They will cooperate (or not) with the benandanta according to their nature in life: the spirit of a miser is unlikely to reveal the true location of his hidden wealth, but a murder victim might be eager to name his killer. (Or, if he did not see his killer, whomever he suspects killed him. And the spirit may or may not be clear about the distinction.) The benandata will need to use Cold Read, contested Sincerity, or Interrogation skills to make the most of her interview.

Ghosts are, overall, malevolent creatures with the power to harm the living. A benandanta may summon one for Heroes who are there to try and put it to rest, but they hesistate to call upon them just to ask questions. But ghosts can have extensive knowledge of events that have occured in the area they haunt, especially if the ghost has been there for years. None know exactly how they came to be ghosts and their perceptions of the afterlife may be highly subjective. They can speak on the subject, though, if they are asked and if they are inclined to answer truthfully.

Benandanti Responsibilities

These Cymbr claim that they were commanded by the Hierophant to pursue the remnants of the Bianco family and prevent them from causing any further harm. Most outsiders (and some Cymbr) consider this one more outrageous Cymbr tall tale - a framing device for a storyteller to spin out a yarn of "his" battles with Bianco and their hellspawned minions.

The benandanti certainly have no current connection to Vaticine City. If there ever was a conversation with an Hierophant, it was a long time ago and it only happened once. The benandanti are not a holy order; they are just simple men and women with an extraordinary gift who believe they have been called to use it in this way for Theus and the Vaticine Church.

Babies born with the caul are not necessarily informed of their calling; it depends on the customs and taboos of their family group. But their parents and relatives keep an eye on them, watching for the onset of their power. It usually manifests, in adolescent boys and in girls, as a very realistic and memorable "dream" in which they leave their bodies and fly out over the countryside. Once this comes to pass, the boy or girl is sent to study with another benandanti, to learn how to use their abilities.

Untrained Benandanti Men

The ability of benandati men to "see" Bianco is amazingly specific. One would suspect that Cymbr boys born with the caul have always tended to have some sort of special power; what was it before the Bianco family even existed?

At the GM's option, an untrained (or retrained) benandanti man can receive a vision of any wrong or evil which he is then bound to try to correct. The underlying theme of the benandanti vision is of good men going out in spirit to fight bad men. Through training, the Cymbr have narrowed this focus down to "bad Bianco men and women," but an expanded view is possible.