A Year and A Day: Fear Gorta

Changeling: the Dreaming

Homebrew Rules

Character Creation Guide Download: Fear-Gorta.pdf

Quoth the Fear Gorta:

“A Slice of Bread? A single egg? A can of beans? Anything to spare for a poor sinner?”

Kith Excerpt:

The Fear Gorta, which means the Men-of-Starvation, are one of the three Irish Adhene of Death. As their name suggests, they are death by Hunger. One that the Ireland knows only too well due to the famine that wracked Hibernia in the 19th Century. Between 1845 and 1851, the Great Hunger was the catalyst for more than 1-million Irish dead. The Fear-Gorta were not the cause, as the Irish were generous. The Fear Gorta were nor the catalyst, as the potato blight came from other places. Yet the Fear Gorta, ever a caring Folk, were certainly there to witness.

Today the Adhene family, which consists of males and females despite their name, are a sort of boogie-men among the Irish Fae. The other Adhene pose a threat, the Death by battle as per the Bánánach is always a possibility, and depredations of heart-break caused by the Gancanagh is probably the worst way to go, but the implications of starvation are all too real in too many Hibernian Hearts. Thusly, if there is even the supposed sighting of the Fear-Gorta in an area, all present hold their breaths in fearful anticipation.

With all this said, however, the Fear Gorta aren’t evil, or even what be could called Unseelie. Most of them are cheery and smiling individuals who come seeking hospitality and generosity. Like some great God of antiquity seeking to test the compassion of mortals and judging them accordingly, the Fear-Gorta are reactionary creatures. It is a shame that they are feared as much as they are, for out of all the numerous Adhene Tribes, the Men-of-Starvation are perhaps the kindest and most open. It is a testament to the ugliness of others that their arrival breeds so much terror.

Flavor

“They are dying! They are dying! where the golden corn is growing,
They are dying! They are dying! where the crowded herd are lowing,
They are gasping for existence where the streams of life are flowing,
And they perish of the plague where the breeze of health is blowing.”
– Denise Florence MacCarthy, “A Mystery”