False Hydra

A false hydra is one of the most dangerous foes that a group of players can face. Its mind-altering song doesn't make it invisible, just simply erases itself from the mind from those who hear it. As the hydra feeds on the populace of a town, it gorws As it grows, its sphere of influnence expands; and the ability of those to throw it off within that range wanes.

Seedling

The false hydra enters a town through a humble enough method. Fattened on worms, it has been growing upwards these last few weeks, but has only now broken through the soil. It emerges in a basement, from behind the jars of fruit preserve. Or pushes its face up through a broken cobblestone. And then it begins to sing.

While it sings, it is ignored. It just creates gaps in your attention and then slips through them. It is subtler than invisibility, and more reliable.

At this point, the false hydra is only a torso (presumably about the same size as a man's) buried somewhere in the ground. The neck grows up, up until the head emerges from the ground. The head is only the size of a man's head at this point. It is hairless, and of a pale almost tranlucent white. The eyes are wet holes.

Growth

The hydra eats people, of course. To eat someone, it must stop singing, which endangers the hydra, since it can now be noticed. To make this task easier, the hydra usually drags the unfortunate victim a short distance underground, into a basement, sewer, or small chamber that it has excavated, and devours them there.

A man is walking along a deserted street. Suddenly he realizes that the silence is more profound, as if a loud noise had just ceased. There is a rattle as a sewer grate slides over rough stone. In that darkness, a fleshy face, leering with undisguised hunger. It lunges forward on a thick neck that slides out of the darkness like a sheath, one foot, three feet, six feet long. And then it bites him on the arm and drags him down that narrow gap, yanking and twisting to fit the man's body through that too-small space. And when the sounds of eating have ceased, the song resumes.

The man has family and friends who will notice his absence. But the song of the hydra massages their mind, smoothing the wrinkles on their brain. The hydra has eaten the man, who is now known to the hydra. The song erases the memories from their soft heads. They will not notice his absence, nor remember him.

And in this way, the hydra grows. It's neck stretches long. . . longer. And with it, its influence. Rapidly, more heads will sprout and grow; adding their voices to the song.

But of course, none of this is noticed. While it sings, the hydra exists in our blind spot

The false hydra's song hides the memories of the devoured victims in the same way that it hides the false hydra, but this is not a perfect system.

Wives will wonder why there are men's clothes in her closet. People will notice that no one has lit the street lanterns these last few nights. Churches suddenly find themselves without a bell ringer.

By and large, these gaps close themselves up. The wife will forget about the clothes as soon as she stops looking at them. Or she will conveniently remember how her brother left them there the last time he visited. Or she will, on some level, recognize the wrongness implicit in the clothes, and throw them away one moonless night. She will confabulate, powerfully and constantly.

But part of her mind is cognizant of the disturbance. That part of her mind is distrusted, and sealed away. But that primordial cluster of neurons still fires. A syphilitic madman who has been locked in the attic by his family, but whose mutters can sometimes be heard during the lulls in the dinner party downstairs.