A harbinger of ruin and a sign of Baphomet’s creeping influence, the Woe Stag is a figure of dread in folklore across the Empire. Tales whisper of its arrival as an ill omen, where it treads, madness festers, the wilds grow restless, and the servants of the Goatmother soon follow. Those who witness the Woe Stag rarely escape unscathed, for its presence alone is said to unravel the minds of the weak and beckon forth the horrors of the deep wood.
Standing beyond twice the height of a man, the Woe Stag is a gaunt, quadrupedal terror draped in tattered moss and loamy filth. Its elongated limbs end in grasping, hominid talons that leave chilling prints in the soil, and its body is wreathed with fetishes, runestone charms and tangled devotionals that clatter softly as it moves. Most striking of all are its immense, crooked antlers, draped in tokens of blood and sacrifice, a grim testament to the cults and madmen who revere it as a divine harbinger of the Sire of Beasts.
The Woe Stag does not hunt like a mere predator. It watches, it waits. It lingers at the edges of firelight, its limpid eyes smoldering with unnatural malice, instilling a creeping dread in those who gaze upon it. Where it appears, the faithful of Baphomet soon follow, the Knights of the Beast, the wretched devout, and worse. Some say it is a herald for greater horrors, a living omen of Baphomet’s coming gaze. Others claim it is a spirit of the forest, twisted by ancient curses and drawn to places where the veil between worlds has grown thin. Whatever the truth, none deny that its presence heralds disaster.
