The Slaughter

Art by Sandpaperdaisy

The Slaughter is one of the fourteen major Entities. Its domain is pure, unpredictable, unmotivated violence. It has strong ties to war. It is the fear of not knowing, where, how, when or if pain will come but that it will, and can be violent like a frenzied killer or calm and regimented like soldiers firing on the battlefield.

The Slaughter is frequently associated with music, in particular various kinds of pipes, as well as battlefield music.

Episodes About this Entity

• MAG 7: The Piper
• MAG 28: Skintight
• MAG 42: Grifter's Bone
• MAG 76: The Smell of Blood
• MAG 95: Absent Without Leave
• MAG 105: Total War
• MAG 116: The Show Must Go On (Partially)
• MAG 117: Testament (Partially)
• MAG 125: Civilian Casualties
• MAG 137: Nemesis
• MAG 160: The Eye Opens (Partially)

Associated Characters and Creatures

• Amritsar Ghosts: The phantoms of British troops that massacred almost a thousand unarmed civilians in Amritsar, India. They manifest as a singular fused being, an angry mass of flesh and guns.
• Charles Fleming: A British Second Lieutenant who served in the First Opium War onboard the Nemesis. He was followed by the dead of all he killed as he wandered a land left barren and uninhabited by war, resorting to cannibalism to survive as the ghosts killed anyone else he encountered. He eventually found a shrine to him whose walls were marked with the names of the ghosts that followed him, and his eventual fate is unknown.
• The Deserter: An Italian deserter who had gone gotten and fled into the mountains of Appennino Centrale. He picked off the men send to kill him with sniper fire until they tracked him to a cave filled with the dead of ancient wars, which opened their eyes and began to sing. He was killed on the spot by a firing squad when his final pursuer cornered him, though no such group was in the cave with him. He may also have been marked by The Corruption.
• Grifter's Bone: A band whose music drives all who hear it, whether in person or on recording, into a murderous frenzy.
• Melanie King: Host of the Ghost Hunt UK YouTube channel and employee of The Magnus Institute, who was shot by the Amritsar ghosts and infected by the bullet left lodged in her leg.
• The Piper: An aspect of the Slaughter that appears during wartime. It appears as a heavily scarred, three-faced man with many hands holding weapons, playing musical instruments, or saluting. It plays its pipes before a battle and only those fated to die in the upcoming attack can hear its tune. Rarely some who hear its music will survive to spread the word of Slaughter, but will die when the larger conflict ends.
• An unnamed Avatar of the Slaughter that interrupted The Stranger's ritual in 1787 by killing the main dancer with a cannon.

Locations

• Cambridge Military Hospital: A military hospital in use since 1879 and closed in the late 1990's. Though marked by the Slaughter it was fairly subdued, rousing only against intrusion by avatars of other Powers. It was eventually demolished without incident.

Artefacts

• A knife that drives the holder to kill anyone in sight and eventually turn it upon themselves.
• A train car from the 11th US Army Hospital train, which perpetually smells of blood. Opening the car reveals a pool of blood covering the floor of the car and a body bag, as well as the hostile spirit of a WWII medic driven mad by Slaughter.
• An old paperback book capable of driving an entire village to slaughter each other by any means necessary.

Ritual Information

The Slaughter's Ritual is known as The Risen War, and was last attempted during World War 2. It involved the playing of instruments on the Nemesis, an English ship sunk during the Opium War, while prisoners from the Japanese North Point POW camp killed each other, and disciples of the Slaughter watched garbed in uniforms from bloody battles. It ultimately failed without outside intervention; Gerturde Robinson speculated that the Nemesis was meant to be bombed in order to complete it, and notes that they could have sailed into Nagasaki harbor some years later, during the atomic bombing, and had the ritual done properly.

Connections to Other Entities

• The Stranger: an avatar of The Slaughter appears to have stopped The Unknowing from happening in 1787. These two entities also share an affinity for music. In MAG 28, Stranger avatar Sarah Baldwin was attacked for trespassing at a military hospital while recording for Ghost Hunt UK.
• Between seasons 3 and 4, Melanie protected the Magnus Institute using Slaughter-related abilities.