Know Your Kindred – Baba Yaga

Name: Baba Yaga
Clan: Nosferatu
Generation: 4th
Embraced: 5000 B.C.

Also known as “the Little Mother” or “The Hag”, Baba Yaga is regarded as one of the most powerful Kindred in the world. Maybe even the the world’s most powerful blood sorceress. Legends about her vary, with some painting her as a good, kind grandmother. Other tales say she was a crazed, flesh-eating monster. It is believed Baba Yaga is one of three childer sired by the Nosferatu Antediluvian, Absimiliard, who escaped their sire’s blood bond.

There are two versions of her origin story. In both versions, Baba Yaga was a beautiful earth shaman, or priestess. She was connected to the magic of the land and used it to heal and aid others. Then a stranger came to her village. In one version, he was beautiful, in the other he was truly hideous. He fed on the blood of the living and spread disease. Baba Yaga valiantly fought him with her magics to drive him out of her lands. In the end, he embraced her.  He told her how he searched the world for one worthy of his power and he finally found her. He told her how they would rule Russia together and she would forever serve him.

Baba Yaga awoke the next night ugly and deformed. She called upon the earth for aid, but the land rejected her, as she was now dead. Devastated at what she had become, Baba Yaga swore revenge on her sire. She learned her magic had changed, but was still mighty. She broke free from the control he had over her mind, and in doing so, cursed the land itself.

She slept for a millennia, awaking in late winter of 1990. Slowly she built up an army of vampires, corrupt werewolves, mages, wraiths, ghouls, dragons, and at least one demon. They were her spies, messengers, warriors and assassins. In August 1991, she made her move and the Soviet Union fell. The Ventrue, Toreador and Brujah united to stop her.  She destroyed the Brujah council and purged all prominent Kindred from Moscow in a matter of three nights.

Around this time a magical “Shadow Curtain” erected around Russia, cutting off the supernatural in the country from the outside world. This invisible barrier kept spiritual and magical beings who had entered Russia from leaving and prevented other such beings from entering Russia, even through the Umbra. This was the work of the Hag and the magic of the mages in her service, as a way to keep the Garou from gaining aid from the outside.

For much of the 1990s, Baba Yaga’s forces waged war against the werewolves, with both sides taking heavy casualties. Despite the heavy toll, the Garou were able to dismantle the Hag’s power structure brick by brick.

Baba Yaga met final death in 1998, when an ancient Nictuku, known only as Vasilisa, destroyed the Hag. Vasilisa was far older and more ancient than even Baba Yaga. He easily stripped away her magics and turned her into a boiled puddle of slime. After her death, the Shadow Curtain fell with reports of earthquakes outside local Russian villages.

Baba Yaga could change her appearance to intimidate or fighten.  She could be described as being over 8 feet tall, covered with warts, with teeth and claws of iron. But her true form was much smaller and less intimidating. Her back was twisted and humped and her left arm was noticeably longer than her right.

Baba Yaga would never harm a child, as she sees them as pure. And she could not harm a truly innocent person. Only if the child was corrupted and attacked first, would she kill it before the corruption grew further. She killed most creatures by swallowing them whole.

Sources: A World of Darkness, pg 54-55, 57, Clanbook: Nosferatu, Revised pg 97, Nights of Prophecy, pg 98, 100. A World of Rage, pg 71-76. Rage Across Russia, pg 33, 39, 50-51,89-91. Beckett’s Jyhad Diary, pg 268-285.