The Hunter's Rosary

Many are the monsters that lurk in darkness, and many are those who rise against their predation. Yet the night-winds are swift to snuff fledgling flames, and few are left when the sun rises to continue the fight. Fewer still are left who have the ability or the inclination to train the next generation.

Human ingenuity takes the lead where human frailty leaves us lacking. The hunter's rosary is a simple invention, a mnemonic device meant to educate when a proper tutor or literacy and books can't be found. It's a string of beads, with each bead representing a sort of monster and their weaknesses - for quick reference in the fetid lairs of the enemy. The following are the most common beads found on a hunter's rosary:

• An iron bell. For the fey folk of the otherworld, who come from mist-banks and mushroom-rings to hunt men like deer and steal babies away to their grey and timeless halls. Iron and human order are their antithesis. Crossing under a doorway where an iron horseshoe is hung will make them break out in blisters. The sound of church bells repels them. They cannot set foot on sacred ground.
  
• A lump of charred greenwood. For beasts of bursting life, for trolls and treants and all their like, fire, or the acids of industry, are the best proof against them.
  
• A pebble, taken from the road and stained with blood. For the immortals that can be slain by no means, immurement is a solution that can last centuries.
• A silver ovoid, narrowed to a point. The unquiet dead and other beasts roused by the moon can be returned to sleep by its metal. In a pinch, a stake through their joints can arrest them by brute biomechanics.
  
• A rounded chunk of salt. Intangible ghosts, spirits, and demons can move through walls and flesh as permeable membranes, but a line of salt is as solid as stone to them. This bead can be used as a bullet if desperately necessary.
• A ball of pitted copper. For creatures of the upper air and the void beyond. Like lightning storms, it's best to take shelter, divert their energies, or try not to be in their path.
  
• A steel, sharp-edged geodesic. Monsters live in the hearts of men as well. This bead is hard to handle without getting cut. Some prefer to replace it with a child's milk tooth - a reminder: we all begin the same, we can all be ended the same.

It's become a popular fashion for hunters to thread coded messages into their rosaries, should the worst happen to them (rather, the second worst - death is preferable to becoming a monster oneself). A red bead next to another means an exceptionally powerful example of the monster's kind had been found. Two beads with a blue bead between them means two kinds of monsters were cooperating. Several coloured beads in sequence can spell a message or initials with the first letter of each colour's name - perhaps the hunter's hometown, for their body to be returned to. There are many more variations of these coded messages, but the lack of a common standard makes interpreting them difficult for those not familiar with the hunter who made them.

Salt beads for the Waste Wyrm
Soapstone for the slime
Leaden for cavorting freaks
who burn the edge of Time.
"Fine," says the hunter, kneeling in her hall,
"but gold beads mark the Tyrant, who is
master of men all."
-Phlox, friend of the blog & poet, based on Rudyard Kipling's "Cold Iron"