As it was in Ireland, home of so many changeling kith and centre of Tuatha de Danu rule, so it was with a thousand other creation myths throughout the world. Each continent, country and hamlet developed its own traditions, seemingly different and startlingly the same. In each place resided an archetypal elder darkness and a guiding light, twin pillars of humanity's collective unconscious. In another culture on the other side of the world, pre-Vedic India and ancient Persia, dream casts its own bewildering array of creatures. Among these a class of beneficent creatures called Asuras and Devas.

- Denizens of the Dreaming, White Wolf Publishing

The Asura were potent but mortal demi-gods, power seeking and dangerous creatures with supernatural or divine abilities. A class of titans or demons, the enemies of the gods and of men. The Devas (Sanskrit "divine") were the flip side of the same coin. One of many divine powers, roughly divided on the basis of their identification with the forces of nature into sky, air, and earth divinities. In the Vedic age the Asuras and the Devas were both considered classes of gods, but gradually the two groups came to oppose each other. Eventually Hindu mythology came to believe that the Devas were Gods the Asura, their enemies, were demons. Prajapati, the creator being, was the ancestor of both Asura and Devas, the former chose to follow falsehood and the later chose to follow truth. In the Time of Myths, the Asuras and the Devas together churned the milky ocean, in order to extract from it the Amrta, the elixir of immortality. Strife arose over the possession of the Amrta, a conflict that is never ending.

The Asura included Naraka, chaotic but civilized poets and philosophers who lived in high style in castles made of gems, and the healing Acheri. Ancient and adaptable, these creatures made the leap from animistic pagan totems to polytheistic conceptual entities without missing a beat. Hindu mythology took hold, transmuting the Asura into demons. The Naraka's artistry took on a new and malevolent cast as they went about punishing sinners in the 21 Hindu hells. The healing touch of the Acheri now brought sickness, corruption and death.

- Denizens of the Dreaming, White Wolf Publishing


They had tribes and families, such as the Rakshasas, the Danavas, the Div, the Pey, the Daityas, the Dakini, the Khadromas, the Dharmapalas and the Drag-shed. While the Fomorians and their Adhene fought the children of the Tuatha de Danu for the supremacy of their own dreams in the west, the Deva and the Asura battled for the same thing in the east.

Nor were the all the sides taken in the war based on ideology or honour. The Acheri and the Naraka simply saw themselves as superior to the human rabble. The Acheri in particular desired to wipe the slate clean and return to the old ways, before even the primitive medicines practiced by Hippocrates, when humanity tried to ward off sickness and death by appeasing their angry gods.

- Denizens of the Dreaming, White Wolf Publishing


When the war was over and the Elder darks defeated, the World of dreams was left to the governance of the fae. They didn't take good care of their prize and in a handful of centuries the shattering came. Those who are now called Changelings wanted to flee into the Dreaming, while their opposite numbers, the Adhene, wanted to remain on earth - though clearly there were defectors from each philosophy. The Asura were spared the horrors of the banal world for longer than their western cousins, but eventually even they could not ignore the tide of pain that heralded the shattering.

The Naraka and the Acheri remained closest to the realms of men. The Naraka continued to live in their gem encrusted towers, inaccessible to most silvered Trods, but sometimes appearing through the mists to fae and dreamers alike. Some Naraka wandered the Dreaming and many wound up fighting in the armies of the five great beasts

When a great plague or other epidemic swept the Autumn world, a few Acheri might find a temporary passage back to wreak their vengeance on a world that denied them. Indeed with their pestilential powers, the Acheri spread the Black Death, both in the Waking and the Dreaming, encouraging the forces of inquisition and hastening the decline of the earthbound fae.

- Denizens of the Dreaming, White Wolf Publishing

What is the difference between an Asura (Ahura) and a daeva (Deva)?

If you ask a mortal, even a scholar, you will get a hundred different descriptions of what it means to be Asura or Deva. They will tell you that the word is Sanskrit and it means  "power-seeking" and "power-hungry". That it just means ‘Demon’ or anaya (non-Aryan) people of ancient India. There are some strange paths of thought who might go to great lengths to convince you that the term's derivation is Ashur, the Assyrian god, or from the breath (asu) of Prajapati, or from the root as (to be). Just as likely they will be convinced that a-sura is the negation of sura, an Indo-Aryan liquor, and refers to non-Aryan abstainers. A very few commentators, those derided even by their peers, will try to extol the belief that sura came to mean a minor god in contrast to a-sura, "not-god" or "demon," but there is no logical reason for this false etymology.

Scholars of Satapathe Brahmana tell a legend of how the Devas and Asuras both came from the God Prajapati, but the former chose true speech while the latter chose the lie. Another source, Aitarcya Brahmana, relates that Devas hold power by day and Asuras hold equal power by night and that might be one of the closest guesses so far. Philosophers and less lateral thinkers will expand on the theory that the Asuras are not necessarily evil while Devas are not necessarily good. That they are consubstantial, distinguished only by their mutual opposition, which is not conceived as an absolute ethical dualism. And a basic dictionary will simply state that Asura is a Central Asian word for the supreme spirit, or god.

Those who are familiar with older part of the Rg Veda will simply state that asura refers to the supreme spirit, like the Zoroastrian Ahura Mazdah, or to Vedic deities such as Varuna, Agni, Mitra, and Indra. They will certainly inform you that in younger Vedic texts and Hindu mythology asuras become demons or titans who war against the devas (gods). They might mention in passing that in the Iranian tradition ahura came to mean "god" while dacva came to mean "demon" and that this points to some cultural differences between the neighbouring Kingdoms. Non-Aryan beings such as the Danavas and Laityas were called Asuras and more than a few people who should know better state that these may have been peoples who were opponents of the non-Aryans and who were mythologically equated with titans and demons.

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The Inanimae empires are vast and wide, and contain many Phyla. While Inanimae: the secret way listed five Phyla common in the West, they are not the only members of each Empire by far. The Dreams of the Indian Sub-continent have spawned their own Nature spirits, the AdhibhUta. These fae represent the different philosophies and concepts Eastern Dreamers have about the elements. In Classical literature each of the 5 elements has an attribute and an associated organ): Wood has sound (shabda) for its attribute and the ear for its organ, Air has tangibility and sound for its attribute and the skin for its organ, fire has shape or colour, tangibility, and sound for its attribute and the eye for its organ, water has flavour, shape, tangibility, and sound for its attribute and the tongue for its organ while earth has all preceding attributes plus smell and the nose for its organ.

The Digdha (Corrupted Inanimae)

digdha -  smeared , anointed ; soiled , defiled ; poisoned a poisoned arrow R. fire oil a tale

"The poison cloud was so dense and searing that people were reduced to near blindness. As they gasped for breath its effects grew ever more suffocating. The gases burned the tissues of their eyes and lungs and attacked their nervous systems. People lost control of their bodies. Urine and feces ran down their legs. Women lost their unborn children as they ran, their wombs spontaneously opening in bloody abortion. those who escaped with their lives “ are the unlucky ones; the lucky ones are those who died on that night.”

 - Rashida Bi, survivor of the Bhopal disaster

In 1984 a terrible tragedy occurred that hit the AdhibhUta harder than any other Supernatural race. The Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, India, leaked 40 metric tons of methyl isocyanate (MIC) pesticide into the air. The leak also released hydrogen cyanide, mono methyl amine and other chemicals that hugged the ground and spread throughout the area. Blown by the prevailing winds, this cloud settled over much of Bhopal. The worst industrial disaster in the history of the world killed thousands outright and injured anywhere from 150,000 to 600,000 others, at least 15,000 of whom died later from their injuries. Some sources give much higher fatality figures and in the world of Darkness its safe to assume that they are right. The companies involved are still arguing about who is to blame and so no effort has been made towards cleaning up the plant and its environs of hundreds of tonnes of toxic pollutants. Toxins are stored in open containers or loose on the ground and Cancers and menstrual disorders are still on the rise in the area along with countless other diseases and birth defects (monstrous births). Some areas are reportedly so polluted that anyone entering the area for more than ten minutes is likely to lose consciousness. Rainfall causes run-off, polluting local wells and boreholes, and the results of tests undertaken on behalf of the British reveal pollution levels in borehole water 500 times the legal maximum in that country.

Rumours still circulate among the fae that it was agents of the Chayaka who allowed the plants numerous safety systems to fall into such disrepair and allow the unthinkable to happen in the first place. The same nebulous sources claim that it is these forces that have allowed Union carbide and its new owners, Dow, to deny aid and information and prevent Doctors from gaining enough data to treat the victims. For nothing has changed in the last two decades for the people of Madhya Pradesh. In December 1999, Greenpeace reported that soil and water in and around the plant were contaminated by organochlorines and heavy metals.

The Union Carbide Corporation itself was charged with culpable homicide, a criminal charge whose penalty has no upper limit. These charges have never been resolved, as Union Carbide, like its former CEO, has refused to appear before an Indian court. Thus the victims in Bhopal have been left in the lurch, told to fend for themselves as corporate executives elude justice and big corporations elude the blame. Dow’s unwillingness to fulfill its legal and moral obligations in Bhopal represents only the latest chapter in this horrifying humanitarian disaster.

The AdhibhUta of Madhya Pradesh, the state in which Bhopal resides, were damaged beyond belief. But it was the Apsara, Gandharva and Danavas who have been most altered by the disaster. The locals, and the world in general, saw the air being poisoned and that led to a corruption of the local Apsara. Vile and Twisted mockeries of the Cloud Maidens haunt the state and have slowly began to spread across the lands. The drifter nature of the Apsara has only added to the problem and while it is certain there must be a few corrupted Vidyaraja and Yaksha, it is the Air, earth and water AdhibhUta empires who were most polluted and of them it is the ‘Daughters of Pain’ who are most encountered across the sub-continent. Easy to recognise, with a form of shimmering mercury laced with oily black liver spots they corrupted Apsara, along with the other corrupted AdhibhUta seek to spread the corruption that damned them.

These Digdha, as the corrupted mockeries of the Inanimae are called are dangerous to all fae. They are Nightmare creatures that prey upon the unwary and the rural communities, spreading their corruption further. Where they pass, disease and pestilence follow. These ailments include blindness, extreme difficulty in breathing, and gynaecological disorders. Just like on the night of the disaster, people describe coughing with each breath seeming as if breathing in fire, orifices streaming and their skin feeling as if it were burning.

There is no doubt that the Digdha walk the vamachara or left hand path of the Chayaka. They appear to be completely in the thrall of the awakening Elder darks and to be dedicated to the destruction of the Vasus Dream. Unlike the majority of the Adhene, the previous servants of the defeated Darkness, the Digdha are united in their loyalty to the enemies of the light. The mass graves of Bhopal have become a gathering place for the corrupted AdhibhUta  and they gather on moonless nights to commit foul rites in serving and worship to the Elder dark and plot for  their eventual return. They share these revels with twisted shapeshifters of the Naga and Mokole and the Black Spiral dancers too.

Each AdhibhUta Phyla lists the alternative Birthright posessed by the Digdha. This is their pUtanA or Poisoned Birthright.