Buck

The Buck — known across Guyana, Trinidad, and the wider Caribbean — is one of the most feared creatures a person can encounter, not because it roams freely, but because it is kept. Someone in the village has one. You just don't know who.

A Buck is a spirit bound to a human owner through a pact with dark forces. The owner keeps the Buck in their home — often in a hidden space, fed scraps of food and blood — and in return, the Buck brings them wealth, luck, and power. Harvests that never fail. Business deals that always close. Enemies who suffer mysterious misfortune.

But the Buck is not a loyal servant. It is hungry. Capricious. Dangerous. It must be fed regularly, and what it demands grows over time — first food, then blood, then something more. Owners who neglect their Buck find themselves tormented. Things break. People fall ill. And when the owner dies, the Buck does not simply vanish. It looks for a new host — often the nearest family member.

People who have seen a Buck describe it in different ways: a small, hunched figure with red eyes, or a shadow that clings to the ceiling, or something that scuttles on the walls that you catch only in the corner of your eye. One thing they all agree on: once you see it, it has already seen you.

In "Shadows In The Trade Winds," the Buck explores the corrupting nature of greed — the price of power that always comes due.

Known Traits

• ⟡ Bound to an owner through dark pact
• ⟡ Brings wealth in exchange for blood
• ⟡ Hides in homes
• ⟡ Clings to ceilings or walls
• ⟡ Seeks a new host when owner dies

Protections

• 🛡 Never accept gifts of unusual fortune from a neighbor
• 🛡 Burn frankincense in corners of the house
• 🛡 Salt thresholds at new moon
• 🛡 Never speak its name after dark

Appears in: Chapters 5, 11