Madwomen

Madwomen share an origin with the Brutes: villagers' bodies wholly ruled by Sha-Chi. The Maskwalkers destroyed their villages and slaughtered their families, and whether a neighboring village called for volunteers or they simply had nothing left, they ended up on the Transcension table.

The hoe, the pick, the dagger, the lamp oil — what once tilled fields, dug wells, kept them safe, lit a room — became weapons. Most still remember scraps of the old life: harvests, the price of grain, a child's name. Some once trained in arms under the Mandate, until the very people who taught them the spear and swore to protect them fell on their own comrades over a new doctrine, and won the fight with their faces and their minds left behind.

• Madwoman: Hacks wildly with a hoe, not strong but quick, as though she still believes she is out in the fields, dimly keeping the harvest and the price of salt and rice.
• Mad Arsonist: Carries bottles of lamp oil; her Transcended hands no longer fear flame, so she splashes fire freely and lets it eat the living, no longer counting every drop.
• Twin-Pick Madwoman: A well-digger's pick in each hand and makeshift iron armor on her back, she is built for the charge, vicious and relentless.
• Knife-Throwing Madwoman: Swift and light, poor at blocking and rarely closing, she circles to the side and throws several daggers in the blink of an eye — blades that may once have been kept under a pillow, for self-defense alone.
• Corrupted Madwoman: Filthy white robes and red thread wound through darkened flesh up to the mask; her halberd swings stiff and vicious, one sweep clearing anyone close.
• Armored Madwoman: Battered armor and a spear worked in sweep, catch, thrust, and lift, the Mandate's spearwork still showing in her. Take the spear and it turns against her.
• Greatblade Madwoman: Red-robed, a monstrous blade on her shoulder; thin and hunched, she swings it with freakish strength, no form at all, only the urge to crush.

Their strength is seldom great; speed and savagery carry them. Hoe, pick, and dagger are close-range weapons delivered in dense flurries, hard to shake once she is on you, while halberd and greatblade sweep wide and must be stepped around.

The knife-thrower cannot block, so close the distance; the armored one's spear can be taken and turned back on her.