The Covenant of Jade and Claw

“The kinkajou climbs by night and remembers everything it touches. The coati walks in the open and forgets nothing it has smelled. Between them, the forest has no secrets.”

• Proverb of the Covenant, passed among the nagual bloodlines of the Highlands

1. Setting Overview & Tone

High-Concept Pitch: In the jade-rich highlands and cacao lowlands of the pre-colonial and early colonial Guatemala, two families of nagual shapeshifters (those who carry the blood of the kinkajou and those who carry the blood of the coati) have maintained a secret covenant for generations: to serve as intermediaries, spies, and guardians between the great powers of the Maya world. Now the Spanish entrada has arrived. The covenant must decide whether to preserve what remains, negotiate what can be saved, or resist what cannot be survived.

Sensory Pillars:

1. Sight: The deep jade green of the Sierra Madre highlands at dawn, mist rolling off the volcanic cones of Santiaguito and Tajumulco; the brilliant quetzal feathers in a noble’s headdress catching firelight in a highland market; the grey-brown dust of the colonial camino real, churned by horses the land had never seen before.
2. Sound: The night cries of kinkajous moving through ceiba canopy; the chattering, whistling alarm calls of a coati pack moving through undergrowth; the low percussion of Maya ceremonial drums from a distant hillside temple; the metallic clash of Spanish steel on obsidian-edged macuahuitl in a river valley skirmish.
3. Touch & Smell: The sticky sweetness of cacao paste on your palms at a highland trade post; the cool damp of volcanic cave stone against shifted paws; the acrid smoke of a burning milpa field, deliberately fired to deny it to the encomienda system; the sharp herbal bite of copal incense burning in a forest shrine.

The Core Tension: Preservation vs. Transformation. The nagual covenant was built to maintain balance between competing human powers. But no balance was ever designed to absorb a force that does not negotiate: that reframes the entire world as belonging to the Spanish Crown and the Catholic Church by divine right. Every choice the characters make (resist, collaborate, disappear, adapt) reshapes what the covenant means and what it will become.

2. Historical Context

The setting spans the approximate period of 1500–1560 CE, covering:

• The late Postclassic Maya confederacies: the K’iche’ Kingdom of Q’umarkaj (Utatlán), the Kaqchikel Confederacy centered at Iximché, and the Tz’utujil kingdom at Chiya’ on Lake Atitlán.
• The Spanish Conquest of Guatemala (1524–1530s), led by Pedro de Alvarado and his forces: a campaign of violence, strategic alliance-making with rival Maya factions, and the rapid collapse of confederate political structures.
• The early colonial period: forced labor through the encomienda system, epidemic disease (smallpox, measles, typhus) devastating Maya populations, Catholic missionary efforts, and the gradual emergence of syncretic cultural resistance.
• The nagual tradition: rooted in genuine Maya and broader Mesoamerican belief in the co-essence, the animal spirit that every person carries and that certain gifted or cursed individuals can fully embody.

Note on nagualismo: The concept of the nagual (a person capable of transforming into or spiritually merging with an animal) is authentic to Maya and Nahua traditions, documented in colonial-era sources and contemporary ethnography. This setting treats nagualismo with respect, framing the shapeshifter bloodlines as a living expression of genuine Indigenous cosmology rather than as a fantasy add-on. Storytellers should approach the setting with care and curiosity.

3. The Two Bloodlines

The Kinkajou-Walkers (Ixim Tz’unun: “Honey-Night Kin”)

The kinkajou (Potos flavus) is a nocturnal rainforest mammal: nimble, prehensile-tailed, golden-furred, with large dark eyes adapted for night vision. It feeds on fruit, nectar, and the occasional bee nest. It is rarely seen. It remembers the shape of every branch it has touched.

Kinkajou-walkers are the covenant’s information network. They move at night, enter locked rooms, overhear conversations in noble courts, carry messages in the space between ceilings and roofs. In their shifted form, they can climb any surface a kinkajou can climb (which is nearly everything) and their prehensile tail can manipulate objects with surprising precision.

Cultural association: The Ixim Tz’unun bloodline has historically been aligned with the merchant class and the long-distance trade networks connecting highland jade sources to lowland cacao growers. They know the roads, the river paths, the mountain passes. They know who owes whom and what was promised.

Bloodline Descriptor examples:

• “My tail has steadied me on ledges no human foot could hold”
• “I spent three days in the rafters of Alvarado’s camp and left knowing every name”
• “The night has never frightened me: the night is where I do my best work”

The Coati-Runners (B’alam Pisote: “Brave-Nose Kin”)

The coati (Nasua narica, called pisote in Guatemala) is a diurnal mammal: social, bold, and endlessly curious, with a long mobile snout that can smell what no human nose would ever detect. Coatis move in groups: the adult females and young together, the adult males solitary or in pairs. They are not afraid of humans. They push into spaces most animals avoid.

Coati-runners are the covenant’s scouts, negotiators, and enforcers. In their shifted form, they possess exceptional scent tracking (they can follow a human trail days old), sharp climbing claws, and the pack instinct: multiple coati-walkers in proximity can share a rudimentary awareness of one another’s position and condition, a form of battlefield coordination that has no Spanish equivalent.

Cultural association: The B’alam Pisote bloodline has served highland confederacy military structures: not as soldiers, but as intelligence and advance parties. They know terrain, troop dispositions, and the smell of fear on a sentry. They also have a reputation for boldness that sometimes tips into recklessness.

Bloodline Descriptor examples:

• “I tracked that courier across two mountain ranges by the smell of the ink on his letters”
• “When my pack-sense goes quiet, I know someone in our band is in trouble”
• “I walked into Alvarado’s court in daylight and nobody questioned my presence: coatis have no fear in their walk”

4. Unique Mechanic: Nagual Balance

Every nagual character tracks a Jaguar-Spirit Meter on a scale of 1–6, representing the pull of their animal nature against their human grounding. The meter shifts based on:

• Moon phase: Full moon pushes the meter toward 6. New moon pulls it toward 1.
• Emotional intensity: Anger, grief, and mortal fear push toward 6. Careful planning and social ritual pull toward 1.
• Voluntary shifting: Each voluntary shift raises the meter by 1. Extended time in animal form raises it further.

At 1–2 (Human-Dominant): Human social approaches (Presence, Mind) gain +1d6. Animal form is harder to access (requires a Finesse roll, difficulty set by the Storyteller). Fully human in appearance; cannot be detected as nagual by Spanish or Maya observers.

At 3–4 (The Midpoint): Both human and animal abilities available without penalty, but holding this balance costs 1 Momentum at the start of each scene. Subtle tells (golden eyes, a slightly too-fluid gait) may be noticed on a critical failure of a social roll.

At 5–6 (Animal-Dominant): Physical approaches (Force, Finesse) gain +1d6. Animal form is effortless. Human speech requires concentration (Mind roll to communicate complex ideas). Risk: on a roll with 3+ matching dice, the character loses agency and the Storyteller briefly takes narrative control of their animal instincts.

Risk vs. Reward: High Jaguar-Spirit makes you a formidable physical agent but erodes your ability to operate in human political and social space: exactly the space where the covenant’s most important work happens. Low Jaguar-Spirit keeps you sophisticated and connected but leaves you unable to use your bloodline’s most distinctive gifts when lives depend on them.

Covenant Ceremonies: The nagual covenant holds monthly ceremonies (tied to the 20-day Maya calendar cycle) to collectively reset the Jaguar-Spirit Meter toward the midpoint. Missing ceremonies costs the group a shared resource (the Covenant Bond) a pool of shared Momentum that all nagual characters can draw from in the same scene.

5. Character Archetypes

Archetype 1: The Jade-Road Walker (Kinkajou Bloodline)

“A merchant who is also a spy who is also a courier who is also a memory: and sometimes, on the right night, a golden thing moving silently through the canopy.”

• Concept: A kinkajou-walker who has spent years moving goods and secrets along the highland trade routes, now watching those routes collapse under the weight of the encomienda system.
• Suggested Descriptors:
  • Knows every toll collector, innkeeper, and noble intermediary between Q’umarkaj and the coast
  • My prehensile tail has delivered letters that changed the course of sieges
  • I speak K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Nahuatl, and enough Spanish to understand what they’re planning
• Drive: “The trade networks fed people for a thousand years. They can feed people again: if I can keep them running.”
• Flaw: “I remember every betrayal perfectly. I have not forgiven a single one.”
• Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 3 | Mind 3 | Presence 1

Archetype 2: The Bold-Nose Runner (Coati Bloodline)

“A scout who walks into the open because hiding means admitting you’re afraid, and the coati does not admit fear.”

• Concept: A coati-walker trained by a highland confederacy war council, now operating without a state to serve: and deciding what that freedom means.
• Suggested Descriptors:
  • I have walked into occupied Iximché and back out before the garrison changed shifts
  • My pack-sense has never failed to tell me when my companions are in danger
  • I smell a lie the way a coati smells a bee nest: directly and without doubt
• Drive: “My people are still here. I will find a way for them to remain.”
• Flaw: “I act before I plan. My boldness has cost the covenant more than my courage has won it.”
• Approach Distribution: Force 2 | Finesse 3 | Mind 1 | Presence 2

Archetype 3: The Syncretic Keeper

“A covenant elder who has studied the Dominican missionaries’ books as carefully as the old calendar: because you cannot protect what you do not understand, and you cannot resist what you refuse to know.”

• Concept: An elder nagual (either bloodline) who works at the intersection of Maya ceremonial knowledge and early colonial religious institutions: not as a collaborator, but as a guardian of what can be hidden in plain sight.
• Suggested Descriptors:
  • I know which saints the priests will accept in place of which ancestors
  • The covenant calendar has not skipped a ceremony in forty years because of my work
  • I have read Alvarado’s grant documents and I know exactly what they do and do not claim
• Drive: “Memory is what survives. I will make sure our memory survives.”
• Flaw: “I have compromised so many times that I no longer know where my compromises end and my convictions begin.”
• Approach Distribution: Force 1 | Finesse 1 | Mind 4 | Presence 2

6. Condition Palette

Physical Conditions:

• Jaguar-Bitten (Minor): A rival nagual’s attack; penalty to Finesse in human form.
• Exhausted from the Shift (Minor): The body’s cost of extended animal form.
• Colonial Brand (Moderate): Marked by the encomienda system; social position severely restricted in Spanish-controlled areas.
• Trail Fever (Moderate): Disease exposure from epidemic-era travel; ongoing drain on Force and Mind.
• Broken from the Crossing (Severe): Extreme physical harm; one approach temporarily reduced to 0.

Social Conditions:

• Under Suspicion of Brujería (Minor): Spanish authorities have noted unusual behavior; rolls involving Spanish officials at worse position.
• Covenant Debt (Moderate): The character owes the covenant something significant; Covenant Bond pool unavailable until the debt is repaid.
• Denounced to the Inquisition (Severe): Active ecclesiastical investigation; operating in colonial towns requires a Desperate position.

Psychological Conditions:

• Grief of the Empty Milpa (Minor): A community destroyed; -1d6 on Presence rolls involving community trust.
• Jaguar-Haunted (Moderate): The animal spirit pushing too hard; the Storyteller gains one free narrative intervention per session.
• Hollowed (Severe): Loss of connection to the covenant; Covenant Bond pool inaccessible; Nagual Balance mechanic suspended until a ceremony can be performed.

7. Starter Scenario: The Night the Ceiba Burned

Framing:

• Where: A highland milpa farming community one day’s walk from the ruins of Iximché, now under Spanish colonial administration.
• When: Three days before the full moon. The Jaguar-Spirit Meter starts at 3 for all characters.
• Who: The player characters; a young coati-walker who has just manifested her bloodline for the first time and does not understand what is happening to her; a Dominican friar who suspects something is not right about this community but has not yet decided what; a Maya colonial intermediary (a ladino cultural broker) who knows exactly what the covenant is and has his own reasons for not yet revealing it.
• Stakes: A sacred ceiba tree at the edge of the community (which serves as a Covenant ceremony site) is scheduled to be cleared for an encomienda timber grant. If it burns, the community loses its ability to perform the monthly ceremony, and every covenant member in the region begins losing the Covenant Bond pool.
• Tension: The friar arrived the same day the timber grant was announced. Coincidence or coordination? The ladino intermediary is being paid by both sides. The young coati-walker shifted involuntarily last night and a farmworker saw something.

3-Layer Scene Design:

• Layer 1 (Immediate Threat): The timber crew arrives two days early: tomorrow at dawn, not in three days. The characters have one night to act.
• Layer 2 (Ticking Danger Clock: “The Friar’s Investigation,” 4 segments): Every time a character uses their nagual abilities visibly or fails a social roll involving the friar, advance the clock. At 4 segments, the friar formally denounces the community to the colonial administration: triggering the Denounced to the Inquisition condition for all characters and making the ceiba site legally inaccessible.
• Layer 3 (Opportunity): The ladino intermediary knows that the timber grant document contains a legal error: the wrong land survey measurements, citing a plot that technically includes a Spanish-granted church property. If the characters can reach the colonial alcalde before dawn with this information (requiring a night journey, at least one shift, and a successful Presence or Mind roll against the alcalde’s skepticism), the grant can be suspended pending re-survey. The ceiba survives, the ceremony holds.

Antagonist: The Timber Crew Foreman

• “A pragmatic man who has cleared seventeen communities and filed the paperwork correctly every time.”
• Traits: Legally meticulous (adds 1 difficulty to any attempt to use social pressure without documented evidence); Unsentimental about trees (immune to emotional appeals about the ceiba’s significance)
• Condition Track: ☐ Stubborn / ☐ Legally Cornered / ☐ Grant Suspended
• Shadow Cost: 2

8. Why This Setting Matters

The history of Guatemala in the 16th century is one of extraordinary resistance, cultural survival, and the creation of entirely new hybrid forms of identity: including forms of religious and ceremonial practice that encoded Indigenous cosmology within Catholic frameworks specifically to preserve it. The nagual tradition is not a fantasy element added to a historical setting; it is a genuine expression of Maya spiritual understanding, and its persistence through the colonial period is itself a form of resistance.

This setting does not ask players to save the Maya world from the conquest: that would be its own form of historical distortion. It asks players to inhabit the choices that people actually faced: what to protect, what to let go, what to hide, what to resist openly, and what kind of covenant you keep with the land, the animals, and each other when the world your covenant was built for no longer exists in the same form.

The kinkajou and the coati are real animals of Guatemala’s forests. They have survived the same colonial period this setting depicts. So has the nagual tradition. So has the ceiba.

This setting was created for the D6 Storyteller Community Settings section. It is an original work of historical fiction designed for use with the D6 Storyteller system by Alex Merced. All historical context is based on documented sources; the nagual shapeshifter elements are fictional interpretations of authentic Mesoamerican spiritual concepts.