I still think its only fair to offer a rebuttal, especially given how as far as I can tell KC's banshee is a pretty decent adaptation of the banshee of mythology.
That is, from what I know these are the main agreed upon/common aspects (like many such beings they vary a lot in some aspects in different accounts, such as their looks and height) of the banshee of mythology:
1. A female humanoid spirit whose wailing foretells the imminent death of someone, generally a loved one/family member, or coincides with said death.
2. They were fairly benevolent, sometimes warning people who were about to enter situations where death was likely. They did not cause death themselves and were unable to outright prevent it.
That all applies pretty well to KC's banshee, either in their current state or what they were before Hel took them on as servants.
Kaijin wrote:A Celtic lore entity serving under the Scandinavian/Norse goddess of the underworld...
(I don't know what is more gear grinding...this or the whole Scáthach-Skadi thingy thrown at random because "why the heck not?" in FKO)
Dangit...Japan...Dangit...
Celtic mytholgy ≠ Scandinavian/Norse Mythology
Great Britain (and Ireland) ≠ Scandinavia (and Finland)
Is is really that hard to understand?
If we can tell the diference between Sendai (the river), Sendai (the city) and Sendai (the prefecture)... HOW COME YOU'RE UNABLE TO TELL THE FRIGGIN' DIFFERENCE BETWEEN IRELAND AND ICELAND?
I'm not really clear on why this is such an issue when MGE is a world where the deities and creatures of several different mythologies coexist and interact. Indeed, there is evidence that in the MGE some of the gods are even known by different names/identities in different regions (like its speculated in MGE volume 2 that the sea deity Wadatsumi worshiped in Zipangu is the same being as Poseidon). Or for another comparison, how Bastet doesn't care what mythology cat monsters come from, so why would Hel be unable to associate with or come to a special agreement with banshees?
Heck, its even outright noted the banshee didn't originally have anything to do with Hel. She took them in comparatively recently. KC's version is not near on the level of divergence from, say, Eros being the one who churned the ocean of milk to create amrita instead of Hindu devas and asuras.
Okay... Putting aside that Kenkou knows absolutely nothing about Europe nor their mythologies, doesn't have a single smidge of respect for them and has never bothered to check the source material... Let's move to the profile itself.
Reading up on his enty and patreon entries its always seemed to me that KC actually knows more about a given creature's mythic origins than one might expect. Of course he freely ignores a lot if it suits him. But I regardless fail to see how his treatment of the banshee shows a lack of respect when, as noted above, he adapted them rather directly.
The first thing to notice is... that she's broken... one of the most broken entries on the encyclopedia on that regard actually (on par with entries like Pharaoh, Ice Queen or Al-Apsarah hands down).
To the point that a single tear of hers is enough to turn you into lust incarnate.
I'm not sure how you got such an extreme impression. Her crying causes lust, a ton of MGE monsters have that sort of voice-based ability (siren, lamia, mermaid), and indeed in the banshee's case its only so effective when the man has just risen into undeath and his thoughts are still unsettled. After that it and their tears are just a rather standard lust enhancer.
But in Banshee's case I can't really justify it, she just arrives way too late to save him and forces a transformation on him (or rather what's left of him by that point) because... of yes.
In some cases I can understand it... like in an accident, someone left to die or a soldier dying on a battlefield...
...but in cases like people suffering from illness for months, years... maybe even most of their lives...That's something I can't understand nor accept.
After an endless suffering one of these is more than ready and willing to take that eternal relief just to get a romp or two out of you? It just feels incredibly wrong.
They specifically can only sense it when people are going to die soon, and their voices give comfort. Further, if they have sex with you then you're their husband for life, its not a romp or two (to maintain the life of an undead incubus requires a life long commitment) nor do they revive the man for the sake of sex. The whole point of them serving Hel is to be able to give people relief as they die and welcome them into eternal life as an undead, to be able to do something about death and suffering when before they were unable to.
And people don't get eternal relief from standard death in the MGE. Apparently there is some form of reincarnation for souls, at least usually. We're still lacking in details on what happens after normal death but the "soul marriage" spell implies that the standard course is for the soul to be reincarnated, with at least the potential for links to the former life to remain. There are at least some special reincarnations too, like the special humans Eros reincarnates as houris, complete with memories of their past life.
On the other hand eternal life in the physical world as an undead seems to be one form of "afterlife" KC has built up as an option in the setting (and Hel, by changing how the undead work, is the main one responsible for it being possible), and a lot is explained in World Guide 3 regarding how great a life it is, basically superior to regular life in every way (food even tastes better). Understanding this is clearly important to understanding the banshee, given KC posted a couple pages from the necromancy section of World Guide 3 when he posted the banshee's profile.
As for people suffering from chronic illnesses, there is a whole school of magic, white magic/pharmaomancy (invented by monsters), devoted to helping with that, be it relief or curing. MGE banshees are all about attending to and comforting people who they sense are going to die, not people who can be saved or helped in other ways.
Post edited by Dragonstryke