BAJANG

Lore

The Bajang is a malevolent being that seamlessly blends the roles of vampiric demon, servant-familiar, and zoomorphic shapeshifter. The term reaches back to the pre-Islamic layer of the Malay language and is phonetically tied to the ancient word jabang, meaning "newborn." This points to the creature's grim necromantic source: it is said to rise from the unquiet spirit of a stillborn child, becoming a hereditary familiar handed down within families of black-magic practitioners.

Physically, the creature manifests in three distinct guises. In its true demonic form-visible only to bomoh shamans or those dying in agony-it appears as a stunted, degraded humanoid with a lipless mouth, glowing red eyes, and webbed feet. In its zoomorphic form, it most often takes the shape of a weasel, ferret, lizard, or a sleek cat. The cat's lethal meow beside a victim's bed is considered a definitive death mark, signaling that the Bajang has claimed a new soul for its master.

The third state is purely spectral: a mere shadow kept confined inside a wooden box or a bamboo tube, where the spirit slumbers until summoned. These containers are often sealed with an azimat talisman-a special Malay inscription or drawing-that prevents the familiar from escaping on its own. Creating a Bajang requires dark knowledge and the desecration of a fresh grave, luring the entity out with promises of milk, eggs, and blood to seal a lifelong pact of servitude.

If a sorcerer dies without passing control of the familiar to an heir, the Bajang goes feral. It leaves its vessel and transfers its life-anchor to the nearest sacred tree, which then becomes the center of its new, hostile territory. In this state, the spirit plagues the surrounding area with disease and misfortune. The only reliable elimination strategy for exorcists is to locate the spirit's anchor tree and fell or burn the trunk, which destroys the Bajang instantly.