Category: Monster of the Week Roadhouse: Monsters!

Name: Penanggalan

Type: Devourer (Desires to consume people) Powers: Body Separation, Blood Drain, Flight

Weaknesses: Fire, Decapitation

Attacks: Slam 2-harm close 2-harm area, Blood Drain 3-harm intimate restraining

Harm: 5 ☐☐☐☐☐ | 0 armor

The Penanggalan or ‘Hantu Penanggal’ is a creature of Southeast Asian folk mythology. “Penanggal” or “Penanggalan” literally means “detach” or “remove”.

According to the folklore of that region, the Penanggalan is a detached female head capable of flying about on its own. As it flies, the stomach and entrails dangle below it, and these organs twinkle like fireflies as the Penanggalan moves through the night. In Malaysian folklore, a Penanggal may be either a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic, supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means which are most commonly described in local folklores to be dark or demonic in nature. Due to the common theme of Penanggal being the result of active use of black magic or supernatural means, a Penanggal cannot be readily classified as a classical undead being. The creature is, for all intents and purposes, a living human being during daytime or at any time when it does not detach itself from its body. Sometimes they are depicted as able to move their intestines when exposed like tentacles.

A Penanggal is said to feed on human blood although local folklore (including its variations) commonly agrees that a Penanggal prefers the blood of a newborn infant, the blood of woman who recently gave birth or the placenta (which is devoured by the Penanggal after it is buried). All folktales also agree that a Penanggal flies as it searches and lands to feed. Once the Penanggal leaves its body and is safely away, it may be permanently destroyed by either pouring pieces of broken glass into the empty neck cavity, which will sever the internal organs of the Penanggal when it reattaches to the body; or by sanctifying the body and then destroying it by cremation or by somehow denying the Penanggal from reattaching to its body upon sunrise.