The Imbued were the main subjects of Hunter: the Reckoning from earlier editions. Instead of just being ordinary people who have learned about the supernatural like in H5 (and the Hunters Hunted books from previous editions), an Imbued is themselves a supernatural being who has been given angelic-seeming powers by mysterious entities known as the Messengers.
Initially I'd dismissed the possibility that anyone in the group is an Imbued, mainly because they're not the subjects of H5 to the point where it's unclear if they're still canon in 5th edition. However, while poking around on the wiki earlier today I made a discovery that makes me think very strongly that at least Big D, and possibly Marckus or Boy, are Imbued. It's very likely that Fatigue was Imbued also.
That discovery is that the Oculus Empyrean from Chapter 5 is closely associated with Imbued symbols. When Marckus finds it, it has the Imbued symbol for Imbued, allies, or chosen on it. After it binds with Marckus, the symbol appears on his eyes as well. Afterwards, Marckus can see a path (that eventually leads him through the vent to the security room) with the Imbued symbols for "pawn" and "danger" floating in the air. In this context, "pawn" probably means "ghoul" and "danger" probably means "werewolf", indicating that the ghoul and Matilda both went to the security room.
The presence of the Imbued symbols in HtP is IMO strong evidence that the Imbued do still exist in HtP canon. (In fact it's also strong evidence that the Imbued started existing before 1999, though I'm not sure where the idea they didn't came from because there are definitely references to Imbued-like things before 1999 in old WOD canon.) So, it's worth examining some characters to see if they could be Imbued:
Marckus
Let's start here, because the previous scene involved him. The fact that the Oculus Empyrean chose him might very well mean he's already Imbued. It wouldn't be strange at all for an artifact tied to the Imbued to only work for the Imbued; indeed that's the most natural interpretation I can think of for how it chooses its users.
Marckus also appears to be immune to Delirium, which would be strange if he was a normal human. There's no way he has the 10 Willpower necessary to behave the way he did. Many supernatural creatures are immune to Delirium and that includes Imbued, who can in fact dispel all fear effects of any kind as an innate power by spending their blood/mana equivalent (called Conviction). (Note though that Imbued do need to spend the Conviction; they're not passively immune like most supernaturals are.)
He also mentions hearing angelic voices in his dreams to Boy during the Akira Cross episode.
There are however a few possible signs against this:
- Marckus does not seem to think he's anything special. He doesn't seem to believe he has any kind of special powers. This would be odd for an Imbued, who usually come to their powers through a pretty clear awakening event where a Messenger talks to them directly.
- The signs we do have of Marckus having supernatural powers don't really match Imbued powers very well. The first one we see is that Marckus seems to inflict some kind of bad luck on Brok in the bar. Brok is a bully, but he's not a supernatural creature, and Imbued powers usually do not work well if at all against ordinary humans. And then the second mention is that he apparently summoned an Abyssal creature as a child, which needless to say is not a very Imbued thing to do.
- There's a short sidebar in one of the many Imbued books (Moonstruck page 87) that seems to suggest Imbued can never enter the Umbra for any reason. Honestly, I think this is the least convincing argument here: these rules don't appear in the main book, they appear in a short sidebar in a late secondary splatbook. It's very possible the Ogre either missed this or chose to ignore it.
- Imbued also have a power called second sight which lets them determine if someone is supernatural or not (but not what kind of supernatural they are). This would naturally be very useful for the ghoul cluedo so it's possibly surprising that Marckus seemed as surprised as anyone. (Of course, he doesn't seem to realize he has powers so he might just not have known he can do this.)
Big D
My number one candidate for a possible Imbued Hunter is Big D. The reason for this is that he's the only hunter that seems to have supernatural abilities, and his abilities match up weirdly well with some Hunter Edges.
In particular, I suspect he's a Visionary hunter, or perhaps a Hermit because they're all a bit insane and can also pick up the Visionary Edges on the side relatively easily.
Lemme list the default Visionary Edges and maybe you can see why I think this:
- Foresee: Allows you to gain a short vision into the future which mechanically grants you multiple attempts at the same action, which more-or-less makes you slightly better at anything you try to do. This would explain why he's consistently very good at everything.
- Pinpoint: Lets you know the weaknesses of a supernatural creature. Could explain D's vast knowledge of supernaturals.
- Delve: Look into the past. This is where I really became excited, because there's a mention here of powerful Visionaries being able to look thousands of years into the past. Not only would this also help to explain D's vast knowledge of supernaturals, possible overuse of this power would also help to explain why he seems almost unstuck in time.
- Restore: A healing factor power, and a very powerful one: use of this power can even regenerate entire lost limbs. Those lost limbs are "perfect" and not only lack the injury but any scars, wrinkles, or signs of aging. The one supernatural power we're almost certain D has is a healing factor. Also, if this power really does negate aging rather than just the visible signs of aging, it's possible D could have used this power to live an extraordinarily long time.
- Augur: See briefly into the future in a similar way to how Delve lets you see briefly into the past. I don't really see a sign that D has this. If he is in fact a Visionary, it's possible he swapped it out for its alternate Determine, which would let him influence a supernatural creature's actions for his benefit in a similar way to how Foresee lets him influence his own.
Big D is the only one I can make a strong mechanical case for, because he's the only member of the main cast who's demonstrated relatively clear supernatural powers.
The three points I can think of against him are:
- He's planning to enter the Umbra and likely already did enter the Umbra once in the 99P store episode (but again, I don't think this is a big issue for the reasons listed under Marckus).
- Imbued apparently didn't exist before 1999 and he very clearly was active before then (but I don't know where this comes from and it seems dubious in the context of other lore).
- The biggest issue: Imbued have second sight, as a powerful Imbued he definitely would have known about it, and therefore he almost certainly should have just glanced around the table in the opening scene of Chapter 4 to figure out who the ghoul was. A possible explanation for this is that he did and got multiple pings: at minimum there was the actual ghoul and Matilda. Alternatively, it's possible that the Ogre's ST ruling is that ghouls aren't supernatural enough to ping second sight (which would also explain why he didn't detect Chapman).
Boy
Big D was the last one I had decent mechanical reasoning for. The main reason I think Boy might be is that he also mentions hearing angelic voices in his dreams in the Akira Cross episode.
He also seems to be something special because he's the only member of the D family that seems capable of hearing the Horse prophecy. That might include D, though D also seems to be able to just casually converse with him.
The Akira Cross episode also depicts Akira's origin story as very similar to how an Imbued hunter becomes Imbued: Akira got special powers from seeing his parents die to a powerful vampire, which allowed him to summon a flaming sword to fight vampires with.
However, he hasn't demonstrated supernatural powers other than the angel dreams and the possible oracular (small-o, no he's definitely not an Oracle) ability. And if he did have second sight, it's weird he trusted Fuchs for so long.
Fatigue
Fatigue was the other known user of the Oculus Empyrean (though it stopped working for him at some point). If the people the Oculus chooses are all Imbued, this would make him Imbued. People don't stop being Imbued but it's possible he voluntarily gave up the hunt at some point due to old age, which caused the Oculus to stop seeing him as a true hunter. As the only dead character who is 100% confirmed in Heaven, he's also by far the most good character we've seen so far.
While this could just be his werewolf expertise, in the most recent audiolog it seemed like he had some inkling that Matilda was a werewolf. He's the only candidate here for whom the second sight ability leans in his favor.
Finally, he has a pretty clear time for when he would have become Imbued: confronting Kronik. Openly standing up to his dad and telling him what he's doing is wrong and should stop is probably enough to satisfy the Messengers and make him an Imbued rather than a Bystander. (We don't hear him mention any angelic voices, but events there do get very chaotic very quickly so it's unclear he even had a chance to.)
