They can be seen during Rantine's highest summer, when the crimson sea smokes and boils, and when most of the population retreat to the shaded interiors of their homes and apartments, to share blood, or simply to wile away the days and escape the unbearable heat.
The Imperial garrison also stay off the streets on the worst days - it is true that the sun (low in the sky, radiant heat from surfaces, the solar disk itself almost black) can kill you, or drive you mad, cook you in your armour, blind you; but it is also true that people go missing on days like this, and Imperial soldiers are no exception.
Maenads are often young, but not exclusively, and often poor, but not exclusively. Their skin is stained red by the smoke that boils off the chemical sea, which they bathe in to commence the transformation after swallowing potent and poisonous psychoactive chemicals. Most of them wear masks (and sometimes people will throw masks out into the street for them) to make themselves anonymous to friends, neighbours, lovers, and family while in under the influence of the summer madness - these are traditionally carved and painted in the likeness of the queen. They sing and dance in the streets, all of the ancient spiral dances, and they set upon whoever they come across and beat them to death with their red hands and red feet. They eat the viscera and tie the heads to their long staffs go parade at the front of the dance. You will hear them before you see them. The tradition is a very old one.
Maenads are technically criminals and murderers, and there have been many programmes over the decades to try to root out the tradition. In the early days the Imperial troops simply massacred them in the streets, but each year they would take higher-than-acceptable casualties doing so. They would also report strange things - naked commoners punching through breastplates, tearing off limbs, hysterical dancers shrugging off musket fire. Eventually it was decided that, since the phenomenon was contained to a few specific weeks of the year, and since the slaughter had no observable effect on the numbers the year following, further campaigns of this type would be wasteful.
There are all sorts of reasons why a Rantine might decide to participate in the yearly dances. Sometimes they are battling black depressions, sometimes they are in mourning, or grieving, sometimes they are lonely, especially the older participants. Sometimes they simply want to kill someone anonymously. Some of them cannot explain themselves at all - there are years when the urge is known to spread through the population like a sickness. Most Rantines have taken part once or twice in their lives, and know the deep, bright, painful joy that the ceremony brings.
Maenads who cannot find people in the streets will sometimes break into houses to get them there. Sometimes they break into garrisons. They game goes like this - they will knock on the door, and you must remain absolutely silent. If they hear you moving, or if you say something, they will beat their way through the doors and windows to get at you. If they knock three or four times and hear nothing from inside, they will move on to the next door. Rantine children and babies are typically drugged unconscious for the duration.
Rantine Maenad
HD1, senseless battering limbs (as light weapon), unarmoured, movement: dancing, then sprinting, demeanour: laughing, singing, weeping, hysterical, unreasoning.
A Maenad's damage dice explode. They never test morale. When they are killed, flip a coin. On a heads, they stand back up and keep coming. This only works once.
The Beast of Rantine will never attack Maenads, and has in fact been observed to join in their frenzied dancing.
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