The Ferali gem is highly prized for its lustre and inner flame. Unfortunately they are a rather dangerous accoutrement as they are a) alive and b) murderous killers. The Ferali is able to animate any body of liquid it falls into, it then uses the liquid to carry itself around looking for prey. Having located its victim it flows up onto the poor soul's head and forms a bubble around their face until they drown. It then slowly dissolves their flesh and consumes their bones from which it will eventually produce an offspring.
Older Feralis can animate larger bodies of water, with some controlling ponds or even lakes. There are also persistent rumours of Feralis animating more immediately lethal substances such as puddles of acid or pools of molten lava.
The mandrake root grows only on the site of a murder. The root grows beneath the earth for a year and a day, and then a bulb emerges. If allowed to open the bulb releases a small homunculus that then travels under cover of night until it finds a settlement. The mandrake rests in the soil until it hears the cry of a newborn child. Then it clambers out of the ground and attempts to steal the infant.
Nobody knows what happens to babies taken by mandrakes.
They look like dogs, but they aren't. They're something in the shape of a dog, that barks like a dog, and acts like a dog. But they aren't dogs, and no one would ever mistake them for one.
Looking at a Not Dog, its tail wagging, its tongue lolling from a smiling mouth, most hardened warriors feel terror start to well up within them. Their barks set teeth on edge and their whines cause bile to rise.
Touch a Not Dog and your heart stops. Then it eats you.
Resembling large crabs without pincers, these creatures are said to have sprung from lakes in search of salt from the sea. What caused this sudden change in their behaviour and life is unknown, but the dangers they can present are very real. Born in lakes, their journey to the sea is long and should they come across other larger living creatures (such as a Teklo or Becquerel, say) they will attempt to extract the salt from them, draining a person in just a matter of hours. Most dangerous during the night, when they can scuttle into an unguarded camp, the Salters have taken the lives of many, leaving dessicated corpses in their wake.
The great Sea Serpents are much feared by the Aquienos. Typically measuring between ten and twenty metres long, these giant, scaled creatures will rise from the depths, usually at night and trail lone ships, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. When they identify the moment, they will slip into the wake of the ship and swim underneath it, then, using some unknown process they will super-heat the water so rapidly that the ship is caught in an explosion of steam, either blasting it in half, or capsizing it. After that, the serpent will devour the ship piece by piece, leaving barely any wreckage and only very rarely are there any survivors.
Perhaps most worrying, however, is the fact that even the wisest and most ancient of the Aquienos Navigators have never predicted an attack. It is theorised that the Sea Serpents live in the depths of the Oceans, hidden from the light of the stars.
It is lucky, therefore, that there are rarely more than half a dozen attacks a decade.
Cursed creatures, ancient and cunning, there are few beasts so feared and hated as a Wyrm. -Words carved into a wall in the Ruins of Kez'Dun
It is said that long, long ago wyrms hunted and fed like other creatures, but then one of them angered a powerful dark spirit and he wrought a great curse upon the beasts. Now instead of feeding on flesh and blood, the wyrms must feed on pain and suffering.
At first they continued to feed on animals, drawing out their kill until they were sated. Eventually mere beasts ceased to nourish the wyrms and they turned their attentions to the people of the land, snatching them up and bearing them away to torture and death. From a dangerous pest the wyrms became a murderous menace and the races took up arms to kill every wyrm they could find.
Beset on all sides, only the strongest, the most cunning and the luckiest of the Great Wyrms survived. They fled the populated areas of the world and dug deep chambers underground, there to hide, there to sleep.
But as they slept, their hunger grew once more until, one by one they awoke and found a world which had near forgotten them. Wiser and more cunning they did not simply arise to fight and die as before, but rather they spawned wyrmlings who could take on the rough form of the races of the world, but could never capture the details. These wrymlings could never be mistaken when seen up close, but at a distance on a dark night they might fool the unwary until their trap is sprung. The Wyrms set them to expanding and fortifying their underground lairs, and once prepared, sent them out into the world there to kidnap victims upon whom they could sate their hunger.
Unaware of the threat which they faced, many great heroes of the land vowed to find those responsible for these kidnappings. Unprepared for the cunning and ancient Wyrms, too many, far too many ancient heroes drew their last breaths battling vast, implacable and cruel enemies deep below the earth, or worse, were captured alive and forced to endure decades of the most terrible of tortures.
The few heroes who bested their foes returned to their peoples and told of awful battles held in inky blackness, against Great Wyrms full of malice and fire. But the Great Wyrms, sated by the agony of those they kidnapped and the heroes who followed, sent out no further Wyrmlings, and the trails to their hidden lairs went cold. And once more, they slept, waking only when their hunger awoke once more and too many had forgotten the tales of the Wyrms and the cycle repeated itself.
Now those Wyrms who survive rest in caverns filled with the relics of dozens of dead heroes, within lairs hidden and protected, and cunning, ancient and deadly, they slumber fitfully…
Common across the Seraphol forest, the Fenling bear is smaller than the common bear, but more adept at hunting through the woods and more dangerous to humanoids.
Nocturnal scavengers, grelp are fist sized molluscs that emerge from pools and rivers to pick at abandoned carrion. Once they've located food their shells begin to glow with an eerie red light that summons other grelp to the scene. Eventually a large enough swarm of grelp will gather to drag the carcass back to the water, leaving only a trail of slime in the morning.
Occasional horror stories speak of sleeping travellers waking to find themselves covered head to foot in grelp, but it would be a sound sleeper indeed who would let themselves be dragged to their deaths.
Its shells are prized for their resilience and suitability as a great crafting material, however the nature of it also makes it very hard to get. The dardanians are incredibly large, and once they retreat inside their shells, very little can deal with them. Some of the peoples have developed ways of recovering the shell, the Teklo most notable among them. Finding a tortoise, a team of hunters scares it into withdrawing to the shell, then lifts and carries (a feat usually taking a dozen or more Teklo) the thing back to special facilities where the dardanian is boiled. This makes it easier to pour out of the shell, which is then turned over to the craftsmen…
Living around the cliffs at the north-east edge of the Seraphol forest, the creature is well known both to Becquerel and the passing Aquienos ships. The Seawinds are remarkable for their size and temptations have often arisen to attempt harnessing one for flight. This practice is greatly discouraged by the Seawinds who make a point of eviscerating a hunter attempting to tame it.
Only legends exist of anybody ever riding the Seawind for more than a fifteen-second gory flight.
Bradha are giant stag beetles around the size of rhinocerous. They are domesticated by the Sylphim and used as beasts of burden upon the Floating Isles. In the wild they are relatively docile herd animals, but every two or three years the wandering herds will gather together and form a great swarm that terrorizes the local countryside for a few months before dispersing again.
These large, blind beasts naturally inhabit the numerous caverns within the Deep Mountains and live off the numerous fungal growths which thrive in the damp atmosphere. The Teklo have taken to breeding them within their granite cities, in huge barns, and are their primary source of meat. The Teklo consider the meat to be dull, but filling, but the few Sylphim who have tasted it have, almost without exception, identified its taste as being a perfection of Chitha, worthy of the Empress herself.
However, the bad blood between the two peoples means that so far, the meat of the Deep-Auroch has not made its way, to any significant degree, into the diet of the Sylphim.
Found in the eastern reaches of the Seraphol forest and sometimes further south, these deer are hunted by the Becquerel and are a dietary staple for them. There are, in truth, a multitude of varieties and species, ranging from small and sprightly deer to enormous moose that are frequently a challenge for Becquerel hunters. They are preyed upon by other animals, of course, but do not show signs of decline.
The Makhar Goat is prized among the Kirlsa as a delicious dish you really have to fight for! Usually found on the north-eastern slopes of the Deep Mountains, verging on the Mosel desert, the Makhar are hunted and fought bare-handed by the Kirlsa. Fought and killed without weapons and only by one's innate strength and skill, the flesh of the Makhar is full of strength and vigour and the bump on the Kirlsa's head a magnificent adornment!
The Skai fish, commonly referred to as the Isle-Hopper by the Aquienos is a staple food for the Fleets. It is easily found around most of the islands near Djemity and prefers the shallower waters to the wide-open ocean. They are easy to catch and every Aquienos has caught many during their lifetime. Not considered anything but common by the Aquienos, it is also infrequently enjoyed by other races - one could come to like or hate the peculiar sweet taste of its flesh.
A predator of the waters in the wide ocean north of Djemity, the Camel Shark is so called for the bump behind its head from which a fin protrudes. Savage beasts when they smell blood, the sharks often hunt in small packs and can be extremely dangerous to anyone finding themselves in the deep ocean.
A few Kirlsa have been known to seek out the Camel Shark to battle with it, but their pack-hunting habits make this difficult and many young Kirlsa have been claimed by the sea following failure.
The sand-dancer scorpion is often referred to by the Kirlsa as the horse of the desert. To most travellers encountering them for the first time they are creatures of nightmare. Their armoured carapace can grow up to 15m in length from tip to tail, though most common adult specimens are half that size. They still provide a Kirlsa warrior a great mount, and with the right coaxing the tail can be used to lift and carry heavy loads. The sand-dancer got its name from the elaborate mating ritual the males perform to attract females. Of course, most Kirlsa do not ride real sand-dancers: their magics allow them to use the form of the sand-dancer and over this form they have great control. Only a handful of Kirlsa youths are killed each year while attempting to capture a live sand-dancer to use its form in their magics.
Water Wyrms are little more than armoured segmented insects a couple of inches in circumference and up to three foot long. Breaking open the segments with a sharp tool reveals a hollow interior containing water. Learning how to hunt or manifest these creatures is essential to survival in the desert, and something most Kirlsa are taught as infants. Persistent claims by Teklo researchers that these are the larval form of Great Wyrms have yet to be widely accepted.
Paradise-dune snakes are feared predators of the Mosel, and the reason many creatures there have thick armoured carapaces. With the ability to launch themselves up to 30 foot in the air and then swoop down on their prey they have killed many an unlucky traveller. And that's just the small ones. Skins at least 40 foot long have been discovered in the deep deserts, but no one has yet reported surviving an encounter with one of that size. The Kirlsa are surprisingly uncommunicative when asked about this snake.
Phlflings (pronounced by most as “fl-flings”) are part-plant, part-animal and considered by most as very cute. After a rain storm they grow out of the ground, making good use of the short burst of available water. Covered in a fine fur coating much prized by merchants, they become mobile very quickly, following sources of water wherever possible and feasting on other desert plants now in bloom. As the brief burst of life dies off they mate before going to seed preparing the cycle to being again. People are advised not to wear bright floral colours in their presence or else risk having their clothing devoured.
The origins of these creatures are a deep mystery, though some sages theorise that they are, in some way, related to the End of History, perhaps even responsible for it in some way. What is known is that there exist terrible beings, made of papyrus, parchment and bloody ink, which lurk in the wilderness. They use their awful songs and words to somehow force people into bloody performances of old histories and plays from the different Peoples from before the End of History.
The Blood-Lores seem only to bring the bloodiest and most terrible stories to life, and sages speculate that there might perhaps be other Lore-Creatures out there, which might concentrate on other narratives. However, whilst rumours of other such entities abound, there have been no confirmed sightings, and their existence remains uncertain.
Sprites are mindless entities that come into being in places of significance. Their natures vary as widely as the location that spawned them and they range from harmless and beautiful dancing lights at the bottom of a rainbow to the ravenous pillars of flame that circle the volcano of Broken Peak.
Sprite hunting can be a lucrative (though frequently hazardous) trade for those seeking to supply Enchanters with components.
Normally the magic within an enchanted item fades over time and eventually the magic dissipates leaving only a mundane object. Sometimes this doesn't happen. Sometimes the power of an item is too great to simply waste away, or an item is left in a place where magic is more likely to leak in than out. Sometimes the enchantment goes wild.
There's no telling exactly what a wild enchantment will do. Sometimes it develops a degree of intelligence and can even be capable of communication. Other times the enchantment is more bestial, and there are no shortage of stories of adventurers stabbed by ancient magical blades, angry at the intrusion upon their resting place.
“I am ancient as the world and when your mountains have crumbled into dust I shall yet endure. What use for you to inscribe my words when my memory will outlast your tablets of iron a thousand times over?”
- Xo rejecting the Chronicler Jeran in the Tale of Brittle Iron.
There are reputed to be a dozen Spirits in the world, though the names of only five of them are known. They are (apparently) immortal beings of immense power, and their interest in the affairs of mortals is rarely benevolent. The Spirits carve out homes for themselves in remote parts of the world and rarely appreciate being disturbed; they are notoriously short tempered and when 'provoked' they will impose a curse upon the offender. The curses are never immediately fatal, but victims are sometimes left wishing they had been.
According to folklore the Spirits haves roles in some manner of game or perhaps a performance. When asked about their name they seem to be compelled to also reveal their role. What these roles entail has never been adequately explained and inquiry into the affair always seems to provoke a particularly terrible curse.
The five known Spirits and their roles are:
Xo - The Spinner
Lokastila - Lightning's Bane
Arn - The Mountain King
Reys - Son of the Moon
Ou - Fallen from a Tree