Monster Mash: Q is for Questing Beast

Is there more comedy or tragedy in equal parts found on the mortal plane than in the ironic quest to find the "Questing Beast"?

A Tradition. The Glatisant or "Questing Beast" started as a tradition played upon young squires: their mentors would take them into the woods to hunt down a beast that has been troubling the local peasants without telling them anything about the creature. The older knight would treat this hunt with all seriousness. After night falls, the mentor would build up the size, speed and ferocity of the creature before describe the beast:

The creature has the spotted body of a leopard, the neck and head of a great serpent, the legs and hooves of a hart, and a long lion's tail. Its footfalls are silent and it can climb a tree as easily as a spider. You can hear the Glatisant call, the barking of thirty hounds hunting prey, right before it ambushes its prey!

Just as the knight finishes the story, the sound of barking hounds come from nearby, and the knight tells the squire to seek out the beast. Of course, there is no beast. The sound of the barking came from a hidden accomplice with several hounds or a dog call. The squire then spends the night, frightened of his own shadow, scrambling around the woods until morning. When they reveal the trick, the squire is embarrassed but gets to borrow the tradition and use it on the next apprentice.

It is all in good fun... until the gods get involved.

A Cosmic Joke Turned Real. Perhaps, a heroic god was displeased with a family of knights or a trickster god wanted to teach a do-gooder a lesson, but the Questing Beasts was made real.

The Glatisant is a large and solitary ambush predator that hunts small birds, lizards and fish. They spend most of their time lounging about in the branches of trees, running at break neck speed that defies their awkward body shape and barking in excitement when they see humanoids. Their call does sound like dozens of dogs yipping. Their natural instinct is to run from humanoids and they seem to enjoy the chase.

They are most vulnerable when they stop running to cool off with a drink.

The Quest. Many knights are tasked with hunting these creatures by the gods but they are difficult to catch. Some families hunt the same beast for generations, since these creatures live for hundreds of years, and the creature is a symbol found on many family crests. While some knights perhaps driven mad by the quest would slay the beast for a trophy but it is considered bad luck to harm one of these creatures. They are not known to attack humans. It is better to release them back into the wild so that future heroes can prove their mettle by catching the Questing Beast. And who knows, perhaps the Questing Beast will reward this act of mercy by coming to the aid of their favorite Questing hunter in their time of need.

Monster Mash: K is for Kinnar

The kinnar are depicted in the tapestries and mosaics of palaces. They are beautiful and enigmatic creatures, resembling fey humans with flowing hair from the waist up and exotic, colorful and long-legged flightless two-tailed birds from the waist down, and they are always a pair: the male kinnara and the female kinnari.

Created By Love.  Kinnar are often hunted by fey who either despise their beauty or goodness, desire their feathers for fashion, or wish to capture them to perform. They are usually difficult to catch, as they don't require food, water or even sleep, instead meditating in each other's embrace for brief stints under the night sky.

Kinnar are love-sick creatures obsessed with their mates from the moment they meet. They are literally created in the the Twilight Realm of Dawn from feelings of unrequited love. Due to the fey lords sending hunters after them, the kinnar often escape to the relative safety of the material plane where they are legendary.

The shy and cautious creatures generally avoid humans. They live in remote jungles and forests away from prying eyes. But they have a weakness that lures them from safety towards other creatures. Kinnar are attracted to burgeoning love.

Drawn to Love.  Kinnar can detect romantic thoughts from a long distance. When they detect these thoughts, they are attracted to the scene. If the love is strong enough, they are drawn to it like a magnet and cannot resist. They seek the young couple out and, if they appear to be alone, the kinnar will perform a ritualistic dance and sing for them. In many couples this is believed to be a powerful blessing and it is considered bad karma to ignore the endorsement of two lover's romance by the kinnar. After performing, they will usually return from whence they came.

Sometimes their desire to witness romance is used against the kinnar.

Exotic hunters who specialize in catching the most exotic creatures will attract the kinnar by throwing parties for the young or bringing a new couple close to the area where the kinnar have been sighted, so that they can set up a trap. They then capture the kinnar and sell them to wealthy nobility that would keep them for entertainment. They are valued as divine creatures by many cultures and their performances are said to have many magical qualities. Their dance is often their best defense as it usually charms creatures that see it for the first time long enough for the kinnar to escape but there will always be hunters who find ways to counteract the effect.

Til Death Do Us Part. Hurting the kinnar is considered extremely bad karma and killing a kinnar is a terrible act. If one kinnar of a pair is slain, the other kinnar will go mad. It will sing a song that has been known to kill and attack the responsible party, and all around it, until it literally collapses and dies of a broken heart.

Monster Mash: K is for Karkinos!

The legendary karkinos is best known for its role as an emissary of various sea gods sent to waylay a hero on his quest or destroy a city that has earned their wrath. Inevitably, the beast is slain and the journey continues or the city makes amend and the beast returns to the sea. These creatures are mysterious, practically immortal and undeniably powerful.

Kings of the Crustaceans. The karkinos are giant crabs that spend most of their time rest in the depths of the deepest seas and oceans or burrowed into the ground. They are capable of hibernating for centuries until stirred but when they do awake from their slumber they are a sight to behold. These mighty behemoths stand tall over giants and only the mightiest of dragons can compare in size or might. They can easily trample cities that lay in their path and entire armies falter under its blows.

Misunderstood Myths. Despite their size and might, karkinos are not typically as destructive as other creatures of their size. They are simple and even timid creatures that attack in self-defense or as directed by the oceanic gods. Despite being manipulated into acting as machines of war by some evil creatures, such as mindflayers, karkinos seem to want to be left alone. They do become especially aggressive when other enormous creatures invade their territory and for this reason some clever civilizations have built their forts and cities on the backs of these beasts to ward off threats that are beyond their capabilities.

Monster Mash: J is for Jerff

The jerff is a large spotted ermine beast found in the forested mountains of the Hold and the bordering territories. They are a paradox and the paradox hinges on the fullness of their stomach: when sated they are friendly and curious creatures but when hungry they become savage beasts that attack and eat more than they need.

"Feed the Jerff... The jerff are harmless when well-fed. They are omnivores and, as long as they can find plenty of insects, fruits, and small prey, are happy to make friends with other animals and humanoids. They are fluffy creatures that enjoy gamboling and playing with other creatures, surprisingly smart and quick-to-learn, and are a favorite animal of wood elves. Elves recommend that traveling parties befriend and feed a jerff. It will then follow you to the edge of its territory, which can span several miles, warding off threats, and even try to warn travelers off of dangerous paths with pitfalls. But the elves remind you to feed it well and often, especially if it is already drooling, as this is a sign the beast's territory has scant food, because if you don't, the jerff will turn on its friends in a mindless and ravenous rage.


... Or Be Eaten." The jerff is a creature with an extremely large appetite and an unfortunately large hypocampus that overrides their senses when they can't find enough food. When this happens, the jerff's kind eyes become dull and predatory, it drools and grumbles, and it sniffs at the air for any hint of food. They lose control and attack the nearest sources of food. They use their powerful claws and bites, knocking them aside with their whipping tails, and slay their prey so that they can gorge. When this hungry, the jerff will eat until it becomes sick with fullness.

Round As A Barrel. If food is placed before the jerff, hungry or full, it will eat it. It has no self-control. It will eat until it becomes sluggish, falls into a stupor, and collapses. When this happens, the jerff will usually first dig out a small burrow with its massive claws between two close trees to prevent itself from rolling down the mountainside in its sleep.

Monster Mash: B is for Beastmen~ Part 2 Elite Beastmen

FOR PART 1

ELITE BEASTMEN

The common beastmen are well known to all but the most sheltered of peasants but the elite beastmen are monsters that are a threat to all but seasoned knights, mercenaries and soldiers. From the dangerously powerful bovine/caprine butchers to the mobile equine tramplers to the cunning gnolls and werebeasts that make the Hold a place of untold horrors. A horde composed of common beastmen is a threat but can easily be handled by experienced military. An army composed of the following beastmen are a threat that can wipe countries off the map.

BUTCHERS

Brutality incarnate.

Butchers are the result of a beast hag getting a concentrated diet of quality chevon, mutton or beef and are the meanest brutes of the beastmen. They stand twice as tall as a man, bulging with leathery muscle, and are topped with a bovine or caprine head with cruel eyes and a maw full of sharp teeth made for tearing flesh and crushing bone. Butchers take particular pleasure in seeing the disgust and fear of their foes, reveling for the opportunity to walk into a group of enemies, and making an example of the first opponent: ripping their limbs off, taking bites of their flesh, and crushing them beneath their hooves are all techniques that butchers revel in to soak up the terror of their enemies.

Among other beastmen, their physical strength and sadism often makes other beastmen cower in deference.

 

TRAMPLERS

Tramplers are the cavaliers of the beastmen horde, a cruel mockery of centaurs, with the lower half and head of a horse joined with a human-like torso between. Their mobility makes them excellent scouts and messengers for beastmen groups. In combat they prefer hit and run tactics with bows and pole-arms that take advantage of their speed. They are proud creatures that enjoy showing off their skill on the battlefield.

GNOLLS

A mix of canine and human flesh in a beast hag's diet creates the more cunning and devastating foot soldiers in any army of beastmen. Gnolls resemble humanoids with twisted features of a hyena, dog, jack or wolf with digitigrade back legs and hunched spines. They often have enlarged fangs and some even grown horns. These cackling and barking madmen take more pleasure in the subtle nuances of cruelty, playing with their food, before tearing it to shreds. The nightmares of many soldiers are filled with the laughter of gnolls.

Besides being foot soldiers that are a match for professional soldiers, gnolls are excellent hunters, using their social skills, cooperation and wits to overcome their prey. They are also known to use beasts, particularly wolves, hyenas, and monstrous canines to help them in their hunts and to put fear into the hearts of all innocent men.

Other Abominations

There are as many different and unique subspecies of beastmen as there are animals for beast hags to eat and infused with the fiendish magic of their lord Kalibos. The most feared subspecies are the werebeast:

The werebeast is similar to a werewolf in that they can shift between the form of a gnoll and a human but have a more unique ability: they can transform into any person they've eaten. This means that a clever werebeast can kill a member of a community and infiltrate it. Famously, a large group of werebeasts managed to infiltrate a monster hunting church, taking on the form of pilgrims, before turning on the priesthood and exterminating them.

The most insidious ability of the werebeast is to reproduce via their attacks. If they bite and infect someone with their blood, the person will transform into a werebeast. Most people who suffer this fate go mad from the pain of transformation under the next moon, becoming feral and attacking people, before eventually being drawn to the nearest group of beastmen and joining their ranks.

This is an example of the less natural and horrifying potential of beastmen.

What did you guys think? Any ideas for horrifying beastmen? Do you like my approach to monster creation?