Bestiary - Orth

Kettlefrog

Not a frog, nor is it exclusively limited to living in kettles, the nevertheless somewhat aptly named Kettlefrog prefers small, dark, warm, moist spaces to live. In form, it appears to be a small blue-green lizard with a gecko-like body but large skin flaps connecting all its limbs, like a flying squirrel. Around six inches long fully grown. Has large, frog-like eyes and a fixed smile, with vestigial gills on its neck which allow it to breathe underwater. Very good-natured and incredibly loyal.

Able to remember and mimic sounds flawlessly.

Stickyfeet Wingedbeast

The Kettlefrog has skin flaps extending from its forelegs to its body, and hind legs to the end of its tail, making it an excellent glider. Combined with sticky pads on its feet, it's capable of climbing almost any surface and gliding to nearby locations.

Great Listener

Kettlefrog have excellent memories, and are both mines of trivia and jokes, and excellent spies.

Whisper

Little is known of the Whispers as a race. They are incredibly thin and almost completely transparent, appearing almost like flexible, floating sheets of glass. Whilst lightweight and fragile, they are capable of rippling their bodies like great manta-rays to fly through the air at great speed.

Silent Knife

Moving at high speed, the Whisper attacks edge on and flattens itself perfectly, turning itself into a spinning, flying disc, capable of doing high levels of slashing damage.

Camouflage

By either appearing straight on, or flattening against a wall, the Whisper may hide itself very effectively. Unless light glints off its surface, it's near perfect transparency and incredibly thin nature can hide it from view.

Breaker

The Breaker are strange creatures. In appearance they seem much like a floating stone about six inches across, with spiny, metallic protrusions. They appear to break physics around them, although not intentionally or with any degree of control. Every minute, they cause one random effect, lasting for exactly thirty seconds.

Electrical Field

The Breaker hurls small electrical bolts from its form, at a random strength. These may arc out and hit anything within a random distance, determined by the strength of the field.

Thermal Adjustment

The Breaker glows green and causes one object within ten feet to heat up or cool down rapidly. There's no limit on how hot or cold the object may become.

Gravatic Failure

The final area a Breaker can interact with, they suck in light, appearing as a well of darkness. Gravity has no effect within 120' of the Breaker's body.

Anglop

A curious, hideous and entirely horrible creature, the Anglop is little more than a mouth, limbs, beak and lure. Primarily found in caves and other dark places, it attaches itself via a large sucker to the roof, where it dangles a small glowing lure.

Come to the Light

The Anglop pulses its lure, making it glow with a dim light, attracting things to it. Anything venturing close to it is grabbed by six tentacles covered in sharp, serrated suckers, which it then retracts to pull it towards its razor-sharp beak. It then tears apart and devours its prey in short order.

Drop-Lop

To attack larger targets, an Anglop may drop from its position onto the target, attack it briefly, and then flee using its many tentacles as legs.

Sylenco

A slow, plodding creature with an armoured shell and heavy tail with bone spikes on the end, it features on its back an array of cones which it can use to stop sound. Any noise within ten yards can be entirely silenced, whilst anything out to thirty is reduced to a whisper. Noises above a certain level will always be heard, but to be loud enough, the sound would have to be equivalent to an explosion at close range.

If you can hear something and you're near a Sylenco, bad things are probably happening to you.

Be Still

The air around the creature stills, making noises stop carrying. This has no time limit.

Thundertail

The Sylenco whips its tail round, impacting the target and doing a large amount of blunt damage. Always adds Knock-Back effect.

Pufflewampus

Similar to a giant marshmallow crossed with a leech, these pinkish creatures have an incredibly elastic body with a large, round mouth on one end, full of molar teeth, and a sucker on the other. Vegetarian.

Spoyng

Has a fascinating method of rapid locomotion, namely sucking with its mouth onto something sturdy, whilst walking its rear sucker back, stretching out its body to incredible length. When it lets go with the sucker, it then shoots forward, propelling it into the air up to 200'.

Hard to Damage

With it's bizarre skin, it's very capable of absorbing damage that would cut other creatures.

Piercing weapons are mostly the only things capable of doing any serious damage. Anything else bounces off.

Lycantis

A mantis crossed with a wolf-bear. 12' long, furry, as strong as a Taurac and with two 10' long arms with two elbows, and serrated bone spears instead of paws. It's exactly as horrible to fight as you're thinking.

Oh, and it can run faster than you, and it's got a thick hide and armour plates.

Deathstrike

The Lycantis stabs out with one or both of its arms, doing piercing or slashing damage. Targets wearing no armour suffer Hurl effects.

Hack'n'Slash

Rearing up to full height and then slamming its arms into the target, it embeds its serrated bone-spears into the target, then pulls apart mightily, doing both blunt and slashing damage.

Shadow

A ball of floating darkness. No-one knows what they are composed of, what their purposes is, whether they're intelligent or what they want.

Extremely dangerous.

Phase

The Shadow appears to be non-interactive with energy and matter, being able to float through anything apparently at will.

Hole in the Universe

Shadows are capable of seriously tampering with any element of space or time near them, making time slow down or speed up, and making space stretch out or contract, making items larger or smaller, or increasing/decreasing distance. This has a starting range of 120', but if they bring that point in space closer, they can then reach another 120' beyond, making the total range indeterminate. Affects space and time at a rate of around 30' per second.

Titanian

Viscous, cruel, brutal creatures with four arms, three legs and a thick torso, standing fully twelve feet tall. Incredibly strong and durable.

In a war against the combined forces of the Nardlor, Humans and Marati: almost a thousand year ago, their numbers were greatly reduced. However, the allied races were unwilling to commit genocide, so they now live in a small area of Matteland, where they are watched over and guarded.

Heedless Rage

When encountered by members of the Nardlor, Human or Marati, the Titan will fly into a rage. They appear to be driven almost entirely by emotion, with no logical check on their feelings.

Many-Weapons

With their extra pair of arms, they are capable of wielding two bows, four staffs or swords, a pair of lances and a bow, or a variety of other combinations of weapons. Their extraordinary strength also gives them an advantage against most creatures.

Ragaffin

Ancient cousins to the Rikaffin, the Ragaffin are somewhat stricter in their morals. Bipedal, with cloven hoofed feet and three fingered hands, they are distinguished by their larger, spiralled horns, heavier build, large ears and a mane of fur running from the head to half-way down the spine.

Charge

The Ragaffin lowers its head and charges, impaling its target on its horns, dealing piercing damage.

Moral Compass

With a strict code of honour, the Ragaffin are most easily provoked to fight due to actions they consider to be immoral or unbecoming of one they consider a friend.

Innoviol

A truly despicable creature, this being places part of its DNA inside another creature, to which it links its heartbeat, with instructions that if it dies, the DNA is to replicate, first controlling the host to attack another target and splice the DNA into it while it's unconscious, then eating the host from the inside out and thus replicating itself.

Resembles a 4' long mosquito, with pincer-like secondary jaws under a long, stabbing proboscis.

Hari-Kiri-Replicate

The Innoviol kills itself, jumping immediately into its safe harbour, which it then begins to control after an hour or so.

Controlling Kiss

After being kissed or bitten by the controlled subject, the creature on the receiving end ends up becoming the next host. Only creatures with immense immune systems or friends with excellent talents in doctoring can overcome this.

Illusivus

The Illusivus can project highly realistic three dimensional images. These are perfect replicas in every way, except that they lack physical presence. It's currently unknown exactly how these projections work. In form, it's a 3' tall humanoid with long black hair and heavy build. They prefer warhammers in close combat, and bows at range.

Illusory

The Illusivus casts a perfect illusion. Not solid to the touch, but capable of projecting radiant heat, shadows and moving.

Terrify

The mind of the Illusivus is genuinely horrifying. It's capable of creating things that will terrify all but the hardiest, most mentally tough of beings.

Assassin

Many of the races of the world have those of their number specialised in the arts of death. From the Hidden Glove clan of the Nardlor and the Dark Knights of the Taurac to the Owl's Wing of the Henagon, they are all to be feared and respected.

Deadly Strike

Years of training leads to knowing the perfect moment and perfect place to strike. Attacking first from a hidden place, requires exceptional reflexes to dodge.

Groll

A creature of stone. May be made of anything from granite or basalt to precious stones and metals. The materials it's composed of indicate the Groll's position in their society, with the King Groll made of diamond, milk-white quartz, silver and gold. It's unknown how rocks gained intelligence, what keeps their bodies together, or how they work, but since they exist, it is clearly possible.

The renowned scientist Masthenyr Richtmoe has theorised that the geological body is an exosuit for a separate, smaller creature. However, as no-one has yet conducted an autopsy on one, this remains unproven.

Hand of Stone

The Groll lashes out with its hand, doing huge blunt damage and causing either Knock-Back or Hurl, depending on the type of blow.

Stone Skin

All weapons hitting the skin of a Groll must roll to find out whether they're damaged from impacting it.

Garrian

A being of incalculable power, it appears to be able to alter reality in any way it chooses within 50' of itself. Physically resembles a large cuboid, 9' by 3' by 1', with a featureless black surface. The only creatures who are immune to its reality distortion appear to be the other members of the Triumvene. There seems to be virtually no limit on what its power can do.

One thousand years ago, was reported to state to the then King of the Henagon that its role was to protect the peoples of the universe and ensure it continues.

Rewrite The World

If physical manipulation powers allow a person to bend physics, Garrian is the breaking of them. The physical laws of the universe are more like guidelines to it. Capable of breaking any rule of physics in an area near to it.

Distort Reality

Able to create or destroy anything within close range, it is simultaneously the embodiment of creation and destruction.