The skin changers (sometimes called Shifters, Skin Changers, or just Changers) live throughout the world, often mistaken for the lycanthropes, the berzerkers, or other animal spirits. Despite this, they are actually humans or nearly so, but they have magic to turn themselves into animals. In order to turn into an animal they require the skin of the animal, and they must wrap themselves in it to perform the change, meaning that they will do anything to keep their skin. The most common animals that skin changers can become are bears, big cats, seals, or large birds, and so the skins range in style from the full pelt of the bear or seal, to the cloak of feathers of the bird changers.
Read MoreDulan has really wanted to be an entertainer and a researcher. He really didn't want to be on the highway with a group of the King's Guard attempting to hunt down what had been killing farmers coming to market in this backwater town. He was only a novitiate into the Wizard's Guild, with spell which would let him dazzle a person - and really didn't feel ready to battle a monster (as the panicked reports claimed). However, the Masters didn't care what he wanted. Tracchus, the captain who was leading him and the other four had apparently come back from the last war, and seemed sanguine about the situation, and Dulan took hope in his silence. Until, of course, they crested the hill and saw the horrible thing.
Read MoreKenric hated gathering firewood. He knew the value to his friends - but he hated it. He wished he was a better cook so he was given a different job. They always walked until far too late into the evening, and it was always getting dark, and the woods weren't safe. Gathering an armload of fallen sticks and some larger logs was easy, but that wasn't really the point. He heard the sound of a wolf creeping up on him in every rustle of leaves. He hated the woods at twilight, he wished he was back with his friends. Working quickly he scooped kindling into the front of his tunic and began to return to where his friends were beginning to get tinder lit and vegetables ready to be stewed. Thinking mostly of the cask of ale and good friends he was returning to, he didn't notice that one of the branches he'd gathered had reared up to strike.
Read MoreThe Harpies are also known as the Hounds of the Divine. Most mortals have only seen the Harpies as blurs and screams, but they do indeed look like women with the wings and talons of eagles in place of their arms and legs. They are fast, almost as fast as the wind, and able to foul the elements around them, and can scream as loud as the winter winds through the leafless trees.
Read MoreSitting in their homes, around their fires, listening to the wind screaming through the trees, no one wants to go into the darkness. But the darkness holds more than just frostbite and death. In the bare branches of the creaking waving trees, dance the frost maidens. Frost maidens are tall women in ragged clothes, ice blue skin, and long white hair, who dance amongst the trees. It is the frost maidens who eat the last fruits of the trees, and the last bits of life in the bones of those claimed by the frost are theirs.
Read MoreOld Scratch, also called Old Nick, is often thought to be one being attempting to derail humanity. Old Scratch is also often thought to be a Sidhe Folk or group of Sidhe Folk who have specific rules around deals and rules, and desire to trick people. Despite these speculations, most scholars agree that Old Scratch is a group of beings, and completely native to this world. Why they do what they do is unknown. Humans do know that they look like either a regular person, or a human-goat hybrid, with the legs and horns of a goat with the other features of a human. They almost always keep the horns when they are in the form of a human.
Read MoreAll things eventually die. Some things die more slowly than others. Some magic refuses to die. Old magic, tied to ancient artifacts or places of power will do everything to prolong their life. The fading gasps of powerful magic will grow into an enervating force, shadows that come to rip the life force from those nearby, These shadows creep out, avoiding the light and attempting to find victims to claim.
Read MoreDullahans are from the same place as the Sidhe Folk, but they are not quite the same being. While the Sidhe Folk are often talkative and willing to communicate with humanity, their primary danger is their desire to manage etiquette. The dullahan on the other hand are almost completely silent, only the whinny of their horses, the beat of their hooves, and the creak of their coaches allow the wary traveller to notice the sound of the approaching dullahan.
Read MoreThe mad experiments of the sorcerers who live on their edge of society have horrible consequences. Most of them are explosive magics, destroying a tower, burning a forest, or killing a small village. Some of the worst are the releases of mystical storms or diseases that ravage over many cities. These are the unintended consequences, the times the mages themselves are ripped apart by their own magics. But things like the Guard Beasts, the Owl Beast, The Ring of Power, or powerful spells sometimes are created as a result of these experiments, and so the sorcerers still try, hoping to achieve immortality, either metaphorically or literally.
Read MoreThe scavenger mite is a scourge of the traveller in orc lands. They are not natural creatures, instead they were once ticks, lice, and fleas who gorged themselves on the blood of orcs. Since orcs spend so long on the campaign, it's common for them to develop these pests, due to grueling marches and being whipped bloody and raw. However, it is not these pests that become blood scavengers. These pests will sometimes end up in the hair and clothes of an orc used in a ritual, or, much more rarely, on one who has drunk of the dark themselves. These will taste of the Dark Blood themselves, and lack the will to resist its call.
Read MoreThe dwarves and other creatures who live beneath the earth tell stories of the dread colonies of the giant ants. These massive insects build colonies in the mountains or beneath large sand dunes. Their breeders spread far and wide, and they wage shadow wars with other colonies. Wizards, druids, and others who can speak to ants find that they are single minded in their desire to conquer the world, and their eternal wars with other colonies. This single-mindedness is so strong that even being able to speak to ants does not start conversations. Only queens and solitary breeders will acknowledge that the humanoids even have purpose. The giant ants will only interact with humanoids if their nests are breached. Meaning that the most common interactions with giant ants is when dwarves find a cave in the mountains and then soldier ants boil forth and a war begins. Of course, it also happens that a city might be built above a hive, and sewers or cisterns being built might cause giant ants to come forth to cleanse the city.
Read MoreSometimes you need an undead army that isn't just the restless dead, the shambling hordes of a mad necromancer. Sometimes the undead are an unkillable obstacle that must be handled with overwhelming force, finesse, or guile. The necromancer or the death artist is generally the obstacle. But sometimes you need a set of undead who are the problem in and of themselves. I love stories about skeletons who put themselves back together, or zombies who continue to crawl when they are destroyed.
Read MoreNear the village of Hallyn there's a witch's cabin. Every year the few children of Hallyn will sneak into the woods to try to touch it. Several of the younger peddlers and guards will approach the cabin in hopes of glimpsing Thrin, the witch, and possibly learning whom back home loves them. Hallr claims that all of the mushrooms of the forest belong to her, which is why few can tell the poisonous from the safe. Milkovich says that she uses the mushrooms to cook brews so poisonous they can kill a horse just by smelling them. Despite his obvious respect for Thrin, Hallr has never stopped Milkovich from saying so. Whatever their beliefs, everyone is afraid of Thrin and her strange cabin.
Read MoreMilkovich is a young trapper in the village of Hallyn. When Milkovich was barely old enough to go hunting on his own, he started collecting furs from rabbits, otters, and beavers, and selling them as furs to the caravans. This let him buy extra candles, some books, and other comforts. He taught himself to read by night, and sat and talked to the merchants, getting advice on deals and how to make friends. All of this has left him, now in his late twenties, a well liked and relatively wealthy member of the village.
Read MoreThere are many stories of lost treasures of Hallyn. Many claim that those who winter in Hallyn have secret deals with the dwarves. Or that they've stolen treasures from the caravans. Others claim that the peoples have poisoned caravan leads and stolen their goods. Or worse, that they are in cahoots with the wolves, stealing goods. Most don't believe these tales, but they are constantly told in the taverns along the road, or around campfires on the way to Hallyn. These rumours have never been true. The only treasure that stays in Hallyn, buried beneath the jaunty, lightning struck, mountain ash deep in the heart of the forest, are the stolen Crown Jewels.
Read MoreHallr has lived in the village of Hallyn for the longest of anyone, about 20 years. A giant of a human, who has been keeping the bar for the majority of his life. The stories he tells claim he was an adventurer and hunter who snuck on to dwarven lands and stole axes or mail. This of course is entirely fake, he simply tells them to keep the stories about him wild, and people guessing. It is Hallr who keeps the city together, making sure that those staying in his inn are forced to spend money in the town, and support his neighbours. Only he remembers the night of blood when a bear attacked the city, killing almost everyone. No one knows how or why the citizens could not fight it off.
Read MoreAt the dawn of the world the dwarves had begun to learn the skills of working bronze. Humans were building spears and hunting deer in the deep woods, barely learning to meet with the wolves, while the dwarves were learning to find the guts of mountains and turn them to blades. When the first of the dwarves emerged from their mountains bearing a sword, they met with the rest of the species. The dwarf declared the sword the ultimate weapon, the tool that would make dwarves supreme over the others, and demanded tribute. However, the greatest of the giant smiths scoffed, hefted their spear, and declared that the sword would never defeat the spear. This is when the dwarf smith struck out the eye of the giant.
Read MoreNot all dragons are the Elder Wyrms. Not all of them are the fire breathing monstrosities ravaging cities ad devouring whole herds of cattle. Most who encounter dragons are not battling these wyrms, they are dealing with the lesser Lindworm and Wyvern. These lesser wyrms are much less deadly, intelligent, and overwhelming than their cousins, but they are still not to be trifled with.
Read MoreMany regular folk believe that the Folk live in the burial mounds (called sidhe in the old tongue), but in reality, they are the closest thing to humanity from the Otherworld. They can cross over at any of the thin places, whether burial mounds or faery rings. The Sidhe Folk are not uniform, with many different folk that have different abilities, appearances, and lives. This often leads to mortal scholars attempting to classify them, despite their desire to resist categorization.
Read MoreThe size of the pantheon grows and shrinks as the gods die and are reborn. Even the most reviled of the gods are still granted an obeyance or supplication when all goes wrong. Few wish to pray to the god of lies, but all need to sometimes. When a new god is born, it's rare that there are not servants called to their priesthood. But when a god dies, their churches do not always scatter to the winds. These churches still have old priests, young people called to them, power, money, and even buildings dedicated to them. What they do not have is miracles, or a god to call people to the priesthood. This is what happened to Nashatay.
Read MoreThe god Nashatay was the god of raiding, revered by the warrior and raider, and hated by those living along the coast. At the fall of the last empire, the sea people were saved by Nashatay leading them north along the coast and gathering gold and food grown by others. Several centuries of living off the spoils of these raids caused the sea people to grow rich, powerful, and feared. Until Ul-Ratha, the Hero of the northerners met a raid lead by Nashatay and his wolves upon the northerners.
Read MoreThe eve after a great battle, the restless dead begin to rise from the corpses of those who are left to fester upon the battlefield. Alongside the deaths, there is also the memories, and the trauma. It's said every soldier leaves a part of themselves on the battlefield. These memories are left to fester with the corpses. No one spends the time to clean them up, only hide them, but these traumas have the power to end kingdoms, destroy cities, change the course of history. The echoes of these trauma don't just live in the hearts of the survivors, they remain haunting the battlefields.
Read MoreA Stitched Statue is a creation of enchanters, alchemists, and priests who wish to build a perfectly loyal soldier (or, rarely, assistant). The creator must create a statue out of something, typically stone or iron, but some will construct effigies of straw or wood, and then empower it by stitching it together with magic. The energies required are so massive that it's rare that the creator of the statue can keep it alive for more than a few hours.
Read MorePeasants and travellers tell stories of what happens to those who get lost in the ancient woods. The mortal dangers of the woods themselves are bad enough, starvation and predators are common fates of those lost in the woods. But, there is something more dangerous in the deep woods, the ancient parts of the world themselves. The spirits of the ancient woods are only properly understood by the Ghosts of the Deeping Wood or the Spirit Hunters of the great wolves, and humans or dwarves will never fully understand them, but the wise still properly fear them.
Read MoreThis is me lifting directly from Dragonlance. I've always wanted to run Dragonlance in Burning Wheel, so instead of a monster this week, I just want to convert them pretty directly for the purpose of one day fulfilling this wish, I don't know if I'll ever make it happen - but why not make that future easier! So today we're doing Draconians, directly, so that I can pull out D1 Dragons of Despair and have a half elf, a kender, and a cleric be assaulted on their way to learn what's available on Xak Tsaroth.
Read MoreThe deep folk are a group of peoples who live beneath the waves. Most are known to live in the oceans and seas, but they seem unaffected by living in salty or sweet water, and appear along large rivers and lakes as well. Just as long as there's enough water for them to make a home beneath it (since like other folk, they prefer to live in a building. They are often seen by sailors, though some scholars will head out onto the oceans in order to study them, or learn from them.
Read MoreSometimes a town goes missing. It never happens all at once. A merchant doesn't show at the city's market days. The circuit priest is missing for a festival after travelling to the town. Eventually someone goes to the town, just to check up. Maybe it's a tax collector, maybe it's a concerned friend, maybe it's the king's soldiers chasing a fugitive, and that's when they learn that that town has been host to an Anura. The people are no longer acting like people, they've been enslaved to a strange squamous creature who has claimed the town for themselves.
Read MoreLong ago there were beings called Jotuns that ruled over the cosmos. They fought shadow wars with the gods every night, engaging them in combat and harming them, and drinking deeply of their fear. However, Jotuns did not revel in the causing of the pain, they only did this to sustain themselves on the fear of the gods. The Jotuns where powerful, intense, and wild, and they fed upon fear. Unfortunately for the Jotuns they were bested by the gods once, reducing their legend, destroying the Jotuns themselves. For the Jotuns are phobovores, eaters of fear, and they were only able to defeat the gods due to millenia of work, distilling fear within the gods themselves. But after their defeat, they waned into very minor sprites, fit only for scaring children.
Read MoreThe black haired barbarian climbed around the crenellation at the top of the tower. He slipped noiselessly into the tower, where it was said the wizard's treasure was kept. Oiling the hinges to the door, and deftly picked the golden lock to the treasure room. As the door slid silently open, and the barbarian went to slip through. Only to be met by a large lizard, with cold black scales, sharp teeth and fetid breath. The Barbarian drew his blade, snarling to himself to be so foolish as to trust a wizard's defenses to be made of steel and stone. Things as valuable as the Gem of Triflorus must always have a guardian.
Read MoreThe bravest of the animals is the Rooster. The Rooster will fight any other animal if it is required to, or even is provoked. This bravery has made the rooster one of the great symbols of valor. Their place in heraldry has made the rooster an important sacrifice on before battle. Offering a rooster, or a rooster and a hen, to the way to a battle is said to ensure glory. However, the rooster is a bird who rarely wins a fight, and this confidence has to have come from somewhere.
Read MoreHags are dangerous on their own, They are a predator upon humans, especially lone travellers, but they are not incredibly dangerous to towns or villages. Most of the time, a group of farmers who discover a hag in the area can chase it away, meaning that hags spend their lives in fear, predating on humanity and also fearing them. Hags, however, have a solution to this problem, forming Covens.
Read MoreHags are often mistaken for wizened women, typically wrapped in warm but tattered robes with unkempt skin and hair, when it's visible. Despite this, hags are not actually human, simply another of the intelligent humanoids, with their wizened and sickly appearance being a facade. Hags are often full of vigor, and able to overpower travellers they encounter.
Read MoreAs the storm rolls in, the skies begin to darken, the thunder begins to roll. Those nights mothers know to keep their children in the dark. They know the winds carry the haunting spirits, those of croup or chills, but their fear pales in the face of the fear of the Hunt. As nights grow cold, and the storms roll in, heralding the autumn, the Wyld Hunt rides the dark skies. But the braying of the hounds is only there to make the prey fear, the beat of the hooves of the horses also herald the arrival of their riders. As loud as thunder, and as swift as the southern winds, and with hair that shines like the moon.
Read MoreLike the dryads or the naiads, the Cloud Shepherds - also called nimbiads - are the personifications of nature. Rather than spirits, they are people who come down from the sky. They often cavort with the gods amongst the cloud islands they call home. Only during the dry seasons do they come down to the world to weep with the grasses for rains. They generally appear like small wisps of smoke or vapour, possibly with small arcs of lightning or rumbles of thunder, but they can appear as an alabaster skinned person with blue eyes and lips, and pure white hair. When enraged they turn a very dark grey with lightning yellow hair. These humanoid forms are still quite fragile, so the nimbiads often shy away from mortals who they see as violent and dangerous.
Read MoreStorm Crows are a greater cousin of the so-called mortal crow. The mortal crow has inherited much symbolism from their nature as scavengers and dark creatures. Warriors see the crow as an ill omen, the caw of the crow is the call that will bring them to the beyond. But the Storm Crow is not like their mortal cousin. The Storm Crow is the scavenger of thunder and lightning. As the clouds form, the storm crow begins to gather, their caws as cries carrying through the stillness before the storm. Those who know the signs know that this means that the spirits of lightning are gathering in those clouds.
Read MoreThe Coelboidae are the most ancient snakes. As the songs of creation burst forth from the heavens, the dragons began to rumble to wakefulness in the bowels of the earth. But those deep places also held other serpents, lesser serpents. As the waning of the time of myth, the lesser serpents faded into the snakes, and their eldest were the Coelboidae. They do not bear claws and wings like the wyrms, they are fully legless, but still at least as long as an elf is tall, and most of the are far larger. They are usually coloured to look like the place they live, and shed their skins often to blend into the area.
Read MoreInside every hero a fire burns bright enough to be seen by even some normal mortals. Heroes shine so brightly that they sometimes are seen with halos or as a burning pillar. Those heroes though sometimes falter. They sometimes fall. Lust, greed, and fear have broken heroes but that spark cannot die. These heroes leave behind their light, shattered and broken. Two burning points of leftover potential.
Read MoreThe Dendan is the larger cousin of the whale. The great beast of the deep, the fear and desire of ever sailor. The tales of the Dendan are told by firelight, when sailors remember their lost brethren. The shanties of those who have slain one are only sung to defy the very waves themselves.
Read MoreSome people do things too evil for the gods to condone. Ending heroes before their story is over. Inventing murder. Creating the first liches. These things the gods will punish by exiling the being. Not from a kingdom, city, or even a temple. These creatures walk the earth alone forever, with no options for succor, and the gods themselves preventing them from resting their heads.
Read MoreChimera are generally not naturally occurring creatures. There's a belief that they are the creation of the deities, or the children of deities. However, they are typically created by alchemical or magical accidents. In fact, they are not really a species in the same way other creatures are, each specimen is created as a result of a unique event (though sometimes you do get a brood rather than a unique individual). This means encountering a Chimera is often fraught with surprises, even by the most learned or experienced survivalists.
Read MoreA Burning Wheel Monster Every Week