Bestiary of the Great Woods
Bestiary of the
Great Woods
Catalogued, written and illustrated by Eden and Diana
Globus globus
Other names: Orbs (the hunters), Phosphenes (the soothsayer)
Multiple
Seen myself: Yes. You can find them everywhere.
Description: Solid luminous bubbles, floating between the pines. They do not always have the same color, but the y sometimes form garlands of matching colors. I do not know how they can float, nor why unmatching colors do not stick together. They feel like tracing paper or sea-polished glass to the touch, and they stick a bit to the fingers, as if they were charged with static electricity. If you break one, it fades away into thin air, and a very faint cry is audible, but seemingly distant and muffled.
Status: Alive (if they really are some sort of creature?)
Notes: Very useful as a night light at dark if you manage to catch one. Do not provide enough light to be used as a flashlight.
Avis inebrae
Other names: Unluckies (the hunters)
Multiple
Seen myself: Yes
Description: A long white and sinuous creature flying very high above the pines, with three to fifteen pairs of small white wings, flapping only rarely. The end where its head should be has two long tendrils undulating towards the back when the creature moves forward. It is rare to see more than one at a time, but they do not always have the same length, and the number of their pairs of wings depends on their size. Even with binoculars, I couldn't determine whether it really is a kind of bird or not, and it seems nobody has ever seen one land.
Status: Alive
Notes: I do not know why the hunters call them unluckies. Generally speaking, they do not seem to like them, but without explaining me why. Maybe speaking of them is in itself unlucky?
Terra ridens
Other names: Laughers, Tricksters, Unsufferable hyenas (the hunters)
Multiple
Seen myself: Yes! Even if it was only for some seconds. I was taking a nap against a tree when I was hit by a ball of mud in the back of my head. When I turned around, I saw five of them laughing at me and dancing around.
Description: A small brown creature with wood-like skin wearing mainly leaves, with a dozen eyes. Their arms are long enough to touch the ground. They usually move in small groups and are herbivorous. Their main hobby is playing pranks and trapping any other creature they see, but I could not ascertain whether it was all there was to it, or if they were more aggressive than that after traveling for a while with one of them and seeing them up close, I can say with certitude that they are not aggressive.
Status: Alive
Notes: Based on what the hunters say (when they are not cursing them), giving them a pear makes them consider you friendly.
Gypaetus apatios
Other names: Eagerlies (the hunters), Old-man-eater (the lost children)
Multiple
Seen myself: Yes, but I quickly moved on.
Description: A group of bearded vultures flying in circles in the sky around their prey's location and making them grow noticeably older until it is no more than bones, that they can come down to eat by breaking them with their stone-hard beaks.
Status: Alive
Notes: Once spotted, you only need to keep on moving.
Manus movens
Other names: Hands (the hunters), Spiders (the lost children)
Multiple
Seen myself: No, but apparently they are often seen?
Description: Lost gloves that have returned to the wild. Climb everywhere and apparently make a lot people jump. I do not even know if they eat something (and in that case, how?).
Status: Alive
Notes: I don't really like spiders.
Bufo capanna
Other names: Home Toad
Multiple
Seen myself: Yes, from afar and in both states.
Description: A giant toad able to flatten itself on the ground with its mouth open and to regurgitate its bowels, that look like a small hut or cabin with a pleasant smell. It gulps down the prey that take shelter in them.
Status: Alive
Notes: I saw some of different sizes and house types. It really does look comfortable…
Rubus hallucigenia
Other names: The Bush (the hunters), The soul (the soothsayer), Bane of the Hungry (the lost children)
Unique
Seen myself: Yes, and I certainly had a great time everytime.
Description: A lost raincoat that was colonized by a bush of bramble. It appears and disappears at will suddenly. The brambles grow raspberries that color the irises of the person who eats them with an apparently random color, which also colors the field of view. Caterpillars whose appearance change depending on the color then appear as hallucinations for about an hour.
Status: Alive
Notes: Every time I met it, I tasted a raspberry to list the different types of hallucinated caterpillars:
- The red color gives winged caterpillars corresponding to different orders of insects: hymenopteran, dipteran, lepidopteran, hemipteran, coleopteran.
- The grey color gives hairy caterpillars with characteristic patterns of other animals, such as zebras, tigers or leopards.
- The blue color gives abnormally long caterpillars (up to several meters).
- The yellow color gives dead caterpillars.
- The green color gives unusually big caterpillars with human eyes.
- The purple color gives caterpillars that whisper every occasion where one missed an opportunity.
- The orange color gives caterpillars with elephant ears.
Anguis textum
Other names: None known
Unique
Seen myself: Oui
Description: A huge serpent-like creature seemingly made of wool or multicolored lichen threads, without immediately visible head or legs. Looking closer, the threads that touch the ground apparently serve as legs, like a millipede. Maybe it is its only sensory organ? At first sight inoffensive.
Status: Alive
Notes: I saw it only once and it was blocking off the entire path I was traveling on.
Grus Tintinnabulum
Other names: The Crane (hunter group)
Unique
Seen myself: Yes, from afar
Description: Great bird looking like a crane, with wings made of small bells. It flies low and spends much time on land. It seems curious and inoffensive
Status: Alive Dead
Notes: The group of hunters I came across killed it not long after my meeting with them.
Bipes gigantea
Other names: The Master of the Vestibule (the lost children)
Unique?
Seen myself: No. The group of the "lost children" told me about it.
Description: Apparently an almost blind, giant serpent with forelimbs (probably an amphisbene) who knows where each new person is when they arrive, and very often attacks them. It glides between trees near the treetops and the rustling of its scales can make you blind and mad.
Status: Alive
Notes: I have never heard anyone else talk about this animal. Given the fact that the "lost children" are not here of their own volition, I think it attacks only people who are forced to come here. Maybe several individuals, because how else could it follow several people?
Tyto fascinans
Other names: Little Owl (shifty hunter)
Unique
Seen myself: Yes! On a tree halfway downhill on the hill nearest to the Spire. It cried towards me to greet me.
Description: A great human-looking creature with a completely flat face, big black eyes, four arms covered in something that looks like almost black feathers (?) and toes that end in talons. When it cries, the entire face moves up to the chin, revealing a mouth hidden underneath. It seems to be unable to fly, but it climbs extremely well in trees and spends hours perching on branches. From time to time, it calls someone, but it is never the same name, as far as I know. Apparently, one should not look into its eyes.
Status: Missing
Notes: I heard it regularly the last time I came around there, but since my last visit, it is no longer the case. I hope it fares well.
Mors putridus
Other names: The Spiteful (shifty hunter)
Unique
Seen myself: No. The shifty hunter told me about it.
Description: Apparently some kind of skeleton made up of several skeletons glued together by mud and moss, but legless. The one who described it to me did not talk much about it.
Status: Alive? Is a skeleton alive?
Notes: I wonder if it is able to talk.
Viator magnus
Other names: The Walker (the soothsayer), Long-legs (shifty hunter)
Unique
Seen myself: Yes. Hard to miss it.
Description: A giant, pale and spindly humanoid creature whose head sticks out (sometimes) from the top of the pines. Its face is always turned towards the sky. Its fingers are spiderlike but apparently it never uses them. It really looks like someone who would have been stretched out, because its limbs are not much thicker than human legs and arms. The whole gives off an impression of a stick man. He walks very slowly, without ever stopping
Status: Dead
Notes: There is some kind of enormous spindly carcass laying on fifty meters down the slope of one of the hills south of the Chiming Lake. I do not know what else it could be, even if the roots have started to grow over it. I think it is that shifty hunter that killed it, but in that case, why did he leave it intact?
page revision: 2, last edited: 04 Jan 2025 00:25