Bestial Species
A bestial species describes anything that is determined to behave as an animal, and therefore is not expected to abide by city laws.
Types:
Beast - describes most quadrupedal and bipedal creatures.
Aerial - anything with wings; may or may not actually fly.
Aquatic - creatures that live in or around water.
Vermin - insects, arachnids, arthropods, worms - anything bug-like.
Flora - anything plant-like.
Amorphous - anything capable of changing shape freely, such as a slime.
Ethereal - anything ghostly, gaseous, or immaterial in some way.
Abomination - things beyond description.
Construct - anything artificially constructed.
Please excuse small inconsistencies in the beginning, and expect minor changes. I'm still working out details.
ADDLEWORM - FEASTER - GREEP - KUDZU - MEPHITOAD - MIGGWITCH - NOCTER - OROLISK - QUERIL - SLETCHER - SPOOK - SQUALL - VRUGG
This page contains hard themes.
The Addleworm
Aspect: Mind / Life
Type: Vermin
Height: -
Length: -
Weight: -
Myth: When one loses their way
Notable Traits: Leads to queen and uses as an eggsac
Physiology
WiP
Behavior
WiP
Reproduction
The addleworm reproduces by filling a host creature with self-fertilized eggs. It may deposit these in the victim's stomach, womb, bowels, or testicles.
Once the eggs hatch, the larvae will burst from the swollen and still-enraptured host.
Diet
The addleworm eats detritus, and often the remains of any spent hosts.
Habitat
The addleworm makes its home in deep caves.
Usage
The queen addleworm is largley a source of fear for citizens, but some mages will use the hunters as a form of mass mind control. The mage will enchant the worms with a belief of their choosing, and then release them into the streets to alter the minds of unsuspecting citizens.
The Feaster
Aspect: Death
Type: Beast
Height: 3.5’
Length: 8’, with tail
Weight: 240 lbs
Myth: When one remembers incorrectly
Notable Traits: Consumes memories
Physiology
Feasters are slender, vaguely canid creatures with an eyeless, mandible-laden face. Their skin color ranges from black to white with various drab, bluish hues in between.
The feaster has no eyes, and is thought to locate its prey by sensing nearby concentrations of consciousness.
Its legs are long and black and lined with slender, flexible spines. Its insides are also usually black or dark gray.
The feaster has a long, whiplike tail.
Behavior
Feasters are agile and confident in their stride. They seem intelligent, but do not speak.
Feasters generally spend a lot of time stalking their prey before pursuing them, and in most cases remain undetected for days at a time before striking. During this time, it's thought to be reviewing its target's life and hunting for the perfect meal.
Reproduction
The male feaster has a sheath with a black, subtly-spined penis. The female has a prominent, spade-shaped vulva.
Feasters tend to have proportionately small genitalia - at least in comparison to many creatures in Nodd.
Diet
Feasters eat only memories. This is achieved by the feaster latching onto the prey’s skull with their mandibles and siphoning out select patches of consciousness. The victim will usually survive the encounter, but will no longer be able to recall the stolen memories.
Inside the creature, the memories are stripped of meaning, and the remaining tedium is discarded. The tedium is then expelled as a black haze from one or both ends. Inhaling this haze would yield a jumbled mash of contextless, meaningless sensations and emotions.
Habitat
Feasters can be found mostly around Umbrasia’s campus, and occasionally out in the wilderness. Here, they tend to favor large stretches of plains, though can sometimes be seen in forests.
Usage
The feaster is mostly feared by citizens, but may be used by beastmages in combat, or appear in a menagerist's collection.
The Greep
Aspect: Life
Type: Vermin
Height: 2.5’
Length: 2’
Weight: 6 lbs
Myth: When one denies their own filth
Notable Traits: Pest species
Physiology
Greeps are small, superficially bird-like creatures. They have a four-part mouth and wingless, fleshy body. They walk on two legs, and have no eyes or ears to speak of.
Behavior
Greeps are nearly mindless creatures that waddle aimlessly through the streets of Nodd. They nest in the piles of garbage that end up heaped against the sides of buildings and walls.
Greeps are not aggressive, and will simply flail and honk if antagonized. They seem to forget about the incident seconds later.
Reproduction
Both sexes have a cloaca; the male lacks a penis, and mates via cloacal kiss.
Greeps reproduce rapidly, and are culled regularly. Females lay a clutch of around twelve small, round slimy eggs.
Diet
Greeps eat mostly insects and garbage, along with any food scraps thrown to them by citizens. It's not uncommon to see a flock of greeps gathered outside restaurants.
Habitat
Greeps are mostly present within the city itself, and congregate in particularly filthy areas. It's rare to find them outside the city, where they'd likely be immediately snatched up by a roving predator.
Usage
Greeps are considered pests, but are also used as food. As a food item, greep may be colloquially referred to as “chicken”.
The Kudzu
Aspect: Flesh / Life
Type: Flora
Height: -
Length: -
Weight: -
Myth: When one resists intimacy
Notable Traits: Crushes and desiccates prey
Physiology
The kudzu is a cluster of vines that takes the shape of various creatures in order to feed. Its vines are usually a dark color dotted with brightly-colored thorns.
Behavior
The kudzu remains as an amorphous tangle of vines until prey is spotted. It then forms itself into a shape that roughly matches that of its victim.
Reproduction
The kudzu reproduces by depositing seeds in the soil from the tip of its tail bulb. It may also inject these into prey as it feeds, sealing the victim's husk around them.
Diet
Kudzu are carnivorous, and entangle prey to wring the life from them. The resulting pulp is absorbed into the creature's vines.
After the kudzu has finished with its prey, it deposits the resulting husk, grotesquely mummified into the position it was forced into inside the creature.
Habitat
Kudzu are found in dense forests where they easily blend into their surroundings. They occasionally creep their way into the city, where they lie in wait among flower beds and gardens.
Usage
Kudzu are feared among citizens, and some become paranoid of any thorny vine for fear it might attack them.
The Mephitoad
Aspect: Life
Type: Aquatic
Height: 4’
Length: 9’
Weight: 3,300 lbs
Myth: When one indulges a sudden food craving
Notable Traits: Viviria’s familiar, eats anything, toxic
Physiology
Mephitoads - sometimes called "slugpuppies" - are walrus-sized amphibians. They have four eyes, long floppy ears, and four chin barbels. Their hind legs are vestigial, and they instead move on a strong, mucus-secreting tail. The mucus is toxic to ingest to most creatures, and is at best unpalatable to everyone else.
Their organs are specialized to process this highly varied, excessive, and often toxic diet. These toxins are filtered into a gland that then excretes them through the creature's mucus. As such, a mephitoad may be more or less toxic depending on what it's been eating.
Their innards are also remarkably strong and flexible, allowing the animal to consume large, sharp, pointy, or otherwise inedible objects.
Their hide is rubbery and wet. They come in a variety of colors and patterns, from drab and swampy hues to garish palettes that warn nicely of the creature's toxicity.
Behavior
Mephitoads aren't particularly intelligent, and essentially exist to consume garbage.
Mephitoads do not seem to possess any cognitive impulse to stop eating. It is not uncommon to see one that has recently stumbled upon a smörgåsbord and immobilized itself - in which case it will only resume eating once it can move again.
Reproduction
Mephitoads are biologically hermaphrodites, and exchange genetic material by intertwining tentacle-like reproductive organs that emerge from a cloaca. The phallus itself has no opening, and instead the fluids ooze from tiny pores all along the organ's length. After copulation, the fluid-slathered organs unwind from one another and retract back into the creature's uterus, where eggs will be fertilized.
The round, greenish-yellow eggs are cared for by the single parent, who will then watch after the "pups" after they're hatched.
Diet
Mephitoads do not seek out any particular food source, and instead tend to eat anything that catches their attention.
Habitat
Mephitoads live in swamps and bogs outside Nodd proper, though sometimes occupy sewers within the city. They are also kept on the House of Viviria’s campus grounds, where they’re revered.
Usage
Mephitoads are difficult to own, as they're known to consume furniture and owner alike. However, they are Viviria’s beloved symbol, and are kept as pets on the campus grounds.
The Miggwitch
Aspect: Flesh
Type: Beast
Height: 6’, at the withers
Length: 10’
Weight: 2,000 lbs
Myth: When one delights at another’s suffering
Notable Traits: Beast of burden, anesthetic secretions
Physiology
Miggwitches are tall, stilt-legged deer creatures. Their legs are fleshless from the last joint to the end of their digitless limbs. This is thought to be an adaptation to the aquatic flesh-eating worms that inhabit the swampy waters of their home.
Behavior
Miggwitches are very anxious and easily startled. While only moderately smart, they're easily tamed and can be trained for various purposes.
Reproduction
The vagina of miggwitches is covered in microscopic urticating filaments. This causes the male an excruciating amount of pain - unless he's eaten sufficient amounts of a certain plant that numbs his genitalia.
Diet
The miggwitch eats a variety of aquatic plants, and its sharp teeth only serve to sever tough woody roots. Their diet ideally includes a type of swamp vegetation - numbell - with anesthetic properties. The anesthetic is an effect of a microorganism that lives on the plant; when consumed, the microbes find their way to the animal's mucous membranes where they then thrive.
Habitat
Miggwitches roam in small herds in the swamps outside Nodd. They're also seen inside Nodd as pack animals.
Usage
Miggwitches are easily domesticated, and are used for various transportation-related purposes.
They are not often eaten, and this is considered a taboo by some.
The Nocter
Aspect: Mind
Type: Ethereal
Height: -
Length: -
Weight: -
Myth: When one awakens during a dream of a nocter
Notable Traits: Spawns only in dreams
Physiology
The nocter is a small bipedal imp with a toothy snout, long arms, and a long, forked tail. They're usually a dark, inky indigo or blue, but their color varies with the dream from which they originated.
Behavior
The nocter is mischievous, crass, and destructive. Once spawned, it usually assaults its dreamer - and often as a group. It's uncommon to meet a citizen who hasn't had at least one nocter experience, and some have them regularly.
Reproduction
The nocter only spawns when someone in Nodd dreams about them. If the dreamer awakens during a nocter dream, the nocters will manifest in Nodd's reality, usually atop the dreamer themselves.
Once spawned, nocters are compelled to harass citizens with the goal of traumatizing them enough to elicit nightmares - thus spawning more of their kind.
Diet
The nocter doesn't eat, and vanishes after several days in reality.
Habitat
The nocter lives anywhere dreamers do.
Usage
Nocters are not employed for any particular purpose, and are mostly considered to be a nuisance.
The Orolisk
Aspect: Change
Type: Amorphous
Height: -
Length: -
Weight: -
Myth: When one resists change
Notable Traits: Morphoria's familiar; shapeshifts
Physiology
The orolisk is a small black snake with white insides.
Behavior
The orolisk possesses the ability to take on the appearance of an inanimate object. If someone unknowingly attempts to use an object that is actually an orolisk, they will themselves turn into the object, and the orolisk will run free.
Reproduction
The orolisk is thought to be spawned by Pnura whenever it senses resistance to change. Orolisks have no genitalia.
Diet
The orolisk is thought to sustain itself only by turning others into objects; despite having a mouth, it does not eat.
Habitat
Orolisks are mainly found within the Morphoria citadel, but may slither their way out into various parts of the city, where they wait for unsuspecting citizens to fall for their various disguises.
Usage
Orolisks are House Morphoria's official familiar.
The Queril
Aspect: Mind
Type: Aerial
Height: 3.5’
Length: 4’, with tail
Weight: 10 lbs
Myth: When one confuses oneself
Notable Traits: Psilysium’s familiar, hallucinogenic dust
Physiology
Querils are small, colorful, flightless birds. In place of wings, they have long black quills.
The tail of a queril is a cluster of tentacles, each one densely feathered. On each tip is a tufted plume from which hallucinogenic dust is produced.
Behavior
Querils are capable of speech, but only seem able to ask questions. Oftentimes the questions are nonsensical or irrelevant, making conversation unfeasible, and the intellectual capacity of the queril difficult to assess.
Reproduction
Both sexes have a cloaca. The male's penis is semi-flexible, and is generally around 18 - 20 in. long.
Females lay a single large egg with glowing spots. The color indicates the color of the offspring's plumage.
Diet
Querils eat insects, fruits, nuts and seeds.
Habitat
Querils deck the labyrinthine halls of the Psilysium citadel, where they confuse and mislead disciples with their dust-induced illusions.
They can also be found in deep, dark forests.
Usage
Querils are the cherished symbol of the Psilysium house.
The Sletcher
Aspect: Flesh
Type: Beast
Height: 3.5’
Length: 8’, with tail
Weight: 240 lbs
Myth: When one climaxes from pain
Notable Traits: Vorn’s familiar, deaf and blind; highly sensitive
Physiology
Sletchers are large, eyeless, earless, hairless, dog-like creatures. They often have spines and sagging pink or reddish flesh that superficially appears as exposed muscle tissue. Their skin is often tattooed or pierced, and elaborately decorated with straps and lace.
Their tails are bifurcated with bony hooks at the tips, acting as a flail. Their claws and teeth are curved and sharp.
Males often have a large chin "blade" whereas females tend to lack this.
They are said to be highly sensitive creatures, and perceive mostly through sense of touch. Despite lacking eyes and ears, they seem to have an analogous sense of objects in space through the ability to detect vibration, changes in temperature and air pressure.
Behavior
Sletchers are intelligent, social animals. They do not vocalize, but instead communicate by "chattering" - rapidly clacking their teeth together.
They tend to enjoy the attention and company of their owners - particularly of an intimate nature.
Reproduction
Sletcher reproduction is fairly canid in nature. The male has a sheath and a knotted shaft that remains in the female for several minutes.
Diet
Sletchers are obligate carnivores, and have jaws built for crushing bone.
Habitat
Sletchers roam the Vorn citadel, and can be found in the deserts outside Nodd.
Usage
Sletchers are the beloved familiar and mascot of the Vorn house. They roam the house grounds and patrol the hallways, acting as eyeless watchdogs.
The Spook
Aspect: Control
Type: Construct
Height: varies
Length: varies
Weight: varies
Myth: Mythless construct
Notable Traits: House Omnillian's familiar and surveillance system
Physiology
Spooks are small constructs that vaguely resemble birds.
There are a number of units, each with their own purpose.
Behavior
Spooks behaved as they're programmed to behave.
Reproduction
The spook is a construct, and doesn't reproduce.
Diet
The spook doesn't eat, but runs on a gloam cartridge.
Habitat
Spooks can be found heavily in House Omnillian, and within the Council Spire in general.
Usage
Spooks are mainly used to watch over Council properties and procedures.
The Squall
Aspect: Death
Type: Beast
Height: 6’
Length: 9’, with tail
Weight: 230 lbs
Myth: When one craves immortality
Notable Traits: Squall of the void, Umbrasia's familar
Physiology
The squall is a theropod-like predator. It has dark, armor-plated hide, a long tail, and claws which have partially fused into scythes. Its inner flesh ranges from black to white with various cool, drab tones in between.
Behavior
The squall is known for its shriek, known as “Squall of the Void”. This sound will cause prey to become complacent if not inviting of death, allowing the beast to more easily overpower them.
Squalls are aggressive, but can be made relatively docile by a dedicated and knowledgable tamer.
Reproduction
Both female and male squalls have a cloaca. The male has a long, ridged penis which extends like a telescope. Females have a tight vaginal slit with a ribbed texture throughout its length.
Squalls lay black, ribbed eggs.
Diet
The squall is a carnivore, and eats virtually anything it can catch - including any citizens that wander far from the city’s gates.
Habitat
Squalls occupy the plains outside the City of Nodd.
Usage
Squalls are the cherished familiar of House Umbrasia, and their wails echo through the pallid halls of the citadel.
They may also be a target for hunters, who cull the bothersome predators for sport. They may also make a formidable addition to any skilled beastmage's roster.
The Vrugg
Aspect: Mind
Type: Abomination
Height: 9', above ground
Length: -
Weight: -
Myth: When one resists temptation
Notable Traits: Illusive desire trap
Physiology
WiP
Behavior
WiP
Reproduction
WiP
Diet
WiP
Habitat
WiP
Usage
WiP