Ogre-R

Ogre-Spawn/Half-Ogre

(Giant)—Ogres and humans can interbreed, and their offspring often look like over-large, heavily muscled, hulking humans, 6.5’ to 8’ tall, with gigantic hands and feet. Their heritage can take different forms, but often they have squarish, wide heads; wide, flat noses; beady eyes with heavy brows; and wide mouths, with overbites and small lower tusks in their lower jaws; and a complexion with a mottled green cast. Their hair is dark, their eyebrows thick and their ears small and lightly pointed. Their culture and education will reflect whether they were raised by their human or ogre parent. They have low voices and speak and learn languages as standard humans. Their eyes are not necessarily ogre red, but they lack the excellent night vision and day blindness of full ogres.

Onak

(Animal)—These are enormous serpents, five to seven feet long, with armored backs, horn-studded heads, and six to eight sets of small legs. They may spit poison up to seven yards, and this venom paralyzes victims for a day or more. Onaks are exceptionally agile and fast, but they are also predators of opportunity, ignoring prey that are too many or powerful for them. They are omnivorous and solitary.

Pernicon

(Demon)—Especially designed for annoyance, these demons at first seem affectionate, friendly, and childlike, but their persistent attentions quickly becomes irritating. They tenaciously hug, tease, prod, and rattle their victims long after it becomes unbearable. About twelve-feet tall, these thick bodied, red, wingless demons have a leering countenance, faces ringed in four horns, and horns also at many of their joints. They are guards and gaolers in hell.

Phouka

(Faerie)—This fairy creature appears as a sleek, well-fed, midnight black horse. It is intelligent, can speak most human languages, and knows assorted divinatory spells—if treated respectfully, it will give future readings. Mischievous and changeable, phoukas delight in tossing victims onto its back, taking them on a terrifying and exhausting gallop, then dropping them off in some distant spot. This is all good fun to the phouka, and it will laugh uproariously and deposit the rider somewhere inconvenient. This game can backfire, for at least one great man has broken the phouka, making it his faithful steed.

Piasts

(Dragon)—These are small sea serpents well known to Bloodaxe Bay. These creatures are about 4’ long, have beards, animal intelligence, and they swim in pods. They are not dangerous unless attacked, but they compete with the local fishermen for the same fish, so the people of Orlois consider them pests. Piasts are a shimmering blue-gray.

Pixie

(Faerie)—Also called portunes, sprites and flower faeries, these are tiny, exquisite little beings, 6” to 1 1/2” tall. They have oval, gossamer wings that let them fly with great skill. They often have red hair; turned-up pug noses; and green, squinty eyes. They wear green or sometimes brown, or flower-petal clothing, but often they are simply naked. Pixies can become invisible at will, and they are not dark bound. These beings are volatile, scatterbrained, and careless, and they giggle at their own pranks. They are teases and tricksters, especially to anyone who is disrespectful to them.

by Scott A. Story

Powers and Dominions

(Demon)—This is hell’s powerful demon ruling class. These are less likely to look like standard demons, and more often represent themselves as human/animal hybrids of the more unsettling variety. On Aarthus, they have three forms: their infernal form (see above a human form; and incorporeal invisible forms. These are detailed elsewhere. The powers associated with archdemons is attached to this page.

Prateans

(Humanoid)—Also called The Mighty Men of Old, These were an elder race of humans, gifted in all abilities, and blessed with extended life-spans. This race included the Noirites, aka Dark Prateans. These now extinct peoples could live many hundreds of years, and well-proportioned at around 6’ to 7’ tall. They walked with gods and demigods, and lived in an age of wonder before the Great Deluge.

Primordial Animal

(Animal)—Versions of modern animals, but usually twice the size and harder to kill. Warg wolves and cave bears are good examples, as are mastodons and sabertooth tigers.

Red Cap

(Faerie)—Not assassins, per se’, but serial killer faeries who become progressively distorted physically by their own violent mission. Red caps always work alone, and they may be identified by their blood-stained, red caps; iron boots; and, as they level up in their craft, prominent teeth, skinny taloned fingers, fiery eyes and wild hair. During melee, their iron boots are quite effective, and they also expertly wield pike-staffs or poleaxes. Despite their cumbersome iron boots, these malicious faeries still move in near silence. Red caps ply their vicious trade wherever battles have been fought, places of bloodshed, ruins, abandoned castles, or other places spoiled by misery. Their favorite killing method when they haunt ruined castles or churches is to crush victims with dislodged stones from overhead parapets. Afterwards, they drink their victim’s blood from the faeries’ stained caps. These killers often are quite mad and very random at choosing their victims.

Remnant

(Undead)—A particularly repulsive type of undead, these are animated body parts that hop around on their own, like bouncing balls, malevolently trying to bite, kick, pinch, strangle, or scratch.

Reptilian

Also called saurians, these creatures long have been rumored to hunt the Dithmurge Swamp, both in the baronies of Dith (Hempton) and Murge (Hexton). This has never been proven, and few have encountered these creatures in living memory.. They are sentient and at least as smart as humans, and they have their own impenetrable language. If they speak the local human tongue, it will be with a serpentine, hissing lisp. The beings are faster and twice as strong as humans, but if exposed to severe cold, they become sluggish. Reptilians heal quickly, and they many regenerate lost limbs and organs. While anthropomorphic in form, their legs are lizard-like and clawed, their hands are clawed, and they may or may not have tails. They are covered in soft scales which are pigmented green, but sometimes they may include other colors. These creatures have superior olfactory senses that are as useful as human vision; and their lizard eyes have an extra lid and a horizontally split pupil. They swim with great speed and agility, and they cold their breath for up to twenty minutes but cannot breathe water itself.

Reptilian Elites

These reptilians are the ruling class of their species. They have shorter snouts, crocodilian ridges across their foreheads and skulls, and don’t have tails. Their coloration is more varied and saturated than standard reptilians. They have the power to morph into other shapes, most notably human, and they may pass among mankind easily. They do not have the lizard lisp of the standard reptilians. These beings claim to be a lost civilization that rose and fell well before humanity, and they dream of a return to glory. They do not have human emotions such as empathy, so they may treat kindness with cruelty. Most elites have advanced spell-casting skills.

Restless Dead

(Undead)—These are animated corpses, and they are aggressive, only semi-sentient, and hard to demobilize. If chopped up, all the separated body parts remained animated, still functioning with cohesion and malice. Burning is the only known way to demobilize the restless dead permanently. They have no ego or personhood, remember none of their life or skills, and are merely killing machines.

Revenant

(Undead)—This is the corpse of a loved one who rises from the grave to visit cruelty on his friends, family and community. He is physical, appearing as a dessicated dead person. He keeps memories of his life, and he may speak and act as a healthy living human. His goodness or piety in life have no bearing on the revenant’s actions, because they return to cause suffering and death. One of the revenants’ favorites tricks to steal eyes, tongues, arms, feet or similar anatomy from loved ones. During the day, revenants return to their graves. At night they assume immaterial form to pass through the ground, and phase back into their graves at dawn. If the revenant is disinterred, his body will be still supple, and he may show signs of recent struggles he may have had. One way to stop this creature is to decapitate him and place his head between his knees; re-bury him vertically and head down; or toss his body into a moor. The revenant will become confused or lost and cannot return. These undead are like vampires, but they are not blood drinkers, and they are not immortal, rotting over time.