Deathpelt

Overview

The Deathpelt is an enormous, nightmarish beast, feared for its strength and ability to raise the dead. It is cloaked in a thick, heavy fur that drags along the ground behind like a shroud. Its fur is not just a physical shield, but a dark, necromantic force capable of turning its victims into undead thralls. Once it has locked onto potential prey, the Deathpelt is unstoppable, tearing through anything in its path with terrifying ease.
Appearance It is a yak-like creature with powerful forelegs, though at least twice as large as any regular yak or bison breed. Its signifying name comes from the long thick fur that drapes over its entire body, even its face, covering any sight of anything but its black eyes and sharp horns. Accompanying this fear-instilling appearance is the scent of death itself. In fact, despite its size, travellers that come across often smell it before they see it. The pelt, dragging along the floor around it, has been seen to absorb rot and decay that it passes near.

Origin

No one is sure where the Deathpelt came from, or indeed if there is only one. At least, if there are more than one, they hunt solo. Some theorise that the Deathpelt was once a friendly guardian of nature of some description, that cleaned up the regions it roams, absorbing rot and decay, as it has been seen to do, leaving areas fresh and safe. At some point, this benevolent creature was corrupted, either by an outside force or by simply time, having taken on too much decay and corrupting itself by accident. The times before the Age of Discovery have very little known about them, but the preceding Age is known as the Age of Darkness and supposedly, it was an age where mortals fought endless forms of dark and undead hordes. Perhaps the Deathpelt was a divine being created to help in those times, and abandoned when the gods sealed themselves away.

Behaviour & Abilities

While the Deathpelt may seem like a mindless force of nature, there is a cruel intelligence behind its actions. After killing its prey, the Deathpelt sheds a portion of its fur over the corpse, which wraps itself around it and reanimates the corpse. These reanimated minions are often sent ahead of the Deathpelt to hunt down new targets or weaken defences before the beast itself arrives.