#fantasy bestiary

[igorlevchenko-blog]

A word on Grazelandic Nix-Hound

—Grazelands is savannah-like expanse of rolling hills, Acacia trees and endless pastures of wild wheat (called Wickwheat), which to the smaller creatures (kwama, rats and nix-hounds) provide much-needed concealment from larger saurians. Widespread of wheat gives landscape its characteristic colours, and the local wildlife follows in step with its palette of tan browns and sun-scorched greens, molting in time with the cycle of plant's ripening. This is why Grazelandic nix hounds are not dark green like their Bittercoast cousins but—depending on the season— have carapaces of ochre,tan and beige colours. Also their paws are not as large and they are not known to swim—probably due to cliff racers swarming the crag-ridden coast.

Nix-hound in the picture is Scuttler, OC of @jenarion.

[ahb-writes]

Mara.

"It is a vile creature, as terrible as the plague and fierce as a storm whipped up by the demons of the higher planes. But the mara never takes physical form. It cannot be predicted, understood, or grasped by either human hands or scholarly means. It is a scourge born from nightmares, as elusive and deceptive as the chaos of dreams. Sometimes it appears to its chosen victim in the form of a demonic, scornfully grinning cat, other times as a shriveled corpse, frail-looking and partially covered in thick boar bristles. It is said, however, that the sleeper can always recognize the face of his nemesis in the mara’s twisted features, but whether this is ancient wisdom or mere superstition is anybody’s guess."

Forbidden Lands: Book of Beasts (2023); Andreas Marklund (lead writer); Henrik Rosenborg (lead artist)

[vcreatures]

A two for one post today.

Dragon posts for Smaugust.

The Maple Leaf Drake is a small to medium sized woodland dragon that populates temperate forests across the globe. Their unique body morphology allows them to hide, almost seamlessly, amongst vast maple forests. This physiological adaptation also extends to seasonal color changes throughout the year. They will live their lives hidden amongst the leaves, using their long proboscis bill to pierce through the bark of Maple Trees to extract the sweet sap, which makes up the majority of it’s diet. 

Incredibly skittish, the Fearful Precious Red Coral Drake lives it’s life hidden amongst Red Coral. It’s long proboscis-like mouth snatching up small unsuspecting pray. 

[sanctus-ingenium]

Collectable woodblock prints commemorating individual conquests were commonplace in the theocracy, distributed by the church as a way to announce its victories.

get a print here :>

[the-fluffy-folio]

10 new critters available for your digitally crafted Foundry VTT worlds! Which one is your favourite?

You can find them (plus many more) over at my Patreon page 🔮 

[ordheist]

been using this https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1373/09/1373096776710.pdf guidebook for coming up with some crazy beasties as a warmup

[ollyneanderthal]

drew some medieval marginalia for our discord challenge

[filurig]

some stuff involving non sapient creatures in pareidolia, first image is some animals that tomtar have domesticated, second is a remake of gloson, which is a vätte but is, contrary to most other ones ive made, not a sophont and is instead domesticated by trolls. more info below the cut...

ive already talked about the tomteget in another post, so i wont go into detail about them here, but the one shown in the picture is gullmar's goat (and he is there as well as ucan see). tomtar also keep a domesticated breed of wolverine and ermine, used for some different purposes - wolverines more as guarding/herding animals and ermines to hunt. tomtar don't actually tend to hunt a lot of large prey at all, and what they do hunt is sort of limited as a lot of game birds are sacred to them due to folklore (basically ptarmigans, corvids, grouses, capercailles and things in those veins..). therefore despite how small ermines are they can hunt most of the quarry they prefer such as hares, ducks etc - especially bcs the tomte variety of ermine is bred to be a bit larger and more robust. they can also just be kept as companion animals for many tomtar. wolverines meanwhile serve well as guarding and herding animals due to their size and strength. there is a notable regiment of wolverine fighters in the midlands front - where interested tomtar are trained for combat utilizing the power of the wolverine - the one pictured though is a regular herding/guarding animal though. there are probably some smaller tomte hunting groups that try to go for bigger game with them such as wolves etc. but its definitely pretty unusual. tomteget goats are basically universal across tomte cultures, but the tomte wolverines and ermines are a bit more limited, more occuring in northern cultures historically. although as time goes on they have been spread further south, especially as the midlands front was established and increased the communicative network between different disparate tomte societies. 2. this is just a remake of the gloson from that older post bcs i wasnt really happy with the design - its a laaaaarge animal but didnt really feel like it proportionally bcs i stuck too closely to the normal eu swine proportions... things are mostly the same about them though. the orange parts of the horns glow!

[silver-peel]

Bestiary🦁🐴🐔

Finally drawing the thing I want to draw for a long time which is renaissance black armor angel and the questing beast! and they're all friend:)

(sketch and inspiration below)

[chimeride]

[igorlevchenko-blog]

Icewind dale: Portrait of an aquatic troll (a.k.a. scrag).

A scrag is a marine troll, a gilled form of the common troll. A scrag is found in a large body of water, as it needs considerable room to hunt. The coloration of a scrag runs from blue-green to olive, and its forelimbs are shorter and weaker than ordinary trolls. The freshwater scrag is smaller than a normal troll and has heavy scales and less formidable claws, but its enlarged lower jaw bears many small, very sharp fangs.

[artsolarsash]

Concept of (new?) AU: Bestiary of Fae, the world where technology and magic meet together unexpectedly. The mysterious fae shapeshifter and all creatures visit the world of mortals from the fae world. Two robot brothers find the mysterious fae and try everything to find a way to catch all mystical creatures and bring them back to the fae world.

It’s just an idea nothing special

Close up view:

Portrait and her forms (some parts of it):

Fiadh wears Moon’s jacket:

Sun and Fiadh’s first meet:

[vcreatures]

Mimicry is a common evolutionary path for many “magical fauna”, including drakes. While many of the larger more impressive dragons have evolved outside of this, smaller drakes took to mimicry in vast numbers. From mimicking plants to insects mimicry is one of the major defense mechanisms for smaller dragons.  

[briefbestiary]

After it was thrown in the lake, the slug grew to such size that it began to occasionally come ashore and terrorize the countryside with its appetite and its poisonous spit. Eventually the worm was subdued, but the gold ring could neither be retrieved from under it, nor could they manage to kill the creature. Instead they chose to tie its head and its tail to the bottom of the lake. Its continued growth since then means that its body occasionally reaches the surface, or even arches above it. The sightings of this phenomenon are considered ill omens.

[the-fluffy-folio]

Void Elemental – Medium elemental, chaotic evil

A vile disturbance in the currents of matter, a fissure in the vessel of time. In a split second of inattention, the void elemental was created and creation itself quickly learned to fear its existence. The void elemental is an arch enemy of everyone and anything alike – a planet-devouring hunger fuels its ever-changing fabric, its sheer presence nullifies life wherever it roams. Only a few dared to oppose its hollowing reign and those who did were absorbed by the very same emptiness, this eldritch being escaped from.

🔮 If you like my work, kindly consider to support me on Patreon to gain access to monster pages, tokens & artwork of over 250 quirky creatures as well as dozens of potion & item cards based on their lore.

[alexkhodja]