User:GoldenYak/Emerald Dream Bestiary
UNDER CONSTRUCTION related to Emerald Dream Expansion Concept.
Creatures of the Emerald Dream
Races
Sluagh
A race of amphibious humanoids, born from the toad ancient Kroak. Primitive and cold-blooded, the Sluagh dwell in swamps and bogs, feeding on insects and small animals that they trap. Their amphibian minds give them a detached and logical outlook on life and they are slow to anger, but when they choose a course of action they will follow it through to its conclusion and swaying them from their path is immensely difficult. They are not physically powerful, but are masters of natural alchemy and they make use of potent poisons and concoctions. They are experts at laying ambushes and can remain hidden underwater for hours before springing their lethal trap.
Strigoi
Humanoid owlfolk, created from the owl ancient Straga. They craft elaborate nest-huts in the tallest trees of the Emerald Dream's forests, swooping through the woods in the dark of night to snatch up game with their sharp talons and clever snares. The shrill cry of a strigoi hunter on the prowl is the last thing many creatures of the Dream's woods ever hear. Their shrieks are said to rival those of banshee for generating sheer terror. Strigoi have cruel minds and low regard for other races, but they are intelligent enough to recognize when collaboration is in their best interests and do not go out of their way to make enemies. Some strigoi are talented arcanists.
Tol'zoa
Creations of the Titans, the tol'zoa bear a similarity to the tol'vir, who are likewise constructs of the Titans. The tol'zoa fulfill a similar function to their Azeroth-bound kin, which is to safeguard the facilities built by the Titans and maintain their complex inner workings. When the Titans crafted the Dream, they included a handful of technological installations to monitor the realm, including the great Halls of Dreaming in the Zurvan Sea which the tol'zoa maintain to this day. Like the tol'vir, tol'zoa have a great cat's head and 4-legged body, with the torso of a human. Tol'zoa also bear attributes of aquatic creatures, with fish-like scales and fins covering their forms and long fish-like tails. They are capable of swimming as well as movement on land.
Nutkin
More of a pest than a true race, the nutkin are creatures whose minds hover just on the wrong side of sentience, and sanity. Born from a squirrel ancient, the nutkin are demented hoarders, scouring the woodland for anything edible (or even just interesting looking) and swarming with their ill-gotten goods back to their lairs. Nutkin nest anywhere they can, from underground burrows to tree hollows, and their lairs can become quite elaborate over time as the nutkin decorate them with anything they cannot eat. Nutkin can rarely be reasoned with, and typically swarm any unlucky traveler that happens by, filching every trinket, coin, and scrap of food they can before vanishing in a flash of frazzled fur.
Wyldborn
The descendants of mortals who became trapped within the Dream, and over time became infused with vast amounts of primal energy until they slowly transformed into beast-like forms. Their bodies are brutish, hulking, and strong, layered with muscle. Their hands are the great curving claws of bears, while their legs end in cloven hooves. The curling horns of stags crown their heads, and their maws are filled with the fangs of wolves and other predators. The Wyldborn dwell in close-knit tribal families that viciously defend their territory against all intruders. They are obsessed with The Hunt - the ritual of predator and prey, relentlessly stalking their chosen target until they bring it down. They will not abandon a hunt when they have designated a target, and they are not above choosing sentient beings as their prey.
Shayetar
Born of the great eagle demigod Shaharroth, the shayetar are a race of humanoid eagle-folk, typically black of feather with broad, powerful wings. The shayetar are a reclusive people and do not seek contact with other races, but are servants of order and seek to keep peace within the Dream and will aid goodly druids and others who battle against the forces of the Nightmare. The shayetar are enemies of the strigoi, another avian race who see the shayetar as their rivals for mastery of the skies and tree-tops. The shayetar for their part prefer to avoid conflict, but will defend their roosting sites to the death. Some of their flocks have become corrupted by the power of the Nightmare and transformed them into Unwaking - the rest of their people strive to keep the Nightmare from spreading further.
Shadow Satyr
The shadow satyr are not a true race, but a breed of magical weapon. Born directly from the substance of the Nightmare, they had no existence prior to its infestation of the Emerald Dream, and they could be thought of as lesser avatars for the Nightmare itself. The previous Nightmare Lord, Xavius, was himself once a satyr born of Azeroth, and the shadow satyr may have been formed by him in memory of his previous existence. Though Xavius was defeated and banished from the Dream, the Nightmare continues to manifest the shadow satyr as its agents, using them as spies and assassins. Some shadow satyr have been given a greater amount of intellect and independence, and have begun to develop individual personalities. These elite shadow satyr are plotting truly diabolical schemes to undertake against the free creatures of the Emerald Dream.
Deviaan
When the Titans first designed the Emerald Dream, they went through many iterations before deciding upon the final form the realm would take. The first versions of the Dream still exist, stored in deeper layers within the Dream itself, located in pocket dimensions. In these early iterations of the Dream, the Titans experimented with many different lifeforms, many of which were ultimately deemed inappropriate for introduction into Azeroth's biosphere. In the end the Titans selected such races as the earthen, vrykul, mogu, and tol'vir to become their servants on Azeroth proper. Other races which were not selected were placed in stasis chambers located in the deeper iterations of the Dream.
When the Nightmare infested the Emerald Dream, tendrils of it crept into the deeper iterations, breaking the stasis seals holding the races rejected by the Titans. Slowly, legions of once slumbering creatures began to awaken. The Nightmare's influence was weakened by the nature of the deeper iterations and the powers the Titans had used to craft the stasis chambers, but it was able to awaken a flicker of dark emotion within the rejected beings - they came to resent the Titans who had made them and then sealed them away. This resentment grew into hatred, hatred for all the works of the Titans, and all those they had favored.
The mightiest of these rejected races are known as the deviaan - similar to the vrykul and mogu, they are a mighty race of demi-giants, tall and powerful. Their hides are thick and leathery, and encrusted with jagged stone-like growths. Cruel and domineering, they quickly enslaved their fellow rejects, welding them into an army both through intimidation and through promise of revenge on the works of their makers. The deviaan are ruled by a king, the strongest of their race, called Korrok the Slave-Maker.
Mologg
A race of diminutive humanoids enslaved by the Deviaan. Small and gangly, the mologgs are considered good for little more than slave-labor. While they cringe and wail beneath the lashes of their cruel deviaan masters, the wretched mologgs hold no hatred in their heart for them - indeed, they love and revere their slavers, industriously seeking to fulfill whatever task is set to them in the hopes of proving their worth. A short grunt of approval from a deviaan slave-master will send a mologg into a delirium of joy, though their gleeful capering will invariably draw ire from their overseers and send them back into cringing shame, begging for another task to perform. The mologg reserve all of their hatred for the Titans, and they will readily howl and curse their makers and all they have created, taking sadistic joy in tearing down their works.
Diraz
Wicked and cruel to an extent that will unsettle even the deviaan, the diraz are another race of Titan-made under-dwellers, sealed away for being unsuitable for introduction into Azeroth. Wiry and swift, the diraz serve the deviaan as spies and assassins, having a naturally ability to blend with the shadows and become virtually invisible in even the slightest amount of darkness. The diraz are also skilled at kidnapping, and can spirit away their targets out from under the noses of their comrades. Those taken captive by the diraz are traded to the deviaan to become slaves if they are lucky - the unlucky become 'guests' of the diraz, and used to satisfy their dark urges to torture. A guest of the diraz can live a long time...
Grotesk
A hideous breed of abomination, the origins of the grotesks are unknown, but may be the result of a Titan experiment in hybridizing diraz and deviaan that failed catastrophically, resulting in a creature that bears the worst attributes of both races. Possessed of lumpen and misshapen bodies and a boundless capacity for violence and mayhem, the grotesks are uncontrollable brutes that are normally kept locked up by the Deviaan. When the time for war comes, the grotesks are unleashed upon the enemy by launching their cages into the ranks of the foe, where they inevitably run wild and destroy everything in site. When the enemy has fallen, the grotesks will turn upon their masters unless their blood-lust has been sufficiently satisfied, and so a deviaan commander must carefully judge when to deploy their formidable living weapons.
Lamassu
Powerful creatures in the thrall of the deviaan, the lamassu bear some slight similarity to the tol'vir, having four-legged beast-like lower bodies and a humanoid upper torso resembling a deviaan. Their bodies are heavily encrusted with stone-like growths, providing them with natural armor. They are feared for their brutality even by the deviaan, and are kept under control less by fear and more by the promise of war upon the works of the Titans. Lamassu grow in size as they age, and some lamassu undergo a strange transformation as they exceed 1000 years of age. Their upper bodies become stunted, slowly growing in to their lower bodies, with their heads swelling in size and their arms becoming shrunken and useless. Eventually, their upper bodies and arms vanish completely, and their enlarged heads blend into their lower bodies, making them appear as huge four-legged beasts with the giant head of a deviaan. Their intellect increases as they transform, and they gain a strong affinity for magic, as well as developing the ability to breathe fire, toxic smoke, or clouds of choking dust and razor-sharp stone flakes. Their ferocity and blood-lust are also greatly enhanced. They become known as Greater Lammasu, and are honored for their increased destructive by their kin.
Vespari
An eternity ago, when the Old Gods ruled Azeroth, they were worshiped by a race of insectile beings known as the aqir. When the Titans came to Azeroth and shattered the chaotic dominion of the Old Gods, the aqir scattered before their fury, hiding deep below the surface of the world. Even after the Old Gods were imprisoned, the aqir continued in their worship in hidden cities across the world, ultimately coming into conflict with the other races that flourished in the wake of the Old Gods fall. The greatest enemies of the aqir were the trolls, who ultimately destroyed the great aqir empire of Azj'Aqir and scattered the insect people to the four corners of the world. The surviving aqir eventually went on to evolve into different sub-races, including the nerubians, qiraji, mantid, and the vespari.
The vespari resemble humanoid wasps, with tall and elegantly thin bodies, delicate limbs and wings, and large shining eyes. Like many of the other descendants of the aqir, the vespari are intensely xenophobic and loathe other races, especially those descended from Titan construct races like humans and dwarves, though they loathe trolls most of all. The vespari once inhabited a kingdom on Azeroth like their relatives, but it vanished long ago shortly after their high priests received a vision from the Old God, N'Zoth. What became of the vespari and their kingdom is not known, but for some reason a number of these insectile creatures have recently appeared in the most distant, Nightmare-enshrouded regions of the Dream.
Beasts
Faerie Wyrm
The diminutive faerie dragons have a life-cycle reminiscent of their namesake, the dragons, and as they age they grow. Since faerie dragons only rarely venture into the plane of Azeroth and usually remain entirely within the confines of the Emerald Dream, their life-cycle has not been closely examined, nor their lifespan measured. If the Faerie Wyrms are any indication, they can live for over a thousand years, and these ancient creatures can become immense in size, approaching the scale of true dragons. The great Faerie Wyrms are mighty foes, for their natural resistance to magic makes them virtually invulnerable to spell-craft, and their ability to channel or re-direct arcane energies becomes even more potent with age. For enemies that rely on less mystical modes of attack, the Faerie Wyrm makes do with its fangs and talons.
Nightmare Dragonflight
In the time since the Sundering, the green dragonflight flourished in the Emerald Dream, their numbers rivaling even the prolific red dragonflight. However, with the coming of the Nightmare and its slow, spreading corruption through the mystical realm, the green dragonflight has suffered terribly, many of its once valiant drakes slain by the Nightmare's forces or succumbing to corruption and becoming Unwaking. Soon, the number of green dragons in the thrall of the Nightmare eclipsed those who still fought for sanity and order. Now, the Nightmare has began spawning more dragons under its direct control, an echo of the Twilight Dragonflight that once menaced the skies of Azeroth. The Nightmare Dragonflight rules the tainted skies of the Emerald Dream, and its hideous drakes and wyrms are some of the Nightmare's most formidable weapons.
Gargant
These creatures resemble large reptilian apes, moving in large troops through the jungles of the Emerald Dream. Gargants that have low social rank in a troop are roughly the size of an ordinary humanoid, though much more agile, moving through the tree-tops to forage. The alpha male of a troop can grow much larger however, becoming roughly three times the size of his smaller brethren. Alpha gargant also develop thicker hides, longer talons and fangs, and bony ridges across their backs that sprout sharp spines. These creatures are fiercely protective of their family-groups and highly territorial, viciously attacking anything that might threaten them. Large troops can have several alpha gargant that work together to protect them. There is rumor of a truly old and giant alpha gargant in the deep jungles of the Forevergreen that acts as the monarch of a troop of thousands. Such a beast would be truly terrible to face in battle.
Mogaan
Beasts of burden used by the deviaan. The mogaan are enormous creatures that are a cross between bear and mole, their thick hairless hide encrusted with rock-like growths. Their massive shovel-like talons enable them to rapidly tunnel through earth, and together with their giant iron-hard fangs they can even break through solid stone with relative ease.
Thundersaur
Ancient examples of a primordial past, the mighty Thundersaur are terrify dinosaurs, long thought to be extinct on Azeroth, but still surviving within the deepest jungles of the Emerald Dream. The mightiest known specimen of dinosaur, these enormous creatures are strong enough to humble even a savage Devilsaur. Though they subsist on vegetation, their massive size allows them to overwhelm any foe who dares attack them. They are named for the sound of their footfalls, which bring to mind an oncoming stormfront.
Khymera
This Nightmare spawned abomination is a hideous amalgamation of many different beasts, combining eagle, lion, serpent, and elk into a single, multi-headed creature. Filled with hatred for all of nature, the Khymera rampages through the woodlands of the Dream, slaying and devouring everything in its path before moving on. Its fearsome unnatural body is extremely durable, enabling it to rapidly heal from any damage and continue its attack. Khymera are so violent and uncontrollable that even other creations of the Nightmare avoid them, though they often seek to lure them into areas where they can bring harm to the Nightmare's enemies.
Zenogog
Insectoid beasts that serve the vespari. Their relationship with the vespari mirrors that of the silithid and the qiraji, both distant relatives of the ancient aqir race which all intelligent insectoid life on Azeroth is descended from. They bear a resemblance to wasps, but take on a wide variety of shapes and forms. Some are used as beasts of burden by the vespari, while others appear to have been selectively bred as war-beasts, with grasping pincers, venomous stingers, or scythe-like claws. The zenogog breed in underground hives, spawning huge numbers of young in great birthing chambers overseen by the vicious and regal zenogog Hive-Queens. The zenogog vanished from Azeroth thousands of years before the Sundering, along with their vespari masters. Like the vespari however, the zenogog have also appeared within the Emerald Dream, as ever in the service of their masters.
Dream Roc
Great avian predators of the Emerald Dream. Rocs resemble enormous hawks with spectacular plumage that enables them to blend in with sky or forest canopy. Swooping down on unsuspecting prey, a roc will savage its target with great curving talons and a razor-sharp beak, before hauling it into the sky to feast. Dream rocs are favored pets of Avianna, the matron demigod of all flying creatures, and she does not look kindly on their destruction for any reason. Some rocs have been possessed by the Nightmare, taking on the frightful appearance of giant black ravens, festooned with manifestations of the Nightmare's corruption. Dream roc feathers have a variety of uses in alchemy and potion making.
Elemental / Undead
Esper / Primal Esper
Espers are a form of elemental, born from the ambient energies of the Emerald Dream. Due to the equilibrium of the elemental forces of the Dream, perfectly balanced by the Titans in ages past, espers are often less chaotic and unpredictable than elementals from Azeroth and Dreanor. However, the spread of the Nightmare has begun to destabilize the Dream and this is reflected in the growing hostility of the espers. Often old and powerful espers are referred to as Primals. These ancient beings are some of the first such entities that appeared in the Dream, and some are even native to the lower iterations of the Dream and have been brought to the upper layer by the deviaan race.
Wispling
A curious type of spectral undead, wisplings are born from the spirits of night elves who perished and were drawn into the Emerald Dream. Taking the form of diminutive, child-like elves, wisplings are unusual for spectral undead in that they are utterly without the morbid, miserable, and tormented personalities that such entities typically have. They bear no malice towards the living, find no torment in their existence, and desire nothing but to enjoy their incorporeal existence, drifting gleefully through the branches of remote forest glades and dancing in the moonlight. Wisplings seem drawn to especially large and ancient tree-folk, and large groups sometimes colonize them as a sort of dwelling-place, congregating in the treant's hollows and branches. Such treants are happy to shelter the spirits, and will sing to them or tell them stories. Wisplings hate and fear the Nightmare, and use their nature-based magical abilities to combat it wherever they can. Wisplings overcome by the Nightmare's influence become cruel, malicious creatures that delight in torment and the suffering of their victims.
Dreamstone Giant
Carved from the living stone of the Emerald Dream at the very dawn of the world, the dreamstone giants are stalwart defenders of order. For many centuries they have slept, becoming as one with the landscape of the Dream, cultivating small forests on their stony bodies. As the Nightmare spreads and subverts the beings of the Dream, the giants are stirred to waking, tearing themselves free from the embrace of the earth. Crushing the life from all those under the Nightmare's sway, the giants of the Dream are some of the mightiest champions the forces of order can call upon.
Treefolk Colossal
Enormous, ancient treefolk, some of the first to ever be born within the Emerald Dream, enduring tens of thousands of years. For millennia they have slumbered, appearing as gigantic trees, but with the spreading of the Nightmare threatening the entire Dream, they have been roused to war. Slow, methodical, and overflowing with love for life and kin, the Colossals are some of the mightiest defenders of the Dream, and highly resistant to the power of the Nightmare. If the dark shadow of the Old Gods is to be driven from the Dream, it will be in no small part due to the efforts of the Colossals.
Gallery
Hahn'tan shadow-rogue.