Fabulous Creatures
Blupes, Butterfly-Dragons, Carnivorous Fish, Cloudbeasts, Fireworm of Parg (Boltworm of the Bnazic Desert), Growleywogs, Haemophores, Minions of Karakal, Lamp-Efts, Magah Birds, Nightriders, Phosphorescent Monsters, Primitive Snouters, Razortongues, Scabfish, Shades, Slime Molds, Sloblubikiks, Sluggocs, Vooniths, Wenelian Pirates, Winged Snakes.
These assorted dream-creatures originating as original creations of Sandy Petersen et.al. in the H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands and S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands. Some are conjured creatures, but most are fauna of the tropical forests of Kled and Parg.
Contents
- 1 Description
- 1.1 Blupe
- 1.2 Butterfly-Dragon
- 1.3 Carnivorous Fish
- 1.4 Cloudbeast
- 1.5 Fireworm
- 1.6 Growleywog
- 1.7 Haemophore
- 1.8 Minion of Karakal
- 1.9 Lamp-Eft
- 1.10 Magah Bird
- 1.11 Nightrider
- 1.12 Primitive Snouter
- 1.13 Razortongue
- 1.14 Scabfish
- 1.15 Shade (Dreamlands)
- 1.16 Slime Mold
- 1.17 Sloblubikik
- 1.18 Sluggoc
- 1.19 Voonith
- 1.20 Winged Snake
- 1.21 Witch-Tree
- 2 Associated Mythos Elements
- 3 References
Description
These assorted dream-creatures originating as original creations of Sandy Petersen et.al. in the H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands and S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands:
Blupe
Blupes are small, rubbery watery-blue creatures. Their form is roughly elliptical with rubbery protuberances forming a head and limbs. They float through the air with a crisp ozone smell.
Butterfly-Dragon
The lovely butterfly-dragons are insectoid creatures with beautifully-patterned wings and insect-like legs, and long curved necks and tails somewhat resembling a reptile. These creatures feed solely on nectar, fragrant odors, and tranquility. They can be tamed, and do well in captivity, though they only breed in the wild. If threatened, a butterfly-dragon emits a rose-colored mist from glands along the sides of its body, which can cause deafness in anyone nearby who inhales it; this deafness persists after a dreamer awakens, though no organic cause can be found, requiring the intervention of a psychotherapist, witch-doctor, cultist, or other specialist in dreams to cure.
Carnivorous Fish
Many of the rivers and lakes of the Dreamlands are inhabited by carnivorous fish. They are generally harmless to man, but larger specimens have been known to make off with small children which they grab and drag under the water to drown.
Cloudbeast
Cloudbeasts, resembling animated clouds forming bulbous eyes, twisted mouths, and long ropy limbs, float silently and freely over land and see, seeking food, which they slowly descend upon to feed.
Fireworm
The serpentine and limbless Fireworms of Parg creep through the jungle night, glowing faintly from cracks in their segmented armor and emitting little puffs of phosphorescent smoke. They grow from one to 10 meters long and up to almost a meter thick, covered in segmented armor colored bright blue and orange. Fireworms are usually fairly peaceable creatures which only come out at night, but they can burst into flame when threatened, and once every fifty years they swarm in great numbers and devastate the land. After that they die off, and none are seen again for decades. A similar creature, the Boltworm of the Bnazic Desert, is related; see also Death Worm.
Growleywog
Growleywogs are large amphibious creatures which resemble frogs or toads. They inhabit moist areas, such as the swamps or jungles of Parg and Kled, and can usually be found near a pool of water where they will make their lair. Like frogs, they have a long sticky tongue which they can extend from their mouths to catch their prey, but unlike frogs, they have rows of needle-like teeth which they use to hold their prey while they drag it beneath the water to drown, and Growleywogs get their name from the fact that they do not croak, but make a low growling sound similar to that of a large cat.
Haemophore
Haemophores are small humanoid beings with webbed hands and feet, and curious W-shaped mouths. Their name comes from their habit of filling up on blood before migrating: a haemophore subsists on blood, which it will suck from a victim until the haemophore is so monstrously bloated that it is completely distorted and bulging, almost incapable of movement. Haemophores is attracted to bright and shiny objects, and move very softly and often carefully investigate potential prey before sucking out blood.
Minion of Karakal
Minions of Karakal are magical creations of Dreamlands wizards, made of crackling lightning: they have small black bodies with spider-like legs, all black and shot through with flashes of red. They have no visible heads or sense organs, and float in the air, seemingly crawling through the air on their electrical limbs.
Lamp-Eft
A lamp-eft is a salamander-like creature, two or three feet long with two huge globe-like eyes, but no mouth, and a flattened paddle-like tale and four paws with which it seems to writhe its way along while floating in the air; it is in fact a creature of the upper air, and only descends to the surface by night, where they feed on ambient magic, and are sometimes tamed by wizards as a live-in defense against Dreamlands Shades (see below).
Magah Bird
"...Randolph Carter covered his head altogether and slept in peace till roused by the prismatic magah birds in distant resin groves." - H.P.Lovecraft, Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (fiction)
Magah birds are small, beautifully-plumaged, carnivorous birds. Their feathers are long, lustrous, and many-colored. Magah birds are native to the lower slopes of Mount Ngranek. They capture prey by hypnotic singing. (Created by H.P. Lovecraft, but almost all detail by Sandy Petersen for "Lemon Sails".)
Nightrider
Ntightriders are large, voracious, nocturnal bat-like creatures which inhabit the dense forests and jungles of the Dreamlands, flying through the trees at night in search of prey - they have even been known to carry off children or members of the pygmy tribes of Kled.
Primitive Snouter
These small, curious, bushy-tailed, rodents have a bill-like snout which they use to dig for grubs and burrow through the earth along the trade routes to Mhor. The snouters are quite curious, and have been known to steal items from unwary travelers in the Dreamlands.
Razortongue
Razortongues are reptilian herbivores which are native to the jungles of the Dreamlands. They are similar to gila-monsters in both size and form. Their name comes from their razor-sharp tongues, which they use to strip the bark off of the trees they feed from. Mild creatures, their main form of defense from predators is a natural form of the spell Emerald Darts of Ptath (spell).
Scabfish
Scabfish are eel-like creatures which dwell in and around sunken or wrecked ships. Their main form of defense, from which they derive their name, is that when a predator comes into contact with them a scab will form at the point of contact, these scabs later falling off after new skin has formed underneath them.
Shade (Dreamlands)
A Dreamlands shade is an entity of living darkness created by Dreamlands wizards, always enveloped in a cloud of darkness, so its form is never seen. Generally the outward form of the darkness is roughly spherical. When light bright enough to penetrate the darkness is applied, the shade itself is evaporated. Perhaps shades are simply beings of living darkness and have no true forms at all. It cannot fly, but can glide over water.
Slime Mold
Dreamlands Slime Molds are huge, mobile, fungi-like, slimy amoebas that slide over the ground ingesting any food substance they find. Often, stalked mushroom-like fruiting bodies sprout from the mold's upper surface; they vary in size and are found in a wide variety of bright colors. Slime molds can easily hide among the fungus growth on the ground or even drop from tree limbs onto victims, flowing over its chosen target.
Sloblubikik
Sloblubikiks are small deer-like creatures which inhabit the forests and jungles of the central Dreamlands. They have small antlers, but their main form of defense from predators is their ability to turn invisible at will, allowing them to flee without pursuit.
Sluggoc
Sluggocs are large slug-like creatures which crawl through the undergrowth of dense forests and jungles, as well as swamps throughout the Dreamlands. They prefer to feed off of dead and decaying plant matter, but will eat carrion as well, and are often found on battlefields and other places of recent death, where they must be driven off if corpses are to be recovered. They are covered with an acidic slime which causes severe burns to anything it touches. For this reason they are easy to track, as they leave a trial of burned foliage behind them.
Voonith
Vooniths are salamander-like amphibious carnivores, with bulging pale eyes and long, lipless jaws. Behind two burrowing foreclaws, the rest of the body trails off in a long blunt tail, ridged and shaped like an enormous angleworm. Their overall color is a washed-out pink or sallow yellow, marred by gray pustules. Vooniths are a notorious and voracious hazard of the swamps and marshes of the Dreamlands where they dig twisting mazes of water-filled burrows just beneath the surface, erupting from their burrow or pond to grab and drag down their prey.
Winged Snake
Winged Snakes resemble the winged serpents of Aztec legend: large viper-like snakes with feathered wings. The winged snakes mainly inhabit the jungles of the central Dreamlands and rarely stray from their habitats of their own accord. They are somewhat intelligent and can understand simple commands, but have no spoken language of their own. Their fangs are capable of injecting a strong poison which they use to kill their prey.
Witch-Tree
An animated, man-eating tree. See: Witch-Tree.
Associated Mythos Elements
- setting: Dreamlands
References
- sourcebook: H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands
- sourcebook: S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands
