Creatures

104 pages

Spoiler97 more from the lands past Wickmoor

Anvil GolemA squat iron golem hammered together on the forge floor, an anvil for a head and a furnace-glow in its chest.Past WickmoorAshwyrmA long cinder serpent that swims through lava as if it were water, ember-light leaking between its scales.Past WickmoorAstrolabe CrabA brass crab built by the astronomers to carry their instruments, its shell a set of nested rings and a great lens mounted on its back.Past WickmoorAvalanche RamA huge mountain ram with spiral horns and a fleece heavy with packed ice. One stamp of its hooves can bring the slope down.Past WickmoorBellows ImpA squat forge imp that carries a pair of smith's bellows like a weapon, cheeks puffed and eyes like coals.Past WickmoorBleachbackA chalk-white crawler under a shell like a bleached skull.Past WickmoorBriarbackA low, broad crawler with a back like a hedge, thick with briars that root wherever they fall.Past WickmoorBrine HeronA tall salt-crusted heron that stalks the flats on stilt legs, feathers caked white with brine and a beak like a long yellow spear.Past WickmoorBrine StriderA long-legged pond-skater from when the flats were a sea, now crusted white with salt. It skates on the salt crust and draws circles.Past WickmoorBrineclawA hermit crab grown huge in a sea-glass shell; the anemone it keeps inside glows through the glass like a lantern.Past WickmoorCharcoal StagA stag burned to charcoal that never stopped walking: ember-light pulses in the cracks of its hide and its antlers smoulder like branches inPast WickmoorCharcoal StagA stag burned to charcoal that never stopped walking: ember-light pulses in the cracks of its hide and its antlers smoulder like branches inPast WickmoorChimelingA small frost sprite with icicle wings that carries a crystal hand-bell it stole from the Hailstone shrines.Past WickmoorChoir WraithA drowned chorister that never stopped singing: a tattered robe drifting above the flood, eyes like candle-flames and a halo of broken stainPast WickmoorCinder FoxA lean fox of the burned woods with a coat like dying embers - ash-grey on top, glowing orange at the roots - and a tail that smoulders as iPast WickmoorClatterclamA giant ridged clam that shuffles along the tideline on a fleshy foot, clattering its shell; a pale pearl glows between the lips.Past WickmoorCoglingA runaway cog from the mill's works: a toothed iron wheel with a wooden hub and one bolt-head for an eye, trundling about on its own.Past WickmoorCrustbackA broad, flat thing with a back of cooled basalt plates and glowing seams between them, that soaks up the heat of the vents until it can holPast WickmoorCrypt ReaperA hooded shape of frozen grave-shroud that drifts above the crypt floor, all hood and hem, holding a sickle of blue ice.Past WickmoorCrypt ReaperA hooded shape of frozen grave-shroud that drifts above the crypt floor, all hood and hem, holding a sickle of blue ice.Past WickmoorDrift LynxA big snow lynx with a frost-rimed coat and claws of ice, almost invisible against the drifts until it moves.Past WickmoorDrift YetiA shaggy snow-ape as big as a cart that lives in the drifts, its pelt crusted with ice and a flat blue face.Past WickmoorDrift YetiA shaggy snow-ape as big as a cart that lives in the drifts, its pelt crusted with ice and a flat blue face.Past WickmoorDune BurrowerA blind sand-eel as thick as a barrel, all ring-plates and a round mouth of hot teeth. It feels you through the sand.Past WickmoorDuneshrikeA small shrike the colour of the dunes with a black bandit mask, so light it barely flaps - it leans on the wind and carries stones in its fPast WickmoorDusk RevenantA crypt knight that never stopped standing its watch: grave-dark plate, a cracked visor with a violet light behind it, and a shroud of duskPast WickmoorDuskstalkerA long, low, near-shapeless hunter of the dusk that you can only see inside your own light - out in the dark there is nothing but two pale vPast WickmoorDust ImpA small horned imp of hot canyon wind, with a whirl of grit for legs and a grin full of sand.Past WickmoorGalvanewtA long grey newt of the clifftops with a ridge of green-bronze plates down its back and a tail it raises like a lightning rod.Past WickmoorGas BloatA drifting bladder of mine gas, veined and swollen, trailing a few root-like tendrils; miners call them firedamp ghosts.Past WickmoorGear HoundA brass hunting dog built by the clockmakers: a ticking chest, piston legs and a big wind-up gear on its back.Past WickmoorGlarewispA darting sliver of living light with a white-hot core, almost invisible against the crystal walls. It hunts by blinding.Past WickmoorGlass DoppelSomething that stepped out of a mirror wearing a smooth, faceless glass body that shows the room behind it, warped.Past WickmoorGlasstailA dune scorpion whose tail ended in lightning-fused glass: a green-gold stinger that catches the sun.Past WickmoorGlasstailA dune scorpion whose tail ended in lightning-fused glass: a green-gold stinger that catches the sun.Past WickmoorGlowmaw GrubA fat, pale root-grub as long as a cart, its segments speckled with glow-worm light and a round mouth ringed in luminous hooks.Past WickmoorGnomonA floating obsidian obelisk that keeps the Rift's broken time: glyphs orbit it like hour-marks and its seam glows violet.Past WickmoorHollow PilgrimA grey husk in a pilgrim's robe, wandering the drained land with a lantern that burns with no colour at all.Past WickmoorHollow PilgrimA grey husk in a pilgrim's robe, wandering the drained land with a lantern that burns with no colour at all.Past WickmoorInkdriftA jellyfish of the kelp shadows, its violet bell pulsing with soft light and trailing long beaded tentacles.Past WickmoorKelpmawWhat looks like one more clump of kelp swaying in the current is a mouth with fronds for arms, rooted to the sea floor.Past WickmoorLampgulperA bloated bog-toad that dangles a glowing lure on a stalk from its brow; it waits half-sunk, swaying the light to draw prey in.Past WickmoorLantern AnglerA deep-water angler with a lumpy dark body, a mouth full of needle teeth and a glowing lure dangling on a stalk over its head.Past WickmoorLantern AnglerA deep-water angler with a lumpy dark body, a mouth full of needle teeth and a glowing lure dangling on a stalk over its head.Past WickmoorLantern MiteA squat mine-beetle that carries a stolen miner's lantern lashed to its back and lives off the heat of the flame.Past WickmoorLiftwingA big soft moth with gauzy violet wings dusted with stars, at home on the Sky Isles where nothing quite stays on the ground.Past WickmoorLintel BeetleA great dark vault beetle that has grown a carved stone lintel into its back, the barrow-runes on it glowing faintly.Past WickmoorLumen OwlA pale owl that carries moonlight in its feathers; it glides silently between the roots and its eyes are two cold lamps.Past WickmoorLurecapA squat purple mushroom with a cap that glows like a little lantern, so that lost things in the hollow follow its light - and anything thatPast WickmoorMirrorkinA small keeper with marble skin and gold-veined joints that carries a polished hand mirror from the halls.Past WickmoorMoonmoteA little grey moon with stubby legs and a cratered face that drifts about the observatory with three moonlets circling it.Past WickmoorMurklingA shape like a heap of wet black weed, half-sunk in the fen, that pours a slick of murk out of itself wherever it goes.Past WickmoorOrrery SentinelThe observatory's great brass orrery, still turning after the roof fell: armillary rings around a burning star-core, three planet-bolts ridiPast WickmoorOrrery SentinelThe observatory's great brass orrery, still turning after the roof fell: armillary rings around a burning star-core, three planet-bolts ridiPast WickmoorPendulum SentinelA tall clock-tower automaton on three legs, a glass case in its chest where a great bladed pendulum hangs, ticking.Past WickmoorPetal DuchessThe garden's proudest bloom walked off its bed: a gown of layered petals, a crown of stamens dusted gold, leaf-arms that curtsey.Past WickmoorPot MimicOne of the market's big clay pots that grew little legs and a lid that is really a jaw. It is full of old coins and it spits them.Past WickmoorPrism MothA moth with wings of thin cut crystal that split the cave light into colours; it drinks light from the crystals and darkness starves it.Past WickmoorPrism MothA moth with wings of thin cut crystal that split the cave light into colours; it drinks light from the crystals and darkness starves it.Past WickmoorRibwalkerSomething that crawled out of the great bones: a ribcage carried on four long leg-bones, with a horned skull at the front and a dim red embePast WickmoorRibwalkerSomething that crawled out of the great bones: a ribcage carried on four long leg-bones, with a horned skull at the front and a dim red embePast WickmoorRime RevenantA crypt knight who froze standing guard: frost-bound plate, a cracked visor with cold blue light behind it, breath that hangs in the air.Past WickmoorRimecrawlerA long crawler of overlapping ice plates on dozens of hair-thin legs, leaving a glittering frozen trail wherever it goes.Past WickmoorRimesealA heavy grey ice-seal with a back crusted in hoarfrost and whiskers of rime. It hunts under the glacier's skin.Past WickmoorRimewingA frost bat with wings of thin ice-membrane that crackle as they beat; frost gathers on its fur and its eyes burn pale blue.Past WickmoorRotgrubA fat, pale grub as long as a dog, its back sprouting a little grove of rot-brown mushroom caps. Fire cooks it in its skin.Past WickmoorSaltlurkerSomething wide and flat with a mouth full of salt-white teeth that lives under the crust of the flats and grows new crust over itself as itPast WickmoorSandwrightA squat, sand-crusted digger with two great shovel arms, the same colour as the dune it squats in.Past WickmoorSeam EaterA tear in the world that learned to crawl: a lipless slit of nothing ringed with white teeth, scuttling on spindly legs of violet light.Past WickmoorSedgebellA rooted seed-calyx on a fan of peat roots: it never walks, it opens its petals and lobs charged Mire seeds at anything that comes near.Past WickmoorShadowwrightA hunched keeper in a moth-eaten robe who carries ward candles on a pole.Past WickmoorShard HareA hare grown out of glacier glass: ears like icicles, a body of clear ice with snow trapped inside. It never walks - it springs.Past WickmoorShardbackA shelled crawler whose back has grown a ridge of living cyan crystal; the crystals hum and throw its own light around the cave as it moves.Past WickmoorSignalwardenA tall sentry of stone and brass from the old rail yard, still signalling to trains that stopped running a century ago.Past WickmoorSilkshadeA long rag of striped silk that hangs over the bazaar lanes like every other faded awning, until something walks under it.Past WickmoorSkulljackA small hunched scavenger that wears the skull of something long extinct as a helmet and carries an armful of fossil ribs.Past WickmoorSlag CrawlerA basalt-plated beetle the size of a cart with molten seams between its plates; it drags a heat-shimmer behind it and leaves glowing tracks.Past WickmoorSmudgelingA sooty little thing that skitters at the edge of the light, flicking blots of grey at anything with colour in it.Past WickmoorSnare VineA knot of thorned vines rooted in the brambles with a fat red seed-pod for a heart. It does not chase - it reels you in.Past WickmoorSnow LurkerA pale, long-armed thing that waits curled under a drift with only a hump of snow showing. When something walks close, the drift explodes.Past WickmoorSporebackA wild boar long since given over to the rot: a garden of glowing toadstools grows from its back and it sheds spores with every snort.Past WickmoorSporebackA wild boar long since given over to the rot: a garden of glowing toadstools grows from its back and it sheds spores with every snort.Past WickmoorSquall KiteA ray-shaped storm creature that rides the cliff winds like a kite, its wing-edges crackling with stored lightning and a long tail of staticPast WickmoorSquall KiteA ray-shaped storm creature that rides the cliff winds like a kite, its wing-edges crackling with stored lightning and a long tail of staticPast WickmoorStokerA gaunt, soot-black tender with a scuttle of live coals on its back and a pair of long tongs.Past WickmoorStormeelA thick blue-black eel with glowing fins that lives in a single tide pool on the Shingle and never leaves it.Past WickmoorSunbloomA white flower taller than a man, rooted among the garden beds, whose head turns all day to follow the light.Past WickmoorSwirl UrchinA black urchin the size of a barrel that rolls along on its spines. It cannot swim at all; it rides whatever current is running.Past WickmoorThornhogA hedgehog the size of a sheepdog, its back a thicket of long pale quills with leaves and moss caught in them.Past WickmoorThornweaverA long-legged spider that strings its webs between the thorns, black with a blood-red thorn pattern on its back. Its silk burns like paper.Past WickmoorTidehermitA big red hermit crab living in a conch it took from something much larger.Past WickmoorTiderunnerA long mudskipper with a sail of a fin that runs the tide line, half fish, half lizard.Past WickmoorTollbellA great cracked church bell that fell into the flood and woke: it hobbles on its own clapper-chain arms, green with verdigris, and every stePast WickmoorTome MimicA heavy old spellbook that flapped off the shelf: its cover snaps like a jaw, a bookmark-ribbon tongue, pages full of restless ink.Past WickmoorVerdigris BeetleA stocky beetle that carries a stack of green-crusted copper plates on its back, pried off the old forge conductors.Past WickmoorWickmothA lamp-eating moth as big as a cat: dusty grey-brown wings with staring eye-spots, a thick furred body and feathered feelers, its belly glowPast WickmoorWickstiltA clod of wet peat stalking on four bent reed-stilts under a crown of reed spikes; Mire magic glows red-violet through a split in its front.Past Wickmoor