All Edda-Earth material belongs to Deborah L. Davitt, copyright 2012-2014. All rights are reserved. All information in block quotes taken from Wikipedia or relevant and cited websites.
This page contains significant spoilers regarding the types of creatures seen in Books II and III. Read at your own peril.
Aztec/Nahautl
Ahuizotl
Aztec Monsters
Ahuizotl
Ahuizotl on Monsterpedia
Monkey hands, dog body, additional human hand at the tip of its prehensile tail; it claws at the eyes of its victims, and is covered in black, rubbery, slick skin, which oozes poison, like a toad. Each is about the size of a standard poodle or Labrador retriever.
Powers:
Talon rake: x3. The ahuizotl aims for points of pain and vulnerability—eyes, ears, nose, teeth, lips, and tongue. It considers the last to be a delicacy.
Bite: Like a dog's, with the added bonus of being prone to nasty infections.
Drown: In any area with water, an ahuizotl will attempt to drown its victim.
Poison: Hallucinogenic, on skin. Takes 1d4 rounds to take effect, and persists 1d4+1 rounds.
Occurrence: packs, like dogs, of 2-8 members
Cihuateteo
Skull-faced women who appear to be pregnant. They are armed with bone claws, and, horrifyingly, will target other women in preference to men. On attacking a woman, they leap onto her, knock her to the ground, and squat atop them. They then 'birth' the small, red, toothy monster that dwells in their bellies, which chews rapidly through the victim's stomach wall, and tucks itself down into the new womb. The woman in question screams with all the pain of labor and being eaten alive at the same time, and when she stands up again, she's a cihuateteo now, too.
Powers:
Talon rake: x2.
Bite: X1
Gestation/infection: Only pertains to women, and this is how they replicate themselves.
Flayed men
No skin. Their intestines tend to hang out around their legs, covering, fortunately, their flayed genitals. They are subject to massive infections, which they often somehow survive, and can transmit those diseases to anything they touch. They are also all absolutely insane from the pain of their existence. Most cannot even speak.
People know they're in an area when they see bloody bare footprints on the ground, and splatters of blood. Don't follow the tracks. Pray that the tracks aren't following you.
Powers:
Endurance: Since they can somehow survive, they must be able to endure almost any agony. They don't stop once they've found a target. Wounds don't work. Only removing the head does. Shotguns work.
Talon rake: x2.
Bite: X1
Infection: They carry any number of blood-borne pathogens and viruses.
Cannibals: Many Nahautl suspect that the maddened flayed men eat their victims. If they do so, they have a momentary surcease from the pain, and regenerate their health rapidly.
Mesopotamian
Pazuzu
Creature Type: Demon
Summoned or Ancient: Ancient, but summonable
Description:
A winged demon, feared by the people of ancient Mesopotamia. It is a creature with a deformed head, the wings of an eagle, the sharp claws of a lion on its hands and feet, and the tail of a scorpion. This demon is the personification of the south-east storm wind, which brings diseases. The Mesopotamians believed that Pazuzu lived in the desert.
15 feet in height, giant; humanoid, with talons, scorpion mouth, scorpion tail, eagle's wings, eagle's eyes. Wears a breastplate made of enchanted tortoiseshell and a helmet of the same, set with turquoise pieces, and loin-plates of bronze.
Strength: 28
Weight: 2,400 lbs
Powers:
Flight, Category C (not as maneuverable, thanks to large size)
Talon rake, x4
Filth fever on all claws
Poison, scorpion tail
Bite: scorpion's, bite attack can sever a man's arm
Grapple: Just don't get grabbed. Please, don't get grabbed.
Throw: Bone-shattering.
Rend: Once someone's been grabbed by both arms, opposed strength check to keep from having their arms ripped off, even as talons sink into their wrists.
Alu
Creature Type: Demon
Summoned or Ancient: Both
Description:
A Mesopotamian demon with canine features. He was sometimes portrayed without legs, ears, or mouth. Alu preferred silence and darkness.
8' tall, thin and ghoulish, with long, thin claws, huge fangs, and spotted, dark, rough fur all over their bodies, the alu are humanoid, hunch-backed, and hunt in packs of 4-8. They have the heads of hyenas, with the same crushing jaws, and their eyes glow faintly green. Every alupack has a leader, a female alu. She's recognizable mostly by the breasts.
Powers:
Hide in plain sight: In the dark, the alu are all but invisible, when corporeal. DC 20-25 to see them.
Cover of darkness: In the dark, the alu become little more than wisps of smoke, able to pass through cracks like air, and able to rematerialize at will inside of a home.
Chilling laughter: Will DC 20 or those hearing it are effected by fear, cowering, paralyzed, or running in terror, randomly determined.
Attacks: Bite, crushing, necrotic
Claws, x2
Pack tactics.
Basmu
Creature Type: God-touched beast, demon, arguably.
Summoned or Ancient: Both
Description:
A giant snake forty cubits long, with several tongues and jaws. The symbol of the Sumerian god Nin-gishzida. <
40 cubits is, conservatively, 68 feet in length, and weighs, conservatively, 6,800 lbs. A basmu is also approximately five feet in diameter, and its mouth can unhinge wide enough to swallow a motorcar.
Powers:
Crush: A basmu is a constrictor. They constrict pretty much whatever they feel like, including small office buildings. Certainly, vehicles including cars, trucks, and semis are at rush.
Stampede: A basmu in a hurry closes its vulnerable eyes and simply slides right over the top of whatever is in its path, like a freight train.
Faster than it Looks: Can move, sidewinding, at up to 30 mph.
Burrow: Can tunnel through the earth to get to its target, moving at half its normal top speed.
Earthquake: Localized, and can take out buildings with this.
Swallow whole: Exactly what it sounds like. Victims have about a minute before they suffocate. They can try to burn or cut their way out.
Armored: The scales will deflect bullets.
Scent and Tremorsense: What it uses when its eyes are closed.
Vulnerabilities: Eyes. Fire (inside and out).
Sample
Creature Type: Undead
Summoned or Ancient: Summoned or Spontaneous.
Description:
The Akkadian name for the soul of a dead person who was not buried. This spirit will wander the earth eternally and can seriously harm people. In the Sumerian tradition it is called Gidim.
These skeletal creatures are said to be a myth, or a variant on the ghul. They are, however, starting to appear more commonly, and spontaneously, but summoners can't find a spirit there to banish. They're simply suffused with mindless motive force… god-power that's leaked out and warped the bodies of the dead, or leaking ley-energies, who's to say? Always marked by an eldritch green glow, as from phosphorescent fungus or decay.
Powers:
Claw attack, 2x
Bite attack, 1x.
Appear in swarms, 10-200 at a time.
Brittle, fragile, they terrorize common citizens, but can be reduced to a pile of bones by a rifle assault in short order…though bullets tend to go right through their bony bodies. A better bet is a shotgun, or a shrapnel load out of a cannon or grenade. Guess who doesn't have these?
Ghul
Creature Type: Undead
Summoned or Ancient: Summoned
Description: Ghulare dead bodies filled with a new spirit, often elemental or demonic, by a summoner. They respond to the will of their summoner, and are compelled by him… unless they overcome his control, turn on him, and eat him.
In which case, they're free-ranging, semi-self-willed, and hungry. Ones with elemental spirits will go mad, because they have no idea what they're doing in these decaying shells, and will beat themsleves into a pulp in self-destructive fury, trying to get the shell off. Demonic ghul, however, are far more dangerous, and will use their bodies to attack as many other humans as they can, in the hopes of implanting shards of their essences in a fresh host.
Thin, angular, and extremely, even sickeningly limber, they have a boneless grace to them that defies their origins. These are not shambling hulks (other than the elemental ones). They also have malevolent intelligence, hunt as a group, and communicate silently, as spirits do.
Powers:
Bite, x1, decay of the grave
Claws, X2, chill of the grave
Cannibalism, they regenerate health through eating the bodies of those they cannot turn.
Empowered ghul: Eating and drinking of the flesh of their summoner empowers every spirit there is. Binds them closer to Earth. Eating the entire life-essence of a summoner ties a spirit permanently to Earth, and gives them additional power here. This makes them extremely hard to bind and banish.
Djinni/efreeti
Creature Type: Elemental spirit
Summoned or Ancient: Both
Description:
In Arabian and Muslim folklore jinns are ugly and evil demons having supernatural powers which they can bestow on persons having powers to call them up. In the Western world they are called genies.
Legend has it that King Solomon possessed a ring, probably a diamond, with which he called up jinns to help his armies in battle. The concept that this king employed the help of jinns may have originated from 1 Kings 6:7, "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought there, so there was neither hammer nor axe nor and tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building."
In Islam, jinns are fiery spirits (Qur'an 15:27) particularly associated with the desert. While they are disruptive of human life, they are considered worthy of being saved. A person dying in a state of great sin may be changed into a jinni in the period of a barzakh, separation or barrier.
Powers:
Both types:
Flight, category A: Perfectly maneuverable in the air.
Plummet: Raises a victim 120' into the air, and then drops them. Almost universally an instant-kill.
Rend: Djinn/ifriti in humanoid form resemble men with four arms, massive torsos, and no legs. They can tear a man in half, length-wise, with hardly any effort, but are extremely vulnerable in corporeal form.
Debris storm: Uses debris local to the area, whether sand, glass, wood and metal fragments, or anything else, to create its own personal blender.
Djinni are spirits of air. They are vulnerable to fire and earth.
_Cyclone__: Precisely what it sounds like, they go on a path of destruction through a city in this form.
Ifriti are spirits of fire. They are vulnerable to water and earth, and can die if deprived of air.
Firestorm: Like cyclone, except everything in their path is left on fire, too.
Dagon
Once the co-equal head god of the Phoenician pantheon with El, the one-time lord of grain is almost unworshipped today, and his powers have been stunted by his lack of faith structures. He became a sea-god over time, with some limited control over crops. His avatar is actually his biggest power in these days; Dagon has chosen to put as much of his power into it as possible, so that it will not wane over time. He is, as such, the archetypal sea monster, the prototype for the kraken which will someday rise through Edda's seas.
Powers:
Bite, 9hd. Mouth is shaped like a giant, ancient fish's, with backwards-pointing, needlelike teeth with hooks on the end, to keep prey from escaping.
Claws, 4 8hd each, but can only use 2 at a time on land.
Tailslap: 6hd, but penalty to accuracy. Dagon cannot see behind him.
Fear death by water: in the presence of any body of water, can attempt to drown someone without touching them; he can freeze, solidify, and boil water as a free action.
Leviathan: The size of a bull blue whale, or 98 feet and 340,000 pounds. Unwieldy, but if he rolls on you, you're pretty much dead. The good news is, he's unlikely to chase you more than a quarter of a mile in any direction unless you really piss him off.
Release the kraken: Once summoned to any location, earthquakes begin to assail the region.
Sole ranged attack: Bitter draught, a blast of pure chlorine gas, which can turn into hydroclhoric acid in the human lung; gas masks or some other method of filtration (sorcery), or holding breath until free of the area.
Incapable of flight, and unwieldy on land, Dagon detests being summoned out of his waters. He can and will turn on the ones who have summoned him, if they are unprotected.
Occurrence: One
Tawantinsuyu/Quecha
Cherufe
Creature Type: Elemental spirit
Summoned or Ancient: Both
Description:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherufe
Cherufe are around 12' in height, and elemental in origin, but have a malevolent cast to them. They are made of igneous rock, pumice, obsidian, tufa… and can re-ignite themselves, at will, into magma form. They weigh 1100 lbs each, but can only be summoned 1-2 at a time. This is a very good thing.
Body: 6d
Rockform: Consider about 5hd in heavy armor. Can be worn through, but the 'flesh' underneath bleeds molten fire.
Fist slam: Treat as brawling 5d. If they grapple, they can land atop someone and attempt to crush them into the ground by, effectively, belly flopping/pile driving, over and over again, while punching. This is bad.
Magmaform: Lose all armor, but any touch burns. Retain fist slam, but gain 4d fire damage.
Fire spit Ranged fire attack, 4d, any form.
Supay inhabit the world within, or underworld, the Uku Pachu, and are subject to Supay, the death god who shares their name. They are death AND fertility spirits, but feared and demonic.
Creature Type: Elemental spirit
Summoned or Ancient: Both
Description:
About 4' tall, they look like nothing so much as malevolently grinning rock sprites that wear half masks made of glossy, reflective obsidian… polished to a mirror like sheen. Behind the masks, their eyes gleam like jewels—opals, jade, rubies, and emeralds. These little demons run in packs of 4-8, and hearing their tittering laughter in the dark in a cave is every miner's nightmare.
Not strong, but fast. 6d Dexterity.
Rock hide: Treat as heavy armor, 3hd.
Stone talons: Each of them has ten little fingers tipped with razor edged claws that they sink into flesh like meathooks, and then run away, pulling out gobbets. Treat as a 3d brawling attack. They're just not as powerful as the cherufe. They can latch onto someone's leg or arm, boring down into the bone, and hold on in spite of all attempts to dislodge them, on a successful grapple check. Once they start to do that, they will start to bite and eat the flesh of their victim, alive or dead.
Natural camouflage: In natural, rocky environments, the supay are effectively invisible.
Greek
Harpies
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Ancient/Distortion
Description:
Powers:
Centaurs
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Ancient/Distortion
Description:
Powers:
Sirens
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Distortion
Description:
Powers:
Hydra
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Ancient/Distortion
Description:
Powers:
Minotaur
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Ancient/Distortion
Description:
Powers:
Norse
Fenris, minor
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Distortion
Description: Humans distorted into the shape of giant wolves, affected by the dispersion of ley energies and god magics. 5' tall at the shoulder, 7' tall at the head, they're often as large as most horses, mad, and vicious. Tamed and returned to sanity by Saraid and Sigrun, they're loyal, intelligent, capable people.
Powers:
Body: 6d
Coord: 6d
Sense: 6d
Mind: 2d
Charm: 1d
Command: 2d
Bite: 4hd
Frost breath: 4d, 20' range
Survival: 5d
Immunity: Cold
Jotun
Creature Type: Human-based distortion; supersoldier
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Distortion
Description: Named for the enemies of the Aesir and Vanir, each human solider was subjected to a torturous process of being infused with a portion of Loki's power. The process involves growing the soldier to a much larger size over the course of two months; the two-month period is not out of consideration for them, but to ensure that their musculature develops with their enhanced frame, so that they are strong enough to move.
Process involves being entombed in rock and 'reborn' out of it when they're strong enough to break the ensheltering tomb. The isolation and agony of the growth process ensures that most of them are quite mad by the time they break free. The weak… never break free at all, and die without sustenance in their rock tombs.
Each Jotun has blue eyes, brutish fangs, and is between 8 and 9 feet tall—taller, in fact, than the avatars of some gods. They weigh in at eight to nine hundred pounds each, and each retains the skills of his or her previous life.
Jotun Elites:
Body: 8d
Coord: 3d
Sense: 4d
Mind: 3d
Charm: 1d
Command: 3d
Brawling: 6d
Firearms: 3d Carry small cannons
Armor: 5d (internal network of bones, like a sloth's)
Regen: 3d
These are the super-soldiers that Raccia, the Finns, and even some Nordic tribes wanted to throw against the Mongols and Qin.
The 'failed experiments':
Grendeloids: Hairy, brutish, chaotic. 1d Int, 8d str, 5d Con, 1 Dex, 2d armor.
Body: 7d
Coord: 2d
Sense: 3d
Mind: 1d
Charm: 1d
Command: 1d
Brawl: 5d
Armor: 3d (internal network of bones, like a sloth's)
Ettin: Absolutely insane, the combination of two soldiers in one pod: 1d Int, 6 d Str, 8d Con, 1d dex, no armor.
Body: 7d
Coord: 1d
Sense: 6d (2 heads. Twice the senses. Half the brains.)
Mind: 1d
Charm: 1d
Command: 1d
Brawl: 4d
Armor: 3d (internal network of bones, like a sloth's)
Níðhöggr
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Ancient
Description:
In Norse mythology, Níðhöggr (Malice Striker, often anglicized Nidhogg[1]) is a dragon who gnaws at a root of the World Tree, Yggdrasill. In the mythology, the Nidhogg is said to be controlled by only one person, the Norse goddess named Hel. Níðhöggr \
Powers:
Body: 9d
Coord: 7d
Sense: 6d
Mind: 4d
Charm: 1d
Command: 4d
Frost breath: 8hd 80' cone, 40' wide at far end.
Bite: 7hd
Claws, 4, 4hd
Crush: Níðhöggr weighs in excess of 16,000 lbs. When he drops his weight on someone, it's a pretty sure bet that they're gonna die. 10hd
Armor: 10d
Flight: Nimble, agile fighter, capable of going in excess of Mach 1. Flight class A in spite of bulk; he's like a fighter jet. 9d, inherent.
Wyvern or Lindworm
Creature Type: Monster
Summoned or Ancient or Distortion: Natural/summoned, Ancient
Description:
Lindworms are the offspring of spirits on animals. Yes. It can happen. Specifically, they're the offspring of fire-spirits and snakes, and are technically subject to Loki. The very oldest of these are Jormangund and Níðhöggr, although Níðhöggr is Hel's offspring.
Please do not ask what she did with the snake.
A young lindworm has only hindlegs and wings and a snaky, scaly body. Their bite is poisonous, and they spit small fireballs, but they appear in packs of 4-8, just like fenris wolves.
Body: 4d
Coord: 7d
Sense: 5d
Mind: 1d
Charm: 1d
Command: 1d
Firespit: 3d
Poison bite: 3d, first round, 1d/round for 3 rounds thereafter.
Armor: 5d
Body 10hd
Coord: 4d
Sense: 9d
Mind: 2d
Charm: 1d
Command: 1d
Heavy Armor: 10d
Fiery body: 10d fire damage
Bite: 10d
Regenerates slowly while in contact with the earth
10 miles long. Slow moving, but catastrophic in his movements. Can tunnel through earth and cause earthquakes and volcanic explosions.
Do not engage.
