Monsters(?) of Mihrne

A key concept I wish to use in the Lands of Mirhne game pitch is the idea of uncertainty about what is and isn't supernatural. The people inhabiting the lands are a simple folk, living off the land and fighting with swords and spears. Written language is extremely primitive and most people don't know how to write and read. As a result, concepts which we modern humans would understand in scientific terms are completely unknown to these people. At the same time, however, there are eldritch and unearthly forces at work in Mirhne. The question then become: what is truly supernatural and what isn't? Is there even a clear line?

Keep in mind Mirhne is intended to be fiction and deliberately plays into eldritch horror concepts through the lenses of a pre-modern society.

The Others/The Wild Folks/The Cavemen

Frank Frazetta's iconic cavemen-morlock
thingies.

This is an unpleasant subject, but Mirhne is an unpleasant and grim setting. The mandatory savage humanoids of Mirhne are not orcs or goblins, but simple other humans. The thing is, are they really human in the same way the men and women of Mirhne are? In the northernmost lands and other wild places inimical to human life and too wild to tame yet are tribes of people that are cruder than even the poorest of the people of Mirhne. They live in ghost-haunted swamps, deep forests, the mountain peaks and other places. Many of them live in caves. They hunt and kill each others as well as the ordinary folks. They are shaggy, hunched and ugly. Many of them file what teeth they have left to a point. They are monsters and boogeymen and many wonder if they aren't demons clad in the flesh of Man.  Unlike the classic orc and goblins, however, encounter with these beings is extremely rare as they do not assemble in large hordes but rather have small, organized hunting bands or a raiding party consisting of one or two maladjusted lunatics.

The Wild Folks are the silly subhuman cavemen of Sword & Sorcery...except they also aren't. They are the uncomfortable outdated archetype of the caveman and the primitive people. They often have thick brows, they speak in grunting noises and are overly violent. They look like a Frank Frazetta painting of a caveman, more or less. So what are they? Are they a particularly scientifically plausible take on orcs and goblins, some sort of leftover 'caveman' race? Maybe. At the same time, the rare folks who have been killed in civilized lands and weren't promptly burnt or thrown in a river showed signs which even the uneducated men of Mirhne would recognize as sickness. Living in these foul lands, full of fungus and bog parasites may have infected these otherwise benign human relatives and driven these attacking individuals away from their tribe and into cannibalistic madness. It could be that there is a scientific and medical reason for why they are the way they are. Or it could be that something foul and unearthly has corrupted and degraded these beings. Which answer is true? I don't know.

Beasts of Mirhne

On Mirhne there are beasts and then there are Beasts. While common animals are dangerous enough, Mirhne is haunted by creatures of a somewhat unnatural bent. While there are many tall tales, rumors and folklore of particularly large animal (and some of it is used to tell children to never go alone in the woods), every few generation emerge particularly terrifying specimens from the wild. Much of Mirhne remain unexplored and once in a while, some new animal will come out of the woods and terrify the locals. And then there are the Beasts.

Art by Sarah Hartman

There is a phenomena in Mirhne, where animals are said to never truly die and with advanced age comes a malign form of sentience and a thirst for man-flesh. Unnaturally large and ugly, sometimes misshapen beasts emerge from the wilderness, displaying a remarkable level of size, strength, cunning and resilience. Large, black wolves with distended jaws larger than horses. Ugly misshapen hairless bears and strangely intelligent spider or ant colonies are part of the bestiary of Mirhne. Some of these creatures might simply be naturally large specimen. It might be that animals do grow larger and more intelligent in Mirhne but this does not explain the rest. Too many of Mirhne's beasts display a cunning that no normal animal should. These large, sickly beast (and many do carry sickness with them) are driven by a hatred or hunger that goes beyond what any normal animal would display. To the people of Mirhne however, it is simply an accepted fact that as beasts grow old and wise they realize that Men are not their friend and they grow into evil spirits that hunger for men's flesh, if not their souls.

• Black wolves and dogs tend to grow large, with shaggy fur that is tangled and oily. They often display large and jagged, asymmetrical teeth and their eyes have a certain reflective quality to it which simulate a 'glow'.
• Bears, elks, moose and other beasts often display a sickness akin to mange, followed by unnatural growth. Their skin thicken with scabs and scars. As long-lived beasts are survivors, most of them are indeed scarred from the snout to their rear.
• The Spiders of Mihrne are particularly infamous for their size. These range from the size of a house cat to that of a bear and it is said that spiders never stop growing or even grow larger and smarter with every soul consumed. The Spiders of Mihrne are the most intelligent of the Beasts and can even mimic human voices some say. The crabs of the coast display similar behavior but are known for their greed and guarding treasures.
• The rare Crows of Ill Omen are Crow Beasts the size of a cattle or so the stories claim. They too can mimic voices and some believe they can see the future or posses similar powers of sorcery.

The Touched

Art by Jose Garay.

Some say that all things can grow old, wild and evil. There are also some who claim that even men and women can become monsters, creatures of the night and wild. A lot of it is common folk superstition which vary from region to region: born with red hair, born on a moonless night, born out of wedlock on the seventh day of the week. Most of it is just that, superstition. Yet some people are sometimes born 'wrong' or develop a certain streak to their character which is unnatural and grows beyond mere mental illness, trauma or anti-social behavior. Stories speak of ogres, men and women who developed a taste for the flesh of children, Of strange wooden hermits whose bodies have become covered in shaggy hair and who can turn into bears and badgers. Others say that spiteful and vengeful men can feed off hatred and extend their lives until their flesh start to rot and yet the keep on living.

A detail all these stories have in common is that of retreat from society and a 'calling'. Considering many are exiled from their home for disgusting and socially inappropriate behavior they are often chased into the wilderness, where most hope they will be eaten by wild animals. The stories tell of another fate, however. The in the blackened hearts of human monsters they find themselves called to the deep and dark places of the world and that they are reborn as monsters. How much, if any of this is true is up for debate but, maybe (just maybe!) there might be evil powers out there in the world who worm their way into the heart of the insane, the monstrous, the exiled and those who are simply unlucky in life. Maybe there are dark forces at work, perverting the flesh and mind.

• Old Crones and Mad Hermits can be found in Mirhne, living away from civilization. They are ugly and bent, even by the standards of old folks but they possess near-supernatural insight. As their bodies wither and their sanity degrade their mind seemingly grow sharper in different ways. Many have been living at the edges of civilization for generations and they have lived long enough for grandparents to remember stories about them arriving. Somehow, these individuals have exceeded the ordinary human life span. (Interesting connection with how many versions of D&D and related systems increase the mental stats of people as they age, which make no sense as generally people lose cognitive abilities with age...) Or it could be lies, with some being nothing but stories and folk tales.
• There are tale of Bog Hags and Swamp Trolls in the lands of Mihrne. Some of the more scholarly mind of Mirhne (of which there are few, alas) believe that these are the people which were exiled from society, as it is commonly where many are sent. However this does not explain the stories of tall, lanky figures with slimy skin and wet hair. Some people believe that these people become evil spirit, living or dead, who haunt the swamps. The curse for exile is monsterhood and bogs are places where civilization rarely thrive. So there is a connection there.
• Folklore speak of a sea witch which collect abandoned infants left on boats, as many sickly and deformed children often are sent away in Mihrne. They say that under the ocean is another world, a reflection of ours, where the abandoned and the outcast are adopted by the sea witch. Some say she a goddess, others says she's simply the first woman who drowned. Stories say that one should mistrust sailors one doesn't know, because they might be hiding a flipper or a crab claw under their clothing. Or, perhaps, a fish eye under their eye patch.
• Some people are twisted not in body but in their soul. Madness is one thing, but some people are truly touched and are twisted in a way which ordinary madness cannot explain. There are stories of this madness spreading across Mirhne, affecting anything from wounded soldiers to ordinary farmers to children. While at first it will manifest as another form of mania or madness, the sickness will evolve and develop until their entire personalities are lost. These people speak in gibberish or unknown tongues or claim to be something else. They have inexplicable knowledge, such as the story of a villager who went mad and was sequestered in a well for weeks. Despite being down there, he knew of things he should not be able to know, such the name of a newborn child whose parents had not announced to the village. It appears that those twisted in the mind and soul develop extra sensorial perception.