Lands of Mirhne: Beasts of Mirhne, Part 2

After writing the original post, I realized there wasn't a whole lot of new content. Not only that but, despite the post alluding to creatures such as the Owlbear and Chimera, the three sample Beast types where fairly mundane creature. The Lands of Mirhne have many, many other monstrosities beyond the more common creatures described as there is never a shortage of nightmares for adventurers to face.

Prehistoric Beasts

Art by Kurt Miller

Mirhne, given many of its pulp roots, plays only lip service to paleontology. While most animals found in the Lands of Mirne are (mostly) identical to the modern day Earth, there are creatures which can be found lurking in the depths of the Lands. Sometimes, these creatures make their way from either the northern lands or out of the dark swap and forest, scaring the local people. These are creatures which we would recognize as extinct but on Mirhne they somehow still exist. These can provide quite the encounter for those unlucky travelers and explorers.

• Saber-Tooth Cats still exist in the north reaches and are known to be natural creatures, albeit of an exotic kind which is slowly dying off. Nonetheless, these large cats are analogous to various breed of large cats found on Earth with the signature saber teeth.
• Mammoths prowl the northernmost parts of Mirhne. They too are a dying breed of creature, with the larger breed being mostly extinct, leaving only smaller pigmy breeds. Of course, a 'small' mammoth is still a fairly dangerous animal capable of viciously goring a grown man.
• As mentioned here, some 'Giants' of Mirhne may not be giants at all but rather particularly large simian creatures. These large, shaggy apes are somewhat analogous to real life extinct hominids as well as modern day Gorilla.
• Like all other animals of Mirhne, the prehistoric animals are capable of becoming Beasts. These Ancient Beasts are particularly large and ferocious specimen which have seen the turn of the ages and hibernated for a long time.

Teratoma Beasts

Art by Paul Canavan.

When it come to fantastical tales of extraordinary creatures, they tend to come in two categories: larger than life version of real life animals or a combination of two or more creatures. The Chimera is the most famous of these and the namesake of the term. There are many other, of course, such as the Pegasus and for fantasy there is the Owlbear and more. Creatures whose description is a nonsensical mixture of different animals of vastly different and unrelated species. They seem to be something which haunt the imaginary of humanity, with even modern cryptids such as the Chupacabra being often described as a mixture between a dog and a lizard. And, of course, who can forget the ever iconic concept of the dragon, which Chinese myth describe as an amalgam of several animals including an eagle, a crab and more while western depictions combine reptilian and chiropteran traits more often than not, when it isn't taking cues from antiquated depictions of dinosaurs.

Mirhne also has stories of these and they are all fairly fantastical, speaking of great horned bears with the jaws of wolves or sharks or of a dreadful saber cat with tongues made of snakes. Other stories speak of lumbering giants with shaggy fur and many heads, some of them eerily human-like and others the head of beasts. The northern folks speak of great, murderous elk monsters with slavering jaws and prehensible antlers on their heads as well as giant scaled seals which can eat entire boats.

These stories are not lies, but they aren't accurate.

Cleric Beast by Igor Krstic

Teratoma Beast is the out of universe term for this phenomena, should it be true. As it has been established, things on Mirhne have a bad tendency to never truly die and animals grow larger and vicious with age, sometimes becoming infested with a sickness or refusing to die. Nightmare Beasts could be considered the ultimate apotheosis of a Beast, once its body and mind has been so worn down and transformed as to not resemble its original form. Make no mistake, however: the idea that they are a mix-and-match different animals is a lie. 

What happen, rather, is a mixture between cancer and individual evolution. The creatures never stop growing and changing and more and more of their body is changed and replaced by....something else. Skin peel off or become covered in scabs which in time grow into thick jagged bone spurs which interlock, giving the illusion of steel-hard scales. Teeth fall off and are replaced by monstrous fangs. Skull expand and warp with tumors that harden, creating an illusion of horns. Limbs lengthen and eventually break, reshaping into new and twisted articulations as muscles grotesquely adapt to this new form. For others, entirely new organs form, such as redundant malformed heads or fleshy pseudopods. If Mirhne has anything resembling a classical Dragon, it would be a nightmare creature so twisted beyond its original form as to be impossible to ascertain what it originally was born as its entire body is essentially an hyper-adapted Teratoma. Disturbingly, some Teratoma Beast gain increased intelligence, a semi-bipedal posture and even opposable thumbs. It is possible these rare and elusive creatures have played into the stories of Giants. Or, perhaps they were once human and are to Men as to what other Teratoma Beasts are to animals.

What Unearthly Powers a Teratoma Beast would have is entirely up to the GM and each should be made as unique as possible, as each is a completely unique monstrosity. Generally speaking, the younger one is the more it resemble its original self and the older it is the larger and more mutated it become, creating a truly nightmarish Lovecraftian monstrosity which wouldn't look out of place as, say, a videogame monster.