Magical Beasts

They live in small communities, about the size of a village, and have vague, unofficial borders that they generally stay within.  They call the land within those borders their own and protect it from maleficent beasts, using great magic. Although wise and kind, they generally keep to themselves.  They usually live to be 400 years old, but have been known to live 1000 years.  They can be found in many different environments, but prefer forests most of all.  They are great craftsman, making beautiful and mighty things laced with magic.

Living a mere thirty years at most, ogres are by far the most brutal of creatures. They’re simple hunters; they have their own language and know how to set a trap, but that’s as far as their intelligence goes. They roam in groups of two to twenty, looking for a meal. They can make rudimentary tools, but otherwise steal what they need. Their main goal is to fill their stomachs, but they always find time to make it as terrifying and painful as possible for the victim. They believe dinner should be entertaining.

Witches are very like humans, but actually are their own species.  It is not clear where they really come from.  They tend to come and go, popping up and causing trouble before disappearing again.  They always live alone and often in remote areas.  By Rina’s time, they are more rare and seem to be dwindling in number, though it is not clear why.  Because of their nomadic ways, little is known about them for sure, like how long they live or if there is a male counterpart of their species (none has ever been clearly identified).  Whether they have overall goals and ambitions or if they simply enjoy making trouble for humans is up for debate.  Some claim that they can shape-shift.

A black, monkey-like creature that lives about sixty years and mostly likes making mischief for anybody and everybody they meet.  They are known to live alone or in packs of up to thirty; their habits tend to be very irregular and unpredictable.  A few of the humans that have run into them claim that their jabbering is actually snatches of prophecies and predictions of the future, and so some seek them out intentionally to try and learn about the future.  They usually get splattered with fruit for their trouble.  Every once and awhile phookas get downright dangerous and even cruel.  Only fools go after these creatures.

Small and insect-like, pixies are more involved in the human world than the average human would believe. They mostly mind their own affairs and have little notion of the larger world, but are intensely interested in their own “neighborhood.”  The human who has pixies in their garden will often find an ally in them, since they will fend off creatures, such as deer, from pillaging it, and nurture it themselves. The garden is usually more abundant than the neighbors’, for reasons the humans can’t explain.  A pixie might live twenty years, but it’s more often ten.  There might be only one or two in a garden or there mighty be a whole community of fifty. No matter where they are, they love bright-colored objects of any sort (which is often how they pick the garden they settle in).

Elusive and rare, little is known about this creature. But when it is seen, it is recognized as the herald of great and mighty events about to happen, some good and some ill. Some say there is only one phoenix that resurrects from its ashes every hundred years. Others dream of a lost island where they flock in the thousands.

This beast is surprisingly friendly and sociable to humans and has adapted itself well to the human world. They have almost completely assimilated into the culture and are oblivious to the awkward curiosity of their human neighbors. Some countries have more of them than others, but all have a few at least. And they are very much like humans; they have similar lifespans, appetites, cultures, etc.  Their clothes and homes are, of course, adapted to them, but otherwise they live just about the same. In the end, their talents are so valuable that no human community wants to chase them away. They are great blacksmiths, seamstresses, farmers, and lumberjacks, to name a few skills.

No one who meets this creature ever forgets it or doesn’t laugh when they remember it. They are little gnome creatures with pointy heads, which they always cover with a pointy hat. They live thousands of years. Despite their friendly natures, they always live alone, though often surrounded by an assortment of creatures, such as birds, horses, mice, and badgers. They have powerful magic, but are so simple and happy that they don’t use it for any particular ambition. They only use it when asked for help by others. But unfortunately, they can sometimes cause more problems than they solve, since they don’t always understand the full impact of their magic.