Evil Land’s landscapes are a crucible of hunger, war, and ruin. Its people may kill each other with sword or scheme, but the land itself births predators far crueler. To walk beyond torchlight is to gamble with death, for creatures stir in fungal forests, ash-choked deserts, and ruin-choked valleys that hunger not only for flesh but for memory, sanity, and soul.
This codex gathers what knowledge has been survived, stolen, or whispered regarding the most dangerous beasts and horrors of Evil Land.
Habitat: Volcanic plains, charred battlefields
Nature: Not quite spirits, not quite corpses, Ashwraiths rise where pyres burn too hot for flesh to survive, but too slow for souls to depart.
Behavior: They drift like smoke, taking form only to strike with claws of cinder. Fire cannot harm them; it feeds them.
Threat: Ashwraiths are drawn to warmth — campfires, hearths, even body heat. A village may burn itself to ward them away, only to feed them further.
Folklore: Survivors say each Ashwraith remembers its last scream. To hear that scream is to carry it forever in dreams.
Habitat: Ruin-scattered wastelands, ancient battle sites
Nature: Constructs of fused skeletons animated by necrotic instinct. Their spines curve into towers, their jaws into fists.
Behavior: Bone Giants do not eat; they collect. Every slain foe is added to their bulk, bound by marrow resin.
Threat: A single Bone Giant may grow to the size of a fortress, impossible to starve or tire. Whole armies collapse beneath their grinding tread.
Folklore: It is said the oldest Bone Giant walks with a cathedral on its back, and inside its ribcage an entire cult lives, worshiping its endless hunger.
Habitat: Fungal caverns, rot-choked swamps
Nature: A lich whose soul is not bound to a phylactery but to a spore-colony. Its body is ever-decaying, ever-regrown in fungal flesh.
Behavior: It spreads spores that burrow into the brain, rewriting victims into fungal thralls. The thralls chant the Mycolich’s thoughts aloud.
Threat: Armies may crumble overnight if exposed to spores. Villages vanish without trace, their people reduced to fungal echoes.
Folklore: Survivors swear that even burning the corpse is useless, for every ash carries spores waiting for rain.
Habitat: Desert canyons, ash dunes
Nature: Serpentine predators with wings of glass, refracting sunlight into searing beams. Their beauty blinds before their fangs strike.
Behavior: They dive upon caravans, scattering beasts and men alike, before carrying prey into the dunes to be buried alive.
Threat: Dune Seraphs can vanish into sandstorms, their crystalline wings indistinguishable from windblown shards.
Folklore: Some tribes worship them as messengers of forgotten gods, offering sacrifices to redirect their hunger elsewhere.
Habitat: Collapsed cities, ruined factories
Nature: Titan-sized amalgams of corroded machines animated by static lightning and hatred. Their blood is molten rust.
Behavior: They wander aimlessly until disturbed, at which point their fury flattens whole districts. They feed on metal, devouring weapons, armor, even gates.
Threat: A single Behemoth can depopulate a city. Armies lose not only men but weapons, stripped bare by the creature’s hunger.
Folklore: Legends claim the first Behemoths were born when corporations left titans of industry to rot until the land itself gave them will.
Habitat: Abandoned temples, echoing valleys
Nature: A flock of incorporeal voices that exist only in resonance. The Choir kills not with teeth but with sound.
Behavior: They lure wanderers by mimicking loved ones, then shatter bones with inhuman harmonics.
Threat: No armor protects against song. To hear the Choir is to bleed from eyes, ears, and heart.
Folklore: Villagers swear the Choir can be bribed with silence. Entire towns outlaw music, bells, and even prayer, fearing to attract its attention.
Habitat: Mass graves, plague-fields
Nature: Enormous insectoid kings birthed from rotting heaps. Each Monarch resembles a throne of flesh carried by thousands of smaller vermin.
Behavior: They command swarms like generals, directing plagues against cities or armies. Their hives are fortresses of decay.
Threat: Monarchs can depopulate entire provinces. Disease, swarm, and famine follow their advance.
Folklore: Some believe each Monarch is crowned with the soul of a forgotten tyrant, condemned to rule only carrion forever.
Habitat: Ruins heavy with psychic residue
Nature: Small, eel-like things that drink memories through eye contact. Victims do not die, but unravel.
Behavior: Leeches lurk in shadows, stealing fragments at a time until prey forgets its own name.
Threat: Soldiers return from battlefields unable to recall comrades; whole families forget they are kin.
Folklore: Survivors whisper that the Leeches are not animals, but regrets given form. They say killing one forces you to remember every sorrow it consumed.
Habitat: Glass deserts, crystalline caves
Nature: Quadrupeds with skin of living crystal. When struck, their bodies fracture, then regrow sharper than before.
Behavior: Shatterbeasts hunt by echo-location, shattering themselves deliberately to unleash concussive blasts.
Threat: A single pack can level fortifications. Weapons dull against their crystalline flesh, and each wound multiplies them.
Folklore: Miners claim Shatterbeasts are guardians of buried treasures, born from the gems themselves.
Habitat: Anywhere death is fresh
Nature: Scavenger-birds with black wings and glass beaks that pierce not flesh but spirit.
Behavior: They gather above battlefields, feasting not on bodies but on souls departing them. Corpses left behind are husks: alive, breathing, but empty.
Threat: Survivors of battles often find comrades still walking, eyes vacant, awaiting commands that never come.
Folklore: Soldiers burn their dead not to honor them, but to deny the Scavengers their feast.
Habitat: Deep caverns, flooded ruins
Nature: Amoebic entities that digest not flesh but memory and identity, leaving shells of meat wandering aimlessly.
Behavior: Oozes dissolve victims into themselves, gaining fragments of personality and speech. They may mimic loved ones with uncanny skill.
Threat: To fight them is to hear your own voice scream from their depths. Many warriors simply break and run.
Folklore: Some cults seek them deliberately, hoping to merge with the Ooze and dissolve into eternity.
The people of Evil Land do not live despite these creatures, but because of them. Villages fortify against wraiths, tribes make peace with predators, corporations weaponize monstrosities, and cults worship abominations.
A field scholar once wrote: “In Evil Land, the most dangerous creatures are not those that kill the body, but those that devour the self. Flesh is common; memory is rare.”
Thus the final doctrine: survival in Evil Land means not only escaping claws, but protecting the soul against the hungers of the land.