Rossvald Bestiary of the Unknown (November, 2024)

The world teeters on the brink of reason, for I have stumbled upon creatures so peculiar they defy both nature and nightmare. First among them, the dreaded Gooseberus—a monstrous, undead fowl with three snarling heads, its rotting beaks honking discordantly. It lumbers like a nightmare dragged from a child’s fever dream, feathers mottled with decay, and wings spread wide enough to blot out the sun.

Be wary, for it shows no mercy, charging with feral indignation as if the world itself has slighted it. But stranger still is the Candle Horror, a golem born from the waxen remains of countless melted candles, forever aglow with the eerie light of half-remembered rituals. Its body twists and flows in jagged drips, forming and reforming limbs with every step, while flickering flames dance within the deep creases of its face—a face that seems to leer knowingly, as though it remembers every wish, prayer, or curse spoken over its melted brethren.

And far beneath the black waves, there lies the Sockeye Shipwrecked, a leviathan of unspeakable hunger. It prowls the seas with the deliberate menace of a storm, its scaled body scarred by sunken vessels. Sailors whisper that it drags wreckage to its lair—not to feast, but to build something. What that something might be, I dare not fathom.

These beasts are not merely creatures. They are fragments of the wonders of this world, but also the twisted—a reminder that the unknown is not meant to be tamed, only witnessed... and survived!