The Crooked Moon Bestiary

Habitat: Arctic, Mountain

Alpengrendel are hulking creatures covered in bluish white fur, with great tusks and horns. They were born of the ice and darkness of their mountaintop homes, shaped by the unseen hands of a deity of cold stone and gloam. The bitter cold of the mountain peaks infuses both their touch and their breath.

Alpengrendel draw upon the timelessness of the mountains, healing from otherwise lethal wounds in the blink of an eye. They fear only the power of lightning, which can slay them, and the power of the gods, whom they bitterly resent.

Secret. Their disdain for deities runs so deep that alpengrendel are enraged and unnerved by the trappings of faith

Habitat: Forest, Mountain, Underdark, Urban

Bat hounds are created through blood magic rituals that manipulate the curse of vampirism to transform a hound into a relentless stalker. Unswervingly loyal companions, bat hounds aid vampiric masters in tracking prey, able to outrun horses and their riders once they smell blood. They seek out stragglers or quarry that are escaping during a hunt and drag them back for capture.

Secret. Running water keeps bat hounds at bay and can destroy them, a lingering remnant from the vampiric curse that spawned them.

Habitat: Swamp

Bayou beasts are elemental spirits bound into great mounds of swamp plant matter through jinxcraft magic. These hulks obey their creators unfailingly, often lingering long after their death and carrying out their final orders. The hexed seals, fashioned from carved trinkets and masks, that trap the spirit in its form impart their curse on the creature’s enemies.

Secret. The jinxcraft seals can be washed away with alcohol, hindering and even destroying the bayou beast.

Habitat: Desert, Forest, Grassland, Mountain

Boneflayers are cruel, vulture-like creatures that originated from a broken fey pact. The creatures aren’t content to wait for something to die and instead make their own carrion to gorge upon—they delight in snatching prey in their talons, carrying it into the air, and dropping it to its death. Boneflayers earn their name by using their sizeable, filth-riddled beaks to cleave flesh from bone and hoard the meat until it ages enough for them to enjoy.

Cults sometimes use boneflayer killing grounds as a source of bones to burn in ritual bonfires, occasionally making pacts with the creatures to pay or trade for the creature’s castoffs. Villages that fear boneflayer attacks ward them off with thundering drums or gongs whenever they circle overhead.

Secret. A lingering result of the fey bargain that created them, boneflayers are disoriented and diminished by loud, thunderous noises.

Habitat: Forest, Planar (Fey), Urban

Boogleswarms are mischievous Fey spirits that take the form of weasels gathered into a slinking mob. These spirits covet and collect teeth of all kinds, but they favor the teeth of Humanoids most of all. Tales of tooth faeries might have their origin in boogleswarms, as they are known to enter into agreements to trade for teeth—such as those lost by children and tucked under a pillow—for rewards, favors, or safety.

Secret. Boogleswarms go wild for sugar, whether pure or in heavily-sweetened foods like candy, and are compelled to take and consume any they find.

Habitat: Grassland, Planar (Abyss)

Resembling a monstrous crow, the corvodaemon’s sleek and twisted form soars on elongated wings tipped with razor-sharp, finger-like claws, its six amber eyes constantly seeking for prey. Insatiable hunger for both flesh and souls—along with their accumulated secrets—gnaws at these Fiends. Their mimicry lets them take on the voice of those known and trusted by their would-be meals, luring the hapless mortals to their doom.

Secret. Savvy demon hunters bar corvodaemons with warding lines of ash prepared from feathers.

Habitat: Any

Crimson clergy are Undead cultists, often created, led, and taught by a more powerful vampire. Crimson clergy view the consumption of blood—and in its use during their rituals and when casting spells—not only as necessary but sacred. Their hunger reaches beyond the limits of their fangs and claws, calling to the blood of their victims and drawing it out in scarlet ribbons.

Secret. Crimson clergy struggle to accept how monstrous they have become. They can’t stand the sight of themselves and see their true visage in their reflection.

Habitat: Forest, Planar (Fey)

Crooked effigies are servants of a twisted archfey known as the Crooked Queen. They are made of gnarled wood and show some bipedal and feminine features in their queen’s image. Crooked effigies impale their enemies with their branch-like arms and drag foes in close, where the thorns on their bodies carry the sting of a victim’s own corruption.

Secret. Crooked effigies are bound to the Old Ways, and they recoil from the tools of forging and tinkering— symbols of a growing civilization.

Habitat: Grassland, Planar (Lower Planes), Urban

A crowstorm is a great, swirling mass of dark feathers accompanied constant, harshly malevolent crow calls. Hundreds of fiendish birds fly in unison, their beady eyes dripping blood as they swoop down to tear at the flesh of their victims. A crowstorm’s horrific caws mingle into an eerie cacophony of pleading whispers, and it robs the gift of flight from anything that draws too close.

Secret. While they might take the form of crows or possess crow bodies, crowstorms are held at bay by drawn images or crafted effigies of crows.

Habitat: Underground

Deepdrecks were miners long ago who found themselves far too deep beneath the earth, where they were cursed and corrupted by deforming powers. Now they tunnel and dig greedily, bloated with poisonous gases. Astute observers have noted that these monsters occasionally bear a resemblance to missing loved ones who have long been thought dead.

Secret. The toxic essence of deepdrecks is disrupted by pleasant scents such as flowers, perfume, spices, or incense.

Habitat: Grasslands, Hills, Urban

The drakkenhob is a draconic monster with a sinister disguise, presenting itself as an actor wearing a horse costume, such as a mounted knight or a festively clad rider. Its draconic head resembles a decorated or armored horse’s head, and its sharp teeth fit together to appear like blunt, harmless decorations. The drakkenhob uses this benign guise to get close to its prey, which are typically within crowds near festivals or parades, before it summons its similarly garbed hunting hounds and strikes. Its breath is a blood-curdling wave of terror that makes lesser victims drop dead from fright alone.

Secret. Unable to resist revelry and merriment, drakkenhob are driven away by payment offered in gold or alcohol.

Habitat: Forest, Hill, Mountain, Swamp

Dream eaters are horrors that feed on the dreams, sense of identity, and—some say—the very souls of other creatures. Dream eaters have the bodies and wings of great owls, while their beaks are filled with blunt, humanlike teeth and hide long snaking tongues. Their feathers are drab colors on the exterior, but their wings display a dazzling cascade of rainbow hues on the undersides when unfurled. These colors flow and shift, mesmerizing the dream eater’s prey and leaving them helpless. A creature whose dreams are devoured is left in a listless, near-blank state. Without help, their victims waste away.

Secret. Dream eaters are confused by the intricate patterns on moth wings, and it disrupts their own colorful hypnosis.

Habitat: Coastal, Swamp

Ferrymen are Undead created through the use of curses and jinxcraft and are doomed to ply the waters where they were raised. They pole through the bayous and rivers, and even across land on a wave of swamp water, in coffin boats. They can focus the malice of their curse through the light of their lantern poles, jinxing enemies or those who try to force a ride without payment.

Secret. Paying a ferryman 3 copper coins lifts any curse the creature placed on the payer, and it entitles one to a single unnerving but safe ride in the ferryman’s coffin boat.

Habitat: Forest, Swamp, Underground

Festerhulks are dead giants whose corpses are infested with fungus engorged by the magic of decay. This fungus has consumed and replaced much of the giant’s flesh and now animates the corpse. The heads of these giants are often completely overtaken by repulsive mushrooms and other fungal growths. The spores given off by their infestation can spread to victims killed by festerhulks, giving rise to further Undead.

Secret. Festerhulks shrink from sunlight, which harms the fungus that animates them.

Habitat: Grassland, Hill, Underground, Urban

Fleshdobbins are abominations created when a horse and its rider are horrifically melded through fleshcrafting magic. Their limbs stretch and deform, though afterward, their bodies resist further transformation. Fitted with saddles and bearing savage weaponry, these monsters may look like riderless horses from a distance, but each leg culminates in oddly human looking gnarled hands with fingers ending in wicked claws. Their voices are the comingled shrieks of human and horse.

Secret. Affixing a bridle to a fleshdobbin causes the instincts of the horse within the amalgam to take over, becoming a loyal steed once more.

Habitat: Forest, Swamp

Gloomwoods were once treants in service to an archfey, but they were corrupted by a supernatural fungal blight. The growth bores through their trunks and into their souls, making the gloomwoods cruel and vicious, interested only in spreading more decay. Fungal spores drift from their trunks and branches, rotting any flesh and digging into the ground around them to spread the blight.

Secret. Carving the Sylvan name of the forest the gloomwood once called home into the creature’s trunk quells its aggression.

Habitat: Forest, Hill

Gobblegeists are massive birdlike monsters with earth toned plumage, reptilian faces and claws, and a metallic beak edged with sharp teeth. These ravenous creatures descend from forest canopies or hilltops to snatch their prey unawares and carry them off to feed on their blood in solitude. Their single, unblinking eye can unnerve and dazzle more alert prey, making would-be threats an easy meal.

Secret. The folk who venerate the Old Ways believe that a seven-pointed star repels gobblegeists. They keep the monsters at bay by painting or weaving star sigils from wicker to hang from their homes or in trees.

Habitat: Planar (Lower Planes), Urban

Heralds of fools lead troupes of fiendish revelers in service to the enigmatic Lord of Fools, a clown or jester entity who is a curious mix of levity and cruelty (though always with a sense of irony). The heralds are agile and graceful, every movement a dance, spinning their banner poles in intricate displays that can swiftly turn from entertainment to death.

Secret. Heralds of fools are wonderful dancers, and they must never stop dancing, or they quickly perish.

Habitat: Any

Hospital horrors were once people, but now they are repulsive mockeries created through surgical and magical alteration. They have no memory of their past lives, existing only within a chemically induced rage. Often, they are conditioned by the use of specific command phrases that allow them to be controlled.

Secret. Hospital horrors have spent much of their existence being prodded with needles, so being pierced frays what few wits they retain.

Habitat: Any

Houses of horror are living houses, often angry or bitter due to the circumstances of their awakening. They were once mundane buildings or dwellings where powerful magics of life and death took place and infused the stones and timber. Houses of horror jealously covet the true life that its former inhabitants enjoyed, or they carry echoes of the suffering that bodies and souls experienced within them. The houses vent this fury on any who enter, tormenting and terrifying trespassers. The souls of those who die inside are trapped, waiting to be unleashed upon future victims.

Secret. While not haunted houses in the traditional sense, houses of horror can have their consciousness quelled by the same exorcism or purification rituals that put unquiet spirits to rest or drive out possessing spirits.

Habitat: Forest, Hill

Hypnovulfen resemble massive wolves with unnaturally large orange eyes and wide, crooked maws. Despite their size, hypnovulfen are shockingly stealthy, able to stalk their prey and snare them with a hypnotic gaze from the shadows. The gaze beguiles victims into seeing a loved one beckoning them closer for a warm embrace. All the better for a hypnovulfen to feed and consume the unfortunate morsel’s memories.

Secret. Hypnovulfen have no power to mesmerize anyone holding a keepsake or memento received from a loved one, as it overpowers the false beckoning of the monster’s gaze.

Habitat: Any

Invaders out of space appeared after a falling star blazed down from the cosmos. These alien beings have an unsettling habit of appearing between glances and silently watching. Invaders stand upright like a biped, shrouded in what are either voluminous robes or draping folds of skin. Observers who are lucky find the invaders gone in a blink, and those who aren’t so fortunate hear the bloodcurdling hiss these things from beyond the stars emit as they attack. All that remains of their victims is a spray of gray powder amid crumpled clothing.

Secret. The invaders have little resilience to the toxic and virulent threats of the Material Plane, and they succumb quickly to diseases and poisons.

Habitat: Any

Those who were particularly sadistic in life and died consumed by wicked mirth linger as Kackles—ghostly figures that drift above the ground, always flitting just out of sight. Adorned in tattered cloaks and concealing hoods or hats, their hollow laughter echoes through dark places, fading in and out to confuse and terrify their victims. Kackles always carry lanterns lit with ghostly flames, the color of which changes to reflect a kackle’s current cruelty of choice.

Secret. Kackles are bound to their lanterns, and smashing their lights can snuff out the spirits’ existence.

Habitat: Forest, Swamp, Underground

Keepers of the blight arise from Fey beings that dwell in a natural region that becomes overtaken by a supernatural or spiritual rot. Where they once tended the balance and cycles of their home, keepers are consumed by the blight and channel their magic through fungus, mold, and rot, pushing the cycle of life toward death, decay, and the flourishing of things that thrive in gloom.

Secret. The fungus growing throughout keepers of the blight empowers and sustains them, and killing that growth diminishes their power.

Habitat: Forest, Hill, Planar (Fey), Urban

Ketgrinn are catlike Fey spirits who delight in puzzles, riddles, and bargains. They have large, bright eyes and too-wide grins that gleam starkly even in shadows. Ketgrinn are tricksters and spies, often sent by those they serve to steal the voices of a rival’s minions to sow chaos and confusion.

Secret. Ketgrinn can’t resist a puzzle or riddle, and a difficult one can send a ketgrinn’s mind spiraling.

Habitat: Coastal, Swamp, Underwater

Lake dredgers are Undead water behemoths, such as whales, giant fish, or dinosaurs. These creatures are reanimated through the deep, primal fear of the unknown horrors that lurk in the murky depths. They dwell in the beds of lakes, rivers, or oceans, dredging up the detritus to replenish their ever-rotting mass. They also add to their decaying bulk by feeding on living creatures, especially drawn to those who exhibit fear of the deep. Once prey is devoured, it is impaled on its cracked ribs until the waterlogged flesh becomes one with the beast’s.

Secret. Lake dredgers exist because of the fear of the unknown, and their essence is undone in the presence of a captured or crafted depiction of themselves, such as a drawing or carving.

Habitat: Planar (Shadow), Urban

Lurkers in the dark are wicked Fey creatures who prey upon the fearful, vulnerable, and alone. They resemble nightmarishly distorted people with gray skin, lank hair, and three-fingered, clawed hands. Their limbs move in impossible ways, allowing them to slip through and hide within spaces that seem far too small. They delight in stoking their victim’s fears by whispering from spaces a person couldn’t fit. When the terror crests, the lurkers strike, drag their victims into the dark, and vanish with them.

Secret. Frightened children know that lurkers in the dark can be held at bay by clutching a beloved stuffed animal.

Habitat: Forest, Swamp

Maidenwoods are creatures birthed from tree stumps by old magics, often arising from curses that turn the forest against a transgressor. They scuttle on roots like legs, and the broken trunk becomes a fierce, grinding maw. The maidenwood’s tendrils blossom into lifelike figures it uses to lure its prey close.

Secret. The curse that maintains a maidenwood unravels if one is offered an apple—an ancient trick used by witches turned against them.

Habitat: Any

Mutant nurses resemble the Humanoids they once were, though an alien mutation writhes within their bodies. They serve as caretakers of healing institutions, though they are fully beholden to whoever, or whatever, altered them to their current state. The nurses all wear a white porcelain mask made in the likeness of their original features, which grounds them to their sense of self and prevents them from losing their will fully to the aberrant influence that changed them.

Secret. Mutant nurses go berserk if their masks are destroyed or taken from them, or they become unresponsive if there are no other creatures nearby.

Habitat:* Any

Night creatures are fiendish spirits bound into vampire-blood-tainted corpses through profane rituals. The hulking brutes are fanatically loyal to their creators, a fact some vampire overlords learn too late when those they employ to create the night creatures develop ambitions of their own.

Secrets. Night creatures are quickly undone by the purity of salt if wiped on a weapon and driven into a wound.

Habitat: Any

Venerating old and forgotten gods who once held sway over the remote places of the world, the Old Ways chosen keep the last embers of belief and tradition burning. Many of the chosen are insular, keeping to the communities they foster. Some are more open to contact with outsiders, whether to be a beneficent presence or to draw in potential sacrifices to the Old Ways.

Secret. Old Ways chosen bind their power into a mask they use as a focus. Without the mask, their magic unravels.

Habitat: Any

Phantom hearses are ghostly carriages complete with horses and coachmen—amalgamations of tormented souls driven to claim the living and drag them to the land of the dead. The spirit coachmen strike with phantom whips and weapons, and even fly out to harry foes at a distance, while the ghostly horses drive the hearse in a crushing charge that gathers victims and seals them into a spectral coffin that drains the warmth and vitality from flesh and bone. The tolling bell on the carriage precedes the apparition’s appearance, and its sepulchral sound has caused more than a few witnesses to drop dead on the spot.

Secret. Phantom hearses are driven to collect the living, and they can’t see a living creature that holds its breath.

Habitat: Any

Pumpkin heads are scarecrows of straw, sticks, and clothing topped with a carved pumpkin for a head and animated by a fiendish spirit. They are crafted by demons to resemble their Humanoid victims and returned to wherever the unfortunate souls had been snatched from. These living effigies speak with the voice of whomever they replaced, often repeating phrases and behaviors that the missing person said or did in life while stalking and killing new prey.

Secret. Pumpkin heads hold a shred of memory from the people they replaced. The sight of a keepsake or memento from a pumpkin head’s victim confuses the creature.

Habitat: Forest, Planar (Fey), Swamp

Rotweavers were Fey caretakers of the natural world or fey planes who’ve been corrupted by the power of rot. Rotweavers serve powerful beings of withering and blight as minor acolytes and hunters, working to spread the bounds of their beloved decay.

Secret. The rotweavers’ fey nature still holds; binding them with iron, such as manacles or a chain, mutes their strength.

Habitat: Any

Shrouded are the spirits of the dead—devoid of any ability to reason and corrupted by the deathly mists known as the Shroud. They are raw emotional energy, unfettered and unleashed, manifested into being. The shrouded are constantly whispering about a victim’s incompetencies, weakness, foibles, and failings as they engulf their prey to drain the life from them, corrupting their soul.

Secret. Shrouded are bound by barriers and lines of iron, which is why cemeteries with iron fences keep them contained.

Habitat: Any

Shrouded are the spirits of the dead—devoid of any ability to reason and corrupted by the deathly mists known as the Shroud. They are raw emotional energy, unfettered and unleashed, manifested into being. The shrouded are constantly whispering about a victim’s incompetencies, weakness, foibles, and failings as they engulf their prey to drain the life from them, corrupting their soul.

Secret. Shrouded are bound by barriers and lines of iron, which is why cemeteries with iron fences keep them contained.

Habitat: Any

Shrouded are the spirits of the dead—devoid of any ability to reason and corrupted by the deathly mists known as the Shroud. They are raw emotional energy, unfettered and unleashed, manifested into being. The shrouded are constantly whispering about a victim’s incompetencies, weakness, foibles, and failings as they engulf their prey to drain the life from them, corrupting their soul.

Secret. Shrouded are bound by barriers and lines of iron, which is why cemeteries with iron fences keep them contained.

Habitat: Planar (Fey), Underground, Urban

Disgusting Fey who delight in warping flesh and spreading sickness can gather into squirming masses of centipedes known as skitterswarms. These swarms lurk in places where foulness accumulates and often serve centipede hags.

Secret. Skitterswarms can’t resist dead bodies and are drawn to the corpses of Humanoids.

Habitat: Planar (Elemental Plane of Fire), Urban

Soulfire stokers are Elemental spirits of fire who inhabit furnaces, engines, and boilers that burn bodies or souls. The resulting creature is composed of ghostly flames and steam, with swirling plates of phantom iron that resemble the engine or machine that gave it form. A crackling blend of fire and negative energy, soulfire stokers burn away souls as much as flesh.

Secret. Soulfire stokers are compelled to burn corpses they can see, so dead things can bait the spirits.

Habitat: Mountain, Planar (Fey), Urban

Fey messengers that take the form of pigeons can gather into flocks, or squabswarms. Hags and other influential Fey use squabswarms as spies and messengers—and sometimes as unerring trackers to locate any who flee responsibility or judgement.

Secret. Squabswarms’ drive to deliver letters or parcels is overwhelming, and they can be confused by delivery requests.

Habitat: Any

Wayward haints are restless spirits stuck between the realms of the living and the dead. Be it a curse or an unresolved conflict from their previous life, a haint can’t rest until their unfinished business is resolved. Haints only show hints of who they were in life, taking on a more symbolic form related to the hurt or loss they can’t let go of. They tend to repeat their monotonous actions—often imitating those performed in life or reenacting their sorrow—over and over for eternity. When provoked, they can display a volatile temper and lash out with a crushing wave of the grief and indecision that binds their spirit.

Secret. Wayward haints can be trapped in empty bottles if they’re tricked or forced to pass over one.

Habitat: Coastal, Underground, Swamp

Wellwyrms are serpents originally touched by cruel Fey masters. The wyrms live in shallow waters where land dwelling creatures frequent, such as wells and watering holes, lying in wait to coil around unsuspecting victims. Wellwyrms then drag their prey into water, or into burrows they dig under seemingly safe ground, to drown or suffocate.

Secret. The sound of a hunting horn drives wellwyrms into a panicked frenzy.

Habitat: Any

When animals perish in flames, their escaping spirits can cling to the fire that took their lives and arise as wildpyres. These Undead resemble the kind of animal they were in life, though made of ghostly flames. They lash out at anything in their vicinity, fanning the flames that consumed them.

Secret. Water can extinguish the undying flames of wildpyres, despite their ephemeral existence.

Habitat: Forest

Whispered among forest dwellers is the tale of a cursed vine, said to creep into the bodies of the living or the dead, twisting them into woodwarped. These wooden creations of tangled roots and bark take shape into a crude yet eerily familiar imitation of their hosts. Those that slay their hosts are sometimes clad in the stolen clothing and armor of their victims, silently wandering the woods with hollow eyes that reflect the unnatural force that binds them to the forest. Cutting pieces from their bodies is a dangerous proposition, as the fragments quickly grow into new woodwarped.

Secret. Woodwarped possess a deep fear of axes— tools capable of severing not only their bodies but their bond to the forest. The mere sight of an axe is enough to hold the creatures at bay, and the bite of its blade slices them like smoke.

Habitat: Any

Alien parasitic worms that infest the brains of Humanoid bodies mutate their hosts into wormhost surgeons. These aberrant husks are obsessed with anatomical study and with finding new Humanoids to infest with larval worm slurry to propagate their kind. They can pass for ordinary people in most cases but must take care to hide their exposed brains and the wriggling worms within their flesh.

Secret. Wormhost surgeons are drawn to seek out and infest sapient victims, so intelligent creatures with veiled minds slip beneath the surgeons’ notice.