This tome has been compiled from the notes taken by me in my many travels through this land on the various beasts, both strange and common, that I have encountered. The creatures of Ferdarchi are many and varied, from the common cat to the powerful and awesome dragons, and each is in its own way unique.

I decided to include animals that may seem quite common to us. While dogs and cats, and even horses are an everyday sight, it is sheer egotism to think that what is common to us is common to someone else. In addition, I have intended this book to serve as a historical record of the animals and people who inhabit our lands. Two races that I know of seem to be on the verge of disappearing, and I wanted to make sure that they did not fade into myth and legend. I fear that many of the creatures of this land that were commonly known of during what we know of as the Golden Age have been lost to us forever, merely because no one bothered to write of them, because they were too common.

The Bestiary has been divided into two volumes: Sentient Races and Non Sentient Creatures. I do not mean to imply, by placing a creature in the Non Sapient category, that it is a stupid beast. The creature may well be highly clever; however, it is lacking in elements which allow one to call it truly sentient. Three of these elements are: the ability to communicate in either common or another language, the ability to learn, and the use of tools.

I have met several creatures who are more clever than ogres, the wyverns to name one, but they lack the ability to communicate with what we would call a language and they cannot learn from past experience, something that ogres do, however slowly. This is why ogres are considered a Sentient race, while wyverns are considered a Non Sentient one. The prime requirement that I have chosen for the classification of sentience is that of tool use. While sentient beings use their intelligence to create tools, animals never do.

The contents of the Bestiary of Sentient Creatures may be found in the "Races" section of this directory, and have been omitted from this library to avoid redundancy. -ed.

Bats are small flying mammals well known for their long leathery wings. They are nocturnal creatures, only coming out at night.

There are three main varieties of bats: ordinary bats, vampire bats, and giant bats. Ordinary bats are the most common, being found in nearly every environment. They are harmless creatures which eat insects or fruit. Fruit bats have wing spans of up to four feet and their bodies are about 12-18 inches long. Insect eating bats are slightly smaller, with bodies as small as 2 inches, and wingspans from 6 inches to a foot and a half.

Vampire bats are slightly more dangerous, since they drink the blood of living creatures, as their name would imply. Normally, they are content to satiate themselves with the blood of common animals, such as cattle, but if they are hungry enough, they will attack sentient creatures. Physically, they appear the same as insect eating bats, being roughly the same size. Because of their size, they are rarely a threat to anything larger than a gnome, unless they attack in numbers.

Giant bats are, unfortunately, related to vampire bats rather than other bats. Fortunately, they are not as large as their name would imply, having wingspans of 3-5 feet and bodies of 1-2 feet in length.

There are many varieties of bear, but the similarities between species make them so similar that they are easily lumped together. Most of their variation is due to the habitats in which they live. Polar bears live in the frozen wastes and have white fur to help them blend in with the snow on the ground. Black bears are smaller and live high in the hills and are called black bears due to their dark fur. Grizzly bears earned their name because if you meet one, it may get grisly (or at least that's what people tell the young hikers). In truth it is because they look rather grizzled. They range the hills and mountains and are sometimes even seen on the plains.

Bears stand from five to eight feet tall when fully grown, with black bears generally being at the low end of that scale, and grizzly bears being at the high end. All bears are omnivores who normally eat berries, roots and fish, although they are not adverse to eating whatever a hiker brings along with them if that hiker is not wise enough to put the food out of the bear's reach.

Giant beetles are very rare creatures. In fact, I have only seen one, and I have no idea where it came from or where it went to. It merely appeared in the streets of Eristan one day wandering through, examining things at a leisurely pace, and eating all the food in sight. It did attack a hobbit that managed to wander too close, but he escaped relatively unharmed, and the beast was finally shooed out of town.

It was about five feet long and three feet high, and had a thick armored shell on it, much like a normal beetle. I am unaware if this is a normal size for a member of this race or not. In addition, I do not know if it was able to fly, as are some of the smaller beetles.

There are many varieties of cats, but the domestic cat is most common. The streets of many towns are inhabited by stray cats. They tend to stay in alleys where they can scrounge food from the garbage of the sentient beings. No one really knows who first domesticated cats, but it is apparent that it happened quite some time ago. Personally, I tend to think it was some dark mage with a twisted sense of humor who perverted the little creatures into their present form, but then I never have been too fond of cats.

They range from a few inches of fur when young to two feet in height when grown. They have retractable claws that have surprised many a young warrior who sought to practice his skills on an unsuspecting feline. Their coloration ranges from black to white, passing through the various browns on the way, although a cat is seldom all one color.

Camels are a common pack beast that are generally used in desert settings. They can also be used as mounts. I do not recommend it unless it is necessary, as I have found them to be much less comfortable to ride than horses.

They are desert natives and are able to survive in such a harsh clime because their bodies are adjusted to use very little water. A camel can go for up to two weeks between drinks. They tend to eat dates and plant leaves, as grass is difficult to find in the desert.

Camels are of roughly the same height and build as horses, but are generally of lighter colors. They also have either one or two large humps on their backs. I have unfortunately not been able to determine the difference between camels with one hump or two, but it does not seem to be important. Beware, camels are also able to spit up to ten feet with surprising accuracy.

Crocigators are fierce predators who live in the swamps of this land. They are one of the most dangerous of the natural creatures.

Crocigators attack with stealth, gliding through the murky waters of the swamps silently as logs. They are equally at home both in the water and on land, making it difficult to out run them. However, if you are able to best a crocigator, their hide makes a valuable armor.

I did once meet a person who had managed to tame a crocigator as a pet. She was an old hag who lived in the middle of the swamp, and I am not certain if she used magic to tame the beast or if she was just naturally good with...animals. Regardless, her pet was as loyal to her as a trained hunting dog would be to its master. Anyone who tried to use force on the good lady would soon find himself missing at least one leg.

Crocigators range from five to eight feet in length, but only about a foot in height. They are covered in a thick green hide, which is not composed of scales, but is merely very thick and strong. Their mouth, which is most likely the first thing that you will notice about crocigators, is about a foot to two feet in length and filled with two rows of extremely sharp teeth.

There is a rumor that if you rub a crocigator's stomach, it will fall asleep immediately. I have not put this rumor to the test, mostly because I am not that foolish, but I felt that the rumor should be mentioned.

Dogs are close relatives to wolves, but long ago they were bred into domesticity. Even so, there are some dogs that you can look in the eyes and know that every dog is just three good meals away from being a wolf.

However, a well-fed dog makes a wonderful pet and ally. They are often used in hunting as they are fairly easily trained. It is even said that some of the goblins of the western hills have a breed that they use as mounts.

Dogs are covered in a thick fur which is usually black, white, or brown, and generally they have mix of these colors. Each breed has its own physical characteristics, though, sharing only the same general shape. They range from being only a few inches in height to being four feet high at the shoulder.

Gotza are a fierce predatory bird which have long been one of the banes of the fuzzy people. Their name is a fuzzy word, the translation of which eludes my mind at this moment. Undoubtedly it means something like big nasty bird. Fuzzy names are ever so colorful.

They have long leathery wings, similar to bats. They have long sharp beaks and talons that they use in capturing and killing their prey. Their wingspans are six to eight feet and their bodies range from 4 to 5 feet in length.

I almost did not list the grue in this Bestiary for two reasons. First, it is not certain that they are animals rather than the demons or beasts from beyond the night that they are depicted as in the tales that mention them. The other reason is that I am not entirely certain of their existence, although there are enough tales and stories of their existence to make it probable. However, if they do exist, it is best that people be warned of them, and so I decided to include them here. Keep this in mind as I detail them here for you.

The grue, which is both the singular and plural name of the species, dwell only in the most utter darkness, possibly only darkness that is magical. It is said that even the slightest fraction of light is enough to burn their flesh, and so they always retreat from any light. There are two possible explanations for this behavior, either they are a magical construct of a wizard of the old civilization, or they have dwelt so far beneath the earth for so long that their kind cannot bear the light any longer.

They appear to be great creatures, generally about six to eight feet tall, having two or four legs depending on who is telling the story, two powerful forearms, and a whiplike tail which can be up to eight feet long. They are apparently not tool users, for I have never seen it reported that they used weapons or any other device. They generally attack by using their long claws, their powerful bite, and their tail. Most of the reports of the grue's physical appearance is that of a tall, powerful humanoid with skin the color of the darkest night. Their skin seems to be stretched tightly across their bodies so that their bones are completely visible through the skin. This tends to give the impression that the grue are skeletons of some strange creature at first, but I am fairly certain that this is not true. Their tails are prehensile at least to the point where they are able to attack with them, and they are as full of bones as the rest of their body, resembling a spine tightly covered with skin.

I once met an adventurer who asked me to identify what she thought was the claw of a grue. It was about four inches long and very sharp, looking somewhat like a catfolk's claw, which was black as night and which had small flecks of what appeared to be a dark silver metal running through it. I could not detect anything innately magical about it, but what I knew about grue only supported the theory that it was indeed a grue claw, although I am still not certain. I met her sometime later and found that she had mounted the claw into a dagger pommel and used it as a weapon. She told me that the wounds that were caused by the dagger, which she had aptly named Grueclaw, never healed without magic, even on trolls who are known for their ability to recover from wounds.

It is unknown what kind of society the grue have or even if they dwell alone or in large groups, although someone claimed that they had seen a large pack of grue together, but that was almost certainly fantasy, as anyone who had seen a pack of grue would never survive. It is also uncertain where they came from, or if they are intelligent or not.

The grue are fearsome predators and slay and eat anything in sight. They are thought to slay all without preference, and no one is known to be immune from their fury. There are records which, as far as I can understand them, tell of a single grue wiping out the entire population of a dwarvish city, without difficulty. The grue was said to suddenly appear one day and began terrorizing the city. Within a week every dwarf had died. They are certainly carnivores, although what they eat beyond the flesh of people who stumble upon them is beyond me.

The name hazozat is a word from the fuzzy language which roughly translates to "land prawn." They are a small insectoid with eight limbs, and actually resemble prawns, down to the antennae.

They are highly unintelligent and act quite like herd animals for the fuzzy people. They are not kept in pens, but rather are allowed to roam free and then are hunted by the fuzzies. They are very prolific and once they move into an area, it is very difficult to get rid of them indeed.

Horses are one of the most common creatures about in this day. They are the most common choice for mount and pack animal.

Horses are quadrupeds which generally stand about five feet high at the shoulder and have a coat of short, coarse hair. They have a mane and a tail that are composed of foot-long lengths of the same hair that covers their body, but is invariably black. They are colored from black to brown to white.

Hodtanhag is a word in the Fuzzy language which translates to "damnthing." They resemble armored unicorns with two extra horns which protrude from their lower jaw. In fact, they are not related to unicorns or horses at all but are actually lizards.

Hodtanhag are found in the low hills and plains where they do not have to worry about steep slopes, which they have problems maneuvering on. While Hodtanhag would make excellent steeds, I have never heard of anyone who has been able to train one.

Hodtanhag are fearsome in combat. Their thick hide protects them as well as most man made armor and their horns are sharp enough to pierce steel. They tend not to stay in one place and fight, but rather fight in a series of charges.

Oliphants are great creatures from the southern continent. They are a fairly intelligent animal, so much so that there is a very old braman saying that, "An oliphant never forgets." Whether or not this is the case, they are certainly intelligent enough to train as mounts. In fact, I have heard of some societies on the southern continent that use oliphants solely for their travel and military uses.

Their hide is a light grey and very tough. They have a somewhat prehensile trunk and great flaps for ears, but only a small tail. Some have been said to stand over twenty feet tall, but I tend to think that this is mere exaggeration by people who are not very tall themselves. Unfortunately, they also have two tusks, from which ivory is made. Quite often oliphants are hunted down and killed merely for these two tusks.

The common rat can be found any place where there is civilization, and in quite a few places where there is not. They are scavengers who live off of what our society throws away or cannot keep well enough protected from these determined little beasts. More than one farmer's season has been ruined by finding a pack of rats nesting in the center of what used to be his grain.

Rats are nocturnal creatures, going about mostly by night and sleeping through the day. Because of this, they tend to live in dark areas, such as under buildings or in basements. They tend to flee light, especially if surprised, but if hungry, it will not keep them at bay for long. Rats are also afraid of water. This may sound a bit odd, especially to sailors who know well that the cargo decks of ships are always full of rats, but I believe that this can be accounted for by the rats' greed for food and innate curiosity. The fear of water, I believe is caused by rats being very nearsighted. They cannot see how deep the water is, and so they are afraid of it, despite being excellent swimmers. The same is true for heights.

It may appear that I am treating rats as intelligent beings, and that is true to an extent. Perhaps it is because rats are all around us and we can see their intelligent qualities easily. In fact, rats are quite trainable and if cared for properly make excellent pets. I believe that it is no mistake that the first summoning spell most mages learn includes summoning rats.

Physically, common rats range from one and a half to two and a half feet in length, plus a long, whiplike tail which provides excellent balance for the rat and also acts like a rudder when they swim. They are covered with a thick coat of fur which ranges in color from light brown to black, although albino rats are not unheard of. They have very sharp claws and needle like fangs which can punch through some leathers. Their hind legs are very powerful and they are able to jump close to five feet in the air. Once a rat has jumped upon you, its first reaction is to hold on; more than one would be rat-killer has been surprised by a sudden blur of fur, claws, and teeth in their face.

The giant rat is very much the kin of the common rat and physically resemble them quite a bit. The main difference between the two is that the giant rats average three to four feet in length, plus the length of their tail, instead of the one to two feet of normal rats.

Unlike common rats, giant rats tend to avoid the intelligent races. This may be misleading in that they do not avoid civilization altogether, but they tend to stay hidden from people. They generally live in places such as under docks and in sewers where few people go, but the food is plentiful.

There are many varieties of serpents and I do not have the space here to do a detailed study on each. However, they do share some common characteristics.

Like spiders, some serpents are poisonous. Some very much so. The Tallian Adder, for example, exudes a poison so strong that when it bites its victim the creature dies within seconds. Other serpents are non poisonous, and prefer to slay their prey by wrapping their body around the creature and crushing it to death. Generally, the smaller serpents tend to be poisonous, as they lack the size necessary to crush their victims. All serpents swallow their food whole. In fact, the teeth of a serpent are designed such that each bite forces the creature further down into their body. Their body expands in width to accommodate their food. In fact, it has been found that quite often the food of the serpent is not quite dead as it is being slowly digested. The Qw'har Snake of the forests of the southern continent uses a poison which does not kill its prey, but only paralyzes it.

All serpents have no arms or legs. They consist only of head and body and where one begins and the other ends is anybody's guess. They range in size from being only a half inch around and a few inches long to being over twenty feet long and a foot wide.

While I would like to note that there is a difference between spiders and spyders, who are an intelligent race (see below), it is not the purpose of this book to be a complete work on arachnology. There are many species of spider which can be told apart by their markings and coloration. There are many things which they have in common however, which is what I would like to discuss here.

All spiders spin webs of a fine silk, some of which are very sticky. The smallest spiders spin webs meant for trapping insects or small mammals, which can be broken easily by most of the intelligent races. Unfortunately, the webs spun by larger spiders are larger and much stronger, although I have never heard of an ogre being trapped in a spiders web.

Many spiders are poisonous, and unlike the strength of the spider's web, the strength of the poison is not directly related to the size of the spider. Some of the smallest spiders have poison that kills instantly while some of the largest have only a mild toxin.

The race of unicorns may very well be dying out. They have always been exceedingly rare creatures but now they are extraordinarily rare. They are oft thought of these days to be no more than myth.

In fact there is a great deal of legend which surrounds unicorns. A great deal of this myth has to do with things like virgin princesses being the only things able to tame them and how they are created out of the gods breath as it touches tears of true sorrow. I believe none of it. In truth, unicorns are merely animals, much the same as horses in fact. The only differences being a single horn which rises from the creature's forehead and the fact that unicorns are only ever black or white, never brown.

Wokra are small bipedal creatures who may be related to bramen. They are covered with a thick coat of wool, somewhat like sheep.

The wokra are a herd animal that many races raise in order to harvest their coats. The wool that they grow is almost identical to that taken from sheep, leading me to believe that the two races may have once been related. Perhaps somehow bramen were crossbred with sheep to produce the wokra, but that is only a theory, and totally unfounded.

Like bramen, the wokra are believed to have originated on the southern continent. It is my belief that they were brought over to this land by the bramen when they themselves moved here.

As I have previously mentioned, wolves are closely related to the common dog. However, they are much more proud and intelligent animals. They can be found in nearly any clime, from the great forests, to the vast deserts, to the frozen wastes of the north.

Despite the common symbol of the lone wolf, wolves are pack animals. Their packs are commonly comprised of five to ten wolves, with one male being the dominant leader. Working together, these packs can kill animals, sentient and non, many times their size and strength.

Even if you do happen to encounter a single wolf, it is something to be afraid of. Even though we tend to think of them merely as large dogs, in truth they are stronger, tougher, and far more wily than any domesticated dog. They stand about three feet tall and are covered with a thick fur which is grey for timber wolves, brown for the wolves of the desert, and white for the arctic wolves.

Note - white wolves may be frost wolves, feared for their icy breath, which, in a pack, may be as dangerous to the adventurer as a dragon's fiery breath. -ed.

Wyverns are very closely related to the dragon, but have not achieved the intelligence that dragons have.

While they are not sentient, they are very clever. I myself have seen a partially trained wyvern, and I do not think that it would be much of a task to fully train one, provided it was raised from the egg. Their cleverness extends to their lairs as well. They tend to have underground lairs, which have many tunnels about them to confuse predators.

Wyverns grow to be about ten to fourteen feet in length, composed of a serpentine body and whiplike tail. They have two small forelimbs, two strong hind legs, and two great wings.