Mistcreeper
From ElanVital
Contents |
Description
A "Mistcreeper" was originally thought to be a weather effect. It would appear as a rolling, highly isolated cloud of fog that would travel along the ground at surprisingly high speed, and (for a then-unknown reason) would attempt to envelope living creatures. Usually, there would be no trace left behind except the occasional shred of clothing, flesh, or blood. Rarely a corpse would be left, skin completely flayed and underlying flesh tattered. Popular belief was that it was some sort of magnetized acidic fog that went after anything with a biological electrical field.
It is now known that the Mistcreeper is actually a colony of small creatures, each about the size of a human fist. They are covered in spine-like hairs and bony hooks, but lack any sensory organs except for two small, slit-like nostrils flanking a large mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth. The colony is led by a collection of larger individuals that lack the hooks and have smaller mouths, but have numerous heat-sensing pits on their skin and long, muscular tentacles to which the other organisms cling. The colony never stops moving and merely brushes up against prey it wishes to consume. The individuals sink in their hooks, pick up the prey item, and eat as the colony continues along. A colony dies when all of its "sensory" members die and it either falls apart or starves to death. Partial and complete skeletons of many different species have been found tangled among the remains, a testament to the efficacy of the bony hooks used to hold the prey item in place.
It is difficult to distinguish one member of the colony from another, as they reproduce through "budding," and older creatures have been dug in to their "host" tentacle so long the two individuals have actually fused together and share a circulatory system. Most colonies are estimated to be about a dozen feet in size and contain roughly 100-200 individuals, but it is believed they can get much bigger than this and citizens are advised to exercise extreme caution around any thick fog bank that appears to be moving in unexpected ways.
The thick cloud of mist is exhaled by the creatures within the colony and is highly toxic to humans, as well as most other animal life. In addition to a dangerously low oxygen content, the cloud is home to a number of unpleasant bacteria.
Magical Properties
Mistcreepers are known to be Aeromancers, manipulating the air around them in order to hover a short distance above the ground, and to shape the mist about them in a believable fashion.
Habitat
Mistcreepers are usually found in dark, dank areas exposed to open air--most often swamps or bogs, with occasional colonies found in forests, near bodies of water.
Danger Level
High. Mistcreepers' natural camouflage makes them difficult to see coming, and once enveloped in a colony, escape becomes nigh impossible. Even if one is fortunate enough to survive an encounter with a colony of Mistcreepers, the bacteria sheltered within the cloud often spells trouble yet to come.
