2025 May 18: The Great Beasts

 The Great Beasts are one of the names given to the first of each kind of animal the gods made. Other names include the Guardians, Animal Forefathers, and That Really Huge Animal I Saw One Time, You Wouldn't Believe It. As the first of their kind, they exemplify everything the animal is meant to be, always looking immaculate, in their prime, and in perfect physical health. They are also gigantic. Mouse is easily the size of a cart, Wolf is larger than most houses, and really big animals like Aurochs is even larger than that. It is said that the Great Beasts don't ever stop growing, and as such they just kept getting bigger and bigger since the creation of the world.

The Great Beasts are also intelligent, and remember their long life well, so they are an invaluable source of information about past events they witnessed. Unfortunately they spend, and have spent most of their time wandering the uncharted wilderness, rarely coming into contact with humans. They have been around for long enough though to see through most attempts at misdirection or obfuscation, so they are hard to trick.

In the past great Sorcerer-Kings organized hunts against some of the Great Beasts, but so far none of these have yielded any results, other than the loss of hundreds of men, the loss of all supplies, and more frequent animal attacks for decades afterwards. In fact, if one were to actually find a Great Beast, they might be able to find some magical weapons still embedded in their hides.

Image by Rasmus Berggreen