Mondaug

mondaugs
[1.] Mondaug:

Per the folklore of the forests where these legendary creatures are said to have come (and though rare and of sinister enough of a nature to make for a good legend, they exist in truth), there are three signs by which you will know a mondaug:

First, the mad animals - the squirrels, rabbits, and sparrows thrown into a frothing frenzy. By this you will know its presence. Second, the fearless crow - crows have no dread of mondaugs, and are audacious enough to perch on one's back when it is near. By this you will know its position. Third, the spellbreaking eyes - the revelation of the mondaug's eyes breaks its own spell, though often too late for the victim. By this you will know the beast itself.

Little scientific study has been made of the mondaug. They are thought to be rare - no physical sightings have been confirmed in the present day - though necessarily they are masters of camouflage and may not be so rare as is thought, merely unseen. The physical description that follows comes from secondhand reports of the examination made of the only dead mondaug specimen known to have been found by faeries; all speculation on behavior is pieced together from traditional lore regarding the creature, with some amount of scientific deduction.

The first and most important thing to know is that the mondaug is a niche predator. It appears to have adapted to preying on the faery race specifically.

Its method of hunting is simple: it will perch, utterly still and silent, and wait for a faery to happen upon it. From the shoulder of the animal there is a protrusion made of some similar substance to animal horn, which is shaped vaguely like the torso and head of a faery. Though revealed to be no more than the eerie shadow of the faery form when the mondaug is dead, this decoy becomes deadly bait when the creature is alive. It is said that the mondaug spins an enchantment around itself that causes any faery who falls under it to believe - when they look upon this faery-shape - that they are looking at a real, living, speaking faery, who beckons them to come near with a voice so sweet they cannot resist. When they do come near, the mondaug springs from where it was hiding in plain sight by means of its excellent forest camouflage, encloses the faery in its claws and injects it with a lethal venom from its teeth, and swallows its victim whole to digest over a period of time. The time between the strike and the complete ingestion of the faery is less than ten seconds.

The suddenness and lack of significant struggle that accompany a mondaug attack mean that it is difficult to tell whether a mondaug is to blame for a disappearance. Remains of one of the beast's victims are rarely found, though bones turned black and leathery are attributed - erroneously or not - to a mondaug.

The mondaug is an endlessly patient creature. It appears to be cold-blooded, and related to anthropods, though it fits neatly into no classification system. The creature ranges in size from being able to hold a single adult to up to five or six adult faeries in its stomach. It has long forelimbs with strong, claw-like fingers, easily mistaken for branches or wood vines; its hind legs are short and powerful and fold easily beneath the mass of its body when it has found a place to wait for prey. It has incredibly tough, hard, thick skin, similar to a horse's chestnuts, which can change color and pattern to match its surroundings and is often embedded with forest debris. The skin serves as something of an exoskeleton, protecting the mondaug from other animals, insects, and the elements, in addition to providing it with camouflage. The mondaug moves only in the slowest increments, or else remains perfectly motionless - except in the lightning-swift moment when it strikes its prey. Its slow metabolism allows it to go for months between meals, useful for a creature who must wait for its prey to come to it.

The mondaug generally resides in lonesome forests where it is likely only a single wandering faery will come upon it at a time, though if its hunger becomes great, it may move to a more populated area for a time until it has consumed a victim, before withdrawing back into lonely country. The mondaug is loath to linger in a place where there are a great many faeries, perhaps understanding the nature of its prey and that to haunt one copse too long would invite its prey to come and hunt it down to protect themselves. The intelligence of the mondaug can only be guessed at. Their social structure and their methods and rituals surrounding reproduction are unknown.

The enchantment by which the mondaug fools faeries into thinking the faery-shape at its shoulder is a real faery is said to be inescapable, once a faery has fallen into it. This is why recognizing the traditional signs of a mondaug's presence is essential before the sighting of the false-faery is made and the illusion of its false-voice is heard. Escape must be made swiftly. The mondaug's means of fooling faeries may indeed be a true enchantment, or may be the product of a hallucinogenic compound secreted by the creature for this purpose. In any case, the "mad animals" that are said to be found convulsing in the groves where a mondaug is hidden - most famously squirrels, rabbits, and sparrows - are likely the result of this enchantment or hallucinogen having a negative effect on hapless wildlife. The crow, famously unaffected by the mondaug, probably has an immunity to the effect.

Then there is the discussion of the mondaug's eyes. It is said the mondaug hides its face in its side while it waits for its prey to come along, for it knows that a faery will recognize it by its eyes. While its senses of smell and hearing are adequate, sight is its sharpest sense, and it needs to see its target in order to strike accurately - and so at the last minute will unfold its long neck and reveal its eyes to its prey. In this moment, the spell the mondaug has cast over its victim is said to be broken - but though the faery will realize they have been fooled, they often have no time to react before the beast strikes with its deadly venom.

Lastly, a mondaug may be killed by normal means, though its thick, somewhat spongy, tough skin makes for excellent armor; they are also creatures of stealth and stillness by nature, and are difficult to find. They have sudden strength, though their endurance in a physical fight is questionable - they have no need for physical contests that last more than a few seconds. How fast a mondaug may move over land is unknown; they move very slowly from place to place, but may be capable of sprints in case of such natural phenomena as wildfires.

No sketch provided.

Created by Equilibrium