─── Asylum ───

It annoys me unreasonably when you want to ask people "what bird and what mammal would make the worst gryphon" as a fun thought exercise, and people with no joy and no imagination always interpret it as "a gryphon that sucks, is physically impossible, and would hate being alive", and - being predictable and lacking in imagination - always, always answer with "a hummingbird and a blue whale lol".

Like come on. Why do you have to suck the fun out of everything. Why not use a fraction of imagination and delightful whimsy. Imagine the combination of a mouse and a sparrow. That creature would be merciless, burtal, absolutely determined to get into your trash and has the power of both wings and hands to do its will. Or a crow and a cat - that thing is smart enough to fuck with people and not afraid to do it. Imagine the ungodly shriek of the noble fox-seagull, also determined to get into your trash.

A gryphon that is a combination of a kangaroo and a cassowary. The only proof we have of a loving god is the fact that those things do not exist. If hell is real, it's full of them. That thing can't fly, but it will run you down, it will kill you, and you will look stupid the whole entire time you're dying.

Why would the first thing that pops into your mind at the words "the worst gryphon" automatically be "a gryphon that hates being alive". Can you not picture a gryphon that fucking loves being alive, and has both the power and the will to make it everyone else's problem.

A seagull and a giant huntsman spider.

GHOUL

Sometimes ghouls get lumped together with zombies. They’re dead, they eat flesh, they’re just a bit meaner, right? Well, zombies happen because of external circumstances (spells, curses…) and are mindless, so that’s not right. They’re not the same as revenants, another species of intelligent undead, since they’re not motivated by revenge, anger or any sort of emotion. The ghoul rises from the dead because it’s hungry. Those who practice cannibalism risk becoming ghouls. Now, this seems like an easier path to immortality than, say, discovering the philosopher’s stone or going through all the tedious rituals to become a lich. Just eat a few orphans and homeless people and that’s eternity for you, baby. An eternity of being hungry. But if you’re the sort of person that would happily chow down on your fellow man, then you’re probably not the type to be disappointed in the results. You don’t get magical powers, but you get some poisonous claws so that’s neat I guess? Did a buncha research on ghouls, because I know they’re a folkloric beast that’s undergone quite a bit of transformation over time. I already knew they were an Arabic beastie (a ghûl), with them appearing in the Arabian Nights stories – spooky monsters what hide in graveyards and eat corpses. What I didn’t know is that that version of the ghouls are a mistranslation-slash-fabrication by the translators of the original texts. Early ghouls were more like demons or evil jinn that lived out in the desert and lured travelers to kill them. They were also often feminine, shapeshifters, and used as boogeymen to scare kids. Pretty much a generic monster that appears in every culture in the world. But the Westernized version has stuck so that the ghoul as a skulking male/genderless grave-robber functions as today’s definition. Lovecraft went in a bit of an interesting thing with them, making them appear less and less human the more time the ghoul has spent unalive. Happy Spookoween, peeps. Blanca’s Tumblr

ALLIP

Ghosts are created when the person’s death happens when there’s unfinished business in the world of the living and/or under especially traumatic circumstances. The allip is specifically the ghost of someone who was driven to madness and, eventually, suicide. As a result, the allip is both insane and vengeful, focusing its attention on those it blames for its traumatic death. The allip can’t communicate verbally, but babbles a constant stream of nonsense noise that attracts the attention of anybody that hears it. This ghost is completely incorporeal, but those who have been “touched” by the insubtantial shade report a cold shrivelling in their brains, similar to the feeling that mediums have reported when attempting psychic communication with it. If the allip has focused its attention on you, it’s impossible to escape without divine aid. Allips can be confused with banshees, a similar wailing, vengeful spirit. However, allips have no discernable gender and their voice is nowhere near as deadly. Moving on from constructs (for now)! Allips are a monster that gets complained about on occasion because its abilities are what is called “save or die”. Essentially, creatures have attacks or abilities which are normally countered by your own defenses. An orc with a club will have to bypass your armour in order to deal damage, a dragon’s fire breath will have to bypass your Reflex (itself your natural dexterity plus any bonuses you have). But an allip’s Madness ability has no save against it, and its incoporeal touch only has to phase though armour. While they deal no physical damage, the allip’s attacks deal ability damage, your stats instead of your HP. As a low-level monster, you’re probably not going to have access to the means needed for healing your stats. Meaning that in 4 hits an allip can essentially render your character unplayable by reducing it’s Wisdom stat to 0, driving it insane. If you see an allip, run. Blanca’s Tumblr