The Ekrihandr
Everyone knows that the Ekrihandr is just a myth used to keep children from running off into the woods and freezing to death. Honestly, who would actually believe that a monster with six arms and can rip open space is real.In the North of Baralj there is an old wives tale often told to children to keep them from wandering into the woods. For deep within the woods lurks a fearsome monster who eats those who get lost within its domain. The Ekrihandr is depicted as a dark, slim, towering creature with six arms; its large hands tipped with long, silvery claws so sharp they can rend space. Its head is adorned in horns and its wide maw brimming with sharp teeth.
Those who grow up with the stories fully believe the tales. Exploration parties that attempted to venture North would later return with fewer members and stories of creatures with many arms and of giant holes in the sky that ate up the surrounding environment and creatures. Foreigners believed that Skeljudi must be behind these happenings while others believed it to be the doings of a beast capable of illusion magics like the Jacarandole.
It wasn't until the Northern Expedition that these stories were explained. The details brought back by the only surviving member in the journal of Mhiska Nenue. Her detailed notes and the recountings of the young Tanse revealed that the Ekrihandr was simply a legend, pieced together by unrelated stories and events. Its six arms come from the rare sightings of Veljudi, a humanoid species living in the far North. The beasts' ability to rip open space was taken from polar spatial storms, a natural occurrence that kept explorers from traveling North, and the Veljudi from venturing South.
Gorund, that old fogey must have gotten into my head. I brought up the Ekrihandr at lunch with him and he just gives me this dead serious stare. Then he mentions a clan from the northern borders that claims to have seen the children of the Ekrihandr. Short things with four limbs, he says. But what beast has more limbs than its offspring? A man does not metamorphose. But I just can't for the life of me get it out of my head. Perhaps it's a Skeljudi?
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