Notes on minor night creatures
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Owls
The proud owls are known for their wisdom, and rightfully so. Lesser known is their hubris, which led them to claim their kin ruler of the night. Woe betide the fool who stands against them, for the wrath of the sky will befalls them. Even at the surface of the Abyss, the keepers of old secrets hold immense powers. For decades, perhaps centuries, the power-hungry and blood-craving Bats have been at war with the sage owls for the domination of London's sky. Even on cloudless nights, the pale moon glow is masked by swarming armies engaged in yet another bloodshed.
Owls tread with knowledge no human would imagine to approach. They are no enlightened readers, they are the librarians. To whom they deem worthy, they share scraps of knowledge, following their obscure designs. I personnally had this chance more than once, and each time they came to me with recipes and schemata unknown to anyone but them.
Clowns
Hilarious in their three times too big trousers, striped shirts and painted faces, they make people smile and laugh. Thus is the job of a clown, an often despised but necessary profession. At nightfall, these jolly fellows are replaced by much less friendly counterparts, who would make you die of terror instead of laughter. Elongated figures with limbs too long and thin to belogn to a human, their makeup is twisted and ever-fading to reveal nightmarish faces. If you hear a laugh while rushing back home, pray that it is not mocking you.
Nevertheless, I view some of them as my patrons. As scary and merciless as they can be in the street, it seems they have the need for my preparations and trinkets. I know few of them, and from what I understand they are part of a society of its own. If they have a hidden agenda, driving people mad and feasting on them is merely a hobby to these scarecrows.
Three-horned Hell Bull
Coming right from the underworld, even the toughest vampire fall back in front of those forces of the occult. Not to be mistaken for their cousins with one and two horns, they are on a whole different level. Pray that you never fall in their line of sight, for the beasts of Hell are never to be taken lightly. Especially not when they weight several hundred pounds.
I have an idea of how valuable parts of the beast would be for my art, but I will not go out of my way to catch one. Fortunately, they are incredibly rare and do not seem to be interested in smashing shop fronts.
Blood snail
If you were to think of a slug-like creature craving for your blood, leeches would probably appear in your mind. While they are numerous in some hotter areas of the sewers, they are not as pervasive as their cousins. Having blood for flesh and bone for shell, blood snails are as slow and disgusting as their wet counterparts, but thrive for the lack of predators. Their body, their blood, is highly toxic and even the slightest spit can melt stone, and their shell is harder than most. With nothing daring to prey on them, they wander underground, leaving in their wake a corroded trail.
Lovely compounds, easy to pick up, not very hostile and decently stocked in raw materials. Their blood is the base for many preparations, and any blood and poison related potion requires it. I considered setting up a small farm in the basement, but they are bothersome to contain.
Shades
It might strike the reader as odd to qualify something of being specifically nocturnal in this Abyss where daylight is a faint remembrance. And I couldn't agree more, but what would be more deserving of this adjective than beings that only exist at nighttime? When most night creatures hide underground during the day, shades merely disappear. At night they roam the streets, their body made of pure darkness sneaking behind the victims that their sharp claws will shred to pieces.
Shades are a type of specter and as such their occult essence would be key to many recipes. Unfortunately, it seems that despite their increasingly worrying number, no occult essence has ever been extracted from them.
Rats
Once the ruling pest of the underground, rats fell back in the darkest caves, hunted down by the rise of ants, spiders and flies. Their recent union under the Rat-King might have caused a serious setbacks to their foes and allowed them to regain a small part of their lost territory, but they still are on the lowest level of the food chain. What should be concerning, really, is their newfound taste for undead flesh.
Meddling with pests have been forbidden among occult practitionners since the Great Plague, for obvious reasons. I'm not one to be ordered around by old men in robes, but I am sensible to reasoned arguments. And I am not too keen on approaching a walking disease reservoir.
Thunderball
The misnamed thunderballs are, in fact, lightning balls. They are surprisingly quiet, whirling spheres of pure energy. Despite their seemingly thoughtless wandering behaviour, some of their characteristics implies that they are an occult species rather than a surnatural phenomenon.
Even standing close to them is exposing oneself to a sudden electrocution, hence the difficulty to capture them. However, some successful expedition brought me lightning in a bottle, a most precious ingredient.
Bats
Little devil craving for the blood of any living creature, a bat is no better than a vampire in this aspect. London's bats were part of a group rampaging towns and city alike before they settled in the capital, faced with a fiercer opposition than ever against Owls. Counting millions of individuals, they move as one, the soft purr of a swarm of wings echoing throughout the city. During the day, they retreat to some cavern beneath or hang on the roofs of a district of their choice. The Londoner's believe the designated district to be cursed, which is not unreasonable. It is better not to linger near bats when the sun is coming down.
There is no such thing as kinship among bats. Their fallen are given no special treatment, left to rot on the street or be picked up by a stray dog. This way I manage to collect quite the haul of bat corpses, which have various effects. It is rare to find compound this versatile in such quantity, this skyborne war happens to be unexpectedly profitable.
Ghostly Travels
If nearing the Thames river you heard a faint howl carried by the wind, turn your back to the stream and walk away. For that whistle is not of the living. When a dead man's soul is too heavy to rise to Hell or Heaven, it stays in London as a ghostly husk of his past self. But when a group commit a collective misdeed that binds them in death, their resentment amalgamates and take the strangest of shapes.
Ghost ships are one such form they can adopt, a howling barge taking and devouring any passenger. Less common perhaps are ghost carriages, harder to evade and equally as angry. Do they hope to regain their lost humanity by taking others', or are they merely driven by a dreadful instinct?
Romanian Great Nighthawk
The night sky was the realm of owls, bats and ghosts for a long time. It did not take long for the newly founded crown's hunters order to seek aerial superiority. They imported en masse the greatest nocturnal bird of prey from eastern Europe. The nighthawk is gigantic, even by the standard of its family. Bound to their tamer, they are trained to hunt down spirits and flying demons, while sharing tactical intel with their masters. Too big to strafe safely in the tight backstreets of London, they are rarely of help when it comes to ground fights.
I doubt the hunters would allow me to study even the corpse of a fallon nighthawk, and I won't go out of my way to aquire one. I am nonetheless craving to know what organ gives them their incredible ability to feed on stray souls.
Rippers
For once, a critter that is not endemic to London. Long-clawed devils, what they lack in individual strength they make up with numbers. They roam in groups of dozens of individuals, ambushing the late citizen from the dark.
They are utterly useless in alchemy. Nothing from their ridiculously long claws to their internal organs have the slightest effect, and the quality of the raw material they could provide is too poor to be worth the hassle. A shame, really, considering their ever-growing number.
The Olgoï-Khorkhoï
Imported straight from the far mongolian steppes, the Olgoï-Khorkhoï is a giant worm big enough to swallow a fat rat. A burrower, it digs galeries in London's soft bedrock. It is unclear if there are multiple specimens, as only one have been sighted repeatedly. It never comes to the surface, but crossing path with this inflated worm is no good, considering the very strong venom it can spit at a range of several meters. There has been rumours of an even larger worm deeper under the ground, but it is most likely a different species.
I don't know how different is the breed that eats up the foundations of the city, but the few vials I import each year from Mongolia are expensive, and rightfully so. No liquid venom is as strong as the Olgoï-Khorkhoï's. Mixed with the right ingredients, it makes a preparation able to take down a vampire on the spot.
Pact demons
While most otherworldly beings cannot interfere with our world without being invited from within, pact demons are an exception. They come from Hell, and use the proximity between the two realms to whisper words of madness to likely listeners. Once their lies fall in a favorable ear, they design a pact between them and their victim, which will always be to their advantage. More often than not, it ends up with them taking over the pactised body to roam free on Earth. In exchange, the human body becomes stronger and faster, and most of its previous sources of anxiety die in an "accidental fire". The main downside for both is that should the body be killed, the demon inside risks an important backlash or even to be destroyed. Hence, they are quiet and subtle killers more than pure destructors. There have been records of demons living a life beyond suspicious from their families and friends for years before being found out and exorcised.
Mudwalkers
If there is anything that stands out about Mudwalkers, it's the smell. They are sewer dwellers constantly bathing in the filth of the city. They were brought from their native land when America was still ours, to be shown in freak shows, alongside natives and exotic species. Some crocodilians escaped and settled somewhere nobody would dare chase them. They are now the dread of sewer workers, their ambush tactics perfected in the muddy waters.
Both teeth and scales are valuable, however they need intensive cleaning. There is something in their physiology that allow them to submerge into filth without contracting anything nasty, yet they don't benefit from it, contrary to ghouls. I would love ot put my hands on more specimens to investigate.
City Sprites
Occasionnal sparks of light in the shadow of the night, the simple touch of these ethereal butterfly can put a mind at ease. Filled with thought too comfortable to get up, hunters who came in contact with a fleeting light fall into a deadly trap.
Unfortunately, their tendency to pop and vanish at the softest touch makes them unusable to alchemy practices. It seems they are made solely of celestial niter, which raises the question of their attachment to this reality. Could it be that they have a material embodiement somewhere?
Flies
Spawns of the House of flies, they differ from flies you could find in the outside world by their cleverness, some would say deviousness. They are the eyes of the House everywhere in the city, each little spy belongs to the inhumane hosts. The natural born have been mercilessly driven out. There is something unsettling in the reception of a message brought by a swarm, delivered in litteral fly handwriting.
All manners of insects are useful to my craft, but the flies hold nothing peculiar compared to regular ones. I will not, however, risk taking unauthorized samples from the House. They are not people to antagonize, and premium customers.
Hungers
Contrary to popular belief, they are no vengeful spirits, but hunters and unsuspecting citizens trapped in undeath and forced to live an eternal dream of hunger. Occult meat is not supposed to be consumed by non-occult beings. When that happens, by means of ignorance, choice or obligation, the body usually rejects it strongly and that results in a week-long food poisoning. When it doesn't happen, the occult essence is absorbed into a body that is not made for it, and alters it dramatically. Unable to die but not living anymore, hungers wander abandoned basements and the darker banks of the Thames, unable to fullfill their crippling hunger, clawing at every living thing in reach.
Mimicry
Perhaps the most devious critter of them all. Entirely made of goo, they coat ordinary objects and blend perfectly in the cityscape. Despite being seemingly made of slime, they are devilishly smart and control the mind of their unfortunate victims. They engulf them and feed on their thoughts. The goo will take the appearance of the prey and act perfectly like them, slowly devouring their spirit until they are no more than a hollow shell of their former self.
I gather the goo of a mimicry would be an invaluable asset to some of my preparations. The thought makes me uneasy, as it is hard to know for sure that the slime is truly dead or merely wounded and waiting to strike back. In any case, I have no record of a mimicry corpse. Killing it with fire is the most efficient method, with the downside of leaving nothing usable.
Veilwing
Discreet, almost invisible, veilwings look like pieces of fabric carried along the breeze. So thin they are translucents, their skin is surprisingly resistant to tearing. They are mostly noticeable on cloudy nights, where their sparkling body creates odd patches of starry sky in the otherwise pitch black of the night. When they fall on something, they wrap around it, cutting off any sound it would make. Less than a minute later, the unfortunate victim has vanished. Nobody knows what happens inside the veilwing, only that nothing ever come out.
It would be a waste to consider such fine fabric an alchemical compound. Tailors are much more suited than I to work veilwing's skin. It makes for long-lasting and stealthy clothing, the most natural cloack of invisibility as it can get. The wearer should however double-check that the veilwing is indeed slewn, or they risk being swallowed by their own clothes.
Road golems
London is built on a powerhouse of occult essence. This supernatural energy pervades the ground it is built upon, so much that in a mage's eye, the city is akin to an occult super organism. And as with all organisms, it has its load of parasites. Road golems are small winged worms which settle in the cracks of the pavement and feed on the essence leaked to the surface. When they feel threatened, they take over the pavements around them to build a rock shell around them. Interestingly enough, they seem to favour a humnaoid shape when trying to smash their adversaries.
The worms drain the occult essence all night long, digesting their feasts during the day. Which means they are full of it at the term of the night, and too sleepy to properly react. Whole, they make great reagents and allow for the compatibility of most potions with human bodies.
Wall Lurker
Hidden between the cracks of the walls, they are sneaky reptiles. Besides their incredibly flexible body, their sticky legs and dark skin make them perfect ambush predators. They can stay still for hours with only their four eyes surveiling the street. Once the unwary prey is at reach, they fling themselves and inject a deadly venom in the neck.
Their venom is valuable, but it is not the strongest or the quickest to take effect. It is average in most regards and serves as components only in mediocre mix. Their bifid tongue and slippery skin, however, are what I seek most. It is a shame they are so hard to catch unless they make the mistake to drop on a group of hunters or a vampire passing through.
Misthers
Native to the far continent of Africa, the first misthers were imported illegally several decades ago by a trader in exotic animals. As always with these stories, the main attraction broke out in a bloodbath and settled in their new environment. Big felines made partially out of mist, their size is close to that of a panther and they share some features, hence the name. I hate the royal zoologists.
Despite being hard to catch due to their permanent wariness, the smoke that made up most of their bodies possess very interesting properties. When refined, it is a key ingredient to stealth and heightened sense preparations.
Forewords
The night is filled with terrifying and powerful creatures that could rip off your head in one swing, but also a collection of beasts of lesser importance. In the years I have acted as an alchemist, I took care to record what information I could find on these beings. Although they are not the greatest threats to the seasoned hunter, most of them can still dispose of the unwary. Furthermore, some have been unexpected but welcomed ingredients to my preparations.
Although you can read this little notebook by flipping the corners like any work of words, the eager reader may use the bookmarks to reach a specific page. Note that the terms on the bookmarks are merely one-word summaries and not an actual description of the critters. The check mark acts as an indicator of filled pages. Nocturnal is a personal fantasy and joke. Of course, not one of the things, living, dead or undead described in the following page can be seen at daytime.
Beware however, the critters described and illustrated here are not for the faint of heart. I think of myself as a man with a strong stomach, but even that is sometimes not enough to face what lurks in the dark. If you have any of the following phobias, I advise you not to open these pages:
The night is filled with terrifying and powerful creatures that could rip off your head in one swing, but also a collection of beasts of lesser importance. In the years I have acted as an alchemist, I took care to record what information I could find on these beings. Although they are not the greatest threats to the seasoned hunter, most of them can still dispose of the unwary. Furthermore, some have been unexpected but welcomed ingredients to my preparations.
Although you can read this little notebook by flipping the corners like any work of words, the eager reader may use the bookmarks to reach a specific page. Note that the terms on the bookmarks are merely one-word summaries and not an actual description of the critters. The check mark acts as an indicator of filled pages. Nocturnal is a personal fantasy and joke. Of course, not one of the things, living, dead or undead described in the following page can be seen at daytime.
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Author's Notes
Once again, Stormbril's CSS tabs were the base for this article. However, this time the tabs have been quite heavily modified, so much that I don't even know if any of the original CSS remains. Still, apprentice wizards like me couldn't do anything without the tools provided by archmages like Storm, so thank you very much!