Creatures are the best part of nature. For this February Bestiary, a lot of my creatures are based on Dungeons and Dragons monsters. I have never played the game but I love the critters in the game. So let me show you the newest creatures in the world.
Days 1 through 5
The first five days of the challenge were wings, stripes, horns, shells, and colorful. I didn't have trouble coming up with ideas for these prompts. I just needed to find some pictures to help me come up with some ideas. But I kind of knew going into these prompts what I was wanting to do.
The critter that I made was the
Leaf Ray. This critter was made for the wings prompt. I wanted to make a creature that had wings but I didn't want it to have feathered wings. So finding the leaf ray from D&D was really cool.
The
Magic Tiger was made for day two's prompt which was stripes. This was one of the critters and was not inspired by a D&D critter. It was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest. This critter was one of my favorites to make because of the beautiful picture that I used to inspire me.
Day three had the prompt "horn." For this one, I looked at pictures of mountain goats. I decided to make a mountain goat because of
The Waves. The Waves are mountains that play a key role in the story. So it seemed like a good idea to make a mountain goat for them. The
Wave Goat can magically move around the mountain without causing
Magical Storms.
The
Giant Crab is for the day four prompt which was "shell." I was running out of creative juice when I made this one. But I remembered that in an RPG Maker game that I am working on. In the game, there is a giant crab so I made it for the world.
The
Shadow Fox was made for day five's prompt which was "colorful." This was another critter that was inspired by a picture. Although the fox is mostly black its eyes glow in other colors.
Days 6 through 10
For days six through ten, the prompts were nocturnal, mythical, prey, monstrous, and dangerous. Nocturnal was the easiest one for me to do. I had trouble with the others in this set. After looking at some pictures on Pinterest and some monsters on D&D Beyond.
Day six was given the prompt "nocturnal." For this prompt, I made the
Runed Raven. This critter was inspired by a picture that I found. Ravens and crows are very cool birds so I was really happy with the idea to make the critter.
I had some trouble with day seven's prompt, "Mythical." I had to look up to see what mythical means and one of the definitions was, "based on fiction." With that in mind, I looked up some pictures for inspiration. I found a very cute picture that seemed to fit the bill, so I made a critter based on it. That critter is the
Flutter Bun.
Day eight had the prompt "prey." I decided to make a
Rat. I was inspired by the giant rat kind of shows up in a lot of different RPGs. So it kind of makes sense for the story and the setting that we are making.
I was having problems is day nines "Monstrous" prompt. I was looking through Pinterest for some ideas. After seeing pictures of some really cool and creepy critters I finally found one. The critter that I went with was a homebrew monster that
RavnicaCardsConvertedhad made. The monster in question is the Watcher in the Mist. So I based my monster on it and the shades that can be found in World of Warcraft. I decided to call my monster
Mist Eyes.
For day ten I googled the most dangerous monsters in D&D. The first list that came up was from GameRant. The article in question is called
The 19 Strongest Boss Monsters In Dungeons & Dragons, Ranked. The first monster that caught my eye was number fourteen. So I made it in this world. The monster is the
Behir.
Days 11 through 15
For days eleven through fifteen, the prompts were purr, roar, shriek, howl, and tamed. For the first three of this prompt set, I had some clear ideas. Day thirteen was something that I had in mind going in. I wanted to make a Thunderbird.
Day eleven had the prompt "purr." I knew that I wanted to make a cat. After looking at some pictures of magical-looking cats. I found a cat that looked like it had a ribbon-like tail. So I made the cat creature known as the
Ribbon Tail.
For day twelve the prompt was, "roar." I made the
Viper Panther. I think I could have done better on it. I decided that there needed to be a rival-like critter for the
Natts Ehldü (or hell hound). So I made this big scary cat thing.
For day thirteen the prompt was "shriek." I decided that the perfect creature would be a bird. I thought that maybe I could do the phoenix or the
Thunder Bird. I decided that I should do the thunderbird.
Day fourteen has given the prompt, "howl." After looking over and reading the Monster Manual for D&D I decided to make the
Husk. An undead monster that is similar to the ghoul and the ghast. The husk howls when it finds its prey.
I wanted to make a cute critter for day fifteen. The prompt for that day was "tamed." I looked up pet ideas for D&D and at the top of the list that I found was the
Mimic. If you would like to read the list for yourself click:
here.The idea of taming a mimic was fun for me. I also remembered that I love mimics so I had to add them.
Days 16 through 20
Days sixteen through twenty prompts were pack, burrow, bond, stinky, and gentle. I made a bunch of small critters for this set of prompts. All of the critters in this set are small except for one.
Pack was the prompt for day sixteen. There has one kind of critter that made the most sense. That would be the
Dire Wolf. This is low-hanging fruit, but with the challenge coming to an end, I was starting to run out of ideas.
For day seventeen which was the prompt "burrow." For this prompt, I made the
Annsch Zwardt or the gem rat. This critter was also inspired by a picture that I found. It was also inspired by the fact that some rats burrow to make their homes.
On day eighteen I was stumped. The prompt for this day was "bond" and I really didn't want to make a snake or a spider. So I searched for small D&D monsters or critters. The first one that caught my eye has the witchlight hand. As I was looking at it I remembered that my co-author has been working on a spell this month. This spell is called
Binding. I wanted to make something for her that would make things easier for her. I simplified the withtlight hand into just the
Witchlight.
Day nineteen had the prompt, "stinky." Which I thought for almost the whole month meant smelly. Which is the meaning of the word. I kept thinking about smelly critters. Then I thought maybe I should do
Slime. Then I looked over the other critters that I made in the past and saw that I already made a slime critter. So I decided to make a slime-like critter, the
Ooze.
For day twenty which was "gentle." I made a cute rabbit critter called the
Urfa Ti for the prompt. This was also inspired by a picture that I found on Pinterest.
Days 21 through 27
The last few days had the prompts messenger, food, vicious, silent, parasite, predator, and stalk.
For day twenty-one, the prompt was "messenger." My first thought was a carrying pigeon. I was thinking about making a creature that could be more like a "messenger of the gods" type thing. I saw the confusing nature of the
drider in D&D.I had already worked on another article (
Qaydith) that sort of talked about a spider creature. My co-author also wrote,
Story of the Stars, and one of the Zodiac is a spider. So I made the
Drider a creature in this world too. Dark elves tend to have a big role in our stories even if those roles are minor.
For day twenty-two, I made
Braided Seaweed. Day twenty-two had the prompt "food." I remembered that when I made the Giant Crab I talked about the algae that it ate to make it bigger. This seaweed is this kind of food.
Day twenty-three had the prompt "vicious." I decided to make a monster based on the
Cloaker. So I made a similar monster called the
Cloaked Ray.
Day twenty-four was given the prompt, "Silent." After going through the Monster Manual I found the perfect monster for this prompt. The
will-o-wisp. The silent and haunting light of the swamps and old battlefields. I decided to call my
Wisp just a wisp.
For day twenty-five, I made the
Shadow Parasite. Day twenty-five was the prompt parasite. This critter was inspired by about three different parasites that were either homemade or in the game.
Day twenty-six was given the prompt, "Predator." I decided to make a smaller
Drake that could be a little bit more friendly. I decided to make a
Wyvern. I was inspired by
D&D and a few pictures from Pinterest. My favorite pin was this
one.
Day twenty-seven had the prompt "Stalk." I decided that I needed to add another monster that could also fit into the burrow prompt from a few "days" ago. So I added the
Bulette from
D&D.
Honorary Critter
There is only one honorary critter for this year. That critter was written by my co-author and the boss of this world, StardustScrapper. The only critter that Stardust made this month is the
Necro Serpent. A very dark and evil snake that seems to live forever. Well, it seemed to be able to live forever. For the creature is long gone. Hopefully.
