The Harbringer

Eat your vegetables now, you don't want the Harbringer to get you!
— Mother trying to make her child eat the vegetables

No one really knows what The Harbringer really is. Some say it's just a legend, a myth used to scare small children into behaving. Others say they were the avatar of a long gone deity and that the creature might have been alive at some point, but now is long dead, along with their patron. Others still, think it's just a monster like any other, just a very dangerous one.

Description

The description of the Harbringer differs between the accounts but a few things are consistent. The Harbringer is a humanoid reaching around 3 meter (9.8 inches) tall. Once the creature might have been fit but now it has the look of long lasting starvation. The creature once had two large wings but now only one remains, the other one torn of and only a stump is left. The hands are long and sinuous and end in claws just as the feet. The face is covered by some sort of helmet or mask, but it has cracked and the bottom has fallen off, revealing a skull like jaw. All accounts also report a distortion around the creature, like watching it through water or something. All descriptions are a bit vague and chaotic and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Written account of encounter with the Harbringer

The following is the written account of Kes Autumnwood, recorded by the Surks, detailing the events that lead to the death of Jesse Bennu and the loss of Kes's leg.

I was out hunting for deer with Jesse. We had been tracking this small herd for 2 days trying to get close enough to get a good shot. We just found the tracks again after passing over a river when we stumbled in to a clearing and found the whole herd slaughtered. In the middle of the carnage it sat, eating one of the deer. It was terrifying! The air around it almost looked like it was shimmering, warping, distorting the body. I panicked and raised my bow. I tried to shoot it but my arrow just went straight through, I couldn't even tell if I should have hit it or not with the distortion around it. The arrow cause it to notice us however and it came crawling towards me on all fours in this horrifying disjointed way. I backed away in panic, tripping on a root and fell to the ground. It reached me quickly, I could feel the searing pain as it's claws dug into my leg. I would have been done for but Jesse yanked me out from it's grasp and shoved me out of the way. I fell into the river. To this day I can't remember if my leg was still attached when I went into the river or not. Everything happened so fast. The last thing I saw of Jesse was this monster standing over my friend who was desperately fighting back as the monster tore their chest open...
I struggled to stay floating, to keep my head over the water but the blood loss and shock must have made me pass out.
I would have died too if it weren't for the Ceirdyn. They've told me they fished me out of the river, bleeding, bruised and half drowned. They brought me to their village and nurtured me back to health.